Baby Babble

Good to Know: An explanation for your child’s irritability

Do you get exasperated when your child is irritable for days on end for seemingly no reason? Well, child psychologist Dr. Rachel Bryant assures you that indeed there is a reason: Your child is developing. While kids are developing physically and mentally all the time, their neurological—or cognitive—development happens in stages, like in leaps and bounds. It’s like something “clicks” in your child (whether he is 2 or 12!), and he may not want to be interrupted while he figures out his new capacities. Since cognitive development (just like any development) happens at a different pace for everyone, your child may get frustrated when you or anyone else interrupts his learning process—no matter how well-intentioned you are.

How can you make it though the next bout of irritability and temper tantrums? Dr. Bryant suggests giving your child a little space to figure things out on his own, but let him know you are still interested in what he’s doing. Your child is trying to embrace a little bit of independence, but he still needs to know you love him and care about his interests.

Mind your baby and baby will mind you, later

It seems like maybe we already knew this, but now researchers at the University of Iowa have pretty much determined that a "close, positive, reciprocal, and mutually responsive relationship" with their mothers in the first two years of a child's life will create kids who are more obedient, with better behavior.  The small study included 120 families and observed how the children reacted in some usual situations.  The way a child responds is somewhat due to their biology, but also to the relationship between the child and his/her parents.  The children involved in the study will be followed until they are 8 years old when, as one expert thinks, that strong parental relationship will continue to help with behaviors. The study's conclusions appeared in the most recent issue of the Journal of Child Development.

Care the comment? Click onto "comments" just below.

What's up with the pre-schoolers?

Child devleopment experts are noticing what appears to be a nationwide trend--pre-schoolers behaving badly.  According to this report from the Wall Street Journal, pre-schoolers are displaying more aggression, more tantrums, a lack of ability to cooperate and more fighting.  The trouble is, nobody's sure why. Researchers at the top universities---Yale, Rutgers, Cornell--are taking this on as a challenge and a problem that needs to be taken care of before things get too out of hand.

Nobody's certain what's causing this bad behavior. Some blame too much emphasis on academics. Some blame family issues or being in child care settings too early.  Others say it may be related to an increased incidence of Attention Deficit Disorder.  Whatever the cause, the feeling is that things have gotten worse within the past decade.

Check out this article further for a few tips on how to build a foundation of strong emotional and social skills in your child.

For more on this topic, check out this report from ABC News.

And, what do you think? Have any ideas for why pre-schoolers are behaving badly? Write us here using the "comments" button just below.

News flash: Your child is not you

So you're an out-going friendly sort of person who can hold your own among strangers and you've always been this way?  And, you say you can't figure out why your child seems to be shy and withdrawn in new situations? "She's just so different from me," you might say.

Well, that may be your first step toward parenting success.  A child's temperament is indeed pre-determined--a set of traits he or she seems to come equipped with right out of the bag, according to the book "Temperament Talk." It's human nature to assume everyone responds to the world in the same way that you do.

The authors say that if you can identify your child's temperament, you can successfully learn to help him or her grow into it and be the best person he or she can be.  For the shy child, for example, a parent could learn to pay attention to situations that bring out that shyness and help the child move into that situation slowly, rather than pushing too fast and too hard.

"Temperament is a set of traits each of us is born with - our own unique style that is the starting point of personality. It is what makes some things easy, other things hard, and determines how a person goes about almost everything she/he does. Temperament isn't good or bad. Like eye or natural hair color, it just is."

Here's a way to start to understand what's just behavior and what's temperament:

Ask yourself:

1. Did the behavior start when your child was under 4 years of age?
2. Is the behavior hard to change?
3. Did you teach your child to behave this way?

If it's yes to the first two and no to the third, we're probably talking temperament here.

Got a child temperament story to tell? Write us here with all the funny news. Just click on "Comments" just below.

Lions, monkeys and elephants? What's your child's type?

Well, we all know thos folks in the United Kingdom ave their wacky side, but maybe this parenting idea has some merit? A parenting expert /author there suggests that we all try to imagine which animal our child's behavior most often resembles. Doing so may help us empathize with the child and encourage good behavior on his or her part.

A lion type, for example, is competitive, while an elephant type is rather laid back.  An owl? Considerate and thoughtful of course, while monkeys really like to fool around and seek the attention of others. 

Which is yours? Well, before you go grab the nearest lion costume off the shelf, keep in mind most children are a mixture of animals and shouldn't be labeled for life.  It's just a useful tool to get a grip on where your child may be coming from next time he's swinging from the trees (or you are).

What do you think of this animalistic theory to parenting? Write us here with your thoughts. Use the "comments" button just below.

Are the "Terrible Twos" inevitable?

Here's a question for you:  Must every child experience the "Terrible Twos,"--that period of a child's young life when he or she suddenly becomes demoniacally possessed and has meltdowns at the drop of a cookie?

