Dear Dr. Debbie,
My brother doesn’t have children so that may be part of the problem. He likes to play with my now six-month-old by pretending to be hurt when the baby hits him on the head. He falls on the floor howling and the baby laughs hysterically. Then he gets back up and lowers his head so the baby can hit him again.
What’s a good argument I can use to get him to stop?
(Fake) Victim’s Sister
Dear F.V.S.,
It’s nice that your baby has an involved uncle to play with, but they could use an alternative game.
Serve and Return
Uncle and Baby are carrying out an interaction that the Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child has termed “Serve and Return”. There are many variations to this game. Essentially, two players go back and forth, each waiting his turn to respond, generally to the delight of both players.
These interactions are an important contributor to early brain development. Each cycle of serving and returning creates a stronger and stronger network among brain cells. These networks support language and social skills as well as physical skills. However, rapping someone on the head is not a skill we should be encouraging.
Variations
The timeless game of Peek-a-Boo is a perfect example of a non-violent interaction. Your brother holds a towel, scarf, or magazine over his face and whips it away while saying, “Peek-a-boo!” At six-months-old, your baby may reach over and pull away the coverup. (Younger babies are simply amazed and delighted that the face returns.) Longer versions have the adult saying, “Where’s Uncle?” before the big reveal and “Here I am!” afterward. Soon your baby may initiate the game – with hands or a blanket – by being the covered face waiting for Uncle to ask, “Where’s Baby?”
I developed a serve and return game with my first baby, and repeated it into the next generation with our grandchildren. I put a plastic cup on top of my head (or use my sunglasses that are usually already there), fake an exaggerated “ahhhh choo!” and the object falls into my hands. This triggers the baby’s laughter. The game continues for as long as the baby keeps looking at me to keep doing this ridiculous action and keeps responding with a chuckle.
My brother taught me another one when he was the entertaining uncle for my babies. He would press his finger onto his own nose while sticking out his tongue. When the finger is removed from the nose, the tongue retreats back into the mouth. After multiple times watching this silly button pushing, the baby is invited to push Uncle’s nose. The next phase is for the baby’s nose to be the button which makes the baby’s tongue come out when Uncle or the baby pushes it. So much fun!
A complete stranger baby and I invented a game while we were both stuck interminably in a waiting room. He and his parents were in the row behind me. The adults were chatting with each other and I’m pretty sure he was bored. He grunted. I whipped my head around and smiled at him then I quickly turned back to face front. He caught on pretty fast. Every grunt from him produced a quick head spin and smile from me. After several such serves and returns, I was called up to the reception desk and the baby and I waved good-by to each other.
Does your brother know any Mother Goose rhymes such as Pat-a-Cake? Or finger plays such as Five Little Monkeys or Eensy Weensy Spider? He can add his own variations for the words or hand motions to make these interactions special.
Empathy Lessons
Serve and return interactions are teaching a baby about person-to-person engagement. It’s a way of communicating, back and forth, which is what makes human relationships work. And connecting to one another, in a positive way, is the beginning of empathy.
Your brother is investing time in building a lasting relationship through playing with your child. Let him know how much this means to you and how important it is for the baby’s development to have these back and forth interactions. Their playtime together is helping to lay the building blocks for interacting with other people for a lifetime.
That being said, encourage this fun-loving uncle to look ahead. How can he influence future interactions with playmates, siblings, teachers, bosses, clients, neighbors, and perhaps a family one day? Suggest he ignore any hitting and instead create another back and forth game – one that supports harmless actions between the players. Their current serve and return could inadvertently promote hitting that actually hurts another child or the family’s pet.
Let’s drop the association between one person hitting the other and laughing at the victim’s pain in favor of games that are at least neutral if not compassionate between the players. Studies of maternal-child interactions suggest that a baby learns empathy from empathic interactions with a caregiver. Research compiled by the National Library of Medicine found that “Children of parents who are warm, supportive, sensitive, and low in negativity tend to show higher levels of empathy.” Hitting is clearly a negative action.
Making the baby laugh is wonderful. Playing together is wonderful. But it’s just as easy to play in ways that can foster empathy in your little human.
Dr. Debbie
Write your question to Dr. Debbie! Please include age(s) of your child(ren) and other details about the situation or concern.
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum, located at 25 Silopanna Road in Annapolis.
The museum is open daily from 10 am to 4 pm. Online reservations are available or call: 410-990-1993. This Saturday at 11 am there will be a STEM workshop about George Crum and the invention of the potato chip. Then at 2 pm, come to the Busch Annapolis Library, 1410 West Street, for a FREE concert of R & B and Soul music by the Silopanna Band. Each Thursday there is a guided nature walk at 10:30 am. Art and Story Times with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet are on Monday mornings at 10:30 am.
