Dandelion or orchid, early sensitivity shapes kids’ mental health journeys

Differences in sensitivity in young people are sometimes referred to as the "dandelion–orchid" dichotomy: 'orchid' children, like the flowers, are deeply sensitive to contextual factors, while 'dandelion' children are less affected by their environment. How these differing levels of sensitivity affect children's mental health over time, however, is relatively unexplored.

In their latest study, described recently in Developmental Science, a University of Pennsylvania team looks to explore exactly how much psychosocial influences, such as praise, can impact the behaviour of children with these different levels of sensitivity. Ultimately, the authors say, understanding these dynamics could allow us to make better, earlier predictions about future mental health issues, and improve access to early interventions for the families that need them most.

Participants were 60 children, all aged around 3 at the start of the study, and their families. At the first point of the study, parents sent in a video of their child brushing their teeth every night for 16 days, a measure designed to explore how children engage in independent tasks, and how parent praise can impact this engagement. In order to capture praise, videos were therefore transcribed in order to measure how often parents encouraged their children's behaviour. Over this period, parents also reported how stressed they were on a scale of 1 to 10, as well as noting down their child's mood and how much their child was sleeping.

Parents also filled in a checklist designed to identify behavioural and emotional problems in their children, focusing on internalising problems (such as feelings of depression and anxiety) and externalising problems (such as hyperactivity, aggression, or rule violation). In the follow-up study, conducted between two and four years later, this survey was completed again.

Overall, all of both internalising and externalising behaviours decreased in children between their first assessment, aged three, and the second aged between five and seven; internalising problems decreased by 6.5%, and externalising by around 12%.

However, there was also a relationship between the way parents engaged with their children and how likely those children were to experience problem behaviours. Children who received higher praise at the age of three were around 15% less likely to experience externalising problems at the follow-up, though there was no relationship between praise and internalising problems.

Children who reacted well to receiving praise were also around 11% less likely to exhibit problem behaviours. Mood sensitivity played a part, too: children whose behaviour changed the most on days their mood was worse were more likely to develop behaviour problems later down the line.

It's important to note that the study does not establish causation between praise and mental health outcomes; the direction of this relationship could go either way, or a mystery third factor could mediate the relationship. Parental praise did seem to predict levels of behavioural problems later in childhood, though consistency was key here: when parents were less consistent with how much they praised their children, those children experienced more externalising problems later on.

Read the paper in full:
McDermott, C. L., Taylor, K., Sophie, Lydon‐Staley, D., Leonard, J. A., & Mackey, A. P. (2024). Sensitivity to psychosocial influences at age 3 predicts mental health in middle childhood. Developmental Science, 27(5). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13531

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