The new science on chronically harsh and conflict-ridden households.
. . . Here's where the science is producing fresh news. Recent work in this area points to three main conclusions.
. . . Here's where the science is producing fresh news. Recent work in this area points to three main conclusions.
First, less-extreme harsh environments still lead to physical health problems. Children don't have to be abused in a strict legal sense to suffer lasting harm.
Second, such harsh environments can be produced by multiple factors that individually don't seem that significant but can influence one another in a snowball effect. For example, low-level conflict between parents that continues a bit longer than usual can lead to changes in how they talk to their child, and a little more edge and stress in the parent's voice can increase child misbehavior, such as more noncompliance. That push-back from the child grates with special force on a parent's nerves that are already raw because of some added problem, like real or threatened loss of a job.
Everyone's reactions go up a notch, with raging parents and whiny children egging each other on in an ascending spiral of stress. Such things normally happen in most homes without long-range effect, but they are usually short-lived. When the stressors continue for weeks and months, are a little more intense than usual, and seem to become a way of life, significant psychological and physical problems are more likely to emerge. No one knows exactly how much stress will do it. Even if we did identify a tipping point, it would vary for each family and individual based on many other influences—such as, for instance, other sources of emotional support in each person's life.
Third, researchers have made progress in understanding the precise nature of the connections between the psychological conditions in which a child is raised and the heightened risk of disease later in life and early death. One view has been that growing up in harsh environments makes a person more likely to engage in risky behaviors such as smoking, excessive drinking, and risky sexual practices, thereby make children from such homes more likely to have some of the diseases mentioned previously. Maybe these kids grow up to be less healthy just because they do more things that we already know are bad for you. But even if that's true, it's not the whole story. The research shows that stress reactions and hormone and neuroendocrine responses all by themselves, independent of risky habits like smoking or heavy drinking, are different among people with early exposure to stress.
