Our Babies Ourselves Analysis

According to Winnicott, there are three stages in infant development. In stage one, undifferentiated unity, the child must feel connected to the mother. The mother fulfils this need through feeding, bathing and holding the child. In doing so, the child feels all powerful, and incomplete control of the mother. Their every need is met, and they want for nothing. However, Winnicott warns that if a mother fails to respond adequately to the child’s needs, this will hinder the development of healthy future relationships, including the relationship with one self.

In the film Babies, 4 infants are being observed for the first two years of their lives. Each babies comes from different culture, which shows how the various customs can impact the child’s development. Ponijao is the youngest one in his family and lives in a village in Opuwo Namibia. Bayar lives in Bayanchandmachi, Mongolia. Mari is the first child of a couple who lives in Tokyo Japan, and Hattie lives in Sans Francisco California. The film shows the babies develop cognitively, physically and socially-emotionally, during the infancy and toddler years. The Infancy and toddlerhood period is from birth to 2 years. “This period brings dramatic changes in the body and brain that support the emergence of a wide array of motor, perceptual, and intellectual capacities” (Berk & Meyers, 2016, p.6).

Socially and Emotionally the family is a big influence in a child’s development. Parents have a big role by providing care and guidance for their development. Unfortunately some families cannot promote the development of a child because of the conflict among the parents. A single parent can have difficulties in boosting a better development in children and young people, sometimes a child is separated from its siblings and this can affect them too.

All of the children had very different struggles to overcome based on their access to various resources. However, they all managed to adapt. Additionally, I felt the more nurturing environments seemed to be further along in social and cognitive development. The American baby was using monosyllabic words and expressing her desires to her parents. The Namibian baby seemed to also be interacting well with her parents, but I did not understand the language so it was challenging to fully understand the relationship. Both of the other babies seemed to be more reluctant to interact with their adult caregivers. Nature was taking care of the physical development that typically isn’t affected by the environment. However, nurture seemed to be affecting the rest of their development, at least to a certain

Each parent has their own unique way of taking care of their child. However, each parenting style usually reflects those of the culture surrounding them. Throughout the world, many societies have different ways they care for their infants. These differences seem to be mainly due to cultural values. Add more interest. In the article “Cultural Variation in Infants’ Sleeping Arrangements: Questions of Independence” written by Morelli, Rogoff, Oppenheim, and Goldsmith, the different infant care practices, such as sleeping arrangement and bedtime routines, done by Mayan mothers and U.S. mothers were discussed. This study was not intended to decide which parenting style is the right one, but rather to understand the differences surrounding infant care in both cultures.

The documentary Babies by Thomas Balmès is a film that takes place in four very different locations around the world. The documentary follows four babies and their families from when they are first born as they grow up and are able to walk. We watch Ponijao grow up in Namibia, Bayar grow up in Mongolia, Hattie grow up in San Francisco, and Mari grow up in Tokyo. Because the babies are from such different places, the documentary allows us to see what it is like growing up in cultures that we are currently unfamiliar with. The film opens up your eyes to the various forms of living in other areas around the world. In this paper, I will discuss the universal themes I noticed, my personal reflection of the film, the various

* Babies and young children are vulnerable and very dependent on their parents and carers. Therefore as well as provide and children’s learning and development it is also essential that we support the physical care, keep them safe and meet their nutritional needs.

After watching the documentary, “Babies”, I learned specifically about the social interaction between babies and their mothers. Socialization is a huge part in the younger years of life because it sets a basis of social norms that should be followed in that certain baby’s society throughout their life. There were four families touched on in the documentary from four different countries; Japan, Mongolia, Africa and America. Many similarities and differences were recognized and easily helped illustrate how diverse the world is.

