A new mother in a parent/infant guidance class I facilitate asked what is to be thought of the advice given to a newborn’s parent to take the baby out a lot and “get her used to people and places” and stimulation so as not to spoil the baby. I asked her what she thought of this common recommendation. In her best self-aware moment she could determine that was a bad idea, really meant to serve the adult, definitely not the young baby. Yet she had seen others doing just this when she was pregnant and wondered about that commonly chosen path. Her wise conclusion then was it didn’t work for her family and she has since learned to be quite an advocate for the authentic needs, the natural rhythm of routines in the life of her growing young baby. She’s also working on meeting her own needs better, trying to find balance while embracing the accompanying requisite sacrifices.
The question remains, how will babies respond to early conditioning such as that popular myth recommends? In Mind in the Making, described by the NY Times as the “next iconic parenting manual, may be up there with Spock, Leach and Brazelton”, author Ellen Galinsky of the Work and Family Institute quotes research on how infants respond to new people, places and events, some with intense physical behavior and negative emotions. The result of the study evidenced that later in life, these are insecure inhibited children who show negative emotions and intense physical behavior when confronted with new experiences. It seems the baby’s amygdala gets overexcited, impairing connection with the pre-frontal cortex that enables children to respond to novelty and threat and then regulate their reaction. So for these babies, ability to self-regulate is not that effective, possibly due to early cortisol flooding. What will their future choices be in the realm of anti-social behavior? While genes may underlie a tendency toward this pattern, Galinsky’s book concludes that nurture surpasses nature, so parenting style makes a difference.
While too many theories and popular myths of child-raising focus on making children do or be something more than they are, infant specialist, teacher and author Magda Gerber argued the less we do the better, and suggested that many parents and caregivers try too hard. An excellent article in Atlantic magazine this past July describes this trap that may land “your kid in therapy,” written by a therapist and mother. I highly recommend it to anyone seeking more familial balance and boundaries, a perk I often say comes for those experiencing and learning the RIE philosophy.
Gerber’s EducaringTM Approach suggests infants should be left to explore a child-safe environment with minimal adult intervention, because “spontaneous, self-initiated activities have an essential value. The pleasure evolving from exploration and mastery is self-reinforcing, and the infant becomes intrinsically motivated to learn.” [i] “If we help our children build confidence from infancy in their ability to learn, in their own sense of knowing what is best for them, then they will have the capacity to learn for a whole lifetime.”[ii]
But adults must also set aside quality time when they are present, what Magda Gerber called "Wants Nothing Quality Time", being simply available, watching and listening without judgment, thinking only of the child. A four month-old in RIE class just discovered his own “tummy time” and beamed with awe and delight at the sense of his own accomplishment, while his emoting mother observed her trusted baby figuring it out himself for the first time. According to Gerber, “We are conditioned to always be doing something. But it is very comforting to know the parent is there, really there, without the little person being under pressure to do something to keep the parent’s attention.”
Magda’s wisdom is a foundation for many stages of family development, with everyone’s true selves individually evolving rather than being pressured to perform in today’s world of helicopter parenting. Copied below please see an online essay written and posted recently by Dee Dee Myers, a parent in my classes who attended with her husband a number of years ago:
“When my daughter was just shy of her first birthday, we joined a toddler class. Every week, a dozen or so parents and the instructor would quietly observe the children, in an effort to raise “authentic” and “competent” human beings, with a minimum of intervention.
One afternoon, a little boy toppled off a slide and began to cry. His startled father hugged the child and said in a comforting tone, “You’re all right.” A moment passed. Then the instructor said, “Children don’t cry when they’re all right.” It seemed harsh at the time. But I soon realized that it wasn’t empathy that was being discouraged; it was telling even a small child what he was supposed to feel.
Each week, the instructor would prepare a snack area on the floor. If a child wanted bananas and juice, he or she had to put aside the toys, sit down, and put on a bib. It was totally optional. But there were requirements. And it was astonishing to watch as these tiny children made their choices. Some went in for the snack in the first or second week. Others took longer. All of them got there eventually.
