Personhead carbonel said in response to my previous post:
"Threat" is all the bad things that could happen to you, from getting a paper cut to being killed by a suicide bomber. You can't change a threat. It exists.
"Risk" is the likelihood of any of those bad things actually happening. There's a lot you can do to affect your risk level, like crossing the street to the lighted side to avoid creepy shapes in the darkness (an example the course was fond of).
I read this and I immediately thought, no, wait, that's the opposite of what we do in the infant environment. You can't strongly influence the risk of babies doing what they do, but you can remove the threat of them getting hurt when they do those things.
And so all day I've been seeing examples of that. And also the original carbonel statement. But mainly my way, really.
Babies will fall down when the begin to crawl and walk. They will chew on things. You can't reduce the likelihood of these things happening. But you can remove the threats involved: you make the environment one where it is safe to fall. Mats and carpets on the floor: low elevations for them to climb on (and fall off of). They'll fall the same number of times (if not more, since you will know they are safe and you won't be rushing to stop them every time they take a wobbly step), but they won't drack open their heads or twist their spines. But they will get bruises and small scratches.
And for the chewing: things that are safe to chew on: no toxic paints, no splinters, no chokeable bits easy to gnaw off: and things that can be effectively cleaned and easily sterilized, and then you do clean and sterilize them. This could probably be expressed either way, as risk abatement or threat abatement. In any case, you're not trying to change the behavior of the child, you're trying to fit the environment to the child's natural behavior.
Now when it comes to babies biting or scratching other babies, we have to work on both ends of the thing. On the one hand, we have to create an environment that lowers the possibility that a child will start to bite or scratch another baby. And on the other hand, you can't remove the possibility completely because these behaviors are outgrowths of really basic reflexes and drives, So you've got to create a situation in which you can respond fast enough to interrupt most of these incidents before the teeth close, and where if the teeth do close on the skin, you can get the bitten child comforted, examined for broken skin, cleaned up, and a cold compress applied to the spot, while also using the opportunity to get the biting kid to understand and empathize with the bitten kid's distress and to feel the age-appropriate level of responsibility for it, And yes, even with the pre-verbal kids we talk about using your words, even though a pre-verbal kid's words might be only NO! or even waah!
In this case the risk is 100% that a given child will bite another child at some time and 100% that they will be bitten at some time, if they are spending their days in the company of a bunch of other babies. The threats we're guarding against are several:
-- that the bite will be severe
-- that the bitten child will be bitten enough to make their experience in the group unpleasantand unhelpful for them
-- that the bitten child will draw from the experience some conclusons about life that don't help them stand up to injustice, or to get along with others, or to feel unafraid most of the time (this may be the same as the second point)
-- that the biting child will draw the wrong conclusions from the event (they could, for example, come to believe that hurting others or frightening others is a legitimate or even the only way to get what they want: they could decide that they are more real in the social world when they are causing a sensation by doing hurtful things: they coudl decide that they are just bad, and there's no point in trying to be good)
But knowing that a child will bite and will be bitten doesn't mean capitulating to biting. We still plan around eliminating biting incidents as if we actually could eliminate all of them. Because planning around preventing biting means paying attention to the developmental needs of babies and how satisfactory their environments are. For example:
Are there enough toys so that the babies can share the shiny? Of course the toy with a baby attached to it is a much, much better toy than the identical lifeless one lying on the ground next to it, but if that toy is there the caregiver has an opportunity to demonstrate that the idle toy will come to life the same way as the one already being played with.
Are there enough interesting things to do so that merely banging on other children doesn't present itself as a more compelling actitivity? If there's a ball to throw with another child, that has more potential fun value than even the most alarming scream you can elicit with a big juicy chomp.
A corollary to this: are there enough safe toys and are the toys safe enough that you can let the babies do whatever they can think of with them ?(within reason. You cannot prevent some child in a group from imagining what it would be like to stack chairs on the table and put a rocking horse on top of the chairs and then try to climb up. So you have to be there to stop them doing that, regardless of how much you don't want to interfere in their initiatives. Also, know that when you stop a determined child from doing this, they will more often than not invent a new horrifying thing to do before you are done unstacking the perilous pile -- or they will go and chomp on their best friend, if you can't head them off first).
Do you have enough responsible adults (or teenaged volunteers to flesh out the numbers, for that matter) that you can head off a child with that particular look in their face? And are they experienced and sensitive enough to recognize that look, or the situations that will bring it on?
Do you have enough predictibility in the day that the children aren't always anxious about what's coming next and worried about when their lunches and their mommies are going to appear?
On the other hand, is there enoujgh novelty in the day that the children aren't flat-out bored?
Are you watching for signs of distress, of boredom, anger, resentment, thirts, sleepiness, hunger, the need to pee or the aftermath of having peed, slimy faces, coughing, stomach upset? Do you have the wherewithal to respond to any of these if you see them coming on?
Do you model problem solving, and interpret the children to each other as accurately (and at the same time as positively ) as possible? So you've intercepted Baby Incisors from savaging Baby's Got a Rocking Horse on the arm, and Baby's Got a Rocking Horse has just noticed they almost got a huge bite from Baby Incisors who's bitten them before, and BGARH bursts out wailing and BI freaks out and lunges for BGARH to thwack them with the huge toy garbage truck they originally dragged over here to show to BGARH before BI got distracted by the shiny rocking horse and the shiny bare arm of BGARH and got intercepted by you, because you're so awesome you saw this coming. What do you do now?
I'm going to skip the bogus multiple choice question and give you an answer (not THE answer, you might do differently depending on the kids, yourself, the environment, etc). You intercept again. You might or might notsay to Baby Incisors that Baby's Got a Rocking Horse doesn't want a garbage truck thwacked on their head, and Baby's Got a Rocking Horse doesn't want to get off the rocking horse and doesn't want to get bitten on their tasty round arm either. But you necessarily say "I see you have a hug shiny garbage truck. Did you want to show it to Baby's Got a Rocking Horse?"
and, you know, whatevger Baby Incisors wanted a minute ago, now they want to show Baby's Got a Rocking Horse the big shiny garbage truck. Or maybe they don't because they suddenly remember how precous the garbage truck is and they're pretty sure anybody else would notice how precious it is and try to take it any from them and theat would be unpleasant so Baby Incisors hides the truck behind themselves and backs away. "Oh well, " you say. "You're not ready to show off your garbage truck. Maybe next time." Either way, the conversation now is about the essential thing, the interaction of these babies, and not about the superficiaal thing, and either way, the babies have something more consequential to grapple with.
And what you've done, you excellent baby caregiver you, is to remove the threat of a bite and a thwack from a situation without much altering the risk. It's still 100% that those two will interact: but you've altered the nature of the interaction so that it is no longer dangerous.
In real life, there may be several iterations of threat removal and conversation starting before you get closure to this. Usually involving Baby's Got a Big Plastic Wrench and Baby's Got a Book That Must Be Read This Very Second or I'll Thwack It on Everyone In Reach as well, or at the very least Baby's Going to Hold On Like an Infant Possum No Matter What. So somewhere in all this one or another of these babies is going to take a hit or something and you'll be doing all the stuff I described up above. But because you're in the middle of all this, you're able to thrust you own arm in and get some of the impact diverted -- again, lessening the threat while not being able to impact the percentage of risk to much degree.
On another front,Emma set eight traps for me and Truffle sprang one. No great damage, and she didn't yelp, but she did look embarrassed.
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