The Science Behind Educaring^®

Not a scratch on him?

Since the little boy I nanny for was born, his parents and I always gave him complete freedom of movement, inspired by Magda Gerber and Emmi Pikler. We never propped him in a sitting position, put him on playground structures, or pushed him to walk by having him dangle from our hands. As he grew, he was appropriately cautious in risky situations, but also very comfortable in his body and developing new skills. He fell a lot, but was never severely injured. When he was a toddler, he ran off a concrete ledge without looking where he was going and tumbled head-first off the edge to the ground over 4 feet below. I’ve cared for non-RIE^® children who broke their arms or collarbones in similar falls from playground equipment, but instead he tumbled in a perfect somersault worthy of the Olympics. He was shaken but didn’t have a scratch on him. This was just one of several near-misses that were saved by knowing to keep his body loose and to roll as he fell. I really believe RIE helped him to be safer with his body.

Dear Magda,

You may remember that my daughter Rachel (who is now four years old) was eight months old when we started RIE^® Parent-Infant Guidance classes. Well, here I am back again with my 8-month-old son Tobias. Both in the classes four years ago and this class I've heard you say many times "try to switch to the infant's point of view." I didn't understand you then, and I still don't. Would you please explain what you mean by switching points of view?

Old-time RIE Parent

Dear Magda,

After having taken your classes with Ryan, I became a RIE student and am now the Demonstrator of the RIE Parent-Infant Guidance class, and soon will be ready to teach RIE to mothers myself. I thought I had learned it all, but now feel confused.

I still remember how often you said years ago that the breast or bottle should be given when a baby is hungry, not every time the baby cries. Yet I see nursing mothers use the breast every time the baby winces—sometimes five, six times during our two-hour class—and you say nothing! Why?

A RIE Parent/Demonstrator

Dear Parents,

I chose both your letters to answer because many RIE II students as well as repeating mothers bring up similar issues. I will call it orthodoxy vs. individual considerations. As time goes by I tend to bend toward individual considerations. That means to apply to adults the same principles I have developed for babies. I make information available and the parent will use it when ready for it. No matter how healthy my "food" is, I do not believe in force feeding.

I think of mothers of newborn babies as tender and vulnerable. Never before did you have to cope with so little sleep, constant tiredness, the burden of always being on duty, and an array of nagging doubts about your parenting competencies. You cannot rehearse for those first months. So much is new—the baby, the situation, the reaction of the father and most of all your own feelings.

Sleeplessness and crying are the most difficult issues to contend with. (See my article on crying in the RIE manual, page 100.) The fastest, easiest and most pleasant way to stop the crying is to give the breast. The baby almost always accepts it, calms down and often falls asleep. It gives a mother a good feeling, physically, and reassures her of her ability to know what the baby needs and that she is able to provide it. It would be cruel and ineffective to take that away from her, or even to point out how often she offers the breast as an automatic reaction, rather than trying to find out why the baby is crying.

Slowly, as a mother feels more secure, a process of mutual adaptation develops. By that time parents are more open and ready for advice. That is when I offer other ways of responding to the baby. Ways I know will make life easier in the future. There is no right way.

And, even if there was one perfect "how to" for everyone, I must consider your personality characteristics, those of your husband, your family's living conditions, how much help you can get. In other words, what can you hear? What are you ready for, and when?

That requires compromise. I do present my knowledge and experiences hoping that eventually you will try to implement some of it, and keep trying even if the new approach does not bring miraculous results right away (although sometimes it does).

I believe that by coming to the classes you learn to observe and to "see" your baby, and eventually other babies, other mothers, and other options. I hope you will learn an attitude which can help you as a mother and a person, now and in the future.

The crux of the attitude is learning to switch to the infant's point of view. Once you can understand that and learn to switch, you develop techniques and gain insight used by most therapists.

This understanding is a golden key to living together with others. What makes this approach difficult with children is that you are the only one who does the switching. You must be able to see and understand both your child's and your own "points of view."
This is the role of the parent. Very young children cannot yet do it, and some children will never learn to see a situation through their parents' eyes.

I’ll give you an example. After spending many hours peacefully with your 8-month-old Tobias, you would like to visit with your friend on the phone. Tobias, who had looked peacefully absorbed, stops playing and starts screaming. You feel it is unfair. Have you not just spent leisure "quality time" with him?

Now, try to switch to Tobias' point of view. He does not have the capacity to think "My mommy gave me so much attention for so long, she now needs time for herself." All he feels is "I want her, and she is not here."

Would it be good then for you to stop doing anything for yourself and only consider what Tobias wants? Many "good" mothers try to do just that until their resentment of their babies becomes so strong that it scares them.

Resentment does not help any relationship, least of all a parent-child connection. If you switch back to your own point of view, you can tell Tobias, "I know you would like me around you all the time," (acknowledging his point of view), "But I want to talk on the phone now", (validating your own feelings). "I'll be back with you in twenty minutes" (giving hope).

Of course, Tobias will still want you to do nothing else but be available to him. Remind yourself nobody can or even should have everything they want whenever they want it. So, do not feel sorry for him. Nor does it help to get angry with him. Learning to wait, to not have your own will is a task, part of the curriculum of early childhood. The more mature capability of switching points of view is the task of parents. In the process parents learn to sensitively assess both their babies' needs and their own needs and how to balance them.

My best wishes to you in this switching/balancing exercise.

Magda

Dear Magda/Dear Parent - Balancing The Needs Of Adults & Babies

Educaring® Volume VIII / Number 1 / Winter 1987

What does this mean for parents and caregivers of infants?

I’ll begin with the caveat that I don’t know that this is a direct quotation from Magda Gerber. Like many brilliant historical figures, we sometimes attribute meaningful quotations to people we honor and admire, even if they didn’t say them. However, I will say that it is a very apt description, indeed, of her Educaring^® Approach. This statement begs the question: how do you wish to proceed in your relationships with children? I feel like this question is asking me to take the long view…a lifetime: What is my vision for children over the course of their lifetimes? What is yours? Take a moment now and think about it.

My vision is to be in relationship with children and for them to grow into content and successful adults. I want to know who they are, and I want for them to know who THEY are.

It’s a simple wish, but not an easy one.

And yet, I’ve seen this vision unfold time and again. I’m fortunate enough to have been introduced to Magda’s work almost 20 years ago. I know teenagers and young adults who have grown up in families who practiced the Educaring Approach, and there is just something truly special about those individuals…they are teenagers you don’t mind being around!* There is a peace to them…poise, a solid presence….what they have is self-confidence. And I see that in every age and stage: teens, tweens, young school-aged children, preschoolers, and yes, infants and toddlers. Magda had it right: Your Self-Confident Baby, indeed!

*Parents of said teenagers always remind me that their brilliantly authentic teenagers can be just as authentically awful when in the privacy of their own homes…but hey, so can I! I mean, you have to let it all out someplace!

So, instilling that sense of self-confidence is how I wish to proceed. How do I begin?

By giving them the time and space to find it… In fact, not so much instilling self-confidence, as preserving it.

Magda asked us to start with the idea that infants arrive with individual and unique personalities and capabilities. Her Educaring Approach asks us to slow down and observe children…to look for that personality, those capacities…to invite them to participate whenever we engage with them…basically, to start in relationship with them.

The Educaring Approach starts with respect. That idea is so integral to the Approach that I remember, when I was first learning about RIE^®, I thought surely it must stand for “Respect Infants Everywhere!”

At first blush, it may seem a strange verb to apply to infants. However, whenever I ask people to think about a respectful interaction they’ve had, universal themes always emerge: to be seen, to be heard, to have one’s point of view taken into consideration, to be trusted, to be spoken to in a meaningful way. It’s something we all want. As part of a mindfulness class I recently took, I heard that theme emerge again from no less than Oprah: All of us just want to be really seen…that I see you and I know that your being here matters. The human condition is that we all need to be heard. To be seen. To have our perspective acknowledged.

So, if we begin as we wish to proceed, we begin by seeing them and listening to them as infants.

(And I want to emphasize here, that it is never too late to start using the Educaring Approach. It is never too late to respect someone’s point of view and involve them!!)

The Educaring Approach helps us see that each child is unique, has a point of view, and is capable…it is our job to look for that point of view and to look for the abilities and to offer opportunities for them to demonstrate their capabilities and ever-growing competencies. Respecting infants opens a whole new world to us: rather than helpless, dependent creatures that need to be entertained, motivated, stimulated….we see curious, eager, thoughtful people…yes, people who depend on us for so much…but who also have startling capabilities when we take the time to look for them.

And that’s what we do in Parent-Infant Guidance™ classes each week…we practice observing them. And it is such a gift. Parents and caregivers watch as children encounter frustrations and solve problems, how they make connections, how they exist in a state of flow, moving from one object to the next, needing no guidance or direction…simply following their own interests. They are really in the process of what early childhood theorist Friedrich Froebel called “the language of things.”

To adults, this could seem boring. We already know what a metal ramekin feels like in our mouths, what items will fit inside of a 5 gallon water jug with a narrow mouth, that balls roll when you throw them and sometimes mason jar lids do, too, but stuffed kitties rarely do…we already are well-familiar with the way the light plays with objects to make shadows and that that beam of light moving across the ceiling is from a truck rumbling by. It’s tempting to want to jump in and teach or entertain, to show them that the balls can roll down the slide, that you can pop those funny egg shaped things together….but when you do that, you might miss them figuring out the kitty is just heavy enough to slide down that slide, and that moment of discovery when they figure out they can put those beads on every finger. Magda was fond of quoting Jean Piaget: “When you teach a child something, you forever take away his opportunity to learn it for himself.”

It’s tempting to help them with things that are easy for us…sure, you can open that jar with the toy inside or pull that big ball out from where it is wedged under the structure, but so can they…if they persevere a little. Frustration challenges us in big and small ways throughout life…sometimes even leading to leaps and growth, and sometimes just annoying us to tears… learning to mitigate frustration early in life is a gift. When you jump in to solve the problem every time, what you end up teaching is not how to open the jar or how to play with pop beads or balls…but instead you teach them to look outside of themselves when they encounter a frustration or problem. That they need someone else to entertain them or tell them what to do next. This is absolutely not to say they will never look to you for help or for guidance!! No not at all! But instead, to have that self-confidence to look within themselves first, is the goal.

