FUNNY FACES & SOCIAL GRACES

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Here are some things to springboard from. These are useful over the next 6-7 months. As always – a variety of experiences work wonders here. Get creative, Dad (and we’ve got you covered on the progressions).

Make Funny Faces

Over exaggerate and hold some common expressions/emotions, such as fear, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise. Run the full range and beyond. Work in words if it makes sense – talk about the emotion/expression. Name the parts of your face – don’t stop at eyes, nose, mouth – talk about HOW all the subtleties of movement contribute to a wide array of facial communications, from your brow, chin, cheeks, mouth, jaw, teeth, eyelashes, tongue, nostrils, etc. This becomes powerful around the 6 month mark when the language window of opportunity ramps up.

Imitate Baby’s Funny Faces

You’re probably doing this naturally, but cooing and making faces back and forth while locking eyes isn’t just entertainment – it’s a progression of non-verbal “serve and return”. Fun Fact: Babies can naturally make facial expressions for at least six basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise. Crazy Fact: blind children exhibit these basic six emotions through facial expressions also – which may mean those core expressions aren’t learned visually – we are born with them!

Peek-a-Boo

Do a disappearing act with your face or objects. It’s fun and helps your baby develop visual memory, a precursor to something called Object Permanence, which comes online around month 5. This is where your baby will begin to understand that things exist even when they’re out of sight. Right now, if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist in their mind! A fun sensory modification of this is to put the baby laying down on their back and draping a textured cloth/fabric over them and pulling it to reveal the baby. It’s a fun way to bring together sound, texture, and back and forth funny faces!

They Watch Your Face Too

Now that their eyes are working better – all eyes are on you. If infants are experts at recognizing and wiring facial expressions, it may be worth keeping this in mind when you react to news, drop an expletive, or deal with the in-laws (not everyone gets lucky there). The face you wear around your baby might be a question worth considering. But you can also use your face to instill things like adventure and courage, by bringing out confident facial expressions as you journey into new situations – times where they look to you for comfort and safety. The face you wear, the posture you hold, and the sounds you make will shape much of their world in the first few years. What emotions and behavioral patterns do you want them to observe more or less of?

Managing our own stress (as best as possible) helps baby manage theirs. No one is perfect at this, and there is no shame in developing management strategies.

There is also a benefit to Dad. In your explorations of facial expressions and digging into the depths of emotion, your discoveries will bleed into your ability to better read these things in your partner, your friends, your boss, people you meet, and yourself. Since we can only be as good a teacher as we have the skills (and patience) for, it’s useful to embrace the journey of becoming more skilled in this facet of life – to then pass this on to your child. With kids, it’s often blurry of who the real teacher is anyway… interesting eh?

RACIAL IMPRESSIONS

It’s not just the window of facial expressions that is opening – this is also the beginnings of race impressions.

At birth babies notice faces, but don’t seem to have a preference when it comes to ethnicity or race. By 3 months of age, however, babies can not only differentiate between races, but they actually show preference for races that match their caregivers. By 9 months – babies narrow even further and have refined face processing of the race/ethnicity most commonly encountered in their development environment. At the same time they develop lesser face processing accuracy of facial differences of people of other races. This is a normal part of development and can be shifted via exposure to a variety of faces/experiences throughout life. This narrowing was previously thought to wire up by age 8, but research shows this likely happens in year one, and seems to be a general human development thing vs applying to one particular ethnicity. Ah… science..

As this part of the brain develops – here are two things to start to consider. Change takes time, so consider these things as you can, and as the time is right. Again no pressure as we’ve got you covered on the progression of this.

Diversity

By the definition it’s simply a range of different things/experiences. And by now you know that if it’s firing it’s wiring and the brain thrives on vivid variety. Same same. Babies and children interpret the world only as much as they are exposed to it and can categorize it. Having diverse exposure to people, toys, books, conversations, cultures, foods, smells, etc is the key (as a springboard, HERE is a print out PDF of a variety of Faces). So in the coming months and years, as you buy books and toys, ask if they bring in variety or if they add to sameness? We will do the same with other aspects of life as they develop.

