Tag: Magda Gerber

when do children learn empathy?

Desere

We talk about empathy a lot in my RIE class. But I never witnessed this quality in my son. Until this week’s class.

At every class at least one mom takes the opportunity to leave her child and go to the restroom. My RIE teacher calls this our laboratory, a safe place to practice leaving our child knowing they will be supported and respected while we are gone. Not always, but many times the child left will cry.

I have watched as the child cries, another child stops playing and watches.

I have watched as the child cries, another child begins to cry.

I have watched as the child cries, another child crawls over and sits with the child until the parent comes back.

But my son never did any of these things.

My son always continues playing. There are times when he even starts giggling. Giggling, as in… he is so immersed in his play he is giggling over the crying.

Rarely he will glance over at the crying child.

But then this week… it happened.

A girl’s mom told her she was leaving. The girl began to cry. And my son instantly stopped playing.

I don’t know if it was because she was a girl. I don’t know if it was that he is now at the point in his life, with enough maturity, that he understands this type of suffering. But now, at just shy of 14 months of age, my son showed empathy. He kept walking over to the little girl, then backing away. He never took his eyes off her. There were moments when he made small noises, as if to match her cries? And then the mom came back and my son was pointing up at the mom as she walked through the door. It was as if he was saying “hey, she’s back, she’s back!”.  Perhaps signaling to the little girl?

But the girl was beyond the point of sadness because she couldn’t stop crying. She was unable to control her emotions, so the mama sat with her little girl on her lap.

I thought that this was it with my son, but it wasn’t. He kept checking in on them. He kept watching. The girl was still crying and Franky continued to feel for her.

At some point, my son went up to both mom and girl, and just barely, softly, touched the little girl’s hand. He then walked away. And the little girl stopped crying. She was watching Franky and soon enough was again ready to join him and the others.

It was just so beautiful and it was so sensitive.

My teacher has talked to us about how babies often cry when they hear crying because they have a sort of innate sense of empathy. But in the beginning this is just mimicking. At some point, it becomes more. Children really begin to understand that crying stems from a place of suffering, a place of sadness, that crying is not just noise. And this understanding establishes a true empathy within the child. Since this is a complex thing, it happens at a different stage for each child. And now, with careful observation and the perfect environment to allow such a situation to unfold, I believe my son achieved this quality.

Because of my background as a teacher, or maybe just my personality, I am always trying to learn more about RIE. I am particularly fascinated by what it looks like beyond the first two years. I ask my teacher and anyone I know who has raised their children with this philosophy, how does RIE look when our kids are teenagers? What sets RIE kids apart from non-RIE kids later on in life?

Well one of the things I often hear is compassion, because RIE is about relationship-based caring. RIE kids are just more compassionate. In preschool, elementary school, high school, and throughout their entire life.

I am not trying to say non-RIE kids can’t be compassionate. Of course some kids are and some kids aren’t. But this parenting philosophy allows kids the opportunity to develop compassion. It is because we let the kid cry and let the other kids see it. It is because we trust what kids are feeling to be real and authentic. It is because we create an environment that embraces emotion instead of stamping it out.

This is why RIE kids care more. They feel more. They are more.

And I think that such a beautiful thing!

RIE: a history

Desere

In my education program, I taught a curriculum called IMP, Interactive Mathematics Program. This curriculum was developed in 1989, so it has time and experience behind it. And can I just say, I love this curriculum! I love how it puts the heavy lifting on the students. I love how the problems aren’t contrived but are really applicable to daily life. I love how each unit has a central problem students have to answer, like “How long is a shadow?” or “Do bees really build it best?”, and through answering these problems they are learning mathematical concepts.

The school where I got a job, however, was not using IMP as their curriculum. But after my first year, I was able to convince my principal to adopt it. Then throughout my second year, I was able to convince 9 other schools to do the same. I did this by allowing teachers to come and observe me, and holding professional development conferences about the curriculum and my own experience with it.

You see when schools were forced to adopt Common Core a few years ago, many had to switch curriculums in order to comply to the new standards. Common Core is just a new set of standards. But for mathematics, these new standards imply that students have more opportunities to collaborate, problem solve, and have deeper conceptual understanding.

The schools in the system I was working in kept trying different new curriculums, but each curriculum seemed to fall short. Students were not learning. Grades were not improving. Teachers were miserable. This is because all the new curriculums that claimed to comply to Common Core were too new. There were too many issues that needed to be worked out. Honestly most of the new books I saw were literally the same original textbooks that we all had growing up, but with “group work” sprinkled in. It was old, masked as new. But because everyone was in a rush to implement Common Core, the curriculums came out before they were ready.

