I was so delighted when Ellen Galinsky first asked me to contribute to her Mind in the Making project, and am thrilled to have her share my research on infant and child development and that of my colleagues as broadly as possible.

— T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., Harvard Medical School and Brazelton Touchpoints Center

Taking On Challenges

The following articles are about Taking On Challenges:

Helping Your Toddler Take on Challenges Without Going Crazy

Featured article

June 17, 2010

By Morra Aarons-Mele

Joseph Campos explains that the role of a parent or caregiver’s non-verbal communication can help your child guide his behavior in an uncertain context. That’s how we learn the rules. How we communicate affects how our child approaches challenges. In his famous “Visual Cliff” experiment, Campos illustrates how babies either forge ahead with a challenge, or hold back, depending on their parent’s facial feedback. Placed on a raised platform, a baby is faced with a “visual” cliff of plexiglass. He is hesitant to crawl over the “cliff,” even to reach an appetizing toy. If his parent gives him an encouraging look or gesture, however, the baby is much more likely to take on the challenge and crawl over the “cliff.” Parents of babies and toddlers face versions of the visual cliff every day. Sometimes, we need to use every available expression and piece of language to prevent experimentation (if, for example, your kid is approaching the stove). But often, the non-verbal interplay between parent and child encourages new learning. 

 

 
My toddler is learning every single second of the day: it’s beautiful and exhausting to experience. I want to encourage his learning but I am also scared he will hurt himself! My life is a constant balance between encouraging experimentation (pretending I’m not anxiously hovering over my son to make sure he’s safe) and making sure he’s safe.
 
Thankfully, not everything Ace does is dangerous; sometimes his interests are merely curious. Recently, he’s been obsessed with snapping shut plastic buckles (for example, on a swim vest). He can’t open them yet, however, so Mom or Dad have to be on standby to open the buckle, as you can see in this video. And sometimes, buckle-learning can last for a half hour!
 
Thanks to my immersion in Campos’ research, though, I know it’s my job not to show annoyance or exasperation when Ace wants his buckle undone for the 87th time. Mastering the fine motor skills of snapping shut plastic buckles is Ace’s challenge of the moment, and he is very immersed in its mastery. And it certainly doesn’t hurt anyone! 
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Skill: Taking On Challenges
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As baby steps become giant leaps

Featured article

May 03, 2010

By Julie Marsh

My younger daughter lost her first tooth last week.

This is the same daughter who will start kindergarten in August, who’s been riding a bike without training wheels since Thanksgiving, who proudly identifies sight words and spends hours painstakingly creating works of art with any craft supplies she can find. The same daughter who was a newborn when we moved to Colorado, who screamed instead of speaking for her first three years, who consistently hit developmental milestones late and drove me to bury my copies of “What to Expect…” on the basement bookshelves.

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Skill: Perspective Taking
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Why I Am Concerned About Learning

Featured article

April 16, 2010

by Ellen Galinsky

Curiosity, according to Laura Schulz of MIT, is fueled by having two ideas that are at odds with each other.  Her research shows that when this happens, children typically will explore and experiment until they figure things out. That’s my story too. Having two images of learning that disturbingly conflicted with each other has led to eight years of exploration—so far.
 
The first image was from interviews I conducted with children a few years ago as background for a study we were planning on children and learning. In my travels around the country, I interviewed groups of children from the third through the twelfth grades, asking them about their experiences in learning—at home, in their neighborhoods, in school, in church, anywhere. Despite the fact that these children came from very different backgrounds and communities—they told me very similar stories.
 
They described learning as “learning stuff”—as the acquisition of facts, figures, and concepts. The learning experiences they described were primarily imposed—and their motivation was primarily extrinsic rather than also being intrinsic. 
 
I asked the children to finish this sentence: “It is important to learn so I can….”  And the children I interviewed all over the country said:
 
Get good grades.
Go to good schools.
Get a good job.
Support myself—have a good house—have a nice car.
 
