Posts tagged Dr. Karen Hill Scott
Adulthood Revisited? Reset Your Grown-up Self, when your Baby is just too cute!
Have you ever felt so entranced by your baby that you lose track of yourself as a grown-up? I don’t mean in the chronological sense of your age but in the sense of your role. Are you Mommy, the cuddler-nurturer, at one with your infant? Or are you Mommy the leader, an example for all the little ones who are going to grow up in your home? Sometimes we need a wake-up call to merge the two into the one person our children call “Mom.” (Not to mention regaining the identity of co-producer with the other adult member of the family).
My mother gave me my wake-up call at 3:00 am, one Tuesday morning, when she walked into my kitchen where I was more or less pretending to enjoy playing goo-goo-gah-gah with a baby who obviously thought it was 3:00 in the afternoon. (more…)
Taking Care of Yourself – The importance of Recharging
Me Time
Have you ever put a week of your life on a spreadsheet and accounted for every hour of your time? Have you ever tried to find time for the “ME” in your life somewhere on that spreadsheet? (more…)
Watching Babies Think: Babies Know More Than We Think and More Than They Can Speak
Anyone who has seen the 2004 comedy, Meet the Fockers, starring Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller will remember the singular obsession of DeNiro’s character. As Jack Byrnes, an uptight former CIA agent and grandfather to Little Jack, he is hell-bent on using “the latest” child development principles to advance his grandson’s development. So when it comes to vocabulary building he takes sign language to a new level using a “drill and more drill” learning approach only to be foiled by his prospective son-in-law’s utterance of a profanity that is readily imitated by Little Jack!
When child development experts recommend talking to your baby, Jack Byrne’s approach is not what the scientific community had in mind. We can all just chill and do a great job of parenting and language development with less obsession. Here are a few ideas: More >
Watching Babies Think: How “Buh,” “Duh,” and “Ahh” Become Words in Less than Two Years
I was reading the opening to a chapter in an excellent book on brain development, (“What’s Going On In There?”) by neurobiologist, Lise Eliot. She recalls how much relief she felt when her baby boy uttered his first word before his first birthday. I thought to myself, “that’s a pretty high bar” for the rest of us. Most babies begin using spoken language around 18 months of age.
As Dr. Eliot continues, it is clear that she is not really bragging, but making a point that might be overlooked by those baby milestone charts. These early months, when baby cannot say a thing are a very important time for us to get to work with our own words for baby. From the moment of their first coo and babble, to the moment they start calling you Mama or Dada, babies are practicing “language usage” in their heads!
If you pay attention, you will More >
Halloween: The tricks and treats of a fun filled day
Halloween can be a high point of fun for lots of families. School-aged kids and teens look forward to the treats, the costumes, and especially the opportunity to give, or get, a gigantic scare from pranks and ghoulish attractions created just for the occasion.
But all that terrible scary fun stuff for older children, teens, and adults is just plain terror for babies and toddlers. Most moms like to participate in Halloween festivities because it can start a family tradition and let’s admit it: it’s fun to dress up Baby in a costume. The photo-op for Halloween is irresistible. But there is also a down side to Halloween, and that is the potential impact of the holiday’s fear factor on your baby’s stress level.
Babies respond to stress just like anyone else; one part of the brain sends chemical signals to other parts of the brain that More >
A Different Kind of Milestone: Watching Babies Think
If you’ve ever seen the 1989 movie Look Who’s Talking you’ll remember the infant, Mikey, whose thoughts are voiced from the moment one sperm leaves the donor and beats out the other sperm to fertilize the egg, creating a fabulous little boy. Unfortunately Mollie has been dumped by the baby’s father and Mikey is determined to have a Dad. He sees possibilities in Jake, the cab driver who befriends Mollie and becomes Mike’s sitter. For most of the movie we know Mikey is thinking because he is voiced over admirably by Bruce Willis. But we really KNOW what Mikey is thinking by his facial expressions, eye movements, and perfectly timed emotional outbursts. Despite his youth, he uses every infant strategy imaginable to successfully orchestrate a love story between his single mother and the cab driver.
When I watch this movie I am reminded More >
