The Babywearing Backlash: Mothers vs. Motrin

As International Babywearing Week drew to a close, moms were blogging, vlogging and tweeting about a controversial ad campaign launched by the makers of Motrin.  For mothers who have experienced (and appreciate) the benefits babywearing can bring, Motrin’s latest ad campaign was, at the very least, ‘distasteful.’

The response to the campaign, by babywearers in particular, has demonstrated, once again, the many ways in which mothers are harnessing the power of the Internet to affect change. Motrin has issued an apology and removed the ad from their website

As a babywearing mother of two, I have to say that I,too, found the tone of the commercial to be in poor taste.  The ad seemed to raise questions about the benefits of babywearing, while making light of a practice that mothers around the world have carried out for centuries. We in the West have repackaged the wisdom of African, Asian and Latin American moms by putting a ‘new twist’ on an old practice. 

In many developing countries health workers promote skin to skin contact between mother and newborn.  ‘Kangaroo mother care,’ as it is called, involves the wrapping or wearing of one’s baby on one’s chest.  Organizations like UNICEF and Save the Children support these efforts, citing the role that kangaroo mother care has played in reducing infant mortality rates. 

In most developed countries, mothers have a wide assortment of baby carriers to choose from– designer fabrics–with rings–without rings.  In many parts of the world, however, wearing one’s baby would never be considered a ‘fashion statement.’ 

To me, the Motrin ad was distasteful not only because it made light of a practice that is saving babies lives, but because it insinuated that babywearing was a ‘trend’ solely owned by achy Western wannabee ‘official moms’….whoever they are.

Justice and Compassion: Project Magnolia

One of the greatest desires that I have as a mom is to raise my children with a strong sense of justice and compassion.  For me, this desire is rooted deeply in a faith which holds ‘loving one’s neighbors as oneself’ in as high a regard as it does ‘loving God.’  I am charged therefore with the task of exposing my children (in developmentally appropriate ways) to some of the more unfortunate things in this world.  Not every child has a toybox.  Some children don’t get to play outside.  Sometimes they go to bed without dinner.

My preschool-aged daughter has already started asking questions about children in need.  The simple process of cleaning out our closets, bagging up the items and leaving them for the Salvation Army sparked a long and interesting conversation.  When I told her that there were children who did not have clothes she got excited about giving them hers.  She flung open the drawers and began pulling things out–some that still fit–some things that we had just bought.  She didn’t seem to care about that.  

Instead she wanted to know who the little girl was. Why did she not have clothes? How old was she?  What was her name?  While running errands one day, my husband blurted out the name ‘Magnolia.’

When a local church came to pick up our old used car, my daughter wanted to know if Magnolia’s mom would now be able to drive her to school.  When the neighborhood children came around to take orders for a fundraiser, she wanted to know if the money would help Magnolia buy a new toy.  She wants to meet Magnolia one day and play together.

I will admit that I am deeply moved by my almost three-year-old daughter’s burgeoning sense of concern.  The seeds of compassion have been sown and I pray that over time they will continue to grow. I am happy that she wants to give her things to Magnolia.  As she grows and matures, however, I want to make sure that she learns about all of the things that Magnolia can give her. 

I am, therefore, challenged as a mom.  On the one hand, I want to make sure that my children are committed to helping those in need….but at the same time….paternalism can be problematic.

Keeping Kids Fit: How to Fight the Fat

by Pat Simpson

Not long ago, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity released a report calling for a collective effort on the part of the government and public institutions to take more action in addressing the problem of childhood obesity in the U.S. Since then, numerous studies and news reports have focused on research findings showing how obesity can start as early as infancy.

 

My organization, Parents as Teachers National Center, is one national parent support organization taking these studies seriously and developing practical ways to help families fight back against childhood obesity.

 

We know, for example, that parents often underestimate their influence on children. So researchers at Saint Louis University School of Public Health tested “High 5 for Kids”, one of our programs that helps parents learn how to encourage their preschoolers to eat more fruits and vegetables. They wondered whether what the parents ate affected what their children ate and guess what? They found that it did! When parents ate more fruits and vegetables, their children did, too! How easy is that?

