Helping ‘Orchid’ children blossom
In any grade-school class, a majority of the kids roll with the punches in most situations and rarely get sick, while a smaller number of more sensitive kids are thrown by new experiences, become the targets of bullies, and seem to have constant runny noses, ear infections and other illnesses.
Parents and teachers might think that’s just the way it is, and sensitive kids will “grow out of it.” But what if there was another way to look at young kids and different siblings in a family to maximize the health, social and personal success outcomes for all?
That’s the question addressed by W. Thomas Boyce, professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and chief of the division of behavioral pediatrics at UC San Francisco, in his fascinating and beautifully written “The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive.”
Part child development theory and part memoir, Boyce’s book makes the connection between sensitivity to stress and kids’ physical and mental health, based on his human and animal studies over 25 years of laboratory
and field research.
Boyce’s central metaphor is that kids are either dandelions or orchids (located on a continuum of sensitivity, not in separate buckets). The dandelions, like their floral counterparts that can survive among rocks or even on the freeway, are hardy souls who can grow anywhere, no matter what life throws at them. The orchids, like their plantworld namesakes, are fragile, sensitive and susceptible to life’s vicissitudes. But with loving and supportive help, they can thrive and even surpass their dandelion peers, and their sensitivity “can blossom into lives of great joy, success and beauty.”
Boyce’s terminology is more nuanced than the conventional dichotomy of “resilient” or “vulnerable.” It moves beyond notions of strength vs. weakness, considering instead individuals’ reactivity to the environment around them, and how the interaction between kids’ genes and social environments determines where they land on the continuum.
Boyce’s study of 137 public school kindergartners in Berkeley in the late 1980s identified which kids were highly reactive to stressors in the lab, at school and at home. He found that those who tested high for reactivity (with increased levels of cortisol as part of the fight-orflight mechanism) also had a higher incidence of respiratory illnesses and psychological disorders like anxiety, increasing their potential for depression, anti-social behavior and more.
Three decades later, Boyce and his team tracked down and interviewed a representative eight of those kids — both orchids and dandelions whom he had studied when they were 4 or 5 years old — to learn how their lives had turned out. The results are intriguing, and bolster his theory.
The amazing thing about a book packed with science (plus a few charts, graphs, notes and a glossary) is how poetic and poignant the writing is. Boyce is a warm narrator who seamlessly guides readers through scientific studies, case histories, and his own career and family history. He describes his socalled “difficult” child patients with respect and compassion. And he recounts a nail-biting scene delivering twins to a Navajo woman in a small plane in a snowstorm between New Mexico and Colorado. A thread throughout is the tragic story of his brilliant orchid sister, Mary (he and his brother are dandelions), who was ultimately diagnosed as schizophrenic.
He candidly traces how his loving but challenged parents dealt with her (stemming from how his grandparents parented them), adding insight to the concept of “intergenerational trauma.”
“We are the clay our parents sculpt,” he writes, “who are in turn themselves clay, shaped by life before we entered the world. But this clay-like malleability also penetrates into the cellular heart of our genes, which are remarkably open to inheriting surprising sensitivities.”
He offers six personal tips for parents and teachers dealing with orchid children: (1) Understand they have a sensitivity to whatever is new or unexpected and prefer routines. (2) Give them steadfast attentiveness and love. (Boyce debunks the value of occasional “quality time.”) (3) Recognize and honor human differences (your child may be different from you and your other kids, and may be inclined toward a different path, like art). (4) Accept and affirm the child’s “true creative self.” (5) Find a balance between being protective and encouraging the child to venture into the unknown. (6) Embrace the “great virtues of play, fantasy, and imaginative fun.”
He regrets his sister didn’t get the care she needed early on, and hopes his research can help parents, teachers, doctors and nurses recognize and address the needs of orchid children so they can grow up healthy and happy.