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PUTTING NIGHTTIME FEARS TO REST

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
PUTTING NIGHTTIME FEARS TO REST
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Awareness of her own power brings new fears to a 4-year-old. She becomes more aware that she’s a small child, a part of a larger world, dependent on her parents or others at critical times. Her new understanding makes her conscious of her limitations. She feels pulled between this sense of dependence and a desire to master her world that propels her onward.

Play and fantasy are powerful ways to work this out. The child’s ability to verbalize and reason makes her fantasies more elaborate.

But these vivid fantasies lead to fears and bad dreams. “I dreamt of a witch in my closet.” “I know there’s no monster in my room, but I feel it.”

The monsters and witches may also represent the strain of facing “new” feelings. Becoming aware of powerful negative and aggressive impulses can be frightening. A parent can help her accept them. But to master them, the child needs to learn, gradually, the difference between having a feeling and acting on it.

Fears and nightmares are common in 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds. Children worry about “bad guys,” witches, lions, tigers and monsters.

These night problems occur at the same time as a fear of dogs, loud noises, sirens and ambulances. Such problems herald the child’s more openly aggressive feelings, which frighten her when they seem echoed by forces beyond her control.

At this stage, children want to test their own limits more openly. They want to act out aggressive and rebellious play. Such feelings are important to a child’s personality and sense of security. They need to know they can feel angry and not lose control.

Firm discipline and consistent limits are reassuring to a child at this time: “You may not wander around the house at night. I may well have to fix your door. I can come to you, but you can’t come out alone.”

What helps a child learn to cope with fears and nightmares?

  1. Comfort the child and take the fears seriously, but don’t add your own anxiety to hers.
  2. Look under the bed and in the closet. Let her understand that this is for her comfort, not because you really think there is any danger.
  3. Set firm limits on bedtime. They’re reassuring.
  4. Don’t forget the power of a comforting lovey.
  5. Help a child learn how to soothe herself when she wakes in fear. She can distract herself by singing songs, making up stories or thinking pleasant thoughts. In modified form, adapted to other situations, she will use these skills for the rest of her life.
  6. Help the child learn “safe” aggression during the day. Modeling your own ways of handling your aggression becomes even more important. Talk about them with the child when they occur.
  7. Read fairy tales together. They encourage young children to face their own fears and angry feelings. Or read, among many others, “There’s a Nightmare in My Closet,” by Mercer Mayer; “Where the Wild Things Are,” by Maurice Sendak; and “Much Bigger Than Martin,” by Steven Kellogg.

Books allow a child to face and eventually master such feelings: She can turn the pages at her own pace, study a picture as long as she likes, go backward or close the book tight. Television and movies have a pace of their own – they present scary situations too vividly and fail to respect the child’s need to control how much she is able to confront.

(This article is adapted from “Touchpoints: Three to Six,” by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D., published by Da Capo Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group.)

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

HELPING A CHILD ADJUST TO THE NEW BABY

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
HELPING A CHILD ADJUST TO THE NEW BABY
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

When you arrive home with the new baby in your family, I’d suggest that you have a new and special toy ready to give your older child – preferably a baby of his own that he can feed and diaper while you care for your baby. If he’s more interested in trucks, give him one that he can hold, fuel and wash. This is a chance for him to model on your nurturing.

Don’t be afraid to set limits on how much he can handle the new baby. Limits will be reassuring for him as his feelings about her come to the surface.

If he wants to hold her “like you do,” ask him to sit in a chair. You will need to stay right by his side. You can show him how to put one hand under her neck and head to protect her. He will be learning how to “be a big brother.”

If the older child soon loses interest in being a big brother, don’t be surprised, and don’t make too much of it. Though he may at times be proud of his new role, it’ll be a burden for him, too. Instead, expect him to want to be your baby again. Let him.

Many children who are just discovering what it means to be an older sibling begin to be cruel to the dog or cat. Stop your child firmly but gently, and let him know that you can’t allow this. Help him with his feelings by letting him know that his anger is understandable even though he can’t take it out on the pet.

It won’t help if these feelings are allowed to go underground. An older child is likely to feel that the new baby has displaced him because he was not “good enough.”

A 3- or 4-year-old can often recall mischief that made you angry and led you, in his mind, to want to replace him.

A child of 6 or 7 or older may just ignore the baby – and you. He may even seem to disappear because he’s spending more time with his friends, or dawdling on his way home from school.

