RIE Moment: I Pick You Up, I Set You Down

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A key RIE Practice is telling your child everything you are going to do with them before you do it when interacting. This becomes part of your daily routine so much that one can often forget how infrequent it is for us to pause, explain, and pause again in our society. One rare rainy day in Los Angeles, my toddler  and I were taking a walk, when we came across a worm right in the middle of the sidewalk. My daughter noticed the worm. She then got down really close to the worm and said: “I pick you up.” She waited a moment and then so slowly and so gently she picked up the worm and moved it toward the grass. She then looked at the worm and said: “I set you down.” Then she slowly set the worm down. “Goodbye,” she said in parting as she stood up, smiled, and started her walk again.

— Kelly S.

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Preschool girl in a pink patterned dress, grey leggings, and sandals is in a tree on a sunny day smiling and looking proud of herself.

I realized the impact of RIE and respectful parenting when I was out with another family for a play day.  At the end of the play session, my daughter and my friend’s two children wanted to stay and were protesting leaving the park.  I acknowledged my daughter’s feelings that she didn’t want to leave, that we had fun playing, and she could leave when she was ready.  We repeated our conversation about 10 minutes later, and after that, she said she was ready to leave and started walking away.  My friend and her children had a more emotional discussion, and afterwards, my friend asked me how I “knew” how to speak with my daughter.  I was so surprised that she had observed my conversation, and it was the first time that I realized the impact of respectful parenting.  She saw that when we had a dialogue, my daughter understood what I was telling her and that we could talk about what was happening without having a big, emotional reaction by both the parent and the child. 

Principle: Basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer, and a self-learner

— Christine H.

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While caring for my 10-month-old nephew, I was sitting nearby observing him play.  He was manipulating a ball and it fell out of his hands and rolled under a chair with several rungs underneath.  He looked at the ball which was resting on the back rung underneath the chair and tried to reach through and grab the ball but his arm was too short and he could not reach it.  He looked over at me and I simply commented that his ball had rolled under the chair.  He then turned back to the chair and tried reaching for it again from different angles but still no luck.  After sitting there and looking at the ball for about 4-5 minutes, he then put his hand on one of the rungs underneath the chair and pulled the chair.  This motion caused the ball to roll forward and bring it just close enough for him to reach in again and grab it!  The look on his face of pride and achievement was priceless. I just smiled. He grabbed his ball, crawled away from the chair and continued to play. 

Principle: Trust in the Infant’s Competence

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I recently took my son to a birthday party for a young friend of ours. As usual each child was accompanied by their parent(s). When it was time, the children were served and encouraged to eat some lunch, and then the adults served themselves. The children finished quickly, and resumed playing with each other. I noticed my friends (who are very attentive to their child), were eating lunch and visiting with other adults. They really seemed to be enjoying themselves. Half way through the meal, their 3 1/2 year old approached the mother and asked her to go with him and play the game with the other children. Looking down at her plate, she tapped her fork on her salad, put it down, got up and left the table to accompany the child to the play area.

I stopped, started to say something, and realized she was gone. I was surprised at her reaction, and I realized how much RIE had really changed my life. Perhaps if I hadn’t heard and been encouraged so often by Magda to also take care of myself, I might have jumped up to please my child too. Instead I could hear myself saying, I’m eating right now, and you’ll have to wait until I am finished.”

When I work in a therapeutic setting with families, I come in contact with parents who have”sacrificed” a great deal for their child(ren). They sacrifice time, money, sometimes their relationship(s) for the sake of the child. So often I hear about how their child doesn’t “appreciate” all they have done for him/her. When I hear this a red flag goes up and I immediately explore with the parents what they are doing for themselves. Usually they have neglected themselves so much that their lives revolve around the children, and there is little left for themselves as a couple or an individual. Often they feel resentful and angry and it hinders the relationship with their child(ten). They are always waiting for the child to say “thank you”, and truly “appreciate” all they have done.

The first time I took my son to RIE, I was struck by the encouragement we got as parents to make sure we got our needs met. Magda would encourage us to respect ourselves, as we respected our child. Learning this has been difficult at times, since all around us our experience is that we “should” sacrifice for our child(ren)! But when we sacrifice what is the price? For the parent they may begin to feel unappreciated, resentful and overwhelmed. For the child they may never learn to respect their parent as a human being with needs; they may feel that they have to do everything for their parent(s) since the parent “gave them so much”, or they may feel such power in the family that they are overwhelmed with all the responsibility.

