Bed Timing

We're under construction... But still posting regularly!

This post will stay at the top of the blog until we're finished overhauling the look and organization of the blog. Check below for new posts! For those of you new to this blog, WELCOME! The blog used to be exclusively focused on children's sleep issues (hence the title, Bed Timing) but we've broadened it now to include all developmental topics. More information about what we're trying to do at this site here and here.

We're changing the name of the blog to Child of Mind: Developmental Science and Everyday Parenting.

Thanks to all of you who suggested titles; this was WAY harder than we anticipated. As many of you know, both Tracy and I are technologically-challenged. As a result, we are getting some talented folks to change the banner and tweak with the blog design for us. In the meantime, we'll still be posting regularly, so please join in the conversations and come back soon!

Friday Link Love: It's been a long week and I just need some funny to get through the last leg

I don't really know you guys that well, so I debated putting this up. But I figure you can tell me if you're offended just like the rest of the internets can yell at each other. And it might be fun, cathartic even!

I read this yesterday and snorted into my coffee several times. Do you guys know Cracked.com? It can be funny. If you're not into the f-word being bandied about (or any other "offensive" expletives) then it probably isn't for you.  After reading way too many studies this week about one thing or another that made almost no sense to me when I put it all together, this "article" offered such a refreshing perspective. I particularly liked the fact that it hit on several issues we've discussed here (either in a post or in the comments). In fact, the number 1 "Thing that Good Parents Do (That Screw Kids up for Life)" was the topic of last week's featured blog post -- and for the record, my rant seems like fairy dust compared to theirs.

So, for your weekend pleasure, The 7 Things "Good Parents" Do (That Screw Kids Up for Life)!

Have a good one!

-- Isabela

Get back to play and learn some self-control, Johnny!

Thanks to one of our readers, Bonnie, for suggesting the topic of today's post, this New York Times article. It would be silly for me to review the whole article here, given it's the NYTs and their writers are kinda good. So... go read it first and then we can talk a bit about some of the issues it raises.

Back?  Excellent!  So, the article presents a program that is attempting to teach children the kinds of self-control skills that we've been talking about this week -- not just delaying gratification, but also being able to shift attention when you have to, being able to SUSTAIN attention when you have to, being able to wait patiently for your turn, being able to persevere without being distracted until you've solved a problem, and so on. Unlike other school programs, this particular one (called Tools of the Mind) doesn't try to teach kids with explicit directions to control themselves, nor does it advocate using behavioural principles like negative feedback for "bad" behaviour and positive reinforcement for "good" behaviour. Instead, the program is designed to foster self-control by creating a learning environment that is steeped with opportunities to USE and practice these skills. A large part of the day is spent encouraging (and even "teaching") children how to engage in "productive" pretend play. Yes, they're TEACHING children how to pretend to be princes, princesses, mommy with baby, batman and robin, and so on, all with the idea that this helps children practice and get better at sustained attention and self-control. Here's the most interesting quote out of the the whole article for me:

"Bodrova and Leong drew on research conducted by some of Vygotsky’s followers that showed that children acting out a dramatic scene can control their impulses much better than they can in nonplay situations. In one experiment, 4-year-old children were first asked to stand still for as long as they could. They typically did not make it past a minute. But when the kids played a make-believe game in which they were guards at a factory, they were able to stand at attention for more than four minutes. In another experiment, prekindergarten-age children were asked to memorize a list of unrelated words. Then they played “grocery store” and were asked to memorize a similar list of words — this time, though, as a shopping list. In the play situation, on average, the children were able to remember twice as many words. Bodrova and Leong say they see the same effect in Tools of the Mind classrooms: when their students spend more time on dramatic play, not only does their level of self-control improve, but so do their language skills."

Interesting, huh? So, at least for the 3-6 year olds, making playdates (how I loathe that word) during which we encourage kids to dress up and play house, doctor, superheros and restaurant (and hope they leave us alone to eat our cake and gossip) is just what they need to acquire those self-control skills. MAAAAAAAAAAAAYBE.

The truth is, the jury is out on the science part of this claim. The crux of the article, if you read it all the way through, is that they're not quite sure IF this whole pretend-play focus and Tools of the Mind in particular works. Equally important, even if it does turn out that it works, they have no idea WHY. The current studies aren't even looking at the various elements in the program (and there are many) that may be facilitating greater cognitive and emotional control. And there are no other well-designed, replicated studies that have established effective strategies to teach children cognitive control. 