Instead of being your companion as you get to know the baby, he seems to want to avoid you to punish you. Time alone with you and your willingness to listen and answer questions will be all the more important.

How to Help an Older Child Adjust to the New Baby

  • Let the older child know how much you’ve missed him.
  • Let him know that the baby has been added to the family and is not a replacement: “Now you have a brand new baby sister. But nobody could ever be just like you!”
  • Hold him close, and remind him of experiences you’ve shared and will share again.
  • Be ready for his need to fall back on old behavior you’d thought he’d outgrown. Don’t expect too much of him right now.
  • If he pushes you to discipline him, remember that limits can be especially reassuring to him with the new baby around. Limits mean to him that his parents “haven’t changed, still love me and will stop me when I need it.”
  • Don’t urge him to be “such a good big brother.” This job won’t always seem so appealing. It will mean more when he finds his own motivation to fill the role.
  • Guard against wanting him to grow up too fast. He will grow up when he’s ready. And his younger sibling is already pushing him enough.

(This article is adapted from “Understanding Sibling Rivalry” by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D., published by Da Capo Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group.)

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

MOTIVATING A CHILD

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
MOTIVATING A CHILD
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Q. How can a parent help cultivate a child’s motivation in balance with complete acceptance of a child? What are the differences between “boundaries” and “unconditional acceptance”?

A. Parents can’t choose between boundaries and unconditional acceptance. The goal is to work toward balancing the two.

Children’s motivation partly depends on their feeling that they matter to others. From infancy, that feeling helps them believe in themselves. Why would any child be motivated to take on a new challenge if she sees herself as a failure?

Motivation begins at birth. Parents start the process by loving their baby, holding her, cooing, singing and rocking, setting up rhythms of smiling, vocalizing and touching that make her feel cared-about.

Within this cocoon of attachment, your baby begins to reach out for you. When you respond to her laughter with yours, she is learning – even in the first months of life – that things happen when she takes action. These exchanges are the beginning of motivation. She reaches out for others, and then for the world.

If she gets no response to her first coos and babbles, a baby doesn’t see much point to trying to make an effort.

As your baby grows into a toddler, your job gets more complicated. You have to set boundaries to be sure that her environment is safe to explore as she learns the motor skills – cruising, scooting, crawling and walking – that give her a new independence. When she’s just begun to toddle, you set the limit – no climbing up the stairs unless you’re right there to help her practice.

You can foster motivation even when you need to balance it with limits: “You can try climbing the stairs when I’m here to hold your hand.” But you also have to install safety gates, since a toddler can’t be expected to remember the limits when her own motivation tips the balance.

She tests you. She scrambles toward the stairs, then looks back to see if you really mean that she not climb them. Once you let her know you’re in earnest, you need to pick her up and stop her if she can’t stop herself.

Many parents worry that when they set limits they no longer unconditionally accept their child. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Setting limits is an act of love – it’s not always easy, and you wouldn’t bother if you didn’t really care. A child needs grown-ups who love her to clarify the rules and to protect her from hurting herself as she follows her motivation to learn about the world.

As a child becomes more independent, she finds new ways to resist your authority – temper tantrums in the second and third years, and often, at ages 3, 4 and 5, lying, cheating and stealing.

Boundaries help improve the child’s ability to achieve what she wants, as long as they are respectful and she understands the reason for them. Setting limits makes it clear that you unconditionally accept her but not all her actions.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

A 5-YEAR-OLD’S SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
A 5-YEAR-OLD’S SUDDEN CHANGE OF HEART
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Q. My 5-year-old granddaughter has taken ice-skating lessons for a little more than a year.

A couple of months ago she started crying before her lesson, saying she didn’t like it and didn’t want to go. She was told to give it another try because she had liked it (and the lessons were paid for).

Then she started crying before her dance lessons. But when she gets home, she says what a great time she had.

Now she’s starting crying before school and having bad days at school. She was always so excited to go to school and telling us all about her day.

What could be going on? Is she just “playing around” to see how far she can go? What can we do to help?

A. Five-year-olds who have complied with activities that their parents choose for them may suddenly realize, “I want to decide what I’m going to do – all by myself!” This wish to be in control can be a healthy sign of growing self-esteem: “I’m going to decide what I do now because I know what I’m doing!”

