Tip 130: Affirming goodness in a baby

"There are three ingredients to the good life; learning, earning and yearning", according to Christopher Morley (1890-1957). In my opinion, the baby first came out into this world with only the experience of yearning. Though Haruka stopped her crying after her first 5 minutes and as I carry her, she began to look around the delivery room, as though seeking to experience learning. The baby yearns to have her hunger met and as she finds comfort in her mother's breast, she begin to yearn for warmth, comfort, familiarity, security and later the joy of communication and love. Though, yearning to communicate effectively requires learning the body language of the parents and familiar people around. The day would come as well, when the baby earns the approval and love by meeting the expectations of those he/she meets. Even when the baby does not have the right of a 16 year old to receive legitimate wages, the baby is pleased to have earned what he/she has wanted. That's the good life every baby would want. Parents can guide the baby to learn what is good, and to be on the path to earn the parent's affirmation when meeting their expectations. This begin to seem too theoretical and complicated. The bottomline is for parents to spend time to affirm their baby when the baby is good and teach him/her how to be good. And the baby listens mostly to the parents whom he/she yearns most for affection. Your affirmation and teaching means a lot to the babies since they do not enjoy crying if they can have a good life without crying. Get it? :)

As shared in my previous posts, early communication with the baby is key. If the baby knows there is a chance to communicate, then the baby need not cry or at least would cry only after failing to communicate. After lots of eye contact and body language, Haruka began to understand the concept of Yes and No. Then, I progressed to asking her if she was "happy happy" by emphasizing my smiles and she understood. She would nod Yes or No nowadays if I would ask her that. Knowing that I value her happiness, Haruka began to understand that daddy needs to be happy as well. So I began to affirm her good character by saying orikou (clever child in Japanese) and later calling her "good baby" and "clever" (in English) and now "kuai" (obedient in Cantonese). She hears that from others anyway, so when daddy repeats it she understands better what these common phrases mean. Besides just focusing on the actions of Haruka, I also point to other babies. When other babies are not crying, I affirm them and point to Haruka that the other babies are "good baby". When other babies are walking, I affirm them so Haruka would began to realize that a good baby would spend more effort and energy walking longer distances instead of having her daddy carry a 9 kg baby daily. I even began to affirm animals that Haruka adore. "Look the dog is sleeping, so you should sleep". "Look the panda is eating a lot, and is big. Do you want to touch the button at the lift? You need to eat more like the panda so you can be tall". "You are good baby today. You are not crying. Call "mama" or "papa" instead of crying when waking up". Haruka begins to learn all this and tries to earn my affection or a nice trip outside the home or a hidden sweet that mummy would not give. She is beginning to enjoy the good life by being good. Of course, there will be another chapter where babies become impatient to want to have the good life prematurely like all of us would and that calls for another blogpost.

What are other ways to affirm your baby? For those who do not have children, have you ever considered spending a little time affirming babies when they are good even if they are strangers? It may matter less to the baby compared to their parents' affirmation, but still it means something. And that means you are one step closer to making this world a better place to create more "good life".

(Photos shows Ocean Park Hong Kong which has a higher visitor count than Hong Kong Disneyland and it truly does show a beautiful part of Hong Kong, plus 2 lovely pandas that Haruka adore).