Three interesting presentations this week.
When Natanel started his, I got a little concerned because the topic of his was the Importance of Parental Interaction and my presentation involves parental input/interaction and the social aspects of language. But fortunately, most of what he spoke about was different from what I will present. Watching the video of the still face experiment was extremely difficult for me to watch. I don't know how that mother was able to continue with her still face for as long as she did. I wonder if the experience stayed with the infant for any length of time. Children need to feel as if their primary caregiver will always be there for them. The still faced mother almost appeared as if she had been turned off and was no longer present mentally. Will the child fear the mother returning to that state? I can understand why it would be so difficult to get ethical approval to run an experiment with still face in it. As an adult, I think I would be bothered by someone using the still face with me, although, I would probably be much more concerned for the person with the still face. Quite interesting idea though.

The one point that sort of stuck with me with Emanuella's presentation was the assumption shown in the video that women know how to parent instinctively, and that men don't know how (or are struggling to figure it out). I believe that is, sort of a load of rubbish. The truth is people assume women will instinctively know how to parent, but that is where the problem lies. When a new mother is feeling unsure, she often is pressured by the perception that she should know what to do. Often mother's are embarrassed to admit they aren't sure what to do, after all, aren't we all supposed to be born knowing how to parent? I have yet to meet a new mother who isn't feeling a little insecure about her ability to be a good mother - and most won't talk about it until they've become more comfortable with their new role. After 15 years of mothering I'm still not exactly sure what the right thing to do is in every situation. My mother tells me, that after 55 years of mothering, she's still not sure (and I think she's an amazing mom). So I guess, women don't instinctively know how to mother.

I'm always intrigued by infants ability to recognize all phones and phonemes and their eventual loss of that ability. I'm looking forward to watching the online video of the demonstration from Wendy's presentation.