Blog - Early Childhood

At this time of year I often reflect on my traditions, and what they mean to me and my family. Traditions connect one generation with another, bringing shared family values into our daily lives. Our Children learn what we hold dear, what is important and necessary to us, through our incorporation of these values into our home life. Families are as unique as the people within them, and traditions exemplify these differences.

Why Set Limits?

Children need to feel safe and secure in order to learn. When a child has no boundaries, he/she feels out of control or anxious. Boundaries are not punitive, they are comforting and offer a place to try new things and explore safely. John Medina author of Brain Rules for Babies states, “The need for safety is so powerful, that the presence of rules themselves often communicates safety to children.” Parents easily set boundaries for infants, but find it harder once the child is mobile and becoming more independent.

Developing empathy is a process that starts at infancy and continues throughout our life. Taking on another’s perspective can be difficult at times even for an adult, but nearly impossible for a toddler. Empathy needs to be modeled by the caring and trusted adults in a child’s life. Observing a parent showing genuine interest and concern to another family- member, enables the child to experience empathy by noting their parent’s behavior.

Parenting is hard enough, but add in the challenge of a child with delay or disability and your tough job becomes almost insurmountable. Steady breathing, and a calm demeanor are not often attributed to parents of young children. Our children actually take our breath away when they act upon impulse or attempt a new challenge that puts them in danger. Of course the same is true when they accomplish something new or when they just crawl into our laps (and hearts) for some love.

It is all about the relationship. The most important factor for positive developmental outcomes for young children is the relationship with the significant caregivers in their lives. “Young children experience their world as an environment of relationships, and these relationships affect virtually all aspects of their development.” (Center on Developing Child Harvard University).

We could all use help calming down when big emotions overtake us. When we encounter a stressful situation, our body is flooded with physical and emotional responses. As adults we usually can find our way to the “other side” incorporating strategies that have worked in the past. Our children have had less experience and a less mature nervous system, and regulation is more difficult in times of anxiety and stress. Creating a daily calm down routine into our children’s life will serve them well as they grow and encounter more times of turmoil. Modeling your own daily mindful breathing, meditation, yoga or relaxation technique will give them the motivation to try.

Growing up in America has taken on a new dimension in the recent decades. Children are exposed to many more “truths” than they were in the baby boomer generation. Our generation hid the adult issues, talking in whispers when the children were around or sending them out to play when adults needed to talk. The old adage: Children need to be seen and not heard, was largely touted as the way to raise children. The advent of the 24 hour news cycle and the internet, however, opened up a world of wonder, knowledge and violence for everyone, including children.

Your baby’s brain is growing and growing and growing! At birth, her brain is 25% of its adult volume, but by age 3, her brain will have grown to 80% of its full size. Between conception and age three, a child’s brain undergoes an impressive amount of change. At birth, it already has about all of the neurons it will ever have. (Urban Child Institute).