My guess is that there are some things we can do to help (provide lots of practice with waiting for a reward, teach self-distraction strategies, play games that require turn-taking, enforce rules about listening to others at the dinner table, etc.), but that the vast majority of children are in environments that already naturally foster these skills at develomentally appropriate ages. Executive function or cognitive control or whatever you want to call it has been shown to increase steadily over the ages of 2 and 5-ish (and it keeps going, just at a slower rate). For a fabulous paper (Carlson, 2005) that reviews the neuropsychological and cognitive studies, click on the first link in this Google Scholar search (I keep trying different ways to post original scientific papers through links on this blog). 

And in answer to the orginal question on Monday about what to do with a 1-year old that can't delay gratification: I'd say apart from Tracy's recommendations to just keep the enticing stuff out of sight, there's not much you can do... and that's TOTALLY fine. One-year olds don't have the mental capacity yet to control their impulses, thoughts, or emotions (nor will they until about the age of 2 and then, just barely).

So, at this point, your guess is as good as any scientist's: What do you do with your children that may be helping them to develop better self-control? Do you think there are some things we do that may delay these acquisitions?

-- Isabela

Step Away from the Chocolate Cake: Strategies to Help Delay Gratification

 I don’t know about you, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth. When confronted with oh say, a  slice of good quality chocolate cake, I’d have a hard time waiting to eat it, such as after eating all of my green vegetables. So all this talk about waiting to eat marshmallows got me thinking about how I would have fared with the marshmallow task as a child. Probably terribly (but can I just point out here that I’ve done okay…I’m just saying…). And naturally, I’m wondering what my son would do (read: what are his future prospects in life and other enormous parenting questions that I should know better than to worry about). So how do young children cope when they have to delay gratification?  What are those future Bill Gates doing to help themselves keep their little fingies off of those marshmallows? And yes, can parents influence this emerging development of self-control?

If you watched the video at the end of Isabel’s post on Monday (if not then try here), you were probably amused, as I was, at some of the strategies children attempted to keep from eating that sweet, seductive cloud of confection. They covered the gamut from the girl who just stuffed it into her mouth, unapologetically (even remembering to clear her plate from the table after wards – nice!), to the boy who pushed it up against his nose, to those who just studied it carefully. But it was the boy who turned his head to the side and just did not look at it, that really got me. Hmm… that seemed like it might help.

Turns out that in Mischel’s early work he gave children choices about what they could and could not look at while they were waiting such as the real reward vs. a colour photograph of it. He also asked them what they preferred to look at. Get this, preschool children actually looked at, and preferred, the actual reward over the picture! In other words, they seemed unable to anticipate that this would only drive them into a frenzy of frustration and effectively sabotage their efforts to wait for the bigger reward. Oh, the agony.

Children start to see the light around their 6^th birthday. So e.g. they start to prefer to cover the reward rather than to leave it out in the open. By grade 3, their prefer to think more about the waiting than on the eating of the marshmallows. And by grade 6, they’ve moved on to prefer thinking of marshmallow properties e.g. that they are puffy like clouds. So don’t worry, it’s not a write off if your preschooler is having trouble waiting now.

The good news is: you can probably help your little one along the way. For one thing,  out of sight is out of mind baby!  So whatever you do, take the tempting item away. Put it on a high shelf, in the other room or cover it up. When you have dessert planned for after dinner, leave the pie in the fridge until you are ready to serve it. You’ll have a better shot at getting your little one to focus on the task at hand – dinner. You can also help by distracting your child. Get them to focus on things other than EATING that ice cream.

Here’s one last thing to chew on…As you become more aware that it is actually quite hard for young children to control their natural impulses, wait, delay gratification etc., you may become tempted to be more lenient. “It’s so hard for them, this insistence on getting that Halloween candy now is part of normal development etc., it will come in time", so you reason. But perhaps when parents insist that children wait for that treat for after dinner, they are effectively training them to get used to waiting and to find ways to make it work. Maybe those kids who managed to “step away from” the marshmallow in Mischel’s studies came from homes where this was more the case (too bad they didn’t interview or give questionnaires to the parents). Since, according to the research, they would go on to fare better on a host of measures including academic achievement, you could be doing your child a huge favour by saving the chocolate cake for after they’ve eaten their brussels sprouts (well okay, maybe not brussels sprouts). Just a thought.

