Offer Both Breasts at Each Feeding for Equal Amounts of Time

myth

If you are breast-feeding, you must always offer both breasts at each feeding for equal amounts of time.

reality
It’s more important to let your baby fi nish with one breast first, even if that means she doesn’t take the second breast at the same feeding.

the facts

Each time you breast-feed, you produce different types of milk. Foremilk is the initial breast milk that a baby drinks when she nurses at the beginning of a feeding. It resembles skim milk — high in volume but low in fat and calories. As the feeding progresses, the fat content of your breast milk increases and it begins to more closely resemble whole milk. Finally, toward the end of the feeding, your baby drinks hind milk, which is highest in calories and fat, and low in volume.

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Babies Who Breast-feed Very Often

myth
Babies who breast - feed very often probably aren’t getting enough milk.

reality
The frequency of feedings is not an indicator of whether or not your baby is getting enough breast milk.

the facts

If you are feeding on demand, which many pediatricians and breast - feeding advocates recommend, then you might feel that your baby is constantly at the breast and you may worry that he’s not getting enough milk. But assuming you have developed a steady supply of milk, that you aren’t limiting feeding times, and that your baby is latching on to the breast correctly, it’s likely that he’s simply having a classic growth spurt. The more you feed him, the more milk you will naturally produce for his growing appetite!

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The Truth About Feeding and Nourishing Your Child

My oldest child ’ s fi rst solid food was not an organic apple slice, a calcium - rich cheese stick, or free - range chicken. It was a half - sour pickle. Perhaps after all that milk, she was looking for something with a little zing. One friend had a baby who loved licking slices of lemon and lime. Another had a toddler who preferred “ spicy ” water (sparkling mineral water or seltzer) over fl at, and salad greens dressed with garlicky olive oil. All these children, like millions of others, then proceeded to go through the “ picky eater ” phase, but managed to survive, thrive, and eventually expand their culinary horizons beyond fi sh sticks.

Your decision on what and how to feed your child starts before birth, when you are still pregnant and your child is being nourished in the womb. Once your baby comes into the world, you ’ ll choose breast - or bottle - feeding. You ’ ll make decisions on types of milk and formula, baby foods, solid foods, snacks, beverages, and much more. You ’ ll also get lots and lots of advice, funny looks, and criticism if you do things a certain way. But if you can separate out the fi ction from the facts, on topics ranging from breast - feeding to food allergies, you ’ ll be able to feed your child with confidence, even if he insists on dropping his spoon from his high chair just to watch you pick it up. Here, then, are some of the most popular misconceptions — and facts to set you straight — about feeding your baby and young child.

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How can I encourage ravenous curiosity in my kids?

Think of curiosity as the link between wonder and understanding.Wonder s the “wow” moment: “Wow, look at all the stars!” “Wow, look at the way that chameleon changes colors!” Curiosity is the next step—the desire to understand: “How do the stars keep burning?” “ How many stars are there?” “How does the chameleon do that?”

If curiosity is what you’re after, your main goal in responding to a question shouldn’t be giving the answer. In some cases, an immediate answer can even extinguish curiosity.What you want is to keep the questions coming, day after day, year after year. To do that, you want first and foremost to make the child feel that questioning itself is a fun and rewarding thing to do. Adding some appropriate praise—“What a great question!”—makes it clear that you see questioning itself as a neat thing to do.

If you don’t know the answer, leap on the opportunity to say so! In so doing, you can join the child in the search for an answer, modeling curiosity at every step. Tell her that you’d like to know the answer yourself. Ask if she has any guesses and offer some of your own before you look it up.

Best of all, model your own curiosity: “I wonder if fish sleep.” “I wonder why light goes faster than sound.” “I wonder what it’s like outside of the universe.” Doesn’t matter whether you have the answers or even whether there are answers. Just let your kids catch you being curious and they’ll surely follow your lead.

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Social Competence in Children

Social competence is an ability to take another’s perspective concerning a situation and to learn from past experience and apply that learning to the ever-changing social landscape. The ability to respond flexibly and appropriately defines a person’s ability to handle the social challenges that are presented to us all. Social competence is the foundation upon which expectations for future interactions with others are built and upon which children develop perceptions of their own behavior. Social experiences are intimately connected to emotional competence. It is rare that social competence is present without appropriate emotional functioning also present.