 

Learn to read your child’s hunger cues – Young children have an innate ability for judging when they are hungry or full. If your baby is full, she might close her mouth or turn away when food is offered. Toddlers may play with the food or push it away. If your child is still hungry, she will continue to open her mouth or look expectantly for more food. A child will usually eat as much food as she needs and will only eat more if she is encouraged or forced. Because children’s portion sizes are smaller, don’t offer too much food at one time. A good rule of thumb for portion sizes is one tablespoon of food for each year of a young child’s age.

 

Make eating a supervised social event – At mealtime and snack time sit down, slow down and focus on food and family. With fewer distractions your child is also more likely to stop eating when she’s full. Make mealtime pleasant and fun! Your child will learn to associate your attention and eating healthy food with enjoyment, leading to good eating habits down the road.

 

Exercise together – By playing with your child and including her in your exercise routine, you will teach her from a very early age that exercise is important. Go on walks, play together at the playground, stretch together on the floor. Not only will you and your child get some much needed physical fitness and bonding time, but this will also boost your child’s motor development.

Make a healthy lifestyle a priority for the entire family – Good nutrition and fitness is essential and beneficial for the entire family. Children learn how to behave by watching and imitating their parents. Be a good role model and let your child see you eating well and exercising.

 

For more child development and parenting information, visit www.ParentsAsTeachers.org.

 

About Parents as Teachers National Center

Based in St. Louis, Parents as Teachers National Center is the resource base and backbone of Parents as Teachers, a parent education and early childhood development program serving parents throughout pregnancy until their child enters kindergarten, usually age 5. The nonprofit National Center oversees more than 3,000 programs offering Parents as Teachers services nationwide as well as in several other countries. For more information about Parents as Teachers, visit www.ParentsAsTeachers.org.

 

 

 

Love Lessons: One Adoptive Mother’s Story

Both of my daughters were adopted. I brought them home (almost ten years apart) when they were just twelve and thirteen days old.  Though we had very few details about their birth families, we knew that they would one day have the option of registering with the agency for a reunion with their child. Back then, an ‘eighteenth birthday’ seemed very far off.

 

From the beginning, we told our daughters their story, the story of how they arrived in our lives. At age 7, my oldest daughter would stand in the mirror wondering what her birth mother was doing or if she looked like her. I would respond with the answers I imagined possible; she had finished university, was working, and maybe married. I knew, however, that someday she would meet the woman who gave me one of the two greatest gifts in my life.

 

Fast forward. My older daughter, now busy with university talks about reunion. She receives a letter stating that one of her birth parents wants to make contact with her.  We both that feel that it is her birth mother and I know that my initial reaction is going to be graded. It will be the most important test that I have ever taken. My daughter is excited and lovingly concerned about my reaction to the request.

 

The first contact is via email through a social worker. Soon after, there are phone calls and plans for a first meeting. The week before our family is to go on vacation, we talk about a gift for our daughter’s birth mom.   Being an especially crafty family, I suggest that we make the gift, a scrapbook of my daughter’s life.  We spend the evenings sharing so many memories as we put the pages together and look back over her childhood. This is a true Love Lesson, sharing my daughter’s life and lovingly offering it in the pages we create. I feel even closer to my daughter and to the woman who gave me this life to love.

 

The reunion is wonderful.  It brings my daughter more family as her birth grandparents are only an hour away. The first meeting with her birth mom, grandparents, half sister and brother is at a picnic.  We are nervous at first but there is so much to share.  We have a common bond. My daughter’s birth mom has the same beautiful smile, the same hair, same tan.  They look like sisters. So many questions are answered for my daughter.

 

How do I feel? I feel blessed to be part of this reunion and to see my daughter (ever a student and seeker) find what she is looking for and wants to know.

 

My daughter will have a loving relationship with her birth mom, but this does not mean that I will be loved less.  When we have more than one child we do not love the first one less. We uniquely and equally love each child. So it is with us. The relationship with my daughter is its own loving one–just as it always has been. Our love has been only been deepened. I am her mom. We all want our children to have more people who love and cherish them. Three years later, our daughter is reunited with her birth father and is again given more family.

 

My daughter’s story is a loving one and I realize that it is not everyone’s story. I do believe, however, that our role as adoptive moms is to be loving and supportive throughout the journey. Just as we taught them to share so long ago, we also must share.  In doing so, the love returns tenfold.

 

In a few years I will embark on a second ‘reunion journey’ with my younger daughter. There will undoubtedly be more love lessons.