--by Tracy

 

I want it NOW! Linking delayed gratification, marshmallows and SAT scores

Ahem... Sorry about last week's blog neglect. Many forces conspired against us and, well, you know how it is.  But upward and onward!

This week's topic was inspired by a recent questions sent in by a reader:

I was wondering if you could also address the development of
inhibition/delay gratification in children? So there's all this
literature linking children's ability to forgo immediate gratification
and later success in life. But when is it a good time to start
fostering the ability to delay gratification? I'm asking because I
don't quite know whether to say no to my 12-month-old when he wants to
mooch off of us (on healthy foods, mind you - like cheese, crackers,
fruit, our dinner). E.g., he'll have eaten a good sized dinner while
we cook, and once we sit down to eat (we give him nibbles - peas,
carrots, etc), he wants to eat off of our plates. Another example:
He'll just have drank 7 oz of milk and I'm getting myself a snack of
hummus and pita, and he basically points at my food and makes noises
at me ("Ba? Ma?" looks at food, looks at me, points) until I give him
something. Is my behaviour just going to foster an inability to delay
gratification, or is he too young for that to even matter?

GREAT question! This is such a HUGE field of research. The question hits on the science of inhibition, executive functioning (basically, cognitive control), emotion regulation, attention difficulties, and so on. So, this is my not-so-subtle way of saying there is NO WAY I can cover that whole area in one or even 5 posts. But let's explore the topic from various angles this week.

The first thing that lept to mind when I read this question was that the reader gives the example of fostering control in her child in a context that deals with food. I'm going to bet that it's because she's read, heard or watched something about the famous psychologist Walter Mischel's research. One of his most famous experiments began in the 1960s and it is well-known as the "marshmallow experiement." The experiment goes like this: Preschool children, one by one, are asked to come into a room that is bare and boring (in which there is also a hidden video camera). The experimenter places one plump marshmallow in front of the child and says, "You can eat this now or, if you wait 15 min and DON'T eat it, you'll get TWO marshmallows to eat later." Then the experimenter leaves the room for (up to) FIFTEEN MINUTES (can you IMAGINE the craziness that this must put most preschoolers in?). The researchers documented how long it took for kids to take a bite out of the marshmallow. Most took a bite around the 3 min mark, way before the 15 min were up; a small proportion of kids actually made it all the way through and somehow managed to resist the temptation. Then a decade and more later, the researchers went back to get data on the grown-up versions of these children (I think they're up to 18 or 20 years later by now). The extent to which preschoolers were able to delay their gratification (so, the number of seconds before they ate the marshmallow or the extent to which they could actually wait all the way through for a "bigger" prize) predicted INSANE stuff, not the least of which was SAT scores and self-control abilities in adolescence and adulthood. Here's one link to the empirical paper of the adolescent follow-up (as usual, with some of these original articles, I can't directly link to the whole paper, just the abstract). And here's a nice summary of the study from The New Yorker.

The experiment has been replicated a bazillion times on various news shows and youtube clips. I'd like to actually point you to my favourite discussion of the topic -- I think it could foster some interesting discussions. It is TOTALLY worth your 15 min to listen to this (there are very few things I'd say this about to very, very busy parents). I'm a HUGE RadioLab fan and here's the link to the show they did in which they interviewed Walter Mischel, described the "marshmallow experiment," and summarized some of the coolest findings and their implications. 

We'll talk next about what we can do as parents to foster our children's abilities to delay gratification, which was more to the point of the original question from our reader. We'll also try to consider what might be developmentally appropriate expectations to have about self-control (which I also think is at the heart of the reader's question: a one-year old is a very different story from a 5 year old in this context). Really, we're talking about will power and general self-control here, in its various complex forms. And as much as I KNOW it's a good thing for us to help our children with controlling their impulses, I also know that I, for one, would have gobbled the marshmallow up in the first few seconds it was placed in front of me.

What about you? Would you have waited for the second gooey marshmallow on the horizon or would you just have said f%$# it! and gone for it? What do you think your child would do? Check out some of these INSANELY cute kids and watch how difficult it really can be (this isn't from the original sample, but it captures the feel of the experiment nicely).

