Children’s Signals Are Not Strategies

It’s easy, especially as adults, to assume children are being manipulative. “They’re doing it for attention.”“They know exactly what they’re doing.”“They’re pushing buttons.” But young children, particularly infants, don’t operate that way. When an infant cries, reaches, clings, yells, withdraws — that isn’t strategy. It’s signal. It’s the body saying:Something feels wrong.Something is too much.I […]