Of course, this is not to say we should never teach children! There is absolutely time for teaching, but before you teach…slow down…pause…and see what they already know, what they can already do…and what they are teaching us…there’s beauty in the simplest things if we slow down and see with their eyes. For example, during lunch with a toddler, I recently discovered how spectacular garbanzo beans are…their funny little shape, with a crack down one side, and a tiny little point that you can just grasp with your fingernails…there’s a papery skin that pulls away, and they don’t squish, but rather crumble!

One of the things I love best to watch is how children learn to be with other children. That learning starts in earnest during those first moments when two infants can get close enough to touch, they want to explore each other’s faces and hands…and sometimes toes. While we have to keep them safe (those eyes are just SO tempting and the grasp is not quite refined…), also want to refrain from interfering too much…this is the first foray into the social world…their relationships with their peers.

Bring that careful observation and hesitation to interfere with you as they get a little older and start to pass toys back and forth and you’ll notice that for quite a while no one minds having a toy taken away, and in fact, it sometimes sparks a connection! Even when children do start to mind having a toy taken away, keeping children safe is still the only priority…this is when it is most critical to hold back with refereeing…this is when relationships are really developed. For infants and toddlers, learning how to be social, to be a part of this world, is all they are working on…not whether or not they get to hold onto the truck for a few more minutes. With our careful observation and reflection, we can let children learn to negotiate these moments on their own. When we refrain from solving squabbles over toys, we are giving children the tools to move through the social world confidently…knowing they can work things out with others, knowing you are there to support them, but also without having to go to you to solve it for them.

In all of the scenarios above, I put the spotlight on what children can do, on their amazing capabilities and capacity for growth and self-knowledge. It’s true that infants and toddlers are capable of so much if we allow them to try, if we give them the time, space, and opportunity…but there’s one more, critical element to this equation: attachment. None of that is possible outside the context of a caring and present relationship.

At the beginning of this discussion, I talked about slowing down, observing…and allowing them to participate whenever we engage them…and that’s the key. When do we most often engage with children? Over caregiving routines! Changing diapers and wiping noses and feeding and dressing and applying sunscreen and changing diapers and wiping sticky fingers and bathing and brushing hair and clipping fingernails, and did I mention changing diapers? Well, the amazing thing about all of those caregiving routines is that they are in fact “care-building” activities.

Attachment is formed when you have a need and that need is met, or at least responded to in a contingent way…and all caregiving is, is meeting needs over and over again! Filling an empty stomach, taking away an uncomfortable lumpy diaper and replacing it with a fresh one, getting the stickiness off your fingers (we will be friends forever if you help me get stickiness off my fingers!)….whenever you meet a child’s need, you are filling them up, showing them that you can be trusted…and when you meet those ways in a respectful way (slowing down so you really see them, taking their point of view into consideration, speaking to them in a meaningful way, and yes, trusting them to be a partner in the exchange, not merely a passive recipient), attachment becomes that much stronger.

I’m well-aware that caregiving routines are not always as copacetic as outlined above…that there are diaper changes that feel more like wrestling matches, more than a few Cheerios getting tossed deliberately onto the floor, and some distinctly Houdini-like moves that can be involved in getting a child into a carseat. But I said “respect the child,” so that means that’s okay? Skip the diaper, let them toss food all over the place, wait for them to decide when they want to get in the carseat? Not at all! Part of respecting someone is setting healthy limits and boundaries, and caregiving moments (and yes, other moments in life, too!) give you the opportunity to set those limits. This is where the “meeting the need contingently” comes into play…you slow down, acknowledge their point of view, then set the limit.

This can be one of the hardest things to do for infants and toddlers: setting limits can feel punitive, or like we are not listening to the child’s needs and desires. But it is one of the most important things we can do for them. We all function better in life when we know where the limits are and operate within them (think about speed limits…it’s dangerous when people drive well over or even well under that limit) and children are the same. They need to know there are limits and that they are solid and consistent. Once that is established, they can relax and explore within the confines of those limits.

Which is not at all to say that setting limits is peaceful: children will and should test limits, and that testing may involve big emotions, especially as children get older. That’s okay! Going back to my initial statement…my vision for children… to grow into content adults, allowing children to express big, loud, upset emotions is part of it!

It helps me when I remember that life is full of both joyful, ecstatic happiness…and sadness, grief, anger, and despair. Those darker emotions are hard to handle. I certainly don’t like feeling that way, and I really don’t like it when anyone I care about feels that way, but I also know that those feelings are normal, they aren’t bad or scary, and they will end. And what makes it easier is having someone with me who knows that, too, who doesn’t try to rush me through it, belittle or dismiss it, but who is present to me and to it, offering me comfort if I need it, as I calm down.

My life was transformed when I learned of Magda Gerber’s wisdom and work, and I hope to help transform the lives of the families I encounter, but I think Magda always says it best and I want to give her (almost) the last word here. From her iconic film, Seeing Infants with New Eyes: “You know, having a little bit more respectful world…where people allow each other to be what they are, where we don’t need to manipulate, where we can have more trust. We can trust ourselves and each other, where we don’t need to always perform. And that’s one of the sad things, we all know it’s not always easy to always play a role. And yet, we want even our infants to play roles, to perform according to somebody’s script or schedule. So it may be a more comfortable life we could create.” A more comfortable life…an admirable way to proceed, is it not? Shall we begin?

Melani Ladygo is a RIE Associate who lives and works in the San Fernando Valley.

Originally appeared in the FORM newsletter

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 3½ 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(ren). 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^®

When I meet new parents and their babies for the very first time, I’m transported back to when my husband and I stood right outside the very same infant door . . .

As I cradled Phoenix in my arms, he gazed innocently up at me, and then over to his father, who was juggling the jumbo pack of diapers and wipes. Phoenix’s joyful expression left me with a deep feeling of anxiety.

Little did he know that Mom and Dad were about to make a quick getaway.

Having worked at the center already for three years, we were not only familiar, but friends with Ms. Sadaria, his primary caregiver. Still, we were taken a bit by surprise when, on Day 1, she announced all too soon that it was perhaps time to say our goodbyes and head to work; we could come back in four hours—most of which we spent pretty much in tears. Anxiety and guilt swept us: Would Phoenix feel abandoned? Did he like Ms. Sadaria as much as we did? How would he adjust to the noise and bustle of child care after his quiet home life? Would he get lost in the shuffle? It didn’t help that we were sequestered in the office (did I mention we worked there?) and able to hear his cries of complaint. Now, nine years later, when I meet new parents on their very first day, I’m prepared to offer a shoulder to cry on, empathy for their experience, and words of support. Recently, however, we have found that this has become less and less necessary—leaving one to ponder, what has changed over the last nine years?

Either parents are more eager to get back to work (unlikely) or they are confident that having their infant enrolled at Little Learners Lodge (LLL) is a very nice or great start in life. Since we pride ourselves on our ability to establish trust with both parents and infants, we’ll conclude the latter. So, why the jump in confidence? Let’s back up a little here, to understand why trust is at the core of everything we do . . . When Magda Gerber began working with infants and families in the United States, she developed an approach she called Educaring^®, the philosophical foundation for her organization, Resources for Infant Educarers^® (RIE^®).

Magda worked with families to help parents better understand the developmental skills, needs, and unique interests of their babies and helped parents develop the awareness to respond appropriately. The American culture fascinated Magda, and she was surprised to find that with all the blessings found here, parents still struggled with how to support their infants in building trusting and secure relationships with adults.

When she visited our school, in the 1980s, she was further surprised to find that young babies were so often separated from their parents at such an early age. Magda insisted to school founder, Beverly Kovach, that infants belong with their families, and not in child care, until the age of two. A mental health practitioner by profession, Beverly agreed. Yet, as a working mother of two small children, Beverly also understood that future realities would make center-based care more of a norm than an exception. Beverly began to explore how to integrate the Educaring Approach with center-based care that balanced the needs of the infants, parents, caregivers, and school while establishing strong secondary relationships so that infant would thrive while away from their families.

Today, LLL serves as a program in RIE mentorship and, as such, adheres to RIE’s guidelines on things like teacher training and mentorship, group size, physical care routines, environmental preparation, and meeting the social-emotional/physical needs, abilities, and interests of the child responsibly and with respect. The road to certification is long and well worth the effort. And, as we’ve learned along the way, establishing the culture of trust with parents is key, a precursor to our establishing relationships based on care and trust with their babies.

The first step in meeting parents must be taken with great care—for if relationships matter, they are to be cultivated at the onset. LLL operates under one key premise: parents love their babies and want the very best start in life for them. It is our job, then, as infant practitioners, to listen, communicate, and help parents meet the individual needs of their babies when they are under our care. In that caring, we further develop the relationship established with the parent, and now the child, so that a mutual bond of trust and love is cemented. “Go slow. And then go slower.” 

Magda would remind us of this tenet when we were working with babies. Well, the same holds true with their parents. In fact, integrating the core principles of the Educaring Approach—respectful, reciprocal, and responsive caregiving throughout the enrollment process—has resulted in establishing a mutually trusting partnership with parents. It also enables us the opportunity to meet and establish a relationship with infants prior to that first school encounter. From our first contact with families to the first day they leave their child in our care is about a year-long process, which looks something like this: 

First Contact: Expectant parents make that first inquiry to gather information about infant care programs. These inquiries are met as an opportunity for learning by our RIE-trained infant care specialists. A brief discussion regarding the center’s core values and daily experiences introduces new parents to the concept of RIE, and parents are referred to the school and RIE websites. In meeting both parents at the onset, we are able to dialogue about our core values, beliefs, and expectations around babies. Any differing opinions may even have an opportunity to be flushed out and addressed before baby gets caught up in the middle.

Open House: Each month, LLL offers an introductory presentation of RIE at the school, which serves as an Open House. Parents are able to visit the school facility, meet infant caregivers, and watch a presentation and video of the center’s implementation of RIE. This affords the adults additional time to examine our value system in an effort to make sure that the family and the caregivers are on the same page. Additionally, we are able to demonstrate caregiving routines that can help parents and caregivers to be more consistent with each other. When routines are more predictable for babies, they can feel refueled from the emotional connection with the adult, whether it is a family member or a primary caregiver. Both parents are invited to attend, and if the infant has been born, we often have an opportunity to meet the baby for the very first time.

Individual Tour: After attending an Open House, prospective families can now tour the facility. This hour-long individual time allows families and the RIE-trained administrator to talk about core values and begin to deepen the relationship established at first contact. Parents observe caregiving routines in action and are guided in sensitive observations while theory is put into practice. We are also able to gather important prenatal information from the parents if they are expecting, and, if the baby has arrived, get to know more about him or her personally. After this experience, families are given the opportunity to register their child in the program.

