Dear Tunester,

Today you’re going to learn an easy game to make your routine walk more exciting and turn your baby (and you) into Buddha

How are you feeling about your walk or your drive home these days? Bored of it? Seen it a million times? Do you know the sidewalk cracks like the back of your hand? Can you say exactly how long it takes for the light to change at an intersection?

Parents, it’s time to get out of our monotonous routine and make things new. Because the fact is, it is ALL new.

The other day my 7 year old was trying to convince me to take her into the toy store that advertised a promotion – ”It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

I questioned her – “isn’t walking down this street a once in a lifetime opportunity?”

“Huh?”

I persisted, as any annoying parent must when they are on a crusade to teach something that feels important.

“Isn’t it ALL a once in a lifetime experience?

…The way the wind just moved that leaf, the way that person just crossed the street right as we were crossing on the other side. The combination of everything happening just this way will only happen once, in this very moment.”

She cocked her head and thought about it.

Where am I going with this?

It’s time to turn our babies and ourselves into Buddha this week.

LIfe can’t be about going through it all as if we’ve been there before. 

Don’t worry, I am not going to suggest that you sit on the sidewalk and meditate. But I am going to suggest a new game.

It’s called: For the First Time

Here’s how you play: Tell your kid that the game is to see who can notice things that you’ve never noticed before on the walk you’ve done a thousand times.

It may take them a minute to get what you mean. My daughter said: “There isn’t anything new! I’ve seen all this before.”

But did she notice the edge of the crack on the sidewalk where a flower bud is peeping out? Did you notice the window above your head with that red curtain? Did she notice that there was a nest in that tree? Did you notice the reflection in that puddle?

This game is so simple, but it does so much:

1. It opens our senses to experiences that felt boring and old.
2. It makes us share what we notice with each other and that’s exciting. In fact, we want to encourage our kids to share their perspective as much as possible. It’s how we foster their creativity and voice.
3. It makes us appreciate the small things in life that are ever changing and beautiful. It takes some effort to tune in to the beauty that is more hidden from our everyday eyes.

So – for today’s boring walk home let’s make it more interesting…

Can you notice something For the First Time?

Want to see this game in action with my daughter? It will be on my Instagram page this week.

For more inspiration on how to do this at home, check out THIS POST.

Also, when I have a minute on my own the podcast On Being always puts me in a more curious and perceptive state of mind.

Have a friend who is bored out of her mind by her monotonous walk home with the stroller every day? Send her this blog and tell her to sign up for more weekly gems.

Dear Tunester,

At this point you know that my biggest mission is to help you feel more in tune with your baby; To help you think less about all the technical stuff and focus on what really matters – your connection with your baby.

It’s the kind of thing we need reminders about. Sort of like meditation – No matter how experienced someone is at meditation, their mind will wander at some point. The work of meditation, and the moments in which new neural connections are built, is when they gently tug their attention back to the moment.

Liz, a Baby in Tune mom who’s on her third round of classes with her third baby, recently said- “I think your message needs to be shouted from the rafters 🙂 I’ve heard it before & I still need the reminders.”

So I’ll keep shouting it from the rafters and singing it into your ears 🙂

But the fact is that you can’t possibly be present with your baby all the time. It wouldn’t even be healthy! In order to be good parents we need to have our own interests, relationships, and activities. We need to spend quality time AWAY from them in order to spend quality time with them.

So before you go beating yourself up for not singing your baby the ABCs today, not reading them one more book, or being gone all day at work, know that your baby absolutely needs to see you doing other things. Even more than that. They need to see you ENJOYING doing things unrelated to them.

But there are times during your day when you should hold yourself accountable to being fully with your baby. My message today is so simple and obvious you won’t believe you didn’t think of it yourself (or maybe you have and just need a reminder :).

These are times in your day when you’re with your baby ANYWAY. I’m talking about those rituals that happen every day, seemingly millions of times.

4 times during your day when you should be present with your baby:

1. Wake up
2. Diaper changing
3. Feeding
4. Bedtime

Even if you head off to work early, spend the day on calls, or strap the baby on for a day of errands, you’re probably still doing at least two of these rituals.

And since you’re with your baby ANYWAY, let’s make these moments count.