 

Here is a bit of advice for adoptive parents:

 

·       Read, research and become familiar with adoption. My daughter, birth mom and I took part in a six week Joyful Reunion teleclass offered by a team of adoption coaches.  One coach was an adopted child and the other a birth mom. I was the only adoptive parent in the class.

 

·       Share your child’s adoption story with them from the beginning, even if they are too young to understand. For my daughter it is the story of being an hour early to pick her up and sitting in the parking lot. It is the story of the two hour drive and how she never woke up until we got her home despite being held by several different people.  With older child or difficult circumstances focus on any positive details especially your own story of getting ready to welcome them.

 

·       Consider your child’s age when answering questions pertaining to his/her birth family.

 

·       Be prepared for the moment (possibly during the teen years) when your child ‘stomps off’ saying that they hate you and that ‘you’re not [their] real mother anyway.’ Children going through this period of development, moving towards independence, can lash out with the most hurtful things they can think of.  It is more about the stage than the adoption.

 

·       Find ways to be part of the reunion.  Make a scrapbook, photo album or share school mementos. The sharing can be done in person or on-line.

 

·       Reunions are complex and rejection is a possibility. In my older daughter’s case it has been rich and loving. With such a large extended family, however, now it means spreading herself between many more people. Everyone has her best interests at heart so it has worked out very well. Whatever the case is always be there for them with an open heart. Access professional advice and help for your child, siblings or yourself without any guilt.

 

 

      Debra Quartermain is a devoted single mom of two amazing daughters ages 16 and 25.  She currently resides in Fredericton, NB, Canada.

Tips For Raising Children In A Multicultural World

1. Be a role model of appreciation and respect for differences – Children learn what is socially acceptable by watching and listening to the important adults in their lives. That’s you! When your child sees you respecting differences among people, he will grow to do the same.
2. Understand that young children notice differences – Don’t be embarrassed by your child’s observations or questions. As adults, we may cringe as our preschooler says out loud, “Why can’t that man walk?” From a very young age children notice differences without placing a value judgment on what they observe. Answering questions in a matter-of-fact way encourages them to explore and accept differences. They will learn it is okay to ask about differences if it’s done in a respectful way.
3. Celebrate your family’s traditions – Celebrate and teach your child about his culture and his family’s values and traditions. Learning about his family’s background helps him understand his own unique identity. When you practice cultural traditions you are making memories your child will treasure for a lifetime and creating a special bond you both can enjoy.   
4. Enjoy music, books, toys and art from different cultures – Play a lullaby from a different land for your baby, give your toddler a unique toy from another culture, or read a folktale from a different part of the country to your preschooler. Talk about the differences and similarities you see or hear, and show your child how much you value diversity.
5. Go to a different neighborhood to play or eat lunch – Seek out parts of your area where people from diverse backgrounds live. Have a casual conversation with another family on the playground or other public place. Your child will see human diversity as a part of everyday life if he is exposed to a variety of people and environments.

 

About Parents as Teachers National Center

Pat Simpson joins the MOMbo TV community from Parents As Teachers. Based in St. Louis, Parents as Teachers National Center is the resource base and backbone of Parents as Teachers, a parent education and early childhood development program serving parents throughout pregnancy until their child enters kindergarten, usually age 5. The nonprofit National Center oversees more than 3,000 programs offering Parents as Teachers services nationwide as well as in several other countries. For more information about Parents as Teachers, visit www.ParentsAsTeachers.org.

 

What Is Attachment Parenting?

Lysa Parker is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Attachment Parenting International. API is an organization committed to promoting parenting practices that create strong, healthy, emotional bonds between children and their parents.

 

LP: Hi Kemi. It’s a great thrill to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

 

RM: Now, I would imagine that many of our readers are familiar with Attachment Parenting, if not already practicing AP themselves. But for those who may not be familiar with the term, what is Attachment Parenting and why is it so important?

 

LP: You know, over 20 years ago—my oldest son is 26—and it was only after he was born that I learned about the term Attachment Parenting when read Dr. Sears’ books. Dr. Sears didn’t mention anything about Attachment Theory, but this is what we have found Attachment Parenting is based in. After Barbara Nicholson, my co-founder, and I started doing research as we were beginning to form the organization, we discovered Attachment Theory and we were surprised to find out that this research on the primal bond between parents—between mothers and their babies had been researched for over 50 years and yet that information had not been well-known in the lay community amongst parents, it was mostly known among researchers. So that is the origination of the term Attachment Parenting. I’m sure Dr. Sears didn’t get into it because he wanted to reach parents on a very simple, more understandable level. But we were very pleased to find that so much of what we believed intuitively as mothers, and as fathers, was based in science and there was enough science to support our beliefs.

