Children Aren't Stupid--Are They?

(families) + (anxiety) = anxious children

I am surprised/shocked/stunned on a regular basis by parents who don't think their children are not aware of problems in their family.

"Oh he's just a baby" or "She's only four, she can't know" are common statements from parents and completely wrong. Children do not lose IQ points after birth; to the contrary, their ability to understand the world grows each day. From their brith infants are sponges that absorb, and retain, the intellectual and emotional information that surrounds them. As they used to say in the early days of IBM, "bad data in equals bad data out." If your child absorbs "bad data" from unhappy parents and other care takers, the results will most likely be far from ideal.

Parenting is very hard and the human desire to rationalize is strong. That said, families have to be aware that stress in caretakers is transmitted to the infants, toddlers and children within the family.

Read here to see more on prenatal anxiety. And work on managing your stress and keeping great relations with your family...you, and your children, will benefit.