«Parents' feelings influence the child's self-esteem»

The most important information

Basel paediatrician Cyril Lüdin is an experienced expert in parent-child bonding. He believes that touch, movement and language are the most important elements for children to thrive.

As social beings, children react to both physical and emotional influences. Even direct physical contact in the weeks following birth conveys a sense of safety and security. For this reason, the doctor is calling for mandatory and fully paid maternity leave of six months. «Touch is essential for safety and well-being in a parent-child relationship,» says the paediatrician. A great deal also happens between parents and children on a non-verbal level. «Even small children are very aware of their parents' emotions,» says the expert. Parents should therefore express their feelings more freely and not suppress irritations or fears.

Further key statements by the physician:

• Today's society makes it difficult for women and men to approach the adventure of «parenthood» in a calm and relaxed manner: «We live in an accelerated world in which nobody has time».

• It doesn't always have to be Ritalin: «In «Emotional First Aid», abdominal breathing is an aid to regulate the autonomic nervous system and thus promote relaxation».

• «I advise young mothers (and parents in general, editor's note) to be authentic and to communicate their feelings openly to their children. Withheld and suppressed feelings cause irritation and anxiety in the child.»

In this month's interview with Cyril Lüdin, you can read how parents can implement this in everyday family life and why Ritalin can be a great relief for parents and children with the right diagnosis.

Mr Lüdin, what do children need to be strong?

Children need a reliable bond with primary carers, usually their mother and father. If they are also cared for by reliable people, they acquire good social skills, show adequate stress resistance and are less prone to mental illness.

You have investigated the connection between early bonding and the influence on the child's brain structure. What are your most important findings?

We know from the findings of prenatal psychology and brain research that an unborn child absorbs and stores everything with its senses. It senses when the parents are in contact with it. Emotional experiences during pregnancy, both positive and negative, are stored in the brain as emotional patterns. The unborn child wants to be recognised. It is helpless if the mother or father closes themselves off emotionally.

Children sense every mood from us adults - no matter how old the children are.

They say that touch, movement and language are the most important elements for children to thrive.

As social beings, children react to both physical and emotional influences. Even direct physical contact in the weeks after birth conveys safety and security. Touch is essential for safety and well-being in a parent-child relationship. Movement promotes the development of motor, mental and language skills. Even during pregnancy, the baby's movement provides stimuli for the development of the brain. It is helpless if the mother or father close themselves off emotionally.

Even if the child is already older?

Yes, if experiences in early childhood remind us of prenatal negative patterns, they can trigger irrational fears. Such fears are a risk factor for later learning disorders, aggression and antisocial behaviour.

How should I imagine such a pattern?

Anxiety is omnipresent in this day and age. They already arise during pregnancy, as the expectant mother is hardly able to rest due to the hectic pace of everyday life and medical interventions. Parents in joyful anticipation give the child security. All the embryo's senses are active, it is consciously alive! The unborn child is in the same mood as its environment intrauterine (Latin for in the womb) and also releases the stress hormone cortisol as a degradation product into the amniotic fluid in the event of anxiety or fear. It is underestimated that the embryo perceives the corresponding taste and recognises it on the parents' body after birth. Even when breastfeeding, the mother smells differently depending on whether she is at rest or tense. Newborn babies snuggle up - or they cry, whinge and turn away. No matter how old the children are, they sense every mood of us adults.

How important is communication and language between child and parent?

Communication is the be-all and end-all. It means perception, interaction and stimulation. It only works in a relationship. We have to be emotionally and mentally involved in contact with the child. If we're on our smartphone, we're not really available. This means that even toddlers lack linguistic dialogue and thus communicative competence. Learning requires personal relationships. Reading and telling stories helps children to calm down and concentrate. Through eye or physical contact, we can reassure ourselves whether the child is still emotionally «involved». We pass on skills and abilities, as well as ideas about rules, attitudes and orientations. I repeat myself: children need us as role models and as counterparts.

You were one of the first paediatricians to institutionalise physical contact directly after birth in hospital.

Yes, our newborns are allowed to stay on their mother's body from birth throughout their time in hospital. Warmth and security create a feeling of calm in both mother and child. Phases of uncertainty can be better regulated. Where there is bonding, calm prevails. Of course, this does not always work, but the feelings of the parents are «understood» by the child and influence its self-esteem. The consequences of emotional neglect are restlessness, attention problems, hyperactivity and learning disorders. As a result, early intervention programmes are arranged at great expense in early childhood. These in turn only have a chance of success in an appreciative relationship if the child's emotional centres are addressed and activated. Unfortunately, today's children are often forced into trellis-tree-like conceptions. Being different is branded and subjected to therapy - originality and a lack of conformity are hardly recognised and supported.

