MENANDS — Biting, hitting, throwing things on the floor.
Mental health experts at Brightside Up, a child-care resource agency serving the Capital Region, are on a mission to help demystify these infant and toddler behaviors and more.
"The downfall of toddlers is that they are misunderstood," said Kimberly Polstein, the organization's director of mental health services. "We don't understand that the work and joy of a toddler is to fill up that bucket and dump it out. And fill up the bucket again and dump it out again."
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on New York's already strained childcare industry.
A flood of state and federal aid earmarked for child care has enabled many day providers to stay afloat and ramp up hiring by offering higher salaries and sign-on bonuses, but the social-emotional impact of the last two years on staff and the children have been harder to quantify.
Researchers have begun studying the behaviors of a generation of babies and toddlers born into the pandemic, known as "COVID babies."
To get involved, call Brightside Up at (518) 426-7181
The year of isolation had a profound impact on young children's ability to adapt to the day care environment, according to Rebecca Delgiudice, a Brightside Up mental health counselor who conducts one-on-one coaching with child care workers.
"There is a lot of separation anxiety, which is pretty typical to see in some infants and toddlers, but more so because they haven't had opportunities to go anywhere," said Delgiudice.
Brightside Up's work is part of a two-year-old state Office of Children and Family Services project — made possible with American Rescue Plan dollars — that aims to develop a statewide model for mental health counseling at the early childhood level.
As part of the intensive four- to six-month program, mental health consultants visit day care organizations of all sizes and provide real-time guidance to staff on skill and relationship building with children. The service is offered in virtual, hybrid and in-person formats and is free of charge.
When Delgiudice visits a classroom, she says she is primarily there to support and empower the caregiver, so that they can be present for the infant and hear its cry. For providers that buy in, it is intensive, deeply reflective work.
"We are not changing the child, we are changing the adult's thought process," Delgiudice said.
She noted that the brain develops most rapidly in the first three years of life and relationships at that phase are critically important to the child's development and well-being.
"We know that when children are exposed to toxic stress — when they don't have those supportive relationships — then they are really at risk of developing serious problems later in life ... we are always keeping in mind this very opportunity to support the child and the family and the community," Delgiudice said.
Polstein and her team say they are guided by research out of Yale University on implicit bias at the preschool level. The study, which tracked the eye movements of preschool teachers, found that instructors had a tendency to watch Black boys more closely than other students when they were expecting misbehavior.
Researchers have mapped what they call the "preschool-to-prison pipeline," noting the disproportionate suspension and expulsion Black children, especially boys.
In general, 3- and 4-year-olds are expelled at triple or quadruple the rate of K-12 children combined, Delgiudice noted.
"The relationships we have with adults, that informs our self-concept too. If we are getting the message that we are bad, bad, bad, and the adults can't handle me, what kind of message is that sending?" she said.
The organization is one of 34 regional Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (CCRRs) participating in the program. Currently, 35 mental health consultants serve 19,000 registered child care providers in the state.
The project has already produced some valuable data for mental health consulting for infants and toddlers. They measure the classroom climate using metrics like positive and negative interactions between adults and young children and the adult's proximity to the child.
Providers often report a reduction in problematic behaviors after just a few sessions, Delgiudice said.
"From the beginning, we are always telling the adult that we don't have a magic wand to make this child stop doing what they are doing, but I can build your toolkit so you can respond differently and hopefully the child will too, " she said.
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