What RIE has helped me to do is “internalize” that my basic needs are important too. It’s OK to finish eating, it’s OK to take my shoes off, change my clothes, and go to the bathroom, before I change that diaper. The payoff for me is that I feel nurtured, and I can then give back to my child without resentment, or anger. My child learns to respect my needs and others, while learning to respect himself. No one has to be martyred and everyone wins.

Educaring® Volume X / Number 4 / Fall 1989/A Pocketful Of RIE®

Setting Toddler Limits & Parent Permissiveness between First and Second Child

Today I had the rare chance to spend the day alone with Naomi. The day flowed slowly at her almost two-year-old rhythm. She took an hour bath, with plenty of time to overcome her reluctance at each rinse; I watched as she sorted and resorted all her clothes, then tried to put her feet into her shirt sleeves. Together we walked up and down the main street in town, pausing long to watch the birds in the store window, and returning ritualistically to see them on the way home. She was the leader, I the follower. Yet I was able to say, “no, I don’t want to read anymore” when I’d read my quota at the bookstore, and Naomi scooted off the bench and climbed onto the rocking horse; and when we reached the car I was able to say “I want to go right now. You can climb up on the car seat or I can pick you up,” knowing that Naomi knew I meant what I said and that she would shortly comply in her way.

With my first child I was not able to shift rhythms, to move so easily from the child’s point of view to the adult’s. Like Alice in Wonderland, I tumbled into his world unprepared and tried to follow his lead. When I was with him I gave in totally to being with him, trying to facilitate what he wanted, as if I were a nurturing environment for him rather than a parent and person in my own right. Eating breakfast, getting dressed and ready to go in the morning could take hours—and did, regularly. When his “needs were met” (the words I so often used) I dressed quickly, furtively, leading one friend to say that I looked as though I didn’t take good care of myself—and I didn’t. I was there only for him, nurturing him at my own expense.

Yet there were also rewards for me in this style of mothering. I was a sensitive and patient observer and enjoyed entering into my child’s world. There was excitement for me in the fine tuning of waiting for him to make a choice, of finding a way in which a limit could be acceptable to him, usually after much patient waiting and many alternatives. My difficulties began when my son began to want to test his strength as a separate person in the months before his second birthday and I was not a strong enough parent for him to test himself against. Instead of listening to what he wanted, being clear about what were acceptable alternatives and staying good humoredly firm with some compromises now and then , I would bend myself out of shape trying to please him, to “make things ok for him.” He, of course, could not tolerate that amount of power, and the more I gave in the more outrageous his demands became. I became the adult kneeling at the feet of a tyrannical toddler. That phase of our mutual dependence ended not in a gentle letting-go, but in an explosion. We are still painfully relearning how to be together simply, how to take turns leading and following. Relearning is hard.

Fortunately I have grown since my first child, and understand better what I learned in my internship with Magda Gerber. I have learned the hard way that the empathy that came so easily to me needed to be balanced by a clear, firm adult presence. Quality time emphasizes proceeding at the child’s rhythm without giving in to all of the child’s wants. With my second child I am unambivalently clear that I am the parent, and, while I give her quality time and try to respect her wishes, ultimately, I am in charge. I experience a sense of ease, relaxation and freedom in this relationship that I did not experience trying to be just a facilitator to my son. While I am still mostly “Mama” to my daughter, I sense that she is growing up respecting me as a person, too.

I entered parenthood eagerly, after years of teaching young children. How could I have gone so far wrong in knowing what it means to be a parent? In looking back, I sense that I identified with the child in me more than with the parent. That identification led me to interpret “letting children grow at their own speed” or “letting them move on to new experiences (e.g., weaning, separation, toilet training) when they’re ready” to mean that any adult intervention was probably harmful and that I should follow my child’s lead whenever possible, because he instinctively knew what was best. While identifying with a child is perfectly acceptable and recommended, merging totally or over-identification is not.

However, children need more than unqualified acceptance. They need more than their own reality reflected back to them. They need parents who appreciate children’s experience yet are not children, but adults, with adult needs and an adult point of view. We have all come to appreciate people who were important to us, but who were detached enough from us to facilitate our growth in a direction that we were unable to perceive. A mother who has decided to wean her child can, without making the mistake of setting her child on a rigid timetable, provide a cup, nurse her child at regular times, gradually eliminate nursings, and then, at what she feels is the appropriate time, say “We’re going to stop nursing now.” If she can initiate this kind of gradual, responsive weaning, she and her child will probably have less disappointment to cope with than if she, in effect, says, ‘You tell me when it’s time to stop nursing and how to stop.” Instead of assuming that in order to enter the child’s world we must remember that in the child’s world there is a place for us as adults—patient, impatient; sensitive, grouchy; often in charge.

