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RE: [xmca] Where does the smile come from?



HI everyone,

Mary hi, I agree with this very interesting answer below. I had four
children and I will never forget being so excited when the second day my
little baby 'smiled' at me and when I excitedly and cooingly related this
happy event I was told in rather a cold tone that this was a burp or other
eliminatory type expression. Well then what does a mother do but not smile
in return... scary. I subsequently refused all guides to child rearing and
decided to do it the South African southern Mama style. Lots of hugs and
affection and go with the flow.

Congratulations by the way Mary:)

Warmest thoughts
Denise

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Rod Parker-Rees
Sent: dimanche 27 février 2011 11:55
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Where does the smile come from?

Hi Mary,

I like the idea, still found in many cultures around the world, that babies
have two births - the physical one and then, usually around 6-8 weeks later,
what we might call a 'psychological' birth. The physical birth is
'premature' because of the irreconcilable difficulty of relative sizes of
babies' heads and women's pelvises so, like kangaroos, the infant's
development has to be completed outside the womb. Parents will recognise the
significant social transformation which comes when the baby 'arrives' and
this is often associated with intentional smiles (in Colwyn Trevarthen's
terms this marks the beginning of primary intersubjectivity, though he now
argues that this is present from birth). In other cultures this is seen as
the moment when the baby's spirit finally settles in our world, having
previously been still connected to the spirit world from whence it came.
This 'arrival' is hard to pinpoint but very clear, particularly in the kind
of eye-contact which marks a social connection.

Watson's work on infant responses to contingency suggests that babies smile
in recognition of contingency between their actions and the information they
get back from the physical world. Attentive parents (and especially mothers
who have a head - or womb- start in developing familiarity with the baby)
offer particularly attuned contingent responses so are more likely to elicit
responsive smiles which, in turn, serve as very powerful affective rewards,
enabling babies to condition their parents to enjoy engaging in attuned
interactions.

The best way to 'bring out' that magical smile is probably to let yourself
go and just engage with your baby. I have often worried (as someone who
teaches on Early Childhood Studies programmes) whether too much conscious
awareness of what a baby ought to be doing 'by now' might come to stand in
the way of the relaxed, almost contemplative, 'full-on' interaction which
babies seem to need in order to support their entry into sociocultural
communication (which is not, of course, to say that they are not
communicative before this, only perhaps more physiologically).

The work by Fonagy, Gergely and Target, which has been discussed on this
forum in the past, presents a detailed summary of research into early
communication, affect regulation and attachment (I have just been reading
their book - 'Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the
Self' - first published in 2002). They suggest, following Watson (not to be
confused with the behaviorist!)  that babies begin life with a preference
for perfect contingency (such as they find in the sensorimotor
correspondences between motor acts and perceptual effects) but 'switch' at
about 3 months to a preference for 'high but imperfect' contingency - such
as they find in social interactions where familiar others respond
sensitively and attunedly to their actions and affect-displays.

Benjamin Spock's advice to mothers to 'enjoy your baby' may be intensely
irritating to some (easy for a man to say!) but I think it is still an
important message - if your baby is not smiling yet that is because she/he
is busy doing something which for her/him is probably more important just
for now.

Apologies if this sounds preachy!

All the best,

Rod



-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Mary van der Riet
Sent: 27 February 2011 06:29
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: [xmca] Where does the smile come from?

Baby books lead me to expect my newborn to deliver a smile to me in about a
week. As a significant form of social interaction, where does this smile
'magically' come from and why isn't it there earlier? What is going on in
Thomas's 5 week old mind before this smile appears? What do I do to bring it
out?

There must be an xmca response to this!

Mary





Mary van der Riet; School of Psychology; University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209

email: vanderriet@ukzn.ac.za
tel: 033 260 6163;  fax: 033 2605809

Please find our Email Disclaimer here: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer/
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