Is your baby trying to tell you something?
Young babies’ language decoded! Your babies can get their needs met.
agency
“If you do X, I will give you Y”
Offering a child a small treat (whatever it may be) might seem unobjectionable, because parent/carer and child both ‘win’. But what’s really happening here is that you’re implicitly teaching them that if they want something that seems appealing, to get it they will have to do things they don’t want to do. You’re essentially supporting a pattern of exchanging one’s happiness/dignity/ethical standards/morals for some prize.
“Equal relationships with our children?! How are parents and children are equals?!”
Children are no less creative and rational than adults, whether or not they yet have the explicit language in which to express themselves.
“How do you take babies seriously?”
We are attuned to babies’ signals, we take their preferences seriously and assist them in meeting them. We empower them rather than disempoweraging them. Even newborn babies are learning something absolutely vital for their future—something so important and valuable that I cannot stress it enough: they are learning that they can have an effect on the world.