A pre-school child is a vivid illustration of this fullness of life! A family offers the ambience, a pre-school child needs to be formed to enter into the journey ahead through the schooling years.
The first child gets about two years exclusively with his or her parents before the next child arrives. Those two years fulfil some significant parenting roles.
One parenting role is to make a child feel in the first two years to grow in a sense of attachment.
The theory of attachment suggests that it can evolve into four different patterns: Secure, Avoidant, Resistant, Disorganised.
The attachment between the parents and the child in the first two years becomes secure, when the child receives undivided attention. An infant at four months, while crying is calling for attention. If the child has to cry for long, before being carried and comforted or his or her needs met, receives a message of emotional distance from the care givers.
It is when such a negative experiences occur incrementally a child avoids seeking for attention. He or she indulges in self pacifying by exploring body parts, holding on to objects that give some pleasure or behaving in a moody manner without wanting to relate or socialise. This avoidant behaviour is not healthy for subsequent psycho-social formation.
When a toddler has slipped into self absorbed ways, he or she becomes resistant to play, interact and stays detached. The feeding times turn out to be difficult and parents tune in the screen to occupy the child and the child is fed passively. Such children have difficulties to sleep or occupy oneself playing. The crying spells disturb the parents and parents can communicate angrily to the child.
When such a pattern emerges, the attachment behaviour gets disorganised. The normal attachment process has three phases: primary comfort level with parents or care givers which develop from about six months; by about a year, a child is ready to tolerate others although stranger anxiety persists for most of the second year; and a child is ready for social interaction and can stay away from the care givers for short period of time, when strangers can engage a child meaningfully. When a child is not able to go through this process developmentally, the attachment behaviour is disorganised.
A rose flower is an expression of a well tended rose plant.
The attachment process is what prepares an infant and toddler to grow into a stable attachment behaviour, which is akin to the good soil that nurtures a rose plant.
Giving primacy of parenting attention to an infant, till he or she becomes a pre-school child is an investment for his or her future.
The surrogate parenting is not an option, and it can be detrimental. The latest trend of occupying a child during infancy with screen time is a disservice to a child. He or she is emotionally pre-conditioned to be relational to parents or care givers, and not to the screen. The screen time interrupts the normal pathway of cognitive, behavioural, social and communication functions! The media exposure makes the attachment process disorganised!
An infant or toddler is an asset in the garden of life! Give him or her full attention to make his or her later years full of prospects!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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