by Jane Nelsen
Has any young child you know responded in these ways? Brain research suggests that punishment hampers optimal brain development, so it should come as no surprise that the punishments you’ve tried are not working. Take heart: You have not yet “tried everything.” The rest of this book will help you understand why punishment is not effective, and teach you what to do instead.
WHAT CHILDREN REALLY NEED
There is a difference between wants and needs, and your little one’s needs are simpler than you might think. All genuine needs should be met. When you give in to all wants, however, you can create problems for your child and for yourself.
For example, your child needs food, shelter, and attachment. He needs warmth and security. He needs to learn he is capable and can contribute. He does not need a tablet computer, a television in his bedroom, a miniature monster truck to drive, or even the color-coordinated baby stroller with built-in DVD player and vibrating seat. He may love staring at a television screen when he is only three months old, yet experts tell us that any kind of screen time at this age can hamper optimal brain development. He may want to sleep in your bed, but if you give him time to self-soothe in his own bed, he will develop a sense of self-reliance and capability. It is true that a child may love and want french fries and sweets, but if he is offered apple slices instead, you will be meeting his nutritional needs, instead of less healthful “wants.” You must decide what works in your family: If you give in to unhealthy wants, you could be setting the stage for childhood (and adult) obesity and many future power struggles with a child who feels entitled. You get the idea.
From his earliest moments in your family, your young child has four basic needs:
1. A sense of belonging (connection)
2. A sense of personal power and autonomy (capability)
3. Social and life skills (contribution)
4. Kind and firm discipline that teaches (with dignity and respect)
If you can provide your child with these needs, he will be well on his way to life as a competent, resourceful, happy human being.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONNECTION
“Well, of course,” you may be thinking, “everyone knows a baby needs to belong.” Most parents interpret this quite simply: He needs love. But love alone does not always create a sense of belonging or capability. In fact, love sometimes leads parents to pamper their child, to punish their child, or to make decisions that are not in their child’s long-term best interest.
Children who don’t believe they belong become discouraged, and discouraged children often misbehave. Notice the word “believe.” You may “know” your child belongs, but if he doesn’t believe it for some reason (the birth of another baby, being sent to his room without dinner, not spending enough time with a parent, etc.), he may try to get that feeling back in mistaken ways. In fact, most young children’s misbehavior (that is, behavior not related to developmental stages) is a sort of “code” designed to let you know that they don’t feel a sense of belonging and need your attention, connection, time, and teaching.
It is this deep sense of unconditional belonging and connection that researchers refer to as “attachment,” and that is so critical to a child’s healthy development. When you can create a sense of belonging and significance for every member of your family, your home becomes a place of peace, respect, and safety.
PERSONAL POWER AND AUTONOMY
Developing autonomy and initiative are among the earliest developmental tasks your child will face. (More about this in Chapter 8.) And while parents may not exactly like it, even the youngest child has personal power—and quickly learns how to use it. If you doubt this, think about the last time you saw a two-year-old jut out his jaw, fold his chubby arms, and say boldly, “No! You’re not the boss of me!”
Over and over we hear parents complain about power struggles with “strong-willed” children (we always wonder, “Would they rather have weak-willed children?”): children who won’t obey, won’t listen, or have temper tantrums. Some of this behavior is typical of a young child’s development, as children explore and experiment to discover who they are and what they can do. However, many of these power struggles are just that—power struggles—because parents take power away from children instead of guiding them to develop their inborn power in useful ways.
Part of your job as a parent will be to help your toddler learn to channel his power in positive directions—kind and firm distraction and redirection until he is old enough to help solve problems, to learn life skills, and to respect and cooperate with others. Punishment will not teach these vital lessons: effective and loving discipline will.
SOCIAL AND LIFE SKILLS
Teaching your toddler skills—how to get along with other children and adults, how to fall asleep by herself, how to feed and dress herself—will occupy most of your parenting hours in these early years. But the need for social and practical life skills never goes away. In fact, a true sense of self-worth does not come from being loved, praised, or showered with goodies. It comes from having skills that provide a sense of capability and resilience to handle the ups and downs and disappointments of life. When your child feels competent and capable, he will also be better able to contribute to the lives of others in his family and community.
When children are young, they love to imitate parents, grandparents, and other caregivers. Your toddler will want to push the vacuum cleaner, squirt the bottle of bathroom cleaner, and cook breakfast (with lots of supervision). As your little one grows more capable, you can use these everyday moments of life together to teach her how to become a competent, confident person. Working together to learn skills can occasionally be messy, but it’s also an enjoyable and valuable part of raising your child.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
1. What does “kind” mean to you? Make a list of behaviors you would describe as kind, or remember an action you witnessed that demonstrated kind behavior.
