Supercharge your baby’s social skills

[music] A least enough production. [music] Dear Alice, would you like to come to a party at my house? Saturday, March 24th, at 8 p.m. and so on? The best thing I know for breaking the ice and getting people acquainted is some good mixer games. Let's go to the library and get some good magazines and books and find some really good games. Oh, Tura, I'll do that. Oh, good. Like the millions of species we share this earth with, humans are inherently social beings. Will you be my. Will you? You want to be my friend? Maybe you'll be. My thanks should be in my friend. But unlike most other species, the rules are a little bit more complicated for us. She called out somebody because he didn't offer his seat up for her on the subway. Good listening is probably the easiest way to connect with other people. Four ways that you can make small talk with anyone. The what, when, why, and how of hand shakes. Becoming a competent social operator in today's world can sometimes seem daunting even as an adult. But believe it or not, your brain is a socializing machine. From the day you were born, you were a sponge, soaking in every little social rule that was thrown your way. Welcome to Net Man. Welcome to Life. Though just one minute old, this new individual is well equipped for all the physiological functions of living and for emotional responses to events around him. Those first few years, the people that you're with, the things that you see, the places you go, and how you experience all of it, will build the foundations of how you interact with people and the world around you for the rest of your life. I'm Emma Watkins, a children's entertainer, and more recently, a PhD candidate with a love of all things science and research in the world of child development. And this is the BabyLab podcast, where we speak to experts from the Marx BabyLab about the work that they're doing to grow our understanding in this area. On the last episode, we uncovered the incredible power of the developing brain and explored some of the best ways you can help the young ones in your life to flourish. Today, it's all about socialisation. What is it? Why is it important? And how can caregivers provide the best possible socialisation opportunities for their little ones? Oh! We've been joined by Srolley! Hello! Okay, I didn't mean my voice to go up that high. So, my name is Moana, and I have a six-month-old daughter, called Zoe. I'm blessed to say that she's a very easy-going, relaxed-chilled baby. Hello, Zoe. Oh! Yes, glasses! My glasses have been kidnapped. While sitting down with Moana and her daughter Zoe in the recording studio, Zoe definitely lived up to her nickname, the social butterfly. She was outgoing, happy, and even a little bit cheeky, and it's traits like these that are the beginning of a social identity. An identity that would be shaped by a myriad of internal and external factors. But before we start to look at what some of those factors are, it's important to understand what we mean when we use the word social in the context of infant development. They start small with their little limited experience in the world, and then socialization is truly the process of making that world a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. That's Sue Hesfos, a professor in infant studies at the Marx Baby Lab at Western Sydney University, where they've taken on the difficult task of researching everything they can about infant development. So first, it starts with parents, and then it might include another family member, the dog. It could include a whole bunch of things. So in the beginning, a baby's world is pretty small. It usually includes mum, dad, maybe a pet, and some extended family. But for those first few months, this is the exact kind of socialization a baby needs. The very young infant, first couple months of life, will recognize and be most soothed by their primary caretakers, whoever those are. And so what I mean by that, it's how they smell, how they look, sort of in a blurry, not fully developed vision kind of way. The holding pattern, everybody has sort of like a football holder, an over-the-shoulder holder. There's a variety in certain kids like it's certain ways, and they will let you know what they prefer, because they will relax when you're doing what they want. Researchers found that the relationship between care giver and baby will be one of the most influential factors when it comes to a baby's social development. How often do you look at a person and think to yourself just how much their mannerisms remind you of their parents? The relationship between parent and child is simply unparalleled. Even now, like I find if she stirs, like it's not even a loud cry, but a stir, I still sort of wake up. And so I honestly believe that there must be some connection that is so deep and so strong that, yeah, I feel quite emotional, I'm saying that. It's, yeah. I'm just very interested in that connection, and you know, I can see it in your eyes. You're making me emotional. Hi, I'm Karamathok. I'm a senior lecturer in psychological science at Western Sydney University. And my area is developmental psychology. The most important part of socialization in the youngest years is from the immediate family. From the primary care givers, from the siblings and extended family. In terms of very early years, you know, zero to five, I almost felt a sigh of relief from parents behind me just for a second knowing that having that socialization with just themselves is the most important. It feels like there's been a lot of pressure around families to want to make those choices of socialization which are outside of their family construct. So what are some examples that you can give for parents for those positive opportunities to gain socialization and language acquisition that are maybe outside the household? So I think parents shouldn't be worried about that because what matters the most to the youngest child is that one-on-one special interaction with the parent or caregiver. Those special little conversations for the child that's not speaking yet, it's that interaction through play. You can play with the child while you're changing their nappy and do games like that and talk to them. It's that face-to-face contact. And touch as well. So they're all important for early socialization. And then outside of the home, certainly meeting up with other