Development from 4 to 5 Years
Little ones at this point typically can introduce themselves with first name and last, sing a song or nursery rhyme by heart, and tell a story of their own. Ideally, 4-year-olds are also well aware of cause and effect and have developed a good bit of sophistication around language and books. They begin comparing and contrasting favorite characters in different books. They come to see books as sources for answers to questions about the world, like what are clouds? and why does it rain?
It’s time to build some print awareness by talking to your child about how books work, how print conveys meaning, and what words look like. These are vital lessons, because before a child can read print, they must notice it.
Sprinkle in a few comments (max) before or during reading that direct your child’s attention to how books are organized and how print mirrors spoken language. Use your finger to point to letters and words, which helps them connect the marks on the page with the speech they hear and understand.
Select 4-to-5-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Uses four-word sentences, like Look at the dog.
- Uses thousands of words and carries on conversations
- Asks wh- questions: why, where, what, when, who
- Answers why, how, and would you questions
- Refers to quantities
- Uses conjunctions, like when, so, if, because
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Recognizes sounds that match and words that begin or end with the same sounds
- Recognizes and produces rhyming words
- Distinguishes, blends, and segments separate syllables in spoken words
- Recognizes single sounds and combinations of sounds
Print Awareness
- Understands that print carries meaning
- Knows print is used for many purposes
Alphabetic Knowledge
- Distinguishes letters from other symbols
- Identifies their own name in print
- Names 15 to 26 upper- and lowercase letters
- Identifies similarities and differences among letters
Emergent Writing
- Forms letters
- Writes their own name
Book Behavior
- Listens to longer stories
- Retells familiar stories
- Understands cause and effect
Development from 5 to 7 Years
By 6 years old, kids typically speak clearly, tell stories with complete sentences, use the future tense, and say their own full name and address. They can count past ten, draw a person with several body parts, and copy triangles and other shapes. They also know a good deal about everyday life, from food to money.
But real differences in their literacy skills become obvious (to them and us) at this point, too. Elementary school classrooms often put reading and writing on display in ways that can’t help but highlight student variations. Everything from the reading group they’re placed in to the work displayed on the bulletin board exposes the differences.
It can be agonizing for parents to hear about the social drama playing out in the name of education—tales of one child being put “on the computer” because they can’t read, another
checking out the same baby book from the classroom library every day because that’s what’s on “their level,” and yet another signing their name with a scribble that’s different every time.
Yet all these kids are on their own unique paths to reading. We just need to clearly identify where they are, so that we can deliver the right experiences, instruction, and additional tools to keep them forging ahead. A few quick definitions, based on what science reveals about how beginners learn to read words in and out of context, will help.
- Prereaders rely on visuals alone to make sense of words. They may recognize a word within the context of a logo—say, Nike or Target—but they are unable to read those same words in plain type without the contextual clues of color or location. They do not yet use letter-sound cues to read or write.
- Beginning or emergent readers, sometimes called partial alphabetic readers, are beginning to apply what they know about letters and sounds to read and write. They demonstrate partial knowledge of how letters map to sounds but can’t yet decode unfamiliar words. They spell phonetically (duz for does, for example).
- Readers have full command of letter-sound correspondences, can decode unfamiliar words, and spell from memory. They’ve forged solid knowledge of the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of many words through deep experience of hearing, saying, spelling, and understanding these.
Select 5-to-7-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Retells stories in sequential order
- Talks about events
- Uses a range of adverbs and adjectives
- Asks and answers complex questions
- Gives directions
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Isolates, identifies, and categorizes individual speech sounds
- Blends individual speech sounds
- Segments individual speech sounds
- Deletes, adds, and substitutes individual speech sounds
Print Awareness
- Tracks print from left to right
Alphabetic Knowledge
- Recognizes an increasing number of upper- and lowercase letters
- Produces letter forms in writing or with materials like Play-Doh
- Matches uppercase and lowercase letters
Emergent Writing
- Writes full name
- Organizes writing from left to right
Phonics/Spelling
- Connects letters to their sounds
- Sounds out words
- Spells phonetically
- Reads and writes simple sentences
- Correctly spells frequently used words
Book Behavior
- Reads independently
Edited and reprinted with permission from Reading for Our Lives by Maya Payne Smart, published by AVERY, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Copyright © 2022 by Maya Payne Smart.
