Imagine time-traveling back to when you were a toddler. Everything is entrancing—a bubble bath, the dishwasher soap box, the dirt and bugs in your backyard. You are just cracking the language barrier and finally (yes!) traveling on your own two feet. Passionate to sail into life, you are also intensely connected to that number-one adult in your life. So, during our second year on this planet, the two agendas that make us human first emerge: We need to be closely connected, and we want to be free, autonomous selves. This is why Erik Erikson (1950) used the descriptive word autonomy to describe children’s challenge as they emerge from the cocoon of babyhood (see Table 4.2).

Autonomy involves everything from the thrill a 2-year-old feels when forming his first sentences, to the delight children have in dressing themselves. But it also involves those not-so-pleasant traits we associate with the “terrible twos.” Overwhelmed by these classic 2-year-old meltdowns, in one study, 1 in 3 parents labeled their child as having behavior problems that were “off the charts” (Schellinger & Talmi, 2013). This may be a misperception, as Figure 4.8 below shows. Difficulties “listening” and angry outbursts (Barry & Kochanska, 2010) are normal during that magic age when children’s life passion is to explore the world (recall Piaget’s little scientist behaviors).

125

Erikson used the words shame and doubt to refer to the situation when a toddler’s drive for autonomy is not fulfilled. But feeling shameful and doubtful is also vital to shedding babyhood and entering the human world. During their first year of life, infants show joy, fear, and anger. At age 2, more complicated, uniquely human emotions emerge—pride and shame. The appearance of these self-conscious emotions is a milestone—showing that a child is becoming aware of having a self. The gift (and sometimes curse) of being human is that we are capable of self-reflection, able to get outside of our heads and observe our actions from an outsider’s point of view. Children show signs of this uniquely human quality between age 2 and 3, when they feel ashamed and clearly are proud of their actions for the first time (Kagan, 1984).

Shame and pride are vital in another respect. They are essential to socialization—being taught to live in the human community.

Parents begin socializing their children by making requests such as “eat that cookie,” as early as 6 months of age. There are cultural differences, with Indian mothers giving their babies more instructions and getting higher rates of compliance than do U.S. moms (Reddy and others, 2013).

When does the U.S. socialization pressure heat up? For answers, developmentalists surveyed middle-class parents about their rules for their 14-month-olds and when the children just turned 2 (Smetana, Kochanska, & Chuang, 2000). While rules for younger toddlers centered on safety issues (“Stay away from the stove!”), by age 2, parents were telling their children to “share,” “sit at the table,” and “don’t disobey, bite, or hit.” Therefore, we expect children to begin to act “like adults” around their second birthdays. No wonder 2-year-olds are infamous for those tantrums called “the terrible twos”!

Figure 4.8 shows just how difficult it is for 1-year-olds to follow socialization rules when their parents are around. When do children have the capacity to follow unwanted directions when a parent isn’t in the room? To answer this question related to early conscience—the ability to adopt internal standards for our behavior, or have that little voice inside us that says, “even though I want to do this, it’s wrong”—researchers devised an interesting procedure. Accompanied by their mothers, children enter a laboratory full of toys. Next, the parent gives an unwelcome instruction—telling the child either to clean up the toys or not to touch another easily reachable set of enticing toys. Then, the mother leaves the room, and researchers watch the child through a one-way mirror.

Not unexpectedly, children’s ability to “listen to a parent in their head” and stop doing what they want improves dramatically from age 2 to 4 (Kochanska, Coy, & Murray, 2001). Still, the really interesting question is: Who is better or worse at this feat of self-control?

Again, the marked differences in self-control that emerge during toddlerhood (or even earlier) have genetic roots (Wang & Saudino, 2013; Gartstein and others, 2013). Some of us are biologically better able to resist temptation at any age! Parenting matters, too. While having a responsive mother seems most important at promoting compliance during toddlerhood, a father’s warmth weighs heavily at older ages (Lickenbrock and others, 2013; Schueler & Prinz, 2013). So dad’s socializing influence—at least in traditional two-parent families—is important, but mainly when children move beyond the clear-cut attachment zone.

126

What temperamental traits provoke early compliance? Here the answer comes as no surprise. Fearful toddlers are more obedient (Aksan & Kochanska, 2004; see also the How Do We Know box). Exuberant, joyful, fearless, intrepid toddler-explorers are especially hard to socialize! (See Kochanska & Knaack, 2003.)

Adam [was a vigorous, happy baby who] began walking at 9 months. From then on, it seemed as though he could never stop.

(10 months) Adam . . . refuses to be carried anywhere. . . . He trips over objects, falls down, bumps himself.

(12 months) The word osside appears. . . . Adam stands by the door, banging at it and repeating this magic word again and again.

(19 months) Adam begins attending a toddler group. . . . The first day, Adam climbs to the highest rung of the climbing structure and falls down. . . . The second day, Adam upturns a heavy wooden bench. . . . The fourth day, the teacher [devastates Adam’s mother] when she says, “I think Adam is not ready for this.”

. . .

(13 months) (Erin begins to talk in sentences the same week as she takes her first steps.) . . . Rather suddenly, Erin becomes quite shy. . . . She cries when her mother leaves the room, and insists on following her everywhere.