Here’s how:

1. Don’t take the phone with you when you change a diaper. 
2. Ignore your to-do list while you reunite with your baby in the morning.
3. Don’t let your mind wander to how good Netflix will be while you’re doing bedtime.
4. Focus on the way your body feels and the way your baby feels as you are feeding and snuggling together.

(If you’d like more tips on how to be present with your baby check out this blog post.)

I know it’s a big ask. But the return is boundless.

So dear Tunester, do you agree that these are the moments to work on first of all? 

How do you make sure you’re present with your baby during these moments? I always play this song in class to inspire parents to feel more in the moment with their baby.

Do you have a friend who needs these weekly reminders? Send them this post and tell them to sign up for more. 

Yes! Please send me the Tuesday Tune-In!

So here we are, almost 6 months in. That’s six months sans  popcorn and martinis with the girls, emotional downloads with parents at the playground, and surprise run-ins at the cafe. Our social lives have moved to a rectangle screen and 6-feet-apart hang-outs  with a select few.

And then there’s our kids’ social life. That’s where it hurts the most. My daughter just made a new friend on the beach. They did that adorable shy “want to play with me?” and started jumping waves together, but the other girl kept inching closer and closer and my daughter kept shooting me concerned looks, knowing she wasn’t supposed to get too close to her new friend. Oy. 

But it’s not just the positive experiences our kids are missing. The kid-to-kid altercations are just as important; fighting over the bucket in the sandbox, being hit over the head with a shaker in music class (of course, that never happens…).

You may find yourself wondering, How is social distancing affecting my  baby/toddler? Will they end up being hermits for the rest of their lives? Will they have any social skills whatsoever? Will they have ANY friends? (sob, sob)

These are all VERY valid questions. After hearing your concerns about this for the last couple months, I decided it was time to break it down and see what the experts say. Obviously we are in unprecedented territory. But I did my best to sew odds and ends together to understand what’s going on and come up with a game plan. So let’s dive in.

First of all, when does social development begin?

Right from the start. Infants are attuned to social and emotional stimulation and newborns appear more interested in stimuli that resembles faces, meaning they are interested in people.

At 6 months, infants communicate intentionally to others through smiling, touching and babbling. By the end of their first year of life, they’re ready to interact a bit with another baby and play side by side with the same toy.

In the second year of life babies start to show even more social development. They can move and speak, which means they can coordinate their behavior with another play partner, they can imitate each other, learn from each other, and start to alternate roles in play.

They also want to help others, and sometimes show aggressive behavior with peers. 

What skills does my baby need to develop in order to have peer relations?

These are some basic skills our babies need to learn in order to start making friends: Put their attention toward the same object as their peer; regulate emotions; control impulses; imitate a friend’s actions; understand cause-and-effect relationships (ie, if I hit him, he’ll be upset and won’t want to play with me); and be able to express themselves with language.

How do they learn these skills?

Some of it is simply by just growing up. But a lot of it has to do with OUR relationship with them. Your responsive caregiving helps them learn how to regulate emotions, develop a sense of predictability, and respond to their social environment. In fact, your relationship is so important that the level of your attachment with your baby is an indicator of  how good their relationship will be with peers.

How do we affect attachment? That’s all the good stuff I teach in our classes: being nurturing, consistent, attuned. Our babies need to have somewhat predictable interactions and they need us to be engaged with emotional sensitivity.

Got it. Our relationship is important.

But what about peers? Is having friends early in life important?

Yes. Kids who had friends early on were shown to have better social lives as kids and as adults. Toddlers who were able to engage in complex play with peers were better at dealing with other children later in school. Also, having friends in early childhood reduces the risk of developing psychological problems later in childhood.

What about siblings? Is that considered being social?

Yes. Sibling relationships are a special kind of peer relationship, more intimate and likely to last longer than any other relationship in one’s lifetime. They provide an important context for the development of children’s understanding of others’ worlds, emotions, thoughts, intentions and beliefs. But the other side of the coin is that frequent sibling conflicts during childhood are associated with poor adjustment later in life, including violent tendencies.

(Don’t worry mama, some fighting is totally normal and even helpful. Our job is to help them learn how to repair after so they know how to do that later on too.)

Ok, so our kids need friends. Does that mean that babies who go to daycare in the first three years have better social development?

