“Children become capable of learning a system of symbols for the affects;
as a result, they are enabled to achieve emotional self-awareness.”
John Gedo, MD, 2005
"The evidence is clear and compelling — physical punishment
of children and youth plays no useful role in their upbringing
and poses only risks to their development″
Joan Durant, PhD, and Ron Ensom, MSW,
Coalition on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth, 2004.
“Language… makes parts of our known experience more shareable with others….
It permits two people to create mutual experiences of meaning …
but in fact language is a double-edged sword.
It also makes some parts of our experience less shareable with ourselves and with others.”
“The problem of language acquisition has become an interpersonal problem.
Meaning … is something to be negotiated between the parent and child…
Meaning results from interpersonal negotiations involving what can be agreed upon as shared.”
The Interpersonal World of the Child (1985),
by Daniel Stern, MD
“By the time babies start to talk they have already acquired a great deal of world knowledge…”
“… some senses of the self do exist long prior to self-awareness and language.
These include the senses of agency, of physical cohesion, of continuity in time, of having intentions in mind, and other such experiences…”
Daniel Stern, MD, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, 1985.
“Through his powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has mainly depended” –
Charles Darwin
"With the … emergence (at around 18 months) of language… the child becomes a different being” –
Barbara Fajardo, Ph.D.
“Language… makes parts of our known experience more shareable with others…
But in fact language is a double-edged sword…
It drives a wedge between two simultaneous forms of interpersonal experience:
as it is lived and as it is verbally represented” –
Daniel Stern, M.D.
“I’m sick and tired of violence… I’m tired of war and conflict in the world. I’m tired of shooting. I’m tired of hatred. I’m tired of selfishness. I’m tired of evil.
I’m not going to use violence no matter who says it!”– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Parents… have come to realize that children can be well behaved, cooperative, and polite without ever having been punished physically.”– Benjamin Spock
Parents: What Do You Feel?
Dealing with young children can stir up such intense feelings. What feelings get triggered in us as parents?
Where do they come from? How do we deal with them? What feelings do toddlers in particular stir up?
"Darwin argues that our expressions of emotion are universal (that is, innate, not learned) and the product of our evolution. Neither our expressions nor our emotions are unique to human beings; other animals have some of the same emotions, and some of the expressions shown by animals resemble our own."
Paul Ekman in his introduction to the Third Edition (1998) of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ( 1872) .
If feelings are so important — they do cause behaviors, after all — what are feelings? How do they work?
There is a revolution occurring in infant and child development. Three issues have converged recently to help us understand much better the world of early childhood and how we can help our children get off to a good start in life.