Child Development is naturally a robust process, and many children will become competent citizens without any further supports. This robustness is mostly explained by the genetic nature of human development. Current studies on genetics of development have proved that many processes of human development are programmed in DNA, and the effects of environment on child development are quite limited. For example, intelligence quotient (IQ) is highly genetically determined. The correlation quotient for the IQs of identical twins grown in separate environments is as high as 0.72. This means that children's experiences including education have explained only a third of their intelligence.

However, this small portion of experiences matters when they are disruptive in nature. In the real world, children are confronting a variety of hardships such as poverty, maltreatment, household dysfunction and other adversities.