Walk a mile in the shoes of an infant!

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Walk a mile in the shoes of an infant!

Empathy is the act of imaginatively projecting one's self into the shoes of another for the purpose of understanding that other person. I have never before made an attempt to empathize with an infant. When I try to do so now, I fail to find that eureka moment that leads me to conclude that my effort was successful. Have you ever successfully been able to empathize with an infant?

I have only recently begun to study the sciences of psychology and psychoanalysis, which started when I began reading the books of Ernest Becker. It appears that a major eruption within these fields of knowledge developed because Freud failed to make clear the nature of anxiety for the child. This eruption became visible when the psychoanalytic theory of humanization clashed with the sociological one.

Freud saw two principal sources for the child's anxiety: at birth the child emerges utterly helpless and dependent; secondly the fear of castration resulting from the child's own sexual urges. Evolution had created this explosive genetic mixture within a creature with a brain of almost infinite potential and malleability.

I have raised five children and have been around the development of seven grandchildren; never did I recognize during this time that the child is a creature that has a psyche that is constantly seeking to find contentment within a strange and frightening world. It was beyond my very limited comprehension that sexual urges were a force operating on this tiny creature or that fear was such a constant companion. I try to empathize but I find that it is a difficult task for the imagination.

"Evolution had decided the child's fate, by building into him strong instincts of sexuality and a destructive aggression. With these strong drives, and his sense of helplessness, the child is baffled by his world: most of all, he must not lose the mother's support, no matter how strong his dawning desires, and in order to keep that support he must fight against his own urges. Thus his major anxiety, over the loss of the protective and loving mother, is a problem stemming from his relentless search for pleasure. Freud could never get away from his instinct theory, and so he could never leave the idea that anxiety was due to social frustration."

There seems to have developed consensus within the professional community that the child is not driven by sexuality and aggressive aggression as Freud's theory proposed. Empirical research supplies significant evidence that the child's anxiety is based upon helplessness in its situation as having desires that must continually be denied by his or her social environment. In the mother-child relationship the child does not bring any basic desires that can only be fulfilled by its bodily orifices, but the child does bring a vast need for physical support and closeness.

The important question in childhood development is regarding its training and the adaptation taking place between the child and the adult world. A curtailment of joy in the child's life results from the need to adapt behavior that brings favorable response from the social milieu. The child shuts up within it self its biological urges and tries extra hard for security. Technically we say that the libido is "object-oriented rather than pleasure-oriented".

The infant becomes passive, not because of toilet-training, because the world undermines her initiative and self-confidence. The infant is basically only a body and has yet to become a fully symbolic animal. The more that the child becomes frustrated by the demands of the adult world the more he falls back on his body; s/he is forced to affirm the priority of the body. A harsh training regime deprives her of her first and only secure footing; she is obliged to feel secondary to symbols.

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This is really interesting Coberst. From reading I've done, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of infant anxiety has to do with the fact that an infant's body, including brain and sensory perceptions are still undeveloped to the point where not only are they helpless beings, but the stimulation of the world is actually frightening to them.

Brain development continues after birth, so in terms of issues like proprioception (an infant's perception of his or her body's placement in space), vestibular (movement), sight (an infant is unable to focus at birth)- they are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of being able to calmly perceive their environment. That's why, as you said, a calm, competent and dependable caregiver is of the utmost importance in terms of helping them establish security and confidence in their ability to cope with their environment.

What's really interesting is that brain development seems to change and grow more after birth than before. 83% of dendritic growth happens after birth and 1.8 synapses per second continue to grow up to the age of two. It used to be believed that the brain with all it's potential was pretty much in place at birth, because brain cells cannot be replaced, (although when there is damage to the brain, cells for one purpose can compensate and adjust their purpose, sometimes alleviating the damage to that particular region of the brain).
But what they've found now is that in terms of activity within the brain each person's brain adapts or grows to fit their particular surroundings. So a child who is in a home with a lot of stimulation will have a brain that grows and adapts to cope with that, whereas children in homes or environments with little stimulation, will develop the brain needed to cope with that- meaning less firing of synapses and lengthening of dendrites- fewer connections and pathways forged.