You are calling for six months' maternity leave. Why is that?

Our society makes it difficult for women and men to approach the adventure of parenthood calmly and serenely. We live in an accelerated world in which nobody has time. This is in contrast to the leisurely pace at which children feel, especially in early childhood. Women have to go back to work after four months to avoid losing their job, which is very stressful. They are often forced to wean while the child has never had a bottle. External childcare has to be organised early on, especially if the grandparents live far away, are still working or are otherwise occupied. There is no paternity leave. So the child has to go to daycare. In daycare centres, the continuity of the relationship is often jeopardised by operational factors.

My own experiences awakened my interest in questioning the causes of behavioural problems.

You say that society needs to change. In which direction?

By valuing parenthood and recognising the value of the bond between child and parent. I am in favour of a parental allowance so that they can stay at home longer or pay for an institution that guarantees safe secondary care.

What happens to children who are insecurely attached?

Infants and toddlers who experience insecure attachment at home are particularly vulnerable if they are cared for by others during the day. Their experiences of dysfunctional relationships at home and inadequate secondary attachments during daycare expose them to a double risk. However, secure and consistent secondary care by an empathetic secondary attachment figure in a daycare centre also has a positive effect. So we must not generalise. However, we must place high demands on the quality of the carer, but also invest a lot of money in training through political work. This is family support in today's world.

You treat many parents together with their children in your practice.

Touch plays a role here. How should I visualise this? By being touched, I mean recognising the child's history with its parents. There are children who hide their despair by becoming very quiet, they feign confidence. As babies they either suck, cling to transitional objects or rock. Later, on the other hand, they are compulsively independent, avoid contact or lack distance. All these and many other behaviours give us indications of stress or trauma experienced during pregnancy, after birth or in early childhood. By letting the parents tell their shared story in the presence of the child, the child gains an insight into the events, worries and problems of the parents and is thus included. If there are taboo subjects within the parent-child relationship, the child does not become calm. In order to work on these issues therapeutically, I need an assignment from the parents. Guilt and shame are often the causes of secrecy, and it is important for us to recognise the circumstances.

Many parents feel left alone, ashamed and isolated with their questions.

They also work with breathing.

In «Emotional First Aid» (see box), abdominal breathing is an aid to regulate the autonomic nervous system and thus promote relaxation. In a healthy organism, the autonomic nervous system is in a constant state of oscillation. In children, this is clearly visible in relaxed phases of self-contact and in active periods of interaction and exploration of the environment. The overexcitation manifests itself in whining, crying, sleep restlessness and hypermotor behaviour. The anxious mother's breathing becomes shallower, her eye contact is less attentive, her body feels less cuddly and her voice no longer has a soft tone. She suffers from muscle tension, especially in the shoulder area, and insomnia. She no longer feels understood. Ultimately, many parents feel left alone with their questions, ashamed and isolated. In my practice, mindfulness and recognising the situation in which parents and child find themselves are important. I advise young mothers to be authentic and to communicate their feelings openly to their children. Withheld and suppressed feelings cause irritation and anxiety in the child.

You also treat children with behavioural disorders. Do you prescribe Ritalin?

Yes, if the child is correctly diagnosed and the resources in the family, school and environment are exhausted or simply not available, Ritalin can be a great relief for parents and child. The moralised public discussion about this drug often disregards the extent of the suffering of those affected, often through ignorance. I have experienced it myself with my adopted son.

Would you like to tell us about it?

When he came to us, into a family with three children of his own, he had extremely poor self-control, no language skills and was very needy. His impulsiveness was a burden for everyone. We also tried to help him with various support measures - and often had to put up with our own frustrations and those of the boy. The child feels the daily pressure of expectations and can never live up to them.

Has your own situation influenced your research focus?

Absolutely. Fatherhood is one of my most passionate concerns. I wish I had known more back then. My experiences with my son sparked my interest in questioning the causes of these behavioural problems. When assessing children, we need to know and understand their parents' lifestyles and life stories. Looking for ways to reduce stress reactions around birth and during early childhood, I found the enormous potential of early continuous skin-to-skin contact to promote bonding. I was also fascinated by prenatal research, and in practice I focussed on psychosomatics and parent-baby therapy.

Emotional first aid

Emotional First Aid is used as a body-orientated approach to promote bonding between parents and children and in crisis intervention and parent support. It has its roots in Wilhelm Reich's body psychotherapy, infant and attachment research and neurobiology. It helps «when parents are at their wits' end in the early stages of development after birth, can no longer understand their children's language of expression and cannot recognise a hole at the end of the tunnel». This is how the founder of this practice, body therapist and psychologist Thomas Harms, describes his attachment-based body psychotherapy. Harms is also the founder of the first outpatient crying clinic for parents and babies in Berlin.