Susan Goodwyn - Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start

Table of Contents

This book is dedicated with respect, gratitude, and affection to our academic mentors,

Professor Herbert Pick, Ph.D. (University of Minnesota),

and

the late Professor Richard Cromer, Ph.D. (University of London),

two splendid researchers who modeled for us the integrity, perseverance, and humanity that doing good science demands

Praise for Baby Hearts

This is a vivid, illuminating, and wise portrayal of emotional development in the early years. These gifted authors highlight the importance of close relationships for the unfolding of personality, self-esteem, and understanding of others.

Ross Thompson, Ph.D., University of California, Davis

Healthy emotional development is at the core of all learning. Parents who read Baby Hearts will become masters at understanding their young childrens feelings and how to foster their positive relationships, self-esteem, and emotional control. Engaging, practical, and scientifically based, Baby Hearts is a terrific book for all parents.

Lise Eliot, Ph.D., author of Whats Going On in There? Howthe Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life

BabyMinds

This creative approach to early parent-child interactions is richly illustrated throughout with real-life examples. Baby Minds will help you catalyze your childs intellectual and emotional growth.

Bart Schmitt, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, The Childrens Hospital of Denver

Fantastic! Baby Minds is an important resource for all caregivers of young children. Applying only half of the ideas in this book would insure the childs preparedness for success in school.

Kathryn Barnard, Ph.D., Department of Family and Child Nursing, University of Washington

In this engaging book, the authors take the most recent science on babies out of the lab and into the living room. Parents who read this book will appreciate their childs development in a whole new way.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., co-author of Baby Talk

BabySigns

Baby Signs is one of the best things you can do for your baby. As a pediatrician I enthusiastically recommend it to new parents.

Robin Hansen, M.D., Chief of Development-Behavioral Pediatrics, University of California, Davis

Opening up this nonverbal channel for communication helps both adult and child through that difficult state when the desire to communicate outstrips the babys capacity to say words.

Susan Crockenberg, Ph.D., Professor, University of Vermont

Acknowledgments

Theyve always been there, through the labor pains of three books and countless years of our efforts to juggle our personal and professional lives. Theyve always been there, two wonderful men who operate as our life support systems when things get tough (which is most of the time) and our most cherished sources of rest and recreation on those rare occasions when weve managed to relax. These two stalwart men are Lindas husband, Larry Stark, and Susans husband, Peter Bradlee, and this time were putting them right at the top of the list of those who deserve our thanks. Thanks, guys, for all the years youve been our biggest fans, our most loyal friends, and our shelter when we sorely needed comfort and love.

We also want to thank three individuals who have consistently stepped up to the plate over the last few years to help us deal with the day-to-day demanding work that otherwise would have prevented us from even starting, let alone finishing, this book. Without the daily donations of blood, sweat, and tears by Linda Easton-Waller, Lisa Holwagner, and Ron Berry, we would have even more miles every day to walk before we sleep. You are appreciated more than we can ever express.

Two other individuals who deserve our thanks for their continuing support are our brilliant, dedicated, and extraordinarily patient literary agents, Angela Miller and Betsy Amster of The Miller Agency. Their willingness to tackle complex and frustrating issues on our behalf has won them both our admiration and gratitude. Our affection they won a long time ago.

A sincere thank-you also goes to our wonderful editors at Bantam Books, Toni Burbank and Philip Rappaport. Their enthusiasm for Baby Hearts all along the way was just the inspiration we needed to keep our spirits up and our computers humming.

As usual, we couldnt have written this book without the help of countless families who have helped us over the years with our research. The generosity of parents never fails to amaze us. And a very special thanks goes to all the families who contributed the delightful photos that make the book come alive for readers.

And heres one final thank-you. This book, the third in our trilogy of books for parents, represents much more than just our own work. Without the splendid efforts of our colleagues in developmental psychology around the world, the story of the emotional life of babies would never have been discovered, let alone be ours to write. We have identified over 120 of these scientists by name in the pages of the book, but even at that, weve hardly scratched the surface. Of those we didnt have space to cite, some stand out as particularly deserving. These include a number of pioneers in the area of infant emotions whose efforts early on, in the 1940s through the 1970s, inspired not only the two of us, but legions of other young researchers to dig even deeper into the hearts and minds of little children and their parents. Listing them here is one small way to express our appreciation. These pioneers include Kathryn Barnard, T. Berry Brazelton, Urie Bronfenbrenner, Joe Campos, Peggy Emerson, Stanley Greenspan, Harry Harlow, Mavis Hetherington, Eleanor Maccoby, Lois Murphy, Paul Mussen, Harriet Rheingold, James Robertson, Rudolph Schaffer, Robert Sears, and Ren Spitz. Without their efforts, emotional development in early childhood would still be a mystery waiting to be solvedand Baby Hearts would have been an exceedingly short book. We hope we have continued their efforts in a way that would meet with their approval.

Introduction

Welcome to Baby Hearts

Making the decision to have a childits momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone, author

We chose these words to begin Baby Hearts because they seemed to us to capture the depth of feeling we ourselves experienced when first given our newborn babies to hold. We each were blessed with two wonderful children, now grown, who changed our lives foreverand for the better. The fact that the moments when we first met each of them remain so vivid in our memories is testimony to how intense our feelings were at the time and how overwhelmed we were by the responsibility wed just been given. We both remember being awed by the miracle of birthand amazed that the hospital staff was actually allowing us to take these helpless babies home! They seemed to trust us to care for these children more than we trusted ourselves.