-- Isabela

Babies' brains do NOT need Baby Einstein... but moms might

 
Many of you must have heard by now about the big kerfuffle regarding Disney's offer to compensate parents' for the price of their Baby Einstein DVDs. Turns out that the claims made on these products were WRONG. The claims I'm primarily talking about, of course, is that these videos are "educational" or "help cognitive development" or "Help your baby learn language." Oops, that last one is really, really wrong. Not just wrong, but the precise opposite seems to be the case. In a study that came out originally a couple of years ago, researchers from the University of Washington found that for every extra hour of DVDs or videos that babies watched (specifically, 8 - 16 month olds), they learned 6-8 words LESS than kids who were not watching. I find the age-span particularly interesting, since that period is JUST BEFORE the stage that the vast majority of children get a HUGE spurt in language development at around 18-21 months. A recent study out of Thailand also found that early (before 12 months of age) intense t.v. exposure (defined as 2 hours or more per day) was associated with a six-fold increase in the probability of language delays.

I have two main responses to the whole Baby Einstein thing. The first goes something like: The bastards SHOULD pay. There has NEVER been any research to back up the "educational" claims made by Baby Einstein inc. and all the videos associated with the brand. And there have been plenty of studies that have, for years, debunked myths like playing (Baby) Mozart to your child (in or out of the womb) has anything to do with the development of intellect,musicality, etc. (links to come, I can't find them now). I can kind of deal with every leggo box having a blurb on its packaging about "promoting fine-motor skills" and every wooden castle "enhancing children's imagination skills." These are sort of no-brainers (pun intended) without as much baggage associated with the claims. But what gets me all fired up is the massive industry that's been built up to prey on parents' fears, particularly the fear of not providing enough for their children's intellectual growth. The sales of videos geared at children under the age of two are estimated at over a BILLION dollars. Check out the Kaiser Family Foundation report for many more details. I remember the guy who painted our house 2 years ago urging me to start playing these Baby Einstein videos for my boys otherwise they'll fall behind and not be ready for school -- he was seriously and sweetly concerned for my boys and their clueless mother. Then I went and looked at one of the videos and did a bit of my own research and proceeded to be HORRIFIED by the subtle and not-so-subtle marketing ploys made by these DVD companies (it's not JUST Baby Einstein, they're just the most popular). But my painter was not alone in his concerns: In that same Kaiser report (which is way out of date by now, given it was published in 2003),  27 percent of young children were found to own Baby Einstein videos and 49 percent of parents thought that educational videos were “very important” in the intellectual development of children.

Let me put it as clearly as possible: Scientific evidence strongly suggests that children learn language  better from native speakers in person or even from audiotapes (or whatever the cool kids are calling audiofiles and such lately) compared to learning from screens (TV or computers). For a review of these findings (and a very clear description of the state of the science in this area), just google this fellow's name: Dimitri A Christakis and the year 2009. There's a PDF document of his review article that I can't link to, but it's available for free for anyone who wants it.

So, yeah, in sum, I think Disney and that self-promoting, money-grubbing founder of Baby Einstein should pay back all the parents they lied to. It may be a tad harsh, but I think setting a precedent that stipulates that toy companies and media developers need to back up their claims with REAL SCIENCE (or just SHUT UP about any scientific claims) is a good precedent to set.

<end rant>

But I said I had two main responses and here's my (blessedly more brief) second point: Baby Einstein videos are well-designed attention-catchers (albeit VERY creepy, IMO) that can save a parent's sanity. I don't think they're evil, I just don't think they teach language or anything else particularly valuable for that matter. But they DO entertain babies. And there are so FEW things that entertain babies for more than .003 seconds. If your baby loves these DVDs (and not all babies do, btw), I'd say use them in moderation without fear of screwing up your child. If I had had one of these DVDs when I had my infant twins, it may have allowed me to, oh... I don't know, maybe SHOWER more than once per week. So many of us know that feeling of having a needy infant and desperately needing to pee, cook dinner, brush our teeth, put a load of laundry in, answer the phone, engage our older son/daughter in some playful game without the baby interfering, or just stare out the window for 5 min of uninterrupted peace. Seriously... if a DVD can give us that little bit of time we need to take care of ourselves or the gazillion things we need to do around the house, I am ALL for it. OF COURSE it's important to limit the viewing time (most babies won't sit still for more than 15 min or so anyway) and OF COURSE we should continue to do lots of cooing and gooing and talking and cuddling and singing with our babies throughout the day. It's not a good idea to use these DVDs in place of quality time spent face-to-face with parents and other loved ones... but once in a while, for mom's sake, I wouldn't fret too much over it. Since Disney's taking it on the chin anyway over all this "false advertising," maybe I should suggest to them a change in the name from Baby Einstein to Baby Hypnotics or Mama Valium (ok, shutting up now, we already know how bad at funny I am).

