Chapter 1- ‘A Relationship-Based Model and the Importance of the Infant and Toddler Years’-

1. Why do infants and toddlers need responsive, continuous caring relationship with parents, families, and teachers?
Positive relationships are vital for infants and toddlers as well. To thrive, infants and toddlers need loving adults who protect, nurture, and help them learn. Adults who respond to children and treat them with respect promote their strengths. In fact, respectful responses from others are essential to infants’ and toddlers’ sense of security, self-worth, self-confidence, and motivation to learn. Infants’ and toddlers’ experience of healthy relationships is the foundation for their ability to love and learn. 2. Create a list of why the first 3 years of life are so important for the well-being of infants and toddlers?
No other stage of human development requires as much learning and results in as many changes as in the first 3 years of life. Some infants and toddlers are healthy, have enough to eat, feel safe and loved, are talked to in responsive ways, and feel like valued members of their families and cultures. Educators and parents now know, definitely, that what happens during the first 3 years of a child’s life has a long-lasting effect on who that person is and will become. Infants’ and toddlers’ early experiences will influence their ability to learn, feelings of self-worth, sense of competence, and capacity to love and care for others. The work of parenting, caring for, and educating young children from birth to 3 years of age, during this time of rapid growth and development, is among the most important work that exists. 3. How are children’s irreducible needs met in your community?
Meeting young children’s irreducible needs is the thread that ties these three types of early development and education programs together. Irreducible needs are the needs of children that are absolutely necessary for them to survive and thrive. Brazelton and Greenspan emphasize that when these seven needs are met, a child will grow, learn, and flourish. Listed below are the seven needs: * Ongoing nurturing relationships * Physical protection, safety, and regulation * Experiences tailored to individual differences * Developmentally appropriate experiences * Limit setting, structure, and expectations * Stable communities and cultural continuity * Adults to protect the future

4. How has the research on brain development influenced the way parents and teachers think about the importance of the first 3 years of life?
As a mom, dad, or teacher talks to a baby, a song is sung, or the baby is positioned on the parent’s body where he can see the playing dog, the baby reacts to these events, taking in information, processing it, and storing it. The synapses and the pathways formed actively create a web of learning in the brain. This is why early responsive experiences are so crucial: Those synapses that have been activated many times by virtue of repeated early experience tend to become permanent to ensure optimal emotional, social, language, and thinking development. Scientists have also discovered that there are sensitive periods and windows of opportunity for development in the prenatal period and during the infant years.