As parents we can best enter the child’s world in observation and special moments where we can glimpse the child’s reality and appreciate it, but not attempt to stay. I feel some poignancy in realizing this, for I have experienced a deep tenderness in holding and rocking a child to sleep and remembering that trust and surrender, and I have felt an aching beauty in seeing the world through my child’s eyes. Yet I cannot give in to this over-identification, for to do so makes me a child again, and to be the most effective parent to my children I cannot be a child. I am sometimes sad that my children will never know me as the child that I was, that I cannot go down Alice’s rabbit hole again. I can, however, take special pleasure in following Naomi, for I know that I do so as part of a larger dance in which I also lead. 

By Diana Rothman

Diana was a RIE Associate and an Instructor in the Family Life Program at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz, CA. At the time of the article, Diana was the mother of Does, age 5, and Naomi, age 2.

Educaring® Volume II / Number 2 / Spring 1981

Recently a friend and I took our children to a local park. After some time together she turned to me and said, “You know, what I really like about your kids is how secure they are. They are so centered, so capable of dealing with things as they happen. They relate to adults from such a grounded position.” Pleased, of course, with her comments, I immediately reviewed for myself how my children came to be this way. My first response was, “That’s exactly the kind of people I want them to be!” It is easy to understand how someone could perceive Erin’s sense of herself at three-and-a-half because she has so many more ways of interacting with others, verbally and non-verbally, but it delighted me that my friend could see it also in Benjamin who is just thirteen months. This exchange reinforced for me the soundness of the RIE philosophy.

In an infant’s first twelve months, we focus on the building of trust/security and work towards autonomy as one of our goals. For infants, trust is developed through the way we handle them, how we speak to them, our ability to pick up the infants’ cues and communicate our own, offering choices whenever possible, and providing a stable environment, including predictable routines.

Consistency is a key principle in all of these areas. A consistent primary carer is one who spends more time with the infant than anyone else and who not only meets the infant’s demanding, constant physical needs but who has the interest, ability and time to observe everything about the infant with the intention of getting to know him or her. It is only in this manner, and not so much through the reading of child development manuals, that a parent or carer can really become an expert on a particular infant. In most cases the mother is the primary carer in the early months, but the father, sibling, friend or other relative can also become an expert by spending as much time observing and interacting with the infant as possible. One caution here is that the quality of time spent is as important as the quantity. A parent who spends time in focused activity and observation several times a day will reap greater results than one who is around all the time but who is usually preoccupied with housework, personal projects, or the telephone. In addition, it is important to allow an infant to spend some time alone in order to become acquainted with the sounds, smells, and visions of nature, home, and family and develop a way of relating at his or her own pace and style. Awake or asleep, infants can be left in a crib or a larger fenced-in area indoors or out for quite some time before they need a change in activity. Safety, of course, from well-intentioned but curious siblings, family pets or other potential dangers must be considered.

Respect is the second key principle in the development of trust/security. Before the infant appears on the scene, he or she is a real person, with particular individual needs and ways of expressing them. From the infant’s birth it is our job to recognize these needs, weigh them with our own, and respond to them in a respectable manner. While we feel it is essential to talk directly to infants and young children in every stage of development, many people find this difficult to do in actual practice. Many parents become impatient and can’t wait for an infant’s response, be it to their own greeting, the introduction of a new toy, or the rhythm and sequence of the child’s large motor development. All too often I cringe as parents give their children directives such as, “Wave goodbye. (forcing the child’s hand to wave).” or “Say thank you, Mary.” From experience I can say that if we trust our children and ourselves and provide good models for them they will eventually blossom and learn social graces on their own. I see no reason to treat them as puppets, and prefer to await their authentic actions and responses.