So... what do you think about Baby Einstein? Have you played them for your baby? Were you suprised by the "quasi-recall"?

-- Isabela

Helping our kids with the things that go bump in the night

I took my kids today to the doctor to get them some shots that they were missing. I told them that they were getting new "superpowers" that would make them even stronger and more powerful; that their bodies would now be able to fight even bigger germs and other teeny tiny things that could make them sick. It was silly, but they got SO into it and it worked to not only help them sit still for a needle, but also to feel great about it afterwards. And that got me thinking... What kinds of things do we do, and can we do, to try to lessen our children's fears? I'm talking about those everyday fears, the reasonable, relatively common, everyday fears. I thought I'd throw out some ideas and then ask you, dear readers, to chime in with your own suggestions. Tell us: What are your chidlren's everyday fears and what do you say to them, what do you do, watch, read, play, that makes them feel better?

 This isn't going to be a heavily science-based post. I just wanted to let you know about a few books that my own kids love and share with you some others that my mom friends have recommended. If you have some others you'd like to add to the list, please do...

There are some GREAT books out there that deal with children's common fears. I think books are so helpful because they provide a safe context in which a child can talk about her fears and face them in the light of day, with your emotional support (if you read the book to her or listen to her read it aloud). Books are once-removed from the actual thing that is so frightening, so children don't feel overwhelmed by addressing them (compared to trying to expose them gradually to something they fear, for example, which may be too difficult for some kids). Books also give kids the unbeatable feeling that their fears are shared by other people: Look! A book has been written about it! Other children also have the same feelings! For many children, part of the horror of their fears is that they feel so alone with them; they feel like they're the only ones that are so scared and the only ones that can't be brave enough or strong enough to deal with these things. I'm not an expert in children's books, so I am in no way suggesting that this list is a definitive, or even great, list. But see what you think...

For fear of the dark (and/or the monsters that lurk therein):

•   What's that Noise?:  "This cheery tale proves that there's safety in numbers, at least in the dead of night. With the lights out, a chilly violet glow falls over the bedroom of Alex and his younger brother, Ben and suddenly it feels as if the boys are hosting a veritable convention of spooky noises ("aroo aroo aroo") and spectral shadows (a branch outside casts a shape that's a dead ringer for a boy-eating dragon). Ben wants Alex to come over to his bed and sing a silly song to buck up their spirits..." (From Publisher's Weekly)

·  My kids love Can't You Sleep Little Bear? I think I've read it to them 200 times now. It's a classic: Big Bear helps Little Bear feel less afraid by putting bigger and bigger lights into his room to get rid of the dark. But what really helps the most, in the end, is Big Bear snuggling Little Bear outside, by the moon, the biggest light at night.

 

·      Scaredy Squirrel at Night: I have a thing for this little neurotic squirrel. So do my kids.  “Scaredy is too terrified to sleep, and on lively pages formatted as charts and diagrams, he presents potential night visitors (unicorns, polka-dotted monsters) and how he will guard against them (molasses, banana peels). Some vocabulary words will be a stretch for a young audience (hallucinations, drowsiness), but kids will be amused by the lively, busy compositions packed with silly details, and those who share Scaredy’s insomniac tendencies will enjoy the reassuring outcome.” (From Booklist)

For children dealing with separation anxiety, particularly from mom:

• 
  Mama Always Comes Home:  My kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book. And they request it like clockwork when I've been working too much or too late or when one or the other is just feeling like they want more mama time. It can help all mothers, but I think it's particularly relevant to moms who work outside the home and therefore have to leave their kids daily. The "Mama always comes home" refrain can often be heard when I'm heading out the door in the morning... and it does WONDERS for my boys. "Mama Bird... feeds her babies, then tucks them beneath a quilt in their nest before digging up more worms; Mama Cat leaves her kittens in the barn to have a sip of cream in the house; Mama Dog runs out to play with her boy. Each example ends with the refrain: "Mama always comes home." At the end of the story, the human mother explains to her little one, "I want to stay,/but while I'm gone have fun and play,/and soon, before you know,/time will fly right by, and then/I'll be coming home again." (From School Library Journal).
  