 

RM: So what does non-attachment look like? What sorts of relational issues might a child who did not bond properly with their parents experience?

 

LP: Well, we’ve learned so much from children who have been in orphanages, who have languished for long periods of time without human contact, and there’s also been anecdotal stories of children who have had their physical needs meet, but not their emotional needs met. We know, sadly, from the tragic deaths of these babies or the lack of development in these children that human beings require emotional nurturing and nurturing physical touch as much as they require food, air to breathe, and sustenance. It’s just so critical.

 

What they’re finding with children who do not form attachments, and there are basically four levels of insecure attachments. There are probably many of us in our culture that have some form of insecure attachment, and that can effect personal relationships. But on a very basic level, as far as children, they tend to act out.

 

Children with attachment disorders, that have been specifically diagnosed by a psychologist or psychiatrist, they exhibit extreme behaviors—inability to give eye contact, they tend to be overly affectionate. I worked in schools for many years and once I learned about Attachment Theory and the different degrees of insecure attachment, I started really observing that in many of the students that I worked with, and even those that I didn’t. There were many times that children would come up to me; didn’t know me from anybody, I was a total stranger; and they would just come up and hug me and just be very affectionate. So that is another hallmark of children with attachment disorders—they can be overly affectionate with strangers, which is something that can be extremely dangerous in our culture today.

 

Children with attachment disorders tend to hoard sugar and food and some of them may be obsessed with fire. Those, again, are the extremes.

 

There are other levels that are no so extreme that affect us in ways that allow us to be functioning in this society, but we see every-day examples of attachment disorders. There’s kind of a spectrum of this disorder from people who are con-artists—we see white collar crime all the time. These are people who don’t have a very well-developed conscience, yet they are able to function in society and have relationships; but often times they have a history of poor relationships with people and they don’t really have the empathy skills for having intimate relationships, let alone in business dealings. So it’s just a wide spectrum of problems that we see and are accustomed to now because it’s just part of our culture.

 

RM: Right. Well, the research on the affects of attachment vs. non-attachment seem pretty clear. I know we had Dr. Elliot Barker of the Canadian Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children on the show and he touched on it a little bit. Given the research, what would you say to the parents who really, I think, have been duped by that psychological orientation that says the following: “Babies don’t start remembering things until much later, so all of this stuff that you’re doing to attach or bond with your child really isn’t that important.”?

 

LP: Well, if you talk to any of the current brain researchers, they will say that that is a false statement. They know from their research that the brain absorbs all experiences—they call that implicit memory, it becomes part of the limbic part of the brain. Implicit memory is not a memory that you can instantly recall, but it is a memory that can be triggered by an experience, a smell, a sound, or words. Even in our relationships with our spouses, our partners, and our children, when we talk about people pushing our buttons, those are experiences that are triggering something in our implicit memories—memories that occur during our early childhood, that we cannot remember but had some kind of traumatic effect upon us.

 

There is just too much research to refute any and all statements such as those.

 

RM: Now Lysa, do you mind sharing a bit about the Eight Ideals of Attachment Parenting. What are they?

 

LP: Not at all. Originally, when we originally founded Attachment Parenting International (API), we adopted Dr. Sears’ “Baby Bs”. He constructed them in a way that is memorable to parents, such as: Birth, Bonding, Breastfeeding, Baby-wearing, and so on. But as we have evolved as an organization, and because of our mission to reach people in the mainstream, not solely attachment parents, and also to keeping with the science that continues to be done that supports the Eight Ideals, we have recently gone through a revision of what we call the Ideals.

 

We call them the Ideals because we know there are no perfect parents—none of us are perfect parents—but they are ideals we hope to strive for and we want parents to understand that this is not a recipe for parenting, that you have to do every single thing or you will not have a strong bond with your child. Rather, these are the behaviors that science supports for optimal development for a child emotionally, psychologically, neurologically, and we do the best we can, given the circumstances.