The concept of social competence frequently encompasses additional constructs such as social skills, social communication, and interpersonal communication. Social skills assume that these are behaviors that are repeatable and goal-directed (Spitzberg, 2003). Social interaction assumes that the goal can be accomplished through interaction with another person using language and nonverbal communication. These skills are also thought to be goal-directed. In addition to behaviors, social competence requires correct perception of the social interaction. This perception also encompasses motivation and knowledge on how to perform the skill. Without appropriate perception the motivation and ability to do the skill will not result in socially appropriate actions. Similarly without motivation, the skill will not be performed.

Social experience rests on the foundation of parent–child and peer relationships and is important in the later development of prosocial behaviors. Attachment of an infant to the mother is important for the development of later social competence (Greenberg et al., 1993; Speltz et al., 1999; van IJzendoorn, 1997). This attachment helps the infant to learn that the world is predictable and trustworthy or in less healthy instances that it is capricious and cruel. The foundation of the attachment bond allows the child to venture out from his/her mother to try new experiences and new interactions. Thus, the child brings a set of biologically determined aspects (or temperament) to the environment and the environment works on these aspects to modify and adjust to the biology. In turn the child’s temperament also influences the environment. Dodge (1986) conceptualizes social competence as an interaction between the environment and a set of biologically determined abilities. These biologically determined abilities may partially account for social difficulties frequently experienced by children with developmental disorders.

The concept of social competence frequently encompasses additional constructs such as social skills, social communication, and interpersonal communication.

Relationships also differ within context. Social communication between husband and wives, brothers and sisters, friends, and other relationships vary depending on the social interaction. Skills valued in one relationship are not appropriate in another. The situation in which the interaction takes place is also important. Situations differ in type varying from casual to intimate and formal to informal. Behaviors in one setting are not
appropriate in another—the inability to be flexible depending on the context often contributes to social competence difficulties. Finally the function is important. Spitzberg (2003) states “communication does rather than just is” (p. 96). He uses the example that assertive behavior may be appropriate in one situation but not when trying to obtain something else such as affection or comfort.
When behaviors do not match the context and the child does not understand this mismatch, the child or adult often has difficulties relating to others. The example cited early in this chapter was of a child who literally translates language and reacts inappropriately to this miscommunication. It is not uncommon for these children to have difficulties with their peers and they are very often evaluated and found to have one or more psychiatric diagnoses. The following section discusses one way of understanding social difficulties.

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The rise of provisional truths

What we know of the inner world of children and their parents is what we learn by listening to them. We shall hardly understand them if we look at them from the outside and seek objective measures. We can only try to recognise what is happening if we approach them as sensible subjects making meaning of their lives. The same goes for the performances of child welfare agents. We shall only learn about child welfare work if we acknowledge professionals as human agents who try to do a significant job in helping their clients.

The world is rapidly changing with new truths and paradigms. Society is no longer dominated by clearly defined categories of social class, sex and age, and normative dichotomies of good and bad, black and white, and sick and healthy (Foucault, 1982). These categorisations have not only been contested and lost their previous authority; rather, the whole mechanism of social control by categorisation would seem to be under review and individuals rather than groups are these days at the centre of the guidelines of social policy. People follow their own course and are not determined by the grand narratives. Change and multiformity have become positive values (Lyotard, 1984) and people are judged on their acquired rather than on their traditional roles. The existent is put into perspective by the understanding that everything might have been different; the world is contingent and our understanding is ambivalent. There is no underlying, objective truth to be sought in everyday human affairs. ‘Truth’ is unmasked as the product of our activities and observations.

A constructive approach may lead to multiformity and qualification, but there is also the danger that it can easily lead to relativism and the pessimistic idea that there is nothing beyond a fragmented world, while local and temporary descriptions offer no coherent account by which one can structure everyday life. Constructivist descriptions are local and provisional, but within this context there is no reason why they should not be coherent and useful. Fay (1996) proposes a critical intersubjectivity that allows for the description and discussion of different theories of observation of all kinds of phenomena, in an ‘ongoing dialogue among rival inquirers each of whom accepts to understand the others in a manner genuinely open to the possibility that their views may have merits’ (p 213). ‘Reality’ as we perceive it is constantly changing, but that does not mean that a provisional truth cannot be found in local configurations. Constructivism does not negate the idea of the subject, nor does it imply the futility of all hopes of realising social coherence. It is rather the acknowledgment that people start from different historical backgrounds and try to forge meaningful communities without anyone having the right to assert the priority or authority of any of the choices that are made.

