Week One Learning Resources: The following are required readings and viewings for Week One: _______________________________ 1. notes for Week One: New Possibilities for Parenting Newborns: As social and behavioral scientists have enriched our views of parenting over recent decades, neuroscientists have been equally busy learning about brain architecture in babies and children and learning about wonderful possibilities for responsive parenting that help construct the richest possible outcomes, including adult outcomes, that result from sensitive responses to our newborns and toddlers. This course focuses on a new view of parenting and of children.  Child development has a long history of adherence to a very successful medical model began around 1900 from the developments of knowledge about sanitation, germ theory of disease, conquering childhood illness with vaccines, and the development of therapies that address mental health problems and misbehaviors.  If you look carefully at these topics, they rest on the belief that what matters in child development is pathology, and correcting pathology is the whole picture. There is a reading list of medical model topics in child development found under Resources for Parenting References, just under Syllabus in our course. I placed the only two books I recommend (but do not require) for our course.  The rest of the information there is a fine list medical model references about pathology that can be used in other sections of BEHS 343. Starting early in the twentieth century our first American child psychologist, G. Stanley Hall coined a phrase that has taken over child development beliefs about adolescence.  Hall was descriptive, for in the early twentieth century there were no theories of child development.  He coined the now-famous phrase of “storm and stress” to characterize adolescence.  Even today, as psychologist Richard Lerner says, (and as you will read in this course), parents continue to define their teens in terms of a “pathology” If asked how their teen is doing, they will often answer, “Well, at least he hasn’t crashed the car.” Or “At least he is not into drugs.” Or, at least she is not pregnant and she hasn’t dropped out of school.” That is, teens are being measured against a whole Pandora’s box of expected pathology: “storm and stress.”  And, in this course, many parents mention they are dreading adolescence as their children are growing older.  The new viewpoint comes from a question that has been around for decades. Neurologists and psychologists have quietly been inquiring about many topics, including that of the storm and stress of adolescence: “Isn’t well-being of adolescents (and all of us) more than just the absence of pathology?  Isn’t well-being more than these negative descriptions parents use to describe their teens?  Methods and measures of well-being did not exist until quite recently, as development of much more sensitive brain scans have become able to measure activities d.

1. Week One Learning Resources:
The following are required readings and viewings for Week
One:
_______________________________
1. notes for Week One:
New Possibilities for Parenting Newborns:
As social and behavioral scientists have enriched our views of
parenting over recent decades, neuroscientists have been
equally busy learning about brain architecture in babies and
children and learning about wonderful possibilities for
responsive parenting that help construct the richest possible
outcomes, including adult outcomes, that result from sensitive
responses to our newborns and toddlers.
This course focuses on a new view of parenting and of
children. Child development has a long history of adherence to
a very successful medical model began around 1900 from the
developments of knowledge about sanitation, germ theory of
disease, conquering childhood illness with vaccines, and the
development of therapies that address mental health problems
and misbehaviors. If you look carefully at these topics, they
rest on the belief that what matters in child development is
pathology, and correcting pathology is the whole picture. There
is a reading list of medical model topics in child development
found under Resources for Parenting References, just under
Syllabus in our course. I placed the only two books I
recommend (but do not require) for our course. The rest of the
information there is a fine list medical model references about
pathology that can be used in other sections of BEHS 343.
Starting early in the twentieth century our first American child
psychologist, G. Stanley Hall coined a phrase that has taken
over child development beliefs about adolescence. Hall was
descriptive, for in the early twentieth century there were no
theories of child development. He coined the now-famous
phrase of “storm and stress” to characterize adolescence. Even

