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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.

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.

The neighboring states are counting on the science of reading to solve reading woes, but veer far apart on retaining low-scoring third graders.

Indiana and Ohio joined the growing number of states last year mandating teachers use the science of reading, but the neighboring states have gone in opposite directions with another reading strategy — holding back struggling third graders. 

In Ohio, where students who scored poorly on state reading tests had to repeat third grade for the last decade, the state legislature ended the requirement last summer in a bill that also adopted the science of reading.

In Indiana, state officials just restored mandatory retention of low-scoring third graders after a seven year absence. Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law this month requiring students that don’t score as proficient on the state’s IREAD-3 tests to be held back in third grade, with few exceptions. The state estimates the new law will hold back 18 times as many third graders when it takes effect in 2025  — 7,500 compared to just over 400 today.

Third grade retention and science of reading are two strategies for improving reading that have sparked similar excitement – more than a decade apart – and a rush of states to adopt them. Both Ohio and Indiana joined the third grade retention movement in 2012, though Indiana later backed away before rejoining it this spring and Ohio never fully embraced it.

Both states have also seen reading scores drop on NAEP, the “nation’s report card,” even before the pandemic, then decline more after. Such results make it only natural for legislatures to shift gears, experts said.

“Third grade is obviously a critical moment,” said American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Robert Pondiscio. “There’s nothing to be gained by giving kids more of what hasn’t worked. It should trigger different, intensive efforts.”

He and others like Timothy Shanahan, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, said the key is not just adopting something that sounds good, but making sure it changes classroom instruction. 

Both Ohio and Indiana seem to be covering those bases, with more teacher training, new textbooks, and other student supports. Whether those are enough and how well they are used by teachers, schools and parents is still to be determined. 

Right now, the desire for immediate change, particularly in Indiana, is clear.

“About one in five students in Indiana can’t read effectively by the end of third grade,” said Indiana State Rep. Linda Rogers, one of the law’s authors. “This is not acceptable. If a child hasn’t learned basic reading skills by that point in school, they’re going to struggle to learn almost every other subject.”

Indiana education superintendent Katie Jenner told the legislature the state can’t have 14,000 third graders scoring below proficient on Indiana’s IREAD-3 test, as happened in 2023, without taking real steps to catch them up.

“The students who are just moving on are never passing. Ever. Ever,” Jenner said. “It’s hard to say that, but it’s honest.”

Indiana’s new law also requires more testing of second and third graders to identify struggling readers and for more interventions, such as l summer reading classes after second and third grade for students who are behind.

Jenner said adding these interventions and the retention mandate is a natural second step in the state’s literacy plan after focusing on having the right reading lessons through the science of reading and training teachers to teach them last year.

Requiring students to repeat third grade after not passing reading tests became law in California in 1998, rising  to national prominence after Florida adopted the policy in 2002 under then-Gov. Jeb Bush. Since then, several states have passed similar laws, though with differing policies on which students – such as special education, English Language Learners or students who have already repeated a grade – are exempt.

All shared a similar reasoning: Third grade is where students usually shift from ”learning to read to reading to learn,” or needing to read well enough they can read and learn other subjects. Students need to master reading by then, backers argued, or they will fall behind in 4th grade and beyond or may never learn to read. Mandatory retention also gives students, parents and teachers a deadline for taking reading seriously.

The strategy has promising early results, with some studies showing students making strong reading gains in the first few years after retention, though gains often faded by high school. Some of the most dramatic results came in Indiana under an earlier version of third grade retention that was dropped in 2017, a Brown University study showed.

But opponents in multiple states raised objections each time bills were introduced, usually citing studies that show smaller gains and psychological damage to students who are held back because of teasing, feelings of failure and being separated from friends. The studies have also noted Black and Hispanic students are usually held back at higher rates than white students.

Indiana was an early state in the third grade retention movement when former state superintendent Tony Bennett pushed for it in 2010. The legislature did not agree, but the state board of education mandated it with an administrative rule in 2012.

The Indiana Department of Education eased that requirement in 2017-18, telling schools to consider student performance in all subjects, even if not scoring well in reading, to decide if a student should move to fourth grade.

Third grade reading also had big changes in 2012 in Ohio, when then-Gov. John Kasich won approval from Ohio’s state legislature for his “Third Grade Reading Guarantee” that required more tests to identify students having trouble reading and for schools to hold back students who score poorly.

Unlike Indiana, which always made proficiency the threshold for promotion, Ohio set a lower score that needed to be raised over time. That set off constant debates each time the state school board had to decide how much to increase the score. Over time, the score crept higher but too many board members had reservations for the needed score to ever reach the proficiency level.

About 3,600 students were held back each year under Ohio’s retention law before several Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it last year.

“Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach to literacy that currently exists, (a change) will give local and parental control to districts when deciding to retain a child,” Republican Rep. Gayle Manning told legislators in pushing an opposition bill last year.

In the end, a joint House and Senate committee chose to give parents the final say in holding back their children as part of a compromise state budget bill. Though many Ohio Senate Republicans wanted to keep the retention requirement, they relented because the bill included the shift to the science of reading and a requirement that students keep receiving extra reading help until they can catch up.

“I wasn’t in favor of it (ending retention), but we put some things in that I wanted,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman Andrew Brenner, also a leading backer of science of reading. “I think that will help immensely to get kids back on track over the next couple of years.”

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce does not yet know how many students avoided retention this fall because of the law change.

In Indiana, attempts by Democrats to give parents the final say in whether a child has to repeat third grade, like Ohio decided last year, were voted down by Republicans. Attempts to delay the law until the state could see how science of reading changes affect scores also were voted down.

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.