To help her open up, commend her for wanting to have a say. Then, if she can tell you what she doesn’t like about these activities, she may be able to focus on what she likes about them. Her parents could make an agreement with her to remind her that she says she enjoys these activities.

If a child complains about one activity, she may need help to figure out why. Is it too hard, frustrating or lonely without friends in that class? Is she too tired or hungry at that time of day? Perhaps something frightening happened there? A traumatic experience in one setting can lead a child to be fearful of others.

If you had told us that she was crying most of the time, and if you hadn’t said that after class she realizes she’s had fun there, we might have wondered if she could be depressed. If the crying is limited to these times, and if she is bright and cheerful at home and with friends during less structured activities, that’s reassuring.

It is concerning that she is also having “bad days” at school. You need more information about these bad days, about what is going on in school and her behavior there. Her parents could ask her teacher how she is handling the everyday school challenges. Her teacher may have ideas about how to help her enjoy school more. The teacher might even let her parents observe her in the classroom.

Another possible reason for the crying might be trouble with transitions. Many children this age become so absorbed in one activity that they can’t stop and switch to a different one. Reminders 15, 10 and five minutes before it is time to get ready to go can help. Another possibility is that her busy schedule may overtax her parents. If they’re frazzled, she’s bound to feel that way too.

When a child is more insistent on staying home or with a parent than avoiding a specific activity, separation may be her challenge. Such anxiety is common at this age, especially after a loss such as the death of a grandparent, or a move, or when a parent has been ill or preoccupied – by stress at work, financial worries or marital tensions. Five-year-olds may also insist on staying home after a new baby is born, as if to reassure themselves that they will not lose their place in the family.

For some children, dance and skating and other classes can just be too much. Your grandchild is only 5. Perhaps she’s trying to tell you that she needs a different pace, a few more breaks during the day, or more time for learning on her own – through play and with her friends. She may not know how to make friends yet – another reason to be miserable at school and in other group settings. Setting up play dates would then be an important first step.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at  www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

BITING IN DAYCARE

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
BITING IN DAYCARE
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Q. How can we help our 22-month-old granddaughter stop biting other children at day care? I know she is frustrated and needs help dealing with anger, as her daddy and aunts and uncles have.

A. Biting is a common and usually normal behavior in 22-month-olds. You compare the child to her father, aunts and uncles. At that age, did they bite? Presumably they also have trouble managing their anger as adults. Herein lies part of the problem.

As far as we know, biting in a 2-year-old doesn’t predict anger control problems later in life. Yet to many adults, biting is a serious problem and an ominous sign for the future. Parents and teachers who see biting this way may tend to overreact, unintentionally reinforcing the biting.

The child, who can’t understand what all the fuss is about, is bound to bite again – to see if the same thing happens again, and to get more information about what the frantic responses could mean.

The child may discover that biting confers a great deal of power: One little nip and a whole classroom can be catapulted into pandemonium. How exciting! Let’s try that again.

Harsh, repeated punishments may lead the child to conclude she is “bad.” This feeling can become another reason for more biting. A child who loses hope in her ability to change will not be motivated to try to get herself under control. She’ll continue what everyone now expects her to do – and keep on biting.

A clear but low-key response will help. Calmly separate the children. The bitten child may need adult comfort, but it’s important also to comfort the child who has bitten. She may be frightened by her own out-of-control feelings and by the other child’s screams. Reassure her you will stop her every time until she has learned to stop herself. Be sure she understands you know she’ll learn with time. Don’t think your efforts aren’t working just because you have to repeat them.

Why do young children bite? A pediatrician we know says that for children this age, “a bite is just the flip side of a kiss.” In the first year, babies will sometimes bite their mothers’ shoulders as if to say, “I love you so much I want to eat you up!” In the second year, when toddlers are interested in other toddlers but don’t yet know how to show it, they may bite as a bid to engage another child.

Sometimes young children bite when they are overstimulated. And sometimes they may bite out of anger. But at this age they don’t understand the connection between their action and its consequence – that a bite really hurts. That’s why some adults think the best disciplinary approach is gently to bite back. We can’t agree. Such a response throws a child’s understanding of adult caregivers’ roles into confusion.

All children this age need help with anger and frustration. They’re at the very beginning of learning how to handle these and other strong emotions. Perhaps you’re worried that this child needs help because she has been exposed to the behavior of adults in the family who continue to struggle with their anger.

If that’s the case, then the child’s biting may have a different meaning. Very young children are vulnerable to being traumatized by violent behavior of adults around them. They need help from mental health professionals trained to work with infants and toddlers. Check the websites of Zero to Three (zerotothree.org) and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (nctsn.org) for more information, and ask the child’s pediatrician for a referral.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

AN EMPHATIC ‘NO’ TO SPANKING

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN:  FAMILIES TODAY:
AN EMPHATIC ‘NO’ TO SPANKING
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Q. What is your position on spanking and effective discipline? How to teach toddlers consideration and empathy?

A. Discipline is such a passionate concern for parents, and few childrearing practices stir up more heated debate than spanking. Why? Because our beliefs about discipline come from the most highly emotionally charged experiences of our own childhoods and from our visions of the world we must prepare our children for. Often deeply rooted in class, culture and religion, as well as personal experience, these beliefs deserve our best efforts to understand them.

Our belief is that spanking is not necessary, can be harmful and certainly does not serve the purposes of discipline. Punishment that merely stops a problem behavior in the moment – and any aversive stimulus applied to a misbehaving child can accomplish this – does not teach the child, nor does it prepare him for the ultimate goal of discipline: self-discipline.

Discipline is not punishment but teaching. Punishments that do not teach will not help the child learn to control his behavior when parents are not present or once the child is too big to be physically dominated by parents. A child who has not been disciplined to learn self-control by the time he is old enough to be unsupervised by parents, or old enough to fight back at parents who spank, is a child in danger.

Many parents who were spanked as children tell us that they do not remember why they were spanked, or what they learned, but that they sure do remember being spanked, how it felt and how angry they were. Many remember feeling less trusting and accepting of their parents’ authority and wisdom when physical force was used against them.

Some parents, though, say, “Look at me. I was spanked as a child, and I turned out OK.” To them, we ask, “Did you turn out OK because you were spanked, or in spite of it?”

For more on discipline, including effective strategies that do not employ spanking or physical punishment, see our short book, “Discipline: The Brazelton Way,” published by Da Capo Press, 2003.

Q. I am writing to appreciate you for being such a fine pediatrician who cares as much about the parents as you do about our children … I felt you were like a friendly grandfatherly type of doctor sitting by my side as I faced each developmental phase. I’ve always felt that my daughter is my teacher, and with your guidance, I learned to listen and observe her better so I could support her to develop her potential

A. It is good to hear that I was able to get across to you what I truly believe, that parents need support at least as much as they need advice, and that their best teachers are not the “experts” but their children, if only parents can really watch and listen, as you have been able to.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

CONCERN ABOUT AN UNORTHODOX CRADLE

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
CONCERN ABOUT AN UNORTHODOX CRADLE
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

Q. During a recent visit to a cousin’s home in another state, I was very troubled by a sleeping arrangement for a 14-week-old. Perhaps I’m not aware of common practices today for encouraging newborns to sleep through the night.

The baby is swaddled in a garment designed for newborns, then fed and put into a car seat, which is placed on the floor in a small bathroom – without windows. The fan is turned on to provide white noise, and the door is closed. A blanket outside the door blocks external noise. No monitors are used.

The baby has been sleeping for 10 to 12 hours at night. He appears to be healthy and happy.

But I’m concerned about his being in a sensory-deprived situation, unattended. The parents go to him when he cries, but the entire procedure seems wrong.

I would appreciate your input since I’m expecting a baby in a few months.

A. We share your concerns. This arrangement may interfere with the baby’s safety and development.

With all the measures to block out sound, the baby’s parents may not be able to hear him when he needs them. Adequate ventilation is another basic requirement.

Safe ways of swaddling can help babies settle for sleep and get back to sleep when they awaken during the night. But babies also need a chance to move their limbs to develop their muscle tone and strength.

We would ask whether all this protection against light and sound will interfere with the baby’s developing the capacity to filter them out on his own.

What kind of transition are the parents expecting from such a highly controlled environment to a more natural one, and when?

It would be helpful to know why the parents feel their baby needs these special measures. Was the baby hypersensitive at birth to noise or light? At birth, babies have different levels of tolerance and sensitivity to touch, sounds and sights. Some have little trouble tuning out useless information such as the sound of the dishwasher or a slice of light from a street lamp. Others may be sensitive only to sights, or to sounds, or to touch.
Such differences contribute to each individual’s unique temperament from the very beginning of life. Even infants who start out hypersensitive may become at least a little less so over the years by learning to cope.