2. What does “firm” mean to you? Make a list of behaviors you would describe as firm, or remember an action you witnessed that demonstrated firm behavior.
3. Now combine these concepts. What would blend the kind behaviors on your list with firmness? What would help the firm behaviors on your list also demonstrate kindness?
4. What could you imagine doing in a situation with your child (or one in your care) that is both kind and firm? How might being kind and firm at the same time change your relationship with that child?
1 By Rudolf Dreikurs and Vicki Soltz (New York: Plume Books, 1991).
3
THE MIRACULOUS BRAIN
Helping Your Child Learn
Martin and Rosalie wanted only the best for their baby, Rachel. They spent at least half an hour every day speaking to Rachel while she was still in the womb; they held headphones against Rosalie’s bulging abdomen so the baby could learn to appreciate music. When Rachel was born, her proud and ambitious parents brought her home to a nursery equipped with every possible device to speed the learning process. She had special mobiles dancing above her crib; music played constantly; and Martin and Rosalie invested a small fortune in “educational” books, DVDs, and toys. They even purchased a baby carrier with a holder for Martin’s iPad and numerous sophisticated educational apps, and were delighted when Rachel seemed to be transfixed by the colorful images. They wanted to give their precious baby every opportunity in life, but is this the best way to achieve their goal?
Jeff and Carol also were eager to teach their son, but they chose a different approach. They spent hours talking, singing, and playing with ten-month-old Gregory. They gazed into his eyes, spoke to him frequently, responded to his cries and gestures, and encouraged him to explore his world. As Gregory crawled among his colorful toys, Jeff or Carol were often on the floor nearby, laughing when Gregory handed them toys and enjoying each new discovery. Evening often found Gregory perched happily on a parent’s lap, pointing a chubby finger at the images in a book as Mom or Dad read the story, with lots of different voices an
d a great deal of laughter. Gregory’s parents focused on building a strong and loving connection with their young son—and in so doing, hoped to set the stage for a lifetime of healthy learning and development. Were they?
There are many parents like Martin, Rosalie, Jeff, and Carol, loving people doing their best to get their children off to a good start and help them succeed in school, relationships, and life itself. Until quite recently, however, we had no way of knowing exactly what really worked. How do children learn? Are there ways to help them be more successful and to maximize their potential? Is it wrong to encourage early learning? What exactly is “success”? Do young children need academics, or social skills? Or are both equally important?
THE LIVING, GROWING BRAIN
Experts used to believe that babies were born with brains that were more or less “finished”; all that remained was to fill the waiting brain with the necessary information. Increasing awareness of brain function continues to change the way we understand the human brain (and the “mind” that is part of it)—and how babies and children learn about the world around them. Brain scans have allowed researchers to peer inside the living brain, observe its structure, and discover how it uses energy, blood flow, and special substances called neurotransmitters to think, to perceive, and to learn. What those researchers have discovered is extraordinary and makes it more important than ever for parents and caregivers to understand these critical early years of a child’s life.
The human brain begins life as a small cluster of cells in the fetus. By the fourth week of pregnancy, these cells have begun to sort themselves out according to the function they will one day perform and, to the wonder of researchers, have begun to “migrate” to the part of the brain they are destined to occupy. Nature provides the fetus with more cells than it will need; some do not survive the migration, while others join together in a network of connections called synapses.
The experiences and human relationships a child enjoys stimulate and shape the brain, and power the process of creating all the neurological networks that the child will need in life. By the time a child is two years old, his brain has the same number of synapses as an adult’s; by the age of three, he has more than one thousand trillion connections—twice as many as his parents and caregivers! By about the age of ten, a child’s brain begins to prune away excess synapses (those that haven’t been used enough). Then, during adolescence, a “second wave” of pruning and growth begins. The human brain is “under construction” throughout childhood and adolescence; in fact, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for good judgment, emotional regulation, impulse control, and other admirable “adult” qualities, is not fully mature until after the age of twenty!
As Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson write in The Whole-Brain Child,
Everything that happens to us affects the way the brain develops. This wire-and-rewire process is what integration is all about: giving our children experiences to create connections between different parts of the brain. When these parts collaborate, they create and reinforce the integrative fibers that link different parts of the brain. As a result, they are connected in more powerful ways and can work together even more harmoniously.
Contrary to what we once believed, the human brain never stops growing and never loses the ability to form new synapses and connections. Change may be more difficult as we age, but change—in attitudes, behavior, and relationships—is always possible.
The first three years, however, are especially important; what a child learns and decides about himself (“Am I loved or unloved, capable or not capable?”) and the world around him (“Is it safe or threatening, encouraging or discouraging?”) becomes part of the “wiring” of his brain. The outside world, which is experienced through a child’s senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, and touching), enables the brain to create or change connections. We also know that babies are not the “blank slate” we once believed them to be: “Babies and young children think, observe, and reason. They consider evidence, draw conclusions, do experiments, solve problems, and search for the truth.”1
While the brain is amazingly flexible and is able to adapt to change or injury, there are windows early in a child’s life during which important learning (like vision and language development) takes place. If those windows are missed, it may become more difficult for a child to acquire those abilities. For some functions, brain development is a “use it or lose it” proposition; for others, such as social skills development, learning continues well into early adulthood. Parents and caregivers shape a child’s world, and in so doing, they also shape his growing brain.
NATURE OR NURTURE?
Books, magazines, and research journals are filled with new studies on human genes and their importance in how we live and who we become. Researchers now believe that genes may have an even stronger influence on temperament and personality than we previously thought. There is evidence that genes influence such qualities as optimism, depression, aggression, and even whether or not a person is a thrill seeker—which may be old news to parents who are forever plucking their daring toddlers from the tops of walls, jungle gyms, and trees! Parents may find themselves wondering just how much influence they have on their growing child. If genes are so powerful, does it really matter how you parent your children?
The answer is that it matters a great deal. While a child inherits certain traits and tendencies through her genes, the story of how those traits develop is written as your child interacts with the world around her. (Brain researchers call these early reactions and decisions “adaptations.”) Your child may have arrived on the planet with her own unique temperament, but how you and her other caregivers interact with her will shape the person she becomes. (More on temperament in Chapter 10.) As educational psychologist Jane M. Healy puts it, “Brains shape behavior, and behavior shapes brains.”
It is no longer a question of nature versus nurture: A child’s inborn traits and abilities and her environment engage in an intimate, complicated dance, and both are part of who she will become. Even more important are the decisions your child will make about who she is and what she can expect from the world around her. Parents, fragile and imperfect, bear the responsibility for shaping a child’s environment. Especially in the first years of life, connection with caring and responsive parents and other caregivers is critical for your child. You influence the very structure and wiring of your baby’s brain; you influence the person she becomes and the future she will have.
“BETTER” BABIES
You may be wondering whether it is helpful to begin academic teaching early in life, as Martin and Rosalie did with little Rachel. After all, if brains are still growing for the first few years, shouldn’t you put in as much information as you can? Perhaps it will surprise you to learn that many brain researchers believe that the best way to provide a good foundation for learning is the old-fashioned way: allowing a child to explore his world through hands-on play.
No one can say for certain how much teaching and stimulation is “enough” for young children—but timing matters. Some researchers believe that it may even be harmful to force children to learn academics too quickly or to absorb concepts that their brains are not yet mature enough to handle. If the brain isn’t ready to learn abstract concepts (math, for instance), it may patch together a pathway of connections that is less effective than the one that would have been used later on—and the less effective pathway becomes “wired” in place. Early screen use, such as Martin and Rosalie encouraged with their daughter’s iPad exposure, raises concerns because we do not fully understand how it affects developing brain circuitry, not to mention whether the content is developmentally appropriate. There is also growing concern by researchers about the potentially addictive effects of screen time.
Premature emphasis on academics also has an emotional component. Children continually make decisions about themselves and the world around them. When children have difficulty mastering a concept introduced by loving parents or caregivers
, they may form the belief “I’m not smart enough.” This belief can override optimal development.
There are few absolutes in brain development, however. Each human brain is unique and special, and it is impossible to generalize about what is right or wrong for an individual child. Still, many scholars like Jane Healy believe that our fast-paced modern culture (and some of our “educational” games and technology) may be affecting children’s ability to pay attention, to listen, and to learn later on in life.
Experts such as Stanley I. Greenspan underscore the importance of following your child’s cues and signals, and responding first and foremost to emotional information. The ability to link feelings with communication (for example, interactions like those of Jeff and Carol with baby Gregory) emerges during a baby’s first year of life. Encouraging the growth of real relationships is among the most important tasks of early brain development. (You will learn more about emotional development in Chapter 6.)
“HARDWIRED TO CONNECT”: WHAT YOUR CHILD REALLY NEEDS
Babies and young children learn best in the context of relationships. The human brain changes both its structure and its function in response to the nature and quality of the relationships each person experiences (rather than the facts, figures, or academic information she acquires). What your little one most needs to learn in the first three years of life isn’t found on flash cards or electronic screens. Brain development is all about connection with other people, and your child’s brain is wired to seek connection from the moment of birth. How you and your child’s other caregivers relate to her—how you talk and play and nurture—is by far the most important factor in a baby or toddler’s development. Magda Gerber refers to infant caregivers as “educarers” and goes so far as to say that the daily tasks of feeding, toileting, and caring for babies are, in fact, the true heart of childcare in these early months and years. Such repetitive activities create the vital bonds and connections growing brains need.