Guiding Principles

  • Our children give us lots and lots of opportunities to connect with them. And human brains are able to adapt and form new neural connections throughout the lifespan. SO, if you are worried that it may be too late to get your relationship back on track, or to manage difficult behaviors, please know that it’s not!

    If you are here because you are concerned about your young child’s development and/or the quality of their primary relationships, take comfort in the knowledge that your young child’s brain is the most flexible (aka. amenable to change) during the first 5 years of life. The brain’s ability to change in response to experiences decreases with age, while the amount of effort such change requires increases with age. What this means is that it is easier to intervene and help your child adapt during these first few years of life, setting them up for success in those early school years and beyond. This is why early intervention is so important.  It’s never too late, but earlier is better (and easier!). Let’s get to work!...

It’s never too late (but earlier is better).

  • Have you ever heard the saying “Nobody’s perfect”? Did you know that applies to parents and caregivers too? Perfect parenting is neither needed or wanted. What this means is that for our children to form a secure attachment to us as their primary caregivers, and to grow up emotionally healthy and strong, they do not NEED us to be perfect. What they need is “good enough parenting.” Research shows us that if we are able to attune to our child’s feelings just 30% of the time, that seems to be good enough. No such thing as perfect parenting also means that our child does not WANT us to be perfect because this sets the bar way too high for them and teaches them that perfection is the goal. Remember - nobody is perfect. We are all doing the best we can with the resources we have. The magic lies in the space that comes after the imperfections, the **repair**. Work with me to learn more…

There’s no such thing as perfect parenting.

  • Sometimes the grownups in children’s lives will say, “They’re just looking for attention”. I like to say they’re looking for connection. This reframe gives us caregivers the opportunity to look at both ourselves and our children as the solution, and neither as the problem. Difficult to manage, or undesirable, behaviors often result from some unmet need of the young child. When a baby is very hungry, they will cry to get their need for nourishment met. (Believe it or not, this is not the first cue they give us that they are hungry). Oftentimes, the unmet need is beyond biological, and is “social-emotional”. Young children do their best to give us cues as they attempt to communicate their distress and feelings. Oftentimes, when we overlook their bids for connection, our children resort to behaviors that we as caregivers find undesirable or challenging. As we get better at learning what our young children need to thrive in their social-emotional development, and we begin to more easily interpret what our children are “saying”, we can get ahead of the big behaviors and more quickly return to calm. Let’s learn together the social and emotional needs of your young child, how to decode your child’s behavioral communication, as well as strategies to help meet their needs!

Behind every behavior, there is a need.
Change is catalyzed when IECMH professionals 
ground ourselves in self-reflection.        

  • Developed and disseminated by the Tenets Initiative, the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Tenets) are a set of ten strategies and tools for strengthening the commitment and capacity of professionals, organizations and systems that serve infants, children and families to embed diversity, inclusion and equity principles into their work. As an IECMH therapist, I strive to keep these principles at the forefront of my practice every day.

    DIVERSITY-INFORMED TENETS FOR WORK WITH INFANTS, CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

    PRINCIPLE FOR DIVERSITY-INFORMED PRACTICE

    1. Self-Awareness Leads to Better Services for Families: Working with infants, children, and families requires all individuals, organizations, and systems of care to reflect on our own culture, values and beliefs, and on the impact that racism, classism, sexism, able-ism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other systems of oppression have had on our lives in order to provide diversity-informed, culturally attuned services.

    STANCE TOWARD INFANTS, CHILDREN, AND FAMILIES FOR DIVERSITY-INFORMED PRACTICE

    2. Champion Children’s Rights Globally: Infants and children are citizens of the world. The global community is responsible for supporting parents/caregivers, families, and local communities in welcoming, protecting, and nurturing them.

    3. Work to Acknowledge Privilege and Combat Discrimination: Discriminatory policies and practices that harm adults harm the infants and children in their care. Privilege constitutes injustice. Diversity-informed practitioners acknowledge privilege where we hold it, and use it strategically and responsibly. We combat racism, classism, sexism, able-ism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other systems of oppression within ourselves, our practices, and our fields.

    4. Recognize and Respect Non-Dominant Bodies of Knowledge: Diversity-informed practice recognizes non-dominant ways of knowing, bodies of knowledge, sources of strength, and routes to healing within all families and communities.

    5. Honor Diverse Family Structures: Families decide who is included and how they are structured; no particular family constellation or organization is inherently optimal compared to any other. Diversity-informed practice recognizes and strives to counter the historical bias toward idealizing (and conversely blaming) biological mothers while overlooking the critical child-rearing contributions of other parents and caregivers including second mothers, fathers, kin and felt family, adoptive parents, foster parents, and early care and educational providers.

    PRINCIPLES FOR DIVERSITY-INFORMED RESOURCE ALLOCATION

    6. Understand That Language Can Hurt or Heal: Diversity-informed practice recognizes the power of language to divide or connect, denigrate or celebrate, hurt or heal. We strive to use language (including body language, imagery, and other modes of nonverbal communication) in ways that most inclusively support all children and their families, caregivers, and communities.

    7. Support Families in Their Preferred Language: Families are best supported in facilitating infants’ and children’s development and mental health when services are available in their native languages.

    8. Allocate Resources to Systems Change: Diversity and inclusion must be proactively considered when doing any work with or on behalf of infants, children, and families. Resource allocation includes time, money, additional/alternative practices, and other supports and accommodations, otherwise systems of oppression may be inadvertently reproduced. Individuals, organizations, and systems of care need ongoing opportunities for reflection in order to identify implicit bias, remove barriers, and work to dismantle the root causes of disparity and inequity.

    9. Make Space and Open Pathways: Infant, child, and family-serving workforces are most dynamic and effective when historically and currently marginalized individuals and groups have equitable access to a wide range of roles, disciplines, and modes of practice and influence.

    ADVOCACY TOWARDS DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, AND EQUITY IN INSTITUTIONS

    10. Advance Policy That Supports All Families: Diversity-informed practitioners consider the impact of policy and legislation on all people and advance a just and equitable policy agenda for and with families.

    ©2018 by Irving Harris Foundation. All rights reserved.