In his book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, Professor Robert Plomin of Kings College, London, concludes that inherited DNA differences (nature) are the major systematic force forming children as individuals – their personality, mental health or illness, cognitive abilities and disabilities. The environment is important too but parents don’t have much control over these environmental influences because they are unsystematic and idiosyncratic – chance. Parents matter but they don’t make much of difference in how their children turn out.

Professor Robert Plomin of Kings College, London