Get Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives
Development from 12 to 24 Months
Kiddos in this age range aren’t babies but haven’t fully grown into the mobility, speech, and expression we often associate with toddlers yet, either. Susie Allison, creator of the popular Busy-Toddler Instagram account, proposes taby (to rhyme with baby) as the name for this group that has “all of the ideas of a toddler but none of the motor skills to make it happen.”
Indeed, these kiddos are stacking blocks, pouring sand and water, nesting cups, and hustling to combine a lot of different skills. Meantime, they’re grasping for the words they need to express themselves, too. One year in and children are beginning to speak: mama, dada, uh-oh, and the like. After 18 months, kids are often talking like crazy and learning several new words a day, so their spoken vocabulary usually takes off.
By 24 months, kids’ vocabularies typically have doubled in size, and most will begin pairing words to create two-word phrases and sentences, such as want ball and car go. The average 24-month-old hasn’t mastered all the prepositions and “glue” words, but they are communicating with clarity and directness. They can point to the pictures and objects you say or that they see in a book. They can name people close to them and some body parts.
Whatever their vocabulary size, keep treating and responding to any speechlike (non-cry, non-digestive) sounds coming from your child as genuine talk. When you respond within five seconds, there’s strong evidence that those “conversational turns” may help bolster your little one’s brain structure and brain function now, as well as their language skills and IQ scores down the road.
Gestures come into play in a bigger way now, too. One-year-olds are already doing some pretty sophisticated coordination of their sounds, gestures, and eye gaze to get your attention. Kids in this age range also shake their heads yes and no and use their arms to signal pick me up or hand me that.
Your little one may even start following your directions to pick up toys or point to an object they want. You can name things in books and ask them to point at them. They may make sense of longer questions from you: Where are Daddy’s keys? They’ll also start asking parents a lot of questions, too: What’s that?
All this early speech and vocabulary learning is critical for later reading, because for an emergent reader to make sense of a word in print, they need to have heard it before. (Or, usually, many times before.)
Selecting books that reflect daily life deepen the learning at this age. Little narratives about kids playing, putting on clothes, or having breakfast may pique your toddler’s interest. You can even make your own books featuring pictures of friends, family, and familiar places. When you make it personal, they’ll pay attention.
Select 12-to-24-Month Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Puts two words together, like go inside and more water
- Uses possessives, like my ball and Mommy’s cup
- Follows directions like come here or give me the toy
- Understands and uses words for some familiar objects, actions, and people
- Uses long strings of sounds, syllables, and real words with speech-like inflection
Book Behavior
- Picks up, holds, and walks with books
- Turns pages in board books
- Enjoys being read to
- Recognizes the covers of familiar books
- Points to and names familiar characters and objects in books
- Points to things they want you to name
- Looks at pictures when the object or person in it is named
Development from 2 to 3 Years
Kids may say up to three hundred words and understand even more by 3 years old. Counting aloud while pointing out objects is now a possibility, as are maneuvering puzzle pieces into place and climbing to reach things. Play gets more social. Little ones start watching and copying what their playmates are doing and may even (gasp!) share their toys a bit.
More verbs (run, walk, fall, jump) and more names for places and things (house, park, cake) emerge now, although longer words with more syllables and consonant clusters may still get clipped. An avocado may just be a cado, a banana a nana, a squirrel a skirl. One helpful habit to shore up now is affirming and acknowledging whatever communication attempt they make. Yes, that is an avocado! Yes, it’s a banana! Yes, that’s a squirrel! Whatever they say can be followed with yes, plus a word and correct pronunciation of your own.
At this point, your little one’s conceptual understanding may be taking off. Kids this age often comprehend time and position (today, tomorrow, in, on, and under) and are full of questions, especially why. You have an opportunity here to step up your teaching in two big ways: explaining what words mean and nudging your toddler to use the words, too. You can facilitate this learning just by naming the foods you eat, the clothes you put on, and the objects in your environment, as well as adding in some descriptive terms to support their word knowledge. The cold water, the rough sandpaper, the soft pillow.
In choosing and sharing books, keep in mind that while there’s a time and place for longer children’s literature, you shouldn’t overlook the power of five-minute stories read on a regular basis. It’s not the length of the story but the cumulative impact of engaging with you, print, and oral language that enriches a child’s life and skills.