Their reasons echo those of 81,499 students in a nationwide study conducted by the High School Survey of Youth Engagement from the University of Indiana. When asked why they go to school, 73% said because they want to get a degree and go to college, 69% said because of their friends, and 58% said because it’s the law. 
These are valid reasons, but there’s a major problem, too. In the High School Survey, only 39% said they go to school to learn. Likewise, I heard little connection to learning in the children I interviewed. Even worse, I found that there was little, if any, fire in their eyes when they talked about learning.
 
So I pushed. I asked children to finish the sentence, “When I am learning, I feel….” Those few children who had experienced a broader connection to learning said things like:
 

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Skill: Focus and Self Control
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It’s Toddlers on the Loose! The Challenging Transition from Baby to Toddler

Featured article

April 15, 2010

by Morra Aarons Mele

The leap to toddlerhood is both thrilling and upsetting for a parent. Your baby clearly has a mind of his own: you can see the wheels turning in his head 24-7. Little babies are cute but their repertoire is limited. But for a toddler, each day brings something new to learn. 

As a young parent working with Ellen Galinsky on Mind in the Making, I sometimes take the life skills to heart a little too much. 

For instance, I breathlessly reported to Ellen that my 14 month old was clearly making connections: when he heard a phone ring, or even the sound of my text message chiming, he put his hand to his ear to mimic the phone. I was so proud of my clearly brilliant son and his ability to make rather abstract connections for one his age: connecting the bell of an incoming text message with talking on the phone. Literally the same day I bragged to Ellen, my husband called to tell me our son had an ear infection and that’s why he was touching his ear!! The mommy guilt I felt was astounding. 

But mostly, using the skills in Mind in the Making gives me more joy and patience as a mom. It’s almost as if I have a new language with which to interpret my son’s needs. 

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Skill: Focus and Self Control
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Crawling Over a Cliff?

Watch experiments

March 16, 2010

 By Amy McCampbell

Last year, the Sears Tower (or, as it’s known by its new name, the Willis Tower) unveiled a glass balcony on its 103rd floor. Visitors get to creep about four feet out from the building…and 1,353 feet high above the city of Chicago.

Some of us on the Mind in the Making team were talking about and just how much it reminded us of an experiment we filmed, UC Berkeley Professor Joe Campos’ Visual Cliff. In it, a baby is placed on a large box that’s covered by a piece of clear plexi-glass. Halfway across, there’s what looks like a drop, though it’s clearly safe to cross thanks to the sturdy platform. On the opposite side of the platform is the baby’s mom, either making a smiling face (signaling to the baby that it’s okay to cross), or a fearful face (which tells the baby to stay put).

You can watch the experiment here.

The experiment is so powerful… you can really see the babies reading their parents to try to figure out what to do.

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Skill: Communicating
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Daily Kid



Here is a list of Mind in the Making researchers and educators filmed to date

Community Schools: “Mind in the Making and Community Schools: Crossing Boundaries and Creating Strong Linkages for Children Birth through Eight and their Families,” is a collaborative project with The Children’s Aid Society’s National Center for Community Schools and the Institute for Educational Leadership. (Read more)

Learning Communities: Throughout the country, groups of parents, educators, and other family support and health professionals have joined together to learn more about the research on children’s learning from birth through the early elementary school years, and about how to use this research to promote better outcomes for children. (Read more)

Learning Modules for Educators: Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Educators is an 11-part, facilitated learning process designed to bridge the gap between research and teaching practice. (Read more)

Seven Skills Modules: We have created new Modules from the book, called the Mind in the Making Seven Essential Skills Modules. (Read more)

Experiments in Children's Learning DVD: This two-volume series of 42 videos take viewers on a series of virtual “field trips” to laboratories in the U.S. and abroad. (Read more)
View a crosswalk of the experiments to the seven essential life skills

Download a companion Catalogue to Mind in the Making: Experiments in Children's Learning

Have you seen the Marshmallow Test?

What does eating marshmallows have to do with how your kid does on the SAT?
Watch the video

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