 

With that out of the way, the Eight Ideals began with: Ideally, you prepare for childbirth. Not necessarily waiting until you’re pregnant but prior to, if possible. If it is a planned pregnancy, you want to get you body into shape, you want to have your mind in shape, and to just be prepared. Also, you want to get prepared for parenting. So many times, the parents focus on the birth, but then after the baby comes, they’re lost. They’re like “What do I do now?” Part of that is normal, because you’re so focused on the birth and you can’t really relate to actually having this little human infant in your arms. But that’s the beginning.

 

There’s so much parents can do in preparation and designing a birth that they want. The more involved the parent is in their birth, the more empowered they will become and the more confident they will be as parents. So it really gets them off to a good start to be involved and to have the least interventions as possible in your birth.

 

Secondly, once the baby’s born, it’s really important for the parents to become attune to the baby’s communication. The only way the babies can communicate is through crying initially, so we help parents understand that crying is their way of expressing their needs and that it’s important for parents to respond to those needs and to respond sensitively, not begrudgingly or in a resentful way. But to say, “I’m here for you. I understand what you are trying to communicate to me, and if I don’t I’ll figure it out.” A lot of it is just trial and error in the early weeks and months. No parent is instantly attuned to their baby and it is a process and this is the attachment process—the process of becoming attuned. There are all sorts of research studies out there that support this key element in Attachment Parenting, and that is being emotionally responsive—it is the cornerstone to Attachment Parenting.

 

RM: So not letting your baby “cry it out.”

 

LP: Exactly. And now, we are seeing more research being done on that—on the crying it out—but we can get to that a little bit later. Often times, that occurs during sleep training. For sure, crying it out is not teaching your baby anything except that they cannot trust you to be there when they need you. It’s all about building those first few relationships of trust. If you’re there when they need you, then they learn that those relationships are built on a solid foundation and those first lessons of trust carry on through their lifespan with other relationships.

 

Thirdly: At one point, and Dr. Sears in his Baby Bs promotes breastfeeding. We also highly promote breastfeeding. In our recent revision, we have changed that to “feeding with love and respect.” The reason we did that is because there are so many parents, mothers, who are bottle feeding, especially those who have adopted babies, and we don’t want them skipping over this idea.

 

What we want them to understand is that when you’re feeding your baby with a bottle—first of all, you can practice Attachment Parenting and bottle feed, although we are very clear that breastfeeding is the ideal for numerous reasons—but when you’re bottle feeding, you need to be holding the baby as if you were breastfeeding. Not propping the bottle, not letting your older baby just lay there, feeding himself. Feeding is part of the attachment process and it also forces the mother or father to sit down and have that one-to-one time, that eye contact, that interaction with the baby. Nature’s ideal model is breastfeeding, and we are trying to replicate that, or hoping that parents will replicate that through bottle feeding and understanding the importance of the act of feeding in the attachment process.

 

We go on to the importance of nurturing touch. That can be through wearing your baby because that keeps the baby happy, the baby is close to your body; can hear your breathing and your heart. I remember wearing my baby and people would always say, “Oh, he’s such a good baby. He never cries. He never…” And I would always say, “That’s because he’s on me. He’s feeling very safe and secure.” Which reminds me of something that Dr. Isabelle Fox said that I love. She said that babies really require three things: Proximity, protection and predictability—the three Ps. Proximity, protection and predictability. So when babies have all those, then they feel very comfortable and they’re not going to cry. The only reason they cry is when something is bothering them.

 

RM: It’s funny; we actually took a trip to West Africa earlier this year to have a thanksgiving ceremony for our baby. It must have been a million degrees, but at that time, all I had was a padded ring sling, which was just way too warm. I ended up carrying my daughter in my arms. Everywhere we went, everyone came up to tell me I should be wearing my baby on my back—complete strangers—they would whisper to each other, and they would motion to me to tie my daughter on. In this culture, wearing your baby is the natural thing to do. I didn’t see a single stroller, and it wasn’t because people couldn’t afford strollers, I saw the largest plasma televisions I’d ever seen, but it was that strollers were looked upon as a Western aberration and distasteful. It was that a mother and child belonged together.

 

LP: They are a unit. That’s right. That’s interesting. I know that some of the tribes in various parts of Africa have been shown videos of Western moms and how they care for their children and how we put them in cribs and rooms by themselves and they consider that abusive—and especially letting them cry it out.

 

RM: On the same trip, I was asked if I slept with my baby in a cage—that’s what they called a crib.

