According to the Spectator's Rachel Johnson, it isn't only the nation's poverty-stricken children who are now at risk (a figure estimated at one in three)—but even Britain's middle-class children are suffering from neglect these days. Despite an irreverent (her critics might prefer to say "irrelevant") style, Johnson eventually boils down her nation's recent family news to one conclusion: parents and children currently see less of each other than at any other time in the last century, with the result that society is reaping what she calls a "quasi-feral generation of children." Citing high divorce rates and the economic pressures that require two working parents in order to provide necessities that could once be secured by one, Johnson does have a point. Of course, one can argue that the upper classes have long been accustomed to sending their children off to boarding schools, but then—one would also have to acknowledge that perhaps Britain's upper classes haven't always produced the most well-adjusted children either. In fact, it was precisely his own boarding school experience beginning at the age of 7 that ultimately influenced John Bowlby as he developed his theory of infant attachment. One oft-reported story has him years later telling his wife that he wouldn't send a dog to boarding school at such a young age. Since Bowlby, of course, neuroscience has shed light on how important it is for parents to be personally engaged with their children. Relationships during the formative years are crucial—and indeed at all ages are important to the human brain in literally shaping and cultivating it. As the Mindsight Composium (led by UCLA's Daniel J. Siegel) expressed it in a 2005 conference program: "Recent neuroscientific research gives us evidence-based best practices to create intelligent and compassionate human relationships. Through scientific study of the human brain and nervous system we have come to understand the profoundly interconnected nature of our minds. Only about 25% of our brain development has occurred by birth. It is through our relationships that the brain develops and the mind emerges. Now that we have begun to understand that neural processes and thus brain development are altered by relationships, neuroscience can help us in the development of health practices for optimal human growth throughout the lifecycle." Bruce D. Perry, child psychiatrist and Senior Fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston, Texas, brings this concept back into the context of what children need from their parents: "Many young victims of abuse and neglect need physical stimulation, like being rocked and gently held, comfort seemingly appropriate to far younger children," he says, calling it "the repeated, patterned physical nurturing needed to develop a well-regulated and responsive stress response system." It is this stress response system that Bowlby discovered and explored in his attachment studies. We live in a society so complicated that there no longer seem to be any easy answers. But it is clear that children need much more than simple financial support from parents if they are to shrug off the "quasi-feral" epithet. Let's hope that one doesn't stick. | 