Consequently during my second year, I made it my mission to convince as many schools as I could to adopt IMP. Because I knew IMP was successful! It has the history behind it that already proves its success. Furthermore, it is already everything Common Core is trying to be, but it was done in 1989.

So I have just told you how amazing this curriculum is. From the school’s point of view, it is 100% compliant with Common Core. From a teacher’s point of view, it is a fun and enriching curriculum. From a student’s point of view, it actually teaches understanding rather than memorization through stories and group worthy tasks. It has been around for almost 30 years!

Then why haven’t you heard of it?

Why aren’t more schools using it, if it is such a successful and enjoyable curriculum?

Well through my fight to spread IMP I realized, just because something is good, even really good, doesn’t necessarily mean it is well known. 

This brings me to RIE.

People keep asking me what RIE is. Which is understandable. It is not a widely known parenting philosophy. But it is not a new thing, and it is not a trend. RIE was founded in 1978, but the ideas that developed this philosophy stem from much earlier.

Magda Gerber, founder of RIE, was influenced by her children’s pediatrician Dr. Emmi Pikler. Dr. Pikler worked with parents in the 20’s and 30’s to raise their children in an environment with free movement and minimal intervention.

In 1946 she opened up an orphanage in Hungary named Loczy to house the hundreds of infants found parentless after World War II. Dr. Pikler wanted the babies to be raised according to a specific philosophy:

  • trust in the child as a self-learner
  • intimate human relation with one primary carer
  • minimal interruption of child play
  • a lot of time for child play
  • independence in movement, choice, and activities
  • involvement of the child in all activities with the carer
  • respect

As a doctor, Emmi Pikler was specifically focused on the physicality of allowing babies to grow up without being taught how to sit or walk. She wanted them to develop gross motor skills on their own timeline.

Furthermore, Dr. Pikler ensured every carer took extensive notes. Each carer was in charge of 3 babies, and were to take weekly notes that tracked behavior and movement, as well as social interactions. Outside of these notes, there was several scientists and doctors who observed and carried out studies during the 60’s and 70’s. Research done on this philosophy and methodology continued because Loczy continued to raise children in this way for 30 years!

After Magda Gerber worked with Dr. Pikler in Hungary, she decided to bring what she learned to the United States. She became an infant specialist herself and began Resources for Infant Educarers® (RIE®) to continue educating parents and caregivers.

My point with all this, is that although RIE is not well known, it is not new.

But I get it, people who have just heard of it may still be hesitant and wonder, how do we really know if it works? Even I wrote a whole post about not knowing whether RIE will help my son become a respectful, secure adult one day. But just as I told teachers when they were training and learning IMP with me, they needed to trust in the curriculum. They needed to trust that it has been around and it does work.

We too, need to trust in RIE.

RIE has the history.

My RIE teacher has children in their 20’s. She told me she could always see a difference between her kids compared to other kids. My other RIE teacher just went to her granddaughter’s 8th grade graduation last week. She raised her kids using RIE, and they are in turn raising her grandchildren using the same ideals. She said it was such a unique experience being able to see her 13 year old daughter so self aware and confident.

This style of raising children has a history. And the history speaks for itself.

 

stop taking babies to the happiest place on earth

Desere

Last week I wrote about how relaxing RIE classes are.

You know what’s not relaxing? Disneyland…

I went to Disneyland the other day with a few friends, and without my son. I hadn’t been in about 6 or 7 years, so I was excited to go.

But it was horrible.

I’m not even talking about how extremely hot it was (94°) or how extremely crowded it was (park reached maximum capacity). Those things did not help my already wavering appreciation of this theme park.

But what made it horrible for me was seeing all the babies.

I saw babies dripping in sweat and every other stroller having fans attached to them. I saw children having melt downs throughout the day out of what was clearly pure exhaustion. I heard toddlers screaming at the baby center while being changed. I watched kids begging their parents to buy all sorts of toys and parents becoming angry over every request. I even saw kids passed out on the floor, all over the park. And there was crying… so much crying.

And I am sure if you have ever been to Disneyland, you have seen these things too.

Folks, please stop taking babies to Disneyland. I may not be a child specialist or have a PhD, but I have eyes and I am a mother. These babies and toddlers are NOT happy, and here is my interpretation of why this is so.

1. over-stimulation: 

The theme park has giant characters, lights all around, music and bands, noise from all directions, people everywhere, smells, rides.

Just listing it all out is making me feel overwhelmed. I can’t imagine my son, who  gets overwhelmed from too many people coming over, dealing with all of these things.

