How Does Childhood Experiences Affect Someone's Life At Adulthood?

 What happens today determines what happens tomorrow! Childhood experiences have a monumental impact on that child during his/ her adult stage. Below are the ways that childhood experiences affect adults later in life:

Attachment with parents: 

According to John Bowby's and Mary Ainsworth's Attachment Theory, mothers and their infants are so closely tied up in a bond of relationship right from birth. The attachment formed between mother and infant at birth affects the child's future relationships with others: marriage partner, friends and colleagues, staff members, and the larger society. The attachment enables the child, now in adult stage, to see something good in having good relationships with others because he has had the experience in the past when he was a child. If a child had no previous history of attachment with his/ her mother at childhood, that child will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a lasting relationship with anybody in his/ her life: husband, wife, friends and associates and others. If a child who was abandoned to fate by his mother goes into relationship with husband or wife when he/ she grows into adulthood, it will be difficult for that child to tread according to the ethics and principles of marriage relationship because he is new to it. He/ she did not learn it from the parents. He/ she had no opportunity to imitate married people to learn the art from them. Children from broken homes do not find it easy to have lasting relationships with marriage partners and friends and colleagues. They had no access to the Social Learning Theory propounded by Albert Bandura. There was virtually no opportunities for them to learn the art of relationship by observing and imitating.

2. Emotional development:

Childhood experiences influence emotional regulations, resilience, and self-control. Yes, there may be few exceptions. But, the majority of children will behave during adulthood according to what they experienced at childhood.

3. Cognitive abilities: 

Early childhood experiences can shape cognitive development, including problem-solving skills, critical thinking and reasoning skills, and language skills. Lack of cognitive development during childhood will obviously affect the individual during adult age of his life.

4. Behavioral patterns:

Childhood experiences influence styles of   a person's behaviour when he/ she grows into adulthood. For example, coping mechanism, habits, and addictions. If a father or mother of a child or both are addicted to substance abuse, harlotry, quarreling and fighting, the child most likely learns it by observing or imitating them according to Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory.

5. Parenting style: 

 Childhood proper parenting experiences affect somebody at the adult stage. Children born and raised up by good parents are disciplined, focused, and would not like to engage in antisocial behaviours. They have the tendency of adhering strictly to civic instructions such as tax payments, obeying constituted laws of the State, and cannot be among the enemies of the global society that hijack aeroplanes and kill innocent men, women, and children. I have seen many men from broken families who vowed never to divorce their wives, not to talk of remarrying other wives.  They learnt not to behave like their fighting parents who constituted a social nuisance in their neighbourhoods through quarreling and fighting. So, their experiences of poor family dynamics prepared their minds and formed their decisions to become responsible husbands and wives at adulthood. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) usually have a mountain of impacts on the adult's life, thereby increasing the risks of:

a. Poor relationships and social connections: 

Bad childhood experiences, no doubt, can lead the individual in question, now in adult stage, to poor relationships with husbands, wives, friends and associates, co-workers, and neighbours. 

b. Substance abuse: 

Most children whom their parents were addicted to substance abuse, drunkenness, nightcrawling, and any facet of addiction, finally discovered later in their lives that they were engaging into exactly what their parents engaged in. The children are now helplessly tied to that bad habits of their parents without the ability to break off from them. All their efforts and New Year resolutions for change of behaviours became glaringly elusive. They still do those bad things which they learnt from their parents inadvertently. 

c. Bad parental upbringing: 

There are parents who teach their children to do evil no matter the consequences of their actions. When those children grow into adulthood, those evil behaviours which their parents taught them to do will turn around against them as formidable barriers to their progress. For example, I know one old couple which has eleven (11) children. Five of them are boys; and the remaining six (6) children were girls. When the man and his wife discovered that they had many children, they converted them into what I can call "militants" against the neighbourhood. They instructed their children to fight people collectively against anyone who crosses their ways. If one of them is having any quarrel with someone, they do not always want peace or settlement. They want it to end in conflict. For many years, people feared to quarrel with them both in the neighbourhoods and at schools. They usually beat people to a pulp collectively. As a result of this, when they grew up to the age of marriage, people did not want to marry them because it was obvious that they will fight as a group against them. It was very difficult for them to get married to people. The few of them who got married did not learn any lesson from their bad behaviours. They are still fighting till today. 

d. Stealing habit in a family: 

There are families which exhibit the traits of thievery. Their children learnt the art from their parents in tandem with the Social Learning Theory by observing and imitating them. The habit of stealing which their children engaged into so many years ago is still haunting them till now. Families do not want to marry a wife or husband who has the history of stealing. The society hates thieves. It is a habit that almost everyone in the world frowns at and condemns unreservedly! Those boys and girls who stole and were publicly disgraced during childhood still clearly remember the incidents and scenes vividly. They lost self-esteem, respect, and confidence. They cannot be bold to talk freely like other people in the communities. People do always remind them that they stole in the past at the least provocation. 

On the other hand, positive childhood experiences lead to:

a. Healthy relationships and social connections:

Children who experienced peace in their parents' families are most likely going to have peaceful marriage relationships with their husbands and wives. Training a child in a well-mannered way can go a long way to helping the child and the society. The society still recognizes good things wherever it sees it. The society is not blind at all. For example, I know a couple which has six (6) children. The husband was a low-paid security guard in one company in Lagos. The wife was doing nothing. They lived directly opposite where I lived in 1990. This couple was too poor to provide food for the children. There was no money to pay their children's school fees promptly and regularly. Most times, those children were driven out of school due to non-payment of school fees and other levies. They had no clothes to wear. There was no money to pay medical bills too. Inspite of this pinnacle of poverty which befell that family, those six (6) children were clearly the most well-mannered children throughout the community. The girls did not flirt like the other girls in the neighbourhood whose parents were even much richer than theirs. They were exceedingly well-behaved children. As a result of their good manners, important and very rich suitors came and married the four (4) girls. The four men who married them lived in Europe and North Anerica. The first son was given a scholarship by someone to study Geology in Federal University of Technology, Owerri. After graduating from the university, he was given a good job in one big oil conglomerate. After a couple of years, the oil company transferred him to its headquarters office outside Nigeria. He is there till today. If their parents had not inculcated good manners into them, they  would not have succeeded within a short time the way they did.

Positive childhood experiences enhance emotional intelligence and resilience. It gives self-esteem and confidence at adulthood. Positive childhood experiences gives opportunities for adaptability and coping skills. It also guarantees an overall well-being and life of satisfaction for that child. 

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