From infancy, the foundations for emotional stability and social fluency are developed when children make eye contact and interact with active, engaged faces. Infants deprived of eye contact and facing a parent’s “still face” become agitated, then withdrawn, then depressed. These days, neuroscientists speculate that when parents caring for children turn to their phones, they may “effectively simulate a still-face paradigm”—in their homes or out in a restaurant—with all of the attendant damage. It is not surprising if children deprived of words, eye contact, and expressive faces become stiff
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