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Sleep Patterns in Children

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Children’s sleep issues are among the more challenging developmental stages for parents to master.  But biology is on the parents’ side in this one, because sleep patterns mature over time just like other developmental skills.

  • Polls tell us that one-third of American children and their parents sleep together some or most of the time before children start school. Co-sleeping varies hugely by culture and ethnicity. So think about what you want to do, and discuss the pros and cons with your pediatrician.
  • Make sure your crib is safe (locking rails), that your older child’s ‘big bed’ has side rails, and if you are co-sleeping, that there is plenty of room.
  • The human brain is active during sleep, but the deepest sleep is typically at the beginning of the night.  Babies spend more time than older children in stimulating REM sleep, with eye movements and irregular breathing. Don’t worry about all that action in your child’s body – it too is growth.
  • Start them young – do not ignore the importance of naps, watch for the yawn, and start bedtime early in the evening.
  • The transition from crib to bed is also a time of sleep pattern changes, but most kids want it to work.
  • To instill good sleep habits remember that consistency matters so much:
    • Bath Time
    • Goodnights
    • Tuck and Talk Bedtime Story
    • Lullabye (yours are best)
    • Goodnights

This all sounds well and good, but it is a rare family that hasn’t had to handle some sleep trouble along the way.  If your family is trying to re-establish a lapsed routine, stay calm and reassuring.  We almost all need more sleep than we get, and it is a tremendous gift to our children to teach them how to sleep well.

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Biting

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Why does a nearly universal event in a child’s development evoke such strong feelings? Odds are – as children we were either a biter or a victim – and often both. Plus, biting hurts and frightens us a lot. And though we know aggression is a normal part of development, regular cruelty is not, and we fear the connection between the two.

Some thoughts to help us manage:

  • Infant Boy AWhen children first bite, it is often their mother while breast-feeding, and their motive is most probably curiosity – not aggression. Mothers should send the following message to their infant: “Ouch, no and if you bite, you lose the breast – end of discussion.”
  • Biting often begins as exploration, but may be quickly associated with out-of-control feelings or feelings of being overwhelmed – with excitement, fear or curiosity. Parents should manage these feelings by staying as calm as possible and firmly saying:
    • “No one likes biting, especially me.”
    • “You just cannot bite.”
    • “I’ll help you stop until you stop yourself.”
  • Parents often fear biting at school most. Peers, especially close ones, are fascinated by each other’s aggression, and the dramatic reactions it evokes. Adult overreaction just makes things more exciting! Experienced teachers have radar for when ‘the chompies’ are in the air and become particularly vigilant.
  • If all adults involved in a biting incident are convinced that it was not an isolated but willful, premeditated event, both children should be kept safe.  Adults should explore the language of what went on and be able to offer alternative responses.

Finally, it bears stating – parents should never bite children back. Believe me, I understand the impulse, but all you accomplish is establishing mutual violence as an acceptable value in your family, embarrassing yourself, and degrading the natural authority you have with your children.  They want your help with this stuff, not your indulgence.

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Integrating Emotion & Learning in Everyday Moments

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Excerpt from Me, Myself and I

Your own ideas about how to integrating emotion and learning in everyday moments with your child are probably better than anything I could advise for you personally.  But here are some ideas and suggestions that might help you customize those ideas.

