A documentary on the world of babies
Paediatrician Guddi Singh on the groundbreaking discoveries that will change the way we parent…
Do the first four months of our lives determine our personalities? When do we become aware of gender? And can tablets and smartphones actually improve a baby’s fine motor skills?
Where child development is concerned, there are still some big questions to be answered. But now, using state-of-the art technology and scientific experiments, BBC2’S new landmark science series finds conclusive answers to our burning questions and gives a unique insight into what really goes on in babies’ brains.
Presented by paediatrician Guddi Singh, the three-part documentary brings together top child-development experts and dozens of families from across the country in a specially designed baby lab where experiments and demonstrations are carried out to reveal what makes us who we are. Here, Guddi tells TV Times more about their discoveries…
How would you sum up the series?
It’s the first of its kind, as far as I know. It showcases with real-life experiments what science knows about our developments through the first two years of life.
Understanding how the brain develops is important because it helps us understand how we can nurture a growing brain. Why is this research being carried out now?
Research across the world is ongoing, because we actually still don’t fully understand the human brain. But there’s this increasing understanding that the early years are vital for what happens to kids as they grow up, in terms of their emotional and mental development
and their physical health.
What can we learn from the series?
The overriding message is that our brains are these incredible learning machines and they’re amazingly sensitive to everything they’re exposed to. Adults have an enormous amount of power because how we behave and interact with a baby has the ability to do great good but also great harm. Does state-of-the-art equipment give you a deeper understanding? The technology is opening up what before was like a black box. The brain was this hidden place. What we see in the show is mind-blowing!
You use portable brain scanners to see what the brain does when babies need to practise selfcontrol. What did they show? What was interesting was that those parts of the brain that are activated when grown-ups practise self-control are the same parts activated in babies. There’s this perception that babies are just eating, sleeping and not much else, but they are fantastically sensitive creatures with very complex brains.
Tell us about the tantrum suit…
It has sensors that measure heart rate and sweat. Tantrums are normal, but by measuring these physiological responses we can find the best way to deal with them. We can look at different parenting techniques, like distraction, soothing or ignoring, and see which is the best response.
You also test whether using smartphones can be harmful to babies’ motor skills. Were the results surprising?
What we see is that by using smartphones kids are able to more finely tune their small movements of the hands than kids who are not using them. That doesn’t mean kids who aren’t using smartphones don’t eventually develop this, but mostly the attention is on smartphones being a negative influence on children and their development, whereas there are potential positives, too.
You explore when children become aware of gender.
Did the results reflect our modern world?
Children are influenced by what they see; they are like little computers. What they see in the world determines what they believe is normal. What was genuinely surprising for me was that almost all the children clearly lived in very egalitarian households, which was great. Will the programme change the way we parent?
I hope so. We finally have answers to some of the controversies, like can you love a child too much? Should I cuddle my child when they have a tantrum? Obviously children are different and diverse, but it means we can be consistent in the advice we give parents.
What guidance would you give to parents?
Talk to your child. The more you communicate with them, the better they’ll be at communicating back to you. Secondly, let your child explore. Exposing your child to new experiences means there are more opportunities to learn. Most importantly, love your baby. It’s only by experiencing love and feeling secure that we’re able to become compassionate adults who can learn and solve problems for ourselves.