TOPICS OF INTEREST
Loving to Learn By
Mizin P. Kawasaki, M.D. The child who learns to love will love to
learn. Every child needs to know that at least one
person loves her and is profoundly interested in her activities, no matter how
trivial they may be. Love encourages
each child to develop her special talents, and the budding of her unique gifts
occurs early in life. It is little known that an infant’s brain volume
nearly doubles during the first year of life.
Moreover, an infant's brain continues to grow at a rapid rate such that
by the third birthday, brain volume is close to adult size and nearly tripled
from birth. Abundant scientific research demonstrates the
importance of the first three years of life in determining the course of each
child’s future development. During the
first three years of life, a child learns an enormous amount, and it is crucial
that a loving person be present and available to foster healthy child
development. The term development
is often divided into discreet stages according to age. Child care books, for instance, are replete
with graphs and charts that delineate the precise stages at children are supposed
to demonstrate specific behaviors. Texts state, for example, that an infant should
start walking by twelve months of age. If
an infant does not walk by the first birthday, her parents will panic. On the other hand, if an infant walks at
eleven months, then her parents will marvel at their baby’s precocity. This view of development is an absurd artifice
since the delineation of stages is a tool of the human imagination. Stages purport to label that which is
seemingly identifiable. The supposed norms
of development, however, often do not correspond to what occurs in real
life. Human development occurs gradually, and the
various stages evolve into one another. It
may be easier to define specific norms of development, but a healthy child is unique
and will manifest behavior at her own pace.
By the time my daughter was eighteen months, she
had chosen to say few words. We were
communicating very well, and I saw no need to be concerned. One day, my sister asked aloud why my
daughter was not saying anything. My
daughter started talking almost immediately and put together a few words at a
time. Human beings are different because each
individual has a unique genetic make-up and a unique social environment. It is a marvel of life that human beings are
quite similar and yet so different as well.
The anthropologist Ashley Montagu has often written that human beings
are more than 95% alike and less than 5% different. It is the minor differences that serve to create
the enormous variety of individuals and characters in the world. Human beings have the same basic physical and
behavioral needs (as posited originally by Ashley Montagu—see Synopsis for more details). Each child, however, needs specific nurturing
that is ideally suited for her particular character development. This nurturing should be offered primarily by
her parents. After all, parents and
their child have a great deal in common:
they share genetic material and the same social environment. In addition, it is the parents’
responsibility to enable each child to develop the unique biological heredity
with which the child is endowed. *** In the past, the credo of “survival of the
fittest” was used by the British elite to justify the abuse of poor workers in
the late 19th century. In the This is not just a matter of economics but a
pervasive phenomenon in which success is sought at any price, even in
child-rearing. Children are being
groomed to succeed, but if there is no humane basis for such success, the
children will only fail to meet the expectations created by their parents and
society. Ultimately, it is the children’s loss, for they
will have been unable to foster their unique capabilities. They may even develop mental illness as a
result. In order to prevent such tragic
occurrences, parents must be able to recognize the individuality of each child.
From the moment a newborn is born, she needs to
know that she is loved and cared for. The presence of a warm and loving body, the
mother, will surely enable the newborn to feel assured. Not only does the newborn recognize her
mother’s voice, but she will also learn to recognize her smell and touch. This warm and loving interaction is the basis
for encouraging the humane development of the child, for what is the basis of
humanity other than love? Every single
human being needs to love and be loved. Ashley Montagu has written often that the only
true religion is to live as if to live and love were one. When an infant has received the assurance
that she is loved and cared for, she will develop into a humane being. The first six years of life are critical for the
development of the ability to love and care for others, and the best person to
set an example for a child is her mother.
Of course, there are extenuating circumstances and exceptions, but the
vast majority of mothers can care directly for their children. A child should have the assurance of being loved
and truly cared for because she must learn how to love by being loved
herself. The rapid growth of young
children’s brains was mentioned earlier, and it is important to understand what
the learning process entails. A child should be loved and possess open-minded
curiosity and excitement for learning.
When a child is loved, she will feel that everything is open for
discovery and exploration. The reaches
of the imagination are infinite, and scientists have been able to use their
imagination to realize impossible feats.
Children can do remarkable things when they feel
secure and loved. Their active brains
can concentrate on learning meaningful information. In contrast, an unloved child has to confront
emotional insecurity and stresses that may influence her development negatively. In response to stress, for instance, it has been
shown that excessive secretion of hormones, like cortisol, wash over the
child's brain like acid. [1] Stress and trauma also affect brain
physiology by scrambling neurotransmitter signals: some are depressed while others are elevated,
and this interference affects a child’s ability to learn. [2] In light of how much stress neglected youngsters
experience, it is no wonder that there is a growing preponderance of learning
problems. This is a recent phenomenon
that transcends socio-economic backgrounds.
Learning disabilities are on the rise throughout the Simply stated, a loved child will find it that
much easier to learn. She experiences
less stress and anxiety, and she does not undergo the physiological
consequences of having her brain washed with cortisol. The easiest way to provide a child with loving
care requires commitment and dedication, primarily from the child’s
mother. Ideally, a child will benefit
the most from receiving loving maternal care.
