All They Need Is Love
The Beatles wrote a very famous song entitled, "All You Need Is Love.
"This song brought both joy and tears to people around the world.
Empathy, caring, and love are truly what most of us need to feel as if we belong and are capable of positive self-expression as warm human beings.
Where does empathy, caring, and love develop?Behavioral biologists and psychologists have questioned this extensively and have concluded that a system of neurotransmitters and peptide hormones (also known as oxytocin, only found in mammals) affect the regulation and mediation for human bonding.
This hormone lends itself to positive emotions, which relate to social and family connections.
All positive and caring experiences, in both children and adults, strengthen positive emotions and social bonding.
Proper caregiving to a child contributes greatly to the growth of a child's mental and social capabilities.
In a study done by Harlow in 1958, infant rhesus monkeys were taken away from their mothers at birth.
They were placed in a cage that had two kinds of surrogate mothers.
One was a wire mesh mother that provided structural support and milk and the other was a wire mesh mother covered with terrycloth (with no milk).
Both mothers had a face drawn on cardboard and were shaped in the figure of a mother monkey.
When given the chance, the infant monkeys hugged the terrycloth mother most of the day and only when they were truly thirsty would to go the wire mesh mother for milk.
They always quickly returned to the terrycloth mother.
The monkeys that were raised in this experiment, in complete isolation from other monkeys, developed the type of pathologies sometimes seen in neglected and abused human children.
The monkeys' capability for caring had been almost totally inhibited because of the experiences they had been exposed to in their childhood.
When they took the monkeys and placed them with other monkeys, the rhesus monkeys would stare into space, hug and rock themselves, and hit and bit indiscriminately.
The conclusion:The kind of care your infant receives affects the neurochemistry of brain development.
Your infant is strongly affected by the presence of, or the absence of, an early pleasurable social experience with parents and their peers.
Here are four tools every parent should know about in raising a healthy and balanced child.
First:Every child needs time and attention from their parents.
Quality time that means you listen, play, spend time with, and empathize with your child daily.
Help your child express their feelings and be engaged when you are with them and not distracted by your own harried life.
Become a participant your child's life as often as possible.
Acknowledge their presence and give them verbal and physical (hugs, kisses) appreciation.
Second:Nurture your child by communication and connecting as a family.
Have that "rule" that states the family comes together every evening to share dinner.
At the dinner table, you will discover through conversation what your child is doing and thinking.
This is one of the best ways to share your time and attention with your child.
Become genuinely interested in your child's day and life.
It will bring you closer together and should also add a bundle of laughs to your table.
Third:Let your child know that their education is very important to you.
Become aware of your child's teachers, course work, friends, and school functions in which you should participate.
Your child spends a greater part of the day at school, so find out what's happening to your child during that time.
Four:Acceptance.
Just accept your child for who he is and always differentiate between him as a person and his often-wild behavior.
Acceptance means appreciating what he does well and appreciating what he doesn't do well.
Our early pleasurable emotional experiences influence the development of brain chemistry, structure, and ultimately our behavior.
Empathy, caring, and love make us human.
When you extend your arms to your child, when you listen to what he has to say, and when you include him in family bonding functions, you are helping to create the development of a healthy human being - the same person who will touch the lives of many others in a truly positive way throughout their lifetime.
"This song brought both joy and tears to people around the world.
Empathy, caring, and love are truly what most of us need to feel as if we belong and are capable of positive self-expression as warm human beings.
Where does empathy, caring, and love develop?Behavioral biologists and psychologists have questioned this extensively and have concluded that a system of neurotransmitters and peptide hormones (also known as oxytocin, only found in mammals) affect the regulation and mediation for human bonding.
This hormone lends itself to positive emotions, which relate to social and family connections.
All positive and caring experiences, in both children and adults, strengthen positive emotions and social bonding.
Proper caregiving to a child contributes greatly to the growth of a child's mental and social capabilities.
In a study done by Harlow in 1958, infant rhesus monkeys were taken away from their mothers at birth.
They were placed in a cage that had two kinds of surrogate mothers.
One was a wire mesh mother that provided structural support and milk and the other was a wire mesh mother covered with terrycloth (with no milk).
Both mothers had a face drawn on cardboard and were shaped in the figure of a mother monkey.
When given the chance, the infant monkeys hugged the terrycloth mother most of the day and only when they were truly thirsty would to go the wire mesh mother for milk.
They always quickly returned to the terrycloth mother.
The monkeys that were raised in this experiment, in complete isolation from other monkeys, developed the type of pathologies sometimes seen in neglected and abused human children.
The monkeys' capability for caring had been almost totally inhibited because of the experiences they had been exposed to in their childhood.
When they took the monkeys and placed them with other monkeys, the rhesus monkeys would stare into space, hug and rock themselves, and hit and bit indiscriminately.
The conclusion:The kind of care your infant receives affects the neurochemistry of brain development.
Your infant is strongly affected by the presence of, or the absence of, an early pleasurable social experience with parents and their peers.
Here are four tools every parent should know about in raising a healthy and balanced child.
First:Every child needs time and attention from their parents.
Quality time that means you listen, play, spend time with, and empathize with your child daily.
Help your child express their feelings and be engaged when you are with them and not distracted by your own harried life.
Become a participant your child's life as often as possible.
Acknowledge their presence and give them verbal and physical (hugs, kisses) appreciation.
Second:Nurture your child by communication and connecting as a family.
Have that "rule" that states the family comes together every evening to share dinner.
At the dinner table, you will discover through conversation what your child is doing and thinking.
This is one of the best ways to share your time and attention with your child.
Become genuinely interested in your child's day and life.
It will bring you closer together and should also add a bundle of laughs to your table.
Third:Let your child know that their education is very important to you.
Become aware of your child's teachers, course work, friends, and school functions in which you should participate.
Your child spends a greater part of the day at school, so find out what's happening to your child during that time.
Four:Acceptance.
Just accept your child for who he is and always differentiate between him as a person and his often-wild behavior.
Acceptance means appreciating what he does well and appreciating what he doesn't do well.
Our early pleasurable emotional experiences influence the development of brain chemistry, structure, and ultimately our behavior.
Empathy, caring, and love make us human.
When you extend your arms to your child, when you listen to what he has to say, and when you include him in family bonding functions, you are helping to create the development of a healthy human being - the same person who will touch the lives of many others in a truly positive way throughout their lifetime.