families, that have children, or even daycare, I'll pre-school offer such wonderful opportunities for socialization and social interaction. It's how children navigate their self-concept. They learn to resolve conflicts with others. Lots of opportunity to play, which is fantastic for their creativity and their imagination and their language. You're probably going to get sick of the word exposure by the end of this series. But it's so important when it comes to any aspect of infant development. And at some point in those first few months, baby is going to be ready to venture out. There's new places to see and flowers to smell, birds to hear and people to meet. All of which will provide key opportunities for socialization. We're always going out and doing things. We'll go out to a restaurant or we'll go out, you know, shop in or into the city and things like that on the bus. So I find that she's adapted to being out and about. And sort of, you know, I can see her looking around and really taking things in. And when she does meet people, she always will smile at people. And I think that's really nice. And so for me, like as a mum, one of the things I really want to teach her is how to be a really good communicator. And I think that that's a skill that's going to be so important for her whole life to be able to have a child that, you know, whilst there will be a level of nervousness and so forth as they're young. But I want to teach them to be able to communicate and talk and say hello and to people of all ages. My name's Linda Cousins. We have my son William George with us here today. And I'm an older mum. I'm not one of these new moms. I'm a young, new, fashionable mum. So I'm one of those old moms. First time mum and one and done. Like Moana, Linda was proactive in exposing her son William to the big, wide world as quickly as possible. And in doing so, found out that he had a particular attraction towards other children. Oh, he loves them. He sees another child. He could be upset, cranky. And it doesn't matter the age of the child. He sees that child and it puts a smile on his face. He'll say a little girl skipping in the supermarket, singing along, probably, you know, causing trouble. Her mum's probably thinking, oh my goodness, stop this. And he just laughs and smiles and reaches out. He loves kids. Loves any kid. He loves the ladies too though. I really do. It's very much a ladies man. Do you think or do you see any effects of that really initial time of being on your own with William in William's personality now? No, I think because as soon as we were able to socialise him and have people around, we had people around. As soon as I could take him places, we were out and about. We were out walking. We were out going to the shops. We were doing activities. Even if it was me doing craft activities while I was on Matleave and bringing him along and him experiencing other adults, wherever I went, he went. I started back softball. He was coming to all the softball games. Seems like a few of us ladies have all had children around the same time. We've got our little cheer crew. He also had what we call his 'herum' of girls. There was all these young girls and I think the eldest might have been say six or seven, but very, very young girls that just loved him. So we had a range of children? Oh, absolutely. He had his own fan club. He became the good luck token for my ladies team. We would rub the baby. Really? And whoever rubbed the baby usually got a home run. How important is that for parents to try and expose children to other people around them? It's fascinating to do that. But the parents have to be up for it too. If it feels overwhelming, then it's not likely to go well. But again, it's not so critically important exactly what they're doing. It's just that they get a variety of experience because they sort of learn and get settled on their safe, secure base. And then they go out in the world. And then, oh, wow, the world's a little overwhelming. I'm going to go back to my secure base. So if you see a kid at a park, they show up with a parent, and then they go over to the swing set. And then, whoa, I fell down. Ouch, I'm hurt. They run back to their safe base, the caretaker. After they realize, oh, it's really just a scratch. I'm fine. Then they'll venture out again. But there's always this tether so that they can go back to where they feel safe. So if they're going into a new experience, going into that experience with someone that they're attached to is the most ideal situation. As part of her work at BabyLab, Sue gets to see babies entering new and unfamiliar environments all the time when parents bring their little ones in to be worked with. This puts her in prime position to observe how young people interact with places and people that are new to them. So like the BabyLab experience, if you show up with your parent or caretaker, they cuddle in with that caretaker until they get the vibe sort of from the interaction like, okay, this is cool. There's some really neat toys over there. So I'm going to take off to the toys. So it's that parents are uniquely expert at identifying the beginning of those expressions from the kid and responding to them. And there is a connection between the parent and the child. And when the parent is feeling stress, the kid knows. And so part of what we do at BabyLab is 80% of the people come to our lab or moms. If the mom feels calm and is having a good time, we get better data. We just do because the kids like, okay, this is good. I like this. Mom's happy. I'm happy. Exactly. So if they had trouble parking, like you don't want that to be the case because then your data are going to be compromised. And another thing is that kids coming through BabyLab are more shy these days. It's just the post-COVID thing. They were in a very small network at home and they saw the same two, three people all the time and all of a sudden they're going out. Have I noticed in our data any differences? Yeah, it takes sometimes five more minutes for the kid to warm up because they're not used to seeing strangers. Is the data any different than language development data, cognitive development data, pre-COVID versus post-COVID? Zero measurable difference is what we have found. One of the most significant challenges to socialization in living memory has been the COVID-19 outbreak beginning in 2019. Many of us were locked inside our homes