We could imagine that without practice at shutting out unwanted stimulation, some infants could become overly sensitive. Later on they might even have trouble focusing their attention in the face of everyday distractions.

Sometimes technology can improve on nature, but there are plenty of examples, such as infant formula, where this just isn’t the case. Often we don’t fully understand the benefits of nature’s design until we’ve tried to substitute our own.

For all we know, human babies and parents may have evolved ways to communicate with each other, such as pheromones, that would require more contact than this closed-in arrangement allows – perhaps even through the night.

In any event, we see no reason why you need to follow your cousin’s example when your own baby is born.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

PRESCHOOL SIBLINGS

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NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: FAMILIES TODAY:
PRESCHOOL SIBLINGS
By: T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua Sparrow, M.D.

In the first months after the birth of a new sibling, the older child is likely to vacillate between ignoring the baby completely or treating her like a plastic – and indestructible – doll.

Yet there will also be moments of genuine tenderness, and the beginnings of learning to care and to nurture.

When a younger sibling is 2 or 3, she can be more of a playmate for the older one, even if there is an age gap of two years or more. However, the 2- or 3-year-old may now be more reluctant to be the older child’s “baby” or plaything.

By the time the younger child turns 2, shared words and gestures have deepened the siblings’ intimacy. They have developed their own language without words.

Watch the imitation between two siblings at this age. Once, while working with a Native American tribe’s Early Head Start Center, we were honored to be invited to a powwow. Two siblings, 3 and 5, were dancing at opposite ends of the gymnasium. The older one jumped, twirled and marched along. From all the way across the room, the 3-year-old studied every move he made, imitating him clumsily but almost precisely – and almost on cue.

I hadn’t known they were siblings until I saw that performance, when it became perfectly apparent.

What does all this imitation mean to the older child? He is watched, envied, copied, followed around all day. Although it’s flattering, it is also pretty hard to take. When his friends come over, the younger one wants to insert herself into their play and their relationships. When he tries to be alone, she is there.

When he wants to get involved in more mature pastimes, she pulls on him. His guilt about deserting her, and his secret sadness at abandoning her, are lurking just below the surface. She can and will play on it.

Meanwhile the meltdowns caused by their rivalry are proceeding apace. Interfering with each other’s play and bidding for parents’ attention, they just can’t stay out of each other’s business. Tripping each other. Rolling around on the floor. Splashing each other in the tub. Flicking food at each other across the table.

“I want as much ice cream as he got. One more spoonful.”

“No, you gave her more!”

Through their constant scuffles, they seem to be saying, “I want to be part of your every moment.” The older child has an unfair advantage. When he decides he’s had enough he can retreat to his room and slam the door. The 2-year-old, despondent, may throw herself on the floor in a flood of tears. Can you equalize their differences? Of course not.

Once you’ve separated them, you can treat each one as an individual. You can help each one to settle down. Both will push parents to take sides. Don’t do it. Instead, you can sympathize, and then ask each child to think about his or her role in the conflict.

To the older child, a parent might say, “I know it’s tough to have your little sister interfering all the time, but you can tell her to stop, or take your toys into your room and shut the door. You don’t have to hit.”

To the younger child, a parent might say, “I know you want to play with him so badly. But when he tells you he won’t, you’re going to have to learn to listen.”

Let her know you understand how hard that is for her, but that you can’t change it. Over time, this will help her to stop idolizing her older sibling and to start sticking up for herself. Right now, though, she’s bound to fall apart.

Predictable Times for Meltdowns

  • early morning, on the way to breakfast
  • at the table
  • shopping
  • attention to one child (nursing, reading, special help)
  • bedtime
  • birthday party of one sibling
  • Christmas and holidays with gifts and commotion
  • long trips

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Prior to his passing, Dr. Brazelton was the founder and head of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is currently the Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Reprinted with permission from the authors.

Early Language Matters

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Early Language Matters

Early Language Matters by Louise Packness

In an undergraduate communications class I was taking at Hunter College in NYC, many years ago, we were shown videos of Washoe the chimpanzee learning American Sign Language. (ASL) I was mildly interested in attempts to determine primates’ ability to learn language. But my real focus in these videos and in this class was American Sign Language itself.

