Why Early Childhood Is Decisive

The period from birth to the fifth year is key to the formation of cognitive abilities (the capacity for thinking, learning, understanding, and problem-solving), emotional stability, and basic trust in the world. It is during this stage that the foundations of self-esteem, the ability to regulate emotions, and patterns of social relationships are laid.

Young children have difficulty expressing their inner experiences, which is why their emotional distress often goes unnoticed. The risk of developmental difficulties increases significantly when a child grows up in an environment of domestic violence, parental mental illness, intellectual difficulties, or alcohol and psychoactive substance abuse.

Early Attachment: The Foundation of Trust and Mental Health

The quality of the early bond between the child and the primary caregiver is decisive for emotional development. John Bowlby, the father of attachment theory, emphasizes that the child is born with an innate need to form close bonds with parents or other significant figures. These primary bonds serve as an "internal working model," which shapes the child's expectations of themselves, of others, and of the world as a safe place.

Bowlby examines attachment through several key aspects:

1. Basic trust: when the baby's needs are regularly met by a predictable and responsive figure, it develops a sense of security, or what is known as "secure attachment."

This trust becomes the foundation for later social bonds and the capacity for emotional regulation.

2. Internal working model: the child builds a mental "map" of relationships.

When they feel loved and protected, they expect the world to be predictable and safe. If the bond is insecure or inconsistent, the child may develop an insecure attachment style that influences their relationships throughout life.

3. Adaptive stress response: secure attachment helps the child to calm themselves in the face of anxiety, pain, or fear.

Insecure attachment leads to heightened anxiety, outbursts of anger, crying, or withdrawal — characteristic of children with emotionally unavailable or unpredictable parents.

Bowlby emphasizes that the early years are a "sensitive period," during which the child is particularly receptive to the quality of attachment. Supportive, stable, and emotionally available parents reduce the risks to mental health and build a foundation for self-confidence, empathy, and social skills.

Genetics or Environment – What Influences Child Development More?

Questions concerning child development involve both genetic factors and environmental factors. It has been established that genetic transmission plays a role in schizophrenia, major affective disorders, and antisocial behaviour. At the same time, contemporary research highlights the complex interplay between genetics and environment.

Rutter (2006) found that the mother's exposure to high levels of stress and anxiety during pregnancy increases the likelihood that a child born with a genetic predisposition to mental illness will manifest symptoms at an early age. Similar conclusions come from the large-scale Finnish study by Tienari (2004), which followed adopted children of mothers with schizophrenia. The results show that children with high genetic risk who were placed in well-functioning families had a significantly lower likelihood of developing mental illness than those placed in families with severe difficulties. This underscores that the cognitive and emotional development of the child is often influenced by the quality of parental care.

Some negative influences on cognitive and emotional development include:

• Feelings of exhaustion, physical illness, depression, and low self-esteem can limit the mother's ability to stimulate and engage her baby.

• Contradictory and inconsistent parental behaviour (double bind), unplanned separations, acts of aggression, or emotional distancing can disrupt the attachment process (Ainsworth and Bowlby).

The emotions and behaviour of children are largely connected to the moods and actions of the parents. The inability of children to express their emotions in words often manifests through outbursts of anger, aggression, crying, or despondency. For the baby's capacity to regulate emotions to be optimised, it is essential to have a responsive and reliable parent who serves as a stable attachment figure. For example, mothers who experience psychotic symptoms after childbirth are more likely to perceive their babies as passive beings and to interpret their gestures and facial expressions negatively (Murray et al., 2001). This is detrimental to the development of basic trust, which is in fact "the primary task of the first year of the child's life" (Fahlberg, 1991, p. 64). Basic trust is built when the baby's needs are regularly met by the same figure with predictable behaviour, reactions, moods, and expressions of anger.

The baby's temperament influences the parents, but regardless of it, the key to healthy development remains the capacity of the parents to adapt and respond adequately to the emotional and physical needs of the child (Belsky et al., 1998).

How Parental Mental Health Affects the Child

1. The Depressed Mother

To understand how depression is transmitted from parents to children, it is important to take into account both ecological and genetic factors. Recent research highlights the complex interplay between genetics and environment. Depression can cause mothers to be more disorganised, tense, irritable, to display more anger, and to play less with their children compared to non-depressed mothers (Reupert and Maybery, 2007). There is evidence that mothers who experience postnatal depression for more than six months feel more overwhelmed and describe caring for the newborn as more difficult (Campbell, 1999).

