A few days ago we commented on a study that said that the most affectionate and communicative parents have less problematic children in school, and both I and those who commented reached the conclusion that it seems incredible that studies have to be done to demonstrate things that seem really obvious .
Today, for this reason, I want to talk about the crying of children to try to demystify something that many people have been believing for many years, that babies can manipulate their parents with their crying, that is, they can get their parents to act at their craving just crying or not doing it, based on their intelligence, their malice or being rogues. No, this is not possible. a baby cannot manipulate his parents with crying, and now I will tell you why.
Yes, babies try to manipulate their parents and control them
People believe that babies come to the world to plant battle, to try, from the beginning and with their basic tools, to control their parents to gradually make them two puppets to control at will. Surely on more than one occasion you will have heard or received advice that says that of "Let him cry, that nothing happens to him", "do not do what he asks you, that he is trying to control you", "if you take it and give it up, you win. "
It is even possible that you have heard fathers and mothers explain how smart babies are, who immediately learn to tease their parents: "I leave him in the crib and he starts to cry, I catch him and he stops ... and if I leave him again, he cries again ... total manipulation".
But no, it is scientifically impossible
However it cannot be. A baby of a few days, a baby of a few weeks, cannot do that. Without talking about science, only with common sense, it is enough to know that a baby is not able to know the consequences of their actions to realize that it is impossible. A baby does not know that if he does A, then comes B. If he knew it would be a rational being, and it still isn't. In other words, a baby does not know that he can manipulate the people around him, first because he does not know what it is to manipulate and second because is unable to simulate or act to get what he wants. To be able to do that, he needs to be able to think logically, knowing that if he cries he will get his parents to listen to him and that, from then on, he will begin to control them a little more, and so on, more and more, until he comes to power .
No, a baby cries because he feels bad or feels that something is not right. It is something totally primary. I'm hungry, I ask for food ... but they don't even ask for food, they cry and period: "my belly bothers me a lot ... buaaaa", just like when they are cold, hot or feel lonely. They don't think that I'm going to cry to see if they take me in my arms, or I'm going to cry to see if they cover me with a little blanket of bears. They cry because they feel unpleasant things, because they are not at ease, and to see if with the "buaaaa" it turns out that whoever comes right and takes away that discomfort.
Now, speaking in a more scientific way, babies, to be able to control adults they need your rational brain to work, that its frontal lobes synthesize glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter necessary to think logically. As you can imagine, babies' brains are not developed enough for glutamate synthesis to occur and, in fact, their frontal lobes, which are part of the rational brain, have just begun to develop.
The consequence of this is that babies have no logical thinking, and since they do not have it, it is impossible for them to think about manipulating their parents, because they neither know how to manipulate, nor do they know what "father" is, nor do they know that those who care for him are his parents and will always be with him. They don't know anything about it, so, without knowing it, how to start thinking about drawing long-term Machiavellian plans. Poor, enough have to try to calm what makes them feel bad in the present moment.
