From the Sinton forum
One summer, a German family was visiting us at our dacha. Sabina, Gernet and 3-year-old Robert. So I “peeped” a wonderful family rule from them, which, before this acquaintance, we did not apply at home.
Four multilingual children aged 2-4 running around the site is not very easy. But, no matter when and with what Robert turned to his parents — whether it was a roar or a request, or just wanted to say something, share — always (whatever the parents were doing at that moment) he was guaranteed 30 seconds. the closest parental attention. Once the case was limited to a couple of seconds, once it took a minute or two — but not once did the parents say to their son: “You are bothering us.”
Jean Ledloff
From Jean Ledloff. How to raise a happy child.
Should the mother always meet the needs of the baby in her presence and attention? There are fears that excessive attention leads to spoilage.
Evolution has provided babies with the signals and gestures that ensure healthy development, and the most intelligent way to respond to them. As parents, we must follow our impulse to rush to our babies when they cry, smile back at them, talk to them when they babble, and so on. ‘is necessary, and our relations with them will develop in the most favorable way if we follow their promptings.
This position has been shown to be supported by the research of Ainsworth and others. Attachment of one-year-olds to parents was strong if they reacted sensitively and quickly to the signals of their babies. At home, these babies cry less than other babies and are relatively independent. Apparently, they develop the feeling that they can always get the attention of a parent if necessary, so they can relax and explore the world around them. Of course, such babies keep track of where the parents are; the attachment system is too strong to be completely turned off. But even in the new environment, they do not show excessive concern about the presence of the mother. On the contrary, they use it as a reliable starting point for their research. They venture away from it to study their surroundings, and although they look back and perhaps return to it from time to time, they resume their exploration after a short time. «This picture,» said Bowlby, «shows a good balance between exploration and affection» (1982, p. 338).
Parents, according to Bowlby, can raise a spoiled and pampered child. But this will not happen as a result of their excessive sensitivity and responsiveness to the signals of the baby. If we look closely, we see that the parent takes all the initiative. A parent can get close to a child or pour out love on him, whether the child wants it or not. The parent does not focus on the child (p. 375).
In recent years, many parents have found a new way to intervene. They provide their babies and toddlers with all sorts of early stimulation, from educational pictures to computers, in an attempt to speed up their children’s intellectual development. Ainsworth considered this parental behavior to be unhealthy because it takes too much initiative from the child (quoted in Kagen, 1994, p. 416).
Parents can do more good, argue Ainsworth and Bowlby, if they give children the opportunity to follow their own interests. Often parents can do this simply by being available to the child, providing him with a reliable starting point in his research. For example, when a little girl wants to climb a big rock or take a dip in the surf, the presence of a parent is necessary for the safety of the child and for assistance if needed. But the child does not need the supervision and instructions of the parent. All he needs is the availability of a patient parent. This alone gives him the necessary confidence to boldly master new activities and explore the world himself.
As children mature, they can successfully spend longer and longer periods of time completely separated from their primary caregivers. Five-year-olds can go to school for half a day or more, and teenagers can spend weeks or even months away from home. However, we all navigate life’s challenges with the greatest confidence when we know that we have a home, kept by our family or companions, to which we can return. “All of us, from cradle to grave, are happiest when life is organized as a series of excursions, long or short, from some secure starting point provided by our object(s) of attachment” (Bowlby, 1988, p, 62 ).
Divorce
Bowlby, as we have seen, was one of the first to draw attention to the potentially harmful effects of parental separation. His work with James Robertson in the early 1950s convinced many that placing a small child in a hospital with infrequent contact with parents causes great distress to the child, and over the years more and more hospitals began to allow mothers and fathers to live in the same room with their young children.
Bowlby’s work also has implications for the selection of adoptive parents and caregivers. If we need to move a child from one family to another, we must take into account the baby’s attachment stage. If possible, the most sensible thing seems to be to place the baby in permanent home conditions for the first few months of life, before he begins to direct his love to any one person. Separation is likely to be most painful between 6 months and 3-4 years of age. At this time, the child’s attachments are intensely formed and the independence and cognitive abilities to cope with separation in an adaptive manner are lacking (Ainsworth, 1973).