2. today, as psychologist Richard Lerner says, (and as you will
read in this course), parents continue to define their teens in
terms of a “pathology” If asked how their teen is doing, they
will often answer, “Well, at least he hasn’t crashed the car.” Or
“At least he is not into drugs.” Or, at least she is not pregnant
and she hasn’t dropped out of school.” That is, teens are being
measured against a whole Pandora’s box of expected pathology:
“storm and stress.” And, in this course, many parents mention
they are dreading adolescence as their children are growing
older.
The new viewpoint comes from a question that has been around
for decades. Neurologists and psychologists have quietly been
inquiring about many topics, including that of the storm and
stress of adolescence: “Isn’t well-being of adolescents (and all
of us) more than just the absence of pathology? Isn’t well-
being more than these negative descriptions parents use to
describe their teens? Methods and measures of well-being did
not exist until quite recently, as development of much more
sensitive brain scans have become able to measure activities
different parts of the brain (Davidson & Begley, 2012). In 1998,
a branch of the National Institutes of Health was founded and
funds research on well-being (nccih.nih.gov/Health/Wellness
and Well Being).
Well-being of teens is addressed in this course, for we now
recognize there are positive attributes and possibilities in teens
that many of us do not recognize. My personal contribution to
this new line of research is to look closely at what is going on
from the time young teens develop adult cognitive reasoning
(around seventh grade), and I often find the stubborn
persistence of a strict control and punishment orientation by
parents unwilling to help a teen gradually assume the young
adult roles and responsibilities under open communication and
kindly parental guidance. Parents need to begin to give up their
strict control of a child who now has become a young and
capable adult.
In a summer session of this course I had a male student rush in

3. a little late to our classroom, and he blurted out to all of us, “I
just bought my son an Apple phone and now at last I have
something I can take away from him when I ground him and I
can really make him hurt!” This is what I am addressing! In
this course we have a session called a “toolchest for dealing
with problem behaviors of children” (Brooks, J.,157) What we
hope to construct here is a “toolchest for increasing parental
understanding of children.”
We begin our course with the newest understandings of how
newborns construct their own learning. Babies have many
millions of wonderful neurons (cells) in their brain, many more
than any human could ever need, and babies are born with a
tremendous urge to communicate with us in order to construct
circuits that work like software, to connect the capabilities
across the brain. Eye contact, waving arms, cooing, even crying
are all efforts for that newborn to communicate with us so she
or he can construct all the circuits needed to become a
wonderful human being.
Serve and Return:
Researchers at Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child call
this reaching-out activity by newborns, “serving,” and the baby
is hoping desperately for a gentle and loving “return” from the
parents so that with practice, new pathways can form connecting
parts of the brain that connect for healthy development. That is,
the baby is constructing his or her own learning and brain
architecture when we return his or her serves in a kind, gentle,
and loving way.
If we stop a minute and think about our ideas about raising
children we think of ourselves as great teachers, and as
Americans living in a competitive society, we imagine our
babies will be ahead of everybody else’s babies by the time they
begin school because we will have taught them so much!
In fact, there is a totally different direction for learning that
psychologists have recognized for over 120 years, but none of
us teachers or parents have been paying attention!
The picture you see here is very different! Instead of being the

4. "Sage on the stage" (the wise adult teacher) the parent or
caretaker now is the “guide alongside” the learner.
Neuroscientists have shown us what psychologist have long
known, that we parents are here to answer the questions these
newborns are raising because newborns are assembling their
mental capabilities by first developing neural circuits that
support all the things they desperately need and want: love,
kindness, gentleness, warmth, trust in people. Then they begin
the task of learning about everything else.
And, along with this they teach themselves to speak in the
language or languages they hear around them. Our daughter
reports that for some time her two-year-old son will not let her
pronounce his name in Serbo-Croatian, for she (being
American) cannot roll the proper “Rs” in his name. Bilingual
children learn to speak multiple languages more slowly that
single-language speakers, but do not underestimate the power of
a two-year old critic who really understands how his own name
(Grijorije) should be pronounced!
Infant Brain Development:
Welcome to new information about infant brain development!
Do not worry; we will do a totally non-technical view of infant
brain development so you can see the amazing things going on
in that little wobbly head of a precious newborn baby.
Babies are born with abilities to communicate with us:
Why does this matter to parents? The templates for learning
come hard-wired in babies! They come with some urgent needs
to communicate with us. When these needs are fulfilled, the
brain makes the connections that enable a child to be intelligent,
responsive, happy, and capable and interested in learning. In the
past few years neuroscientists have been able to observe how
brain structure is constructed, and continues to be constructed
throughout life.
The power of parents and others:
Here is where we discover the power of teachers and teaching
and learning contexts to develop the brain architecture of not
only babies, but of all of us, all our lives. The same processes

