Benefits | Principles | History | Influence
The Pikler House, Loczy Lajos Utca, Budapest
Emmi Pikler saw the importance of healthy attachments for the overall well-being of the child and his physical and emotional (psychic) development. She found the primary caregiving moments of feeding, changing and bathing offered vital opportunities for the infant and carer to build secure trusting relationships.
These moments of caregiving occupy a large majority of the daily routine through which the infant learns about himself, how the carer perceives him as an individual and about relationships. Therefore it is crucial that during these moments the infant feels secure, recognised as an individual and valued as a partner in the relationship. How an infant experiences these care moments will influence his physical and emotional well-being throughout his early development.
Pikler recognised that with respectful and deeply tender care routines, babies and toddlers build secure attachments, developing a healthy self-image and understanding of their competencies. She found this enabled the infants to freely explore their bodily movements and the environment without interruption from the adult.
What makes this a unique care model is the full, undivided attention the carer devotes to the infant during the whole of the care routine. She shares her attention with him, speaking in a soft, calm tone, announcing what she is doing and answering the infant’s gestures and movements in such a way as to give him orientation.
The carer maintains the communication, showing him the cloth for wiping his face or asking the infant to reach out his foot so a sock can be put on. Every time, the carer waits patiently for the infant to process this and to respond with eye contact or a movement, such as lifting a foot to have the sock put on. The carer attentively responds to the infant’s method of interaction and also follows his interests, always coming back to the activity in hand. From the very beginning, a dialogue begins to develop.
Another important aspect of this unique care model is that the infant is invited to be an active partner who can contribute to the event and influence the relationship. This means that all aspects of the care routine are carried out ‘with’ and not done ‘to’ the infant. The carer is mindful of her hands and uses slow, gentle, announced movements, allowing the infant to follow and then participate in the activity. Due to the carer’s genuine and natural interest, the infant begins to anticipate the care sequence, reducing any element of surprise and therefore allowing him to relax into the moment.
The carer patiently waits for the infant to process and respond to her invitation before she continues. She allows him time to express himself, giving him the opportunity from the beginning to determine the tempo and rhythm of these care moments. Since it is a partnership, the carer adapts to the infant’s movement, changing a nappy while the baby lays on his front or in standing when this is what the infant prefers, for example. This freedom of movement is made possible in a Pikler setting by the specially designed changing tables with a supporting wooden rail secured around the back and sides of the table.
The aim is never to force an infant to do something he is not ready for or that goes against his will. Rather, the carer will find a way in which the infant feels comfortable to co-operate with what she wishes from him.
Pikler’s work shows that true co-operation comes from the respect and trust the carer shows in the infant’s competencies as an active partner and that he should experience the care moments as a pleasant and enjoyable togetherness. The level of the infant’s participation corresponds to the infant’s abilities and his interest in doing things independently. The true value of independence is seen when the infant has real enjoyment in doing things by himself.
This high standard of mindful, respectful care flows throughout all these times of bodily care where the infant quickly learns that his physical and emotional needs will be satisfied with the trust and security of his carer. He feels accepted and recognised as an individual.
In the 1920s, Emmi Pikler was studying paediatrics with Professor Clemens von Pirquet at the University Children’s Hospital in Vienna. There, in the accident statistics, she noticed fewer fractures and concussions among the children of lower class families who played out on the street than for the children of well-to-do families who were kept inside under the careful watch of a governess.
It seemed that the children who enjoyed the freedom to roam, run and play where they liked were more alert, more physically capable, and were able to fall without hurting themselves. By comparison, children of well-to-do families were over-protected, their movements were limited and they did not know their own physical capabilities or limits.
Looking further into the ways children were being raised from a physical perspective, Dr. Pikler noted that all children, across all social classes, were being assisted, sat, propped and walked. She did find, however, that the well-to-do families spent extra time manually exercising their babies' limbs in order to encourage physical development.
In 1931, Emmi Pikler herself became a mother. Her husband also held progressive pedagogical views and together the new parents decided not to force their daughter's development with exercises, by propping her to sit or by steadying her to walk. They allowed plenty of space and time for her physical development to unfold naturally through freedom of movement and independent play. While Dr. Pikler's approach involved doing less and allowing more freedom, its success was dependent upon her unique respectful approach to care which forged the strong parent-child relationship.
