Bonding is a biological resonance of shared meaning that updates and re-syncs moment by moment. A break or disruption of this shared meaning field, during the most rapid and profound periods of brain development affects how that brain grows, especially the pre frontal regions and the intelligence of the heart. The ‘in arms’ period the first nine to twelve months, being the most sensitive and therefore most critical developmentally is completely dependent on this shared-meaning resonance. Being biological, physical proximity is key. So too is model constancy. The adult model, that is how the adult relates to the world serves as a pole star, a resonate ground, point of reference for the child, the physical and emotional foundation for his or her relationship to the world. The vast majority of child care, and especially very early care disrupt both.

If daycare happens, let’s say within the first year of life, there’s only way that the infant can read the signals coming in and that is a radical loss, a discontinuity with the bond, what is the bond, simply the biological state that you establish in-utero and it’s designed to continue after birth and if that state is disrupted then the first price is paid is to the shape and nature and character of the brain itself.  The prefrontal cortices cannot unfold as they would if they’re getting their appropriate signals.  The heart will not respond the same because they’re not going to be periodically, consistently or brought back into the caretaker’s heart field which has to be at least breast-to-breast you might say or within immediate proximity of the mother or father, somebody holding that infant.  We speak of the in arms period being the first 9-12 months.  Why?  Simply because they must be within the ambiance, the environment of the mother’s heart and her whole body system or permanent caretaker. Now you don’t get that in daycare.  You simply can’t.  There’s no possible way that the average ordinary daycare can provide that close nurturing model that you must have for the development of the higher cortical structures.  

The other thing is the failure of what you can call model constancy, even for the year old or the two year old or the three year old, they must have one stable constant model to structure their own world response around.  Now can you have a lot of other people coming in and out.  That’s fine.  That gives a lot of variety and excitement and interest to the infant and the child but against the background of a stable model that is permanent. And if that permanence is threatened, if that stable model stability isn’t there then there’s no permanent model around which the child can structure a single sense of self relating to a world. And you’ll get a fragmented sense of self relating to a largely fragmented world simply because the models themselves had been fragmented.  

And with a different shift tilting over two or three times a day in daycare, different models coming in, different caretakers coming in.  Their permanent caretaker, the model, the mother or the father, they’re exposed to only a brief time early in the morning and a brief time in the evening and then different caretaker models during the day.  And that fragments the system.  There’s no stability that can be established.  

So daycare that lasted for only let’s say two hours at a time and then the mother again.  The short brief periods of daycare can be great for mother and child, simply give both of them a breathing chance.  Now that chance to breathe free of each other.  That’s what we used to get from the standard family.  We used to give momma a chance to breathe free from infant and infant from mother and daycare could be kind of a proxy extended family but we know that under age four any prolonged separation from the mother brings along separation anxiety or what’s called psychological abandonment in the infant which means they retreat from the high cortical structures back into their survival mode in the back of the brain.

If you must have daycare the first thing is to arrange a daycare around the nurturing of the animal structures of the brain, strangely enough.  The sensory motor brain, which is the foundation of all human life, is the sensory motor brain which is inherited really from the reptiles, that sensory motor brain or body brain must be nurtured first.  That’s what happens in-utero, is the nurturing of that body by the larger body of the mother surrounding it.  And something similar to that must be continued.  The infant must be surrounded by human experience, interaction, relationship with human beings at close quarters.  This is what builds what is called the emotional brain, the ability to relate on top of the sensory motor brain, the ability to respond to a living physical world.  So you have the physical brain that must be established first then the emotional brain, how you relate to the world, is built secondly and the first four years are largely devoted, according to nature’s plan, to the establishment of the very oldest brain in our heads.  You’ve got to get that sensory motor brain established.  How do you that?  Lots and lots of interaction with another body.  Lots of sensory interaction; touching, nurturing, caressing, fondling, all of these things that we do with an infant and with the early child, with the toddler.  No change with the toddler.  They must be nurtured in exactly the same sensory way, as well as emotional way.  What is emotional way?  Again, that’s the state of the mother or caretaker’s heart.  The kind of field that heart is expressing, the electromagnetic field it’s expressing, whether it’s one of nurturing or one of anxiety and fear.  

And so the emotional state of the infant and its physical state must be established first.  And on top of that you can begin to develop what we call the higher human intelligences and these are critically dependent on the establishment of the lower.  Now we think of education as being the activation and development of the intellectual brain and the verbal brain and all up on top. If we start trying to build these higher cortical structures from the beginning as daycare tries to do now and schooling in general, it’s the equivalent of trying to put a roof on a house before you’ve put the walls up, or trying to put the walls up before there’s a foundation there.

Bear in mind that nature’s agenda, the way the human experience is suppose to unfold is to first of all put in the foundation of our life.  The foundation is sensory motor, that reflexive, automatic, instinctual survival brain but you’ve got to nurture that, you’ve got to nurture the body of the infant.  And then their emotional brain when they hit their toddler period they must be totally and completely immersed still in that heart field of love, unconditional acceptance of the infant, no judgment and no harsh recriminations.

With this in mind you ten have the foundation for later on being able to develop the higher intellectual creative structures of the mind which we can call the putting the roof on the house.  But if you try to bring about let’s say educational processes, deliberate, forced education, like learning to read and write and so on and so forth.  Back in the establishment of the early animal brains, the emotional brain and the sensory motor brain, then you’ve put the cart before the horse.  You’re trying to do something totally opposite to nature’s plan and this system just can’t do it.  You’ll get all sorts of troubles.
If you must have daycare then it must be devoted to what, physical and emotional nurturing of the child and how can this take place, largely through holding, lots of holding, carrying, nurturing, physical contact, and then as the toddler grows, you’ve got your two year old and s on and so forth, lots of time leaving them alone just to play.  Their critical need to start playing very, very early and their need to develop imaginative mind which is really developed only through storytelling and playing out stories and acting out stories and so forth.