5. that are zooming along in babies still continue throughout life,
but at a slower pace than in babyhood. Thus, the effective
teacher has much of the awesome responsibility to help create
normal brain architecture for students, just as parents and
caretakers have for babies. In just the past few years,
neuroscientists have discovered that these successful ways to
relate to babies and toddlers are not just "shaping good
behavior," as we have thought of them. Instead, these
interactions with babies and toddlers are actually constructing
the brain architecture necessary for that baby to grow into a
normal, intelligent, loving child AND adult. That is,
neuroscientists have discovered there are lifelong effects in
physical and mental health of the positive and negative
interactions we have with babies and children in those first few
months after birth.
Neurons and brain connections between neurons build brain
architecture:
Infants are born with an enormous excess of neurons or nerve
cells, awaiting the opportunity to begin connecting within and
across parts of the brain. Some of these neurons are already
connected at birth, but await strengthening. Most others are
awaiting experience to form connections. These unconnected
neurons will be connected (with experience and stimulation) all
through life. New neurons can be created throughout life, but
the vast preponderance of them are created in the first three
years of life.
Neglect or missing opportunities:
To simplify this situation down to the kernel of information we
need, we will say, “Use it or lose it!” Babies are born to
succeed, but if a baby is neglected or does not have the
opportunity to connect with a loving parent or caretaker, or
lives in a violent setting and is neglected, frightened, or abused,
or perhaps lives in a crib in an orphanage with sheets on the
sides of the crib so the baby cannot see anyone, those neural
connections are not as plentiful as they need to be and many
neural connections are damaged from the effects of toxic stress

6. the baby experiences while searching for some human to
connect with. That is, under neglect, or under stress, the
architecture of the brain cannot develop in a normal way.
Pruning:
Unused neurons die off in a natural process called “pruning.”
(Yes, like a fruit tree!) Neural pruning is fine and a natural
process. However, if a baby or child is severely neglected
and/or abused, or unloved, many fewer connections are made
(neglect) or the ones that are made are actually damaged (from
toxic stress) and a baby grows into a child and then an adult
with difficulties in trust, secure attachment to a parent or
parents or caretaker, with difficulties in happiness, confidence,
eagerness to learn, decreased intelligence, and a long list of
other critically important attributes that serve to make a
successful and happy childhood and a productive adulthood.
The presence of these good connections to other people, or the
absence of these good connections, at home or at school, has
lifelong consequences.
How babies construct brain architecture:
Most important take-away points: Babies are born with an
urgent biological need to work to communicate with us as
caretakers. Why? This is how they construct their brain
architecture. Please remember that this is not a call to us as
teachers to use flash cards to teach information to babies, or to
cram academics into very young toddlers. The baby is born with
the urge to reach out to learn and to communicate. We are there
to provide a warm, loving, rich environment that focuses on
responding warmly and appropriately to whatever the baby
communicates to us, whether it is a glance, a coo, a cry, a smile
or later on, a word or two.
Allowing children to construct their own learning:
And, from being old-fashioned teachers and parents who lecture
“at” children and students (what is called) the “Sage (wise
person) on the Stage,” we will have a new focus, to be the
“Guide on the Side” to facilitate learning. This changed
perspective will help us understand at a deeper level the work of

7. Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and other researchers who talked
and continue to talk (for nearly 120 years!) about children
“constructing their own learning.” These psychological
researchers understood the point (that children construct their
own learning) long before neuroscientists were able to discover
and map neural development. Now, only recently, we
understand how brain development and learning actually occur.
And we find the psychologists were correct all along. It took a
long time to connect what psychologists saw with neural
imaging revealing the actual construction of the baby's brain
architecture.
_____________________________________________
3.
Required Reading Two (several short videos):
Please view these short videos on infant brain development:
Serve and return:
Here you can view a set of very short (2-to-5-minute) videos
will introduce you to important issues about development of
brain architecture in infants and toddlers. The videos come from
the Harvard Center for the Developing Child. There are many
of these short videos, so please follow my instructions so you
do not become lost on this tremendous website! You are
welcome to “browse” through the website beyond the basics
suggested here if you wish, but please focus on the links I list
below. For us as teachers and parents, the most important of
these is
“serve and return”
Warm, loving, gentle care:
There is an important deficit in this collection of wonderful
videos. You will find the scientists rarely mention loving, warm
and gentle care, but you see it in every frame of these videos.
They must take it for granted! Don't forget warm and gentle and
loving care for a baby to gain trust in the world. In fact, it
appears to be the case that positive emotional outcomes and
their foundations in the brain are formed early in life when

