The First Three Years: A Critical Time for Parents and Children

I recently attended a lunch seminar at my office put on by Dr. Ross Thompson from UC Davis. The title of the seminar was “The First Three Years: A Critical Time for Parents and Children” and was focused on two topics: early childhood education and paid family leave.

I found the seminar fascinating and wanted to share some of the things I learned. I was amazed to learn about how our little interactions with children make a huge difference in their lives later on.  I hope you find this as useful as I did:

Dr. Thompson studies how the content and structure of early parent-child discourse shapes young children’s developing representations of emotion, morality and self. He also discussed the important correlation between learning, brain development and social and emotional functioning

1.       He believes that infants develop in an environment of relationships - every child needs a parent who is crazy about them and their well being, which may sound obvious, but not always provided

·         Brains are shaped by human interaction

·         The first two years are crucial for a child’s development because the brain has to learn what kind of environment it lives in (safe and secure or danger)

·         For many children, damage has been suffered before the first day of school

2.       He showed us a video of a mother playing with her one year old child who is sitting in a high chair. The child is laughing and smiling as her mother talks to her.

·         Then they ask the mother to keep a still face and stare straight ahead, disengaging with the child. The child makes lots of noise trying to get her mom’s attention. Then she grows visibly upset and starts crying as her mother proceeds to ignore her. This all happened in just a matter of minutes and p.s. I could NEVER be that mother! It was painful just to watch the poor child. This particular study was showing effects of depression on young children but also shows the direct affect attention has on a child’s well-being.

3.       He spoke about the importance of early learning (pre-kindergarten) on young children

·         Low-income children are at a disadvantage when they enter kindergarten. This shocked me since I always thought kindergarten was really the jumping off point of learning.

·         High income kids have a vocabulary twice the size of low income kids by the 36 months

·         Why? They hear more words and the words are used more for storytelling.

4.       Dr. Thompson discussed stress in a young child’s life mentioning “It’s not only what kids go through but how their parents buffer them”

He described three types of stress for a child:

1.       Positive – brief and mild,

2.       Tolerable – serious but temporary, buffered by supportive relationships

3.       Toxic – prolonged with absence of protective relationships

5.       Young children’s emotional lives are vulnerable to stress, even when we don’t think they can understand

·         The toxic stress can affect early childhood mental health

·         Toxic stress can come from parental abuse of alcohol or drugs. It can also come from chronic neglect – a child cries without being cuddled. Stress emerges when a child senses persistent threats but no protector.

·         People who grow up in disrupted communities are more likely to lead disrupted lives as adults, magnifying disorder from one generation to the next. These people find it harder to control their impulses throughout their lives. These children are at risk for academic failure

6.       Often parents underestimate the emotional sensitivity of their child but overestimate their self-regulation

·         In other words, they don’t think the child is affected by many things but they think their terrible two toddler is being defiant when really the child’s brain and reasoning is still developing.