(15 months) Erin and her parents go to the birthday party of a little friend. . . . For the first half-hour, Erin stays very close to her mother, intermittently hiding her face on her mother’s skirt.

127

(18 months) Erin’s mother takes her to a toddlers’ gym. Erin watches the children . . . with a “tight little face.” . . . Her mother berates herself for raising such a timid child.

(Lieberman, 1993, pp. 83–87, 104–105)

Observe any group of 1-year-olds and you will immediately pick out the Erins and the Adams. Some children are wary and shy. Others are whirlwinds of activity, constantly in motion, bouncing off the walls. I remember my own first toddler group at the local Y, when—just like Adam’s mother—I first realized how different my exuberant son was from the other children his age. After enduring the horrified expressions of the other mothers as Thomas whirled gleefully around the room while everyone else sat obediently for a snack, I came home and cried. How was I to know that the very qualities that made my outgoing, joyous, vital baby so charismatic during his first year of life might go along with his being so difficult to tame?

The classic longitudinal studies tracing children with shy temperaments have been carried out by Jerome Kagan. Kagan (1994; see also Degnan, Almas, & Fox, 2010) classifies about 1 in 5 middle-class European American toddlers as inhibited. Although they are comfortable in familiar situations, these 1-year-olds, like Erin, get nervous when confronted with anything new. Inhibited 13-month-olds shy away from approaching a toy robot, a clown, or an unfamiliar person. They take time to venture out in the Strange Situation, get agitated when the stranger enters, and cry bitterly when their parent leaves the room.

This tendency to be inhibited is also moderately “genetic” (Smith and others, 2012), and we can get clues to its appearance very early in life. At 4 months of age, toddlers destined to be inhibited excessively fret and cry (Moehler and others, 2008; Marysko and others, 2010). At 9 months of age, they are less able to ignore distracting stimuli such as flashing lights or background noise. Their attention wanders to any off-topic, irrelevant unpleasant event (Pérez-Edgar and others, 2010a).

Inhibited toddlers are more prone to be fearful throughout childhood (Degnan, Almas, & Fox, 2010). They overfocus on threatening stimuli in their teens (Pérez-Edgar and others, 2010a). This temperamental sensitivity to threat shows up in adult life. Using brain scans, Kagan’s research team found that his inhibited toddlers, now as young adults, showed more activity in the part of the brain coding negative emotions when shown a stranger’s face on a screen (Schwartz and others, 2003). So for all of you formerly very shy people (your author included) who think you have shed that childhood wariness, you still carry your physiology inside.

Still, if you think you have come a long way in conquering your incredible childhood shyness, you are probably correct. Many anxious toddlers (and exuberant explorers) get less inhibited as they move into elementary school and the teenage years (Degnan, Almas, & Fox, 2010; Pérez-Edgar and others, 2010b).

129

In following the difficult babies into elementary school, the researchers found that intense infants were more likely to have problems with their teachers and peers (Thomas & Chess, 1977; Thomas, Chess, & Birch, 1968). However, some children learned to compensate for their biology and to shine. The key, the researchers discovered, lay in a parenting strategy labeled goodness of fit. Parents who carefully arranged their children’s lives to minimize their vulnerabilities and accentuate their strengths had infants who later did well.

Understanding that their child was overwhelmed by stimuli, these parents kept the environment calm. They did not get hysterical when faced with their child’s distress. They may have offered a quiet environment for studying and encouraged their child to do activities that took advantage of his or her talents. They went overboard to provide their child with a placid, nurturing, low-stress milieu.

Here, too, emerging genetic studies suggest these parents were right. Again, researchers find that children may be genetically predisposed to be reactive or relatively immune to environmental events (Ellis and others, 2011a). In typical settings, sensitive babies can be labeled “difficult” because they are wired to react negatively to changes. These same infants however, may flourish when the environment is exceptionally calm (for review, see Belsky & Pleuss, 2009). In fact, in one study, when “environment reactive” children were put in a nurturing, placid environment, they performed better than their laid-back peers (Obradovic´, Burt & Masten, 2010)!

I must emphasize that this genetically oriented research is in its infancy. Each study I’ve highlighted in this chapter has targeted a different environment-reactive marker gene! But the lesson here is that making assumptions about the enduring importance of infant attachment, categorizing poverty and full-time day care as universal stressors, or, in this case, labeling a baby (or person) as “difficult” or “easy” may not be appropriate. With the right person–environment fit, what looks like a liability might be a gift!

How can we promote goodness of fit, or person–environment fit, at every stage of life? What happens to babies who are shy or exuberant, difficult or easy, as they journey into elementary school and adolescence? How do Ainsworth’s attachment styles play out in adult romance? Stay tuned for answers to these questions in the rest of this book.

Question 4.10

1. Amanda wants to be independent, yet closely attached.

2. Amanda is beginning to show signs of self-awareness and can possibly feel shame.

3. Amanda’s parents haven’t begun to discipline her yet.

c. Parents typically start serious discipline around age 2.

Question 4.11

You might tell him that most children grow out of their shyness, even if they do not completely shed this temperamental tendency. But be sure to stress the advantages of being shy: His baby will be easier to socialize, not likely to be a behavior problem, and may have a stronger conscience, too.

Question 4.12

These answers will be totally your own.