Becoming a parent for the first time

What having a child taught me about psychology.

Topics Discussed:
- Availability heuristic
- Affective forecasting

Learn more:

Connect with Ali:

THE PSYCH SHOW! Making psychology fun and easy to understand. Produced, written, and edited by clinical psychologist Ali Mattu, Ph.D. All videos are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute clinical advice.

If you or someone you know needs help immediately, you should take one of the following actions:
- go to your nearest hospital emergency room

[drali]

Do you want kids? What have you learned about parenting?

[ErebosGR]

0:02 Ali: "I didn't want to have kids."
Baby: "u wot m8?"

[SimplyMayaB]

This video was really sweet. I don't even know for sure if I'll be a parent myself one day or not, but your obvious love for your daughter is extremely endearing and the content was compelling. Beautiful :)

[amiyang]

Thank you for your honesty, and vulnerability. You put it all out there to help others!! Your baby is adorable and so calm. She really takes to you. Best of luck to you and your beautiful family!!

[TherapistTamaraHill]

As a child therapist, I have mixed views on this. Because I see the negative aspects of parenting in my work, I pause when I think about being a mom one day. And yet, the human side of me would love a child when things are right. But the unpredictability of parenthood sometimes seems to outweigh other things.
Tough place as a therapist.

[valentinamilovanovic]

OMG I love how you can hear the baby breathing 😭♥
You're so blessed ♥

[neurotransmissions]

What a nice video! Congratulations again. My brother and sister-in-law just had a baby and it’s wonderful to see her grow at every moment. Can we expect a series of attachment and child development videos in the future?

[lenaschofield]

Congratulations! I look forward to hearing how you navigate playgrounds and school and your daughter’s friendships. By the time your daughter goes to kindergarten, my kids will have finished high school

[CoolDoge]

Daddy, you are doing an excellent job! Little pointers - by the time you notice that this bottle is empty, your baby has tried letting you know so many times already, but she cant take it out of her mouth by herself, right ? )))) Eating all this air is going to make gassy. Also she was making same signals when she received the second bottle, it was too much already. Her stomach is small, it cant fit TWO large size bottles of formula after all ))) Hope this was in any way helpful )))
Congratulations on your beautiful baby and you look like you are going to make one terrific dad! )))

[AaronRClark]

This was great. Thanks for making this. Hope everyone is doing alright.

[nicolestern]

This video is amazing! I just wanted to say thank you so much for your amazing talk today (I was one of the students in the talk-back today). I didn't get a chance to ask you a question and I am a HUGE psych nerd so everything you said about that got me really excited. I had a couple of questions... 1. I've noticed a lot over the past couple years that when I tell adults I want to go into psychology they say "oh that's what everyone says and then they find their real major". Since when is psychology the new undecided? I feel like I have to justify it by saying I've been into psych for 6 years, my focus is social psych and I intern at a lab in NYU. I get that most students don't stick with what they say they want to do freshman year but what's with all the judgement around psych?

2. On a totally unrelated note: comic con. How is it that comic con (and plenty of other cons) are so open and accepting of everybody's interests? Like people will appreciate your passion and enthusiasm even if they belong to different fandoms. Even though they aren't in the same in-group, there is no hostility. On the same note, I've found that I'm just getting into a lot of different fandoms (...yep, I'm the girl who hadn't seen The Last Jedi....) but people in all of these fandoms are open and accepting of newcomers or people who aren't as deep into the fandom as they are. How is there such a lack of judgement in the nerd world? Why don't we see this in the "real world"? How does the somewhat self-isolating nature of "nerd world" play a role in this?

Just realized I had another question.... sorry this is a comment that really should have been an email!
3. What are your thoughts on different movies/tv shows portraying mental illness? Awareness or capitalizing on people's actual experiences (I run an Ableism Awareness club at dalton and would love to talk to you about that at some point, so this point is of special interest to me!)

TL;DR: THANK YOU FROM DALTON!!! Psych? Nerdfighteria psych? Mental illness in movies?

[NateCrownwell]

Wow this was very insightful, thank you Dr. Ali Mattu

[giovannivieira]

As a child psychologist have you seen your perspective of your patients change since you have had a child?

[waulondawilliams]

She is adorable. I love her little feet