Many parents learn to love short, colorful books because they can read them in a minute. Knowing that you can make an impact in a minimal amount of time may give you the nudge you need to read to your little one in the moment, versus putting it off in the hope of finding the “perfect” time.
Once you get started, you can always do repeated reading of the same books (toddlers love and benefit from repetition) or read multiple short stories to extend reading time. You just need to get started.
Select 2-to-3-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Uses three-word phrases, like Sam is running.
- Says their name when asked
- Asks and answers who, what, where, why, and how questions
- Engages in two or more back-and-forth exchanges in conversations
- Uses some -s, -ed, and -ing word endings
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Hears and produces rhymes and alliteration
- Claps syllables
- Blends syllables verbally, e.g., cup plus cake equals cupcake
Print Awareness
- Recognizes logos in the environment, e.g., McDonald’s
- Identifies a letter or letters in their own name
Emergent Writing
- Scribbles with intentional circles and dots
Book Behavior
- Turns book pages
- Enjoys looking at books independently
- Pretends to read familiar books
- Recalls book characters and straightforward storylines
- Points to and discusses pictures in books
Development from 3 to 4 Years
Kids’ spoken language typically is quite developed at this point. Even total strangers can follow what they’re saying. They’re full-on conversational partners, who answer questions, respond to requests, and speak up if they feel cut off (It’s my turn!). Feelings and everyday life become regular topics of conversation now that they have the vocabulary to support it.
Their attention to and interest in longer stories takes off, and they can show off their comprehension by answering questions about what they just heard. They’re speaking in longer sentences and linking the ideas in those sentences together. They can follow (and appreciate) a clear storyline from beginning to middle to end. You can ask questions during read-alouds that prompt them to think more, guess what will come next, and connect stories to their own experiences. What fun!
You’ll want to stick more closely to the text as printed on the page now, too, if you were prone to freestyling or skipping passages to keep their interest. Making speech-to-print connections is on their horizon, so the verbal-written match should be more consistent. Also, be sure to read nonfiction titles, too, which grab kids’ attention, pique their curiosity, and build their vocabularies.
If books and reading aloud have been a part of your family life since your child’s infancy, they may already recognize some letters, such as their own first initial. Begin gradually, yet inten- tionally, calling attention to more letters at this age—in isolation, in your daily environment, and in the books you read. Point to letters, name them, and describe their lines, dots, and curves.
Select 3-to-4-Year Milestones & Targets
Oral Language
- Speaks clearly and forms four-word sentences, like Mommy is eating breakfast.
- Uses more pronouns: they, us, hers, his, them, her, my, me, mine, you
- Uses possessives: dog’s toy
- Talks about objects and their functions
- Can share something that happened earlier in the day
- Identifies some colors, shapes, and letters
- Follows multistep directions, like Put on your pajamas, brush your teeth, and then get in bed
Speech-Sound Awareness
- Identifies, claps, and counts syllables in words
- Identifies and produces rhymes
- Identifies and produces alliteration
- Isolates and compares initial letter sounds in words
Print Awareness
- Recognizes print in their environment
- Recognizes their own name in print, plus some familiar words
- Names letters on everyday objects, signs, and posters
Emergent Writing
- Makes letter-like scribbles to represent words
- Attempts to print their own name
Book Behavior
- Follows the structure of a story
- Makes predictions about what will happen next in a tale
- Connects text to personal experience
- Points to print as the source of information in a story
- Recognizes and prefers favorite characters in books
Edited and reprinted with permission from Reading for Our Lives by Maya Payne Smart, published by AVERY, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
Copyright © 2022 by Maya Payne Smart.
Get Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives Years ago, when I was first introduced to the science of reading, I began to question a lot of the feel-good messaging that often accompanies literacy campaigns. You’ve probably seen the slogans: “Let kids catch you reading!” or “Be a reading role model!” The idea was that seeing adults read could somehow spark literacy in children.
I’d come to understand that kids don’t learn to read just by watching someone else do it—or even by being read to regularly. Instead, most need direct, explicit, systematic phonics instruction to become independent readers. So, in my own work, I chose to focus more on the nuts and bolts of building reading brains through rich conversation and direct instruction, and less on more symbolic-feeling gestures.