For children with general worries/anxieties:

·      Wemberly Worried: I really like Kevin Henkes’ books. My boys are just getting into them, but they’ve loved this book for a while, constantly asking “But WHY is she so worried?” and “What’s going to happen to her?” Wemberly worries about really teeny things (shrinking in the tub) and big, bad stuff (not fitting in at school). The book acknowledges that all sorts of anxieties can come up in the course of a day and ends reassuringly hopeful.

Finally, I’m going to go out on a limb with this last one (and probably freak my co-blogger out as I go all “psychoanalytic”). I think one of the biggest fears children have is the fear of their own emotions, particularly the negative ones, and more specifically their own feelings of anger. It can be a very intense experience to feel the rush of intense anger that can take over children’s little bodies. Often these feelings of anger are accompanied by scary or violent images and “appraisals” or thoughts about wanting to destroy, hit, bite, or just generally go nuts. (These ideas I'm putting out here now are heavily laden with principles from psychoanalytic theory and, for once, I’m making no apologies.) Little kids’ anger can be particularly frightening when it’s directed at people they love -- it can really freak them out to feel the intensity of their desire to want to hurt their little brother or annihilate their mother or to just GO WILD against anything and anyone. We’re usually ok with trying to talk about concrete stuff -- fears of the first day of school, fears of the dark, fears of the funky shadows, strange noises and bumps in the night. But the scary stuff that bubbles up from children’s own little minds (and adults’, let’s be real), the images and thoughts that are dark and shaming and overwhelming, those we’re not so good with getting at with our kids. And that’s where another book, probably my favourite, comes in handy. It’s not exactly a hidden gem; it’s probably the most popular book in children’s literature (it’s certainly in the running). Of course, I’m talking about Where the Wild Things Are. Max is sent to his room for being wild and disobedient and his is PISSED. He takes off and battles with his “demons,” lets his freak flag fly and then comes home to realize that it’s all acceptable. Because inside all of us, is a WILD THING.

-- Isabela

Why we fear and how to deal with the scared child

Halloween is a great week to talk about fears!  Just leaving home this morning revealed a spookier neighbourhood than I remember seeing the last time I looked up to take it all in on the way to work.

So why do we fear? Makes sense that one explanation appeals to evolution. The idea is that we have evolved a tendency to notice quickly potentially scary things. The sooner you can pick up on that snake in the grass, ferocious lion coming at you, or huge brown bear within swiping reach, the faster you can act to avoid it, flee, get help, make some noise etc. In other words, it's essential for your survival.

Some very cool recent research has shown that children as young as 3 years of age will notice potentially scary things more quickly than non-scary things (think snakes vs. flowers). Since we find the same pattern in adults, this suggests that the rapid response to potentially scary stuff kicks in rather early. Good thing, if you want to make it past early childhood!  Rather than summarize how the researchers came to these conclusions, take a look at the video and see for yourself. Just keep in mind that since they didn't actually measure fear (which you could do by say, looking at heart rate or other biological markers), the study is really getting at PAYING ATTENTION to fearful stimuli rather than being afraid of it. Still, it makes the point quite nicely that we may be equipped to pick up on that thing that just might be about to pounce fairly early on. Check it out.

My point here is to say that fear serves an important purpose. You want your child to notice potentially harmful things and to act accordingly. Thing is, not everything is a predator about to leap. So children need time to sort out what they should be afraid of and what they don't need to fear. Think of the differences between a cartoon snake on television vs. in a 3-D movie vs. a real snake in the zoo or in your back yard.

As with everything in development, there are also individual differences in fear responses. Children vary in how sensitive they are to scary things, in how strongly they react and in what they find scary. They may also cycle through times of being scared and times when they are not. My advise?  First of all, acknowledge the fear. I hate snakes, but have no problem with heights. Others may not be the same. But telling me to just forget about it, or how so and so doesn't fear snakes will not help. So even if it's hard to understand what's scary about a Disney character, the fact is, your child finds it scary. It can be very reassuring to hear someone say, "it's okay to be afraid" or "I can understand how you feel, sometimes I feel scared too". Second, don't force the issue. There's no timetable for getting over your fears. I like to use a bit of cognitive behavioural therapy or talking my son through his fears. In other words, I try to get him to think differently about what he is afraid of in the hopes that it will affect his behaviour e.g. "That's something in your book, it's not here in your room. It can't come out of the page to hurt you.". We revisit the fearful thing every once in a while but I don't push it. Eventually, he moves on.

