Members of the media may directly contact the following experts:
Dr. Jean-François Bureau (English and French)
Full Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology. Head of the Child and Adult Relationships and Environments Lab (CARE Lab)
“As parents, we tend to impose our vision of the world. We like things to be coherent, to make sense to us, and we tend to want to ‘correct’ our children. That’s why it’s easier between kids. With playmates, they’re freer to do stupid things. They don’t have that judgement; they will accept any scenario and gladly see how it plays out. And as parents, we tend to adopt the role of an educator more freely, knowing that they’ll get their play elsewhere. But now, we must wear both hats.”
Dr. Stuart Hammond (English and French)
Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology (Developmental Psychology)
Your kids want to help with chores… why not let them?
“Kids might not be able to carry out a whole chore right away, but you, as a parent, can break down the task into little parts that they can do, said Dr. Hammond. If you see that they’re good at a certain task, you can push them a little more, see if they’re capable of going a bit further, and building up that confidence.”
Dr. Cristina Atance (English and French)
Full Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology. Director of the Childhood Cognition and Learning Laboratory
“More and more, developmental psychologists are arguing that the kinds of experiences babies and children need are the ones that most of us are already providing them. Using a lot of language in the house, creating imaginary worlds, drawing, reading books, telling stories, banging together pots and pans. Kids are able to take advantage of all kinds of different experiences, because as human beings, we are very flexible in our learning. There aren’t specific early experiences that children must live through to develop properly, and there is no evidence that we need to cram our babies’ and kids’ brains full of stimulation and information.”
Excerpts from the article Adjusting to life as a stay-at-home working mom