Registration: When they register, prospective families receive a copy of Your Self-Confident Baby (Gerber & Johnson, 2012) and RIE membership. Whether we have met the new baby yet or not, the family is considered a part of our school community. Periodically, we host Parent Education nights or social events, which we encourage registered families to attend. Often, caregivers are present during these events, which enable interaction in what will soon become a daily triad of partnership in care for the infant.

Communication: Each month, parents are contacted by phone by the Infant Supervisor. Unless families enroll in our Parent-Infant classes, this serves as our primary communication prior to the warming-in time, when we begin the process of acquainting the child with his or her caregiver and the environment.

Enrollment: Approximately three months prior to the baby’s first day, we set warming-in dates and assign the baby’s Primary Caregiver. Parents are invited to observe the environment again and are encouraged to take our Parent-Infant classes, which meet weekly, eight weeks prior to their baby’s start date. What an amazing opportunity for baby and caregiver to interact and get to know one another prior to that first day of school!

And then, two weeks before the baby’s first day, the family comes to LLL with their child for the very first time during daily operation. Slowly, we extend the amount of time we spend together with the baby from one hour to two, and then, perhaps, without Mom or Dad, and then for a half day, until finally, when baby is ready to start full-time, she has had an opportunity to establish a rapport with the person who will care for her primarily over the next two years while she is enrolled.

After our having taken those initial opportunities to develop a rapport and bridge between home and school life, the first day of child care is more apt to go something like: 

“Good morning, nice to see you again.” Ms. Sadaria greets parents and their baby on the first day. “We have Suzanna’s personal items ready for her; you may recall where they are kept—in the cubby next to the diaper-changing area.” Suzanna’s parents place her on her back in the solarium and let her know they’ll be right back as they put her change of clothes away. She glances over at baby Noah, perhaps recognizing him from Parent-Infant Guidance classes, and then over to Ms. Sadaria, with whom she is now becoming familiar. When her parents return, they sit comfortably on the floor next to Suzanna and discuss the previous evening and morning. When it is time, Mom and Dad say their good-byes—both parents and child seem comfortable in the established routine. While there still may be tears and sadness over separation, both parents and caregiver are confident Suzanna’s needs will be met, having already spent so much time together. Ms. Sadaria will spend the next few weeks getting better acquainted with Suzanna’s cues. 

By their first day, parent partnerships and respectful relationships are now well established and we’re already well on the way to developing new RIE advocates. And Suzanna, who will be with Ms. Sadaria for the next two years, is well on her way to becoming a self-confident baby.

Nicole Vigliotti is the Executive Director of Little Learners Lodge in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where the infant and toddler rooms are RIE-Certified.

Published in Educaring, 31(1), Spring 2010. 

References

Gerber, M., & Johnson, A. (2012). Your Self-confident Baby: How to Encourage YourChild’s Natural Abilities—From the Very Start. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons

The topic of this presentation is essentially “nurturing the nurturer.” How do we, as infant family service professionals, keep the work alive? Stay upbeat and avoid the dreaded burnout? I have been blessed with extraordinary teachers. Magda Gerber was a major influence. She truly believed in quality of life and understood the importance of sustainability in our work and lives, which I think is key to any discussion about nurturing the nurturer. I do not want to say to you, remember to breathe deeply . . . take walks . . . talk with friends . . . enjoy the arts . . . because you know this. So what do we do to nurture ourselves?

I think a large part of burnout has to do with continuing to work in systems that are broken, acting in ways that are not in accordance with our inner voices, and drudging through processes that have problems and waste time.

Sometimes we begin to sort of sleepwalk through the day without being truly awake to the child or family that we are supposed to be serving. 

I believe that an effective way to keep the vital energy that propels us forward each day is to take a step, a leap of faith, a VAULT into space, where we challenge the status quo, try something new, or name the elephant in the room. I began to think about this presentation last August when Olympic star Shawn Johnson was vaulting her way to international prominence. I was struck by the courage and trust she must have to risk all and vault into the air like she does. I also wondered, imagined, the thrill, the reward, the rush she must get as she vaults. 

Thus, the title to this presentation: “Diamonds in the Vault: The Treasures We Gain from Taking Risks.” It is funny that the word “vault” has such dramatically different definitions as a locked room full of treasures or a leap into space. What if a vault was not where you keep your diamonds, but instead, when you vault, you find diamonds? I do believe that a leap of faith can lead to treasures. This image of diamonds serves because they are not only pretty and shiny; they are incredibly strong and last forever. 

One wise teacher, Jeree Pawl, a beloved infant mental health specialist, said to me once, “People learn well from what they are already doing” (J. Pawl, personal communication, November 2004).

I believe that everyone has vaulted in some way in their lives and gained subsequent diamonds—sparkling treasures to admire, to share, to gain* strength from. Reflect, now, on a time in your life when you made a change, small or large, where you made a difference, personal or professional. How did you know you had to make a change? To take a risk? Everyone is different, but each of us does have an inner barometer to help us know when we must make a change, and we all experience consequences when we don’t pay attention. I would like to share a couple of stories, which will hopefully illustrate this notion of risk taking as an essential form of self-preservation and personal development. 

At the age of 15, I had a brief foray into the field of fast food. I worked at a fast food restaurant for three weeks. I was learning an important lesson, in those three weeks, that has stayed with me. People would come to the restaurant and order food, pay, get their orders, and leave without ever once noticing that there were live people behind the counter. They literally did not see a person. This was disturbing. I have always felt that the experience I had at 15 helped me to know that every person in service, everywhere, is a person first, with a family, experiences, interests, concerns. In that way I am grateful for my brief experience in the restaurant business.

Another key lesson I got from my first job was from my mother. I would come home from work greasy, queasy, and in low spirits. One day my mother said, “You know, if you really hate that job, you should quit. You can find work you really love. You do not have to hate your work.” I quit that day. (I did not know about the customary two weeks’ notice.) I vaulted. Of course, I was 15 and living at home, so the risk taking, though life-changing, was not life-threatening in any way. I am not advocating quitting your jobs. I am advocating listening to yourself and doing what you need to do. And only you can know what that is for you.

Carol Pinto, a friend and colleague who is a RIE Associate and Feldenkrais practitioner and a longtime associate of Magda Gerber, uses the following exercise in training to help participants tune in to the innate wisdom babies have about their own bodies. I think it fits for this context as well. “Just for a moment, freeze; don’t move. Now ask yourself, ‘Am I comfortable? If not, what do I need to do to become comfortable?’ Now please go ahead and make yourselves more comfortable as needed.” Now the last question of the exercise is this: “Could anyone else have known and told you, in that moment, what you needed to become comfortable?”

We need to remember to trust ourselves, and to listen to our inner barometers. Do you need to make a change, speak to someone, listen to someone? Vault? 

I cast about for a couple of years seeking my bliss, and I found it in the sparkling eyes and chubby fingers of toddlers, in the open gaze and milky breath of infants. I started to work at the Child Educational Center in La Cañada, California, with one-year-olds. I was home, and I began to hear about this lady, Magda Gerber, and her philosophy of respectful care for infants and toddlers. Long story short, Magda became my most influential teacher. Magda was never afraid to name the elephant in the room. She relished intense discussions and would say to students in class, “Go ahead, disagree with me—I love it!” She would encourage dissent and then participate in lively debates. Magda used to say to infant/toddler caregivers, “If you are totally exhausted at the end of each day, you are doing something wrong.” People did not like hearing this from her and would fight her on it. But I always heard her saying, make life sustainable for you and the infants in a group care context, with parents and infants, or in the clinical context as well.

Are your expectations reasonable? Is your environment supporting you? What can you change to make life easier for you and the babies? 

Can you imagine how exhausting it is to try so hard to get babies to do something like that every morning? Not only that, but we have learned that this sort of experience is not compatible with how infants learn. Another teacher, Maria Montessori (1912), said, “A still and silent child is not obedient, he is annihilated” (p. 86). Infants move, make noise, change their minds.

Magda taught me that infants learn in the context of secure relationships, from following lines of inquiry and being supported in discovery. A baby explores with constant inquiry. “What does this feel like? What if I bang it? What if I bang it again? What is this over here? Mmm. She is warm and smells good.” I doubt that infants are cognizant of risk taking as risk taking, but I think they are continuously engaged in risk taking as they press the world for more and more information.

Magda Gerber, who understood how infants learn about the world, would encourage people who work with infants and families to examine their own behavior and expectations and find a rhythm in daily life with children and families that is realistic. Magda Gerber also said, “What children get, they come to expect, and eventually need.” In terms of a daily interaction, do you want to have ten steps for a bedtime ritual or two or three? What kinds of routines can we live with and sustain each day, as family members and as professionals? We all know the difference, when our work gives us energy and we feel pumped up or when our work is wearing us down day by day. If that is the case for you right now, what do you need to do to change that?

I once observed a well-meaning teacher who was trying to have a circle time with babies. Has anyone ever tried to herd cats? Well, that is similar to trying to get a bunch of babies to all concentrate on the same thing at the same time, a topic the teacher picked the night before. In this infant circle time, one teacher had an actual old-school pointer and was showing babies pictures of animals on the wall while the assistant played cat shepherd, trying to get the babies to sit and watch the pointer. We may ask why? 

I would like to share another example of a small and significant vault, which yielded a shiny diamond, which I observed at the Pikler Institute, a residential infant care facility in Budapest, Hungary. The Pikler Institute is named after its founder, pediatrician Emmi Pikler, who was also a mentor to Magda Gerber. The Institute is known for its extraordinarily sensitive care of infants who have been placed there by the Hungarian authorities due to some kind of trauma or loss. Usually, when you think of an orphanage in eastern, or in this case central, Europe, you do not imagine a tender, therapeutic setting; but the Pikler Institute has the answers to successful residential care, and they are a methodological institute providing training to residential care facilities all over the world. At the Institute, there is a strong emphasis on the relational aspect of the daily caregiving routines such as meals and bathing, which they call the pleasures of life. Children are recognized as active participants in every process that involves them. They have primary caregivers who develop close relationships with each child. 