My little guy helped me pick out a witch's hat for Halloween, then made sure to stress that I should be a good and friendly witch. It's a small thing to ask for while we work through our fears. And hey, I kinda like to think of myself of as a good and friendly witch anyway.

Please share your stories on dealing with fears. I"m particularly interested in the first time you noticed a fear response in your child or children, the context, how old they were etc. On my next post, I'll talk a bit more about what might contribute to those early fear responses.

-- Tracy

In the spirit of Halloween, let's talk about children's fears this week

This is such a rich topic and, given that Halloween is just around the corner for those of us in North America, it's a timely one. It's also timely because we just got a great question in a previous comment section about just this issue. Christy asked:

If you're looking for questions for new topics, maybe something on fear? My 2.5 year old is going through a big "I'm scared" phase. Some of it seems Halloween related (wanting to see the displays, saying he's scared and wants to leave, talking for five minutes about how he was scared, asking to go see it again. Repeat.) but he's also suddenly saying he's scared of the kids at the playground, going down the slide, etc. and talking about scary dreams, which seems to go beyond just the holiday too.

So, if you've been reading this blog for a while you will know that 2.5 years old will ring a bell for me immediately. That's because it is one of the developmental transition periods we've been talking so much about in the context of sleep (usually between 2.5 and 3 years old). As you'll see, all those developmental stages are equally important for a whole host of other social, emotional and cognitive challenges. If you want to know more about what's happening around 2.5 years old in terms of the cognitive changes, read this first. For the social and emotional implications, check out this post. 

OK, now that you're up on the developmental theory, you can see why the example that Christy gives of her son is SO VERY common at this age. Children at this age are obsessed with testing their power and control in different contexts. That's why they're always testing YOUR limits at this age -- because you provide the ultimate litmus test of how very powerful your child CAN be, in a relatively safe context (it's why tantrums can be so horrible, why they seem to stop listening to any of your requests, why they are constantly wanting to "do it myself" and so on). So... when children ask to see something scary and then shy away from it immediately, and then go right back to asking for more, they're playing with this power and control boundary. They're testing just how strong they are and just how independent they can be; at the same time, they're rushing back to "touch base" with you to refill on the emotional security you can give them. The point is that new fears, and testing how "brave" they can be in the face of these new fears, is absolutely textbook at this age. So is the crazy-making "Help me/Get away from me!" behaviour. Again... they're working all this out because it's all new to them.

There's so much more to say about children's fears and there are different points to make across different age groups. But there is one thing we can generalize: New and seemingly overwhelming fears are most likely to come up during the sensitive periods in development, those transition periods I keep talking about (4-5.5 months, 8-11 months, 18-21 months, etc.). During these transition periods, kids are working out so much new information and mastering a whole set of new cognitive and emotional skills, so they're super vulnerable. And, obviously, vulnerability breeds anxiety and this anxiety can bring forth irrational fears, such as a recurring fear of the dark, or the worry that some person (or animal!) is angry at the child, or that the slide that used to be so easy to come down on may actually cause the child to break a bone. Bad dreams and even night terrors can pop up during these periods also. 

And, you know, the random proliferation of ghosts and goblins, witches and gravestones all over their previously humdrum neighborhoods can't help the poor little dudes...

What are your kids afraid of? Does anyone else notice that children can go through these periods of increased fears and anxieties and then settle down again into a more secure phase? Were you a fearful child? If so, what helped or hindered your feelings?

More on perseveration...

Check this out!

 

Are you back? Ok, that was another example of a perseverative or repetitive behaviour from a task you can try at home with your baby. The child watches as you hide an object in one of two identical covered locations. You can create these by just putting two identical covers (cloths?) over two identical cups or other containers. Show the hiding object to your child (something small that will fit in the container), then make sure they are watching while you hide it in one of the cups. Remember to replace the cloth. Repeat this using THE SAME location (location A) a few times. Try 3 or 4 times. Then the next time, hide the object (making sure your child is watching) in the other cup (location B). Replace the cloth cover. What happens? A typical infant of around 9-10 months of age is likely to search for the object in location A again, and not in location B, where they JUST SAW YOU HIDE IT!!   What can they possibly be thinking? You know their eyes work!