  • Family - Father DaughterTalk with your child. Hopefully, you have been doing that since the moment she was born.  Chat with her about what you and she are doing.  She’ll become part of the conversation sooner if you express to her what you love about being a parent.
  • Encourage curiosity and understand that repetition is a good thing for him, boring though it might be for you.  The neurological basis for the insistence on the familiar lies in the fact that when synaptic connections are repeatedly activated by the same stimulation, they become immune from elimination during the brain’s pruning process.  They survive to become permanent neural connections that enhance learning.  So go ahead and do what your child likes – over and over.  This is a good rut to be in.
  • Simply being nearby and available while your child plays on his own is so important, as is your willingness to interact.  So get down on the floor and stay awhile.  Of course, this is hard for working parents, but the effort is worth it.
  • Nothing beats reading. Children don’t learn interactive, conversational language from TV because it does not respond to them. Language and eventually reading are learned from being actively engaged in speaking and reading with others – hearing parents and caregivers talk to each other and waiting for the child to respond.
  • Children learn best in the context of their daily lives and when the amount and kind of stimulation fits their temperament, level of development, interests or preferences, and mood.  Pressure to perform or conform to high expectations can lead to stress that can sabotage learning through burnout and confusion.
  • Young children do not need to be taught how to think.  Science is careening ahead pursuing fascinating findings and ideas about how, even whether, children this age actually do think.  But our ignorance dominates our knowledge embarrassingly.  We are still understanding why they even want to think in the first place.  It is like walking or talking, unfolding in due course when the maturational timekeeper tells the mind-body duality, “Johnny: it’s time?”
  • The five-second check-in. Since most of us don’t spend our days staring endlessly at our toddlers and preschoolers, it is important that you take a few seconds to assess the mood, or state your child is in before you join in his doings, ask him to do something or simply interrupt him.  This is the feeling state that will determine his ability to understand or comply with whatever you might need, no matter how small.  If you are not tuned in, he probably won’t hear (i.e. learn).
  • Join your child. Follow her lead in activities she is already involved in.  Don’t take over – it will turn her off.  But if you want her to learn, become a partner in the exploration she has begun.  Add a ball to hide in the pots and pans scene, or move close and take her hand if she is wary of a dog on a walk.  Don’t instantly rescue (unless safety is an immediate concern) because you will lose one of those interesting moments of tension that could be mastered, leading a child to a wider, more complex understanding of the world.
  • If your child balks at a “learning” moment with you, it could mean you didn’t read the five-second check-in right.  Back up and let your child know you know what she is feeling first.  (“I guess you weren’t quite through,” or “It’s hard to have to stop when you are having fun doing X.”)  When the feeling domain feels appreciated, then the learning domain is less burdened.
  • If your child needs redirection after you have connected with his mood or feeling, ask softly what he might enjoy doing.  If you still have no luck make two suggestions of things he might do and help him choose.  He will probably need some pump-priming from you, since you can manage your own mood apart from his.  Remember, how you are in such moments, is as important as what you do.
  • If it’s important for you to initiate an activity that will bring you pleasure and you know it could be good for your child, like reading or going for a walk, stabilize your own mood first.  Only then can you help your child regulate hers.  Once done, then she can crawl up on your lap or get out the door and learn.  For some kids, it’s the other way around.  But for the majority, in the feeling and learning dance, it isn’t always possible to say who is leading.

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Worrying

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

As a (former) pediatrician and child psychiatrist for three decades, I increasingly respect the significance of children’s fears in shaping our shared everyday lives. Inconvenient though fears of the dark, animals, water, and monsters may be, they are meaningful clues about what children are trying to master about their world.

Worries all mean something, and we let our children down when we ignore and belittle, not to mention waste opportunities to master, so let’s spend a minute to understand them better:

  • Fears appear like clockwork in childhood. The adrenalin fears stimulate heightens learning of vital lessons, like when to run in the face of real danger, when to cry for help, and eventually to distinguish what is really dangerous (speeding cars) from what is not (family dog).
  • Fears only seem to emerge ‘from nowhere.’ Actually, they typically surface during periods of accelerated development – when children lose their old equilibrium while looking for a new one. Actively toilet- learning toddlers are often more afraid of the dark than before or after they get the potty thing solved.
  • Stranger anxiety begins when children start to crawl around and need to be more aware of who knows them and who doesn’t.
  • Other common fears which emerge and fade with predictability during preschool years may be insects, animals, loud noises, the dark (and its imagined inhabitants – monsters, witches, ghosts), high places, and parental loss to name a few.

Listen thoughtfully to your children as they describe their fear.  Their fears have their reasons, though they may not be instantly clear to you. Reassure your children that you’ll help them feel better- get your flashlight out and check under their bed.  Cuddle them a little extra during such times, and let them slip back toward babyhood a little.  Finally, when children work it out, remind them that they worked it out.  This will help them as new fears emerge.

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Early Stimulation

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Infant Girl Clapping

Brain research tells us that, of the 100 billion (!) nerve cells we are born with, the ones we are most likely to keep longest are the ones that are used regularly in our interaction with the world around us. This does NOT mean that we can increase our child’s intellectual or developmental competence through so-called ‘brain stimulation’ videos or surround-sound cribs.  Infants and toddlers enjoy learning first and best the things they learn in their relationships with the people that care for them.

Some things to keep in mind for the development of theirs:

  • Children can distinguish the voice of their father from their mother at birth – and their handling styles at six weeks.
  • The most useful kind of stimulation is the kind babies can manage, learn from, and interact with. Vocalizations like the coos and giggles they initiate should be returned in kind – matching volume, pitch, and rhythm if you can. Be alert because they’ll often throw in a variation. The same is true for older children who sing and initiate games like peek-a-boo or patty cake.  Tapes or videos are no match for the joy and value of ‘live.’
  • Want to encourage a positive self-image?  For babies, tender and frequent touch makes them feel treasured, and for toddlers and preschoolers, install a (safe) full-length mirror on the back of a door and provide dress-up or ‘pretend’ clothes and just watch them feel special.
  • Keep your eyes and ears open for emerging motor skills, interests, words, emotions, and feelings. When such competencies are new, they are both adorable and vulnerable.  Remember not to overwhelm children by requesting a ‘show’ of their new tricks. This can be over-stimulating and cause quite the opposite effect – anxiety about new abilities instead of confidence.  Let children practice and enjoy their new skill.

HOW you are as a parent with your children matters far more than any particular thing you may ever DO with them.  Development is not a race; it is a process that unfolds uniquely in each child. Rushing development erodes children’s belief in, and joy of, their own emerging abilities, replacing joy with frustration and discouragement – too high a price in my book.

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Music and Child Development

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Excerpt from Me, Myself and I

Music_boy-2Children have an innate appetite for music.  Music is the superb para-language between emotion, expression, and imagination.  Here in the musical world, feelings come together with play, movement, and memory in a way that is not ultimately dependent on language.  And that is precisely why it is so indispensable to the young child across culture and class.

All young children, even those with only minimal hearing, have a powerful, almost riveting affinity for music.  Research has shown that the fetus responds to musical cues from the middle trimester onward and never stops attending to it afterward.  And infants are the same.  Watch an infant’s face as you sing or play music.  Even words rarely elicit such a complex reaction.  The desire to move and bounce to, kick feet to, rock back and fourth to – even match the mood of – almost any musical stimulus is powerful in most children.

By the era we are discussing, play with music is so complex and rich, it probably teaches more economically than any formal kind of instruction.  The neurobiological processes underlying the appreciation and facilitation of music-assisted play and interaction involve the brain pathways for memory, hearing, balance, motor control, hormonal secretion, cognition, and, of course, emotion.  Talk about a big bang for the developmental buck!

Take the simple circle song “…all fall down” (I grew up with the version, “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” at which point everyone collapses to the ground while still trying to hold hands).  What is the expression on the child’s face as he anticipates the collapse, knowing exactly what is about to happen, evoked repeatedly by the senseless musical cue?  What role does cooperation play?  Motoric competence?  Interpersonal interest?  Memory?  Emotion?  Shared emotion?  Imagination?  Which element is primary?  What else in our world can stir such a mutual response across generations and cultures?  I can’t think of a thing.

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Playing With Your Child

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Excerpt from Me, Myself and I

The best way to know what your child thinks about his world before he can tell you directly in words is through playing with him.  It is right there, in their play sequences and manipulations that we see and hear what they understand and think about the world we share.

Remember, however, that this is his play, not yours.  You are a partner and a facilitator, occasionally a “go-fer,” but you are not playwright, producer or director.

  • When you play make-believe with your child using simple dress-up (hats alone are great), narrate her play: “And now you get on your hat.”  Describe what you think she is feeling: “Don’t you feel fancy (snazzy, cool…)?”  And listen for when you are not quite on track: “So, then what?”  Children often love to have you with them in these imaginary explorations of role and role-play and usually will do their best to keep you from getting lost along the way.
  • Use reflecting surfaces (mirrors, windows) as you play peek-a-boo with your child’s image and then yours, or add a little face paint or make-up as he explores what happens to his face as he, or you, add a dot here or a line there.  It helps him define who he is by enjoying the reflection of his face and feelings back and forth between you.  Doing this together just feels different and better and usually more important.
  • Sit together in the dark with a flashlight and give your child a sense that he has some control over what appears, reappears, and disappears into the darkness.  Narrate the experience with him, and match his level of emotional interest, as you share the job of turning the flashlight on and off together.  Sara, at 22 months, loved this game and called it the “good-bye light game.”  She seemed to be sorting out the comings and goings of important things and people as the lights went off and on.

