Is Your Child Learning How To React to Pain From You?

Why is it that one child will cry incessantly having barely stubbed a toe, while another will barely flinch after having fallen down a flight of stairs?

While it very well could have something to do with the pain receptors in the body, there is a new study that points to another outside force at work.

A recent study at the University Hospital in Croatia has discovered a direct link between the way that parents respond to pain and how their adult children react. It was theorized that while a child grows, he or she takes note of how his or her parents respond in physically uncomfortable situations. Does the parent cry, yell, laugh, act tough, or say nothing? These varying responses, and others, trigger something within the child that he or she will later come to mimic when experiencing pain as an adult.

The study focused on eighty-five couples and their one hundred grown children. Introduced to pain stimuli, the participants were asked to record information – via a survey – regarding the level of discomfort they felt after each. Along with this, there was a physical measurement of pain levels taken. Regardless of the level of actual pain experienced, it was found that the parents’ responses were almost always indicators of how their children would respond to corresponding stimuli. It is thought that the children learned how to deal with pain and how to respond to it as a result of watching their parents as they grew. Now, as predicted, they are mimicking those reactions.

For more information about the study and results, keep reading at the full article