When I was there, I was going to the baby center constantly to pump. One of the times there I watched a mom holding a baby that looked to be about 8 months old. His eyes were bulging, and looking everywhere. I could see him simply attempting to take everything in. He was being moved quickly, and he was struggling to keep up.

And I felt for him.

2. loss of predictability

Babies crave predictability. This is a fact. Magda Gerber (founder of RIE) believed that predictability helps babies and toddlers feel secure.

The more predictable the daily routine is, the more stability we give our kids. This helps them eat and sleep when the time comes. This also helps them make sense of the ever changing world around them.

I really believe my job is to keep my son feeling safe. Over-stimulation is something that is not routine for him, which is unpredictable. In that type of environment he doesn’t learn or feel comfortable. And I feel like I’m failing my job. Not to mention I hate ‘bucketing’ him for more than a few hours.

After a full day at any theme park, I am whiped out. I am emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained. I can’t imagine what a full day at Disneyland might do to my son’s equilabrium.

I believe my son is capable of handling a lot. But I know he has no way of handling everything that would be thrown at him at Disneyland, which brings me to my next point.

3. unreasonable expectations

It’s called the happiest place on earth for a reason, and I’m not writing this to deny any of those reasons. However expecting a baby or young toddler to take everything in and be as happy and excited as I am when I travel to to Disneyland is unreasonable.

Babies and toddlers aren’t coming here for their own pleasure, that is ridiculous. We take them for our pleasure. We take them for pictures with cartoon characters we adore. Worse yet, we take them as an afterthought because we are really taking our older children.

In her post Please Don’t Take The Children, Janet Lansbury explains her own understanding of child development and the dangers of projecting our adult point of view onto our infants and toddlers. “It sounds fun and stimulating to us, so it must be a good idea. It’s easy to make this misjudgment with pre-verbal children.”

She continues to point out that the stress, discomfort, and exhaustion may not harm babies. “But what these developmentally inappropriate activities are almost certain to do is waste a child’s time, time the child could be spending engaging in self-initiated learning adventures, creating and imagining, feeling content, secure and confident in familiar surroundings, socializing, free to move and explore, empowered by knowing the routine.”

And I think this is what bothered me the most. Seeing these young kids trapped.

Because children are explorers and need places where they are able to move around, experiment, run, and climb. Asking a toddler not to do these things is asking them not to breathe. But in a crowded theme park, our kids lose this safe place to play and explore. We fear for their safety. We yell if they run. We get frustrated when they don’t comply.

Why are we setting ourself up for failure?

But Des, this is the happiest place on earth! I know it is, and I too cannot wait to take my son here. I dream about the day I can bring him to enjoy the parade and the rides, to meet different characters. I just think there is an age limit to this ‘happiness’ and we need to be careful about what is being commercially marketed to us. And I can’t tell you what the age limit is because I think every kid is different and every kid might be able to handle this experience differently.

What I can do is pass along the test that Janet Lansbury recommends before deciding to take your child anywhere: 1) “Who is this for?” 2) “Are they really ready to actively participate in this experience, or would it be better to wait until they are a bit older?” 3) “Will this be more enriching than an afternoon dawdling in the backyard or a walk down the street?”

When you can answer these three questions authentically, then you will be making a decision in the best interest of your child.

So for me:

1) Disneyland is for me to let loose with my friends and go on rides

2) my son can’t walk yet so he is definitely too young to actively participate in anything at the park

3) watching my son spend a whole afternoon learning how to slide the screen door open, let himself outside, crawl around, come back inside, slide the screen closed, and repeat is enriching enough for the both of us

sometimes i don’t know if RIE will work

Desere

“I want to be transparent with you.”

This was something I used to tell my students when I taught high school. I used this line to start any conversation where I wanted to be open and honest with them. Maybe it was about the administration requiring me to do something I didn’t believe in, or the testing schedule was conflicting with the learning. Regardless, I believed in having open communication with my students. After all, I expected them to have open communication with each other and myself.

I first heard this line by my mentor, who also believed in being honest with his students. At first I wondered, why show such vulnerability? Wouldn’t students see this as a weakness? We are the teachers. They are students. Those are clear roles that have clear boundaries. We don’t need to justify anything to them. But my mentor made me realize this was not a form of weakness, it was a strength. It was a way to build the relationship, to build rapport.

So, readers, I want to be transparent with you.

In my last post, I wrote about an incident that happened with my mom and my son. After replaying this incident in my head, re-reading my post about it, and speaking with my mom several times about it, I found myself questioning this parenting philosophy I have chosen.