That’s why I was surprised—and a little conflicted—when Carl Lennertz, the director of the Children’s Book Council, invited me to be featured in their year-round “Get Caught Reading” campaign. Maybe you’ve seen the posters: authors, artists, athletes, and musicians photographed with one of their favorite books. They’re displayed in classrooms, libraries, and community centers all over the country.
I was honored to be asked—but I had to pause and think: Was this in line with my message that kids need us to teach reading, not merely model it?
In the end, I said yes. Here’s why.
Today’s kids are growing up in a sea of screens. Many of us are reading less. Plus, while many of us are still reading, we’re doing it on our phones and tablets. To a child, it’s not always clear whether we’re deep into a novel or just scrolling through social media. So it feels more urgent than a decade ago that children see adults holding physical books and turning real pages, showing another generation that reading matters, delights, and connects us.
It’s impossible to measure the impact of seeing someone you know, admire, or are simply curious about reading a book. But moments like that stick. Think of the viral headlines when NBA stars are spotted reading on the sidelines—how those images ripple through media and culture, expanding visions of what reading can look like.
I’ve seen that same dynamic play out in quieter ways, too. At a storytime I led, one boy volunteered to read aloud to the class. Then, one by one, four more boys followed—some sounding out words, others narrating pictures—but all newly emboldened by seeing someone like them take a turn in the reader’s seat. These moments, big and small, accumulate. And over time, they help a child begin to believe: books are for me, too.
Plus, as a book lover, I couldn’t turn down a chance to spotlight a book I love and want more people to discover. I chose I Am Every Good Thing by Derek Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James—a powerful, affirming picture book that celebrates the creativity, resilience, and brilliance of black boys. I’m a girl mom, but this book speaks to everyone about worth and possibility. The voice of the boy narrator—bold, proud, and full of life—moves me every time I read it.
Ultimately, the campaign reminded me that literacy happens in community. A poster alone won’t teach a child to read. But it might spark a conversation, a connection, or a curiosity that inspires more reading. It might nudge someone to pick up a book they wouldn’t have otherwise. And in a world where literacy needs all the momentum we can give it, I’m proud to add this image to the mix.
You can check out my poster and others at GetCaughtReading.org. Think of it as one small but joyful way we can keep books visible, keep (or make) reading “cool,” and keep nurturing the next generation of lifelong readers.
Let’s read—and be seen reading.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives
I’m so excited to announce the updated paperback edition of Reading for Our Lives! This new version’s lower price point makes it more affordable for everyone. That plus its lower shipping cost also makes it particularly appealing for bulk purchases by birth-to-three programs, early childhood centers, literacy nonprofits, and schools looking to empower parents as their children’s first and most powerful literacy leaders.
And let’s be honest. This book couldn’t be coming at a more urgent moment.
The latest results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress confirm what many of us feared: children’s reading skills have reached new lows post-COVID, with the most vulnerable students seeing the steepest declines. The reading crisis is still here, and it’s getting worse. Yes, factors like screen time and school absence play a role, but the deeper problem is long-standing—too many children enter school with weak language and literacy foundations.
The truth is, reading struggles don’t start in the classroom. They begin long before, in the earliest years of a child’s life, when brain development, oral-language experiences, and alphabetic knowledge set the foundation for learning. Many of today’s highest-achieving students didn’t succeed solely because of classroom instruction. They started out ahead because their parents nurtured language, vocabulary, and cognitive development from birth.
This doesn’t mean schools are off the hook. Far from it. Schools must provide the systematic, explicit phonics instruction that most children need to become proficient readers. But we can’t expect teachers to perform miracles when large numbers of students show up far behind—lacking essential vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, and book familiarity, often with developmental delays nobody caught. That’s mission impossible.
We have to be proactive. We have to lay a strong foundation early and then, once kids are in school, intervene aggressively with high-dosage, high-quality tutoring when gaps emerge.
That’s exactly why I wrote Reading for Our Lives—to lay out in clear, actionable terms exactly what parents and early caregivers need to do in the first years to prepare kids for reading. It’s also why I revised this new paperback edition to make it even easier for parents, educators, and community leaders to glean impactful ways to take action after reading it.
What’s New in the Paperback Edition?
The heart of the book remains the same—the message that parents are their children’s first and most powerful literacy leaders. The paperback edition streamlines and sharpens the content, making it even more practical and simple for parents to lean into that role.
