Dr. Mike Rosmann wrote this for Iowa Farmer Today:
One of the ways my wife, Marilyn, and I like to help our adult children is by providing childcare for their
infants so the parents can return to their professions.
We spent several weeks during the past holidays with our newest grandchild, 4-month-old Michael, as well as his 2-year-old sister, Alexandra, who live in Utah.
While Marilyn stayed in Utah, I returned to Iowa the day after Christmas so I could take care of things at home and look after 6-month-old Layla in Polk City until Marilyn returned.
What fun it was to hear Alex call out, “Where’s Papa?” (Alex called me either Grandpa or Papa) when she arose in the morning or from a nap.
Equally pleasant were ready smiles from Mikey and Layla while I played with them or changed their diapers.
Providing safe, consistent nurturing care to infants is an important investment in their emotional well-being later on.
How babies are nurtured in their infancy affects their later development both psychologically and physically.
Persons who raise pets and livestock know when animals are terrorized as babies, such as by predators, or mistreated by caretakers — they usually fear the source of terror afterwards. They tend to grow slower and are more prone to health issues.
Four main factors are predictive of the degree of later maladjustment: the severity, frequency and type of trauma, and the age at which it occurred.
Lenore Terr, a San Francisco child psychiatrist, undertook important work in the 1990s to describe the effects of early childhood trauma.
The more severe the trauma and the more times the trauma is repeated, usually the more lasting and severe the maladjustment. Often the harm cannot be fully undone by therapy.
For the rest of this fascinating, sad and yet heart-warming column, go to:
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