Put-downs, a form of disrespect which I have recently learned is a common occurrence in elementary school classrooms, occur in the youngest children’s lives as well. Sometimes they are direct such as, “What do you need again? You’re always so whiny?”, or indirect, such as a parent who, in the presence of the child, talks about them in the third person as if they weren’t even there. As parents, we all have a right to get frustrated at times, but we can try to do so without offending our children or betraying their sense of trust/security. Recently one frustrated mother, desperate for advice, spoke for about five minutes about her toddler’s behavior of the past week. When she was done I asked if she realized that the whole time she was talking, her child, who was present, was listening and probably understanding most of what was being said about her. The mother, surprised and somewhat embarrassed, began to step back and look at her daughter in a new light as someone who could participate in our conversation and whose feelings needed to be considered and respected. In parent/toddler classes we often hear parents comparing their children with comments such as, “Your baby walked at nine months? I wish mine would start walking. He’s so slow.” When we insist on doing things for children who are capable of helping themselves or doing things to them which they are not prepared to anticipate, such as picking them up from behind with no forewarning, we are giving non-verbal messages that we do not trust them or respect their own abilities and feelings.

Respecting infants includes trusting them to solve their own problems whenever possible, intervening selectively, and providing a predictable environment. Infants who are treated in a respectful and consistent manner ultimately enjoy their autonomy, are challenged by problems, come to trust adults and develop a secure sense of self which will remain with them through adulthood.

Educaring® Volume III / Number 2 / Spring 1982 / A Pocketful of RIE

RIE Moment: I Pick You Up, I Set You Down
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Dear Magda,

As I read Educaring I get the feeling that the RIE® philosophy is rather cold and impersonal. You talk of independence and autonomy for infants, but not of loving them. You emphasize the importance of speaking to babies, but not of holding them. You tell parents ways of feeding and bathing their infants, but you don’t talk about playing with them.

Frankly, babies are dependent on adults, not only for food and shelter, but for love, emotional warmth and comfort too. Where do these needs fit into the RIE philosophy?

Concerned Parent

Dear Parent,

For years and years when talking to groups of parents, I asked them, “What do infants need beyond food, hygiene, etc?” The answer was unanimously, “Love.” But what is love?

Rather than trying to explain or analyze “love” theoretically, I will share with you from my own subjective experiences how it feels to be loved, and how it feels to love.

It makes me feel good, it opens me up, it gives me strength. I feel less vulnerable, lonely, helpless, confused. I feel more honest, more rich. It fills me with hope, trust, creative energy. It refuels me and prepares me to face life.

How do I perceive the other person who gives me things? I see her as honest, as one who sees and accepts me for what I really am, who responds to me objectively without being critical. I respect her authenticity and values and she respects mine. She is one who is available when needed, who listens and hears, who looks and sees me, who genuinely shares herself.

In short, I perceive one who loves me, who gives me these feelings, as one who cares.

In no other loving connection is “caring” as crucial as in the parent/infant relationship. This relationship is, at first, one-sided. It is the parent who is the giver; the child slowly learns to love. At the time when parental roles were more limited, parental love had been differentiated into two categories: maternal and paternal love. Maternal love was described as unconditional. The infant is loved because he or she is. Ideally, every human being should start life with this kind of love.

Paternal love has some strings attached. The father has expectations for the young child and love for “good” and “expected” behavior. Many people cannot make the shift from being loved and fully accepted the way they are, to having to earn or deserve love. They insist on being loved while being obnoxious, pushing the parents to the limits of their tolerance. This state or fixation on total acceptance peaks around two and again in adolescence.

The grace period of maternal love lays down a foundation of self- acceptance. Paternal love is a bridge preparing a child to live in the real world, where he has to “deserve” love and appreciation. I see the value of both. I recommend that parents read The Art of Loving by Eric Fromm, who defines love as caring, respecting, assuming responsibility for and acquiring knowledge about the other person.

To care is to put love into action. The way we care for our babies is then how they experience our love.

How and when do you pick your baby up? For instance, when you are in a hurry, do you pick him up without warning or plop him down abruptly? Are you responding to the baby’s needs or your own?

When do you smile at your baby? If your infant could express the bewilderment she feels when looking at her mother’s smiling face while being propped in an uncomfortable position, it may sound like, “Mommy, why do you smile at me when I feel so uncomfortable?”

How do you talk to your infant? Do you tell him “I love you” just when you are at the end of your tolerance, when what you really feel is “I wish I never had a baby”? When what you say is inconsistent with what you feel, your baby receives a double message. Rather than feeling reassured of your love, he feels confused.

When do you choose to hug and kiss your child? Is it when you come home from a party and look at your peacefully sleeping child that you start touching and kissing her and wake her up? Although an act of love, this was serving your needs, not the baby’s.