 

LP: Wow, yeah.

 

RM: What about co-sleeping? Why is co-sleeping important?

 

LP: Co-sleeping is important, especially for the breastfeeding relationship, because we know that studies have shown that it enhances the breastfeeding relationship and it allows mothers to get more rest and for the baby to feel safe and the baby’s less likely to wake up fully during the night. I remember when I slept with my babies, it was amazing how they could sniff out the breast. They might have been very young infants and it was dark and they couldn’t see, but they could find the breast. That was always amazing to me.

 

That is one of the ideals we have changed from Co-Sleeping to Nighttime Parenting. Because regardless of the parents’ choice—we want to be respectful of parents’ choices, we want to give them the information, but ultimately it’s up to the parents and their choices given their circumstances. If we are going to, you know, appeal to families who might have difficulty with that for whatever reason, we want them to know that it is important to be responsive during the night. Their child needs to be in a safe sleeping environment whether they co-sleep or not. That is important for the baby to be in close proximity, which, thankfully, the American Academy of Pediatrics is supporting this as well.

 

Co-sleeping has become very controversial. There are liability issues involved with organizations such as ours and others, so we have to be very careful in what we’re promoting. There’s a really litigious and punitive climate out there toward parents who co-sleep. There have been situations that have been very tragic. But that aside, let’s just say that babies need responsive parenting during the night as well. Crying it out or sleep training is not only dangerous and inappropriate, but it could very well affect the cortisol levels of the baby’s brain, and it could affect them psychologically later in life. I know that sounds very dire, but we feel that it’s important to get this information out to parents because it has been treated very cavalierly by so-called parenting experts and even pediatricians recommend this. Most pediatricians recommend sleep training. That’s a very big issue for us, and a very big challenge we’re trying to get the word out that this is dangerous.

 

I want to recommend a book that just came out from the UK, it’s called “The Science of Parenting”. It’s an excellent book and it talks about what happens when a baby is allowed to cry it out. This author has gathered some of the recent research that has been done on cortisol levels, stress levels, and what it does to the developing brain. I would strongly encourage people to get that book, it’s excellent and very well worth the money. It’s $25, but it’s got beautiful pictures and diagrams and hardcover. It’s an excellent book.

 

One of the ways our Eight Ideals are slightly different than Dr. Sears’ and Martha Sears’ Eight Baby Bs is that we ask parents to limit the separation of their baby in the early weeks, months, and years because that can be detrimental to the attachment process.

 

Our Ideal reads “Providing consistency of care.” Isabelle Fox was one of the first ones to talk about the dangers of caregiver roulette and how babies, even in the best daycares, can go through a series of different caregivers in a given month or year and how detrimental that can be on an infant and the attachment process. We encourage mothers and/or fathers to find ways to stay home with their children in the early years.

 

If they cannot—if they are a single mom and they have to work or whatever dire circumstances force them both to work—then we offer this hierarchy of care recommendations and consistency of care—when you interview alternative care situations, you need to find out, you need to make sure that your child has consistency of a loving caregiver. Ideally, if you can’t take care of your child, then a loving relative, someone who has an emotional investment in your child would be the next best thing.

 

RM: So if you have to go out to work, make sure you’re not passing the child off between caregivers or at a daycare that does?

 

LP: Right. And that just puts so many parents who are struggling financially in almost a no-win situation because the preponderance of daycares have been found to be substandard, as high as 90%. There is so much that has to be done on all different levels—supporting parents in the workplace and also providing options for them that keep the attachment process as the primal priority for care.

 

Then from that, our Ideal #7 is positive discipline. We help parents find alternative ways of disciplining their children. More importantly, we teach parents ways of understanding why children behave the way they do and looking at children through their eyes; not seeing them as evil little creatures that have to be broken or trained, but rather they are spiritual beings that need to be handled with care and love and with dignity. The discipline strategies that we use and borrow from always include using respect and dignity and understanding the reasons behind why children behave the way they do. Usually, that is their way of communicating. Many times, they don’t have the words to articulate how they are feeling, they just feel the way they feel and they don’t know how to express it, so it just comes out in some kind of behavior. It’s all about becoming more attuned to your child and finding positive ways of resolving these difficult times.

 

RM: Now Lysa, before the break, you were talking to us about the Eight Ideals of Attachment Parenting and some of the ways you do things differently from Dr. Sears’ Baby Bs. What is the Eighth Ideal?