The child can learn the meaning of love when her mother responds to her
needs consistently and affectionately. If possible, a mother should be willing to spend
a minimum of three to six years caring directly for her child. Moreover, the first three years of life
should be a period of time when mother and child are together constantly. This is obviously a politically charged
suggestion, but a mother should be able to accommodate her lifestyle in order to
fulfill her child’s needs. If she does
not, then she should be prepared to handle the consequences of subjecting her
child to undue stress and anxiety. It is pitiable enough to witness adults
experience stress and anxiety. It is
even worse to witness children experience the same because their drives are
organized and directed toward the experience of satisfaction, and not
dissatisfaction. Frustrated love is displayed as aggressive
behavior, which Ashley Montagu describes as being “a technique for compelling
love.” [3] It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure
that children’s drives are directed toward satisfaction, and the best way to do
this is by simply being there. A mother’s presence during the formative years
of a child’s life is essential because a mother is her child’s first
teacher. Values, ethics, morals,
manners, attitudes, and all else that characterize healthy human behavior are
learned from the mother. Certainly, the father has an enormous impact as
well, but the child learns mostly from her mother. This is the reality of child-rearing. Mother and child are bound to each other
physically and emotionally, and the relationship is mutually beneficial. This is most obvious in the breastfeeding
relationship. The warmth and comfort of a nourishing breast
should be the birthright of every child for a minimum of two to three years,
and only a mother can provide such nurturing.
If a young child is nursed on demand, she can expect satisfaction of
biological drives, such as the need for nourishment and touch. The availability of the mother has a deep impact
on her child’s development. Ideally, a
mother should be in close proximity to her infant and be prepared to respond to
her needs. During the nine months in the
womb, this is exactly what the mother’s body did for her fetus. It is unreasonable to expect that the immature
newborn will somehow be able to possess the virtue of patience and the ability
to self-modulate her hunger and thirst.
The newborn is needy because she is only “half-done,” and she needs “a
womb with a view,” as Ashley Montagu says.
Until the newborn is ready to crawl about on her
own, she needs an extraordinary amount of loving care. None of this care is wasted since the baby
learns to love her mother who so devotedly cares for her. The ability to learn is a human attribute that needs
to be nurtured. In other words, one must
learn to learn even though the urge to learn exists. This makes sense since there are many human
beings who have stopped learning or perhaps they never learned in the first
place because they were not taught to learn.
This would explain how a student can graduate
from high school without knowing how to read.
Evidently, no one bothered to actually teach that student how to
read. The inability to read is not the
fault solely of his school teachers but also of a home environment that failed
to encourage the child to learn. The
importance of learning to learn early in life cannot be underscored often
enough. During early childhood, the infant is in a
constant state of learning. Once the
baby learns how to love, then she is capable of learning readily as long as she
is exposed to the correct stimuli in her environment. The infant absorbs and processes information, and
she also formulates the basic pattern of how she will think in the future. The rapid growth of an infant’s brain is not
evidence simply of larger size but also of profound complexity. The infant can begin to speak and move about
on her own in the latter half of the first year of life, and these are definitive
signs of an actively working brain. The baby learns how to speak because someone
speaks to her. To believe that an infant
will speak simply because she is a human being is incorrect. An infant will speak because she has been
taught to speak by those who care for her and have stimulated her with their
speech. Similarly, a baby will learn to do many other
things by watching those in her environment.
It is far easier to nurture children’s potential by loving them early in
life and allowing them to love to learn in childhood. Children deserve credit for their vast ability
to learn. For instance, a young child
may demonstrate great interest and knowledge of a subject like airplanes or
automobiles. A mother’s responsibility,
however, is not to didactically teach her child as if she were the teacher in a
classroom. Instead, she simply provides
the opportunity for her child to learn and to encourage her with wise and
positive feedback. A young child will thrive on her own as she
explores whatever interests her. The
types of stimulation a young child needs are minimal and up to parents. I have heard from many parents that their
children are not as intrigued with fancy toys as they are with the box in which
the toys arrive, even plain brown cardboard boxes. At this time, there are too many toys available. Increasingly, toys purport to be educational. Toys, however, are inanimate objects, and
they cannot replace the important one-on-one interaction of human contact. As always, the presence of a nurturing mother
is the ideal source of encouragement for the unique, budding talents of every
child. *** Intelligence is the ability to solve problems, a
trait that has become highly evolved as human beings have adapted to changing
environmental conditions. Intelligence
is valued, but the current understanding of intelligence is quite
misleading. Parents take great pride,
for example, in the IQ scores of their gifted children. I.Q. testing does not measure intelligence but
opportunity. Higher I.Q. scores are
recorded among children and adults in wealthier environments because a high
premium has been placed on succeeding at that type of intelligence test. As a rule, wealthier children often manifest
higher I.Q. scores because they have been prepared well to take such exams. Not only are children exposed to more enrichment
to books, cultural events, travels, and more but children are literally trained
to perform well. For instance, I have a friend who suggested that
our eight-year-old daughters, she, and I play a memory game. My daughter and I were accustomed to playing memory
games like Concentration with Winnie-the-Pooh flash cards. My friend’s game was much more arduous, and her
daughter had played the game since she was five years old. The game contained flash cards with reading
passages on it. A person would read
aloud a long passage and then ask detailed questions of the other players. Although I pride myself on having a good memory,
I could not enjoy this game. I was
overwhelmed by the stress of trying to remember all the details of the orally
recited passages and not looking like a nitwit.
