Infants aren’t initially much more than wet noisy pets. They can’t survive without continual adult nurturing, and they tend to get it. Elevated levels of the neurochemicals that enhance bonding in infants and their parents help to initiate and maintain the fascination that parents and children have for each other.
Our upright stance and consequent narrow female birth canal led to a human birth brain that’s only one-third its adult size. A four-legged mother cat, has a relatively wider birth canal, and so her kittens are born with an almost completely developed brain. Feral cats can therefore survive independently when weaned.
Our brain’s post-birth maturation takes about twenty years, divided into a 10-year sheltered childhood, during which basic survival systems mature, and the child learns how to identify the central elements of a challenge; and a 10-year more independent adolescence, during which young people begin to bond with each other, and develop the cultural knowledge and skills necessary for a productive autonomous adult life.
The first several years of each of these decades (the preschool and the middle school years) are characterized by the slow, awkward initial development of the cognitive systems that mature during that period. Informal play and games, and introductory activities guided by parents and educators jump-start the systems that develop more rapidly during the final years of the decade.
Although I had been an elementary school teacher for three years when our first child was born, I recall being quite uninformed about many parental skills and responsibilities. We got better at parenting as time went on and more children arrived, but I suspect that most new parents muddle through infancy as we did.
How nice, therefore, to read Jill Stamm’s excellent informative new book, Bright from the Start: The Simple, Science-Backed Way to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind From Birth to Three (2007, Gotham). Paula Spencer and Kristin Stamm McNealy collaborated with her in the development of the book.
Stamm’s multi-handicapped first child was born four months prematurely. It was a situation that would perplex an experienced parent, but the Stamms made a decision to educate themselves about their daughter’s condition, and to rear her as best they could. A second daughter is currently a PhD candidate in neuroscience, so the Stamms have experienced a broad developmental range in their two children.
The result is that Jill ended up with the knowledge about child development and learning that a PhD program provides, and she has used that knowledge to help her daughters and also countless other parents and children through her work as Director of the New Directions Institute for Infant Brain Development (www.newdirectionsinstitute.org), and as a clinical professor at Arizona State University.
Major scientific advances in our understanding of our brain’s organization and development, and major technological developments that purport to enhance cognitive development have actually made contemporary parenting more difficult. Earlier generations didn’t know about such things as the lead levels of toys, and simply relied on parental folklore to do the best they could. They typically didn’t feel guilty that they didn’t do all that was possible when so much about child development was a biological enigma.
What Stamm and her collaborators do in Bright From the Start is to demystify the scientific base of early brain development and the effect of currently available computerized gadgets and programs. They place personal parental contact into the center of the early developmental period. Their major point is that direct constant parental care is the most important need of a birth to age three child.
The book is organized around Stamm’s ABC’s of parenting: Attention, Bonding, and Communication. The chapters provide relevant non-technical information on the underlying science of each of the three concepts and its related elements, and a wealth of practical advice on how to enhance the development of the relevant biological systems. This includes information on useful resources, and helpful critiques of various (often computerized) commercial parenting aids.
Attention is a requisite for any receptive or responsive behavior, and so much of our attention system is innate. Parents and other caregivers thus need to understand how attention functions and how to enhance it—in terms of such elements as time span, distractions, and vacillations between active and passive attention. Many parents are currently concerned about the effects of electronic media on a child’s attentional capabilities.
Bonding is the strong emotional attachment that humans develop for selected others. Our species’ survival requires innate and immediate bonding between infants and their parents, but the book also suggests deliberate tactile and other interactive activities that enhance the process. Many parents who work outside the home are concerned about the bonding issues implicit in the selection of an appropriate day care program.
Communication is the natural adjunct of bonding. The emergence of speech through the music of parentese has been a delightful experience for parents throughout human history, and the joyful fascination we all have in observing language emerge in a child enhances the process. The discovery of mirror neurons provides us with an enhanced understanding and appreciation of the importance of modeling behavior in the early life of a child.
Bright from the Start is a marvelous, informative, well-written book on early parenting that also provides an intriguing view of what occurred within the lives of the Stamms as their two children developed. With the holidays approaching, the book would be excellent gift to new parents.
