Blanket babies with love from birth, say the experts.

“You’re going to spoil that child!” Sooner or later a visiting friend or grandparent utters this warning, and a parent becomes self-conscious about picking up a crying baby.

But is it true? No, say psychologists and pediatricians. They argue, more problems may be caused by parents who withhold love and attention from an infant for fear of raising a spoiled child.

The gap between popular beliefs and developmental facts is widest when it comes to infants.

The results of a U.S. survey, in which 500 parents participated, showed that two-thirds of the mothers and four-fifths of the fathers thought it was possible to spoil a child under a year old.

Another study showed that more than half of a smaller sample of mothers agreed that holding and rocking infants too much can spoil them.

Yet the truth is, for the first few months of life, this fear of spoiling a child is absolutely groundless.

In 1972 a Johns Hopkins University study, which has been confirmed by recent research, found that the babies most likely to fuss and cry were those whose mothers had not responded promptly to their cries.

Parents who held back for fear of spoiling the baby often set in motion a vicious circle: ignoring a newborn's cries led to more crying, which further discouraged the parents from responding, which made the baby even more irritable and so on.

Tiny babies simply lack the ability to communicate their needs in any other way than to wail, so the best thing parents can do is respond.

However, crying in a baby of, say, eight months is a bit more complex.

If she's in the habit of yelling in the middle of the night without any pressing need, parents may decide to draw the line.

But, says Dr Bruce J. McIntosh, except for such "sleep problems, there are next to no limits that you'd think of enforcing on a child before she starts to be mobile. Pick her up as much as she wants."

It's not clear why so many parents fear playing the spoiler, although some believe it's just plain bad advice that's part of our culture, passed on from one generation to the next.

But others think the matter goes deeper than that.

According to some studies, parents who haven't had much support or affection themselves then find it difficult to provide that same affection for their children.

Some parents may have a strong need to feel in control, which may interfere with their ability to provide care that is sensitive to their baby's needs. Wherever the belief originates, though, the study also revealed that the mothers who were most worried about spoiling their children were least likely to provide a warm, caring and emotionally supportive environment for them.

Fear of spoiling translates into lower-quality care for the infant, even though that's not the parent's intention.

Alas, the rules are not so clear-cut when it comes to toddlers and older children.

It's hard to deny that some children are demanding, whiny and self-centered – in a word, spoiled. How did they get that way?

According to specialists, these children are spoiled because their parents probably never set clear limits or taught them to accept that sometimes the answer must be no.

Parents who feel bad about not spending time with their children may try to compensate by giving in to every demand or by trying to fulfill emotional needs with material things.

''Parents should examine their motives," Dr McIntosh says. "Are they acting out of guilt or out of genuine concern for the child's welfare?

"Are they trying to meet a child's complex developmental needs by giving her things instead of time?"

Of course, distinguishing between a reasonable and an unreasonable request isn't always easy. For example, there are no fixed rules about how late a child should be able to stay up or how many biscuits are too many.

In general, the parent who is afraid to say no and who fears losing the child's love may be in danger of raising a brat.

But as a rule, the mother or father who can set clear limits and who responds to the child's needs for attention, time and caring needn't worry about spoiling a child.

It's imperative that parents remember that they have a limited period with their children.

They must enjoy their children, and become friends, as this will provide a firm foundation for future relationships. Instead of parents imposing their ideas, their dreams and their disciplines on their children, they should be trying to create an atmosphere in which other ideas are acceptable, other dreams are possible and the children can become self-disciplined through making their own choices.

This way the children are more likely to grow into the happy and productive adults you really want them to be.

Alife Kohn

/ New Idea, 4, 1992/

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