Boarding deprivation
As noted, Bowlby was also one of the first to draw attention to the potentially harmful effects of upbringing in orphanages. In the early 1950s he noticed that in many orphanages contact between children and adults is so rare that children are unable to attach themselves to any of the adults. Bowlby’s writings had a positive impact on this area as well.
In 1970, continuing the same tradition, pediatricians Marshall Klaus and John Kennell began to argue that the usual hospital care for a newborn baby was already a kind of boarding deprivation. Prior to this, maternity hospitals typically kept newborns separated from their mothers for extended periods of time. The baby was in the children’s ward, and he was fed every 4 hours. This practice served to prevent infections, but the main effect, according to Klaus and Kennell (1970), was to prevent mothers from beginning to bond with their babies. This is especially undesirable because the first few days may constitute a «sensitive period» in the bond formation process.
Klaus and Kennell (1970, 1983) pointed out that For much of human evolution, mothers have carried newborns on their backs, and in this maternal environment, the babies exhibited reactions and qualities that facilitated the formation of attachment from the very beginning. Newborns open their eyes wide and perk up for a short time, stop crying when they are on the shoulder of an adult, rejoice at being nursed, and amaze their parents with their cuteness. Such reactions and qualities immediately arouse in the mother a feeling of love. She loves her baby, who looks at her attentively, who is comforted by her hugs, who enjoys her breasts and who looks so adorable. Thus, the mother immediately begins to establish a connection with the baby — or began before the advent of modern maternity hospitals.
KlauS & Kennell (1983) pointed to a number of studies showing that development is more successful when mothers and babies are given at least a few extra hours of care during their stay in the maternity hospital. Mothers appear more confident and calm and breastfeed more often, and babies appear happier. However, critics make a strong case that Klaus and Kennell exaggerated the extent of research support (Eyre, 1992). Despite this, Klaus and Kennell have awakened interest in the earliest stages of attachment and have had a positive impact on maternity hospital policies that now allow for closer mother-infant contact.
Day Care (American Nursery)
With more and more American mothers working outside the home, families are turning to day care centers for help and enrolling their children at ever younger ages. Indeed, day care for infants (children up to 12 months of age) has already become quite common.
To some extent, day care has become a political issue. Some people argue that day care supports women’s right to professional careers. Others advocate day care because it allows poor parents to work and earn more money. Nevertheless, Bowlby (Kagen, 1994, chap. 22) and Ainsworth questioned its usefulness. Does early day care interfere with bonding with a parent? What are the emotional effects of daily separation from parents in the first few years of life?
Research on these issues is still incomplete, but it is clear that even infants who spend several hours a day in a day care center bond primarily to their parents rather than to caregivers at the center (Clark-Stewart, 1989). It is also clear that children who are placed in day care centers after 12 months of age generally do not suffer negative consequences — provided that day care is of good quality (provided by permanent staff who take care of the needs of each child). But many researchers are concerned about children who are placed in day care centers before 12 months of age. These babies often have an insecure, avoidant attachment to their parents. Yet it appears that this risk can be offset by sensitive, responsive parental behavior and high-quality day care (Rutter & O’Connor, 1999; Stroufe et al., 1996, p. 234-236). The trouble is, quality day care isn’t always easy to find or afford.
In a sense, the search for quality day care actually reflects the broader problems of modern society, as Bowlby (1988, pp. 1-3) and Ainsworth (1994, p. 415) have tried to point out. Previously, in rural communities, parents could take their children with them to work in the fields or workshops, and may have received a lot of help from grandparents, aunts and uncles, teenagers and friends. It was also a time of play and socialization with children. In today’s hectic world, the situation is different. Parents usually live apart from their relatives and have to raise their children alone, and often come home from work too tired to be truly responsive to their children. Trying to set aside half an hour of «quality time» for the kids every night only shows how busy the parents have become. Thus, while quality day care may seem desirable, in reality, parents need work and social innovations that will allow them to spend significantly more time with their children, relaxing and enjoying it.