I’ll never forget how I felt the first time my daughter had the snack. Crazy as it sounds, I was really moved by her little act of independence and the obvious satisfaction it gave her. Now, as my children near adolescence, I try to remember that I can guide them, but I can’t tell them what to think or feel. I can try to teach them to make good choices, but ultimately, they must be trusted to choose. And if they know what they want – if they can learn to recognize that special light inside themselves—and if they are brave enough to follow it—they will be satisfied.
And that will be enough for me.”
Elul 1- August 31, 2011 Enough for Me by Dee Dee Myers
[i] Gerber, Magda. "Respecting Infants: The Loczy Model of Infant Care," Supporting the
Growth of Infants, Toddlers and Parents, E. Jones, ed., (Pacific Oaks, 1979).
[ii] Gerber, Magda. Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect. Resources for Infant Educarers, Los Angeles, 1987.
LizLetters will interest you with information, photos, moments from my RIE® classes with parents and professionals, and issues in the forefront of early childhood education that are especially relevant to Magda Gerber's Educaring® Approach principles and practice.
Oct 18, 2011
May 8, 2011
Apr 3, 2011
Babies of Differing Points of View
One of the most influential practices of Magda Gerber's Educaringtm Approach is perspective taking and its complement, perspective giving. Watch how these two babies in a current RIE Parent-Infant Guidance Class of mine wonder what the other experiences during play. Has he begun to think about what interests her as well as what he wants himself? When and where have they both learned to observe and respond to another's point of view? From birth babies can be educated to know that other people think; theory of mind develops early in childhood when given the vantage point of another's perspective on the matter at hand. We Educarers develop collaborative relationships with the youngest child because we have confidence in and see infants as competent human beings whose point of view matters.
The theme of last week’s California early childhood statewide conference in Sacramento, “We’re Better Together: Collaborating to Improve the Lives of Children,” led me right to RIE’s fundamental topic for my SRO workshop presentation on self-awareness. The participants found out that their infant care provider role - to facilitate development of an active child who is challenged by problems, enjoys her autonomy and trusts adults to responsively support her full self-expression, thereby fostering her inborn disposition to learn – is perfectly supported by the Educarer model. What’s especially exciting is that recent years of vast neurobiological research and numerous current publications, such as a year-old book for parents and teachers, "Mind in the Making", are firmly providing the science behind the RIE philosophy of respectful, responsive and reciprocal care. In this book, Ellen Galinsky advises encouraging “young children to think about people’s responses to everyday situations.”
Galinksy lists “perspective taking” in second place for the “seven essential skills every child needs,” since “understanding how language works requires understanding something about what other people are thinking.” I have the impression she is not talking about babies, and what better a venue for an everyday situation than diapering and dressing a baby?
I respectfully add “perspective giving”, a communicative pattern of rapport that RIE-aware adults come to understand and value as do their babies when being communicated to about what will happen next and then given time to respond. During the 100% attentive caregiving times, “those consistent, everyday predictable routines” are defined as “Wants Something Quality Time” by Gerber. During these routines the energy exchange between the attentive baby and the observing adult, especially when eye contact is made, allows mirror neurons to fire, playing “a central role in the development of human empathy beginning almost from birth in well-cared-for children.” (Marco Iacobini at UCLA, America’s leading expert on [mirror neurons] existence and function). This kind of trust-building connection makes for a humane being, one who owns a sense of worthiness and compassion for being kind to oneself first and then others. “Seeing eye to eye opens a pathway for empathy…attunement is attention that goes beyond momentary empathy to a full sustained presence that facilitates rapport. We offer a person our total attention and listen fully.” (Social Intelligence). Daniel Goleman, author of that and his earlier Emotional Intelligence, writes “children learn these lessons and typically master…basic empathy in the fourth year…”
Even earlier than that, according to families involved in RIE Programs.The perspective giving and taking these babies in my video are doing all by themselves can be attributed to their trusted relationship with each other and with the adults who know them to be initiators, explorers, and self-learners. (RIE’s Prinicple #1) No doubt they’re gaining mental health, feeling respected and secure, making pro-social choices, learning not to jump to conclusions about another’s behavior, shaping memories and sensing future happenings, all leading to better adjustment in life. It is most affirming that every single one of the seven skills in Mind in the Making is exactly what infants are shown to develop when raised with RIE's Educaringtm Approach of respect for their authentic expression.