This doesn't address however, how some very special people are able to come from disadvantaged backgrounds with low levels of stimulation and blow everyone else out of the water in terms of creativity and/or intelligence. I wonder if they've done studies on that phenomena- why certain people are able to overcome environmental deprivation while others are not.
Maybe the people who are, are people with such massive amounts of genetic or natural potential, that it just won't be subdued by environment.

I think it'd be fascinating to experience perception as infants do- you know how they've rigged up different ways of experiencing other sensory losses or anomolies.

Really interesting Coberst. Thanks for posting this.

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Shoes are bad for infants.

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Aidan

Have you ever tried to empathize with an infant? I have tried but do not even know how to start.

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Re: Walk a mile in the shoes of an infant!

coberst wrote:

I try to empathize but I find that it is a difficult task for the imagination.

I think that's the crux of the problem: whatever empathy we feel we might have can only be imagined, not verified. It's the same problem Freud ran into... he posited certain stages of mental development that can't ever be tested. He also added the clever clause that any denial of said mental states is proof that they exist. In other words, he can't ever be wrong. It's all wonderfully tautological.

Anyway, this is not to say that one shouldn't try to empathize with one's child, but it is to say that there aren't many ways you can ever confirm that you're successful, even if you are. But of course it's also the case that you don't need 100% confirmation of 100% success in order to raise a child well.

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coberst wrote:

Aidan

Have you ever tried to empathize with an infant? I have tried but do not even know how to start.

Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I'm so surprised to hear you say that Coberst. How is empathizing with an infant any different than empathizing with anyone or anything else?

What is empathy besides knowing how you would feel in a situation and generalizing that to recognize the feelings of another?

I guess the interesting scenario arises when you have a parent/child pairing in which tendencies or preferences or temperaments don't mesh or match- as in what the parent would like to extend to the child is not what the child wants or feels comfortable with or interprets as empathy or vice-versa.

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aidan wrote:

coberst wrote:
Aidan

Have you ever tried to empathize with an infant? I have tried but do not even know how to start.

Maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I'm so surprised to hear you say that Coberst. How is empathizing with an infant any different than empathizing with anyone or anything else?

What is empathy besides knowing how you would feel in a situation and generalizing that to recognize the feelings of another?

I guess the interesting scenario arises when you have a parent/child pairing in which tendencies or preferences or temperaments don't mesh or match- as in what the parent would like to extend to the child is not what the child wants or feels comfortable with or interprets as empathy or vice-versa.

As I understand the word, empathy means to create in imagination an analogy that will allow me to enter into the infant's world so that I might comprehend the infant. I find it to be fairly easy to do with adults or even children but an infant's mind is beyond my experience. I cannot even talk to an infant so that I could get help from that direction. I find that the mind of the infant is as difficult to imagine as would be the world inside the atom.

I would like you to inform me how to go about such a task.

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coberst wrote:

I have tried but do not even know how to start.

just before you die you will know. completly helpless and dependant for every basic need. Your mind/brain has shut down and no longer thinks for.

Go to a nursing hopital that may give you a lead.

Just wait coberst you will find the answer eventually

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I would like you to inform me how to go about such a task.

- as if I'm any more expert than you Coberst - you've had experience raising five infants- I've only taken care of two-besides which I'd be willing to bet that you were very good at "reading" your children and being empathetic to their needs. You just seem like you'd be that kind of person.

But I guess I would try to remember and imagine where they have just come from. They've been floating in very soothing, warm water for nine months, having all of their nutritional needs met pretty much by osmosis and on demand, and it's been dark and quiet, except for low, muffled, rhythmic sounds that have become comforting to them.

And then all at once they are delivered into a brightly lit, cold, chaotically loud and confusing environment, in which the only familiar aspects might be the scent of their mother and the sound of her voice.