I visited the Pikler Institute in July of 1998 with a small group of colleagues. The first morning, Anna Tardos, who is the director of the Pikler Institute and Emmi Pikler’s daughter, told us the stories of the 40 children who were living at the Institute at that time. The stories were devastating. There were siblings who had been found locked in an apartment where their father had killed himself three days earlier; there was a baby recently brought from a Romanian orphanage who still rocked on hands and knees occasionally. When we were sent to different parts of the Institute to observe, we were each amazed to see thriving, sun-kissed, smiling children who were in relationships, playing, and helping others. One little boy, about two years old, with paralysis down one side of his body, was determinedly creeping up a steep sand hill to triumphantly grab a shovel at the top; he turned and grinned to share his victory with his caregiver.

One story we heard the first morning was of 18-month-old twins, a boy and girl, who had been brought in only the day before. They were found with their mother living in a train station; the mother was probably engaging in prostitution and possibly doing drugs. These two children were visited by their mother once or twice a day, when she would breast-feed them at the Institute. We saw her a few times. My heart ached for her. She looked hungry and angry.

The Institute staff members were very concerned about the mental health of the twins, and during the week of our seminar the whole Institute was wrapped up in how to best serve these children. They said the little girl seemed depressed. They were more concerned about her than her brother, who was responding to the warm care, eating well and beginning to play. They said these two children had never played. There was a lot of crying from both of the children, and the sound traveled in the small center, straining everyone’s ears and hearts. The nurse had tried having the children sleep together in the same crib, but the girl was biting her brother. They were together all day and night in the same small group and shared a caregiver.

The last morning I was to observe in the group where the twins were. The nurse was bathing the girl twin, and she had moved a crib nearby so that the brother, who had just had his bath, could stand in the crib and watch his sister, and she could see him. He would not be wandering around the bathroom requiring the attention of the nurse; he was safe, and nearby. The sister, I’ll call her Stela, was sitting in the tub, which is intentionally placed at a height that allows the nurse to have face-to-face interactions with the child. (Every aspect of care at the Institute is so carefully considered, it is humbling.) The child had already been washed all over; she was soapy and shiny, and her eyes downcast. 

The motions of all the caregiving routines at the Institute are very predictable, prescribed, so that children, who have experienced the most unpredictable upheavals in their short lives, can predict, anticipate, and participate. That said, the routines are not rigid, because the child, an active participant, brings a unique flavor to each event. In this case, the nurse was giving space and time for Stela to play in the soapy water. The child sat motionless, not meeting the gaze of the nurse, who was speaking gently to her. 

Now for the vault, the risk moment; so tiny, so significant. 

The nurse scooped up a small handful of suds; she was patting them and showing them to Stela. She blew on them; they splattered on Stela’s tummy. Stela looked up and a tiny, little, shiny, beautiful smile appeared. It even traveled to Stela’s gorgeous brown eyes. The nurse smiled and said something to the child like, “The bubbles are on your tummy. You smiled a bit then.” The nurse’s whole body showed her relief and joy. She glanced at me for a second and I smiled. I saw it, too, and we both had tears in our eyes. Stela’s little smile was certainly a diamond.

Now it may seem like not much of a risk or a leap to blow bubbles on a cute little tummy at bath time, but a lot was going on, and one thing to consider is that this woman had seven other babies in her group to care for. Not only that, but she does these baths every single day; she could so easily be just going through the motions. But she was so alive to the moment with that child, observing every little movement and following her gaze. Additionally, this nurse had no way of knowing if this child would be there for the long term or only a short time. She did not let this uncertainty dampen her efforts at creating a connection with this child. At the Pikler Institute they would say that she was “listening” to the child, not just following the prescribed actions.

How do you know when to vault? To try something new, to risk a little emotional safety for a better emotional climate? I have been asking people this question for months now. My good friend and colleague, RIE Associate Ruth Anne Hammond, is involved in a study group with Dr. Allan Schore of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. I asked her, “How do you know when to take a risk and make a change?” She said, “You know because your body tells you.” I asked Ruth Anne for clarification and she said that basically your right brain is operating at such high speed, taking in information through the senses, reading cues; it is nonlinear, global, emotional. The right brain is connected to your sense of well-being; your body tells you whether or not something feels right—it is a body-based feeling; it is not a thought. Our culture has taught us to ignore our bodies and that linear thoughts are more real; yet in relationships with infants, who  are all feelings, we must engage on a feeling level. Trust your own feelings in responding to infants—as the nurse did with Stela. Taking a risk is important. If we don’t ever mess up, we don’t ever get a chance to grow. Growth happens in times of disorganization, which is a necessary component of growth. What if Stela had not smiled when the bubbles were blown onto her belly? What if she had been startled and cried? 

I have been reading material and having discussions about attunement and misattunement. I am learning about how the “rupture” that can occur during misattunement can then be “repaired.” If the nurse had indeed created a stress response instead of a playful response by her actions, perhaps she might have initiated repair by soothingly saying, “I am sorry; it seems that I startled you. I thought you might like it. I will remember you did not like to be splashed on your tummy. Shall we wipe it off?” Making a mistake is okay. The process of repair is the important thing. It still moves the relationship to a new place. The fact that she tried something is significant.

This budding relationship between Stela and the nurse was not an attachment relationship, though it may well become one. I recently had a conversation about this with Miriam Silverman from the Infant Parent Program at the University of California—San Francisco, and I asked her,

“How important is the repair process if there is a rupture when a relationship is just forming?” “Extremely important,” she said. The child is just learning what to expect from the adult. Stela is finding out if she can have an effect on her nurse. Miriam also said that the repair is the most important, that there is no need to manufacture ruptures to accelerate the process. She said some people actually believe they need to create difficult situations for children so they can learn to cope. This is unnecessary. Life does this for us. So there is a little breathing room. You do not have to be successful every time you leap! 

So what does it mean? Should we all vault out of here and blow soap suds on babies’ bellies? No, of course not. But to be alive, to be awake, to notice when the gap appears and vault when the vaulting is good! And maybe catch some diamonds.

Deborah Greenwald, MA, RIE Associate

Adapted from a keynote address at the Zero to Three National Training Institute, Los Angeles, California, December 6, 2008.

Reference

Montessori, M. (1912). Chapter V. The Montessori method (A. E. George, Trans.) (pp. 86–106). New York, NY: Frederick A. Stokes.

As a parent, RIE^® II* student and clinical psychologist who wrote a doctoral dissertation grounded in Attachment Theory (Bowlby, 1958, 1969, 1973, 1980; Bretherton, 1985), I never cease to be amazed at the similarities between the RIE principles and the basic tenets of Attachment Theory (AT). In the following article, I will share with you a few of the ways in which Educaring provides a method for applying the theory of attachment to the day-to-day job of raising children. I will also clarify some common misconceptions about attachment theory and their implications for infant care. 

According to AT, an infant's attachment to one or two preferred individuals is instinctual. From the moment they are born, every human infant exhibits "attachment behaviors"- crying, smiling, sucking, following and clinging that elicit caregiving behaviors from these preferred individuals, who become "attachment figures". Adequate responses to the infant's attachment behaviors create a psychological "secure base," a conscious and unconscious sense, based on caregiving experiences with the attachment figure, that relationships can provide safety, intimacy, predictability, consistency, authenticity, trust and comfort. Non-responsiveness to attachment behaviors, Bowlby believed, could lead to the sense that relationships cause anxiety as well as social and emotional difficulties. 

AT emphasizes that the infant's psychological secure base is formed in large part during caregiving interactions. Emmi Pikler shared this belief that "the relationship between child and parent is established through the activities of care, that is feeding, changing, and bathing." (David & Appell, pp. 9) She trained many individuals, including Magda Gerber, in how to do this respectfully: slowing down, picking up the infant carefully and gently, telling the infant what you are doing, appreciating the infant's ability to participate, and responding to the infant's cues of interest and desire to be involved in their care. The RIE principle, Involvement of the child in all caregiving activities to allow the child to become an active participant rather than a passive recipient, provides parents with specific techniques for caring for their children in a way that enhances their relationship and communicates security, love and trust, which are all necessary to form the secure base: Prepare ahead; observe the infant and wait until she is ready; explain what you are doing; slow down and pay full attention, are some examples of these very user-friendly, concrete steps that parents can follow in order to communicate a feeling of consistency, trust and security during caregiving. 

According to AT, another requirement for the development of the secure base is sensitive and appropriate responsiveness to the infant's attachment behaviors. Educaring provides parents with specific guidelines for responding sensitively to attachment  behaviors. Let us take the attachment behavior of clinging, for example. The RIE principle, Observation of the child in order to understand her needs, instructs parents in the first aspect of sensitive responsiveness to any attachment behavior, that is identifying the behavior and assessing what the child needs. Magda tells us that when you observe your child making yourself available to the child and learning about your child's temperament and personality and how she responds to her environment. 

In Dear Parent, Magda counsels parents who observe that their infant cries hysterically until picked up to hold their child! That is being respectful of a newborn's need for being held! Similarly, during parent-infant classes, when a child comes into class and chooses to stay with her caregiver, I tell parents to observe their child and be respectful of the child's need for proximity and physical contact; when the child no longer needs it, she will let you know! Observation will let you know not only when any attachment behavior is activated, but also when the attachment behavior has been terminated by the parent's appropriate response. 

This leads me to an important misconception about infant attachment behaviors. Attachment behaviors are not always active. Bowlby emphasizes that the instinctual behaviors that comprise the human attachment behavioral system are governed by the same principles which govern instinctual behaviors in other animal species. Like mating instincts in birds, for example, the instinctual behaviors of the attachment behavioral system in humans are activated by environmental stimuli. Once they become activated, the behavior continues until an environmental response terminates the behavior. In this way, attachment behavior is "goal-directed," the goal being regulating the distance between an infant and his or her mother. 

For example, the infant's need to cling to his mother may be activated when the infant is distressed, but once the mother picks up the infant and holds him, the infant no longer needs to be held. According to this model, it is not the case that infants always need to be held and should be "attached" to their parents 24 hours a day. Observation teaches us that children need and want to be held, and it also teaches us when the instinct for holding has been satisfied and when infants are ready for something else, namely independent exploration of the environment. 

Bowlby places special emphasis on the relation between security and independence. He believed that a secure base is a prerequisite for the infant's exploration of his environment, which leads to his mastery of social, emotional, physical and cognitive developmental tasks. Although they seem antithetical on the surface, Bowlby regarded exploration of the environment and seeking proximity to the caregiver when the child experiences danger, fatigue, distress or illness as two separate, co-evolved behavioral systems. 