for weeks with very little opportunity for outside interaction. But although it seems as though children born during the pandemic have emerged relatively unaffected, the same can't be said for the adults around them. Chalk air centers have had to close and children have been asked to stay home as COVID tears through the early learning sector. WA will finally open up to Susan, can fly Harvey across the country to meet his grandparents. Pregnant women have been giving birth alone as hospitals were strict visitors due to the coronavirus. Social opportunities suffered heavily during COVID and it's important when talking about infant socialization not to ignore the needs of the caregivers because it's hard to feel other people's cups if yours is empty. Finding out I was pregnant during the pandemic was shocking. I guess we weren't prepared. We weren't planning either. It was actually quite difficult to be perfectly honest. I had little or no support from the health system whether it was my local health system or the New South Wales health system in general. I fully understand that nurses were understaffed and overworked. My experience, my sister's pregnant now and she asked questions and I said I'm the wrong person to talk to. I had a baby during the pandemic. Your experience with the hospital system, nurses and midwives is going to be completely different to what mine was and mine was horrible. It really was. I'm so sorry. It's a very unprecedented time. Absolutely. And that particular lack of support is something that I don't think that anybody has really ever felt in terms of personally and as part of a community before you knew that you were pregnant. Do you think that your support network was different at that time? I think I had a great, I still have a great support network and during the pandemic like so many people, you know, organised Zoom calls and things with parents and chatting on the phone to friends. But it's so different to have your friend come and give you a cuddle because you need it, you know, or have your mum there because you need it. My parents were living in Bathurst. They couldn't cross over the mountains because of the pandemic. I couldn't have any friends come and visit me in hospital when I had my child, you know. So many people get bunches of flowers and people visiting them and I'm in a hospital bed with a mask on and my child's in the nursery. It was horrible. It was horrible. On top of that, I guess because of my age, there was so many assumptions made so people assumed that I knew what I was doing. Right. And on top of that, I had no support with me by my side showing me how to do those things and watching a YouTube video is not the same. It's just not the same. Dr. Google and YouTube are certainly, you know, those areas that people are leaning into. They're very useful, but it's not the same as a hands-on mother, grandmother, best friend showing you how to change your nappy, showing you how to hold your child. But I'm so grateful that some things were lifted because I was able to have my mother and my mother-in-law come and support me in the first six weeks of having William and my mother-in-law's actually a former midwife herself. So, tap into that. Yes. And it's so true talking to my neighbour and talking to people 100 years ago, it took a village to raise a child. The expectations on mothers now is that you have to do it all yourself. And those women were they, William's, very first socialisation outside yourself in your partner? Absolutely. Absolutely. I was very much, everyone has to have their shots and we wait six weeks before people come around. We're coming out of a pandemic, you know. Those two wonderful women that showed me how to bath my son, how to hold him, you know, how to cradle him in the right way, that was his first experience and he was being held by these women and passed to me and absolutely he loves his nanor and his grandma. Certainly the pandemic changed every way that we socialise with people but the good news is it doesn't seem that our children have been as impacted in terms of socialisation as we may have thought. There may be some, you know, hiccups for some children or some anxiety in returning to the classroom or going to preschool but it's not as bad as everyone thinks. At least that's what the research is showing us. The things that changed over COVID is that it freed us up a lot. What I think is kind of exciting about the time that we're in right now is that there used to be a lot of pressure to go to the music class and go to the dance class and go to do jamboree and do this that and the other thing and COVID made us realise, well wow, we're more flexible than we thought as, you know, a society. And I hope that some people maybe have learned. It's okay to say no. You know what? I'm tired. not going to jamboree today or realizing that they have to put their health first and then other things are going to go better, right? If you haven't slept, if your kid is not well, you need to step back from some things and get those things in order and then you'll be in a better place to go forward. So I think that we might even have more flexibility now in terms of understanding what we need to go forward. It's okay to say no every once in a while. It's okay to not go to every single swim lesson and music class. If your kid is exhausted, they don't learn anything in that particular class. So save yourself, save your time, save your energy for when it's the right time to do these things. And parents are so uniquely positioned to understand the signals from their kid on that day. COVID really did change the way we all operate on a social level. And one of the lasting effects of the pandemic has been the explosion of communication technologies like FaceTime and Zoom. Video calling was a vital tool for keeping in touch with friends and family members while we were stuck inside our homes. And it remains a big part of human socialization today. But questions have been raised over how much benefit there is for babies using screens as a socialization tool. I think screen time is actually okay as long as it is not out of control in terms of amount of time on there and the quality of the screen time. You know that there's actually a lot that children can learn from things that they're seeing on TV or through watching or speaking with people on screen. So for example, talking to grandparents over screen