In part three of this series, I talked about our feelings and emotions, and this time, I will discuss further how the power of those feelings builds up the type and quality of a relationship, the importance of attachments and the growth of empathy.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage document, one of the four main principles is that of 'Positive Relationships'. This describes how children 'learn to be strong and independent from a basis of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person' (EYFS Statutory Framework, p9).
At the heart of this principle is the phrase 'a basis of loving and secure relationships'. In other words, the EYFS acknowledges that the foundation for a child's confidence and ability, in all areas of their life, is the quality of their experience with their primary carers - most often their parents.
The present embedded in the past
Relationships are important to us all as we react and interact with other people both singly and in groups in a wide range of situations. As we go through our day-to-day lives, we are constantly having to interact with other people and as we do so, we are continually 'fine-tuning' our responses, shifting the way we behave depending on what is happening around us and who we are with. Without thinking about it, we move from one emotional state to another.
Take a simple example. You are shopping in a supermarket and you meet an old friend, you bump into a stranger, you ask an assistant the whereabouts of an item. Each person will invoke a particular response in you, no matter how fleeting. You may be extremely irritated at not finding what you want, feel anxious or cross at bumping into the stranger, be glad to see your friend or want to avoid them because you are busy and short of time! During all these responses, you will probably adapt the levels of your voice, your facial expression and your 'tone' that you use to talk to each person, without really being aware that you are doing it.
In these circumstances, two processes are at work. First, you have learned to manage your emotions. Second, although you only have a 'relationship' with just one of these people, your whole attitude will be coloured by your sense of self and your experiences laid down in the earliest years, as well as your mood at that particular time.
If you are not convinced, think about how you react when you bump into someone; how confident you are - or not - when approaching strangers; how certain you are of your friends - do you feel, for example, that you are the one who always rings them or do you feel your friendships are mutual? If your old friend always seems to want something from you, might this influence the levels of pleasure you have when seeing them?
The nub of it all is that as our feelings colour what we experience, it is the quality of our earliest relationships that have helped to build up the sense of 'me' as a unique human being. Looking even deeper into the importance of relationships, we come to a fundamental question: do we feel lovable and worthy of love? This can be put another way: do we actually like ourselves as a person?
To have a sense of being someone who is worthwhile, who while having weaknesses and failures, nevertheless is generally 'all right' - secure in the knowledge of the love of family and friends - is a wonderful gift. It is this gift that our parents can give us, especially in the early months and years of life, through the way they interact with us and respond to our needs. It is also the gift you give to the children in your care as you establish a relationship with them based on your care, empathy and ability to nurture them through their struggles to manage their emotions, play and learn.
The power of early relationships
As discussed in the previous article, we human beings are exquisitely prepared to interact with other people immediately from birth. Nature has presented the human baby with a positive arsenal of biological, physical and emotional 'weaponry' to ensure that we make a close relationship with our mothers.
Our preference for faces from the first moments of life ensures that we are automatically attracted to the faces around us. The appearance of a smiling face triggers high levels of opiates (the 'feel-good' chemicals) in the brain and also influences a whole range of other chemical reactions which allow the baby to feel joy and excitement. It is these same chemicals that are involved in the growing of new connections in the brain (see Part 2 of this series, 20/27 December 2007).
Mothers, too, are helped by nature to 'tune in' to their baby's needs, as most mothers 'experience a period of heightened arousal and responsiveness after childbirth' (Cozolino, 2000). In fact, even before the birth of the baby, most mothers appear to become preoccupied with thoughts of their baby, and this seems to continue well into the first year. Mothers' brains are activated by the sight, smell and sounds of their newborns, to ensure that they respond to their needs.
New mothers, for example, can recognise the smell of their own baby even after just an hour of contact. Smell, if we remember, is one of the senses that does not go through a 'gateway' in the brain but goes directly to the area of the brain that processes the information with strong connections to both emotions and sensory memory. Babies, too, quickly learn the smell of their mother's milk - even if they are bottle fed!
The 'reflexive' turning to faces - having been encouraged by the familiar sound of the mother's voice, learned in the womb - the ability to imitate some mouth movements, gazing and then smiling, all produce positive responses from the adult carers.
Most mothers instinctively react to crying and will respond to the baby's coos and sounds by imitating them. Over time, these interactions form a bridge between the feelings inside and the feelings we get from our facial expressions, so interactions and all these sensations get linked together. We learn that our levels of distress and excitement or joy are responded to and managed, so that we have the beginnings of our own ability to manage our emotions.
It may seem a long way from a baby to, for example, a student being able to sit through a long and boring lecture, or to behaving kindly towards someone who might be annoying us. But it is back in those earliest days of life that the ability to manage feelings and inhibit unhelpful reactions is born.
Touch and caring
Our relationships often don't just involve noticing facial expressions or attending to the emotions that we detect in another person's voice, but also touch. The sheer amount of caring touch that a baby receives also helps establish positive emotions.