The complementarity of dependence and independence is central to attachment theory. Bowlby argued that the needs for contact with the attachment figure and self-reliance/autonomy both serve an individual advantageously when they work together. He considered the balance between attachment and exploration to be the foundation for the development of normative mental health. In experimental settings, security in infant-mother attachment is defined as a balance between an infant's attachment behaviors and exploration of the environment (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters & Wall, 1978). 

The RIE principles Time for uninterrupted play and Freedom to explore and interact with other infants are consistent with the crucial role that exploration of the environment plays in healthy infant development according to AT. Educaring proposes a paradigm for caring for infants that focuses on this balance between time together with caregivers and time apart from caregivers and helps parents work out the emotional, environmental and logistical obstacles to achieving this desired balance. 

Gerber (2002) elaborates on the difficulties inherent in finding a balance between respecting infants' needs for proximity to parents and their needs for independent exploration that she calls Time together, Time apart: "When adults try to do their own work while trying to pay attention to their children, both parent and child end up feeling frustrated. This trap, I feel, is created by books and advisors who say that a baby needs to have his parent near him at all times...Many parents are concerned about not being 'good parents' when they are not with their child. I still do not understand why it is so difficult for parents to accept that it is alright to leave a child to explore in a totally safe place, while the parent is available but doing something else within hearing distance" (Gerber, reference). 

Aside from giving parents permission to allow their children freedom to explore, RIE also offers parents a wealth of ideas and suggestions about setting up an environment that is conducive to their infant's freedom, a necessary condition for exploration: The presence of an available caregiver who is paying attention but not intrusive; a peaceful environment that is not over-stimulating by way of too much noise, light or activity; simple, safe, age-appropriate objects that encourage the child to be active; gross motor and fine motor challenges; freedom to move; and gates that provide safe boundaries, for example. The RIE principles Basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer, and a self-learner and An environment which is physically safe, emotionally nurturing, and cognitively challenging give parents specific guidelines to follow to facilitate their infant's exploration and to make it pleasurable for the child and the parent. 

Safety, which Gerber emphasizes is essential for infants' well-being and for parents' ability to relax and enjoy their children, is also a prerequisite for exploration. AT posits that active exploration is terminated during danger or threat. Infants require safe, age-appropriate challenges in the environment for which they feel ready. Otherwise, they will instinctually turn off the exploration system and an attachment behavior will be activated. The more age-appropriate and safe the environment, the more the infant will explore it willingly. 

As the infant matures, the instinctual responses that Bowlby delineates develop into more refined and complex behaviors. The integration of the instinctual responses coincides with the child's cognitive development. Towards the end of the first year, and especially during the second and third when the child is acquiring the use of language, a child is busy constructing "working models” of how the physical world, how his mother and other significant persons, and how he himself may be expected to behave, and how each interacts with all the others (Bowlby, 1969). Within the framework of these working models the child evaluates particular aspects of his environment and makes his "attachment plans." (Bowlby, 1969) 

As the individual matures, expectations about interactions between oneself and others are built from actual caregiving experiences. These expectations, which are integrated with the emotional experiences associated with the interactions, become internalized and create the "internal working model" (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980; Bretherton, 1985). 

The internal working model (IWM) contains working models of self and other that are complementary. For example, if the attachment figure provides for the infant's needs for proximity and comfort while simultaneously allowing for the infant's needs for independent exploration of the environment, the child will probably develop a model of self as valued and self-reliant and a model of other as dependable, sensitive and available. If the attachment figure is rejecting of the infant's needs, the child will probably construct a model of self as unworthy and incompetent and a model of other as intrusive, unreliable, and uncaring (Bowlby, 1973; Bretherton, 1995). The above provides a theoretical framework for how and why responding sensitively, being available and communicating honestly and consistently, the ingredients of respect, results in children who are securely attached and who feel self-confident, resourceful, secure and authentic. Isn't it nice to know that what we are doing is consistent with one of the most well-known and well-respected theories of child development? 

Parents in my observation and guidance classes sometimes say, "I am worried that my child isn't attached." I explain, "All human infants do it; it's an instinctual behavior that is species-specific. It's not a question of if or how strongly your infant attaches to you. Rather, it's a question of the style or strategy that your infant develops in order to fulfill her instinctual need for felt security. In research studies, infant attachment strategies are broadly classified as either 'secure' or 'anxious.' 'Secure' strategies are defined as balanced between actively exploring the environment and seeking out contact with the attachment figure when the infant is distressed, ill, fatigued, when faced with environmental danger, and upon separation from and return of the attachment figure. 'Insecure' strategies are characterized by exploration that is either non-existent or indifferent, and either mix active comfort-seeking with continued crying, struggling or rigidity or avoid seeking out the attachment figure during times of distress, danger, etc." I suggest that parents carefully observe their childrens' behavior in order to evaluate their child's attachment strategy. 

I have provided you with a number of examples of Educaring principles and techniques that I believe are consistent with the requirements for the development of "secure" infant attachment strategies proposed by AT. The quality of early attachment is important to all people caring for infants because it is well-documented that secure infant-mother attachment is associated with social and emotional competence. 

Further studies are required to examine the relation of the RIE principles and infant-mother attachment. For example, it would be interesting to examine differences in infant-parent attachment between parents who are trained to respectfully observe their infants and those who receive some basic education in child development without training in respectful observation. For lack of scientific evidence that Educaring facilitates the development of an infant's psychological "secure base," let us respect and enjoy our children and be respectful of the choices that parents make in responding to what Magda calls “the many perplexing issues of parenthood." 

*RIE II is the Practicum portion of the RIE professional training

 By Johanna Herwitz, Ph.D. & RIE Associate in New York ,NY

Educaring, Volume 26, No. 1, Spring 2006, Resources for Infant Educarers.

REFERENCES 

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psycho-logical study of the strange situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates. 

Bowlby, J. (1958). The nature of the child's tie to the mother. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 39, 350-373. 

Bowlby, J. (1969, 1982). Attachment and Loss. Volume I: Attachment. New York: Basic Books. 

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and Loss. Volume II: Separation. New York: Basic Books. 

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss. Volume III: Loss. New York: Basic Books. 

Bretherton, I. (1985). Attachment Theory: Retrospect and prospect. In I. Bretherton & E. Waters (Eds.), Growing points in attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, (1-2, Serial No. 209). 

Bretherton, I. (1995). The origins of attachment theory. In S. Goldberg, R. Muir, & J. Kerr (Eds.), Attachment theory: Social, developmental and clinical perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press. 

David, M. & Appell, G. (1973). Loczy: An Unusual Approach to Mothering. Paris: Editions du Scarabée. 

Gerber, M. (2002). Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect. Los Angeles: Resources for Infant Educarers. 

Gerber, M. & Johnson, A. (1998). Your Self-Confident Baby. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 

Birth and Postpartum doulas provide education and non-medical support to families as they prepare for birth, during birth and in the early postpartum period.

As doulas and Educarers, RIE Associates Ida Reid and Jennifer Curtis talk about how RIE’s Basic Principles inform their roles:

• Meeting families right where they are, bringing no personal agenda and requiring the ability to “leave oneself at the door” (Authenticity)
• Embracing the uniqueness of individual parents and respecting their own learning journey, seeing and accepting the individual as they are (Sensitive Observation)
• Regarding the child *and* the parent as whole and competent (Basic Trust)
• Valuing the importance and transformative nature of the new role as adults become parents (Freedom to Explore)
• Holding space for decisions (tarry time), trusting the client to choose the best path for them (Sensitive Observation and Basic Trust)
• Honoring multiple viewpoints, respecting the individual’s personhood and sense of “self;” acknowledging that each relationship between caregivers and infant will be their own distinct relationship (Authenticity)
• Affirming the new parents’ experience without judgement and respecting differing viewpoints (Sensitive Observation, Authenticity)
• Allowing and trusting parents to find their own way (Basic Trust)
• Being flexible to meet the needs at hand (rather than following an agenda), with a capacity to embrace the unknown (Freedom to Explore and Interact, Involvement in Caregiving Activities, Sensitive Observation)
• Facilitating the parent feeling genuinely “seen” and affirmed in their personhood (Authenticity and Consistency)

By RIE Associates Jennifer Curtis and Ida Reid

Watch Video Below

by RIE Associate Ruth Mason

Perhaps it is no coincidence that the masthead for the web site permacultureprinciples.com featured an infant nestling in the leaves of a vibrant cauliflower plant. Both are nature’s creations. Both need care to grow and the right circumstances to thrive. Both need enough room to "move" freely, proper nutrition, and someone to observe them in order to provide what they need so they can grow and fulfill their potential.

This October, I will led a workshop based in part on Magda Gerber’s Educaring^® Approach at Israel's yearly Permaculture Festival. When I suggested this workshop to the organizers, no one questioned me. They seemed intuitively to grasp the connection between the child-rearing principles we all hold dear and those underlying permaculture.

Permaculture "guides us to mimic nature" as the site explains. When we want to grow our garden, for example, we look at a thriving forest and see that its soil is mixed with decomposed and decomposing leaves, branches, twigs and animal droppings. We see the soil is covered with a rich layer of mulch. When we mimic this in our gardens, our plants thrive.

When we respond to our baby’s needs with love, sensitivity and communication, and then put her down to move and play freely, we are letting nature take its course. A healthy baby instinctively knows how she needs to move and what she needs to do in order to develop according to nature's plan. If we observe skillfully and "do less" as Magda counseled, we see that a baby does not need to have a rattle shaken in front of her face nor does she need to be tickled in order to grace us with that heart-stopping smile.

This was brought home to me and a group of moms during the silent observation period in a one-time workshop I recently led for a group of mothers and their babies at my local community center in Jerusalem. One nine-month-old who was lying on her back, shook her bottom, then her shoulders, then her head and then broke out into peals of laughter. She did this over and over, clearly having a great time. Afterward, her mother said in wonder that this was the first time she'd seen her daughter laugh without her or her husband "making" her laugh.

The Sensory Awareness Bulletin devoted to Dr. Emmi Pikler contains the following translation from Dr. Pikler’s book Peaceful Babies, Contented Mothers. After describing how even tiny infants move when left to their own devices, Dr. Pikler writes:

“This slow and gradual stretching and reaching is one of the most important stages in the motor development of the infant.  It goes on for months.  During this time the asymmetry of the trunk with which the child is born disappears.  Through these natural movements the spine becomes straight; the trunk becomes elastic, flexible and muscular.

