At about 12 months, as a child focuses her energy on the big developmental step of learning to walk, her emotional controls may be disrupted.
Suddenly she refuses to sleep and starts waking up in the night, as if to say, “I want to practice my walking!” She loses interest in food. Instead of whimpering, she screams for help. She falls apart easily.
Learning to walk extracts a price from everyone. Parents, whose sleep is wrecked, wonder, “What happened to our easygoing baby?” She’s still there, but she’s now on the verge of walking, and her frustration turns to angry demands.
If parents can see these changes as temporary, and as evidence of her passion for learning to walk, they’ll survive her outbursts and their loss of sleep.
Walking and `object permanence’
At 6 to 8 months, a baby learns “object permanence” — that an object or a person still exists when hidden from view.
Once she has mastered walking, she tries out the concept by “disappearing.”
Is she provoking her parents to see whether they’ll come to find her? She hungers for the reassurance of their limits now that she has discovered she can get away.
Separation acquires a new meaning for the toddler. Leaving her at the child-care center has been relatively easy up to this point. Now she cries and tries to follow her parents out the door.
Discipline is critical. Protests against separations, and the separations themselves, are made safer by parents’ limits. Explain to her that you are going, but you’ll be back. Leave her with someone she cares about, then leave.
From this age on, a child experiences many feelings that can’t be satisfied. Parents will find it increasingly trying — and necessary — to hear the child out, and then to help her accept that she can’t always have her way.
How Parents Can Help
1. Walking is an early form of self-assertion, so your child is bound to resist efforts to make her go somewhere she is not prepared to go. She’s likelier to come along if you prepare her for transitions. At 12 months, she’ll need only a few minutes’ warning.
2. Allow her to practice her new skill day and night. There’s no stopping a baby who’s about to walk. She’ll pull herself up on the couch, the coffee table, the bathtub, the crib rail or anything within reach. Watch out!
3. Practice with her. Let her grasp your hands and toddle along with her — it’s back-breaking, but also exciting for both of you.
4. Teach her how to control herself — with a lovey or her thumb. When she calms down on her own, tell her how proud you are.
5. Discipline and boundaries comfort her. Let her know that you can’t accept screaming and wailing — even if you have to help her soothe herself. She will learn that self-control is her achievement.
This article is adapted from “Mastering Anger and Aggression,” by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D., published by Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndicate, 620 8th Ave., 5th floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn-families(at)nytimes.com. The (at) represents the symbol on your keyboard. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column, which may be posted on a Families Today Web site or collected in book form. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.
Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.
Dr. Brazelton heads the Brazelton Touchpoints Project, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is director of Special Initiatives at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.
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