I was taken with how “expressive” I found the visual-gestural language of the Deaf community. Peoples’ facial expressions were animated. There were large and small, fast and slow gestures and body movements. Eye contact was vital. I became consumed with questions about different forms of language. Could it be that a language that was expressed visually was somehow more “honest”, more “direct”? Certainly I had experienced misuse of spoken language: twisting of phrases and words; verbal manipulation of a sort. Could ASL use by-pass abuse of speech and more easily get to the heart of an issue? I felt compelled to explore this issue. I already loved language related learning, I.e., foreign languages, the origin of language, how languages change over time – and the nitty gritty of speech sound production as well as grammar and morphology and syntax.

I went on to graduate school and became a Teacher of the Deaf. I got my answer. ASL can be used in a manipulative way just the same way a spoken language can be. A visual gestural language may look more “immediate” and “‘direct” – “honest “if you will. But ASL is a full and true language; it follows rules, has exact vocabulary, word meanings, sentences and syntax and it is entirely possible to be false and manipulative in the visual-gestural form as well as the spoken language.

In my deaf education teacher training, the question of language acquisition for deaf and hard of hearing children born in to a hearing world came to the forefront. How do deaf children learn language and how do they learn to think? I went to study language acquisition of both deaf and hearing children and speech language development has been my professional work for 35 years.

In general conversation, we often talk about communication and language interchangeably. They absolutely overlap; communication is a form of language and language is a part of communication, but they are not entirely the same.

Communication starts the moment a baby is born. It is about connecting emotionally with other living beings. We humans are hard-wired to make and find comfort in these connections and we are born with a set of innate emotional expressions and an instinctive understanding of other people’s emotions. We express joy, sadness, fear, disgust, interest, surprise anger, affection and more, and recognize them in others.

These early non-verbal connections are shared through vocalizations, facial expressions, and physical movements. Adults and babies engage in looking at each other, copying each other, taking turns on an emotional level – interactions known as “serve and return”. They are recognized by psychologists as important in shaping brain architecture in powerful ways, and helping to create a strong foundation for future learning. These interactions, conversations back and forth of sounds, gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice, eye-contact, posture and use of space give the young child a sense of belonging and are important to both partners.

Verbal communication, language, is also hard wired in the brain.
It is a rich, complex, adaptable system with rules; it is the way in which we combine sounds, create words and sentences in speech, signs and later writing to communicate our thoughts and understand others.

Verbal language provides us with the tools to know what we think and want, and understand others’ thoughts and wants. We need language to socialize and learn. Through both communication and language, we are able to learn new information, engage in rich pretend play, solve problems, ponder, invent, imagine new possibilities, and develop literacy.
Verbal language develops over time and follows universal, developmental milestones. Children learn at different rates, but there is a critical period in which a child must experience and develop language for it to develop fully.

None of us remember how we learned language. For the child with no interfering cognitive or physical challenges it seems that it simply happens. It is “caught” not “taught”. It is “caught” when a child is immersed in a world with caring adults who talk and interact and engage with this child. The particular language – or languages – a child masters is the one that the child experiences and has the opportunity to practice.

Language learning requires no tools or training – only these conversations.
When we say that early language matters it is the early, emotionally attuned engagement between adults and young children that matter.

When an interested adult is fully attending, talking and listening – making it easy for the young child time to start conversations; responding with interest to what the child is expressing with or without words, talking about those things the child is interested in at a level the child can understand, having conversations that go back and forth a number of times – these behaviors promote the natural development of language.

My work has been with children with special needs who have speech and language delays and disorders. For these children specialized early intervention is extremely important. The earlier the better to take advantage of a young child’s developing body and brain.

For the typically developing child, however, if language develops easily and naturally, what can interfere??

How strong children’s language skills are affected by their surroundings. Challenging environmental circumstance, such as food insecurity, poor housing, lack of health care, no access to books make a difference in the young child’s development; an adult, parent or caretaker who is not able to sustain attention or be attuned to the child makes a difference in the child’s development. When the adult is highly distracted – perhaps by troubling personal concerns or the ever-increasing interruptions caused by technology; i.e., needing to check Face Time, take a phone call, look at Instagram, check notifications, etc., the child is adversely impacted. The tremendous value of on-going conversations gets lost with many interruptions. Being aware of the factors that are challenging, we can begin to address them.

The early conversations are what matter. They say that a good conversation is like a good seesaw ride; it only happens when each partner keeps taking a turn.

