We all think of children as flowers and treat them like an extremely delicate piece of ice sculpture. We fuss if they skip a meal or two. We feel absolutely helpless when they are sick. Change our entire TV/movie habits so that our children are not exposed inappropriate content. Watch what we talk in their presence. Worry if a new routine (like the mother going back to work/child starting school or day care/siblings) would scar them for the rest of their lives. All parents have an in built reflux that wants to reach out and wipe away all their child’s misery. But are they really that delicate? The truth is children are pretty resilient. Much resilient than what we give them credit for!

I was reading about Dr.Mario Capecchi, co-winner of 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine. His incredible contribution to genetics is inspiring and brings hope to those who have complicated diseases running in the family. But what really left me speechless and set those wheels in my head turning was his childhood.

Dr.Capecchi was born in 1937 out of wedlock to American born Lucy Ramberg and an Italian airman who was later reported missing in action. His mother was anti-fascist and was sent to the Dachau concentration camp when Mario was just four years old. His mother had expected this to happen at some point of time, so she had liquidated her assets and had left the money with an Italian agricultural family and had made arrangements for the family to take care of her son. Mario still remembers the day ‘they came to take his mother away’. Unfortunately the money ran out in a year and the family could no longer take care of the little boy. This five-year-old child was left in the streets to fend for himself. For four years this child begged, stole and managed to survive on the streets of war ravaged Italy. After the war his mother, who had somehow survived Dachau found him in a hospital, malnourished, all skin and bones and mother and son were reunited. After the boy regained his strength, which took him a year owing to chronic malnourishment, they moved to United States. In the US, the boy was sent to the third grade. But he could not read or write English, Italian was his only means of communication. His teacher came up with a wonderful method of communicating through drawings. What words couldn’t accomplish, a piece of paper and pencil did. The boy slowly learned English, was soon elected the leader of his class, thanks to his street smartness, did his BS in Antioch College, successfully completed his research in biophysics in Harvard and is currently the co-chairman of the department of human genetics in University of Utah.

If asked to list the factors contributing to Mario’s success, I would say resilience, happy childhood till his mother was taken away, his mother’s role in his life, his teacher.

RESILIENCE
I have a few theories on resilience, just my ideas, haven’t found any research data to back it up.

*I personally think children are born with resilience.
*The degree of resilience varies from child to child – the early childhood experiences contribute to this varying degree.
*Resilience is strongly linked with self-confidence.
*His degree of resilience is a strong indicator of supreme intelligence.

As is, it must have been an abnormal experience to be the child of unwed mother in 1937. Also his mother taking an active part in the anti-fascist movement must have definitely thrown a new set of variables in to the equation. To be able to see through times of distress and keep the mind focused on the logistics of what has to be done rather than succumbing to fear – all this in a four/five year old?! To what extent a four year old could have understood and absorbed the complex social and political turmoil? Maybe the child’s innocence must have been a protective factor. Especially in social situations involving his mother’s unwed status.

HAPPY CHILDHOOD
Mario, as a child must have had wonderful, healthy, happy and enriching experience in the first four years of his life. His mother must have made him felt welcome and given him a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Those four years on the streets, when everything was working against him, when thousands and thousands of children died because of starvation and violence, the only thing that must have kept this child going must have been the resilience provided by the happy moments in the first four years of his life. Every time he was faced with something terrible, he must have focused on the happy moments, invoked his patronomus and some how managed to survive it.

HIS MOTHER
Mario’s mother must have been one strong lady. Holding a political stand even if it meant going to the concentration camp, surviving Dachau, looking for her son in every hospital in Italy with the hope of finding her son, amazing!

HIS TEACHER
Not but not the least, Mario’s teacher definitely demonstrated a sheer stroke of genius. This must have been one violent kid with deep survival instinct, with the kind of experience that no other third grader in his class would have had, not able to communicate and she did not give up on him. She got through to him by communicating through pictures.

Some interesting links:

About Dr.Capecchi
http://capecchi.genetics.utah.edu/capecchi.html
http://science.monstersandcritics.com/features/article_1363551.php/Profile_Mario_Capecchi_from_street_child_to_Nobel_Prize_winner

About resilience
I was doing a little research on the net and found that teaching children resilience is now becoming a ‘movement’!

http://www.voicesforchildren.ca/report-Nov2003-1.htm
http://resilnet.uiuc.edu/library/grotb95b.html