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Ayelet Marinovich, M.A., CCC-SLP

Helping Infants and Toddlers Understand Feelings: Labelling Emotions

Ayelet Marinovich, M.A., CCC-SLP         Ayelet Marinovich, M.A., CCC-SLP        
Helping Infants and Toddlers Understand Feelings: Labelling Emotions           Helping Infants and Toddlers Understand Feelings: Labelling Emotions          
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    Emotional development starts from birth – and it’s something we “work on” our entire lives!

    Consider that even as adults, we struggle to understand our feelings. We have emotional reactions, we “act out” or “lash out” and we sometimes have emotional responses to a trigger in our environment.

    In this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet explores some of the ways we can help our youngest humans to develop healthy social and emotional development, and some of the tools we can provide.

    Below is the transcript of this episode’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode.

    For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode.

    >>Don’t Miss Our Corresponding Blog Post!<<

    Emotional Sensitivity

    Even in the first year of life, babies are incredibly sensitive to emotion. Research suggests that even by a few months of age, infants are able to recognize the difference between happy and sad expressions, and differentially process emotional tones in voices they hear.  

    That’s powerful stuff! Recent findings even suggest that infants exposed to more conflict show higher stress levels (measured by their brain activity to angry tones of voice) – and regular exposure to conflict (including exposure to those angry tones while they are asleep!) can deeply affect the way their brains process emotion and anxiety, leading to their own ability to regulate emotions.

    Emotional Cues

    You may have seen your baby start to cry simply when he hears another baby cry! This imitation and “empathy cry” is not simply for the sake of imitating others, but because infants look to others for cues about emotional signals, and are affected by other peoples’ emotions.

    This is why it’s important to try to pay attention to your emotional reactions to things, and give words for how you (or others around you) are feeling. It’s also why, when speaking to your baby, it’s wise to try to match your tone with your intent.

    Your baby is learning from you about how to display and regulate his emotional reactions to things, to the clearer you can be about yours – the better!

    Giving Words For Feelings

    When you label emotions – of people in your environment (especially when strong emotions are witnessed), or those your baby expresses, you give words to feelings and reassure her that feelings of all kinds are valued.

    If you explain how actions make people feel, or make predictions about why people might feel a certain way – when looking at pictures of other people or watching others in a social situation – you work on sensitizing your little one from a very early age to an important part of social language, cognition, and perspective taking, something in the psychology field that is known as “theory of mind.”

    We’ll talk more about this in future episodes, but for now, I’ll just say that if you can naturally build in this type of “emotional language” naturally and fluidly throughout your baby’s early months and years, you will be supporting her receptive language (what she understands) as well as her social/emotional and cognitive development.

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    Learn With Less
    Ayelet Marinovich, MA, CCC-SLP
    📣 Monday Reminder:

There’s no such thing as the right toy, and the only “parenting expert” is you. 

If you’re a new parent or caregiver, here’s your permission and embrace. 

If you’re a practitioner, provider, or professional working with young children and their families, don’t forget that THIS is the main job: 
✅ to encourage
✅ to boost confidence, 
✅ to acknowledge and see our parents and caregivers in all their vulnerability, 
✅ and to facilitate connection between caregiver and child 

Here at Learn With Less®, we help educators & families feel confident they can support & connect with young children — without having to buy another toy. 

Get started with all our resources here: (link in my bio) https://learnwithless.com/blueprint

And tell us: what’s your favorite way to @learnwithless ?
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#learnwithless #childdevelopment #babydevelopment #toddlerdevelopment #learningthroughplay #everydayplayhacks #simpleplayideas #earlychildhoodeducation #earlychildhoodeducator #earlychildhood #earlyintervention #earlylearning #earlylearning101 #slp #pediatricslp #slpsfollowslps #pediatricspeechtherapy
    👋🏼 Hey there and happy Friday!

I’ll take this moment to introduce myself, & my work here at @learnwithless

I’m Ayelet (i-YELL-it) Marinovich, a pediatric speech-language pathologist, parent educator, imperfect mom of two little people, & founder and host of Learn With Less®.

Learn With Less® is a parent education company dedicated to helping educators & new parents/caregivers feel confident they can support & connect with babies & toddlers — without having to buy a single toy.