Honestly, this was not the first time I heard the little voice in my head wondering, is this the right way?

How do I know RIE will work? 

How do I know I am not creating emotional scars for my child? 

What if positive parenting is just a ‘trend’ right now?

What if in a few years several articles written by PhD so-and-so, and studies done by Ivy League what’s-it-called come out showing RIE is a bust? 

I know I am not the only mom that wonders if what I am doing on the daily is hurting or helping my child.

I am an over-thinker. And I am sensitive. Which means, I take most things to heart and I tend to over-think everything to the point of exhaustion. So when there is just a little bit of doubt about what I am doing, it gets amplified in my head.

But I didn’t choose RIE because it sounded nice at the time. I chose to follow this philosophy because it spoke to me, to who I am.

I chose RIE because it is a way of parenting, and a way of life, centered on the idea of respect. 

And that idea means the world to me.

But it is hard because it is different. I know I am going against the grain when I avoid screen time with my son, when I speak to him like an adult, when I ask if I can pick him up before doing so. I am aware of all these things. It is very different than what most people are used to. It is very different than how my parents raised me.

Sometimes I feel like I know exactly what Robert Frost was talking about when he said to take the road less traveled. And I hope it does make all the difference.

But the hardest part is not only that it is different, because it is. No, the hardest part is not offending anyone else’s parenting style knowing how different mine is to theirs. Because parenting is not black and white. Parenting is not even gray, it is a swirl of colors and ideas. Since every person is different, every style of parenting is different. And there is no right or wrong because what works for some might not work for others. As the worlds biggest ‘learn on the job’ type of job, it really depends on who you are and what you believe to be true.

My parents did not raise me using RIE. There were a lot of things they did that would be considered anti-RIE. But here’s the thing, I don’t ever for a second think about their parenting in a bad way.

When I was pregnant and reading left and right about babies and discipline, all I kept coming back to in my head was how incredible my parents handled everything. I put them up on a pedestal and decided I would use them as my guide because my parents instilled in us the characteristics I hope to see in my son one day.

And look, maybe they had no idea what they were doing at the time. But overall (and obviously I am super biased) I think they did a fantastic job.

Therefore, for me to choose this style of parenting that is so different, is not easy. As willing as my amazing mom is to learn with me and try everything I ask of her, I can see how hard it is for her to do things against what she is used to. Consequently, I am having a lot of difficulty sustaining my own passion for this philosophy.

I am questioning myself, because what if ‘respect’ is not enough. When my son is crying, my heart breaks. Of course I want him to stop because he is sad, which makes me sad. And I love him so much that I don’t ever want him to feel sad. But Magda Gerber, founder of RIE, once said “Many awful things have been done in the name of love, but nothing awful can be done in the name of respect.”

What is she referring to?

Well, let’s take the case of a child crying:

  • Showing them love is assuming that when children cry, they are sad. In order to stop feeling sad, they need to stop crying. So we make them stop.
  • Showing them respect is teaching our children how to sit with their uncomfortable feelings and work through them.

We cannot really limit how someone feels, regardless if that someone is an adult or child. It’s not up to us to decide how long someone else needs to cry to get the emotions out. The adult’s job who is nearby, ANY adult nearby, is to let the feelings be, for as long as they need to. RIE is about giving our children emotional freedom, because our children cannot regulate their emotions the way we as adults can. They learn to regulate emotions only through experience. So let them experience strong emotions. Let them experience processing those emotions. And let them experience what it feels like to come out the other side.

We are teaching emotional intelligence.

Ok all this sounds nice… but the fact still remains that this is just so different than what most parents do and believe. And I don’t have an answer for you. I don’t know if my child will end up with more emotional intelligence than other children, or if following this style of parenting will give my son emotional scars. I don’t know if positive parenting will get my son to be more creative and hard working. I have no idea if openly communicating with him will give him a better vocabulary. Who knows if modeling respect will make him be respectful to himself and others.

Sometimes, I don’t know if RIE will work.

Maybe Robert Frost was wrong, maybe the road less traveled will not make all the difference.

But I started this blog because I wanted to share my experiences with you, the good and the bad. Maybe when I reach post # 29,583 we will laugh together about how silly and naive I was in the beginning… Maybe.

But a fellow RIE mom was giving advice to another mom who was having doubts about baby-led play and it really resonated. Here is what she wrote:

“It sounds like you are using RIE with a goal in mind. Try to let go of that. RIE kids are not more creative, or independent, or able, than any other kids. They are just more *themselves*. It is hard to let go when you just want the best for your son, but really trust him. He is doing what he needs to do. Try not to compare him to others. The only goal of RIE is really to have the tools to truly allow our kids to be who they are.“

Thank you fellow RIE mom, for reminding me of what RIE is really about and why I believe in it so much.

anticipation begets cooperation

Desere1 Comment

For the past two weeks or so, my son has been sick. Let me tell you, practicing respectful parenting with a sick baby is not easy!