Here’s what’s new:
- Updated Research & Stats: The latest data on reading, literacy, and screen time show why early literacy action is even more urgent today than when the book first came out.
- More Action: Exercises have been streamlined and language simplified for quick wins that build both parent confidence and child engagement, while journal prompts transform parent reflection into concrete action steps.
- More Real-Parent Voices: New parent stories and parent-child dialogues provide social proof that these strategies work—and remind parents they’re not alone in their struggles or successes.
- A Fresh Look: The cover now features a real-life moment—a young girl flipping through a book—replacing the original illustrated silhouettes.
- A Clearer, Parent-Focused Title: The subtitle now reads The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child, making it clear that this book is for parents and that it’s useful for kids even beyond the age of six. (The previous subtitle was A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six.)
- A New Financial Mindset: A chapter on literacy spending reframes “budgeting” as “investing,” reinforcing the message that every book, resource, and reading habit is a strategic, long-term investment in our children’s future.
- A Smarter Flow: A reorganization of some of the material makes the flow of the book easier to follow—now, what to teach comes before how to teach, making the book more intuitive to follow.
The Time to Act is Now
We don’t have years to wait for policy changes or new educational trends to fix this. We need millions more parents to understand how to build language and literacy skills at home—starting at birth—and how to advocate for adequate reading instruction once their children enter school.
This updated edition of Reading for Our Lives gives an action plan for that work that’s clearer, more accessible, and more actionable than ever. Whether you pick up the original hardcover or the new paperback, though, the core framework remains the same. So anyone reading either edition can still join the conversation with the same essential knowledge and key takeaways.
Let’s get serious. Let’s be proactive. Let’s build a generation of strong, confident readers—starting right now.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives
This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.
Schools are trying to raise the bar on reading — but they need parents to hold it up.
Across the country, a wave of new reading legislation aims to fix literacy crises, yet there’s little direct support for families to help carry the reforms forward.
At a recent meeting in my community, one fact hit hard: Our reading pipeline is broken. Instead of the expected 80% of students succeeding with general instruction, only 11% of Milwaukee students are on track. A staggering 65% need frequent, in-depth, individualized support — far more than the system was ever built to provide.
When a speaker cited these numbers, the crowd nodded at the urgency and applauded calls to retrain more than 1,000 teachers in evidence-based reading instruction practices. I applauded, too — schools have the greatest opportunity and obligation to provide high-quality reading instruction at scale. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that teacher training alone clearly wouldn’t be enough.
In classrooms crowded with kids who have extraordinary needs, even the best teachers can only do so much. Better prepared teachers would be able to gradually increase the share of kids who are on track with reading and prevent more students from falling behind. But many kids would still need targeted small-group support, one-on-one tutoring, and, crucially, support from home.
Teachers, no matter how well prepared, build on the foundations kids have. The odds of reading success are largely shaped beyond the classroom. Longitudinal studies consistently confirm the essential role that families play in kids’ reading achievement. The early language experiences and alphabet knowledge students bring to school profoundly shape their literacy trajectories.
Once kids enter school, parents’ influence remains powerful but increasingly overlooked. Too often, schools unintentionally sideline parents, treating them more as homework helpers than true partners.
Parents facing economic hardship or lingering distrust from their own schooling may not immediately see the value in engaging. Even motivated families struggle to prioritize vague school requests amid a myriad of real-life demands.
Rather than grow cynical, school staff must actively earn families’ engagement. They need to clearly, specifically, and respectfully show families how their involvement benefits their children’s development.
This is Marketing 101: speak to what matters. Frame requests in ways that align with parents’ hopes and addresses their real concerns. If parents don’t understand how a request helps their child, schools have to connect those dots.
Research from the Harvard Family Research Project shows that families make a measurable difference when they actively attend conferences, visit the classroom, and volunteer. Other studies document the value of parents engaging in literacy-specific activities like teaching letters, sharing books, and fostering reading at home. Schools can motivate parents by showing them that their efforts directly affect their kids’ reading gains.