Understanding of Self

Learning about differences and learning that difference doesn’t mean “bad” starts at home, it starts with looking inward. It comes from what we value and how we show and teach kids about when we are and when we are NOT living by what we value. One starting place could be with a Family Mission Statement – a list you post of what values will shape the culture of your family.

And through the eyes, when wired with our experiences – these come together as social graces – the collective skills we build for navigating people and society. These develop over years and years – and are only at the beginning, so there is plenty of time to build your strategy through trial and error.

And as always – we are here if you need us. Shoot us a note here.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Studies have shown that in communication, about 7% of meaning is conveyed through the words, 38% through certain vocal elements, and 55% through nonverbal elements (facial expressions, gestures, posture, etc). Face to face social interactions are the most scientifically-proven way to stay cognitively “with it” across all of development, and science has proven that babies do indeed notice faces from day one, and process faces long before objects – well before they are capable of communication through their own words.

The field of “facial recognition” is a fascinating area of human development research. It’s been studied rigorously for a hundred years with extensive work also covering early child development. 2001 to present has been particularly fruitful to researchers studying the early years of life. This area of science is called by many names – Newborn Face Recognition, Face Perception, Infant Face Recognition Theory, and/or Face Processing in Infants.

It was thought for many years that children couldn’t think outside of their perspectives (including gathering and interpreting social cues) until around the age of 4 or 5 years. Recent studies have shifted thinking about when babies start to understand social patterns and intentions of caregivers, and have shown components of this ability coming online between the ages of 8 (mirroring emotions of caregivers) and 18 months (emergence of sense of self) supporting the pathway to demonstration of the skill of perspective taking around 4 years of age (this is called Theory of Mind – though what is considered true ToM is still in hot debate).

A rather profound study published in 2017 showed that a parent mirroring/copying a child’s facial expressions around the 2 month mark created stronger circuits in the child’s brain, by 9 months of age, for controlling muscles to mirror back observed facial expressions. Said another way – mirroring of infant facial gestures appears central to the development of the brain areas responsible for creating more advanced expressions and gestures!

What’s really fascinating is the implication for things like facial hair. This one may not be for everyone, but if you have a thick beard or facial hair – give yourself a look in the mirror and run through some facial expressions or tongue twisters. If you don’t think you can convey the depth of expression with the facial hair blocking parts of your face – consider a temporary trim – at least until around month 8 or 9. I did something ridiculous below.

RACIAL IMPRESSIONS

How racial impressions develop in early life:

At birth, babies look equally at faces of all races. (Kelly et al, 2005)

At 3 months, babies look more at faces that match the race of their caregivers. (Kelly et al, 2005)

At 9 months, babies process “same race” faces easier than those of “other races”. (Kelly et al, 2007)

At 24 months, children appear to use race to reason about behavior. (Hirshfeld, 2008)

By 30 months, most children use race to choose playmates. (Katz & Kofkin, 1997)

By 4 years, children’s attractiveness biases, particularly those for girls, are as strong as or stronger than their gender and race biases. (Rennels, 2014)

Prejudice (an opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience) with regard to race peaks around age 5. (Aboud, 2008)

By 5, in research settings, white children showed strong bias in favor of the same race. Black and Latinx children did not show strong preference toward their own groups. Racial bias is formed early in development. (Dunham et al, 2008)

By age 7, in research, white children continue to show strong ingroup bias, while black children, when expressing preference for rich vs poor people (status preference), showed outgroup preference in favor of white. (Newheiser & Olson, 2012)(Kinzler, 2016)

There is hope! Focused conversations and experiences with 5–7 year olds about interracial friendship can dramatically improve their racial attitudes in as little as a single week. (Bronson & Merryman, 2009)(Gonzalez et al, 2017)

The key concept here is that research is continually finding that child development is much more complex than ever imagined. From birth onward, faces are important in social interactions and the recognition of faces and facial expressions involves extensive and diverse areas in the brain, spanning many windows in early life. And while so much of our world regarding race, gender, status, and attractiveness is also formed in early life – the great news is that parents can influence the formation and trajectory of these thoughts and perceptions. It starts with awareness, and then building strong foundations through diversity and repetition of experiences to help reinforce how the brain wires these skills. Easy right?