Louise Packness,
Speech-Language Pathologist, M.A. CCC-SLP

Books and Resources for Early Language Matters

American Speech-Language Hearing Association: articles and books. Including:
– Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development
– How Does your Child Hear and Talk?
– Apel, Ken & Masterson, Julie, J. Beyond Baby Talk: From Sounds to Sentences – A Parents Complete Guide to Language Development, 2001

Early Years Foundation Stage, (EYFS) Statutory Framework- GOV.UK
2021 Development Matters in the Early Years.

Eliot, Lise, What’s Going On in There? : Bantam Book, 1999

Galinsky, Ellen. Mind in the Making: Harper-Collins, 2010

The Hanen Centre Publications. Helping You Help Children Communicate.
– Manolson, Ayala, It Takes Two To Talk: The Hanen Early Language Program ,1992
– Parent Tips
– “Tuning In” to others: How Young Children Develop Theory of Mind

Lahey, Margaret. Language Disorders and Language Development: Macmillan Publishers, 1998

Lund, Nancy & Duchan, Judith. Assessing Children’s Language in Naturalistic Contexts: Prentice-Hall, 1988

National Association for the Education of Young Children (NYAEC)
Articles
– Reinforcing Language Skills for Our Youngest Learners by Claudine Hannon
– 12 Ways to Support Language Development for Infants and Toddlers by Julia Luckenbill
– Big Questions for Young Minds, Extending Children’s Thinking. 2017

Princeton Baby Lab. A Research Group in the Dept. of Psychology at Princeton studies how children learn, and how their incredible ability to learn support their development. 2022 babylab@princeton.edu

Pruett, Kyle,D: Me, Myself and I: Goddard Press, 1999

Ratey, John,J. A User’s Guide to the Brain, Vintage Books, 2001 : 253-335.

Rossetti, Louis,M: Communication Intervention, Singular Publishing, 1996

Siegel, Daniel J,& Hartzell, Mary. Parenting from the Inside Out: Penguin Group 2003

Presence and Perspective

by
Perspective

Presence and Perspective By Murielle DiBiase, M.D.

In the chaos of the world we are living in today I find the challenge that rises to the top of my heap across settings and interactions with others of all ages is to be present and consider the perspectives of others. We are so inundated with the stressors of everyday living complicated with all of the Covid chaos that it’s a true challenge to stay in the moment and even consider the perspectives of others.

In my work in the field of Early Care and Education, I have many opportunities to engage with families, children, professional colleagues, teachers, and a wide variety of support staff involved as educators in this phenomenal field. We know that parents/family are children’s first “teachers”. Everyone involved in the classroom dynamics has an impact on the foundation of learning for each child in their care. We are all “cognitive coaches”, incidentally as well as intentionally, for every child we connect with, even for those we come to know in utero. It’s simply amazing to consider that the first 3 years of our lives are known to be the time in our lives that we will learn at an extraordinary pace like no other time in our entire lives. This, to me, magnifies the importance of intentionally being present as much as we possibly can across settings and ages for all to truly benefit from the interaction.

As I engage in the work of coaching educators to elevate the quality of their engagement with children, there are frequent conversations about taking a child’s perspective in the moment given any number of daily situations we encounter. As adults, we often make unintentional assumptions about children’s perspectives… “When you push your chair away from the table, you’re telling me you’re all done with snack.” (said to an 18 month old) I had to wonder if that was so or was this child merely experimenting with cause and effect given the moment… Just as unintentionally, we often forget that young children are just beginning to understand their world and are learning things like self-regulation. They are truly novices at social engagement and are new to the concept of emotions. They learn what they are living with no regard to “right or wrong” ideations at such a young age. Understanding a young child’s perspective is key to quality engagement. The more we learn, the more we are able to support learning for our youngest human beings.

This is all food for thought, which might shift our perspectives a bit. We don’t know what we don’t know and we do the best we can with what we do know at any given time in our lives. Thank goodness we have a lifetime to learn and grow and there are so many opportunities for us to do so! Learning is a work in progress, not an aim for perfection…

Favorite Resources:

Ted Talks : Jun Li, Fred Rogers (Google these individuals for more resources)

ZERO TO THREE 
Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Connection Parenting, Pam Leo (Google her for more resources to her credit)

Creative Connections LLC
Murielle S. DiBiase, M.Ed.
PO Box 15
Palermo, Maine 04354
207-931-6615