 

LP: The Eighth Ideal is maintaining balance in one’s family life and that is probably the hardest Ideal of all. It’s not something that everybody can do all the time. Realistically, we can’t all be balanced all the time, but what we can do is assess each day and try to figure out ways of meeting the needs of your family, your baby, and nurturing yourself. That takes an every day effort. Besides attending our support groups, we give parents recommendations, ideas, and tips on ways they can find balance in their life.

 

It’s very important, too, to focus on the marital/partner relationship because children need to have an intact family. Divorce has such difficult ramifications for children. It’s very important that partners and spouses work on their relationship.

 

I know, as a mom it was really hard—you just become so absorbed with your child that it becomes really … you become “touched out” some days and you know you just want to be by yourself. It’s important to try to carve out even just 15 minutes by yourself. One of the things we recommend is finding someone, even if not a relative or friend, someone in the neighborhood who you’re close to that can come over and stay with you, help you entertain your baby while you just go in your bedroom and maybe read a book or take a bath or walk around the block. But at least you’re there if and when the baby needs you. It’s hard, but it’s real important to do that.

 

RM: What inspired you to start Attachment Parenting International?

 

LP: Barbara Nicholson, as I mentioned earlier, and I had been involved in La Leche League, which probably your listeners know that that is a support group that provides education about breastfeeding. We realized how transformed we were as mothers—not only did we learn about breastfeeding but we felt much more bonded with our babies and we learned about Attachment Parenting through La Leche League. We were able to have women in our groups who were more experienced and they modeled Attachment Parenting. It was such a unique way, compared to the culture it was a very unique way of raising children. It was so dignified and so loving and so different. I was intrigued as a new mom and I learned from watching them and seeing the results.

 

I remember wondering to myself, “What if this is wrong, what if this isn’t… have I done damage to my child?” But I just kept seeing the positive effects—little things that I would do really worked with my child when I started using positive discipline techniques and just really trying to understand the way he was feeling or what he was trying to communicate to me, it really worked. So I wanted to offer that to parents.

 

It was one thing that when we were in La Leche League that we felt was missing that there wasn’t a second phase of La Leche League, it’s like one you quit breastfeeding, “I guess I can’t go to the meetings anymore.” But the parents wanted more, they wanted to keep this support group up, this nurturing and Attachment Parenting, there wasn’t that for parents. But we had heard that there were Attachment Parenting support groups popping up around the country, but they also had their own definitions or versions of Attachment Parenting. So once we started investigating Attachment Theory, we decided that we would synthesize or crystallize what we believed to be Attachment Parenting and what could be supported by science and what was actively involved in the attachment process that was connected with Attachment Theory. That’s what we’ve done and of course, Dr. Sears had it right from the get-go. But we’ve just kind of expanded on that a little bit more and we are getting [a lot of] scientific research to support each of the Ideals.

 

I wanted to mention, too, that Elliot Barker was critical in the early months and years of our formation. He was our cheerleader, he was our sole support. We read about his organization and we called him on the phone and he counseled us and he was just a wealth of informational and such a loving, caring person. Being a forensic psychiatrist, it was amazing to us that he came upon Attachment Parenting as kind of like the answer to all the world’s problems. He didn’t necessarily… he came to it through his own way, through his work with his clients and his patients. We owe so much to Elliot, he’s such a wonderful person and doing so much for Attachment Parenting in Canada.

 

RM: API is operating now in how many countries?

 

LP: We have 86 support groups in approximately eight countries. Of course, most of them are in the US, but we have a group in Ireland, where we had our first API conference just this past May.

 

RM: I almost attended that conference, but we were preparing to move back from the UK to the States, so I wasn’t able to make it.

 

LP: It was fantastic! We have another group forming in Ireland. We have three groups in the UK and we have a group forming in Norway and Japan has been very interested. There’s a group in Japan that is interested in possibly forming support groups. We’ve been there twice already.

 

It’s just amazing to us how people are really getting it and they’re so interested and it’s not just our culture but other Western cultures. Our Western culture is just leaching into all these other cultures that we’ve admired for so long that we’ve believed practice Attachment Parenting. Now Japan is one of them. But then there are other cultural influences that while may be very devoted to their children… in the early years they co-sleep, they breastfeed, but when they’re older and when they go to school the culture changes and they’re under a lot of pressure in other ways. It was very heartening for us to see this subculture, very much like the AP subculture here that is kind of rejecting some of the Western practices that have leached into their culture. They are also rejecting some of the old traditional things that have had some devastating effects on people such as strong pressure with the schooling and the work, and trying to get back to the old way of parenting.

