One of my interests in photography is to capture faces of children. I have a large collection of them which I revisit periodically to learn about their emotional communication!
As I watched this child go through a series of changes in his facial expression from the time he came into the room and settled to feel comfortable, I got a sense of the process of adaptation that toddlers might go through. There are at least five stages that I fond common with toddlers.
The first is an arousal anxiety which is what you notice here in this photograph. Then it is an expression of enquiry by looking around. Thirdly it is an early settling indicating cognitive response either of comfort or distress. Then it is a reaction based on the cognitive awareness of engaging or turing to the parent for comfort. Finally it is a state of readiness for exploration!
All these would happen in the first couple of minutes. An indulgent adult behaviour of trying to reach out by touching the child or directly asking questions like 'what is your name', etc can be too much of a burden for a child to process.
The best adult response is to focus on the adult accompanying a child and allow the child time to adjust to this process of becoming present.
Yesterday, a child reached out to me by wanting to take my pen form my pocket when he did not receive my attention! He conveyed his readiness to interact. Often let a child take the initiative rather than reach out instantly as soon as you are with a child!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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