“By the time babies start to talk they have already acquired a great deal of world knowledge…”
 
“… some senses of the self do exist long prior to self-awareness and language. 
These include the senses of agency, of physical cohesion, of continuity in time, of having intentions in mind, and other such experiences…”

Daniel Stern, MD, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, 1985.

“Through his powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has mainly depended” –
                                                                                    Charles Darwin
  
"With the … emergence (at around 18 months) of language… the child becomes a different being” –
                                                                                    Barbara Fajardo, Ph.D.
 
“Language… makes parts of our known experience more shareable with others…
But in fact language is a double-edged sword…
It drives a wedge between two simultaneous forms of interpersonal experience:
as it is lived and as it is verbally represented” –
                                                                                    Daniel Stern, M.D.

“I’m sick and tired of violence… I’m tired of war and conflict in the world.  I’m tired of shooting. I’m tired of hatred.  I’m tired of selfishness. I’m tired of evil. 
I’m not going to use violence no matter who says it!”– Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
“Parents… have come to realize that children can be well behaved, cooperative, and polite without ever having been punished physically.”– Benjamin Spock

Parents: What Do You Feel?

Dealing with young children can stir up such intense feelings. What feelings get triggered in us as parents? 

Where do they come from?  How do we deal with them?  What feelings do toddlers in particular stir up?

"Darwin argues that our expressions of emotion are universal (that is, innate, not learned) and the product of our evolution. Neither our expressions nor our emotions are unique to human beings; other animals have some of the same emotions, and some of the expressions shown by animals resemble our own."

Paul Ekman in his introduction to the Third Edition (1998) of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ( 1872) .

If feelings are so important — they do cause behaviors, after all — what are feelings? How do they work?

There is a revolution occurring in infant and child development.  Three issues have converged recently to help us understand much better the world of early childhood and how we can help our children get off to a good start in life.

In the May Newsletter, we discussed the benefit of listening to our children, especially to their feelings. Let's focus now on how useful it can be to discover what our children are interested in.

During infancy, the baby communicates through facial expressions and gestures and sounds. These signals are called feelings ― interest, enjoyment, surprise, distress, anger, fear, shame, disgust (reaction to toxic tastes), and dissmell (reaction to toxic odors).

Sometimes turning things on their heads — turning things upside down — allows us to see issues differently and make important changes.