Talk with your child. Use your child's name when you are playing together.
Playing with children lovingly and responsively helps build early attachment relationships. Children with secure attachments to their caregivers as infants showed better outcomes in social development such as empathy Kestenbaum, R., Farber, E., Ellen, A., & Sroufe L. A. (1989). Individual differences in empathy among preschoolers: Relation to attachment history. New Directions for Child Development, 44, 51-64. Sroufe, L. A. (1983). Infant-caregiver attachment and patterns of adaptation in preschool: The roots of maladaptation and competence. Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, 16, 41-83. Sroufe, L. A. (1983). Infant-caregiver attachment and patterns of adaptation in preschool: The roots of maladaptation and competence. Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology, 16, 41-83. Thompson, R. A. (2008). Early attachment and later development: Familiar questions, new answers. In: Cassidy J, Shaver PR, eds. Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications. 2nd Ed. New York: Guilford Press, 348- 365. Egeland, B. & Carlson, B. (2004). Attachment and psychopathology. In: Atkinson L, Goldberg S, eds. Attachment issues in psychopathology and intervention. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 27-48. Lyons-Ruth, K., Easterbrooks, M. A, & Cibelli, C. D. (1997). Infant attachment strategies, infant mental lag, and maternal depressive symptoms: Predictors of internalizing and externalizing problems at age 7. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 681-692.
Research by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child has shown that "
When an infant or young child babbles, gestures, or cries, and an adult responds appropriately with eye contact, words, or a hug, neural connections are built and strengthened in the child's brain that supports the development of communication and social skills.
Talking to the baby during play is a form of contingent communication where parents pay attention to what children are trying to communicate and respond positively and consistently. This mode of communication creates a secure environment that gives the babies the possibility to trust that they have someone to depend on in case of need. When early attachment relationships are mainly warm, positive and consistent, children feel safe with their caregivers, who become a '"secure base" for them. As such, children feel free and confident to explore and interact with the world. Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Juffer, F. (2003). Less is more: Meta-analyses of sensitivity and attachment interventions in early childhood. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 195–215. Landry SH, Smith KE, Swank PR. (2006). Responsive parenting: Establishing early foundations for social, communication, and independent problem-solving skills. Developmental Psychology., 42:627–642. Barnas, M. V., & Cummings, E. M. (1994). Caregiver stability and toddlers’ attachment related behaviour towards caregivers in day care. Infant Behaviour and Development, 17, 141-147. Rochat, P., & Striano, T. (1999b). Emerging self-exploration by 2-month-old infants. Developmental Science, 2, 206–218.
Calling your baby's name helps your baby develop self-awareness as a being who is separate from the people in the environment. Research on 1 to 2-month-old babies showed that infants begin to manifest a clear sense of their agency in the world at around two months of age. Babies could start to control how strongly they sucked at a bottle to get what they wanted instead of allowing external factors to influence the process. This stage is known as the intersubjectivity stage, where babies begin to understand that they are separate persons from people in the environment. With that awareness, babies will initiate interactions and respond to others. Calling babies by their names helps build self-awareness and facilitates babies’ initiating and responding when interacting with others.
Young children develop self-awareness when they have social interaction with adults. 12.Kärtner, J. (2015). The Autonomous Developmental Pathway: The Primacy of Subjective Mental States for Human Behavior and Experience. Child Development, 86(4), 1298–1309. doi:10.1111/cdev.12377