Do you tolerate your child’s crying? It seems so much easier to do something about crying: to pick up, move around, take for a ride, pat, bounce. When the baby cries, the first step is to try to determine why he cries, rather than to try to stop the crying. When you have eliminated hunger and the other standard discomforts and the baby is still crying, that is the time to tolerate crying, even to respect the infant’s right to cry. You might want to say, “I am here to help you, but I do not know what you need. Try to tell me.” If that is what you feel, share it; this is the beginning of communication.

How do you set limits and restrain your child? Some parents are afraid that setting limits or disagreeing with a child will be perceived as unloving. Yet sometimes setting a limit is in the best interest of the child, and is therefore an act of love. Even though the child may be protesting, you know that what you are doing is for the child’s sake. The most obvious example is the baby’s car seat. Even when she objects to being strapped into it, you continue with the task because you know that it keeps her safe.

Do you allow your baby to experience some frustration? It is difficult for parents to learn that they cannot spare their children from all pain and frustration. Yet the only way anybody can develop frustration tolerance is by experiencing and directly dealing with it.

In what ways do you allow your infant to explore freely and to make choices? Superimposing your ideas of showing love may prevent an infant from making choices or engaging in exploration. For instance, do you hold your baby in your lap in such a way that he can leave when he is ready, or do you hold on to him? Wanting to hold a child can become holding the child back from free exploration, making him passive and overdependent. Showing love means being available rather than intrusive.

Do you tell your child how you really feel? How confusing for a child to have a parent who pretends to be the always loving, always cheerful person. If you learn to communicate how you are feeling (tired, peaceful, upset, joyful, angry, etc.) you become authentic and allow your child to grow up authentic.

Dear parent, I agree that babies need love, emotional warmth and comfort. Most people associate parental love with the easy solutions of holding, nursing, cuddling. What is much more difficult is to find the balance between holding on and letting go. It is a lifelong struggle, and maybe the hardest part of parenting. Good luck and many rewards.

Magda

Magda Gerber

EDUCARING® DEAR MAGDA/DEAR PARENT – How We Love

Volume VI, Number 1, Winter 1985

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Dear Magda

Dear Magda, As I read Educaring I get the feeling that the RIE® philosophy is rather cold and impersonal. You talk of independence and autonomy for infants, but not of […]

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First, my wishes for children. I wish they could grow according to their natural pace, sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry, cry when upset, play and explore without being unnecessarily interrupted. I wish them to be allowed to grow and blossom as each was meant to be and not molded or shoved into some mode of faddism that confines like a violin case. 

I wish children would nor have to perform for their parents, sit up when ready for rolling, or walk when ready for crawling. You know, a child can be pushed to do these things, but may not be physiologically really ready. In our culture, we push to attain these states faster than they should be reached. 

I wish children would not have to reassure parents of their effectiveness. They should not have to smile when frustrated or clap their hands when sleepy. They should not be ping pong balls between parents, nor experimental subjects of toy manufacturers, cereal makers, or new fads and theories in child care. 

Please, parents, the next holiday season, don’t succumb to the pressure of buying expensive, complex toys designed to be used certain ways. They rarely give children opportunities to explore and use them in their own way. Toys designed to entertain create passive onlookers and future television addicts, rather than curious, actively learning children. Pressures from commercials are especially strong at the holiday time of year. Think of the many children who are lost and bored unless they are entertained, and who keep asking, “What shall I do now?”

For parents I wish a lot of things, too. I wish they would feel secure, but not rigid. I want them to be accepting, but able to set limits; available, but not intrusive, and patient, but true to themselves. They need to be realistic, but consistent in their expectations, having the wisdom to resist new fads. I hope they can achieve a balance in giving quality time to their children and to themselves and achieve a state of self-respect and equal respect for their children.

I have a special wish for fathers, too. I wish that fathers could assume a new role of fatherhood based on human relationship rather than believing that being warm and gentle is not manly, or that a father is expected to be tough. They need not throw children into the air, nor blow cigarette smoke in their faces (Yes, I have seen this done “playfully.”) Roughhousing not only scares babies, but sometimes causes brain damage. What I’m saying is that playful pummeling is okay, as long as it’s not forced by the father and hard on the child. I would like fathers not to be afraid to be their own drummers, but to be themselves and to know that just because they are men, they need not be “macho.” They can be tender and soothing and quiet and still be men.

Above all else, I wish that we not lose sight of laughter. In spite of all the pain we might see and feel, we need to maintain our sense of humor. People who take life too seriously are terrible to live with!

Educaring® 7 (1), Winter, 1986.