Parenting Infants Major points REM sleep and non-REM sleep The crying baby: hunger, “unknown” causes Sensory acuity: sight, sound, smell Soothing by physical contact: womb service: note the fivestep Cuddle Cure of Dr. Karp in The Happiest Baby on the Block Babies respond to parental emotional expressions: mother’s mood is baby’s mood Baby and parent become social partners by three months Baby’s temperament and emotional reactivity are variables in P-C interactions Developmental Milestones from 0 to 2 From 21 to 33 inches; from 7 ½ to 29 pounds Neural development at 3 months allows for voluntary, coordinated behaviors that replace reflexes: at 8 months, sitting up, creeping, crawling lead to cruising and walking at 10 to 18 months Locomotion increases social interaction Piaget’s sensorimotor stage: imitation at 12 months; representational thought by 24 months Vygotsky: language encourages intellectual development: words become inner speech which becomes thought; language also is related to social, emotional development; by age 2, two-word sentences allow the toddler to communicate intentions and reactions to the world Parents’ role is to provide an enriched environment At age 3, toddlers can label both positive and negative feelings, theirs and others: interest, surprise, joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust
Babies will modify their behaviors on the basis of the parents’ emotional reactions Toddlers demonstrate distress at another’s distress, and are seen to take action to sooth the other person, parent or child Outbursts of anger, often less than five minutes, peak at age 2, often a sign of hunger or fatigue or sickness; by age 4 children can sulk and hold on to anger. Immediate causes of anger: conflict with authority, problems with social interactions and problems with routines Parents’ role is to provide a consistent routine, a tolerant, positive home atmosphere and a firm style of discipline; parents are child-centered The value of transitional objects to handle negative feelings Toddlers are most often productive, happy and affectionate to parents, younger children and animals A sense of the interpersonal self evolves in the first year of life, differentiating from the parent; they become increasingly agentic, knowing that they have the ability to affect objects; exploration of the environment increases By age 2, they recognize themselves in a mirror and identify themselves in photographs; there is a growing sense of self-awareness Self-soothing is the first sign of self-regulation at 3 months; ability to act, investigate and explore begins in the second year, and by age 2 toddlers can inhibit their own behaviors, avoid forbidden activities, and can wait alone before receiving permission to touch
The Process of Attachment Attachment: the strong, affectional tie we feel for special people in our lives that leads us to feel pleasure and joy when we interact with them and to be comforted by their nearness during times of stress. By the end of the first year, babies have become attached to familiar people who have responded to their need for physical care and stimulation. Theories of attachment
Freud: attachment came as a result of feeding the infant. Milk served to reduce the primary drive of hunger and the mother became a secondary drive because she is paired with tension relief. Refutation: Harlow’s research with the “surrogate mothers” made of wire mesh and terrycloth; babies attach even to those who do not feed her, such as father, siblings, grandparents; babies also attach strongly to inanimate objects, such as teddy bears or blankets. Bowlby: attachment has a strong biological dimension, and is best understood within an evolutionary framework in which survival of the species is of utmost importance. The development of attachment comes in four stages: o “preattachment” phase in the first six weeks in which babies recognize the mother’s smell and voice o “attachment in the making” up until 6 to 8 months old in which parents are preferred but the baby will still go to strangers and do not protest being separated from the parents;
o “clear-cut attachment” up until two years in which separation anxiety is first demonstrated from six to eighteen months (related to object permanence) o formation of a reciprocal relationship, from two years on in which separation anxiety declines; language permits understanding and negotiating relationships with others Out of these experiences children construct an inner representation of the parent-child bond that serves as an internal working model, or set of expectations about the attachment figures. This image becomes the model, or guide, for all future close relationships—through childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Measuring the Security of Attachment: Ainsworth’s Strange Situation involves eight brief episodes:
parent and baby introduced to playroom; experimenter leaves parent is seated and baby plays with toys stranger enters, is seated and talks to parent parent leaves room; stranger responds to baby parent returns, greets baby; stranger leaves parent leaves room stranger enters room and offers comfort parent returns, greets baby; offers comfort