The biggest struggle I have been having is wiping my son’s nose. He hates it! But there is not much I can do when he sneezes, I have to wipe him up. As I go near him with the tissue he immediately turns his head away. When I try to wipe he will whip his head back and forth and eventually whimper or scream for me to leave him alone.

This is when I realized, I am approaching him all wrong.

RIE has taught me a lot about slowing down. When we want our children to cooperate, it is important to remember they run at a much slower pace than we do. When we slow down, get down on their level, and speak to them with respect, this is often all they need to do what we ask.

Why on earth haven’t I been following my own advice the past two weeks!? Well, it’s because he is sick, and my husband is sick, and there is lack of sleep, and I forgot. I forgot that my goal is to trust and respect my son. always. I forgot that I should be treating him like a human, not an object. Who do you know that would want you to come up from behind and start wiping their nose for them?

So I did some research on one of the RIE Mom groups on Facebook, and found some advice for what to do. This morning, I tried it.

My son sneezed, and there was snot everywhere.

Not moving from my spot I said, “Franky, you sneezed and have a lot of snot, I am going to get a tissue.”

I got up and walked over to the tissue box. I grabbed one and sat back where I was originally sitting on the floor.

“I have a tissue now.” I waited until he saw me and came over out of interest. I let him touch the tissue.

“I need to wipe your nose with this tissue.”

More waiting.

“I am going to wipe you. 1 … 2 … 3 …” and I wiped his nose.

And you know what my son did. Nothing. He let me wipe his nose completely, he let me wipe his mouth and under his chin. He watched me throw the tissue away and then went back to playing with his toys.

Did the process maybe take longer than if I just attacked him with a tissue, maybe? But my son was not traumatized by the experience. I can’t believe I wasn’t doing this sooner!

At RIE class, my teacher often tells us “anticipation begets cooperation“. Allowing babies to anticipate our actions before we actually do anything, gives them the opportunity to cooperate. This is the difference between any care-giver and an educarer. (remember RIE stands for Resources for Infant Educarers). My teacher’s mentor, Magda Gerber, explains that “the care-giver may scoop up an infant unexpectedly from behind, thereby startling, interrupting and creating resistance in the infant, the educarer always tells the infant before she does anything with him or her and thus gains cooperation.”

So that’s it. The secret to getting babies to cooperate is often as simple as telling them what you plan on doing.

I explained in one of my posts how I change my son’s diaper. It is never an easy task, and what has helped me was getting my son as involved as possible, having him help me by lifting his legs and wiping. There are still, to this day, many times that this task is incredibly challenging. Before I am able to apply what I described in that post, he is struggling to even lay down. So I recently starting using my teachers advice with this as well.

When I suspect he needs a change, I let him know that I will be changing his diaper in a few minutes. After this time passes, I tell him I will pick him up to go change his diaper. As I carry him to his room I am telling him that we are going to his room to change his diaper. (as you probably noticed, I try to say the phrase ‘change your diaper’ as often as I can) Before setting him down I tell him, “I am about to put you on your changing table”. As I am lowering him, “I am putting you on the changing table now”. etc.

It may seem annoying to an outsider, but what I am trying to do is really convey the message to my son that which I am about to do to him. This gets him ready and he has become way more cooperative once I lay him all the way down.

Communication, that’s the key.

As I am meeting more moms and as my son is growing, I am realizing this approach to parenting really comes down to the #1 rule, respect. I want my son to know that I hear him, that I am with him, that we are a team. I am not doing things to him because he is not an object, he is a person. Of course, I need to change his diaper and feed him, but I want him to be part of the process. Therefore to remain respectful, I really can’t do anything without communication.

Does telling my son what I am going to do always work, no way! But when it does it makes me feel good knowing that I am truly respecting my child.

the philosophy i’m tRIEying

Desere

In my last post I went on and on and on about how I struggled as a new mom. It all changed when I found something called RIE. As I try and explain my discovery and initial exposure to this new idea, please remember that:

I do not have a PhD in child development.

I do not have a PhD. period.

I am not trying to preach.

I am not RIE certified.

I do not claim to have all the answers.

Here we go…

RIE stands for Resources for Infant Educators. It is a philosophy of Continue reading “the philosophy i’m tRIEying” →