‘Touchpoints’

PINOY KASI

‘Touchpoints’
By Michael Tan

Inquirer
Last updated 02:19am (Mla time) 05/23/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Have you ever wondered why your baby seems to be making great strides with physical or mental development, and then suddenly seems to backslide or regress? A usually pleasant child, for example, suddenly seems prone to tantrums and crying fits.

Dr. T. Berry Brazleton, a prominent American pediatrician, assures parents and caregivers that we shouldn’t worry too much about that; in fact, normal child development involves what he calls “touchpoints,” phases in childhood development marked by “predictable spurts that are often preceded by distressing regressions.”

Back in the 1980s, I had the privilege of attending a Unicef-sponsored seminar where Brazleton was the main speaker. He was most engaging, coming through not so much as an academician (with appointments in Harvard and Brown University), or even as a pediatrician, but as a warm grandparent. He easily captivated the Filipino audience, even if his insights were based mainly on cases in the United States.

Eventually, Brazleton authored a book called “Touchpoints,” published in 1992, which became a bestseller, but I never got around to getting the book. Recently, on National Public Radio, I caught an interview with him and was thrilled to learn a second edition of “Touchpoints” had come out, this time in collaboration with Dr. Joshua Sparrow, a child psychiatrist. This time, my interest was as a parent and I made it a point to look for the book, eventually finding a copy at Fully Booked.

It’s the kind of book where you almost feel the author is holding your hand, going through the various “touchpoints,” from pregnancy, to birth, to various age intervals where you might expect the touchpoints: 2-3 weeks, 6-8 weeks, 4 months, 6-7 months, 9 months, 1 year, 15 months, 18 months, 2 years. The third year is optimistically subtitled: “Looking Ahead.”

Besides the discussions about touchpoints, there’s a whole section on “challenges to development,” dealing with everything from allergies and asthma to divorce and developmental disabilities, to television and toilet training.

Tantrums

New parents will often be told about important milestones to anticipate: when to expect the child to stand, to walk, to talk. But we’re not warned about times when the child seems to stagnate, or even regress. Brazleton has a powerful term to describe the really serious regressions: a meltdown.

Brazleton assures us that the regressions are normal, even predictable. I’m going to cite Brazleton’s discussion of one such touchpoint that could occur around the age of 15 months.

This was actually the first chapter I read, because my son is about that age, and has been, well, quite temperamental at times. Brazleton writes that this age is in fact marked by tantrums, that even the most pleasant babies may suddenly become a pain. But this “regression,” Brazleton explains, is to be expected because this is the age where the child is going through an inner turmoil: he wants to be independent but faces many obstacles. He ends up frustrated, but might not understand the emotions around the frustration, so he lashes out at siblings, at parents.

Brazleton suggests that we leave it to the child to sort it out. You put him in a safe place where he can’t hurt himself, and then walk away, almost as if to say “I’m sorry I can’t help you more ... but this tantrum is your job.” It makes sense: the child’s tantrum comes precisely because he’s figuring out what it means to be independent. If we indulge his tantrum, we actually keep him dependent and “regressed.” Brazleton’s advice works quite well: I’ve “spied” on my son with his “quiet time” and am amazed at how quickly he calms down, eventually finding something to do.

The problem is that culturally, we think the proper response is to carry the child to comfort him. That only reinforces the idea that a tantrum is a way of asking for help, or even for getting something done. It’s not surprising that we have to deal with so many adults—from politicians to professors—who still try to get their way through tantrums, and succeed because there are enough fools willing to play their game.

‘Urong-sulong’

Going through Brazleton’s book, I began to feel that “regression” might be too strong a term. The so-called regressions are probably part of our evolution. In a sense, the “regressions” are needed to warn the parents about a vulnerable period, often a phase where one aspect of growth is about to occur rapidly, and so will require more attention for the child. That can be teething (but don’t we all know that?), a growth surge, any dramatic development in the child’s cognitive abilities.

In the introduction to the new edition of his book, Brazleton mentions the work of the Dutch ethologist (animal behaviorist) Frans Plooij, who has found that among chimpanzees, there are also these spurts and regressions and how mother chimpanzees seemed to “know” about these touchpoints, isolating their babies from the pack during critical periods, lest they annoy the male chimps too much with intensified crying and clinging.

By “warning” about regressions, we go into “red alert,” preparing ourselves, the family, maybe even the community, to deal with a crucial period in the child’s development. This does not mean pampering or indulging the child; instead, it’s giving more space for everyone to deal with the difficult period.

My choice of a Filipino term for touchpoints would be “urong-sulong.” Younger readers recognize that as the title of a song rendered by Regine Velasquez about the vagaries of love -- “urong” being not so much a regression as a period of uncertainty, and “sulong” referring to the more positive, movement forward. The hope, of course, is that cumulatively, we make progress.

The last part of Brazleton’s book deals with “allies in development,” showing how parents, grandparents, friends, “childcarers” and pediatricians can forge alliances to be more effective in dealing with the touchpoints. For Filipinos, that chapter is particularly important given how parenting in the Philippines is still built on a wide network of relatives, friends and neighbors. With millions of Filipino parents working outside of the home, or even overseas, it becomes all the more important that we maximize our social networks.

Brazleton’s introduction recommends “reaffirming traditional forms of family intimacy”: returning to breastfeeding, co-sleeping (children sleeping next to the parents, rather than being isolated in a crib), more lax toilet training and something as simple as having meals together with the child. All these traditional forms allow parents and caregivers (and that can include “kuya,” or elder brother, and “ate,” or elder sister) to become more sensitive to the changes in the child. Throw in education about the touchpoints and we should be well on our way to less painful, more productive child-rearing.