This view has consequences for the way we look at development, at raising children, at the source of family problems and at how to solve them. The following chapters are concerned with continuity and discontinuity in child development and parenthood, and with the attempts by child welfare agencies to restore continuity. A constructivist and dialogical view of child welfare is allied to a critical and problematising approach with regard to the ‘facts’ and ‘certainties’ about these lives and relationships in families with problems. People construct their interpretations of reality in daily interactions, their relationship with the child welfare agent being a salient example. That is why this book pays particular attention to the dialogical character of the helping relationship. In this context, the term ‘constructive’ refers to the fact that there is no single, optimal way to carry out child welfare with perfect strategies and techniques, but rather that child welfare is a productive and positive process in which new narratives may help clients to restore the continuity in their lives (Parton and O’Byrne, 2000).

Parents and children often have a long history of relational disappointment, family problems and social isolation. The child’s first confrontation with child welfare is the start of a period with new breaches and interventions. I start from the idea that there is no single solution for all the problems that families face, for the difficulties of child welfare agents or for the problems that child welfare agencies are confronted with in their efforts to organise family interventions in a professional manner. Neither there is one ideal interactive pattern between parents and children, between professionals and clients and among professionals themselves (compare Hall and Slembrouck, 2009). Pursuing the single, optimal strategy, intervention or communication would be a risky approach that would be more likely to create new problems than to solve them. Agency – whether of individual children, their parents or child welfare workers and their agencies – cannot be perfect. Just as children need ‘good enough’ parents, society needs a ‘good enough’ child welfare practice.

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Dialogue - Where human development begins.

Human development begins in dialogue, children learning to organise their world through interaction with others. Children need a responsive environment in order to develop agency at different levels. Only then do they learn to become active participants in everyday life. Parenting demands both acknowledgment and restriction of the child. Child rearing is a social undertaking that depends on suitable dialogical conditions in family proximity and in the wider society. People emphasise their individuality by speaking for themselves, but at the same time bind themselves to the order of the language and the symbols they use in speech. The use of symbols enables people to create distance from reality and from bystanders, and to take a position vis-à-vis each other. They can see the past as past and project themselves into the future.

A person’s experience of reality has both cognitive and affective components that mutually act on each other. On the one hand, what a person feels about another person or situation is in part determined by prior (assumed) knowledge of that person or situation. On the other hand, people cannot know the world in an objective way because the world always primarily affects us in one way or another (Mooij, 2010). People do not look at something or somebody, but they aim for something and long for someone. How we think cannot be divorced from what we think.

To become a member of a society, one has to speak the language of the culture. Language is not just an instrument for describing reality; it is something we use to help us understand reality, to grasp it and to construct new meanings from what we see and believe to be ‘out there’ beyond ourselves. With words, people give meaning to themselves, their lives and their relationships. As soon as people talk with each other, they create and recreate a common condition. It is the exchange of meanings rather than language per se that counts. For people to understand each other and to achieve intersubjectivity, they have to transcend their personal worlds. This demands mutual presentation, an acceptance of roles (Rommetveit, 1984) and a framework. Identity, rather than having an immutable core, is a social representation that constantly changes as a result of negotiations in exchanges with other people (Grossen and Salazar Orvig, 1998). In dialogues, feelings are verbalised and identities presented to other people. The outcomes are negotiable rather than predetermined; different personal and general views are attuned in an effort to reach a common understanding about what the world is like. The rules of society that constrain and direct people in their speech and activities form the framework that makes it possible for people to understand each other. People show their acceptance of societal rules by adhering to them and as such are aware of the consequences of their behaviour (Duintjer, 1977). Each speaking person is a continuation of societal life from a unique position in time and space. In this way, the individual confirms the survival and embodiment of society.

Children become members of society when they begin to use its language and symbols. Through speech, they become subject to societal rules and regulations and acknowledge other people’s individual positions. They talk a common language rather than a private one, one that had its existence before they were born and will remain unaffected by their death. Any self-expression in language therefore has an aspect of alienation, but at the same time, it is an acknowledgement of social ties. In their use of a common language, people transcend their individual situation and share an understanding – an understanding that is, however, provisional rather than fixed, an ongoing process of generating and exchanging new meanings. In different contexts, the individual takes other positions that may be the opposite of a previous position or mutually reinforcing. Changing meta-positions rather than one central overarching position help the individual to organise the relationship between these various positions (Gergen and Gergen, 1983; Sampson, 1985; Hermans and van Kempen, 1993).

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