The SCC Blog
The School
Ginger went to observe in the school with a group of other visitors the first day. When she returned, she had many positive things to say about the school and the teaching. Every classroom they visited had active engagement of almost all the child...
The Act of Serving
As I consider these comforting rhythms of daily life, especially those involved in food preparation, I remember the video I have of Love and Hope that I call “The Papusa Maker”. Sarah Measures took the film, and she pointed out to me how much the ...
The Preparation of Meals
The preparation of meals plays a major role in the life of the ashram. Every morning when I would get up early and make my way in the dark to the kitchen, I would encounter three people, seated on the floor of the kitchen working. The first is a s...
India - Deenabandhu Trust: First Posting
Ginger and I landed in Bangalore early Saturday morning. The first sight I had of India was twinkling lights in the dark from the plane. The airport is modern and clean. We made our way through passport control and customs with an extra security c...
How to Talk to Your Child About Complex Subjects
At a gathering of family and close friends recently, a young couple asked me a question about their almost 3-year old son. I had observed the child and had found him to be intelligent, charming, and warmly connected to his parents. He also seemed ...
Murray-Cooper IPMH weekend, Part IV: Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety – Maternal anxiety and its effect on mother-infant interactions There tends to be a specificity of mode of transmission of various forms of maternal anxiety from mother to child. Murray and Cooper are designing a prospective longitudinal...
Murray-Cooper IPMH weekend, Part III: Interventions for PND
The next day, Peter Cooper, focused on interventions. He referred to studies that trained non-professional women in either “non directive counseling” or “CBT” and sent them to the homes of recruited depressed women in the third trimester of pregna...
Murray-Cooper IPMH weekend, Part II
Post Natal Depression: Part II How do mothers affect the development of emotional regulation in infants? Murray showed a film of a study with mothers and 14-month infants in which the mother is first asked not to interact with the child when the r...
Infant Parent Mental Health Weekend: Murray and Cooper
Part I The last weekend in the IPMH fellowship, we were treated to researchers on postnatal depression (PND) from the U.K., Lynne Murray and Peter Cooper. In this summary, I cannot do justice to the rich presentation and discussions that followed....
Growing Flexibility in Your Older Child
A while ago the mother of a 9-year old girl told me a story about going to the bookstore with her daughter to buy her a book in a series that the girl – we will call her Josie – loved. They had planned this happy errand ahead of time, and they bot...
Growing Flexibility in Your Child
Recently, a mother asked me how she could help her son become less rigid in his play so that he would be more successful in his play with peers. As I sat down to respond to her question in email, I began to think about what an important question t...
Romanian Orphanage Study: Dr. Charley Zeanah at UMB IPMH
Charley Zeanah presented to the group on September 21 and 22. He has been involved in Romania for 14 years. The Romania initiative traces its beginning to a movement started by the 1909 White House Conference on Children that declared its oppositi...
What is an "Orphanage"?
I have been thinking about an important paper in the recent journal of the Journal of the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The paper reported a study by Michael Rutter and colleagues of the effects of “pure” psychosocial de...
What is an "Orphanage"?
I have been thinking about an important paper in the recent journal of the Journal of the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The paper reported a study by Michael Rutter and colleagues of the effects of “pure” psychosocial de...
Making Music with Your Baby
On vacation, I have a chance to relax in the beautiful countryside and reflect. I have been reading more about the child-caregiver relationship and consideringdifferent “takes” on what makes it work and not work so well. One of the interesting res...
Orchids or Racehorses
Orchids and Racehorses In the conference I attended this week in Paris, IACAPAP, I heard many stimulating presentations; I will probably write about some of them in the coming weeks. One that comes immediately to mind was by a researcher named Mar...
Some Thoughts About Culture
Our IPMH group has been having an extensive and interesting discussion about culture on email. I have been traveling and it has been hard for me to follow all of it on my blackberry, but I thought I would offer some thoughts. It refers to caregive...
More About "Ben"
In Sydney, my husband and I make our way to the International Transfer Terminal, not without a few mishaps and irritable moments. Jetlagged, with my ticket in hand, I board the plane to Melbourne. I am looking for row 15. I pass 10 in Business Cla...
"Ben" and the Magic 747
An Exploration of the Mind of a Gifted ASD Boy and Implications for the Life of His Parents I am on my way to Australia to give a paper and to explore a little. I brought with me a pile of articles I had been collecting to read or to re-read. Not ...
Comments on Last Blog Posting - A Cast of Thousands
New Comments from my Infant Parent Mental Health colleagues: Hi Alex, I appreciate and agree with your blog post. I work with many families who face this dilemma and many who experience reduced quality of life as they attempt to schedule a huge ca...