On April we interview the psychologist Teresa García, psychologist specializing in Child Psychopathology, psychoanalyst and expert in helping families find ways to relate and communicate without violence through their project Without Punishments.
We talked with her in April about parenting without punishment and from that interview many issues emerged that we will now explore: the link of babies and their initial socialization, which we discussed in this interview, leaving us for the next installment the development of sociability in childhood and the school.
What is human sociability?
Short definition or long definition? In a short definition I will say that it is the capacity of relationship between humans. But that definition falls short, because sociability varies from one person to another, from one family to another, from one city to another, from one country to another and, logically, from one culture to another. For example, in our context, Spain, year 2011, a young, sociable girl greets a sociable boy with a kiss on the cheek. But only 50 years ago, that kind of greeting in our country was not well seen.
So sociability depends on culture?
Indeed, sociability depends on culture, it is the process by which an individual adapts to the norms of the culture in which he was born. It is the result of a process of "endoculturation".
How does a baby begin to interact with other people?
A baby's first relationship with another person is the one that occurs right after birth. When he looks with his eyes wide open and without blinking, which is his mother. On the quality of this mutual look, because the mother must also look at the baby, depends on the bond that she will then develop. And the quality of the bond with the mother, or failing that, if the mother fails for some reason, with the figure with which the baby develops the attachment.
In the first months it is necessary and healthy that this primary bond occurs with only one person. And that it establishes secondary links with the other people with whom it lives.
You mean what is the most important link with the mother?
Not quite. The mother is the person that nature has programmed to occupy that place. But the baby only needs one person to establish the primary bond. And it establishes secondary links with other people. It is important that the primary link is established with only one person, that is what emerges from the studies that have been done on attachment.
It is then the figure of fundamental attachment for a correct and healthy emotional development, right?
So much so, that statistics show that a secure attachment correlates negatively with mental illnesses and positively with professional success and relationships. While an insecure link correlates positively with some mental illnesses and negatively with professional success and relationships.
So, is it desirable for our babies to establish a secure bond?
Yes, it is desirable, as it will facilitate the following stages of life.
How do you know if your baby has a secure bond?
Rather than diagnosing the type of bond a baby has, I am inclined to report what mothers of babies who have a secure bond do, according to research. They are mothers, who are not intrusive, but accessible, who do not punish their babies.
What is an intrusive mother?
Imagine a mom who wants to show you the new cuteness her baby has learned. Then, the baby is entertaining exploring a cardboard box, for example, and the mother interrupts him to encourage him to repeat the cuteness. Or a mother who lacks the ability to interpret when the baby is tired of stimulation, and then continues, until the baby reacts crying. There are many ways to be intrusive, this is just an example.
What is an accessible mother?
It is a person who is attentive to the needs of the baby to meet them as soon as they appear, but that while the baby does not need it, lets him explore calmly.
When does a baby begin to be aware that his mother is another person and he is an independent person?
It is a process, there is no specific moment in which he discovers one hundred percent that he is another person. The process begins between six and eight months, when separation anxiety appears. That stage that all mothers know and say, "before he went with my mother, with my sister, etc., and now I can not leave him alone." And they tell you thinking that they have done something wrong, when the reality is that simply, until then the baby was not perceived separately.
Then “peaks” appear, for example between two and three years, the famous stage of no. The boy or girl, who at that age says no to everything, is not challenging, he still has no idea what it is to challenge, he is affirming himself in what a different person is, and as such he has his own "ideas".
Knowing this would save many fathers and mothers unnecessary feelings of guilt after punishing their children, and see that they continue saying no. I would even save visits to health professionals, thinking that the child has a problem.
How and when do you discover the rest of the people?
As in the previous case, it is a process that has an approximate start date, and an approximate end date, not a specific moment.
To what extent is it important for personality development to respect children's emotional needs?
The correlations indicate that the more respected emotional needs, the better social skills, the more likely professional and relational success. So respecting the emotional needs of children is of the utmost importance.
Here we find a cultural problem. Our culture tends to think that while they are babies they do not "find out" and therefore you can do whatever you want. So much so, that there are still pediatricians alive, very old, but alive, remembering that babies were operated without anesthesia, because they thought they felt no pain.
It has tended to minimize both the needs of babies and children, that people who do workshops with me, say at the end of the workshop phrases such as: "I am now able to respect my child."
Does that mean they didn't respect you before?
It means that before they did not know they had needs, and nobody respects the needs of another person without knowing them.
Should we force them to go to someone else's arms if the baby does not want to?
Only if strictly necessary. I explain myself, for example the mother, or the person of primary attachment, has to enter an operating table. Logically, the baby will have to stay with another person. And even in that need, it is convenient to prepare the baby little by little. So that the baby knows the person who is going to have him in his arms and has "confidence" in that person.
What if the grandmother comes from far away to see him?
I recommend that you play games with the mother and the baby, until the baby feels safe. Then the baby's emotions will be protected. Otherwise we will shoot the stress hormones unnecessarily.
Does not address the crying or the need for physical contact, harm the sociability and emotionality of babies?
Attachment studies show that.
Ideally, until at least one baby should be with his mother all the time?
Until the baby wants to get away. I don't like giving a number of months, because every baby is different. Just as each baby has a time to walk, in the same way, he has a time to be with his mother. That time varies from baby to baby, but a quiet observation will show us when you are ready to go with other people.
Do young children need daycare to socialize?
Children begin to socialize with each other after approximately three years. Until that time they prefer interaction with an adult, a matter of course normal and logical. Primates are attached to their mother until four years or so. And humans are very related to primates. Therefore, young children do not need daycare to socialize, but to other adults respectful of their needs.
A study was done, if I'm not mistaken in the eighties. The psychologists wanted to prove that the children who went to daycare had better measures of sociability and better results in primary school. The researchers were not prepared for what they found. The highest scores in sociability were for children who had been with their mothers until the beginning of primary school. In terms of academic results, at the beginning of the first year of primary school, children who had been in kindergartens had better results, but those who had been at home matched them in two or three months.
Why do young children cry when they go to daycare?
In general because they still need to be with their mom. Children do not have our concept of time. So they don't know how long it will take to return. Making a simile, it is as if your partner goes on a spree and does not notify you when he will return. Three days pass, and he arrives on the fourth day in the morning. You pass a tremendous fear without knowing if it will return or not.
We all know that children do not drive or understand the clock, so when we leave and leave him at the nursery, they have no idea when we will return. A mother in the online workshop consulted me because her son cried every day when she entered a child. I was three years old at the time, and until that time I had not attended daycare. I recommended that he play games, so that the child understood that the mother would always go for him. One day, on the way to school, the mother was singing a song, which in her lyrics explained that in a little while she would be with him again. And the boy replied: "Mommy, I already know that you always come, what I don't know is when," according to the mother visibly angry. This draws very well what I mean.
Tomorrow we will publish the second part of this long interview with child psychologist Teresa García, which will tell us about the healthy socialization of children in the family, the environment and the school.
In Babies and more | "We must totally change our production system." Interview with Carlos González, "The events that happen in the primal stage are the most important in life." Interview with Enrique Blay (III), "I became a gynecologist with the clear idea of attending home deliveries." Interview with Dr. Emilio Santos (VI), "Some disabled people dare to have children," interviews the author of "Adapted Maternity," "It is a myth to say that the woman who breastfeeds cannot take medication." Interview with José María Paricio (II), “To be a father or mother they don't teach you”. Interview with Teresa Garcia, psychologist expert in Childhood Psychopathology.
