ABSTRACT
All sorts of systems are shaped by early social experience, but particularly the systems that regulate emotion. The brain's emotion tools are needed urgently to navigate the social world, and so it is no surprise that these are among the first systems to develop, after the basic systems for breathing, temperature regulation, and so on, that ensure bodily survival. Parents who are substance abusers of any kind have a similar difficulty in focusing on the needs of their children. Many parents find it hard to tolerate their child's emotions, and dismiss feelings, tending to minimize them or laugh them off. Sometimes this leads to parenting which uses coercion, bullying, and punishment to manage the child, and this in turn has been linked with the development of child anti-social disorders. Parents who are extremely impulsive and unregulated can affect their children in a different way. Governments wanting a productive workforce tend to focus on the provision of child-care.
