Psychological Concerns of Parents during Infancy's Physical Development in Lifespan Developmental Psychology

Question: Are there any psychological concerns as parents when the infant is in this stage of physical development? Give some examples.


Answer:
Of course yes. Although it is also depends on the parents perceptions.
Optimistic parents view child growing naturally, putting over attentions will adversely affect their natural grow. I have met a colleague with baby delayed in development even before birth, she was stressed and insomnia sometimes, as well as affecting her own nutritional status from poor appetite. In a circumstance, it affected the severely of delay. My other colleague, a simple minded happy girl, has viewed her babies delay as nothing. Quoting from her “a little bit delay is acceptable, he will catch up naturally later!” And that came true finally. J

Answer Two:
It is a good question, Recently, there is a hot milk powder ad that shows a mother’s worry about the physical development of her baby. First, she focuses on the change in height and weight. Then, she plays heed to his posture, crawl and walk. In the end of the ad, the mother is surprised by his baby’s excellent learning capability. Although it is an advertisement, it has demonstrated that the concerns of parents are.

Answer Three:
In the old days we fail to realize how much a baby can understand because they can’t tell us how they feel or what they think. Now we know as early as a few weeks, newborns already understand tone of voice, they tend to calm down when presented with a calm, even-toned voice, on the contrary they react to loud, angry-sounding voice by crying. Babies take in information about the world around them through their senses, although they cannot interpret what they mean, but they do store up knowledge to help them make sense of the world later. As their cognitive abilities in observation and memory improve, they begin to learn causual effect.

Therefore parents’ behaviors, emotions, their attitudes towards the babies are all captured under the eyes of their innocent babies. Whether it is psychodynamic, behavioral or humanistic perspectives all point to the beliefs that parents’ behaviors, including psychological conditions which affect behaviors, have important impacts on infants personal development. In simple terms, psychoanalysis points out that unconsciousness shapes personalities, while these unconsciousness is constructed through childhood experience as young as infants, whose immediate understandings of the world are conveyed through their parents; In behavioral perspective, behaviors are acquired through learning and experience, infants have the ability to observe, thus parents’ psychological well-beings are information that infants can register, but may not be able to understand yet. As infant grows up, without a valid explanation for parents emotional responses, they tend to internalize and believe that it was their faults and grow up with tremendous amount of guilt.

Quoting my personal example of my mom being emotionally stress on my ability of telling left to right in Chinese character, I may feel tremendous guilt as I grow up because I do not live up to my mom’s expectation, whether that expectation is rational or not. Sadly, it is quite true in my case.

Answer Three:
Some individuals feel that a baby cannot communicate. But ask any mother and she will tell you which cry means what, meaning, a baby has a particular cry for hunger, a different one for frustration, and a different one for needing a diaper change (and many more). Communication is subtle to others but very clear between mother and child. As we live in a competitive society, so a child's development has no exact timeline, it is more reflective of a range of time. Of course there may be questions if the child is delayed outside of the normal range of time, but if within, anxiety is more reflective of the parents personality characteristics then the child normal development.

Baby's Crying Responses:
How true it is that a baby's crying response is so important for parents in order to know how to meet the needs of the baby. Also the parents' presence and presentation is very important to the upbrining of the child psychologcally as well as holistically.