Baby Buddy Movie – Developing Social Intelligence

As the little guys in this brief video demonstrate, there is nothing more intriguing to babies than other babies. Infants learn a great deal from each other, especially when allowed to engage spontaneously — to play and socialize their way.  Yet free play between infants is routinely discouraged and interrupted because it doesn’t look “nice” or “polite” to an adult’s eye. If we could enter our...

See Baby Learn – One Boy, Many Experiments (On Video)

Babies are natural self-learners. Well-rested, fed, emotionally nurtured, and in the absence of intense teething pain or other discomfort, even the youngest infants are curious explorers. All babies need is a safe, peaceful environment, some basic objects to examine (unnecessary until they are 3 or 4 months old) and many opportunities throughout the day to move freely and make their own choices without our...

RIE Parenting Bliss (A Brief Glimpse)

This two-minute video gem (uncovered by my clever husband Mike) illustrates the immediate benefits of independent play (a cornerstone of RIE parenting) far better than any of the thirty or so articles I’ve posted on the subject.  I’m humbled and thrilled to share this slice of parenting heaven. It’s reminiscent of scenes I often witnessed with my own children when they were small. Michael Caulder, the dad...

Please Don’t Take The Babies (Respecting Infant/Toddler Readiness)

Dear Janet I’m not a parent so my question has a different angle, but I was still hoping for your opinion and advice. I work in a childcare centre where I am the primary caregiver of 5 infants and toddlers varying between the ages of 3 months and 2 years. Our centre plans a trip once a year where all the children on our roll go on an excursion that fits with the current interests of the children (somewhat!). This...

Toddler Readiness – The Beauty Of Waiting

When my daughter was 2 ¾ she told me she wanted to ride a merry-go-round. I never figured out where she got the idea, but she loved books and must have seen a merry-go-round somewhere in one of them. We picked a day to visit the classic carousel on the Santa Monica Pier and talked about it for days ahead of time. We imagined the experience – choosing a horse, the music, fastening seatbelts, riding up and down,...

A Jolly Toddler Holiday – 3 Ways To Enrich The Experience

Hi Janet, My son is 28 months, and this is the first year I think he’ll have a lot of questions about Christmas.  My parents are already asking what Santa should bring him, and it’s prompted me to think about how I might position this mythical character in a developmentally appropriate way that embraces the spirit of Santa, doesn’t feel like I’m lying to him or that I will have to burst his...

Babies And The Art Of Observation

Infant and toddler observation is a central element of infant expert Magda Gerber’s philosophy and is the focus of our parent/infant classes, but I haven’t written about it much. Why? “Observing babies” has always sounded a little cold and scientific to me, and I worry it might be misinterpreted, even off-putting.  But I’ve seen time and again how invaluable, fascinating and amusing it can be to get the...

Baby, You Are Born To Play

I really didn’t think it would work. At a RIE Conference several years ago a friend and I were presenting a workshop on infant and toddler play and attempted an audacious experiment. We asked another friend to bring her 15 month old daughter to the event, daring to hope that the baby might give a live demonstration of independent, self-directed play. At least fifty pairs of eyes were on baby Tess as she sat in her...