Online Lecture: Dr Suzanne Zeedyk

How much has COVID changed our children? : A discomforting exploration of long-term possibilities

The evidence is now rolling in regarding the pandemic’s impacts on our youngest children.  Many people have been eager to constrain COVID to the past, relegating it to history.  For our children, though, that ‘history’ will be carried forevermore in their biology.  This is especially true for our youngest children, who spent time with anxious, distracted parents during a time in which the development of their brains and bodies were in the most formative years of life.  In this presentation, developmental psychologist Dr Suzanne Zeedyk will reflect on the range of evidence now emerging about families’ experiences during the pandemic, and she will unpack what the consequences of those experiences may be.  Most importantly, she will query how much British society and policymakers have begun to grapple with these possibilities, which relate to a surprisingly wide range of sectors and settings, including schools, the care system, health provision, prisons, and even care homes for the elderly.  Her message is a stark and compelling one: We will not bounce back from COVID.  We must recover.  If we focus right now on making sense of and responding to what just happened to us, we have a chance of coming out of COVID stronger than we entered it, as a society more alert to the importance of emotional connection.  The question is whether we will choose this degree of curiosity and reflection.  Suzanne will show us how we can.

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Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk is a research scientist fascinated by babies’ innate capacity to communicate.  

Since 1993, she has been based at the University of Dundee, Scotland, within the School of Psychology, where she now holds an honorary post.  In 2011, she stepped away from full time academic work in order to set up her own independent training enterprise to disseminate what she calls the Science of Connection.  Humans beings are born connected, and as a species we have a physiological need for emotional connection in order to lead happy, healthy lives.  Suzanne thought the public deserved to understand the science that gives depth to these insights.  In 2014, she expanded her reach by founding the organisation connected baby, which enabled her team to create events and resources that support her message. 

We estimate that, in the past 10 years, well over 100,000 people have heard her speak live, and many more have watched videos or read her books and blogs.  Suzanne brings to her work her awareness of the latest discoveries on infant communicative capacities and brain development, as well as her own research expertise on parent-infant relationships and the socio-political contexts within which scientific information emerges. 

Suzanne now works closely with organisations throughout the world, holding on to the same goal with which she set out:  We need to increase awareness of the decisions we take about caring for children, because they are integrally connected to our vision for the kind of society we wish to build. 

Websites:       www.suzannezeedyk.com | www.connectedbaby.net

Twitter:          @suzannezeedyk

Facebook:     @drsuzannezeedyk