Look again and see deeply how those two babies are already demonstrating all seven:
1) Focus and self-control, 2) Perspective taking, 3) Communicating, 4) Making connections, 5) Critical thinking, 6) Taking on challenges and 7) Self-directed, engaged learning.
The theme of last week’s California early childhood statewide conference in Sacramento, “We’re Better Together: Collaborating to Improve the Lives of Children,” led me right to RIE’s fundamental topic for my SRO workshop presentation on self-awareness. The participants found out that their infant care provider role - to facilitate development of an active child who is challenged by problems, enjoys her autonomy and trusts adults to responsively support her full self-expression, thereby fostering her inborn disposition to learn – is perfectly supported by the Educarer model. What’s especially exciting is that recent years of vast neurobiological research and numerous current publications, such as a year-old book for parents and teachers, "Mind in the Making", are firmly providing the science behind the RIE philosophy of respectful, responsive and reciprocal care. In this book, Ellen Galinsky advises encouraging “young children to think about people’s responses to everyday situations.”
Galinksy lists “perspective taking” in second place for the “seven essential skills every child needs,” since “understanding how language works requires understanding something about what other people are thinking.” I have the impression she is not talking about babies, and what better a venue for an everyday situation than diapering and dressing a baby?
I respectfully add “perspective giving”, a communicative pattern of rapport that RIE-aware adults come to understand and value as do their babies when being communicated to about what will happen next and then given time to respond. During the 100% attentive caregiving times, “those consistent, everyday predictable routines” are defined as “Wants Something Quality Time” by Gerber. During these routines the energy exchange between the attentive baby and the observing adult, especially when eye contact is made, allows mirror neurons to fire, playing “a central role in the development of human empathy beginning almost from birth in well-cared-for children.” (Marco Iacobini at UCLA, America’s leading expert on [mirror neurons] existence and function). This kind of trust-building connection makes for a humane being, one who owns a sense of worthiness and compassion for being kind to oneself first and then others. “Seeing eye to eye opens a pathway for empathy…attunement is attention that goes beyond momentary empathy to a full sustained presence that facilitates rapport. We offer a person our total attention and listen fully.” (Social Intelligence). Daniel Goleman, author of that and his earlier Emotional Intelligence, writes “children learn these lessons and typically master…basic empathy in the fourth year…”
Even earlier than that, according to families involved in RIE Programs.The perspective giving and taking these babies in my video are doing all by themselves can be attributed to their trusted relationship with each other and with the adults who know them to be initiators, explorers, and self-learners. (RIE’s Prinicple #1) No doubt they’re gaining mental health, feeling respected and secure, making pro-social choices, learning not to jump to conclusions about another’s behavior, shaping memories and sensing future happenings, all leading to better adjustment in life. It is most affirming that every single one of the seven skills in Mind in the Making is exactly what infants are shown to develop when raised with RIE's Educaringtm Approach of respect for their authentic expression.
Look again and see deeply how those two babies are already demonstrating all seven:
1) Focus and self-control, 2) Perspective taking, 3) Communicating, 4) Making connections, 5) Critical thinking, 6) Taking on challenges and 7) Self-directed, engaged learning.
Babies of Differing Points of View
One of the most influential practices of Magda Gerber's Educaringtm Approach is perspective taking and its complement, perspective giving. Watch how these two babies in a current RIE Parent-Infant Guidance Class of mine wonder what the other experiences during play. Has he begun to think about what interests her as well as what he wants himself? When and where have they both learned to observe and respond to another's point of view? From birth babies can be educated to know that other people think; theory of mind develops early in childhood when given the vantage point of another's perspective on the matter at hand. We Educarers develop collaborative relationships with the youngest child because we have confidence in and see infants as competent human beings whose point of view matters.
