Book Review

why love matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain. Sue Gerhardt

Why Love Matters is not a quick or easy read, but it is fascinating. It is quite long and academic* and I had to renew it from the library several times in order to get it finished – but I’m glad I did! why love matters really challenges the separation we tend to make between the physical and the emotional and argues convincingly for the connection between physical affection and loving interaction, and the healthy development of babies’ brains. Our emotions are not to be treated as separate from and/or less significant than our physical well being, and certainly not ignored. Instead, we need to lovingly and carefully investigate emotions with our little ones and to give them permission to be emotional beings. We need to make it so very clear to our vulnerable children that negative emotions are not dangerous enemies that we would rather be protected from / not have to deal with. Such stifling of emotions merely intensifies and reinforces the hyper vigilance they are already having to deal with. Instead we need to enter into that emotional world with them and equip our children to identify them and regulate them and learn to see what those emotions are telling us. Our emotions don’t always give us the whole picture – they aren’t necessarily reliable witnesses or the right things to take our instructions from – BUT they are always vital clues to help us see and understand the whole picture. When it comes to emotions / feelings the following statements are gold dust to our children’s ears:

• I want to hear you
• I want you to tell me
• I want to understand
  

Please note – I read this book some time ago now and do not have a copy – I made some notes which I have shared above, but they may not give a very good overall picture of the book.  

* By academic I don’t mean that it is all in professional speak – she is very good at putting things in layman’s terms – but the nature of the content she is covering is quite dense and scientific.