No quick fixes

When your toddler won't sleep, or your three-year-old is screaming if he doesn't get what he wants, most parents understandably become annoyed, exhausted and in need of help.

Often the media try to help by offering the quickest fix possible. Channel 4 did just this in its recent Train Your Baby Like A Dog programme, which invited a dog trainer to try operant conditioning techniques such as clicker training and verbal rewards on two very unhappy young children.

It is true, there were some improvements, but what the show did not address was, first, why the toddler, Dulcie, and the three-year-old, Greydon, were behaving as they did and, secondly, how the simple encouraging presence of the trainer gave the parents new confidence, and possibly insight into what their children needed.

In other words, although it seemed to be about training, it was in fact about getting help.

When children are unhappy, it's because they simply aren't managing the situation, and the crying and yelling is a form of communication to parents. Ironically, this is exactly what the dog trainer, herself a mother, said about Greydon – ‘out of control and acting badly’ – as his parents waited for the birth of a new baby. ‘It's a cry for help,’ she observed accurately. And yet it was her reward system, not her empathy, that was presented as the ground-breaking solution.

Research and clinical practice show that the brains of babies and toddlers are enormously complex. So, all those apparently irrational, exasperating reactions are just showing us how much thinking and feeling is going on, for which simple rewards and sanctions can only be a sticking-plaster response. Altering the behaviour is only half the story.

“A child who feels that there is an active mind thinking and caring about them develops a secure emotional core”

LACK OF SUPPORT

In the past in the UK, there have been good early intervention services at hand, but these are dying. For example, Unite reported last week that 3,239 health visitors have been cut since the transfer of commissioning in October 2015, and that there will be fewer than 7,000 in total in one to two months' time. The closure of family centres, and early years services, means parents and babies who get off to a difficult start for all sorts of reasons are left to struggle alone. The pain and unhappiness is immense and can impact a family long-term.

What might have happened if the parents of a three-year-old such as Greydon had been able to access some help? Imagine a visit from a health visitor: Over a cup of coffee, his mum starts to talk about the upcoming birth. Sensing that the conversation has now turned away from him and is focusing on this ‘baby’ idea, he begins to get anxious about what this might mean, realising that he is momentarily being displaced from his mum's mind.

The thought of losing her causes first a panic, and then fury, so he screams and shouts his despair. But then, maybe, the health visitor says, ‘Oh dear, it's really hard to share mummy, even with another grown-up.’

She might say something to his mum about little children not quite understanding what a new baby will mean – ‘What is that bump? How will a baby get out?’ – and asks him to show her the truck he was just playing with, adding, ‘I bet mummy knows how you can drive it around very fast too!’ The three-year-old calms down, looks curiously at this lady in their kitchen, and shyly takes his truck over to her.

UNDERSTANDING

Such wonderings aloud are from the mind of a good early years practitioner in action, someone who has seen many babies and many three-year-olds filled with worries about changes in the family. She can simultaneously address toddler concerns while also showing a parent how they might begin to empathise and reassure.

There is a huge need for the re-introduction of solid early intervention support in all communities, as well as direct parental advice in the media to simply try to imagine what's going on in their children's heads.

This is the approach taken by specialist child psychotherapists, who in several regions of the UK are involved in delivering training and support in the form of work discussion groups to nursery nurses, childcare assistants and health visitors, who often instinctively understand this common skill of observation and empathy.

Early years staff report real changes when they consider parent-infant difficulties in the light of attachment patterns, or when using methods that simply allow parents and professionals alike to do less and watch more.

It might take a bit more time to observe what's going on, and think about the unspoken feelings of babies and toddlers, but the long-term results will last into adulthood. A child who feels that there is an active mind thinking and caring about them develops a secure emotional core that enables them to trust and talk to adults and to protect them against all kinds of emotional and social difficulties right through childhood.

It's not that problems won't happen, but that you have a firm belief that someone out there just might listen to you, understand and provide the help you need. This kind of ‘mental hopefulness’ has potentially positive repercussions for many areas of high special need, such as looked-after children or young offenders.

If there is a will to spend a bit more time understanding children, rather than instant-fixing them, then the unhappy children's messages will get through and parents and carers will have the satisfaction of both a calmer home and better connections.