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When it comes to the brain, human infants come out of the womb less ready for action than other animals. While a colt stands within minutes after being born, the human infant has some learning to do just to function. Some scientists believe this was an evolutionary trade-off; as the human cranium expanded to house a bigger brain, it became too big to fit through a mother’s pelvis. Infant skulls had to be soft and the brains inside needed to be smaller than the skulls to prepare for the tight squeeze.
That means the infant brain has a lot of catching up to do. Human babies spend the first few years sorting out which neurons to use based on experience. “The brain just explodes in the first five years,” says child expert Jane Brissette.
Brissette is Washington County coordinator for Parents Are Teachers Too, a statewide program that gives first-time parents the knowledge and support they need to get those young neurons firing.
Parents Are Teachers Too started in the late ’80s as a home-visiting program for new parents. Since then, it has expanded to include a boot camp for new dads, a monthly call-in radio show on WERU called Baby Talk, and weekly playgroups where parents and little ones up to age 3 can learn from one another in a relaxed, child-safe setting.
At an Ellsworth PATT playgroup open to all parents, a few toddlers tentatively share toys with each other, while others sit in small chairs for a much-anticipated cereal snack. Infants look on with wide-eyed wonder from the safety of their parents’ laps as their siblings drum, solve puzzles, and roll around on the floor. Some parents chat excitedly, obviously thrilled to talk to other adults. Others sit back in rocking chairs with sighs of relief, grateful that their children are safely entertained.
Every week, PATT playgroups like this one are happening throughout the state. Both the playgroups and PATT’s home-visiting program are vital to help break up the isolation and fear that a first-time parent feels, says PATT parent Lorena Stearns, mother of a 15-month-old son, Felix.
Stearns says PATT helped bridge the time between well-baby checkups for her family, and she was able to ask her home visitor all sorts of questions, including questions on such arcane subjects as the pros and cons of feeding carrots to babies.
“With the first one, you’re clueless,” she says.
While that feeling of “cluelessness” is shared by many new parents, it can potentially interfere with the all important parent/child bonding process. In order to learn, babies need to feel a strong enough attachment to their parents or caregivers to explore, explains Mary Ellen Logue, an early childhood education professor at UMaine, Orono. If a baby’s emotional and physical needs are met, then he or she will feel safe enough to learn; if not, the baby will draw inward and become more nervous and agitated.
According to Logue, a weak attachment to their caregivers, left unchecked, could spiral downward creating a greater likelihood of depression, learning disabilities, and even substance abuse as the baby grows into adulthood. “These patterns set early,” says Logue—so early that some experts “can tell by 7 months if the baby expects to succeed or fail at things.”
When an infant has problems forming a bond with parents, it’s often because the parents aren’t having an easy time. They may be grappling with their own emotional issues, financial stress, exhaustion, or a lack of knowledge or confidence about how to raise their child. Recent studies show that some 13% of mothers and even 10% of fathers suffer from postpartum depression, and that children of parents suffering from untreated depression have more difficulties learning and developing. That’s why many infant-support programs like PATT spend time and resources seeing to the needs of parents and caregivers of infants. If the parents are in trouble, the babies usually are, too.
“Infant mental health is community health,” says Logue.
Luckily, research shows that even a small dose of early intervention can make a world of difference in the lives of babies. Not all learning delays or mental health problems can be prevented, say early childhood advocates, but enough can to make intervention programs worth their weight in gold. Studies have shown that every dollar invested in early childhood programs reaps up to $16 in societal savings down the line.
It was these kinds of arguments that motivated then-UMaine president Dale Lick to call for the creation and development of a model parenting program in 1988. Faculty members searched in vain for a program that met their expectations, so instead they elected to form a new program, Parents Are Teachers Too. The program began in Waldo County later that year, but quickly spread throughout Maine.
Pam LaHaye, the state’s home-visiting program coordinator, is credited by regional Parents Are Teachers Too coordinators with helping to create the PATT model. For her, the inspiration for the program came from her first job as a child protective worker.
“Much of the time, I saw situations that could have been prevented had the family had more information and support around child rearing,” LaHaye says. PATT “was an opportunity to create exactly what I had wished for.”
Under the Parents Are Teachers Too program, home visitors meet regularly with first-time parents until their first child reaches school age. (PATT is also open to teenage parents with more than one child.) During the visits, they provide whatever information, referrals, or guidance parents may ask for, from where to get a low-cost hearing test for infants to community programs that help parents quit smoking. The program also offers library events and infant brain development training for childcare centers.
What sets PATT apart from other home-visiting programs, Jane Brissette says, “is that it’s open to everyone. Families don’t have to be considered at-risk or low-income to enroll.” That’s a very good thing, she adds, “because there are few first-time parents who aren’t overwhelmed.”
