originally TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2008
The Importance of a Baby's Cry, The Gift of a Parent's Love and Russian Orphans
When a person looks at a very new child who has just been born, one can see that this child is so delicate. Something as delicate as a tiny infant God asks parents to protect, care for, nurture and love. A child is totally dependent upon his parents for everything he needs. Imagine what it would be like to be a sick adult, who could do nothing for himself. You are lying in a hospital bed and you need someone to feed you, someone to clean you, someone to warm you, someone to change your diaper. And the only voice you have left to explain your needs is a cry. That cry would be seen as the greatest gift you have -for without it you would be totally incapable of expressing your needs to others. Someone who loved you dearly -who stayed by your bedside to care for you night and day -would come to understand the differences in your cries -what noise you made when you were hungry and what noise you made when you were in pain. This scenario is the predicament of every baby. And God entrusts a child to the most sensitive and powerful love of a Mother and Father. Yet a parent's love has a responsibility -for if they do not respond in love to their child's cries, the child will stop crying and could slowly fail to thrive (begin to die) from a lack of his physical needs being met or from the depression resulting from the lack of emotional needs being met.An experiment was once done in America with new babies. It was a very bad experiment. A group of researchers took two groups of children who had just been born. To one group they gave all that the children needed physically, but they did not allow for them to be held or cared for emotionally. They would be fed by bottles being propped up and never touched or spoken to during the day or night. The other group of children were given the same physical care as the first, but also had an additional thing –someone spent a few hours everyday holding them, especially when they were being fed. The first group of children almost died and they had lots of medical problems simply because they had not been given the physical and emotional responsive love that they needed. Love is so important for a little child.
I remember hearing another similar story about the orphanages in England after World War II. There were many orphans left from the war and so numerous ‘Homes for Children’ were opened throughout the country. There was a great epidemic in that most of the infants in these orphanages died. The cause of this death was very simple. Although the caretakers at the home were physically caring for these children’s needs, there were not enough people to simply hold them, talk to them and give them physical love in that way –and so they began to die. This was true in all the orphanages in England –all the orphanages except one. What was different about this one orphanage? It was a cleaning lady. In this one particular orphanage there was a very sensitive, selfless, maternal cleaning lady. And after she worked her 8 hours everyday she would spend another 6 hours or so going from room to room and spending a few minutes holding each of the abandoned babies. She was not able to give all her attention to all of them, but she tried to at least give all of her attention to each one of them as she held them for a few minutes. And in the end not one of those babies died.
But not all babies are born into loving, Christian families with parents willing to live their duty of self-sacrificing love -responding to their baby's cries at any time, day or night. Some babies are born into families who do not know God and His call for us to love our children as He loves us. Some babies are abandoned by their parents and placed in orphanages all over the world -and having worked in some of these I know that because of the great number of children left to one or two caretakers, these children are simply left crying often and eventually turn inward and stop communicating. How does this emotional wound look?
Dr. Sears -a father of 8 and pediatrician for 40+ years explains the 'Shutdown Syndrome' that can happen to children when they are left to 'cry-it-out':
Parent tip: Babies cry to communicate – not manipulate.
"Out" What actually goes "out" of a baby, parents, and the relationship when a baby is left to cry-it-out? Since the cry is a baby's language, a communication tool, a baby has two choices if no one listens. Either he can cry louder, harder, and produce a more disturbing signal or he can clam up and become a "good baby" (meaning "quiet"). If no one listens, he will become a very discouraged baby. He'll learn the one thing you don't want him to: that he can't communicate.
Baby loses trust in the signal value of his cry – and perhaps baby also loses trust in the responsiveness of his caregivers. Not only does something vital go "out" of baby, an important ingredient in the parent- child relationship goes "out" of parents: sensitivity. What happens if you "harden your heart," view the cry as a control rather than a communication tool and turn a deaf ear to baby's cries? When you go against your basic biology, you desensitize yourself to your baby's signals and your instinctive responses. Eventually, the cry doesn't bother you. You lose trust in your baby's signals, and you lose trust in your ability to understand baby's primitive language. A distance develops between you and your baby. So, not listening and responding sensitively to a baby's a cry is a lose-lose situation: Baby loses trust in caregivers and caregivers lose trust in their own sensitivity.THE SHUTDOWN SYNDROME
Throughout our 30 years of working with parents and babies, we have grown to appreciate the correlation between how well children thrive (emotionally and physically) and the style of parenting they receive.
"You're spoiling that baby!" First-time parents Linda and Norm brought their four-month-old high-need baby, Heather, into my office for consultation because Heather had stopped growing. Heather had previously been a happy baby, thriving on a full dose of attachment parenting. She was carried many hours a day in a baby sling, her cries were given a prompt and nurturant response, she was breastfed on cue, and she was literally in physical touch with one of her parents most of the day. The whole family was thriving and this style of parenting was working for them. Well-meaning friends convinced these parents that they were spoiling their baby, that she was manipulating them, and that Heather would grow up to be a clingy, dependent child.
Parents lost trust. Like many first-time parents, Norm and Linda lost confidence in what they were doing and yielded to the peer pressure of adopting a more restrained and distant style of parenting. They let Heather cry herself to sleep, scheduled her feedings, and for fear of spoiling, they didn't carry her as much. Over the next two months Heather went from being happy and interactive to sad and withdrawn. Her weight leveled off, and she went from the top of the growth chart to the bottom. Heather was no longer thriving, and neither were her parents.
Baby lost trust. After two months of no growth, Heather was labeled by her doctor "failure to thrive" and was about to undergo an extensive medical exam. When the parents consulted me, I diagnosed the shutdown syndrome. I explained that Heather had been thriving because of their responsive style of parenting. Because of their parenting, Heather had trusted that her needs would be met and her overall physiology had been organized. In thinking they were doing the best for their infant, these parents let themselves be persuaded into another style of parenting. They unknowingly pulled the attachment plug on Heather, and the connection that had caused her to thrive was gone. A sort of baby depression resulted, and her physiologic systems slowed down. I advised the parents to return to their previous high-touch, attachment style of parenting—to carry her a lot, breastfeed on cue, and respond sensitively to her cries by day and night. Within a month Heather was again thriving.
Babies who are "trained" not to express their needs may appear to be docile, compliant, or "good" babies. Yet, these babies could be depressed babies who are shutting down the expression of their needs. They may become children who don't speak up to get their needs met and eventually become the highest-need adults."
Now what does all this have to do with Russia? The orphans of Russia -with the lack of proper caretakers -are left swaddled in cribs and rarely cared for by personal contact day or night. They do 'cry-it-out' all the time and this has resulted in the Shutdown Syndrome. Many adoptive parents have reported the negative impact this has had even on their adoptive children as they grow older. As all of you know, it is very difficult to restore trust once it is broken... and that is all the more true when the trust is broken in one's childhood. At the urging of adoptive parents, some missionary priests from Eastern Siberia have began to program to help children -babies -so that they will not be left to cry and fail to thrive in the orphanages in their city. With the grandmothers in their parish not receiving a livable pension, they put together a program where Americans can 'sponsor a grandmother' who will receive $60 a month and be sent into these orphanages 12 hours a week to simply hold, speak and respond to and be with these babies and children. This program can not only be the difference in their physical survival, but the love of these grandmothers will be the basis of these children learning trust -and ultimately will help break the barriers that otherwise would be built between them and the possibility of knowing, loving and trusting God in heaven. The greatest argument for atheism that I heard in Russia was, "God never heard my cries as a child, so why should I believe in Him now?"If you are interested in donating to this important mission, please click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment