The debate over whether a person’s characteristics are innate or not is ongoing. To a certain extent, I admit that heredity is one of the factors that shape people’s characters. But what I do believe is that learned traits are more important.
Genes play an essential role in children’s character development. This is because humans are mammals, and their offspring tend to inherit similar, if not identical, physical and behavioral traits from their parents. Children are open to learning, and the more they see the way their parents do certain tasks, the more their behaviors get identical as they unlock their hidden gene codes. For example, a recent study concluded that people’s fears, even prejudices are more likely to pass to the next generations. As a result, children are significantly affected by their genes.
In contrast, the environmental factors to which a child is exposed during their formative years exert a more significant influence on character development. As a reason, since they start their academic life, from primary school until the end of university, they tend to spend less time with their parents. During these years, students experiment with and adopt various personalities. For example, children spending their whole school years together are prone to have similar personalities. Moreover, solo activities such as reading and playing video games are influential to children’s personalities as most of heroes in them are designed to inspire them. Seeing new heroes shapes the way they see life. For example, Spider-Man’s moral lesson of helping others has greatly affected large numbers of children. Therefore, a variety of factors apart from genes have a massive effect on children’s traits.
In conclusion, while genes play a vital role in children’s development, what is more important is the environmental factors.