We do this by:
1️⃣ Helping parents & caregivers understand basic knowledge about early development, connect play to learning, use simple materials & natural, everyday interactions, and support/connect with other families.

2️⃣ Helping professionals working with infant/toddler families (eg, educators, therapists) create successful community-based parent education & parent support programming using the Learn With Less® curriculum.

Here are a few things I believe:

⭐️ Access to high quality information & support — in community - makes us all stronger. Our lives and our safety are interconnected. 

⭐️ Play is for everyone, & does not require access to fancy, inaccessible toy subscriptions

⭐️ We need to confront the ways in which privilege is present both in the parenting world & in the world of education, working to understand the systems in place, & doing our part to dismantle them. Black Trans Neurodivergent Disabled Lives Matter.

Here at Learn With Less®, we strive to create inclusive, equitable resources that make everyone feel seen and heard.

Want to learn more about offering family-centered care in your community?

Secure your spot in my free virtual training, and learn to lead “caregiver & me” classes, expanding your impact while building additional streams of impact:
🔗 Head to https://learnwithless.com/training (link in bio) and check it out!
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#learnwithless #childdevelopment #babydevelopment #toddlerdevelopment #learningthroughplay #everydayplayhacks #simpleplayideas #earlychildhoodeducation #earlychildhoodeducator #earlychildhood #earlyintervention #earlylearning #earlylearning101 #slp #pediatricslp #slpsfollowslps #pediatricspeechtherapy
    You hear the call from the baby industry:
🗣️ more toys
🗣️ THIS toy!
🗣️ better toys

And of course:
🗣️ you’re not enough
🗣️ you don’t have enough

Enough time, enough energy, enough stuff (particularly of the “right” stuff)

Here at @learnwithless our goal is to help you use what you ALREADY have to support and connect with young children. 

Our newest resource, Connect Learn Play, was designed to do just that

Helping you learn to trust that the environment itself, when utilized and guided by the partnership of both you and a young child, 

… Can facilitate play and learning. 

Grab Connect Learn Play today!

🔗 (link in my bio) https://learnwithless.com/connectlearnplay

And then tell us: what is YOUR favorite way to use everyday objects and everyday routines to support tiny humans in your life? 

Brought to you by @learnwithless and @the.emerging.parent 
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#learnwithless #usewhatyouhave #openendedplay #playbasedlearning #playbasedspeechtherapy #parenteducation #musicalbaby #babymusic #babymusicclass #parentsupport #newparent #babyactivities #toddleractivities #pediatricslp #pediatricot #pediatricpt #earlychildhooddevelopment #earlyintervention #earlychildhoodeducator #earlyinterventionspeech #childdevelopment #childdevelopmentclass #babydevelopmentclass #looseparts #loosepartsplay #everydayplayhacks #newmomlife #languagelearning #routinesbasedintervention #everydayplayhacks #perinatalmentalhealth
    “The heart of anti-bias work is a vision of a world in which all children are able to blossom, and each child’s particular abilities and gifts are able to flourish.”

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-Bias Education. Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves, 1-10.

Children are nested in families and communities with unique strength. 

As facilitators of community-based “caregiver & me” infant & toddler developmental groups, we can:
✅ Build on & identify strengths and shared goals
✅ Understand, incorporate history & traditions
✅ Actively support each child’s development
✅ Recognize that practices are embedded in culture

The is just one of 6 areas we’ll be covering in my FREE training: 

🌟 How to Supplement Your Educator or Therapist Income by Leading “Caregiver & Me” Classes That Every Infant/Toddler Family Can Access 🌟

Secure your spot here: (link in my bio & stories) 🔗 https://learnwithless.com/training

Register, get instant access, and share with a friend!
♥️ 🗯️ ↗️🧷

And don’t stop speaking up for the children around the world who are experiencing genocide, who cannot flourish and blossom. 🍉 Free the oppressed, from G@za to Sudan to Congo. Our liberation is intertwined.
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#learnwithless #continuingeducation #slp #pediatrictherapy #pediatricslp #privatepracticetherapist #earlyinterventionspeech #playbasedlearningforallabilities #newparentsupport #playbasedlearning #openendedplay #pediatricot #pediatricpt #slpmom #responsiveparenting #earlychildhoodeducator #earlychildhooddevelopment #birthtothree #earlyintervention #privatepractice #privatepracticeslp #slpmom
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