Toddlers, Caregivers, and Emotional Well-Being

If you’ve ever attempted to get a group of toddlers to sit down, sit still, and stay interested in something for longer than 10 minutes, you know it’s a difficult task. Add in the layer of trying to understand this age group’s relationship with parents and how that impacts their emotional development, and you can appreciate the latest research challenge the Barnard Toddler Center is undertaking.

A collaborative effort between the center’s long-serving director, Tovah Klein, and Nim Tottenham ’96, professor of psychology and director of graduate studies at Columbia, the project will draw on Tottenham’s lab, the Toddler Center’s new, expansive space in Milbank Hall, and the women’s combined backgrounds and skill sets.

Klein, who is also a professor of psychology, and Tottenham were a natural fit for collaboration, with complementary areas of knowledge plus a long-standing relationship: Tottenham was Klein’s first student at Barnard. “We’re combining my knowledge of toddlers and Nim’s knowledge of research,” says Klein.

The project centers on understanding what caregivers do or don’t do to enhance children’s emotional well-being early in life. The new Toddler Center was literally designed for such a project.

“Nim and I worked with architects and a play designer in setting up a facility that incorporates research directly into the space,” explains Klein. “We built this in so that the research is simply integrated into the flow of the day for the children.”

In the new environment, Klein and Tottenham will build on their existing research into children’s behavior by studying their underlying neurobiology of development. “We’ll use functional imaging — MRI — as a safe and noninvasive way to look at brain development,” says Tottenham.

Returning to the idea of coaxing toddlers to sit still for an extended period of time, Tottenham settled on video as a distraction in order to proceed with an MRI. “If you show kids their favorite show while in the tunnel, you can get them to lie still,” she says. “We had the opportunity in the center to practice in models of an MRI so that they could get comfortable before we proceed with the actual imaging.”

The timing of the new research comes on the tail of the pandemic, during which toddlers and parents spent increased time together, potentially playing a role in the ultimate results. “Given the importance of parents in early life, it’s not surprising that parents’ well-being in a time of stress translates to toddler well-being, and vice versa,” says Tottenham.

When stress and loss is high, and toddlers don’t have a sound relationship with their parents, they’ll struggle. “The truth about young children,” adds Klein, “is that if they have what they need in life, they can rebound from stressful events.”

Check out our slideshow below for the other parts of our “Breaking Norms” feature story.