There is a psychological experience that I recently saw and which surprised and directly convinced me that parents, before having children, need to be educated and take special courses in order to be able to give a child a clear and correct upbringing. Why should they take courses and learn to deal with upbringing, I will answer this question this way . Because there is a unique bond between parents and children that forces children to reflect directly on their parents’ behavior and to depend on it until adulthood. I will explain now what made me accept this point of view.
Psychologists call this psychological experience the most cruel because it has to do with the parent-child relationship and how the child responds to each parent’s every move and action.
Humans are born ready for connection. The way we are parented has long term and ongoing effects on our functioning. The effects of our early life can trigger a cascade of changes genetically, cognitively, socially, and physically which can have either positive or negative lifelong consequences. The ‘still face’ experiment is a powerful study which shows our need for connection from very early in life. This experiment was developed by Dr Ed Tronick in the 1970’s. The still face experiment gives an insight into how a parent’s reactions can affect the emotional development of a baby. Early in our lives we were learning about other people’s reactions and how our behaviour can affect others. This experiment gives us insight into what it is like when connection does not occur.
This experiment involves a baby and parent (in this case the mother) sitting facing each other. The mother starts by playing with her baby, smiling at them, and talking to them. The mother then turns away. The next step is that the mother shows a still face or a lack of responsiveness to her baby for 2 mins. After the still face portion of the experiment there is a repair when the mother returns to normal and returns to playing with and talking to her baby. The interesting part of this experiment is not the actions of the mother but rather the reaction of her baby. You start by seeing a smiling happy baby who is engaging with her mother. The baby is making movements and sounds to communicate with her mother and responding to her mother’s interactions with her.
Once the still face portion of the experiment begins the baby at first looks confused. She attempts to use all of her abilities to initiate a response from her mother. Babies are limited in the types of sounds and movements they can do, and you see the baby in this video using a range of ways to try to get her mother’s attention. She looks around the room, she tries smiling, then pointing. As her attempts to connect continue to be ignored by her mother you see her start to show distress and frustration. She begins crying and then screeching. Babies in this experiment often loose postural control. Their central nervous system become so overwhelmed that they physically collapse. This baby also bites her own hand which may be an attempt at self-comfort. This baby dissolves emotionally and it can be uncomfortable to watch her distress. Towards the end of the experiment the baby becomes withdrawn and hopeless no longer attempting to get her mother’s attention.
After the still face portion of the experiment when the mother returns to interacting with the baby. You can see the joyfulness of the reunion and the relief is clear. The baby is quickly able to regulate its emotions once the mother is present again and play resumes easily. The still face is an example of the common everyday occurrences which all parents experience where they need to finish cooking dinner or attend to another child. Having a non-responsive parent is not a problem if it occurs in short doses, however if it occurs over longer periods it can have a detrimental impact on the baby’s development.
Dads you are just as important
This video demonstrates that babies react just as strongly to their fathers ‘still face’. Babies demonstrate the same behaviours seeking connection to their father as they do with their mothers. Fathers are often left out in this type of research and it is important that fathers understand how important they are in their child’s life.
So, what does the ‘still face’ experiment show?
The ‘still face’ demonstrates how vulnerable we all are to the emotional or non-emotional reactions of the people they are close to. It demonstrates how babies who are just learning about their relational world try to achieve connection. Babies were once thought to be unable to understand emotions. However, in this experiment they have a clear reaction to a lack of emotional connection from their mothers and fathers. Even very young babies have demonstrated that they can respond to emotions of the adults who care for them. Not only are babies able to passively respond to adult interactions but babies are also actively engaging and shaping social interaction with the adults in their lives.
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