When reading “A World of Babies” by Alma Gottlieb and Judy S. DeLoache, the book highlighted a multitude of societies around the world. These societies include the American Puritans, Beng from Ivory Coast West Africa, the people of Bali, the Muslim Turks, the Warlpiri from Australia, the Fulani in West Africa, and the Ifaluk from Micronesia and how each have different attitudes when it comes to breastfeeding, where the baby should sleep, what woman should or should not eat while pregnant, how to carry the baby, their religion and more . The book also shows the many parents’ ideas about their children and childcare compared to others across the globe. By looking at children around the world we get different perspectives, find out minute details such as infant mortality, and how economic status can affect child rearing. Learning the different ways people from other countries raise their children and cope with the many challenges around them is astounding. Just because you lack certain resources such as a tub or a particular formula does not mean one cannot raise a healthy baby. There is no right way to raise a child but this handbook gives you pointers so parents can choose the best way to do so.

Laura Schulz’s presentation, The Surprisingly Logical Minds of Babies, explores the idea of how babies and young children are able to learn so much in such a short span of time. In Schulz’s presentation, the viewers see multiple video experiments where she introduces babies to different balls and toys that make noises. I choose to explain and break down the first experiment, that she discusses. In the first experiment Schulz has a colleague reach into a bucket with mostly blue balls and a few yellow balls. The colleague pulls out three of the balls and when she takes each ball out she squeaks them. The colleague then pulls out a yellow ball and hands it to the baby. The child copies what Schulz’s colleague has done, but however the

In Meredith Small’s article Our Babies, Ourselves she focuses on people’s social and psychological development through examining the different cultural aspects of raising a child. During this process she compares the American perspective of treating babies, to those of the Gusii and the Dutch. Throughout her examination many points are made that I believe can give the reader’s a valuable understanding of the impact of different means of parenthood on a child’s future development.

The positive consequences of how babies in Namibia/Mongolia are raised are that the babies are left to play on their own or with siblings. This leads the babies to explore things on their own. The mothers have moderate physical contact with the baby at the early stages, except for cleaning and feeding. The babies know their place, for example, when the children ate separately from the adults. They also learn about the authority of parents when they are scolded spanked.

When it comes to child development the parents have the most influence on the child mainly as their primary caregivers on how well the child is taken care of and how well it needs are being met. In a typical family it consists of two parents a mother figure and a father figure and a child or multiple children which is seen as what is normal and best for the child, having interactions and care coming from both the parents. But in a household where there is only one parent in most cases the single parent some problems can arise from having only one parent in the household, some problems that can be seen are; stress within the house hold, issues with abuse, not being able to cope with having to raise a child alone, and socioeconomic issues.

In my perspective, most of the young people do not take account of socioemotional development in infancy because it seems still too far for them. However, after taking Developmental Psychology course, I am convinced that it is extremely significant for us, as young people, to acknowledge of the developmental process because we will have more time to consider which path is most effective and relevant with our lifestyle and expectation on our children. Back to the source why I promote the socioemotional development in infancy, I was born in Vietnam, a country where most of parents raise their children by their knowledge in traditional experiences, which have no scientific evidence and psychological considerations. For instance, they highly believe in “spare the rod and spoil the child” which completely restrain the children’s ability to

“As infants grows older, they form close and enduring emotional attachments with the important people in their lives”. Reference 1. This essay will discuss the developmental period of infancy. Infancy is categorised as the development stage of a human from birth to 2 years of age. Infancy is a time in the human life that involves rapid growth and extraordinary changes in the first two years of life. Infants not only grow dramatically physically, their brains develop, and there is the start of locomotor skill development as well as the start of reflexes and sensory growth. The essay will also discuss anxiety and the role it plays with infants in regards to physical, cognitive and psychosocial stages an infant experiences. This essay will argue that the attachment of an infant to its mother is highly important. It will discuss the different way in which attachment affects an infant. This essay will discuss typical development milsetones in the first year years of human life. It will then go to analysis the relationship between infants being in day care or at home with their mother. T The typical physical development of a babys starts at borth. When a Baby is born on average it will weigh 3.4 kilograms and measure to be around 51 centimeters. A baby is typically 25 percent of its final adult weight when it is born but by its