Lighten Up, Folks

By Wendy Cole/Chicago

A dozen of us sat in a circle on the floor with our babies, our attention focused on a woman strumming an autoharp. While none of us would openly admit it, the truth is we were all there hoping to give our children an edge. Why else would we sign up our newborns for a class called Sing 'n Dance? It hardly mattered that my eight-week-old daughter Rachel had not yet mastered holding her head upright and was nowhere close to rolling over. She was considered the perfect age for the weekly program that promised a meaningful learning experience through rhythmic games, finger play and songs.

Rachel's birth virtually collided with last year's media blitz about new brain research that warned of the need to provide our youngest citizens with a rich array of stimulating experiences. Everyone from Rob Reiner and Robin Williams to the Clintons embraced the cause. The White House even held a baby-brain summit. As a new mom, I was intrigued--and unnerved--by the scientific breakthroughs and dire warnings about the consequences of ignoring them.

Every new mom I knew was rushing out to buy the latest in high-contrast black-and-white toys purported to stimulate neurological development. Musical crib mobiles playing Beethoven were suddenly the rage. Even videos claiming to help prepare four-month-olds for reading appeared on the market. The new data about the complex brain-wiring process that begins right after birth seemed to suggest that simply cooing and cuddling with Baby was not sufficient.

Now many of the researchers whose work contributed to the frenzy are worried that their findings are being misinterpreted by the public. "The breathtaking PET scans of babies' brains have fueled a kind of anxiety that is unwarranted," says Craig Ramey, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Alabama, referring to the imaging technology that vividly depicts areas of high and low brain activity. "Parents may be conveying to their children a franticness about doing everything right." University of Chicago psychology professor Janellen Huttenlocher, who reported correlations between the size of toddlers' vocabularies and how much their mothers talk to them, fears that parents may feel compelled to jabber incessantly around their kids. "Some mothers won't even take a job because of it," she says. "If you're a well-educated, interested mother, you shouldn't think about the findings one way or another."

Trouble is, well-intentioned parents do tend to think that more is better when it comes to their babies, and all too often they filter out the fine print--in this case warnings from experts that sensory overload can cause babies to become irritable or tune out. The trick is to strike a balance. Here are a few tips to help parents do just that:

--Follow Baby's cues. Learn what makes him or her happy or upset, curious or bored. Trying to accelerate babies' learning process by deluging them with flash cards of colors, shapes and letters is of dubious value. If too much activity agitates your child, ease up on the intensity and length of play.

--Books, books and more books. Reading to a child offers wonderful bonding opportunities, and it's never too early to start. But don't race through a story or choose complicated texts. Find age-appropriate ways to engage babies in the material. If reading is merely a passive activity for toddlers, they won't learn how to be critical thinkers or to take the initiative.

--Give 'em space. Attention is essential, but so is the opportunity for individual exploration. Constant hovering prevents Baby from finding other diversions, whether it's the stuffed bear in the crib or the howling wind outside. Playing with your child is great, but occasionally set Baby up with a few toys and let the discoveries begin--with you nearby, of course, in case help is needed.

To be sure, there are children in real peril. Many kids are living in unstable homes amid conditions that truly threaten brain development. What is more, the growing strains on the child-care system, especially since welfare reform, give child-development experts particular cause for worry. Without meaningful intervention before they reach school age, neglected or abused children may struggle with learning for the rest of their lives. "If they're not getting the nurturing they need in the earliest years, their synaptic development shuts down, which in turn shuts down the foundations for learning and being a human being," says Matthew Melmed, executive director of Zero to Three, a nonprofit group focusing on the importance of the first three years of life.

New technologies are helping scientists understand more about how children's brains suffer because of insufficient stimulation or stimuli of the wrong kind. Dr. Bruce Perry of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine found that kids who hardly play--or who aren't touched very much--develop brains 20% to 50% smaller than normal. Infants in the care of mothers with severe depression show reduced brain activity as well as prominent effects in the parts of the brain associated with the expression of feelings. "This may result from such mothers' inability to relate affectionately and responsively to their infants," writes the University of Alabama's Ramey in his forthcoming book Right from Birth. "The longer the mother's depression continues, the greater the chances that her baby will have later behavioral or emotional problems."

For the great majority of us, however, the latest news about the brain did little more than remind us of other ways we can screw up--only this time it isn't just diaper changing on the line; it's the emotional and intellectual growth of our newborns. Cathy Smith, my daughter's teacher at Sing 'n Dance, says lots of moms seem preoccupied with the social and cognitive development of their babies. More than ever, they're asking to sign up two- and three-month-olds to be in classes with six- to 11-month-olds, believing that their infants' cognitive skills will be boosted by being around older babies. That won't work, warns George Washington University psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan. "Six-month-olds will probably intrude on or ignore the younger baby," he says. "What the newborn needs most is protection."

As it turns out, Smith says, the No. 1 concern expressed by parents in her infant classes has little to do with brain stimulation. "What people really want to know about is how to get their babies to sleep," she says. After all, parents too tired to see straight have a harder time sorting through the stacks of books, toys, tapes and CD-ROMs promising to help them raise a smarter baby.