Broadcast live from the hallowed halls of the Anatomy Museum in Trinity College, Dublin, 'Growing Up Live' has kicked off with an episode as surprising, fascinating and jam-packed as the first few months of parenthood.
On its first night, presenter Angela Scanlon probed the murky but rewarding waters of the science of childhood, how babies develop and how we can use this knowledge to become better parents.
She was joined by clinical psychologist David Coleman for a discussion about how even the most natural and intrinsic ways we interact with babies leave indelible marks on their development.
"From an outside perspective, it looks a lot more subtle. So we don't necessarily notice the changes as dramatically", he explained. As we spend more time with our children than other people, we may see very few notable changes between our child at four years old and at six years old, but another person might marvel at how big they've suddenly gotten.
Coleman highlights a number of these subtle changes, such as the move from "parallel play" where children will play side-by-side but not necessarily together, to "collaborative play" where they're eager to interact with others.
Gender is a large defining factor here, and influences not only how children play (boys favouring rough-and-tumble more than girls, generally speaking) but also how people treat babies.
"There's always nature and nurture. Nature will have a certain level of innate stuff, but then how we rear children does make a difference in how they understand their own sense of gender."
When it comes to how children play, what you allow them to do matters as much as what you don't allow them to do. Coleman said that parents are more anxious to "let children out" so that they have a semblance of the free-roaming childhood outdoors that older generations enjoyed.
However, devices have changed how we parent, as Coleman noted: "I think lots of parents will use screens as digital babysitters now." While this is a convenient and effective way to keep kids occupied, Coleman cautions that we should think more about what our kids are not doing.
To learn why playing in the great outdoors is so important for a child's development and how leading by example is one of the most important factors in parenting, watch the video above!
Growing Up, Live airs on the 13th, 14th and 15th of November at 7pm on RTÉ One.