This is called the A not B error.  The A not B task was developed by the famous developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget argued that the tendency to search again at the A location on the first B location trial was related to the infant’s lack of understanding of “object permanence” or the idea that an object continues to exist even when it is out of sight. There has been some debate around why children commit the A not B error. One of the biggies has been that your darling, brilliant angel simply  cannot control the urge to reach at location A, and  instead go with the new information that the object is now at location B.  Sound familiar?  It’s just like on the card-sorting task we talked about earlier this week. The A not B error is usually overcome by 12 months of age.

Try it. You'll see. If you have a 7-10 month old at home, try it now and try again around 12 months of age. You'll be amazed at the difference. And I'd love to hear about it! For more on the practical implications of this stage, in particular, what it might have to do with sleep problems, check out these older posts.

Please, not that same book/game/song again! I can recite it in my sleep!

Okay, here's my first blogging challenge. I cannot get the author to change from Bella to Tracy. The post below is by me - Tracy. Anyone want to pitch in and help me get this sorted out? You can't say I did not warn you.

Every parent has heard the repeated request “Again!” to read a favourite book, play a favourite game or sing a favourite song at one time or another from their young child. How is it, we all wonder, that they can not only stand, but insist upon, this incessant repetition when most parents are driven to distraction by it? Turns out, as you’ve no doubt guessed by now, that some of the answer lies in what we know about the developing brain.

Children may like repetition, in part, because they have trouble stopping it. Cognitive and neuro- scientists talk about a phenomenon known as perseveration, or the uncontrollable repetition of a particular response such as a word or a behaviour. Although perseveration is often associated with some type of brain trauma in later life (injury, serious illness etc.), it is also characteristic of the developing brain, especially in the preschool years. In fact, an important achievement of early childhood is being able to control, or inhibit, your own behaviour (think: Simon Says).

Developmental psychologists have devised several tasks for use with young children that provide a glimpse into their developing capacity for inhibition. In one task, children are shown cards with say, red and blue flowers and cars. They are asked to sort the cards into two piles, either according to colour (red here, blue there), or according to shape (flowers here, cars there). After several sorting trials, children are asked to switch to sorting to the other dimension (so if they first sorted by colour, now they have to sort by shape – BTW, it doesn’t matter which one you ask them to do first). The results of numerous studies show that until about 4 years of age, children continue to sort the cards according to the first dimension or the first set of rules. In other words, they PERSEVERATE! What’s striking is that younger children will perseverate with the first set of rules even when they are reminded of the new sorting rules and even when they can produce the new rules every time they are about to sort a card! The argument goes that the young brain is not yet able to control itself, or to INHIBIT the first behaviour (sort by the first set of rules) and switch to new a new behaviour (use the other set of rules).

 Just in case you’re thinking that we have it all licked by the time we’re 5, think again. It turns out that inhibition takes some time to develop. And though it becomes easier and easier with age it still requires effort. So you can inhibit answering that cell phone when you are driving the car (especially if that might cost you a fine), but if you have a lot on your mind or get distracted, the effort it takes to inhibit just might be too much for the already taxed brain and you may find yourself reaching for it. Sorry officer, it was a failure to inhibit.

The take home message? It’s actually harder TO STOP doing things than it is to DO them, especially for the really young. So what does this mean for parenting? Let me give you a couple of things to think about. My son is 5 and I’m still relying on some of them (it takes time remember…).

1.     Since it’s harder to curb behaviour, try to provide instructions that emphasize what TO DO as opposed to what NOT TO DO. So easy on the use of “No”, “Don’t” and “Stop”, especially at the start of a sentence. E.g. When your little one seems bent on pressing the power button on your computer on and off (I can hear the hard drive crying now, or is that you crying…), instead of “No! Stop pressing that button.” try “Look it’s like the buttons your toy laptop computer/cash register/cell phone etc. See? Now you try.”. Or instead of insisting “Don’t throw your coat on the floor” when you come in the door try, “Can you put your coat on your special hook?”.

2.  2. Even when children know the rule or what they should do, keep in mind that it is still very hard to stop a habitual behaviour and in a sense, redirect the brain toward acting according to some other knowledge. So try not to see the repetitive behaviour (e.g. always throwing his or her coat down every time he or she comes in the door) as defiant. Be patient. Repeat the rule. Eventually he or she will get it. No really, they will. And you’ll probably have a better relationship that if you just persisted with the “No!”s.

As for the pleas for “Again!” in very young children, it could just be that repeating the same thing again and again feels good. It’s as though it’s the brain’s natural inclination. It’s what it wants to do. Keep that in mind the next time you feel lured into the “Wheels On the Bus”.