Confident Babies
Babyhood
Infancy is a strange period of life. Little babies look adorable but not very bright. But looks can be deceiving. Although the body seems helpless, that brain is alive and well. Babies are mean learning machines, taking in everything about their environment and recording it for life. And YOU are a big part of that recording. What are these little guys learning?
They are absorbing the rhythms of your life, the home you’ve brought them into. They absorb the cadence of the languages you expose them to and the sounds of the words you speak to them. They absorb the movements of their household, the noises, the feels, the schedules, the activities. They get the mood. They feel the emotional quality. The way people hold them, talk to them, sing to them—it all gives these little tiny people vital information. Is this a safe place? Is it calm? Is it chaotic? Is it fun? Is it dangerous?
Developing Trust
The first step in psychological development is the foundation of trust. Babies are one hundred per cent dependent on you. They cannot do anything for themselves apart from opening their mouths to cry. Now crying can, in fact, be a fairly powerful action—if it yields some results in the real world. Indeed, parents who respond promptly to their baby’s cries actually teach the baby that he can affect the world. The baby can ask for what she wants and can expect to get it (or at least, some action will be taken). Knowing that she can make things happen gives the baby a sense of optimism and a sense of competence. She’s not so helpless after all. It also helps her to trust the world she’s landed in. It seems that people really care. They come to put her out of her misery. This is not such a bad place to be. And when these people succeed at offering her what she’s really needing or longing for, then the world is actually a good place. The baby is comforted; glad to be here. Feeling right at home.
Of course, all this learning comes from being responded to regularly and predictably. What happens when this is not the case? What does the baby learn then? Naturally, when you do the one thing you can do (in this case, cry) and nothing happens, then you learn not to waste your energy. Even babies can figure out that there’s no point in crying in some circumstances, and so they don’t. In fact, parents hope to capitalize on this learning ability of infants when they try to train them to sleep through the night. The baby cries, but no one comes. This happens again and again and again, until the baby figures out that no one will be coming so he might as well stop screaming! When he learns this, the parents are happy because hopefully they can catch some sleep. This is all fine and dandy for night time scheduling, but what happens if the baby’s daytime experience is similar? He cries but people don’t come. Same thing. The baby learns that nobody is coming and he soon stops crying. But now it is more obvious that he has also learned that there is no point in expressing his needs because clearly no one is going to respond. He is really trapped (in his little ineffective body) and helpless. His attitude (yes, babies develop attitudes) becomes pessimistic. “I can’t make things happen. There’s no point in trying.” The little guy stares into space like a zombie. He sits that way in his stroller and baby swing. He’s turned off. The world isn’t a great place.
What happens when the baby experiences an inconsistent response from his environment? Care-takers or parents respond sometimes and don’t at other times (for adult reasons). Can the baby rely on his adults? Suppose you make lunch dates with a person who only shows up 60% of the time. Do you trust that person or not? How committed is this lunch time relationship? What happens when you really, really need to talk to this person on a certain day and you set up the lunch date and the person doesn’t show up? How do you feel? How does the relationship feel? Babies are people in very small packages. They feel like you and I do. They may not be able to do calculus, but they are very capable of reading people and emotions—in fact this is their forte. They get the picture loud and clear.
The baby is not only monitoring responses to her cries. She is also registering the quality of response. Is the responder gentle or rough? Loud or soft-spoken? Calm or rushed? Patient or impatient? All aspects of the response experience inform the baby about the world she’s landed in. She will soon know what to expect. She will learn to trust or mistrust accordingly.
Confidence and insecurity are not only learned—they are also genetically determined. Some babies are born with anxious, insecure genes and will spend their lives working to increase self-confidence and trust. Some are born with confidence in every cell. However, both the genes and the environment impact on the developing child. While there is nothing we can do about the genetic inheritance of a child, there is much we can do about his or her environment.
What Babies Teach Us
Do you want to help your baby develop a deep sense of trust? Do you want him to be excited, optimistic and confident? In the first stage of life, when your baby cannot yet talk and can’t even sit up or crawl, there is something you can do to help him develop a foundation of optimistic trust. Do your best to respond to his cries consistently, and consistently try do this in a gentle, patient way. Reduce yelling and other forms of parental drama. Although there will be times when you cannot respond to your baby, do what you can reasonably do to minimize them. Don’t make yourself sick or crazy trying to meet the needs of anyone, including your infant; simply do what you can do. If you manage to make your home a safe haven for your new little arrival and for all of you who live there, the baby in you will be happy too.
