First emotional need - I matter

Do my feelings matter to you?

This need to know we matter is expressed in the first hours of life when a new born baby cries.

There was a famous child development study called the ‘Still Face Experiment’ carried out by child development researcher Edward Tronick and his colleagues in 1975. A parent is filmed talking and laughing with their young infant who smiles, gurgles claps their hands and communicates back.

The researcher asks the parent to turn away for a brief moment, then return to face the child, but this time with a ‘still face’ – a blank expression. The infant reaches out to the parent, smiling, cooing and baby-talking’ but this time, there is no response. After less than two minutes of trying to interact you see the infant pause, as if they don’t understand what is happening. They get distressed, fuss, cry, and try to move in vain, trying to get their parent’s loving attention back.

‘When these attempts fail, the infant withdraws [and] orients his face and body away from his mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression.’[i]

In an interview with the Washington Post Edward Tronick said that studies of infants at orphanages who are fed and clothed, but not held, talked to or played with, [researchers] have found that some neglected children, literally, fail to grow.

‘Some of them actually died.’ [ii]

Having a still, unresponsive face is one of the most painful ‘turn-away’ responses to any bid for connection. It says ‘you don’t matter’ without a word being spoken. I wonder what the impact will be on the current growing generation who are routinely shown their caregiver's still and unresponsive 'I'm on my phone' face.

References:

[i] Goldman, J. G. (2010, October 18) Ed Tronick and the ‘Still Face Experiment’ Scientific American – The Thoughtful Animal.

[ii] Schultze, B. (2013, September 16) Effects of child abuse can last a lifetime: Watch the ‘still face’ experiment to see why. The Washington Post – She the People.