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July 2011
The Revolution:
Feelings, Language, and Knowledge
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.
What are these three items? Feelings, language, and what I will call “smarts,” or knowledge. Feelings — we know much more now about our earliest built-in feelings and how they work. Language — the onset of language has tremendous impact on both the inner world of the child as well as on the parent-child relationship. Smarts — young children know so much more than we used to think.
These three issues — feelings, language, and smarts — are extraordinarily powerful forces. Together they result in the origins of emotional intelligence.
Feelings
We live in a world that tends to focus on behaviors. But what leads to behaviors? Feelings! Feelings motivate us. Feelings cause us to do things. This is what Daniel Goleman so beautifully described in his marvelous book Emotional Intelligence.
We now know so much more than we used to about feelings. Important advances have been made in understanding our earliest feelings. Knowing about our earliest built-in feelings and how they work is crucial. Why? Because the handling or mishandling of early feelings reverberate throughout the rest of the child’s life.
Language
Long before children can speak they can understand words, meanings, and language. When children begin to use words and speak, marvelous opportunities arise — to share ideas, feelings, perceptions, and so much more. But the onset of language can also cause problems. A child’s words sometimes can feel assaultive to parents: “No!” “I no like you!” “I hate you!”
In addition, the same words can have very different meanings for different people. As a child analyst, I often see children who are running into problems early on — and so often it is because the onset of language has thrown things off track.
Smarts
It turns out that infants and young children are capable of far more than we used to think they were. Children take in stimuli and study and test the world around them in remarkably sophisticated ways. Alison Gopnik and others have done some marvelous work in this area.
In addition, infants and young children are programmed for relating to people and interacting socially. They are not asocial blobs who are incapable of relating — quite the opposite, as the brilliant researcher Daniel Stern has shown.
Going Forward
Let’s take these three elements — feelings, language, and smarts — and show how they comprise the origins of emotional intelligence. There is tremendous synergy in understanding feelings, language, and smarts. These three elements are the keys to infant and child development. They enhance potential and prevent problems. The benefits last well into childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
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Paul C. Holinger, M.D.
A founder of the Center for Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, Dr. Holinger is a leading expert on child development and child behavior.
He is the author of the acclaimed book What Babies Say Before They Can Talk.
Quick Parenting Tip
If your child says a “bad word,” try going to the dictionary and reading the definition together. Discuss what the word means, and when and where it might or might not be appropriate to use it.
Book of the Month
Golman, Daniel (1995).
Emotional Intelligence.
New York: Bantam Books.
This is a terrific book that highlights the importance of understanding feelings in all areas of our lives.
Article of the Month
Benedek, Therese (1959).
Parenthood as a Developmental Phase. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA) 7: 389-417.
This article is a classic in the field. Therese Benedek shows how parents go though their own development when they have a child.
Help your child discover
the joys of
Summer Reading
Video and TV abound in our culture.
So take a break from the screen and further your child's enjoyment of reading. This handy list of 2011 Notable Children's Books provides a user friendly guide of choices from those geared to pre-schoolers to those geared for teens.
Read together, read out loud- share with your child your own love of books and the written word. By doing so, you will inspire his/her own good reading habits and understanding of the surrounding world.
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