Parent and Child Synchrony Psychology Benefits - Christine Ramos for Green Child Magazine

“More recently, in April of 2021, Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) published a study that looked at the long term effects of Kangaroo Care. For two decades, they followed preterm and full-term babies; some had received Kangaroo Care (skin to skin contact), others didn’t. (source) The children were assessed at ages 4 months, 3 years, 12 years, and 20 years.

“The study showed that this parent-child synchrony predicted the child’s later sensitivity to emotion-specific empathy. One method of assessing the intensity of empathy was displayed via brain mapping, which showed the regions of the brain that were activated when the children were asked to “put themselves in the shoes” of the protagonist.”