Observing the responses of infants to these episodes, researchers have identified a secure attachment pattern and three patterns of insecurity: 1. Secure attachment: infants explore, using parent as secure base; may cry when parents leave, but seek contact when parent returns; about 65% of American babies show this
pattern; the most common attachment classification in all societies studied to date 2. Avoidant attachment: babies are unresponsive to parents when present; react to stranger in the same way; no distress when parent leaves; avoid or slow to greet returning parent; about 20% of American babies show this pattern 3. Resistant attachment: closeness to parent without exploration; when she returns they display anger, resistive behaviors, sometimes hitting and pushing; may continue to cry without being comforted; about 10-15% of American infants show this pattern 4. Disorganized/disoriented attachment: reflects the greatest insecurity; at reunion, show confused and contradictory behaviors; dazed facial expression; unexpected crying out or odd, frozen postures; infants of depressed mothers show these uncertain behaviors, while looking very sad and depressed themselves; about 5 to 10% of American babies show this pattern. Stability of attachment: fairly stable to age six; major life changes may affect quality of attachment—sometimes positively, sometimes negatively Factors Affecting Attachment Security
The opportunity to establish a close relationship: research with institutionalized infants suggest lack of opportunity to bond will lead to emotional and social problems, including an excessive desire for adult attention and few friendships Warm and responsive parenting: sensitive caregiving is defined by the mother’s prompt response, consistent and appropriate to infant signals and her holding the infant tenderly and carefully; interactional synchrony is the term
for the “emotional dance” in which interactions appear to be mutually rewarding and both partners match emotional states, especially the positive ones; research suggests that only 30% of the exchanges demonstrate this synchrony, so there are other significant variables related to secure attachment; overstimulating, intrusive and inconsistent care results in avoidant and resistant babies; rigid and controlling mothers who have trouble altering their immediate plans to comfort a baby who often cried are related to insecure attachment Infant’s characteristics: prematurity, birth complications and newborn illness increase anxiety related to caregiving; proneness to distress responses in babies relates to later insecure attachment; temperament is not a strong predictor of attachment Family circumstances: loss of job, money problems, separation and divorce: where stress and instability is high, insecure attachment is also high Parents’ internal working models: parents who show objectivity and balance in discussing their own childhoods, whether negative or positive, tend to have securely attached infants; caregivers with “inner security” are warmer and more supportive of their children. The way the parents view their childhoods is more important a predictor than the childhood itself.
The role of fathers in attachment: infants form multiple attachments and the same characteristics of the nurturing mother create a secure attachment to the father; fathers report as much anxiety at leaving a child in daycare as the mother; “father as playmate” and “mother as nurturer” stereotype is fading, but babies still look to their mothers when distressed and look to their fathers for playful stimulation; the highly involved father is less gender stereotyped, have sympathetic and friendly personalities and see parenthood as
an especially enriching experience. Review the research on mother-father differences on page 255 of the text. Secure attachment to a warm parental relationship and a stable professional caregiver (in daycare) predict advanced peer and play behavior. Soufre and associates research attachment and later development: Findings suggest that secure babies engage in more elaborate make-believe play and display greater enthusiasm, flexibility and persistence in problem solving in preschool; these children were rated by teachers as high in selfesteem, socially competent, cooperative, popular and empathic at age 4; avoidantly attached agemates were rated as isolated, disconnected, and resistantly attached were regarded as difficult and disruptive; At age 11, secure children were rated as having closer friendships and better social skills. Nonetheless, secure infants do not always show more favorable development than their insecure counterparts. The explaining variable may the “continuity of caregiving” in which the same positive parenting continued throughout childhood and adolescence The tasks and concerns for parents of infants are noted on page 257 of Brooks: 1. Nurturant caregiving 2. Material caregiving 3. Social caregiving 4. Didactic (instructive) caregiving Two major tasks of parenting are reviewed in the text: establishing an optimal level of arousal and promoting infants’ self-regulation.