The family of three moved to Trieste in Italy for a year. There Pikler spent time on the beach observing parents with their infants. She witnessed parents teaching these infants to sit, to stand and to walk before they were able to do so for themselves. Learning from these observations, she also started to connect the relationship between the physical and the mental. Judit Falk commented, “She [Pikler] asked the question, ‘Does this communicate to the child that what he is doing is not good enough, and that he should be doing something of which he is not yet capable?’”
In 1932, the family moved to Hungary and three years later Dr. Pikler started her private practice in Budapest. It was in her practice with over 100 families that she was able to incorporate what she had learned from deciphering accident statistics in Vienna, observing 'helping' adults in Trieste, and from the raising of her daughter. During this period, she was introduced to the work of Elsa Gindler and later became friends with Gindler’s student, Elfriede Hengstenberg. Pikler’s and Hengstenberg’s meeting was to be the start of a great friendship and it was also very important to each woman professionally.
Gindler, Pikler and Hengstenberg all recognised the relationship between the emotional and the physical and their influence on the structure of the body. They also recognised that the inner laws of movement governing the body unfold when given the opportunity and right environment. Both Gindler's and Hengstenberg's work was correctional, redressing misalignments that had occurred in the body. Dr. Pikler's approach was preventative – the practice of uninterrupted development and emphasis on emotional security resulted in physical unfolding without distortion.
After the Second World War, Dr. Pikler set up an orphanage to care for babies the war had 'left behind' and for those whose parents were tubercular. This presented Dr. Pikler with the opportunity to begin what turned out to be decades of research into the natural unfolding of motor development in the infant. The orphanage setting offered controlled research conditions.
Many refer to Dr. Pikler’s work and research on natural infant motor development; her work is cited in many papers and publications including various publications from the Pikler Institute. Pikler's unique work expanded professionals' knowledge and understanding of the motor development of infants and young children and continues to stand alone as a beacon, even today.
Dr Emmi Pikler
Emmi Pikler was born in 1902 and grew up in Vienna and Budapest, both then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the First World War she studied medicine in Vienna where she encountered and worked with two innovative paediatricians of the day - Clemens von Pirquet and Hans Salzer. She later moved with her husband to Budapest where, in 1935, she qualified as a paediatrician.
In Budapest, Dr. Pikler set up a private paediatric practice working closely with parents of babies and young children. Through weekly visits, she supported parents to build trusting relationships with their children, notice their competence and allow time for natural development.
In this way, over the next decade, Dr. Pikler became a well-known family paediatrician. In 1940 her first book was published, What Can the Baby Already Do? Soon after, in 1946, she set up a residential home for infants, to provide care for the many abandoned or orphaned children in Budapest after the war.
The home became known as Lóczy, after the street where it was located in the attractive Rozsadomb area of Budapest. Here Dr. Pikler was able to implement her approach to early childhood care on a large scale. She gave much attention to the choosing and training of appropriate staff so that the children consistently received attentive, personal care. The children developed well, both physically and psychologically, which attracted the attention of professionals. A large amount of data was collected to document the results of the work and from 1960, publishing of this research in books and scientific papers began.
Until her death in 1984, Emmi Pikler worked tirelessly to establish her approach to the care of the very young. She not only supervised the running of the residential home and the conducting of research, she also wrote further books, most notably The Book of Mothers (not translated), which ran to sixteen editions and became the standard text for mothers in Hungary at the time. Her third book, published in three volumes, became the course book for training in caregiving in Hungary for twenty five years.
A vibrant legacy continued after her death. Besides the ongoing work with the children, further books and articles were published by the doctors, psychologists and pedagogues who had trained and worked with Emmi Pikler. Later, documentary films which convey the approach to early childhood care were published and these continue to be sold to an international audience. In time, a training programme was developed for early childhood educators from around the world who wanted to learn more about Emmi Pikler’s approach. This training programme continues today.
For more information about Pikler and how the approach has been written about (in English), please do pop over to The Pikler Collection, created and curated by one of our Founders, Clare Caro.