The theme of last week’s California early childhood statewide conference in Sacramento, “We’re Better Together: Collaborating to Improve the Lives of Children,” led me right to RIE’s fundamental topic for my SRO workshop presentation on self-awareness. The participants found out that their infant care provider role - to facilitate development of an active child who is challenged by problems, enjoys her autonomy and trusts adults to responsively support her full self-expression, thereby fostering her inborn disposition to learn – is perfectly supported by the Educarer model. What’s especially exciting is that recent years of vast neurobiological research and numerous current publications, such as a year-old book for parents and teachers, "Mind in the Making", are firmly providing the science behind the RIE philosophy of respectful, responsive and reciprocal care. In this book, Ellen Galinsky advises encouraging “young children to think about people’s responses to everyday situations.”
Galinksy lists “perspective taking” in second place for the “seven essential skills every child needs,” since “understanding how language works requires understanding something about what other people are thinking.” I have the impression she is not talking about babies, and what better a venue for an everyday situation than diapering and dressing a baby?
I respectfully add “perspective giving”, a communicative pattern of rapport that RIE-aware adults come to understand and value as do their babies when being communicated to about what will happen next and then given time to respond. During the 100% attentive caregiving, “those consistent, everyday predictable routines” are defined as “Wants Something Quality Time” by Gerber. During these routines the energy exchange between the attentive baby and the observing adult, especially when eye contact is made, allows mirror neurons to fire, playing “a central role in the development of human empathy beginning almost from birth in well-cared-for children.” (Marco Iacobini at UCLA, America’s leading expert on [mirror neurons] existence and function). This kind of trust-building connection makes for a humane being, one who owns a sense of worthiness and compassion for being kind to oneself first and then others. “Seeing eye to eye opens a pathway for empathy…attunement is attention that goes beyond momentary empathy to a full sustained presence that facilitates rapport. We offer a person our total attention and listen fully.” (Social Intelligence). Daniel Goleman, author of that and his earlier Emotional Intelligence, writes “children learn these lessons and typically master…basic empathy in the fourth year…”
Even earlier than that, according to families involved in RIE Programs.The perspective giving and taking these babies in my video are doing all by themselves can be attributed to their trusted relationship with each other and with the adults who know them to be initiators, explorers, and self-learners. (RIE’s Prinicple #1) No doubt they’re gaining mental health, feeling respected and secure, making pro-social choices, learning not to jump to conclusions about another’s behavior, shaping memories and sensing future happenings, all leading to better adjustment in life. It is most affirming that every single one of the seven skills in Mind in the Making is exactly what infants are shown to develop when raised with RIE's Educaringtm Approach of respect for their authentic expression.
Look again and see deeply how those two babies are already demonstrating all seven:
1) Focus and self-control, 2) Perspective taking, 3) Communicating, 4) Making connections, 5) Critical thinking, 6) Taking on challenges and 7) Self-directed, engaged learning.
Look again and see deeply how those two babies are already demonstrating all seven:
1) Focus and self-control, 2) Perspective taking, 3) Communicating, 4) Making connections, 5) Critical thinking, 6) Taking on challenges and 7) Self-directed, engaged learning.
Feb 11, 2011
Parents of Differing Stripes
The media spins circulating about parenting styles go round and round. The latest hot controversy (WSJ Jan 8, 2011) has been a great topic for RIE class discussions lately! What's undoubtedly true is that not much real selfhood results from those oppressive ways of raising driven performers, children with false selves. I believe that those hovering, controlling fear-based relationships diminish everyone, adult and child. Again and again answers lie in the RIE principles. The first one, "basic trust in the child to be an explorer, an initiator and a self-learner" seems to be fundamental to so many issues of childhood development, such as emotional intelligence and mind-body connections, as well as the current uproar of parental power and use of control.
What does it mean to allow a child to become? Can the parent look within the child for answers to the child's being? Fearful that the child won't want to reach unless pushed, the parent teaches learned helplessness. And, in fact, a young baby can and will develop the outreached hand to grasp at something. With her "observe more, do less, enjoy more" mantra that points to both short and long-term effects, Magda Gerber counseled against putting a toy directly in a baby's hand. "If a child is interested in a toy that's been placed within reach, she says, he'll grab the object himself. This teaches a baby to be independent and curious. Above all, it makes a child an active partner in the learning process, not a passive recipient." (Child magazine, Feb 2002)
If this idea seems radical to your friends and family, you can quote the enlightened popular journalists/authors of Nurture Shock whose investigations ruined many assumptions about children's development and parenting. "The old assumptions we once had seemed to be nothing but a projection of wishful thinking. Once we overcame the initial shock, we found ourselves plugged into children in a whole new way."