Nearly 40 states have passed legislation to spur reading improvements and sprinkled amid the new curriculum and professional development requirements they’ve mandated are some directives for parents, too. Wisconsin’s Act 20, for example, rightly emphasizes parents’ critical roles: sharing family learning histories, monitoring learning disabilities, implementing literacy strategies, tracking reading plans, and even filing complaints when necessary. Yet, the law provides little tangible guidance or support. Ask a Milwaukee parent how to help their child meet reading expectations and you may get a shrug — not from indifference, but from genuine confusion.
Schools must translate mandates into meaningful guidance. When staff get strategic about what they ask families to do, they create space for real partnership. Generic advice like “read aloud every night” can evolve into more specific grade-level guidance like “Read this book to practice the ‘oo’ sound your child is learning in class.”
I recently observed a work session between school staff and local nonprofit tutoring groups. The educators invested months designing targeted, straightforward home literacy activities that were aligned closely with common student needs in the district. Next, they planned to test the tools with real families, revise the instructions based on feedback, and then film demonstration videos, so parents could clearly see what success looks like. Tips are helpful — but seeing another parent do it builds belief.
Once complete, these tools will provide teachers with a library of targeted activities to share with families based on specific student needs. The anticipated result? Fewer, clearer asks for families and greater impact.
Across the country, different family engagement models are emerging. In New York, the NYC Reads Family Ambassador program held 10-week online sessions to teach families the science of reading. The sessions aimed to strengthen home literacy routines, as well as inform participants who could then share effective strategies with other families. The Indiana Learning Lab hosts virtual workshops that are accessible to parents anytime, enabling them to tune in at their convenience. Both these programs acknowledge that families want to help, but need accessible, credible resources and consistent encouragement.
Raising our nation’s reading achievement is an all-hands-on-deck effort — inside and outside of school. Teachers, instructional coaches, literacy specialists, staff, administrators and community volunteers can all support families. But for these partnerships to flourish, we’ve got to get honest about who teaches kids: all of us.
Ultimately, the strongest readers aren’t shaped in classrooms alone. They’re nurtured at home: word by word, story by story, conversation by conversation. To help reading reforms succeed, we need to do more than retrain teachers and revise curricula. We must support the first, most constant teachers all children have: their families.
This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.
Get Reading for Our Lives: The Urgency of Early Literacy and the Action Plan to Help Your Child
Learn how to foster your child’s pre-reading and reading skills easily, affordably, and playfully in the time you’re already spending together.
Get Reading for Our Lives This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.
Making the transition to parenting sometimes can feel like a rocky entry into an unknown land. Regardless whether someone has given birth to a new little human, is welcoming a child by adoption or is assuming an essential caregiver role, the arrival of an infant presents a profound rearrangement of life as it used to be. “My life will never be the same,” says the voice running in the background, followed instantly by “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
The good news: most caregivers in that moment take a deep breath and dive in to do what’s needed to meet the baby’s needs, decipher the meaning of each type of cry and provide the infant with what’s needed to flourish and grow.
Fascinating new research now tells us that the baby isn’t the only one growing and changing in this scenario. The very act of this intense caregiving causes observable changes in the brain of the caregiver — developing “parenting brain.” Those changes aren’t limited to the biologic mother or even the birth father but occur in the brains of everyone intimately involved in caring for the baby.
Changes in the brain of those transitioning to a parenting role are less shaped by biological relationships and more shaped by the degree of caregiver involvement, researchers say. Rather than some people being hardwired “by nature” to be a parent, people become parents by how — and the degree to which — they respond to the child: The act of caregiving, not simply the act of giving birth, calibrates the brain.
Drs. Pilyoung Kim and Sarah Watamura of the University of Denver call this transition to parenting a co-occurring sensitive period, “two open windows,” a time in which both infant and parent are especially receptive to being shaped by their environments and mutual interactions. Kim and Watamura (who is a fellow with Ascend at Aspen Institute), are co-authors of “Two Open Windows,” a report that highlights research into this exceptionally sensitive period and its critical implications for effecting changes that can improve outcomes for children and parents alike. Co-authors Tiffany Phu and Andrew Erhart, graduate researchers at the University of Denver, led this report.
“Humans have these massive learning machines,” Watamura says. “We adapt to our circumstances; we can live anywhere in the world, learn any language — there are so many ways that we adapt, yet we seem repeatedly surprised when our brains support us in what we’re trying to do.
“In this situation where a person is learning to parent, engaging and using all their resources to do that, it’s not surprising that their brain would show changes as they face that challenge.”
