Communicating

“And he sailed off through night and day…to where the wild things are.”

May 17, 2012

Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.

This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications on May 13, 2012.

In 1981, I wrote a term paper for a college course on children’s literature.  I was so fascinated and absorbed by the topic that I had to set time limits on how long I would work on it, so I could focus on other courses. Don’t get me wrong; I liked my other courses. But nothing compared to delving into the creative mind of Maurice Sendak.

Perhaps some of my intrigue came from not meeting the Wild Things until I was a student teacher in college. The preschoolers in our campus nursery school would find any Sendak book on the shelf, as if there was a secret child magnet sewn into the binding. Then they would find me, and tug on my hand until I stopped whatever I was doing, and plop happily into my lap to hear their favorite stories. In my younger, more flexible years, I could fit three children in my lap and tuck another two in under my arms. Together we would venture Into the Night Kitchen, or sail with Max in and out of a day and over a year to Where the Wild Things Are. They could read them again and again. So could I. 

Can You Hear Me Now?

April 30, 2012

Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.

This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications on March 4, 2012.

Diaper Changing Dialogues

November 20, 2011

Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.

This article was originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications on November 13, 2011.

A few years ago, I was talking with my best friend from graduate school days. (Our children were infants during those years, but are now married men.)  We were pondering research and language development theories suggesting direct, face-to-face, responsive language with infants and young children is essential for optimizing these aspects of early development.

“Shhh, I think someone just said my name!”

October 31, 2011

Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.

Portions of this article were originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications on October 30, 2011.

Have you ever been in a crowded room and heard your name in the flow of background conversations?  Researchers call this common phenomena the cocktail party effect.  Even though infants are not regulars at the local bar, they are primed for the cocktail party effect from a very young age.  But of course, there’s a catch.

The Story’s the Thing

May 07, 2010

By Catherine Connors

My mother was and still is an inveterate teller of tall tales, especially in conversation with children. She delights in the wide-eyed fascination of children with all things fantastic, and decided very early in her career as a mother that it was part of her job to keep the eyes of her own children and those of any children who accidentally wandered into range of hearing as wide as possible.

Accordingly, I grew up in a home in which it seemed entirely possible that there were sea creatures living in the plumbing and gnomes hiding in the closets. There were fairies and elves and imps and other magical creatures in the woods behind our house, and they lived in harmony with the animals there – the squirrels and birds that I saw every day, and the raccoons and skunks that I saw less often but knew well from the tracks in our backyard, tracks that my mother was very careful to point out and explain as evidence of the late-night forest creature moondances that occurred a few times each month. I knew that the forest creatures maintained harmony in their community through the frequent town-hall meetings that they held in a mossy stump – I knew this because my mother showed me exactly where they all sat during these meetings and held up various broken twigs and branches (used as benches) as evidence. I knew that I should never, ever pick toadstools, because if I did so I would be destroying the shelter of the littlest creatures of the forest.

I also knew that my sister and I came from a cabbage patch, and that if we unscrewed our bellybuttons, our bums would fall off. When I got old enough to start doubting these tales, I would confront my mother upon each telling: are you telling me a story?

Of course I am, my darling, she'd reply. But that doesn't mean that I'm not telling you the truth.