Can you empathize with that scenario? I know I can. I'd want to feel warm and contained - and feel shielded from bright lights and loud noises, and to have the one familiar aspect of that alien surrounding near-by, as I embarked on this kind of amazing journey in which it was my only job to soak up information about my environment through stimulation and grow.

That's why babies need so much sleep- their cells are dividing at such a speeded up rate and they're growing so quickly- they double their weight in a year and triple it in 2 years. On top of that they're bombarded with so much stimulation that they have got to integrate and turn into meaningful experience that it can be exhausting and stressful.
Kind of like when you start a new job and you face a very steep learning curve among strangers in an unfamiliar environment that feels totally different and alien to your old one.

But in a lot of ways, I think babies are much easier to read than adults.
Because though babies can't talk- they don't have the ability to hide their intentions or emotions and definitely give cues as to what is startling and jarring to them and what is comforting- and that actually starts immediately after birth- with the varying types of cries they employ.

I've been reading some really interesting stuff about language development. I'd never thought of it before, but the action of pointing (which is another way they communicate their needs or desires) is a pivotal developmental milestone and actually serves as a predictor as to whether a child will develop the ability to communicate normally or not. They've found that children who do not point to relay wants or needs, or points of interest to them, by the age of six or seven months- or at the latest ten months- often suffer extreme language delays or disabilities.

An infant's mind is fascinating to me because of the magnitude of the growth and development that is occurring in such a relatively short span of time. You're gonna be sorry you got me started on this - I could go on and on- it's one of my favorite subjects.

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Aidan

Thanks for that insight. Mothers certainly have a head start on such matters over fathers. I suspect it might be like being thrown onto an alien planet with ever bit of memory erased and being in a very dynamic learning mode without any memory to help form all the perceptions.

I suspect it my be like a receptionist just hired with no experience, no computer, no pencil to write with, and no knowledge of how to write or type with the phone constantly ringing and people making sounds that terrify me. Everything is fragments and much is demanded of me and on top of it all I have just discovered my body for the first time. Everything is alien and disconnected and I have no idea what might happen to me.

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Quote:

Mothers certainly have a head start on such matters over fathers.

Most mothers, but certainly not all. One thing I've noticed about differences in parenting styles in the UK as compared to the US is that it seems fathers are much more hands-on and interactive with their children here (in the UK)- and that seems to be true from the really young dads on up to those who have their first children in middle-age when they're heavily involved in their careers.

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I suspect it my be like a receptionist just hired with no experience, no computer, no pencil to write with, and no knowledge of how to write or type with the phone constantly ringing and people making sounds that terrify me. Everything is fragments and much is demanded of me

Yeah- exactly. Thank god it seems like there's usually someone who appears and says things like, "Here's where you get this, and here's how you do this, and I'll help you cope with these phones until you get the hang of it, and it's lunchtime and I knew you'd be hungry, so I brought you a sandwich...."
And it's always more helpful when whatever person appears to help you orient yourself is knowledgeable, organized and intuitive, isn't it?
If only that was the case for all infants...

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Everything is alien and disconnected and I have no idea what might happen to me.

So reassurance that your needs would be met and you'd be safe would be of the utmost importance.
In this book I'm reading, the author compares the kind of distorted sensory input that infants are receiving because of their undeveloped nervous systems to how sensory input changes when we are ill (for those of us who are somewhat "normal" in terms of our ability to perceive sensory information as adults).
When you're running a fever or weakened by an illness, often bright lights and loud noises feel like an assault- it's harder to filter out distractions and your reactions are sluggish and slower...etc. She says this is how she thinks it must feel to be an infant- except all the time-until age and development and a sense of security kind of soften some of the edges.

Do you have any infant grandchildren you can observe Coberst?

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Aidan

No, My gradchildren are all grown. My youngest is 16 and has recently gotten her drivers license.

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Walk a mile in the shoes of an infant!

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