ABSTRACT

Scientific advances are helping to clarify the intricacies of the nature/nurture debate, to clarify the degree to which people are a product of their genes or a product of their environment. This chapter looks at how children in their early years are socialised, how they learn to fit into their world, before going on to consider the impacts of 'consequential abuse'; this is the term coined to describe the actions of adults that are not in themselves intentionally damaging to children but which can still result in children suffering significant harm. It considers the 'toxic trio' of parental mental illness, parental substance misuse and domestic violence, before exploring the impact of parental learning disability. The chapter considers the building of resilience and the part that early years practitioners can play in moderating some of the negative impacts on children. Social learning theory suggests that children observe models and encode their behaviours.