8. there is a rich environment of serve and return care by loving
parents or caretakers.
I suggest these videos:
Each of these videos runs from approximately 2 to 5 minutes.
Please type the exact words on a given line into your browser to
see these short videos. Warning: If you type in only the
institution, you will never find these specific videos, for there
are hundreds of them!
Harvard Center for the Developing Child Core Story Part 1
Experiences build brain architecture
Harvard Center for the Developing Child Core Story Part 2
Serve and Return
Harvard Center for the Developing Child Core Story Part 3
Stress
Harvard Center for the Developing child In Brief The Science of
Neglect
You are welcome to look at others in this series if you wish.
Just type in "Harvard Center for the Developing Child" and
explore the jam-packed website. Don’t get lost; I did!
What will we do with this information? We will think about this
information and let it soak in now, and return to it in Week
Three: Worksheet where there will be other readings and short
essays that ask you to discuss and reflect on the information you
have gathered in the first three weeks of our course. In the
Worksheet we will provide additional information about a new
topic called “executive functions.” We also will briefly return
to neural development information toward the end of the course
when we study adolescence.
Introduction to Parenting Types: Parenting types are the most
often mentioned issues of interest as students begin this course.
With that in mind, we will begin our course by looking at a long
and strong line of research (around 50 years of research
findings) on parenting types and the expected outcomes for
children whose parents subscribe to common parenting types
found in the United States. We all recognize that this research

9. came from a time when research topics were limited to the
student of middle-class white children and their parents. Issues
such as gender roles of parents, socioeconomic states, single
parenting, impacts of divorce, issues of race and ethnicity,
LGBTQ parenting, multigenerational families, and military
families have one by one been added to this model to make it
display the diversity of our families today. Over these decades,
psychological researchers have recognized the importance of
diversity in families, diversity in society, and diverse
backgrounds and rich cultures that new immigrants bring to our
society.
By writing about our own upbringings this first week of the
course, and using that information for next week’s work, we
will help this topic blossom into the many and rich varieties of
parenting we all bring to the course. In Week Two we will use
our own essays to discuss parenting today.
________________________________
Week 11 Journal Reflection
11.1 - Journal Reflection on progress and Week 11 Individual
Consultation
Readings for Question # 1:
First reading for question # 1: Infant brain development Dr.
Barr’s notes:
This question will ask you to summarize what you have learned
about newborns. This is a “thinking question,” meaning that
there is not an answer for you to copy and paste here:
Background: A student in BEHS 343 reported that she couldn’t
understand her newborn’s behavior. She would pick up her

10. newborn and go to a comfy chair and begin to nurse the baby.
But immediately after starting nursing the baby, she would put
in ear buds and turn on Netflix to binge watch some program
and she never looked again at the baby until she switched to the
other breast. Once the baby was nursing and she was binge
watching, the baby immediately began fussing. Then
whimpering. Then crying. Then screaming. She just looked
away at the TV. The pediatrician assured the mother that the
baby did not have colic. Why did this baby get so upset? To
understand this, please watch each of the Harvard Short Videos
that are recommended.
To think about what is going on in this question, you need to
read the material presented in Week One, including my lecture
notes and below them, viewing the Harvard short videos. There
are a couple of possible answers you can find when you look at
the Harvard short videos.
Question # 1:
A. Why do you believe this baby is in such distress?
B. Which of the Harvard Short videos help explain this
situation?.
Points: 4 points.
Assistance: This question can be easily answered by doing the
required readings for Week One. There are several possibilities
that arise when you view the Harvard short videos. Please make
a simple reference list of the sources you used. (Does need
authors if there are any) and titles and computer links given in
our classroom.) Length? A few short paragraphs.
Readings for Question # 2:
Please re-read and view again the useful parts of readings for
Week One. This question asks specifically about the three
Harvard short videos introduced in Week One.

11. Question # 2:
2A. What is “serve and return?”
2B. Who starts “serve and return”
2C. What does serve and return do for newborns?
Assistance: Length: A few short paragraphs. Please list your
sources in our assigned readings and videos of this information.
Points: 4 points
_________________________________________________
This second part of the Week Three Worksheet contains new
information. Please complete the readings here below and then
answer the questions.
_________________________________________________
Readings for Question # 3:
This is new information you will read about right now.
Please complete the readings and answer the questions. Here are
the readings:
First reading for question # 3: Dr. Barr’s notes on executive
functions:
Question three covers material that we have not studied before.
Executive functions are a set of behaviors young children are
capable of teaching themselves if they are allowed to play
unstructured, old-fashioned play rather than have structured
activities and sports and electronics time offered to them by
parents and teachers. Executive functions include behaviors
such as self-regulation that takes place when a child is using
private speech. The Harvard video suggests that there are three
types of executive functions: self regulation (how to control
your own behavior), working memory (keeping in mind the
tasks one is working on), and mental flexibility (the ability to
stop what you are doing and share toys or change directions in
what one is doing), and they discuss what they involve.

