nurturing bond with a primary caregiver
Learning Resources
Required Resources
Course Text: Building Strong Foundations: Practical Guidance for Promoting the Social-Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers
Pages 5–10 (“What’s So Important About Good Relationships?”)
Course Text: Concepts for Care: 20 Essays on Infant/Toddler Development and Learning
“Being Held in Another’s Mind” by Jeree Pawl (pp. 1–4)
“Nurturing Developing Brains, Minds, and Hearts” by Ross A. Thompson (pp. 47–52)
Optional Resources
Website: Zero to Three: Brain Development
http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/brain-development/
Web Article: Zero to Three Policy Center. (2004). Infant and early childhood mental health: Promoting healthy social and emotional development [fact sheet]. Retrieved from http://main.zerotothree.org/site/DocServer/Promoting_Social_and_Emotional_Development.pdf?docID=2081&AddInterest=1144
Web Article: Perry, B. D. (2001). Bonding and attachment in maltreated children: Consequences of emotional neglect in childhood. Retrieved from http://www.childtrauma.org/images/stories/Articles/attcar4_03_v2_r.pdf
Web Article: Perry, B. D. (2005). Maltreatment and the developing child: How early childhood experience shapes child and culture. Retrieved from http://www.lfcc.on.ca/mccain/perry.pdf
Web Article: National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children. (2004). Infant and toddler grief. Retrieved from http://www.tlcinst.org/PTRCinfantto
Content Review
Directions:
Respond to each item. Each response should be concise and between 2–3 paragraphs in length.
Use MS Word to write your responses, and submit your answers to all three questions in one Word document.
Copy and paste each question within the document, so that your Instructor can see which question you are responding to.
“Establishing a close, nurturing bond with a primary caregiver is a major developmental task for infants and toddlers and one that is fundamental to future development” (Parlakian & Seibel, 2002, p. 5). Based on pages 5–7 of Building Strong Foundations: Practical Guidance for Promoting the Social-Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers, explain infant developmental behaviors that contribute to developing a close, nurturing bond and how appropriate primary caregiver responses can nurture this bond.
The essay “Being Held in Another’s Mind” in Concepts for Care: 20 Essays on Infant/Toddler Development and Learning describes how “continuousness” in a significant relationship fosters a sense of being within the infant. Describe how responsiveness in caregiving fosters continuousness. Then, using at least two examples, describe how a lack of continuousness can impact the mental health of the young child, and why this information is relevant to child development professionals.
The essay “Nurturing Developing Brains, Minds, and Hearts” in Concepts for Care identifies four new and surprising lessons that have emerged from research on early brain development and cognitive growth. Using your own words, provide a summary of two of these lessons, and explain how each is relevant to the role of the child development professional.