What this experience clarified to me was how seriously
some parents take the task of educating a child. Although children can certainly excel in
school without such training, it is obvious that some children are much better
prepared for academic rigors than are others. The ability to take and pass examinations is a
learned ability. It has less to do with
genetic background than it does with social environment. If a child is given the opportunity and
exposure, then she should be able to learn to read, understand symbols, and
solve problems. Intelligence should be perceived in the various
forms it can present. Ashley Montagu
summarizes the research findings of Howard Gardner of Harvard’s Graduate School
of Education, who concluded that there are seven areas of intellectual
competence: l.
linguistic—sensitivity
to the meaning and order of words; 2. logical-mathematical—ability
to handle chains of reasoning and recognize patterns of order; 3. musical—sensitivity to
pitch, melody, rhythm, and tone; 4. bodily-kinesthetic—ability
to use the body skillfully and handle objects adroitly: athlete, dancer, surgeon; 5. spatial—ability to
perceive the world accurately and recreate or transform aspects of that
world: sculptor, architect, painter,
surveyor; 6. interpersonal—ability to
understand people and relationships: politician, salesman,
religious leader; 7. intrapersonal—access to
one's emotional life as a means to understanding oneself and others: therapist, social worker. [4] Intelligence is “the ability to make the most
appropriately successful response to a particular challenge.” [5] To best
prepare a child to handle the stresses of daily life, it is ideal for a child
to observe her mother deal with problems in daily life. Life is never perfect, and a young child
learns from her mother how to face her travails. In other words, a mother is a role model. A mother, for instance, may make a less than
ideal decision and experience an undesired outcome. Such a situation engenders the opportunity to
reflect upon oneself and attempt to understand what went wrong. It is only through self-reflection and
self-improvement that we prove ourselves to be humane beings. A child can learn right from wrong by
watching her mother’s actions. Daily life can be difficult, whether the
activity is shopping for groceries, interacting with neighbors, dealing with
rude salespeople, or responding to a driver who will not stop for
pedestrians. There are innumerable
situations in which a mother can use her intelligence and other talents to go
about the daily task of living. The primary point is that stay-at-home mothering
is not a passive occupation. A mother does
not sit down all day and play with the children. Every woman has a unique life, and she is
busy with myriad things associated with maintaining one’s home and family. In the meantime, mother-child interactions provide
dynamic learning experiences. A mother
who attempts to make appropriate responses to the challenges in her environment
is teaching her child how to think and solve problems. Mothering is not a job: it is a responsibility, and it entails rearing
a child who follows her mother in body and spirit. The closeness of mother and child is the
basis for the child’s future interactions with others. This is not some vague and ideal vision of
mothering but the reality of human existence.
Throughout the history of humankind, mothers
nurtured their children, usually with the help of extended family. Modern urbanization has isolated many young
families from their relatives. If parents
are not near relatives, then they may become the sole source of real love and
comfort for their child. Moreover, a mother has acquired a lifetime of
wisdom, and she should be able to share this with her child. If women learn anything, it should be that
children need their mothers. Children should
receive the benefits of maternal care unless the direst circumstances arise and
a mother absolutely cannot care for her child directly. The modern trend veers in the opposite
direction, for many women dismiss the importance of maternal care during the
formative years. Over the past century, women have mastered
nearly all the professions available to men.
The occupation of motherhood, nevertheless, is
solely for women for biological reasons.
Childbearing and breastfeeding are completely and uniquely womanly
capabilities. The ability to bear children
and to breastfeed emphasizes the major difference between women and men. Childbearing and breastfeeding are like two
sides of a coin. They are equally
integral to healthy child development. Breastfeeding
is critically important for a young child to become a humane being. Breastfeeding is fundamentally a human
relationship between mother and child. In addition, each mother-infant dyad is unique. Essentially, every child is special and needs
the availability of a loving and wise mother who will make sacrifices so that
her child will learn what it means to be a human being. Being there for a child is the surest way for
a mother to do her best for her child. In the meantime, a wise and loving father will
understand and support his wife as she dedicates her time and energy to rearing
the child they bore together. The learning
experiences during the first six years of a child’s life are long-lasting. The hope is that every child will have the
opportunity to learn to love and to love to learn. It is time for women to master once again the
lofty and creative responsibility of mothering. This essay was written in 2000 and revised on April 21, 2006. Return toTopics of Interest |
