himself, and during their little random conversation he started to do just that.
Julia looked over at Harold and noticed he had his pencil dangling from his mouth. He wasn’t really chewing on it, just letting it hang softly between his teeth in the way he automatically did when he was thinking about something. He suddenly looked happier and more collected. With her story, Julia had triggered something—an implicit memory of what it was like to be calm and in control. She’d engaged him in the sort of extended conversation that he was still incapable of performing on his own. It was like a miracle, and Harold soon got his homework smoothly done.
But of course it wasn’t a miracle. If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids into perfect achievement machines don’t have any effect at all. Instead, parents just have to be good enough. They have to provide their kids with stable and predictable rhythms. They need to be able to fall in tune with their kids’ needs, combining warmth and discipline. They need to establish the secure emotional bonds that kids can fall back upon in the face of stress. They need to be there to provide living examples of how to cope with the problems of the world so that their children can develop unconscious models in their heads.
Firmly Attached
Social scientists do their best to arrive at some limited understanding of human development. In 1944 the British psychologist John Bowlby did a study called
Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves
on a group of young delinquents. He noticed that a high percentage of the boys had been abandoned when they were young, and suffered from feelings of anger, humiliation, and worthlessness. “She left because I’m no good,” they’d explain.
Bowlby noticed that the boys withheld affections and developed other strategies to cope with the sense of abandonment that plagued them. He theorized that what kids need most are safety and exploration. They need to feel loved by those who care for them, but they also need to go out into the world and to take care of themselves. Bowlby argued that these two needs, while sometimes in conflict, are also connected. The more secure a person feels at home, the more likely he or she is to venture out boldly to explore new things. Or as Bowlby himself put it, “All of us, from cradle to grave, are happiest when life is organized as a series of excursions, long or short, from the secure base provided by our attachment figures.”
Bowlby’s work helped shift thinking about childhood, and about human nature. Up until his day, psychologists tended to study individual behavior, not relationships. Bowlby’s work emphasized that the relationship between a child and a mother or primary caregiver powerfully molds how that child will see herself and the world.
Before Bowlby’s era, and even in the years beyond, many people focused on the conscious choices people made. The assumption was that people look at the world, which is simple, and then make decisions about it, which are complicated and hard. Bowlby focused on the unconscious models we carry around in our heads, which organize perception in the first place.
For example, a baby is born with a certain inborn trait, like irritability. But he is lucky enough to have a mother who can read his moods. She hugs him when he wants hugs and puts him down when he wants to be put down. She stimulates him when he wants stimulation and holds back when he needs tranquility. The baby learns that he is a creature who exists in dialogue with others. He comes to see the world as a collection of coherent dialogues. He also learns that if he sends signals, they will probably be received. He will learn to get help when he is in trouble. He
Julia looked over at Harold and noticed he had his pencil dangling from his mouth. He wasn’t really chewing on it, just letting it hang softly between his teeth in the way he automatically did when he was thinking about something. He suddenly looked happier and more collected. With her story, Julia had triggered something—an implicit memory of what it was like to be calm and in control. She’d engaged him in the sort of extended conversation that he was still incapable of performing on his own. It was like a miracle, and Harold soon got his homework smoothly done.
But of course it wasn’t a miracle. If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids into perfect achievement machines don’t have any effect at all. Instead, parents just have to be good enough. They have to provide their kids with stable and predictable rhythms. They need to be able to fall in tune with their kids’ needs, combining warmth and discipline. They need to establish the secure emotional bonds that kids can fall back upon in the face of stress. They need to be there to provide living examples of how to cope with the problems of the world so that their children can develop unconscious models in their heads.
Firmly Attached
Social scientists do their best to arrive at some limited understanding of human development. In 1944 the British psychologist John Bowlby did a study called
Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves
on a group of young delinquents. He noticed that a high percentage of the boys had been abandoned when they were young, and suffered from feelings of anger, humiliation, and worthlessness. “She left because I’m no good,” they’d explain.
Bowlby noticed that the boys withheld affections and developed other strategies to cope with the sense of abandonment that plagued them. He theorized that what kids need most are safety and exploration. They need to feel loved by those who care for them, but they also need to go out into the world and to take care of themselves. Bowlby argued that these two needs, while sometimes in conflict, are also connected. The more secure a person feels at home, the more likely he or she is to venture out boldly to explore new things. Or as Bowlby himself put it, “All of us, from cradle to grave, are happiest when life is organized as a series of excursions, long or short, from the secure base provided by our attachment figures.”
Bowlby’s work helped shift thinking about childhood, and about human nature. Up until his day, psychologists tended to study individual behavior, not relationships. Bowlby’s work emphasized that the relationship between a child and a mother or primary caregiver powerfully molds how that child will see herself and the world.
Before Bowlby’s era, and even in the years beyond, many people focused on the conscious choices people made. The assumption was that people look at the world, which is simple, and then make decisions about it, which are complicated and hard. Bowlby focused on the unconscious models we carry around in our heads, which organize perception in the first place.
For example, a baby is born with a certain inborn trait, like irritability. But he is lucky enough to have a mother who can read his moods. She hugs him when he wants hugs and puts him down when he wants to be put down. She stimulates him when he wants stimulation and holds back when he needs tranquility. The baby learns that he is a creature who exists in dialogue with others. He comes to see the world as a collection of coherent dialogues. He also learns that if he sends signals, they will probably be received. He will learn to get help when he is in trouble. He
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