Born to be loved

As I walked my dog in the park the other day, we bumped into some children. Three nursery workers were exercising a dozen or so of their young charges on leads.  And whilst my dog had a minder all to himself, the careworkers had leads that divided into four leather straps, each of which was attached to one of the toddlers’ waistbands.

Of course, children need outdoor exercise, and getting to the park through busy city streets is a dangerous business. But the sight of these multiply-tethered children, blundering, bewildered and bumping into each other, made me want to weep. How can any decent society think it is acceptable for a dozen very young human beings to receive less personal time and attention than a family pet?  

Not only does it seem shameful on a human level, but it is counter-productive on a scientific level too. I have spent most of this decade researching modern childhood, wading through books on cognitive psychology, papers on neuroscience and endless reports on childcare and childhood well-being.  

It is impossible to ignore the massive body of evidence showing that — if children are to grow up bright and balanced enough to contribute to society — in the first few years they need the personal time and attention of a loving adult.  

Indeed, the most influential book on child development, The Scientist in the Crib, by three of America’s top scientific experts, tells us that babies and toddlers are themselves like mini-scientists, primed to explore and explain their world. And for this, they need personal rather than institutional support.

The analogy with scientific enquiry is startlingly appropriate. From birth, babies observe, test with all their senses, hypothesise and make logical connections. Within six months they appreciate many characteristics of the material world; by one year they can categorise objects and phenomena according to quite complex rules; by 18 months they have sussed out cause and effect, and are beginning to use simple tools.

It took the human race hundreds of millennia to get that far, and babies — if they are lucky — do it in less than two years.

Luck comes into it because they are born wthout control of their bodies and are therefore dependent on assistance. A good personal assistant can provide access to all the equipment and data required at exactly the right moment to avoid frustration, as well as ensuring they are safe, secure, well-fed and watered at all times. The quality and commitment of the assistant is critical.   

But she also has another important function. (As the assistant is usually female, I will call her ‘her’ and the scientist ‘him’ from this point, just for the convenience of the pronouns. Please bear in mind that gender is irrelevant in both cases).  

As well as investigating the physical world, mini-scientists also need to find out about the social world they will one day inhabit.  They need to investigate people.  Each scientist therefore studies his personal assistant – she becomes his specimen.

The moment a scientist is born, he stares into his assistant’s eyes, and begins trying to imitate her facial expressions, body movements and the sounds she makes.  By the time he is about a year old, he is well on the way to speaking her language (they call it a ‘mother tongue’) and, with her help, he will soon be walking around like her too.

What is more, through constant access to her mind, he is on the way to a seriously important deduction — one that separates human beings from all other animals.

During his second year on earth, the mini-scientist works out that the assistant and he must both be able to think independently of each other. Human beings have minds — they can plan, review, consider, imagine. Philosophers and scientists are only just beginning to get to grip with the huge significance of what they call ‘mind-mindedness’.

By the age of two, the small scientist is so aware of other people’s minds that he is conducting frequent experiments to find out vital information for his future role in society. What is acceptable behaviour between humans? How far can he get his own way? How far will he need to cave in to the requirements of others? (The personal assistant calls this period ‘the terrible twos’ — and it requires all her patience to see the scientist through).

So throughout his vital quest to understand the world, our mini-scientist needs personal help. Institutional help just is not enough. In an institution he is competing for attention with other scientists, also engaged on the frantic search for knowledge but all at slightly different stages in the proceedings.

Institutional helpers — unless they are very good indeed — are unlikely to be as concerned to react to his needs as a personal assistant tuned in to his wave-length. Anyway, there are probably different helpers on different days, some of them will not know him very well, and once Ofsted is regulating them they will often be too busy with paperwork to facilitate scientific enquiries.  

But there is another even more important reason that the scientist needs an assistant to himself. This reason is not mentioned in The Scientist in the Crib, but it is available in the vast literature on what is known as ‘attachment theory’ and which underpins much developmental psychology and conventional psychotherapy, as well as much of more ancient wisdom.

With any luck for the future of the human race, the scientist and his assistant will fall in love.  

Scientists desperately need to know about love, because it makes them more human.  It is one thing to know that his assistant has a mind, and being interested in how to manipulate it.  But actually caring about what is going on in that mind, wanting to be able to see her point of view — that turns a scientist into a fully-fledged human being.

The social, responsible behaviour we require of a citizen is rooted in empathy, and if a child’s discovery of mind-mindedness happens as part of a loving, empathetic relationship, then the more capable that child will be of genuine empathy — and the more social, responsible and caring he will be as a citizen.

What is more, the realisation that his assistant loves him is also priceless, because for the rest of that scientist’s life he will have the security of knowing that he is loveable. This will give him the self-esteem and self-confidence to face challenges and withstand catastrophe. It will help him make an effective and creative contribution to the society he lives in, whatever his particular talents.

This is what made me want to weep at the sight of those infants in the park. Institutional care by nursery-workers does not just look less pleasant than the sort of one-on-one personal attention I give my dog.

In terms of human development (the gradual intertwining of cognitive, social and emotional growth), it cannot possibly cater for all the needs of children in their first two to three years. To rear a well-rounded, resilient human being, the person (or people) in charge of a child for the first two to three years of life must be personally involved with him or her.    

For the most fortunate of us, of course, the mutual love affair leading to empathy — and thus to social behaviour — is with a parent.  If we are very lucky, it is love at first sight (and this happy event is commemorated in countless paintings of the Madonna and Child). But research clearly suggests that it does not have to be — there is no need for a blood relationship, just a personal one.

Now that women are needed in the workplace as well as in the home, this is probably just as well.  If a modern mother does not want or is not able to be her offspring’s faithful assistant, a good substitute can do the job just as well. Another family member, a nanny or a child-minder can give the child love, time and personal attention just as well as its mum.  

But an institution cannot.  If we want a truly civilised socialised population, we must find ways of providing loving, personal care for our youngest children — all of them — at the critical time when foundations of mind, personality and character are formed.  

Sue Palmer’s book Detoxing Childhood: what parents need to know to raise happy successful children is published by Orion Books. She is a founder of the Open EYE campaign against making the Early Years Foundation Stage legally binding, about which there is a petition on the PM’s website http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OpenEYE/