time, that's fantastic. I have a two and a half year old born during the pandemic. And there was a good period of many months there where he wasn't seeing his grandparents. And this was a way that we could connect. He could see them on screen. And actually when we were able to meet up with them again, he recognized them. And so that to me is just so telling. So yes, certainly opportunities to socialize and have conversations there. Now obviously attention span over two year old to a screen isn't huge and it's certainly easier to maintain attention if you are directly there face to face with them. But he learned so much from that. And I really do think that helped connection with grandparents during that time. We have run studies during COVID on could kids learn language over zoom. The answer is yes. And the answer everybody already knows it's not as great as life. It's just not. Is it impossible to teach over zoom? No. Is it ideal? No. Does it work when there's a global pandemic going on? Yeah, it works a little bit. It's not great data. I wouldn't recommend it as the only source of input. But it certainly feels a gap. And there's so many things to learn about social interactions like I talk and then you talk. It's a burst pause turn taking kind of thing. Kids have to learn that. And some people learn it better than others. The decision around screen time use in the home represents just one of the thousands of decisions parents need to make when raising a child. And that information can often be confusing and contradictory. At the end of the day, parents just want the best for their children and for them to grow up in a healthy social environment. A couple of months ago, I got a cold or feeling unwell and no one actually told you or prepared you for the fact that life still goes on when you're feeling unwell and you don't get to just kind of lie in bed and just let it pass. You still need to be really active and do things with her. But it means I need to sort of do it on a scale and need to stay inside and just kind of do it a little bit slower. So I think there's things like that that plans will change. I think the other thing is at the moment it's easier because I'm on a maternity leave. So it's easy for me to have that 100% focus around her. But when I go back to work, at the end of the 12 months, you know, that's going to be obviously a totally different sort of experience for the two of us as well in how we're going to sort of manage that. And so I think that that will obviously change the things that I'm able to do with her. But it's about then looking at, okay, what's the schedule going to be like based on being an organised structured person? How do I then incorporate things that can be fun things that we can do together? But it just might be at different times of the day or on the weekend or if I'm not working five days, but one day less. How do I make that day special with her to do some things? And it's all about having life experiences and things and memories with her. So I think it will be adjusting to what my schedule will allow, but making sure that again, you know, similar to now, but how do we mix both of our lives together to still be able to achieve what we both need to achieve and feel fulfilled by that? What are the most common challenges for parents to find those socialisation activities and where can parents go to actually get that information? So it depends on the parents' time and needs. Parent groups are amazing. Coming to the baby lab is amazing. But also doing things like if it makes you happier to be able to cross the errands off your list and take the kid to the grocery store, then you should do that. So again, it really is specific to the parent because the kid is along for the ride. What's the number one concern that you receive from parents in your field of research? Well, definitely in my field, I think the number one concern that I have been asked is where a parent is concerned about language development. They want to know, you know, is my child saying the right amount of words right now or my baby isn't babbling yet? Do you think that there is a sense that we need to change the way that our culture thinks about these senses of comparison and having a bit of relaxation around some of these achievements? Yes, I definitely do think that. We are in a very socially connected world. Everything is at our fingertips on our phones, on our computers, and we can find information in an instant. But there's also a lot of information and there's a lot of information out there that people are posting that lead us to make comparisons. So I think just remembering that generations and generations of children before us have been raised without parents having access to all these information. And everyone's pretty fine. Parenting is something that happens in a variety of cultures. And there's a huge variation in terms of what is typical and what is not typical. And so we all need to cut ourselves some slack. Like there was one time when I was lecturing, I was a new professor and I didn't want to cancel a lecture, but my kid was sick. So I put the kid in the sling and I lectured. And it turned out great. I had students that were in the class that came back to me afterwards and they said, you know, I've now had a kid and I think back to the fact that you lectured with that kid in the sling and that's great. And so those are the kinds of things where life has to go forward. You have a kid. It's a life changing thing, no doubt. But life also has to go forward. And we have to realize that there's days when you get like the super parent award. And there's days when you get the like worst parent award. And both of those things are going to happen and the kids are going to be okay. On the next episode of BabyLab, music obviously is very important in our family, which has been reflective in the names of our children. So my son Axel is named after one of the Swedish house mafia members, Axel. My son Kaga, he's named after Kaga the DJ. And our dog Biggie is also named after the rapper. It's a topic very close to my heart. We're exploring everything babies and music. That's next time on BabyLab. The BabyLab podcast is a listener production brought to you in partnership with the Marx BabyLab at Western Sydney University. Hosted by me, Emma Watkins, audio by Kelly Philston. Executive producer is Todd Stevens and producer is Thomas Dexton.