Grasshopper New Media Presents...

When Little Man was a newborn, J and I practiced Dr. Harvey Karp’s suggestions from The Happiest Baby on the Block as though they were the dogma from some new and compelling religion. We swaddled him, laid him on his side, shushed and shook him (gently), and let him suck to his heart’s content. J was a master practitioner. It was like he had some sort of Jedi powers–almost instantly, almost every time, he could quiet our screaming newborn within seconds. It was magic. Pure, wonderful, magic.

When I found out that Dr. Karp had a new book on the market, The Happiest Toddler on the Block, I was immediately exited. Especially since his first book’s methods worked so well. Especially since my own toddler wasn’t always that happy. Sometimes, it seems more like he’s possessed by a demon. I hoped, I prayed that Dr. Karp’s second book could be just as magical helpful as the first.

The techniques found in The Happiest Baby on the Block work because they trigger the “calming reflex” in newborns under three months. The problem with older babies and toddlers, though, is that their brains have developed past this reflex. In fact, they’ve developed past any reflex but the mine-I-wanna-have-it-now-gimme-reflex. There is no magic switch to flip that will turn a screaming toddler into a sedated little angel.

What Dr. Karp’s new book does offer, however, is a thorough explanation of how the brains of older babies and toddlers develop and how understanding that development can make parenting a toddler much less frustrating. His main argument is that toddlers are not small people; their brains are approximately the evolutionary equivalent of a Neanderthal. By understanding that the human brain goes through the same transformations in the first three years of life as the human brain went through in the first three or four million years of evolution, parents can start interacting with their children in more meaningful ways and stem off tantrums and meltdowns before they start. You may not be able to magically stop a tantrum in progress, but by learning how your child reasons and processes information, you may be able to diffuse it before it starts.

Dr. Karp’s book is persuasive. He gives a thorough and fascinating rundown of the different stages of infant/toddler brain development before he outlines specific strategies for interacting with your child. If you’re not interested in the psychiatric explanations for why your little caveman is acting the way he is, Dr. Karp’s book is organized to be useful, with easy-to-reference main points at the beginning of each chapter and easy directions for how to get right into using the techniques.

The book focuses around strategies designed to reaffirm your child’s attempts to communicate without giving in to demands. The techniques are not about giving your child want he or she wants, but about letting them know you understand that they want it. For instance, his “Fast Food Rule” states that you should always repeat back to your child what they want before you state what you have to say. It makes perfect sense, and yet it goes against our natural impulse to comfort and calm a crying child. Any woman who’s been through labor knows that no amount of “you’re doing great, honey” or “it’s ok, you’re doing fine” is really that helpful in the moment. Likewise, Dr. Karp insists that it doesn’t really help a crying, scared, or injured toddler to ignore their pain or fear to tell them “it’s ok.” At that moment, it most certainly is not. It’s a small change, but in the few weeks that I’ve been trying to put this technique into action, I’ve noticed that it does help change the focus of the moment and, often, helps settle my own little Neanderthal down much faster.

Not all of Dr. Karp’s techniques are so easy to effect or to swallow, though. At times, the analogy with pre-historic man is a bit overdone. I’m still not sure how (or why I would) use his notion of toddler-ese: if you’re child is the equivalent of a mini-caveman, then you need to talk like a caveman to get through to a child who is on the verge of losing it. It seems awkward and absurd to grunt at my child in short sentences, but maybe I’m just not doing it right. (Then again, maybe I’m not quite that desperate yet.) However there are so many other easy to implement and sensible strategies and suggestions for how to interact with your toddler, that Dr. Karp’s book is definitely worth a second look.

by Lisa D.

Photo graciously provided by mudkat, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved