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Childhood Stress Leaves Genetic Scars
sciencehabit writes "Traumatic experiences in early life can leave emotional scars. But a new study suggests that violence in childhood may leave a genetic mark as well. Researchers have found that children who are physically abused and bullied tend to have shorter telomeres — structures at the tips of chromosomes whose shrinkage has been linked to aging and disease."
Child abuse isn't taken seriously? Here in the states, child services can take your kid away from you if you so much as look at it wrong in public.
A study (http://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6490.full) was published in PNAS today showing how low-ranking monkeys have worse immune systems than high-ranking monkeys. (In monkey societies, 'high-ranking' is a euphemism for bully.) We've known for a long time that subordinate monkeys have worse health and live shorter lives in general than dominant monkeys, but this is one of the first studies that describe how this actually happens, genetically and physiologically.
Spanking can also help stop a kid from doing something that ends up being even more traumatic.
Unless it happens on school grounds. Then people turn a blind eye.
Especially if other kids are doing it. Then the school administration gives their silent consent by doing nothing about it. Or worse, when it's physical abuse, they punish both the bully who attacked someone without provocation and the one who defended himself, just to add that element of mindfuck to existing injustice.
I am thankful to have had parents who told me I would not be in trouble for legitimate self-defense even if the school system was far less reasonable. What I found was that if you knock out one of them, the rest tend to leave you alone, for the nature of a bully is to find a doormat who will not fight back. I believe the school officials who have no doubt studied child psychology and the like are also aware of this and understand the injustice they facilitate. It is not mere bureaucratic ignorance but some kind of desired effect, a sort of unwritten portion of the curriculum.
People who can and will stand up for themselves, even when a price must be paid, are extremely undesirable to increasingly tyrannical governments. It's something they would discourage and it is not difficult to understand why. It's amazing how hard that is to accept for people who cannot comprehend that organizations, like individuals, can also be selfish and encourage only what is in their long-term interests.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
It's already known that stress can seem to accelerate aging. Ever see those pictures of presidents before a term, then after? 4 years passed for everybody else, but it looks like they aged 10 years.
Psyche and soma are not fully distinguishable.
Actually, if you RTFA you would know that the measurement only applied to two or more kinds of violence exposure. Thus, the occasional spanking without other forms of violence would not qualify as harmful under this study.
Sorry, but that opinion is not healthy. Abuse is abuse, but on occasion a parent (assuming they are actually parenting) will have limits tested beyond any other punishment. Normally, I see your type of comment from one of two kinds of people.
1. Those that have no children so have no idea what parenting is.
2. Parents who's children are monsters that have no respect for any authority. Generally the parents are either ashamed or afraid to take the kids out in public, or the children are so poorly behaved that people don't want them in public.
Truth be told, I have spanked my son 2 times in his whole life. The first time he refused to stop what he was doing, refused any punishment (go to time out) and was doing something dangerous. The second time, he was a bit older. He refused punishment and took a swing at me.
Now unlike when I was a kid and just got the shit kicked out of me with a belt, I explained to my kid on both occasions why I had to punish him and how we could not repeat those mistakes. He learned valuable lessons on both occasions. In my opinion, he learned valuable lessons from those occasions. He is going to be an adult soon, and one day may ask for advice when it comes to parenting. I really hope he remembers how he was raised or talks to me before he talks to someone like you.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Sometimes spanking is necessary. It isn't necessarily the first thing I would go to. It depends on the child's personality as well as their age. Also, the whole of the point of discipline and part of the point of raising a child is to modify behavior. I doubt anyone wants to have a jerk for a son.
Parents need to learn there are other ways to handle discipline and yes, aside from being damaging in yet another known way - previous revelations including lower test scores and greater aggression from children who have been spanked, spanking is the lazy way out. There are more effective, responsible means.
Timeouts for one, if done right and that is key, if done right, are absolutely better. Parents screw this one up by making them too long or delaying them. I for one always found a minute per year of age, given immediately at the time of the infraction regardless of where we were, done standing, done silent and done facing a wall, corner, tree, whatever was handy and followed with an explanation for the punishment and a directive for future behavior was very effective. So effective in fact I would find no need for their use within a couple weeks time. I had compliance.