There are countless other ideas available from books and magazines.  Borrow, invent, and reinvent games just for the two of you.

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TV Time

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Are you surprised that the American Academy of Pediatrics says no television before age two?  This standard alerts parents of infants, toddlers and preschoolers that their children are strongly affected by the talking tube and that they need to consider the way their children are exposed to its powerful influences.

  • If you chose to allow your children to view television, consider limiting the amount of “watching time” in their first three years to 30-90 minutes per day. This is more than enough for their young brains and eyes.  Children prefer, and benefit from, interacting with people far more.
  • The programming you chose should be specifically directed at the age of your child. Most good parenting magazines regularly publish guidelines that tend to be more objective and reliable than an advertiser’s suggestions.
  • Commercial-free is far better for eyes, ears, and minds.  Fewer interruptions and a generally higher level of intellectual and emotional content are the benefits.
  • A child’s room does not need a television. Television may inhibit a child’s desire to read and play imaginatively for years.
  • When your children watch television, watch with them.  They may need your help to decipher the barrage of messages, and only you know when they have had enough.  Occasional babysitting by means of television so you can get something done is understandable, but may be a waste of your child’s time and mind.

These guidelines should be discussed regularly by all adults in your household. The evening news may matter to the grown-ups, but it is frequently incomprehensible and somewhat frightening to your little ones. Media-literate parents are great blessings to their children.

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Fathering

Monday, January 18th, 2010

One of the principal behavior changes of American parents in the last generation centers on the wish that fathers be more involved day-to-day with their children.  My research on the issue of whether or not this is a good thing comes to two firm conclusions: 1) children raised by involved dads are thriving, healthy kids, and 2) fathers do not mother any more than mothers father.

So, what is unique about the way men parent, and does it matter to children?

  • Fathers roughhouse with their kids right from the beginning more than mothers. This is interesting to children, they respond to it, and even seek it out. It helps to build physical confidence in boys and girls.
  • Fathers allow frustration to build to elevated levels before intervening when their children are mastering something new. It turns out that dads think this helps children learn to handle frustration at manageable levels – preparing them for life’s uneven playing field. They are right.
  • Fathers may give their children more leeway in new circumstances while mothers tend to stay physically closer to their children in the park or at the mall.  Dads want children to explore. Children tend to like it, and learn independence from it.
  • Fathers use more real-world consequences to discipline whereas mothers use more social-relationship consequences.  Children who receive both integrate them well, giving them a stronger sense of internal control and self-discipline than children with uninvolved or absent dads.
  • Kids with involved dads – dads who have fed, changed diapered, bathed, and comforted (with the support of their spouses) – do better in school, have higher self-confidence, use less violent problem-solving themselves, and have stronger verbal skills.

Children can distinguish the voice of their father from their mother at birth – and their handling styles at six weeks. Any questions?  Just ask the kids what they think of fathering.

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Child’s Play in a Grown-up World

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Find ways to involve your children in the richness of your ‘grown-up’ life.  Be creative and patient because the results are worth your effort!

For young children, play is a lot more than entertainment. It is central to their development.  A wonderful way to play with and teach children is to bring them into your world, where ‘real-life’ happens.  Children love to do ‘grown-up’ things and to imitate you.  And when they contribute, they see themselves as players and get a well-earned self-esteem boost!

Children also learn about important values and concepts from watching you.  They see the result of practice and perseverance, and they come to know that learning is a lifelong process. They see that everyone, even a grown-up, can make mistakes and can learn from them.

There are two easy and enjoyable ways for your children to play in the grown-up world: you can let them help with your chores and you can include them in your favorite pastimes.

GardeningWork as play: Include your children in your household routine.  There are countless safe ways for children to help with meals, laundry, shopping or cleaning.  They can help mix recipe ingredients, pick fruit at the grocery store, water the garden or pack their lunch.  These activities are fun learning experiences, especially if you are teaching informally along the way.  The chores may take a little longer as they learn the ropes, make mistakes, and work at a snail’s pace, but the value for their learning and their self-regard are more than worth the extra time.

Hobbies and pastimes: Share your interests with your children.  This is one of the most intriguing, emotionally rich forms of learning that children can receive.  Teach your children about your avocations, and keep up with your piano, chess, painting, hiking or gardening.   Your enthusiasm for your hobbies will be infectious and offer many ways for your children to learn and develop skills.

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