“I cannot emphasize how important this stage of development is.   One proof is that the movements described above are systematically performed as special physical-therapy exercises with children who suffer from distortions of the spine…”

This is one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Pikler and one I use a lot when speaking to parents. Magda Gerber clearly integrated this element of Dr. Pikler's research when developing the Educaring Approach. It embodies for me exactly what is so wise and true and beautiful about this approach: Nature knows best. We just need to get out of the way and let it happen.

By applying permaculture principles to all of life, the web site mentioned above writes, "we can make the transition from being dependent consumers to becoming responsible producers." Similarly, babies raised on the Educaring Approach, "produce" their own amusement, pleasure, challenges and fun rather than being always dependent on "consuming" stimulation provided by parents or caregivers. And just as the use of permaculture principles translates into less human labor needed in the garden, adherence to the Educaring Approach means more free time for parents.

In addition, when we follow the Educaring Approach, we see that we don't need to invest in dozens of commercially produced plastic toys for babies. Simple items from our homes and kitchens -- a kerchief, a basket, stainless steel stacked measuring cups -- provide all the fun and stimulation our babies need. When we observe babies who are allowed to play and move freely, we notice that much of their time is used to explore and have fun with their own bodies. Often, their marvelous hands, their feet, their movements are all they need for keeping themselves occupied, amused and stimulated. Just think of that laughing nine-month-old.

This journey, builds skills and resilience.All of us who are committed to raising babies and exposing other parents to the Educaring Approach see daily how skilled and resilient our babies become. Another example I love that beautifully illustrates the benefits of our principles: A mother posted  several photos of her three-month old on a Facebook group for parents following our path. She writes that her baby, who is lying on his back on a blanket on the floor, wanted a small toy that was out of his reach. The mother repressed her urge to hand him the toy and waited and watched. What she saw and documented in the photos would be seen as no less than remarkable by people who haven't yet grasped just how capable even the tiniest babies are: The baby saw that when he reached out and bunched up the blanket in his fist, the toy moved closer to him. He repeated this action several times until the toy was in reach. If the mom had handed her baby this toy, as almost any mother would, he would have missed out on this opportunity to use his three-month-old brain to solve a problem. He would have missed out on the satisfaction he must have felt when he succeeded in his goal. And his mother would have missed out on seeing what amazing capabilities, imagination, persistence and initiative her infant has.

Permaculture encourages organic growth, as do we: We ask, what is the most natural way for this child to develop? Clearly, the answer does not involve propping up a baby who cannot yet sit by himself or standing up a baby who is not ready to stand, but allowing them to find new positions when their muscles, bones and nerves are ready to do so.

When following nature’s plan, growing plants and raising babies have much in common, with optimal results arising from observation and minimal intervention.

See more RIE and...

RIE Associates Kimberley Lewis and Simone Demarzi Share Their Views on RIE in the Waldorf Birth-Three Setting

This writeup provides a synopsis of the video discussion between two Waldorf Teachers, Kimberly Lewis and Simone Demarzi, who discovered RIE after they had been trained as Early Childhood Waldorf Teachers.  Both have taught mostly in programs in Waldorf settings.  The discussion centers around how the different modalities work together.  Most of the discussion centers around the RIE techniques in a Waldorf classroom.  

Both teachers found that using RIE in a Waldorf setting works seamlessly.  It’s important to note that the Waldorf pedagogy from Rudolf Steiner originally goes down to age 5 or Kindergarten.  From a historical standpoint, the Waldorf Preschool movement began in the 1980s, and the concept of teaching Parent-Child classes (Birth-3) wasn’t introduced until the mid-1990s.  Home daycare programs did the best they could mixing these age groups and largely used the format of a Waldorf Kindergarten Day to guide them. With few indications from Rudolf Steiner on Infant programs, Waldorf teachers began to reach out to other modalities, and RIE and Pikler became the favorites.  

This video helps to explain how RIE methods work and beautifully augment the Waldorf pedagogy.  One area that stands out in RIE is respect for the other.  In Waldorf we honor that this little person is a developing being both physically and spiritually and honor the miracle of rising-up to standing and walking.  

Magda Gerber emphasized that children have an equal part in the relationship, which includes trust in the others’ ability to achieve whatever is being worked on. We talk to the child about what we are doing, and we wait for a response from the child out of respect.  In both modalities we use observation as our main tool as we give the child time to learn.  We don’t rush children into the next stage/milestone. We slow down and give time. 

Free play is another area both modalities use widely.  For a child under the age of three, play means learning to move their bodies in the safest way for each child.  Play means learning to interact with other children, for example, watching them or crawling over a child or taking an item from a small hand.  Play means exploring the world (safely) in all that it has to offer, indoors and outdoors.  In RIE we say that the child is the director, the actor, and the initiator of the play and this holds true in the Waldorf classroom as well.  

Environments are set up to be age-appropriate in both modalities.  In the Waldorf School Classroom, most of the toys are simple, open-ended, and made of natural materials, so that the imagination can fully take hold.  In a RIE infant classroom, the environment is set up to be appropriate for the infant depending on his/her physical development.  For example, a play kitchen in an infant space is not so helpful, but rather a low ramp, or a platform to crawl up on and toys that have many different qualities to explore are key. 

Predictability in care moments and predictability in the rhythm of the day are found in both modalities.  Oral traditions help to define rhythms and rituals of the day and seasons.  Waldorf and RIE work closely with the dignity of being human, they both acknowledge wonder and beauty through observation.  An added advantage in combining both modalities is that it has been well-received by the parents and the children attending the classes.  

By Simone Demarzi and Kimberley Lewis

April 28, 2023

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

Not too long after I took RIE Foundations, I was confiding in a friend about some troubles in my life...lots of stress, job not going well, struggling with my partner relationship. This very wise friend – who I had previously spent hours ranting to about RIE – asked what I thought would happen if I tried treating myself the way I treated the babies in my care: respecting my own needs and feelings as valid, being compassionate, strategizing without judgment. WOW. My whole life turned on a dime. It was a huge epiphany for me to realize that these ideas really are for everyone, not just babies!

“Passive toys make for active infants and active toys make passive infants.” - Madga Gerber

How to Do It:

What kinds of toys for babies should we choose?

• Open-ended: they allow the infant to decide how to use them. Toys that are replicas of items limit the ways children use them. Choosing items that are versatile allows infants to create for themselves. They use their own ingenuity in using the materials, which can support these new ideas.
• Safe: cleanable, too large to swallow or lodge in the nose or ear, breathable if they can cover the nose and mouth.
• Passive: they allow the infant to act upon them rather than do for the infant. 

Some ideas of simple objects:

• Wooden Rings
• Sturdy cotton or linen fabric square 
• Plastic containers of all sorts with lids
• Metal juice can lids
• Metal canning rings
• Balls in a variety of shapes and sizes
• Plastic colanders

Why we do it:

• Increases attention span
• Supports open-ended play
• Supports creative thinking
• Supports independent play
• Supports executive function development

When choosing play objects embody the mantra “less is more.” The less the object does the more the infant and toddler can do.  The less the toy specifies how it is to be used the more ingenuity the infant is allowed to bring to the time spent with the object. 

Limiting the number of play objects is also important. Choosing too many reduces a child’s ability to focus on any one item for long periods of time. An abundance of objects means the child spends more time deciding what to play with and less time exploring the object in its many facets, capabilities and uses.

Simple objects, especially for toddlers, may come from the kitchen or recycling. You need not spend a lot of money on toys for your baby to stimulate learning. Simple objects build your baby’s capacity for creativity and attention.

Ties to Principles:

• Basic trust in the child to be an initiator, an explorer and self learner.
• A safe, challenging, predictable environment.
• Time for uninterrupted play and freedom to explore.

What parents and carers say:

“The irony is that the real educational toys are not the flashy gadgets and gizmos with big promises, but the staples that have built creative thinkers for decades.” -- Alison Gopnik, PhD

References:

Dauch, C., Imwalle, M., Ocasio, B., & Metz, A. (2017, November 27). The influence of the number of toys in the environment on toddlers' play. Retrieved December 08, 2020.

Temple University. (2007, November 26). Simple Retro Toys May Be Better For Children Than Fancy Electronic Toys. ScienceDaily.

Gerber, M. (2002) Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect (pp. 97-101) 
Greenwald, D. and Weaver, J. (2013), Gerber, M. (1979) The RIE Manual.

Adapted from Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect and The RIE Manual

How do I help my child to sleep?

"Routine is a very important concept when you’re a young child because routine means predictability. And the more routine you have the easier children learn things. So by the time you put the child down, the child already expects to be put down." -- Magda Gerber

How to do it:

• Observe your child for signs of being tired.
• Create a routine around sleep so they can expect when to sleep.
• Try to minimize interventions that they will learn to expect from you to help them get to sleep - let them develop their own ways to fall asleep.
• Recognize different types of crying - very young babies will cry because it is the only way for them to communicate.
• Trust that the child will develop their own way to fall asleep.
• Use positive language to make the anticipation of rest and sleep a positive experience.
• Be patient - some babies will need 20 minutes or more to put themselves to sleep.
• Intervene when it is obvious to you that the child needs your presence. Sometimes just your voice and a gentle touch are enough.

Why we do it:

• It helps the child and you get the sleep you both need

Ties to Principles:

• Respect is the basis of the Educaring^® Approach
• Trust in the infant’s competence
• Sensitive observation of the child 

Video: See How They Sleep

In the (admittedly poor-quality but priceless) 20-minute video below, two parents, Jana and Lisa, talk about their experiences of helping their young children find their own way to sleep. Valorie Cole, the Director of an early childhood development center, discusses her learnings from RIE^®, and how it helped transform their nap space into place where the children are 'really comfortable.' RIE's founding director, Magda Gerber, shares her experience around sleep. A must-see for all parents of young children and the adults who care for them.

To learn more about RIE, click on one of the buttons below to find online or in-person classes from one of our highly trained RIE Associates.

Transcript

• Jana: Parent with 4 year-old daughter and 11 week-old son
• Valorie Cole: Director, Early Discoveries Child Development Center
• Brenda Hernandez: Educarer, St. James Child Development Center
• Jay Gordon: Pediatrician
• Lisa: Parent with 9 year-old daughter
• Magda Gerber: Founding Director, Resources in Infant Educarers (RIE)

Jana (Parent): I mean, sleep is crucial. I mean, it is. When she’s not well rested, she has accidents, she’s not able to cope.

