You’ve experienced this over and over again, even from the time your children were infants. When your baby saw a new person enter the room, or tripped and fell, he immediately looked to you for a signal as to how to respond. He wanted to know, Should I be afraid right now? Am I safe? And based on how you reacted, he learned how to gauge his own reaction—both in his behavior and in how his emotions were shaped and expressed. This interaction is called “social referencing,” and it represents the very beginning of your child’s development into an emotionally aware human. He’s seeing you.