We're sorry to report that the answer to this question appears to be: Yes.

Michele Borba, author of a parenting book called "Don't Give Me That Attitude!," suggests that the terrible behavior that comes with being age 2 relates to the total and complete egocentric view of the world the child has now developed.  A two-year-old wants to assert him- or herself, but just doesn't have the communications skills to do it "properly."  Instead, the meltdowns, the screaming, the kicking, the crying.  It's totally normal--not that that will help you any as a parent.  Borba says that reasoning with a child having a tantrum is like "reasoning with a goldfish." 

The best tactic is to remove the child from whatever situation "caused" the tantrum.  And to...ahem..speak in a soothing voice to the child.

And, not to fear--the tantrums are usually gone by age 4.

Got a tantrum-coping strategy to share? Did your child skip the Terrible Twos?  Write us with your story here, by clicking "comments" just below.

Dr. Sears comments on disciplining a 14-month-old

Wendi asked a few weeks ago: "What is the best way to discipline a 14-month old? I try redirecting behavior, but it doesn’t work."

We sent her question to Dr. William Sears, a Stonyfield Farm partner and considered "America's Pediatrician."  Here's his response:

Discipline, in a nutshell, is giving your children the tools to succeed in life. Disciplining toddlers means conveying to them the behavior you expect. A toddler simply "behaves" impulsively. Your job is to channel that behavior and direct it into safe and self-controlled actions. Here’s the main discipline tip that we have learned in parenting our eight children and in 35 years in pediatric practice – get behind the eyes of your child. That phrase is one of the most helpful starter tips for discipline that we have found in our family.

Let me give you a little background at how we arrived at this discipline technique. One day our 18-mont-old, Lauren, was throwing a temper tantrum and was pushing my anger button. Martha got down to her eye level and used just the right words and appropriate actions to settle Lauren. I was impressed with her discipline reaction, so I asked Martha: "What did you do?" She said, "I got behind the eyes of Lauren and asked myself if I were Lauren how would I want my mother to act?"

Toddlers push anger buttons and many of your discipline techniques will require on-the-spot decisions. Before reacting too impulsively to your child’s behavior, first ask yourself, "If I were…how would I want my mother/father to act?" You’ll be amazed at how appropriately you will respond. Once you get in the habit of thinking this way, this will carry through to more effective discipline at all ages.

Teach your child this is the behavior you expect. There are "yes touches" and "no touches," such as: "No, you may not play with the knife, but you may play with the spoon. This is the distract and substitute technique.

Above all, don’t spank. In our family, we believe in whatever discipline technique works but, in our experience, spanking simply doesn’t work. It causes a distance between spanker and spankee and makes the child even more angry and difficult to discipline.

Lasting discipline requires a trust relationship between the authority figure (the parents) and the child. Spanking weakens this trust. Think of discipline first as having the right relationship with your child (i.e. trust) and secondly using the right techniques.

Care to comment? Use our comment feature below. Or, send us your questions for Dr. Sears and we'll see that he gets them!

Swaddling good up to 8 weeks

While the ancient practice of swaddling young babies is an excellent one, new research shows that it may not benefit babies once they reach about 8 weeks of age. Researchers compared swaddling with having the parents follow "regularity" --a set pattern of behaviors with their infants that included sleeping, feeding, positive interaction, and then baby alone time. They also reduced stimuli for the child. All this was in an effort to determine if these methods could reduce excessive crying, defined as crying for more than three hours a day in the previous week. A regular routine, plus swaddling turned out to be best for babies 7 weeks or younger, while those older seemed to do best with just the routine. The findings suggest that swaddling could be quite beneficial for pre-term or very small babies, to help calm them.

Did you practice swaddling with your baby? Write and tell us your experiences by using the "comment" feature below.

But how do those babies stay on the couch?

Some folks in Britain are turning to psychiatrists when they are troubled by their newborn's behavior.

The psychiatrists, apparently, are helping the parents and the baby understand one another.  Whether it's excessive crying or difficulty sleeping, babies as young as three months are being brought to psychiatrists by parents who want to get at the root of the problem, or feel they just haven't "connected" with their baby. The psychiatrists practicing in this field say that newborns can communicate and express their feelings, and that kind of early bonding is crucial to a child's normal mental health development.

What do you think? Have you or anyone you know taken their infant to a psychiatrist? Write us here using the comment feature below.

Tantrum tactics. What are yours when baby blows a gasket?

Over at The Parenting Weblog, one mom is discussing tantrums among toddlers and the various ways parents handle them. Do you "reason" with the child? Distract him or her? Placate him with something else or give in to his demands?

We're sure that with all your parenting experience out there, you've come across some tactics that work and some you're...well...willing to admit were not such great ideas. Send us your ideas and we'll post them here in a future Baby Babble blog.

For now, read up on what the experts say are the reasons for tantrums (other than just being a toddler).

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<--We know this child will never throw a tantrum!








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