We're Only Human: On the Trail of the Orchid Child; November/December 2011; Scientific American Mind; by Wray Herbert; 2 Page(s)

Scientific papers tend to be loaded with statistics and jargon, so it is always a delightful surprise to stumble on a nugget of poetry in an otherwise technical report. So it was with a 2005 paper in the journal Development and Psychopathology, drily entitled Biological Sensitivity to Context, which looked at kids susceptibility to their family environment. The authors of the research paper, human development specialists Bruce J. Ellis of the University of Arizona and W. Thomas Boyce of the University of California, Berkeley, borrowed a Swedish idiom to name a startling new concept in genetics and child development: orkidebarn.

Orkidebarn means orchid child, and it stands in contrast to maskrosbarn, or dandelion child. As Ellis and Boyce explained in their paper, dandelion children seem to have the capacity to surviveeven thrivein whatever circumstances they encounter. They are psychologically resilient. Orchid children, in contrast, are highly sensitive to their environment, especially to the quality of parenting they receive. If neglected, orchid children promptly witherbut if they are nurtured, they not only survive but flourish. In the authors poetic language, an orchid child becomes a flower of unusual delicacy and beauty.