A Memory with Sammy
Watching Sammy.
Many years ago, when Sammy was only 2, I had the joy of watching him learn to interact with his environment. He had climbed the short set of stairs in his grandmother’s home to explore the second floor. Stairs, as we all know, are enticing for children. When he arrived at the top of the stairs, he decided it was time to come down.
He turned around and realised he was far too unsteady to get down. Being of the venerable age where this happens to me, I now understand exactly how he felt. He stood for a moment, rocking on his feet and then took the only reasonable alternative; he began to cry. I proceeded to go to his defense with the intention of carrying him down the steps. But before I could, his mom came out from the kitchen and, seeing the situation said, “It’s all right, Sammy. You are all right.”
“Sammy,” she continued, ”sit down, Sammy. Sit down on the stairs.” He did. “Now turn around.” He did. His mom guided him down the steps. Each step of the way, she praised his efforts and told him how brave he was and how proud she was of him. When he got to the bottom of the stairs and could safely stand up, there was a celebration of his victory with hand clapping and cheers. Sammy was overjoyed, and the grin on his face said it all.
What fascinated me was the way his mother handled the situation. I have often used this example in my lectures of how her reaction is how one builds resilience in children. She never rushed to “save” him. She saw he was in no immediate danger, and she was there to catch him if needed. She proceeded to reassure him and to allow him to feel his own strength and ability to accomplish this task.
He had achieved and felt the accomplishment of gaining the ability to navigate stairs. He was soon off exploring these stairs often and did not need his mother’s reassurance any further. He was independent. Sammy’s mom gave him love and respect. In this instance, she taught him to be independent and to be strong in his ability to accomplish a new task.
My reaction would have taught him that he was incapable and needed outside help to accomplish his goals. It would have enabled him to seek help, and every time he needed to come down stairs, he would have cried. With his mother, he learned crying gained her attention in a positive way. WIth me, his crying would have taught him to evade independence.
This small experience taught a huge lesson. Sammy is now a grown adult and just graduated from college and has his first apartment. This experience gave him confidence within himself. It taught him he could safely take risks and be able to accomplish his goals.
This simple lesson was explored by Harry Harlow many years ago using rhesus monkeys. In the 1950s and 1960s, psychological research believed babies become attached to their mothers because they provided food. Harlow felt this perspective overlooked the importance of comfort, companionship, and love in promoting healthy development.
Infant rhesus monkeys were taken away from their mothers and raised in separate cages away from peers. In social isolation, the monkeys showed “disturbed behaviour, staring blankly, circling their cages, and engaging in self-mutilation”. When the isolated infants were re-introduced to peers, they were unsure of how to interact — many stayed separate from the group, and some even died after refusing to eat. This same experiment was performed in Britain with human infants. This condition was called marasmus.
Based on this observation, Harlow designed his surrogate mother experiment. Harlow took infant monkeys from their biological mothers and gave them two inanimate surrogate mothers: one was a simple construction of wire and wood, and the second was covered in foam rubber and soft terry cloth. The infants were assigned to one of two conditions. In the first, the wire mother had a milk bottle and the cloth mother did not; in the second, the cloth mother had the food while the wire mother had none.
In both conditions, Harlow found that the infant monkeys spent significantly more time with the terry cloth mother than they did with the wire mother. When only the wire mother had food, the babies came to the wire mother to feed and immediately returned to cling to the cloth surrogate. It is not noted in the reports, but these babies clung hard to the terry cloth mothers as they lacked the emotional support allowing them the security to explore.
Watching Sammy interact with his mom demonstrated to me the importance of warm parental love and security. Sammy knew his mother was there, and he trusted her to rescue him, thereby allowing him the freedom to engage in a new foray into the world.
How unique and wonderful it was to have seen this and to see in action the results of love.
See Harlow H. F., Dodsworth R. O., & Harlow M. K. (1965). Total social isolation in monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC285801/pdf/pnas00159-0105.pdf
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