Well, let’s look at the ol’ daycare versus home care debate to figure this out:

The National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) did a huge study comparing types of childcare for babies. They concluded that what matters most is not the TYPE of care—whether nanny, parent, daycare, or other—but rather what’s happening at HOME. The children who experience warmth, responsiveness, and the right kinds of stimulation at home had the best social, cognitive, and emotional development regardless of whether they went to daycare or not.

Meaning, for our babies to develop socially it is much more important that the child be responded to warmly and with interest and have frequent back-and-forth interactions during the day with their parents. These kinds of parent-child interactions predict a child’s development far more than childcare factors do.

Ok so they don’t need to be at daycare, but they DO need friends.

But do they need MANY friends? And NEW friends?

Let’s consider this study that showed that when toddlers have stable friendships, they are able to increase the complexity in their social interaction. That means, when our kids have a buddy, they are more apt  to work stuff out, learn how to cooperate, learn how to share, and learn what happens when they don’t or when they get aggressive.

So is that the ticket? At least during our ‘Rona days?

Yup. It’s not about quantity, rather quality. It’s about giving your kid one or two GOOD friends, rather than insisting that merely seeing many other babies at the playspace is crucial to their development. Yes, there are benefits to that as we discussed—particularly having the opportunity to mimic and learn from others. But that can also happen with their primary good buddy.

So let’s recap: 

What are the two important factors regarding my baby’s social development?

1. Their relationship with you at home
2. Having stable relationships with friends (but can just be with one or two close friends!)

That’s great news. We can do that!

Here is a list of ways to make it happen:

Make a friend Pod:

You know how the school kids are making learning pods for this year? Consider making  your own kids’ social pod. Find one or two families that you trust when it comes to COVID exposure and agree to have social meetings for the kids once or twice a week. Allow your kids to engage and play. And that means all of it. Let them push and pull over a toy they both want, let them cooperate on building a tower, and even let them learn some impulse control by hitting or being hit (with you intervening when needed.) Of course, this is all based on your own comfort level and some guidelines will probably need to be agreed upon by all families in order to maintain safety as best as possible. 

When I set out to write this piece I emailed one of my mentors, Tovah Klein (Director, Barnard College Center for Toddler Development,) and asked her what she thought parents of toddlers should be doing in order to help with social development. Here’s her response: 

“Best to find one other family for the young toddlers to have some social contact and not worry about them being physically close when they are together.  A little socialization goes a long way!”

Here’s another important tidbit from her that touches on building independence, forming a healthy attachment, and relying on others:

“They also need to practice being away from mommy or daddy– so mommy goes out, even for a walk, says good-bye, and then lets toddler know when she is back.  Daddy the same. Gentle practice with separation is a step toward socializing with others.”

Help your child develop social skills at home:

The California Department of Education has a great resource on social-emotional development for babies and toddlers. They lay out the foundations necessary for our kids to develop social skills. Using their list, here are some things you can do at home:

• Teach your child how to express emotion

Research shows that the ability to express positive and negative emotions plays a significant role in their social development. It is especially important for them to be able to express positive emotions. They appeal to social partners and enable relationships to form. 

• Model empathy

As we mentioned earlier, our babies are naturally social creatures who mimic others. When they see us caring for others or experience our nurturance to them they mimic our behavior. You can also help them understand your emotions and the feelings of others so that they can understand someone else’s perspective.

• Show them emotion regulation

This study shows that children’s ability to regulate their emotions factors in to how well they are liked by peers and how peers perceive their social skills.Here’s two ways to help them with this: One is through modeling. This is a hard one, especially these days when tensions are high. But if we can manage to show our kids that even in very stressful situations we are able to regulate our own emotions they learn that behavior as well. We can also support our babies’ emotion regulation by taking care to minimize their exposure to excessive stress or over-stimulation.

• Assist in developing impulse control

This one has a lot to do with our babies just growing up, understanding social expectations, and being able to express themselves better. But we can help them along by teaching them how to deal with the frustration of waiting for needs to be met, inhibiting potentially hurtful behavior, and making safety rules very clear. Having a peer to practice cooperation and sharing with will offer natural opportunities to practice impulse control, so get that pod together if that feels like the right choice for you.

