Nature And Nurture In Children

It remains an ongoing debate in the psychology field of study about nature and nurture. Behavior is defined by either nature, biological and genetic traits; or it is defined by nurture, learned behavior through the environment conditioning. Some believe that in certain behaviors, one outweighs the other. But what if there are cases where there is an irresistible balance of both that contribute to human behavior? This balance happens to be found in the crime of murdered children by their parents. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, 450 children are killed every year by their parents. The majority of the children were under the age of five, beaten or injured causing death, and were killed by their father. Fathers …show more content…
Neonatocide is common in other countries for ritual killings, sex-selections, and to kill off physically abnormal babies. It is common in Canada, India, and China. Neonatocide accounts for 45% of child deaths by parents. Only 2 cases appear that are committed by fathers (Oberman, 2002). Infanticide is the killing of child(ren) within the first year of life; the killing of an infant (Infanticide Act 1938). Based on the Infanticide Act, infanticide has to be caused by a disturbed mind and not having fully recovered from giving birth of the child. America ranks at 11th in the world for the high levels of infanticide. In other countries with higher rankings, it is permitted and accepted by society due to sex- selections, targeting female fetuses, or cultural and religious sacrifices, mostly in India and China (Davy, 2013). Filicide is the murder of daughter or son; usually used as a classification for children that are older than one year. There are over 16 classifications of filicide. For example, those who commit filicide under a mental illness has committed the act known as psychotic filicide. Those who kill to prevent the child from suffering in life have committed the act of altruistic filicide. Other classifications include accidental, retaliating, and pathological. The earliest case of filicide comes from the bible where Abraham killed his son Issac. Filicide was not acceptable and …show more content…
The first circumstance is altruistic. A mother may have a hardship and believes that the children will be better off in heaven than living a terrible life with her. This usually results in the mother committing suicide. Approximately 16-29% of these incidents result in murder-suicide. Secondly, a mother is usually a single parent that is either unemployed or financially unstable. This factor makes it hard and stressful for the mother bear with the financial woes for caring for a child. Third, a mother may be ashamed to have a child. This can be due to scrutiny from their family, friends, and community. They believe that the timing of having the baby wasn’t right or they were not married when the baby was born. Another factor is to get revenge. Some mothers do happen to be in a relationship or married when having a child, but things may have changed after. Usually the father was not ready or prepared to co-parent. This results in the mother seeking revenge against the ex-spouse for walking out on her. Lastly, a mother can be depressed from all the above things: shame, unwanted pregnancy, single parenting, etc. This results in the mental illness of being severely depressed, which is another reason why a mother would kill their child(ren). In a depressive state about 41% of mothers thought about harming their child(ren). About 70% of mothers who had a colicky baby, or a baby with a