12. Taken together the executive functions help children regulate
their behavior themselves and get along well with others and
learn to share and work harmoniously with others. Executive
functions help children plan and learn how to deal with others
and how to change directions as needed.
Why do executive functions matter? They are predictive of
success in school. They predict more accurately a child’s
success in higher grades in school than scores on tests of
intelligence
Second reading for question #3: Spiegel audio program with
transcript
This is a wonderful audio program:
Alix Spiegel (21 February 2008)
Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills (audio)
National Public Radio: Your Health. This is an eReserve. It is
found under Content/Course Resources/eReserves/Week Three.
Please go to Content/eReserves.
Then you must choose the little letters above the chart:
(Week Three) and then the chart of eReserves for Week Three
will pop up.
Please notice that the Alix Spiegel reading has a transcript with
it. Look around on the opening page of the Spiegel article and
over to the right somewhere it says Transcript. I couldn't
follow the audio program well enough to take notes, but then I
read the transcript and that helped me a lot.
From the viewpoint of psychologists, educators and parents, this
audio program will help you discover:
· what private speech is,
· what self-regulation is
· and what old-fashioned play is,
· and why they all matter.
· why these are critical for normal development
· in what sort of play self-regulation and private speech occur
and why they matter.

13. · what things around the home and at school can damage normal
development of self-regulation and private speech.
Third reading for question #3: Dr.Barr’s notes on the Spiegel
reading:
The Spiegel audio program discusses activities that facilitate
development of executive function.
Private Speech and Old-fashioned play: The Spiegel audio
includes private speech, which is an opportunity for a child to
self-regulate by talking to himself or herself about how things
should be done. That happens when children are playing alone
or with each other without adult supervision and are using
simple things to invent their own activities. Spiegel also talks
about old-fashioned play and alone play, which, in the past,
provided the opportunities for a child to teach himself or herself
executive functions. Spiegel contrasts old-fashioned play with
the usual activities of children today, which are structured
activities run by adults, like soccer or baseball games, and
video games on the couch. Spiegel reports on a study replicating
(copying) an old study years ago looking at self-regulation.
Please read about what these researchers found about children
in the past and children today and their abilities to self-regulate
—it is interesting.
Here is the viewpoint from the Spiegel audio program that is
most useful to us! These include private speech, self-regulation
and time to play alone. Unstructured play is necessary to give
children the time to develop these on their own.
Unstructured play means that no adult runs it or supervises
it. This is play in which children take scraps of paper or sticks
or whatever is around, and play alone or with other children.
They imagine what some common things (paper or sticks or
other things) represent and use those imagined ideas to play
with. This kind of play uses lots of imagination and children
need to remember what things are. This kind of play does not

14. use fancy toys. Instead, common things and lots of imagination
and private speech are going on.
Structured play: Structured play means a teacher or parent
organizes a sport or an activity or suggests "Let's play house" or
"Imagine that you are a princess" and gives the children
directions and even props or costumes so that, unfortunately,
they cannot use their imagination.
Fourth reading for Question #3: Harvard short videos.
A Harvard short video on executive functions: This short video
gives you additional information about what executive functions
are.
On your browser please type in these exact words:
In brief: executive function: skills for life and learning Harvard
Center on the Developing Child.
Warning: If you do not follow these directions exactly, you will
get totally lost in finding the
videos from the thousands at that site.
Question #3:
The following questions summarize tall this new material about
executive functions and also the value of free unsupervised
play:
3A. What are executive functions and why do they matter? (one
point)
3B. What is free, unstructured play and what does it
provide for children (one point)
3C. What is private speech and what does it do for
children? (one point)
3D. Please provide an example of free, unstructured play
that you remembered doing when you were a child.
Remember that we are talking about children probably under the
age of 7, when private speech begins to disappear. Please, no
classroom games for older children as they discuss in the
Harvard short videos! (one point)

15. Points: Seven points.
Source: Again, please use only the Spiegel audio program or its
written transcript and also Dr. Barr’s lecture notes and the
Harvard short video on executive functions. Please put any
article you quote from on a simple reference list.