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How Your Emotions Affect Your Baby's Attitude

Bundle of Nerves? Cool as a Cucumber?

By Gina Roberts-Grey, LCSW

Even though parents never intend on their moods transferring to their children, sharing emotions is a natural process. Children raised in households with high stress levels learn to feed off the stress. A study performed in 2000 by researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that babies who are only a few months old can sense agitation and begin to display similar emotions to those of their caregiver. Dr. Russell R. Posey supervised that study and explains that "three out of five of these children experienced higher levels of stress and anxiety as preschoolers and had a harder time integrating with their peers."

It is important that we understand that because of their limited verbal communication skills, children under the age of 18 months react to the emotions of their parents in many ways. Tension will be evident in their daily habits. Dr. Posey's findings also indicate that a child trying to react to and cope with his parent's emotions might begin having trouble falling or remaining asleep, displaying trouble eating or seem fussier than normal. "If a parent or caregiver is not calm, [is] preoccupied or over-stressed it reflects in subtle ways to a child," says Dr. Posey. "The child can notice your feelings in the way he is held and carried."

Pamela Biegler, a psychologist in Little Rock, Ark., explains that our emotions come through in the simple act of picking your child up from the floor. "Your baby will notice the quicker swooping motion consistent with tension instead of a slower movement associated with calmer emotions," says Biegler, who is also the mother of five children. "Children will also sense your preoccupation when you communicate with them."

Want to see more?

• 10 Reasons to Cherish the First Year: Endearing Behaviors, Characteristics and Mannerisms
• Baby Development: First Emotions: Learning to Identify and Nurture Baby's First Feelings
• Join the discussion on our Family.com community!
• A Developmental Game a Month: Fun Activities for Baby That Encourage Fun and Development

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