The influence of maternal depression on the development of children's cognitive abilities remains a complex issue. Some studies show delays in the development of expressiveness and facial expressions (Cox et al., 1987) and reduced capacity for concentration and the performance of simple tasks (Breznitz and Friedman, 1988). Other studies find no significant differences in language development or the mental state of children (Pound et al., 1988). The ecological model of parenting (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, 1979; Belsky, 1980) provides a framework for explaining these seemingly contradictory results, incorporating the individual parent, the family system, the community, and socio-cultural factors.

Parental apathy and despair can hinder their ability to be empathetic and to respond adequately to the needs of the child. Depending on the mother's mental state, the baby's cries may be met with a smile and soothing words, or with a blank, unfocused gaze, leading to more frequent insecure attachment, emotional and behavioural disturbances in children (Hobson et al., 2005; Cox et al., 1987).

Parents who are emotionally unavailable can trigger feelings of separation anxiety, fear, and insecurity in the child, as well as abnormal behaviour — rocking, disturbed sleep, bedwetting, and regression (a psychological mechanism in which a person unconsciously reverts to an earlier stage of development when faced with stress, anxiety, or conflict) in language development and toilet habits. The review concludes that "maternal depression increases the risk of childhood psychopathology, and there is reason to believe that early detection of depression in mothers, together with short-term support for children, may prevent the development of disorders before they begin" (Reiss, 2008, p. 1084).

2. Severe Mental Illness

Severe mental illness significantly increases the risk to the child. The parent may be influenced by hallucinations and delusions (Kassin, 1996), may display irritability, or may be emotionally unavailable. At the same time, not every child of a parent with mental illness develops difficulties — the social and emotional environment plays a key role in their development (Marcenko et al., 2000).

3. Domestic Violence and Child Development

Domestic violence and substance abuse create additional risks for the cognitive and emotional development of the child. Among the consequences are regression (a return to earlier and simpler patterns of behaviour and thinking — for example, a child begins to suck their thumb again, to wet the bed, or to display childish tantrums) in language learning, poorer intellectual development, sleep disturbances, bedwetting, and anxiety (Humphreys and Houghton, 2008).

When the Mother Is a Victim of Violence

Research in England and Wales shows that 30% of domestic violence begins during pregnancy (Humphreys and Houghton, 2008). This can have a negative impact through three mechanisms: inherited traits, physical damage to the foetus, and maternal stress.

• Inherited traits: Unlike mental illness, there is no direct evidence that heredity plays a role in the transmission of domestic violence. Nevertheless, a connection exists between parental personality disorders and manifestations of violence (Rutter and Quinton, 1984).

• Foetal damage: Women who are victims of domestic violence may have a limited capacity to care for themselves and their baby due to low self-esteem, depression, or the controlling behaviour of their partner (McFarlane et al., 1992; Hester and Radford, 1995; Peckover, 2001): "I just didn't care. It was all so brutal that there was no pride left in me… I lost the baby… I was only seven months along." (NCH, 1994, p. 47)

• Stress: The effects of maternal stress on the child show that marital disharmony is associated with increased morbidity in early childhood — physical illness, speech disorders, neurological dysfunction, and behavioural problems (Lou et al., 1994).

Children may also exhibit, beyond regression in language learning and toilet habits, a lack of interest in their surrounding environment (Humphreys and Mullender, 1999), because fear of a violent environment often suppresses curiosity and the initiative to explore the world.

When parental behaviour is unpredictable and frightening, children may display symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder — sleep disturbances, bedwetting, and body rocking (Holt et al., 2008; Humphreys and Houghton, 2008). Children who witness violence against their mother or are direct victims themselves display stronger behavioural problems (Hughes, 1988; Hughes et al., 2001).

Mothers report excessive separation anxiety: "My daughter used to love walking on her own along the street. But now I have to hold her hand and constantly pick her up. Even on the bus, she sits on top of me and doesn't want to sit alone. When we're inside the house, she sits on me the whole time." (DeVoe and Smith, 2002, p. 1088)

4. When the Parent Is Dependent

Children are at risk of injury, illness, or fire when parents prioritise their own need for psychoactive substances or alcohol, or leave them in the care of unsuitable individuals. The home can become a dangerous environment — a base for drug trafficking or substance use, and sometimes prostitution.

Attachment style is also influenced by parental behaviour. Parents who use drugs are often emotionally unavailable and struggle to meet the baby's needs for physical contact and loving care (Hogan and Higgins, 2001).

What Helps the Child Develop Well Despite the Risks?

The first five years of life are a period of enormous potential. A stable, predictable, and emotionally available environment can mitigate the risks, even in the presence of genetic vulnerability. Understanding these processes is not an accusation directed at parents, but a call for early support, because caring for the mental health of parents is directly linked to the mental health and well-being of the child.

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