Valorie (Director): When children don’t get enough sleep, they have a really hard time being able to engage with what’s happening in their day. Their appetite is lagging, their energy level is low, they can be cranky, or just kind of off.

Brenda (Educarer): They need to rest when they don’t take a nap they’re crying, you see they’re falling apart, they’re like, OMG they need to have a nap!

Jay (Pediatrician): Probably the biggest issue that parents bring into my office is ‘how do I get more sleep’ and I try to tell people that I don’t think that there’s an easy answer

Lisa (Parent): Her bed and sleep is not a comforting time for her. It’s not something she goes to readily. And I know she doesn’t get as much sleep as she needs to get.

Magda (RIE Founding Director): For all these many decades I have been working with parents. I would say there are two topics which are asked most of the time. One is cry is the other is sleep. And the two go of course together. If the child doesn’t sleep but cries then it’s a double problem. And it’s a very difficult subject matter because whoever is in charge of the child also has needs. At night, all of us have the need to sleep, and if a child doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t only mean the child doesn’t sleep but the child doesn’t let us sleep, then we are angry, then we are nervous, then we are upset about us being angry, and so it creates a …. mess.

Lisa (Parent): Starting around 7pm, there’s a tension that comes in the house, when is she going to go to bed, and how long is it going to take, is she going to get adequate sleep.

Jay (Pediatrician): I think that kids who sleep longer tend to have parents that sleep longer, and I think the whole day and the whole family runs better. That’s not easy to achieve.

Magda (RIE Founding Director): People think that there is a magic thing you do when you put the child down, either you rub backs or you give them a pacifier you put a bottle in their mouth will make them sleep. But never is it that easy. By the way, when the child understands more and more what we say, I usually tell mothers, don’t say you have to sleep. You say, it’s rest time, and I also like to tell ‘I need’ a lot - I need rest, and therefore now we have peaceful time. Because that you can reinforce. There’s no way you can reinforce sleeping.

Valorie (Director): When I began to study RIE about 10 years ago, I began to see nap time and sleep in a different way. I felt that nap time was something that the adults were doing to the children. I could see that we were really forcing the issue, deciding when nap needs to start, rocking, walking around with the child, those sorts of things.

Jana (Parent): I couldn’t make her go to sleep. You can’t make another person sleep. And even when I go to sleep, I’m going to realize sometimes I’m really tired and fall asleep right away, and sometimes I need time to sort of clear my head and get in that relaxed mode to let sleep come.

Self-Soothing

Magda (RIE Founding Director): You know all of us no matter what age, have to develop a way of falling asleep. And some people just the way the minute they hit their bed, they are asleep, and some people have to struggle and wiggle and toss and turn but we all develop something that puts us to sleep. And ideally, the less the parent or the adult tries to do, the easier the child learns to fall asleep.

Lisa (Parent): I used to nurse her to sleep, lay her down in the bed, and hope she wouldn’t wake up. I would drive her around the city for naps, and take her gently out of her car seat, and lay her down and try not to wake her up, she would have to stroke my arm until she fell asleep. She would have to have me right next to her. She never learned how to relax on her own and let herself go.

Valorie (Director): You need to trust them they’re able to soothe them selves to sleep, and they’re able to develop those ways to comfort and quiet and still their bodies to sleep

Nursing and Waking

Jay (Pediatrician): I think that kids will probably learn to sleep by themselves if you pat them instead of nursing them every time.

Magda (RIE Founding Director): usually let’s take either a breast fed baby or a bottle fed baby and as the baby gets enough sucks enough they usually fall asleep. They get satiated fall asleep. And all grownups are very happy when that happens and kind of sneak the baby into the crib you know, just don’t wake up and they can they would try hardly to move and to do it so they baby wouldn’t wake up. And that works well for quite a while when the baby is very young. Lo and behold, as the baby gets older, more aware of their own environment, and then, you know, you kind of sneak them into their bed, a few minutes later they wake up.

Jana (Parent): My daughter was pretty much was nursed to sleep. She would fall asleep nursing and I would lay her down and she would stay asleep and what happened is as she got older, those tricks stopped working she would wake up! And didn’t know how to soothe herself back to sleep.

Valorie (Director): It’s part of RIE’s philosophy of respecting the child and trusting that the child can do it and the children really can do it. And I think they sleep better, and I don’t think there’s waking to wonder where’s that person who was rubbing my back, or, where’s that person who was rocking, why aren’t I rocking, those sorts of questions.

Observation

Valorie (Director): when a child joins the group, that teacher’s part of her day is to observe the child and to see what the signs of that’s child sleepiness are. Some children ask for naps, or ask for sleep, some children ask for the comfort item.

Jana (Parent): I’ve really worked in the first 6 weeks of really observing him, and observing his patterns, and noticing what happens and what he does before he would start to fall off to go to sleep, and, usually with August there’s a calmness that comes first where he’s kind of off in his own little space almost and, kind of gets caught up in, of him kind of him watching his hand he’s laying down or even in my arms or something and if I catch that at that window and lay him down, he usually just goes down without any crying, I mean there’s a little kind of letting go right before he closes his eyes.

Routine and Expectation

Magda (RIE Founding Director): Routine is a very important concept when you’re a young child because routine means predictability. And the more routine you have the easier children learn things. So by the time you put the child down, the child already expects to be put down.

Jana (Parent): I was able to observe his sleeping patterns enough that we started a bedtime routine, and that at the same time every night, start his bedtime routine, and that that he gets laid down at the same time every night and he knows that ok we start this and that ultimately he’s going to be laid down and its sleeping time and I can really see in him now that um the recognition of that and that he looks forward to that, and is excited to be laid down on his crib.

Magda (RIE Founding Director): I didn’t know why I always, but really always, was successful at putting children to sleep. And it was because I genuinely told them ‘boy, are you lucky you can go to bed - I still have to do dishes (or god knows what). I wish I could go to bed.’ And that was true! I didn’t make that up - so the child went to bed because that’s a desirable thing. And many times I tell parents, try to listen to yourself when you say something. If you make something a desirable or do you (in a grumpy voice) ‘sorry but eventually you’ll have to go to bed.’ Many, many times children are too tired, and then of course they cannot go to bed.

Deryn

Valorie (Director): In the naproom today, Deryn was having a hard time settling into sleep. She needed to have some things before she was ready to be on her mat. And Sarah listened to her, and kept reminding her to come and finally realized what it was, and Deryn went to get it and came back. And um Sarah just gently spoke with her about ‘it’s time to rest, it’s time to stay on your mat, it’s time to rest your body’, those sorts of words. And Deryn sat, and lay, and sat, and stood, again just patiently just reminding her that it’s really time, that this is the time to rest. And eventually, Deryn flops down, and she’s one of our children who really needs a lot of movement and you can see she’s doing a lot of thinking, maybe processing her morning, maybe thinking about something else, I’m not sure. But just respecting that, with gentle reminders that what the parameters are that this is nap time and you need to stay on your mat. Generally she’ll fall asleep in about 20 minutes.

Crying

Jana (Parent): It was hard to hear her cry at all. It was hard for me to listen to, and I felt that if I wasn’t in there, and picking her up, and holding her, and trying to fix it for her, then I wasn’t a good parent, or doing my job as a parent. I realized with August that, he’s an infant and so the only way he has to express himself are little sounds and crying. A little bit of crying and little crying noises and that that’s ok. And I think having the benefit the second time around, I’ve had 4 1/2 years of experience with my daughter, and I’ve learned that that crying isn’t that they’re in distress or in great need of something. I know the difference of a cry when they really need you and they need something vs. they’re trying to work something out.

(August going to sleep in his crib, quietly crying)

Intervention

Jay (Pediatrician): RIE’s attitude about selective intervention, day and night, playing or sleeping, is a lot closer to what I believe than any books that are out there right now. Again, most of the books that are out there right now don’t advocate selective intervention. They advocate NO intervention - let him cry and look in on him - I don’t like that. I think like I said, most parents who know their kids well can figure out when the child needs to be picked up, and when they don’t need to be picked up.

Jana (Parent): I go in and try to take a few moments to soothe him and sometimes it might involve actually picking him up and holding him to help him settle a little before I lay him back down. Sometimes just my presence of being there and my voice is enough and he’ll hear it and he’ll be a little sigh and he’ll be able to find that place to be able to let go.

(Kendall crying in crib, being quiet, crying a little more, being quiet again, looking at her hands - other babies crying in the room while she is being quiet - closing her eyes, moving her head)

Valorie (Director): And I just feel that it’s really, there’s really, really a difference in nap rooms since I’ve been studying RIE than before. And I know it’s true because I hear it from parents, and I hear it from teachers who are studying with us and I hear it from new staff that ‘wow, there’s really a difference here - these children are really comfortable.’

Credits:

• Post-production facilities courtesy of Los Angeles Media Education Center and Wayde Faust
• Footage of Magda Gerber courtesy of Santa Monica City Television; Ida Unger, Producer
• Title Music and Audio Mixing by Larry Dean Embry
• Produced by Eileen O’Sullivan and Lance Richter

When your baby is not being held or cared for, placing them on their back to move freely helps them discover and take control of their body.

“On her back, she has the maximum mobility and support. She is freer to move her arms, legs, and body,

and do what she can do on her own.” --Magda Gerber, Your Self-Confident Baby

How to Do It:

• Whether baby is not yet moving on their own or has learned to crawl, we always put the baby into a “starting position” on their back. This is where babies feel safest and most confident.
• Newborns can be placed on their back in their crib or in a playpen. For babies who are turning to their side or more, create a clean, firm and safe space on the floor where you can lay them down -- on the floor itself (which gives great traction) or on a blanket, rug or lambskin.
• Always supporting their neck and head, lay baby down slowly with their bottom touching the ground first, then gently letting the back and eventually the head rest on the ground.
• If they are able to move, they will easily get into their favorite position on their own from this starting point.

