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children in such families learn to appear calm and unconcerned, but when measured, their heart rate and autonomic arousal is rocketing.
Other children, living with parents who are more inconsistent in the way that they respond to their child’s feelings – sometimes concerned, sometimes switched off – are forced to focus closely on the parent’s state of mind to optimise their chance of getting a response.
but rather than choose the strategy of suppressing their feelings, they may learn to exaggerate them; to be overly aware of their fears and needs in a way that can undermine their independence.
Indeed, this may be what their parent unconsciously wants, as very often these are adults who deal with their own insecurities through being needed by others.
Their unpredictable behaviour ensures that the child’s attention is alwa...
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A third pattern has been identified in recent years, known as the ‘disorganised’ attachment.
the parents themselves have been overwhelmed by traumatic experiences in their own lives that have not been processed effectively, such as a bereavement or some kind of important loss, or some form of abuse.
Parents in this state of mind are unable to provide the most basic parental functions of protecting the child and creating a safe base from which to explore the world.
Children who have developed insecure strategies for dealing with their emotions cannot tolerate feelings and so cannot reflect on them. Their emotional habits for managing feelings kick in too quickly.
These emotional habits are learnt in infancy with our earliest partners, usually our parents, and can already be measured by the age of 1 year old.
Parents who respond to their baby’s hunger signals by feeding on demand tend to have
slimmer children who grow up better able to regulate their food intake
The emotionally secure person has this belief, a basic confidence in being heard, which facilitates inner control. This confidence in others helps him to wait and to think rather than to act impulsively.
babies who see happy behaviour have activated left frontal brains and babies who witness sad behaviour have activated right frontal brains
The mirror neurons in these areas automatically fire up when they observe (or hear) other people doing things.
the fear and self-defence system based in the amygdala is one of the first parts of the emotional brain to mature.
Although the basic structure of the amygdala is complete at birth, it goes on developing – most rapidly during the post-natal period and up to 4 years old
its primary function is to act as a sort of emotional radar, a social surveillance tool which is an importa...
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The radar scans other people’s body language, in particular picking up cues from their eyes; it detects emotional signals, especially anything that might be ...
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its first priority seems to be to achieve an overview of the infant’s internal emotional states in relation to other people.
It registers what relationship experiences will bring pain (rejection, separation, or conflict for example) and what will bring a more rewarding feeling (parental soothing and holding).
orbitofrontal cortex is a big part of our story as it plays a key role in emotional life.
People with brain damage that affects the orbitofrontal area can’t relate to others sensitively. They become oblivious to social and emotional cues – they can even be sociopathic.
So the orbitofrontal cortex, together with other parts of the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate, is probably the area of the brain most responsible for what Daniel Goleman called ‘emotional intelligence’
But it is no good trying to ‘discipline’ a baby or to expect a baby to control its behaviour, since the brain capacity to do so does not yet exist.
A baby cannot thoughtfully consider his mother’s frustration and decide to eat up to keep her happy.
His social capacities are mostly potential, not ...
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This part of the brain develops after birth and doesn’t begin to mature
The orbitofrontal cortex connects up through social stimulation: through play, and touch, and interaction.
By adulthood, those who have wide social networks and see other people regularly have a larger orbitofrontal cortex
Unfortunately, without the appropriate one-to-one social experience with a caring adult, the baby’s orbitofrontal cortex is unlikely to develop well.
When those connections are weak, the pre-frontal cortex cannot do a good job of holding back the amygdala’s fearful responses, or of correcting earlier fear conditioning that is no longer appropriate, such as an early childhood fear of dogs or of red-haired people.
poor amygdala–prefrontal connectivity is significantly correlated with both depression
and anxiety (Kim and Wha...
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there is evidence to suggest that there is a critical window of opportunity in growing this social part of the brain.
In one early experiment, the primate researcher Harry Harlow found that if he isolated monkeys for the first year of life, they became effectively autistic and lost the ability to relate to other monkeys
More recently, work done with Romanian orphans has shown that those who were cut off from close bonds with an adult by being left in their cots all day, unable to make relationships, had a virtual black hole where their orbitofrontal cortex should be (Chugani et al. 2001). When social relationships are denied during the period in which this part of the brain is maturing (up to the age of 3), there is littl...
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A baby can’t develop an orbitofrontal cortex on his or her own. It depends on the relationships with other people that are available and whether or not they are available when it counts most.
The first sources of pleasure are smell, touch and sound. Babies can recognise their parents’ voices from the start, and prefer them to any other. Being lovingly held is the greatest spur to development, more so even than breastfeeding.
The baby’s heart rate has been found to synchronise with the parent’s heart rate; if she is relaxed and in a coherent state, so will the baby be.
When we are physically held, we know that we are supported by others.
using the parent’s facial expression as his source of information
it is positive looks which are the most vital stimulus to the growth of the social, emotionally intelligent brain
The baby’s brain is doing a lot of growing in the first year
the first two years of life,
The hippocampus, temporal cortex, prefrontal and anterior cingulate are all immature at birth. But the success of their growth and genetic development depends on the amount of good experiences the individual has.
In particular, between 6 and 12 months, there is a massive burst of these synaptic connections in the prefrontal cortex.
The message here is: the more you use it, the more it develops.
The first year of life is mostly building up these mental ‘muscles’.
our social intelligence is particularly sensitive to the experiences we have between 6 and 18 months.