Many parts of the brain that adapt to stressful situations are also those that help direct parenting behavior. The parent hears a loud cry and in the context of the fight-or-flight response, they have to learn to redirect and listen for whether that sound is a hungry cry or an urgent request for a diaper change. When a parent is tired and feeling overwhelmed, they have to manage their own emotions so that they don’t feel so constantly “on” that they exhaust themselves, while staying engaged enough to respond appropriately to their child. All of these actions tune their brain, their brilliant on-board computer that instantly processes these lessons for the next encounter.
Multiple studies have found that this strengthening of parenting-relevant brain circuitry takes place in both male and female caregivers and shows no difference between biological and non-biological parents. What the research does show, however, is stronger response to infant cues among primary versus secondary parents (as identified by the parents) regardless of their sex or biological relatedness—information that’s highly relevant for developing policy in adoption and foster-care systems.
Stress Complicates the Learning Curve
Parents who are dealing with high levels of stress in their own lives may not show changes to the parenting-relevant brain circuits thought to support sensitive interactions with their baby’s needs. If they lack access to shelter, food and healthcare and/or have a history of childhood adversity, the caregiver’s own stress responses can make it difficult for them to attend to their child’s needs. Their brains can be so involved in responding to survival threats that they process their infant’s cries as just one more stressful element—even the hormones that generally support parenting behavior can work differently for parents who have a history of adversity.
Despite the complex of challenges and stressors that can accompany poverty, it isn’t the determining factor here: Even parents who experience chronic poverty can and often do demonstrate sensitive caregiving and interact warmly with their infants.
“Brains adapt to environments,” says Phu. “We respond to the responsibilities that are put in front of us — which can be a beautiful thing. But if the environments themselves are unhealthy, riddled with inequalities and other stressors, brains will adapt to that as well [by] responding to threats in the environment. Babies’ cries are meant to be distressing so they can elicit response. It can be hard for a person to respond appropriately if the crying just adds to the distress.”
Substance abuse can also disrupt the brain-reward systems relevant to parenting, the researchers say. Studies have shown that using substances in pregnancy is associated with reduced brain activation to infant faces and cries. Substance abuse in the transition to parenthood not only risks passing along the substance in utero or in breast milk, but may disrupt important brain changes in both generations, research shows.
Watamura stresses that poverty, substance abuse, postpartum depression and other stressors don’t have to determine the future of either parent or child. What the researchers have discovered is that parents in various adverse circumstances are more sensitive to external inputs as they’re transitioning to parenting. They want help and they want to change. The logical approach from both a policy and practical perspective would be to create and deliver interventions that serve the whole family during this critical window when caregivers are interfacing with health and support systems and are motivated to change, and that’s precisely what Ascend’s Two Generations, One Future approach provides. By working intentionally and simultaneously with children and the adults in their lives or reducing environmental stressors, it combines the best of both worlds to improve outcomes for both.
The research detailed in “Two Open Windows: Part II” shows that this big-picture approach isn’t just a good idea, its interventions have an observable, biologic effect on both caregiver and child.
“People know in their gut that (this approach) is the right thing to do,” Watamura says, “but being able to see the neurologic underpinnings and importance of supporting and intervening not only with the child but with the adults in their lives helps us understand the need to invest appropriately. It adds further depth to the understanding that it’s about the caregiving, not whether you’re male or female, heterosexual or homosexual. None of those is the driver. The caregiving is.”
Attachment-based interventions to help parents and children build their relationships can take a variety of forms, from one-on-one counseling to small-group sessions or providing practice and modeling of core parenting skills. Equally important, improving material conditions of families living in poverty has been proven to have lasting beneficial effects.
Helping caregivers develop parenting brain is less often a knowledge gap for those experiencing poverty and more a “material resources and mental energy” gap, the researchers say.
“One of the pieces of this research that is really important is the fact that parental brain systems are also stress systems,” says Erhart. “Just addressing some of the stress that parents are experiencing, either through stress-reduction programs or by reducing the stressful environment itself, also function as an intervention.”
These types of interventions have been around for a while: the new body of research tracking caregiver brain changes provides unmistakable evidence of the impact of such interventions and points to the need to “think bigger,” the researchers say, about crafting policy that supports all caregivers regardless of sex or biologic connection to the baby.
This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.
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