Now I'll admit these weren't my children - rather I was a nanny for a great many years, and parents tend to have to be around their children a bit more than I had to, so perhaps adjustments would be necessary to maintain effectiveness. Or other avenues explored. My point is simply that there are other ways and they can be much more effective, if done right.
"Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked." -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Cats, however, take a stepped-on tail as an unforgivable, grievous insult against their Gods. Which are themselves, incidentally.
I doubt anyone wants to have a jerk for a son.
I disagree; I'm sure countless Americans would want that. Everyone wants kids that grow up to be just like themselves.
It used to be taught that environmental factors during an organism's lifetime (malnutrition, etc.) did not have an effect on the genetic heritage of offspring (you get a "clean slate" of DNA, so to speak). [...] But here we are with a study that says environmental factors can leave a genetic mark.
The study was about somatic cells, eg "body cells" that make up the specialized tissues of your body. Your offspring are formed from germ cells, found in your gonads, and consequently your offspring can only inherit DNA from your germ cells, but never your somatic cells (except in the case of cloning or other artificial techniques).
Telomeres are the "endcaps" of chromosomal DNA. Every time a chromosome is copied, a small portion at the ends of the chromosome get "left off" of the copy, which limits the number of time a cell can divide before the telomeres are consumed and functional DNA segments begin to be deleted. This (usually) prevents cells from reproducing in an uncontrolled fashion, and it's one of your body's main defenses against cancer. That's how it works in somatic cells.
Germ cells, on the other hand, can express a ribozyme called "telomerase," which can bind to the ends of a chromosome and extend the telomeres. This is why animals can reproduce indefinitely even though 99% of their cells are "mortal." (As others have pointed out, when a somatic cell begins to express telomerase it's usually cancer.)
The upshot of all of this is that shortened telomeres in your somatic cells will have no direct effect on your offspring. This particular study in no way supports the idea that environmental factors are responsible for genetic changes in offspring. Your post is therefore ill-informed even if your thesis is correct ("almost everything they teach in American public school is either wrong or simplified to the point of uselessness?").
To rectify your error, your homework assignment for tonight is to study the enzymes called "telomerase" and "reverse transcriptase," followed by learning the "central dogma of biology."
Dismissed.
While I do not personally use spanking, I think that categorizing it as being for "an adult who knows no other options or who chooses not to take the time needed to solve the situation" is incorrect.
Parents, in the mini society we call the family, perform the role of government. If we, as adults, do things like use violence and intimidation to get our way we will find the police using state sanctioned violence against us. I personally think smacking is an appropriate response to violent, bullying behavior in children and most kids will try that out at some stage. It is better for society that we learn this lesson at the hands of our parents as children rather than at the hands of police as an adult. I do note that it isn't the only method I'd recommend to correct bullying.
Additionally, sometimes behavior correction needs to be immediate. Where disobedience will lead to the child's life being in danger taking "the time needed to solve the situation otherwise" could be interpreted as neglect. If you are in a situation where you need to correct behavior right now, smacking could be the best option.
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I went to primary school in the 60's and throught those 6yrs there was an girl in my level to whom nature had not been kind. ALL the other kids would yell "Allison's germs" and run away when she approached them in the schoolyard. It didn't help that her parents sent her to school with dirty clothes and oily hair, this just reinforced her status as the lepoar of the schoolyard. Sometimes she used their fear against them by delibertely following them, or steal their marbles by chasing them away. These 'attacks' often ended with her falling to the ground in tears. I'd like to say I befreinded her but I too saw the germs and not the Allison.
Everyone remebers what happened to them in the schoolyard, it's much harder to remeber what you did to others. It's neither an remedy or an excuse for this behaviour but I beleive the Stanford prison experiments clearly demonstrated what old time religion had intuitvely known about human nature from day one, how did 'middle class' germans willingly become death camp gaurds, and why are kids so cruel? - Stable, strong societies survive, the "golden rule" found in most societies and religions combined with resrtricing the definition of "others" is a powerful stabalizing force, war against non-others is a powerful strenghtening force.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.