• Support social understanding

This one has to do with our babies understanding what to expect from others, how to engage in back-and-forth social interactions, and which social scripts are to be used for which social situations. The good news? This has a lot to do with you. Recent research suggests that infants’ and toddlers’ social understanding is related to how often they experience adult communication about the thoughts and emotions of others. So talk to them about feelings—your own, theirs, and those around you.

So there you have it. All is not lost. In fact, we have all these cool new ways to ensure it’s not. And despite this strange isolated-and-yet-together time, we can make sure that by the time our babies get to their 40th birthday, they’ll have good friends around them and be well-adjusted, happy adults, ready to take on anything. After all, they’ll be able to say they survived “The Covid Era,” right?

Whew! That was alot of info. You still with me? Great. Then you probably have a comment about all this. I want to hear it! Please put it in the box below.

Also, do you have a friend who has been obsessing about their kid’s lonely future because they’re stuck at home now? Send them this to give them ideas on what to do. You can also tell them to sign up for future excellent info by putting their info in below.

Yes! Please send me the Tuesday Tune-In!

Quarantunie, It’s week 4. Time to be real. 

We talked about some activities you could be doing. We talked about ways to feel more present with your baby.

But the fact is, the one thing you should be doing right now

IS NOTHING.

You know all of those art projects your crafty friend is posting? Screw them.

You know the muffins your baker friends are serially pulling out of the oven? NOPE.

The puppet shows your builder friends are constructing,

The apps your plugged-in friend is urging you to download,

Even the song your Broadway musical friend is writing with her baby.

Forget it. You don’t need to do any of it.

You know why?

Because your baby has all the enrichment they need just by being with you all day.

You are keeping your baby safe. Your baby is thriving. Your baby is doing great. 

They’re watching you work, clean, fold, cook, rest, smile, cry. And all of it enhances  their lives.

Maybe they’re even “helping” with the laundry? Kudos.

But Tunie, here’s what you DON’T need to be doing:

1. Berating yourself for not staying on a schedule.
2. Comparing yourself to your friends who are constructing castles out of cardboard or dolls out of towels.
3. Feeling guilty for not wanting to play more with your baby.

You’re doing a lot, and you’re just trying to keep it together, and that is ENOUGH. Of course you don’t want to build one more magnet tile tower. Unless it has a bed inside it with a door you can close, that is.

And guys, do me a favor. I see that invisible whip in your hand that you use on yourself every time you hand your baby a screen. LAY OFF. 

Yes, our kids are watching WAY more screens these days.

No, it is not melting their brains. 

Yes, it is keeping you sane and that counts for a lot. Hey, it bought you a shower yesterday. That’s absolutely a win. 

And yes, this period will not last forever.

At a certain point things will go back to our normal.

We will return to our individual screen limits. We will monitor junk food more consistently. We will not constantly be on edge because we will have the alone time that we desperately need right now.

There will be an adjustment period but it will be done. This is not the new reality forever. And when we need to reconstruct our boundaries regarding food, screens, sleep, and behavior, we will.

But right now, give yourself a break.

You all were very real with me this week. I asked, – “What do you wish someone would say to you right now?” 

You said:

• That my baby is ok. 
• That my kid can eat more junk right now.
• That my baby doesn’t need to reach every milestone exactly on target.

And most of all: 

• That you can’t be 100% at both parenting AND working.

Haven’t you been telling your best friend exactly this?

Because right now we all look like Jimmy Fallon trying to host a show. And all we can do is laugh nervously through it and try to keep a smile.

But here’s the best part of this period despite all of your fears—you are giving your baby EXACTLY what they need and want: more time with you.

So before you go into the confession room to be punished for your sins, do THIS.

Take that glass of wine. Go take a seat on the couch. And congratulate yourself for being a kick- ass parent.

You have kept this boat afloat. Your baby barely feels the shit storm that is happening outside.

And that’s because you are doing a great job.

Hoorah.

Have you had a QuarantineWin today? Maybe a tiny little moment where you felt like you were crushing it, or even just not losing it? Help out a fellow Quarantunie by sharing here. 

Do you have a friend who hasn’t showered in days, had to meet with the VP while she changed a diaper and just put the ice-cream away in the pantry? Maybe she needs to hear this. Send her this post and tell her to sign up for the Tuesday Tune In here:

Yes! Please send me the Tuesday Tune-In!