Why we do it:

1. On their backs, babies can see and hear better, breathe with more ease, don't feel constrained or tense, and are in the place of the most stability and opportunity. They can also see YOU, their carer.
2. Even for babies who can roll over or sit, laying on the back is a starting or resting position, so it allows the baby to decide when and how they want to move next, a way we show respect for what they can already do.
3. On their back moving freely, you are giving your baby the chance to independently exercise their primitive reflexes, which may appear abrupt or jerky, but help baby make the adjustment from womb to world. These reflexes are the body’s way of keeping the baby safe and building up the body that they will eventually control.
4. Allows baby to build up the complex web of large and small muscles, bones, ligaments and fascia throughout the body that will enable later gross motor skills that are both efficient and graceful. Gross motor milestones -- like crawling, sitting up, or walking -- are achieved by the development of a many, many smaller movements -- what we sometimes call “micro-milestones.” Nature has given your baby a perfect plan for movement development that we can trust will allow your baby to move with strength, efficiency and grace.
5. As the baby’s gross motor skills develop, the myelination of the nervous system is allowed to develop naturally and optimally.
6. We give the infant plenty of opportunity for free movement and uninterrupted play. Instead of trying to teach babies how to move, we appreciate and admire how babies are moving on their own at this point in time, knowing that the movements they self-initiate keep them safe and on track.
7. There is some research suggesting that when these reflexes are “retained” because the baby has not been allowed to move freely, it can lead to things like hypersensitivity, picky eating, poor muscle tone, or poor manual dexterity.
8. On their back, a baby can more easily see YOU, their parent or carer, so you can make face to face connections -- a building block of their early emotional health. They can also discover their hands and begin to observe the world around them.

Ties to Principles:

• Respect is the basis of the Educaring^® Approach.
• Basic trust in the infant to be an initiator, an explorer, and self-learner.
• Freedom to explore and interact with other infants.

Adapted from Dear Parent by Magda Gerber and Your Self- Confident Baby by Magda Gerber

References:

Gerber, M. (2002) Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect (pp. 181)

Gerber, M. (1998) Your Self Confident Baby (pp.23)

Schott, J.M. and Rossner, M.N. (2003). The Grasp and Other Primitive Reflexes. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry (74:558–560)

What to do when your baby cries?

“Crying is your child’s language. It is her way of communicating her needs to her parents. Every average, healthy child cries.”

-- Magda Gerber, Your Self Confident Baby

How to do it:

1. Let the baby know that you are there and you care.
2. We don't always know what is making a baby cry exactly or often what to do about it. For many of this knowing what to do isn't instinctual. It takes time, patience, observation, and practice.
3. We can begin with simply talking, quietly to the baby.
4. Acknowledge what you see and what you are feeling: "I see you are uncomfortable. And hearing you cry really upsets me. I want to find out what you need. Tell me. I will try to understand your cues and in time, you will learn to give them to me." Madga Gerber, Dear Parent
5. Notice what you are feeling when your baby cries. Do you feel anxious, helpless, empathy, frustration, or even anger? Our reactions are important to examine and explore.
6. Try thinking out loud about the possible explanations, “Is your diaper wet? I don’t think you’re hungry because you just ate…” Magda Gerber, Dear Parent
7. Observe, notice, consider before reflexively feeding, changing, or picking up.
8. Why are they needing to cry? Rather than see your role as one who needs to stop the crying begin to see your role is to understand why they are crying.
9. "Respect, the child's right to express his feelings, or moods." ; "All babies cry. We would worry if they didn't." Magda Gerber, Dear Parent
10. Allow yourselves time to begin this life long relationship. Your baby will eventually come to anticipate and respond to your relaxed, calm response to their communication.

Why we do it:

• Many babies cry a lot during the first weeks, and even the first three months, of life, as they adjust to a world that is totally new to them.
• Crying is the baby’s mode of self-expression. It is the only way the baby can express feelings or discomfort. It is also a way to discharge energy.
• Your responsiveness is the key factor in helping your baby feel secure. We MUST respond. It is HOW we respond that deserves more consideration.
• We want to learn to read and then respond to the baby’s real need. Taking our time allows us to learn our baby’s different cries and what they mean.
• Sometimes talking calmly and directly to the baby soothes the baby. If we observe carefully, we may see that simple acknowledgement, “You don’t seem comfortable…” and looking at your face is enough. No need for extra efforts or tricks to calm.
• The way we respond also “conditions” the baby to expect specific responses (feeding, covering, rocking, patting). We are mindful about how we respond, making it a dialogue with the baby, so that we don’t create a need where one didn’t exist.
• When you talk quietly to your crying baby, you begin a practice of lifelong, honest communication that will benefit both of you.

Ties to RIE Principles:

• Trust in the infant’s competence
• Sensitive observation of the child 
• A safe, challenging, predictable environment
• Caregiving times: Involving the child

What parents and carers say:

“With Ethan’s colic, I followed every suggestion and piece of advice I received. Four months...of RIE classes provided us with a gentle, calm, relaxed alternative to the chaotic and frenetic “solutions” offered by well-meaning friends and relatives.” (Dear Parent, p.43)

Adapted from Dear Parent by Magda Gerber and Your Self- Confident Baby by Magda Gerber

References:

Bell, S., & Mary D. Salter Ainsworth. (1972). Infant Crying and Maternal Responsiveness. Child Development, 43(4), 1171-1190. doi:10.2307/1127506

Gerber, M. (2002) Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect (pp. 40-41)

Gerber, M. (1998) Your Self Confident Baby (pp. 45)

Tal-Chen Rabinowitch, Pnina Klein, Gila Atira & Ruhama Ben-Eliezer (2020) Caregiver-versus mother-infant interactions in relation to cognitive, social and emotional measures at 11 years of age, Early Child Development and Care.

Talking to your baby has benefits for both baby and parent

“I believe in speaking to your baby because that’s how we human beings communicate. Why not talk to your baby as you would to your friend or spouse?” -- Magda Gerber in Your Self-Confident Baby

How to Do It:

1. Tell your child what you are going to do before you do it, e.g. “I’m going to pick you up now.”
2. Talk to your child in simple, direct sentences, as though they understands.
3. Explain what is happening (e.g. “because it’s time to get dressed.”)
4. Wait for a response. Babies need time to process what we are saying. They are not as fast as we are, even when they are toddlers. RIE Associate Diana Suskind coined the phrase “tarry time" to explain the time infants need to process.
5. Look for a response. For a young baby, it may be a subtle change of expression or movement that indicates interest and readiness. For an older baby, it may be a more obvious responsive gesture, like holding their hands up.
6. Then proceed slowly, making the infant a part of the process.

Why we do it:

• As Magda Gerber reminds us, talking to your baby is "pleasant and soothing to the baby and can be a relief for you to say how you feel and what you need." You are "beginning a lifetime of [healthy] communication." (Dear Parent)
• It also helps us from going on "auto-pilot" and keeps us present with what we are doing with our baby.
• When we act on an infant without telling them what is going to happen they are in effect being treated like an object. Our security and trust grows in others when they take the time to tell us what is going to happen (think of your last visit to the dentist or doctor)
• We don't know when babies begin to understand language, but one day they will. When we slow down, tell them what we are going to do, wait, and observe we can watch the development of their understanding right before our very eyes! It is always an exciting moment.
• When we talk with young children it builds trust. Babies grow to anticipate what will happen next. This predictability builds security at all ages.

"For a long time it may feel as if it is only one-sided, but delightful surprises in your baby's responsiveness will convince you they were putting together all your words, gestures and facial expressions all along."

Magda Gerber, Dear Parent

Ties to Principles:

• Respect is the basis of the Educaring^® Approach.
• Involvement of the child in all care activities to allow the child to become an active participants rather than a passive recipient.
• Basic trust in the infant to be an initiator, an explorer, and self-learner.

What parents and carers say:

“I remember asking my young baby if she could lift her behind so I could remove her diaper. She was so little, I didn’t expect a response. Then one day, she looked right at me and did it. I couldn’t believe it!” -- Jennifer

Adapted from Dear Parent by Magda Gerber 

References:

Fernald, A., Zangl, R., Portillo, A.L., & Marchman, V. A. (2008). Looking while listening: Using eye movements to monitor spoken language comprehension by infants and young children. In Sekerina, I.A., Fernandez, E.M., & Clahsen, H. (Eds.) Developmental Psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children's language processing.

Fernald, A. & Mazzie, C. (1991). Prosody and focus in speech to infants and adults. Developmental Psychology, 27, 209-221.

Fernald, A. (1989). Intonation and communicative intent in mother's speech to infants: Is the melody the message? Child Development, 60, 1497-1510.

Gerber, M. (2002). Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect – 2nd Edition, pp. 33-34. Resources for Infant Educarers: Los Angeles.

Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2143-2152.

What is quality time with your baby?

“Quality time is what everyone really wants: a gift of time and attention.” -- Magda Gerber

How to do it:

• Carve out time when you can be fully present with your child. Your infant, toddler, or child will appreciate your ability to be fully present with them even if it's just for 10 minutes. This is the true definition of quality time. This is much better than being half present for a longer period. 
• Set aside your devices. They take your attention away from baby.
• Seat yourself on the floor near your child in a space where they can safely explore. If you can't sit on the floor, just get as low to the ground as they are so they can really feel your presence. Get comfortable. Have a good view of what they are doing.
• Let go of any agendas for how you think your baby and you should spend this time. This is why we call this "wants nothing" time -- because we don't want anything from our baby. There is no expectation, no task to complete, etc.
• If this is new for you, and you feel like it, you can say something like, "I just like being with you. I'm going to be sitting here enjoying watching you play."
• Let your child lead the interaction. How do they decide to use this time? Do they want to play? Do they want to sit on your lap? What's important is that they choose how to use this time.
• Observe them. What can you learn about them from what they are doing or the choices they make?
• Think about how good it feels when someone you love gives you their full attention and appreciates you for who you are.
• Participate when they show you they want you to get involved or ask you to. But still follow their lead.
• Enjoy being fully present with your child.
• When you are out of time, you can tell them in a straightforward way that it's now time to do whatever comes next.
• Try to schedule a time like this with your child on a regular basis.

Why we do it:

• We learn so much about our children during these quiet moments of observation. 
• We all want to be seen and understood. 
• Children feel deeply connected to us after moments of full attention making it easier for them to be separated when you can't be together.
• It helps you understand how your child is developing.
• It builds a deep sense of connection.

Ties to Principles:

• Trust in the infant’s competence
• Sensitive observation of the child 
• A safe, challenging, predictable environment

What parents and carers say:

“Let your baby bask in the golden glow of your attention.” – Lee Fernandez, RIE Associate 

Adapted from Dear Parent by Magda Gerber and the RIE Manual

References:

Gerber, M. (2002) Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect (pp. 75-76)

Greenwald, D. and Weaver, J. (2013), Gerber, M. (1979) The RIE Manual for Parents and Professionals Expanded Edition Extended Edition (pp.16-18)