We humans have two types of sensory receptors in our skin. One type helps us with our identification of objects, whereas the other supports the emotional content of touch. If you think about it, when someone touches your arm if you are in distress, it can actually 'feel' sympathetic.
Such touching, like all the other interactions, has an effect on a baby's hormonal and chemical responses in the brain as well as affecting blood pressure, temperature and heart rate and general feeling of well-being. Mirror neurons - those wonderful neurons that 'light up' when we see someone carrying out an action (and mentioned in Part 2 of this series) - also light up in similar pathways when we see someone in distress (see Part 3 on emotions, 24 January), and babies themselves adjust their facial expressions to that of the people they are with.
Empathy with others
There is a fundamental 'resonance' between ourselves and other people. Our whole brain/nervous system reacts and interacts in response to the ways in which we are held, spoken to, comforted and cared about.
All in all, it is possible to see how these early relationships between a baby and their parents influence a whole range of biological, physiological and psychological aspects of the baby's health and well-being. Such interactions provide the birth of the sense of self, and as the baby gets to know Dad, grandparents and/or other carers, a range of different interactions provide the basis for greater experience of other relationships and, hopefully, support a growing sense of identity and positive 'world view'.
Empathic responses to a baby's need, often described as being 'in tune' with the baby's needs, support the beginnings of the growth of empathy in the baby itself. The power of empathy - the ability to 'put yourself into another person's shoes' - is profound. It protects us from being unkind, cruel and/or violent towards others, as we are able to imagine what such acts would feel like to us. However, it is essential that we experience nurture, care and empathic responses from others before we can begin to be responsive to the needs of others.
Attachment formation
It is also possible to see how these early interactions between child and carer provide a base for the quality of attachment formation. A 'secure' child is one who has had a relationship with their carer that is generally responsive, kind and loving. For those children whose mothers and/or other carers are unable to respond to them, not only are their attachment needs for a 'secure base' missing, but also, their whole body and mind reactions to poor relationships will affect their bodily health and well-being as well as their capacity for joy, friendship and ability to learn.
The implications of such a lack of security are far-reaching. There is a growing appreciation among researchers that we are somewhat predisposed to fear from birth. It is an evolutionary safeguard. There is a structure deep within the brain, called the amygdala, which is virtually fully developed at birth and is especially involved in processing fear information. When a baby is crying and distressed and is not reassured, it is probably left with a sensory 'bath' of anxiety, to which the baby will then respond by either appearing anxious or tearful, or will 'clamp down' their responses - the avoidant child.
A particular time in a child's life when the kindness of a relationship is especially crucial is during the period of eight to 12 months, when 'stranger anxiety' emerges. How adults deal with this and allow the child time to be reassured may influence the child's reactions later.
Another testing time for a child's relationships is during toddlerhood, when the baby is no longer a baby but a demanding, mobile, curious, affectionate and often 'stroppy' little person! The adult's responsiveness in their relationship with the child to their growing need for independence as well as care, nurture and protection, will again influence the trajectory of development in a the pathway of a child's emotional life.
Summary
For practitioners, relationships with children will also depend on their own inner responses and ability to 'step outside' their own needs to meet those of the child.
Children's relationships with you will depend on what the children have already experienced. This will influence their behaviour towards you, their peers and others in the setting. For example, their behaviour will be governed by their sensitivities to atmosphere (both emotional and physical), noise levels, their range of choices, their levels of confidence to join in or withdraw, and their capacity to trust you, be curious and be ready for new experiences.
All the children in your care will have their own individual history, especially in the type and quality of relationships with their carers. You meet them on an early stage of their road through life, and you, too, can influence their reactions and responses by the way that you behave towards them and the relationships you build with them.
To do this in the best way you can, you need to have an awareness of the relationships you have in your own life and how they influence your well-being. This will help you be able to have insight into the joys, struggles and distresses that each child will experience as they work out how to relate to other people in their widening world.
- Maria Robinson can be contacted at: mariar1947@hotmail.co.uk. See also www.mariarobinson.co.uk
FURTHER READING
Sunderland M, (2006) The Science of Parenting. London: Dorling Kindersley
Berlin, LJ, Ziv, Y, Amaya-Jackson, L, Greenberg, MT, Enhancing Early Attachments. New York: Guildford Press
Cozolino, L (2006) The Neuroscience of Human Relationships. New York: W W Norton & Co
DID YOU KNOW ...
- In the first nine minutes after birth, a mother spends 80 per cent of her time stroking, touching, rubbing and massaging her newborn.
- Several days after birth, mothers and fathers can blindly identify their baby by touching their cheek or the back of their hand.
- Maria Robinson is an early years consultant and author of From Birth to One and Child Development from Birth to Eight: A Journey Through the Early Years (Open University Press).