I think of families learning, living and growing in a whole new way with the RIEtm Aproach; their mostly, (RIE isn't about perfection at all), well-considered authentic choices steering away from "The Race to Nowhere."
"It may be a more peaceful world we could create," are Magda Gerber's ending words on one of RIE's important educational films, "Seeing Infants With New Eyes." (recently purchased for use in 1700 Early Head Start programs nationwide). "When allowed to unfold in their own way and in their own time, children discover, manifest and inspire the best in themselves and in others," as RIE's Vision states.
What does it mean to allow a child to become? Can the parent look within the child for answers to the child's being? Fearful that the child won't want to reach unless pushed, the parent teaches learned helplessness. And, in fact, a young baby can and will develop the outreached hand to grasp at something. With her "observe more, do less, enjoy more" mantra that points to both short and long-term effects, Magda Gerber counseled against putting a toy directly in a baby's hand. "If a child is interested in a toy that's been placed within reach, she says, he'll grab the object himself. This teaches a baby to be independent and curious. Above all, it makes a child an active partner in the learning process, not a passive recipient." (Child magazine, Feb 2002)
If this idea seems radical to your friends and family, you can quote the enlightened popular journalists/authors of Nurture Shock whose investigations ruined many assumptions about children's development and parenting. "The old assumptions we once had seemed to be nothing but a projection of wishful thinking. Once we overcame the initial shock, we found ourselves plugged into children in a whole new way."
I think of families learning, living and growing in a whole new way with the RIEtm Aproach; their mostly, (RIE isn't about perfection at all), well-considered authentic choices steering away from "The Race to Nowhere."
"It may be a more peaceful world we could create," are Magda Gerber's ending words on one of RIE's important educational films, "Seeing Infants With New Eyes." (recently purchased for use in 1700 Early Head Start programs nationwide). "When allowed to unfold in their own way and in their own time, children discover, manifest and inspire the best in themselves and in others," as RIE's Vision states.
Jan 14, 2011
2 great articles on play...
We all know so well how infants first acquire play skills and continue to refine them when given what RIE's principles encourage: "time for uninterrupted play" every day and "freedom to explore and interact with other infants." That's when initiative and creativity begin to be sensed and known within the young child, becoming a beacon throughout their lives. I'm sure you will enjoy these TWO GREAT ARTICLES ON PLAY.
CNN published an article on the benefits of play HERE. By Erika Christakis and Nicholas Christakis, Special to CNN.
and
New York Times Jan. 5, 2011 "Effort to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum" HERE.
Enjoy
CNN published an article on the benefits of play HERE. By Erika Christakis and Nicholas Christakis, Special to CNN.
and
New York Times Jan. 5, 2011 "Effort to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum" HERE.
Enjoy
Jan 8, 2011
My new website www.AuthenticBabies.com
I'm excited to announce the creation of my own website, www.AuthenticBabies.com.
RIE™ Dad (and one of Magda's parent/infant group participants when he was a baby), Robert E. Schmolze, did the handsome site artistry and website design, for which I am very grateful.
The beautiful pictures come from talented photographer and RIE™student and parent Barrow Davis Barrow Davis, so my thanks go to both these committed people.
I hope you will enjoy my new website and will forward it to the many neighborhoods, virtual and real, where families with babies live and grow. My commitment is to infants, toddlers and the adults who care for them.
RIE™ Dad (and one of Magda's parent/infant group participants when he was a baby), Robert E. Schmolze, did the handsome site artistry and website design, for which I am very grateful.
The beautiful pictures come from talented photographer and RIE™student and parent Barrow Davis Barrow Davis, so my thanks go to both these committed people.
I hope you will enjoy my new website and will forward it to the many neighborhoods, virtual and real, where families with babies live and grow. My commitment is to infants, toddlers and the adults who care for them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)