 

I remember I was just very moved by my translator—who had nothing to do with the group that invited us—but she had read Dr. Sears’ books and she said to me that she was the working person in her family and her husband was a stay-at-home dad and that she practiced Attachment Parenting and felt that her generation felt cheated because both mothers and father worked and they ended up in all different kinds of care situations. I felt like that was a very profound statement. She chose to adopt Attachment Parenting. 

 

RM: It seems to me that very many of the non-mainstream practices that we refer to as Attachment Ideals here in the West are actually often the normal mainstream child-rearing practices of native cultures. But, back to API, what types of support activities does API offer?

 

LP: Well, we do have the support groups, and people can go to our website, AttachmentParenting.org and click on Support Groups. They can either find a support group in their local area and if there isn’t a support group then they might consider starting a support group.

 

We have this affiliation process where they fill out an application and they go through a leadership process. We have a director of Leader Applicants who takes them through that process. It can take as little as two months to several months, depending on how fast the applicant is able to fulfill the requirements of leadership. The Internet has just been an incredible tool for us, for people finding us and starting support groups.

 

As with any model such as this, you’re going to have support groups that come and go, but we’ve been able to maintain nearly 100 support groups and we’re continuing to grow. We have nearly 50 leader applicants right now, so there is a huge interest.

 

We also provide educational materials. We’re revamping our Eight Ideals, we’re expanding them. When we’re finished, we’ll have a book that we’ll be able to sell and offer people. Our leaders have leader manual that we’ve written and compiled over the years and we offer regional trainings. We’re about to begin doing some online trainings. 

 

Basically parents come to the support groups either because they want to learn about Attachment Parenting, they’ve heard about it, or they’re already practicing Attachment Parenting and they need the support because we are not supported in the mainstream culture and we have obstacles everywhere we turn. But we wanted to form an international organization because we believe, and history has shown us that when we are united in our views and efforts and our struggles, we are much more likely to make a difference.

 

Parents like that—they like the fact that they’re part of this national and international effort, they’re not just sitting alone in their home in some city feeling like they’re weird because they want to parent this way and no one else does.

 

We hear from parents every day that say, “Oh, I’m so grateful that you’re here. I didn’t know it was called Attachment Parenting, it just seemed so natural to me.” You know, on some level, it’s kind of sad we have to call it Attachment Parenting. It’s just what you do. It should come naturally.

 

If there’s just one thing we want parents to get out of what we offer is trust your instincts—you already know how to parent your child, you just might have become confused because of what people are saying to you or because of what doctors are telling you or what you are reading in parenting books. But you are the expert in your child and you just need to do what your heart tells you to do and listen to your baby.

 

RM: To learn more about Attachment Parenting International or Attachment Parenting or if you are an Attachment Parent and you need support, please do visit the API website. Lysa, that address is?

 

LP: AttachmentParenting.org

 

RM: Thank you so much for joining me today on The Radio Mom Show. It has been a pleasure.

 

LP: Thank you, Kemi, it’s been great! Thank you so much. Peaceful parenting to all your listeners out there.

 

RM: And same to you.

Whining, Tantrums and Tears

Elizabeth Pantly is the mother of four children aged seven to 13, is a highly-regarded parenting expert and the author of several books which I’m sure many of you are familiar with you like the “No Cry Sleep Solution” and the “No Cry Potty Training Solution”. Elizabeth is here to talk to us today about an area of parenting that a lot of parents would consider the most challenging.

 

Hi Elizabeth! Welcome.

 

EP: Hello! I’m happy to be here.

 

RM: Well, your latest book is entitled “The No Cry Disciple Solution” and in it you talk about how child disciple can be approached in a way that is both positive and fun. In your research and interaction with the hundreds of families that you have worked with, what has the reaction been to the idea of fun and positive discipline?

 

EP: Of course everyone wants that and to think that it is something you can actually do is a relief. People, when they think about discipline, they think of a child crying in the corner and a parent yelling. I want parents to know that discipline doesn’t need to be like that. It’s more about teaching and guiding your children and it can be an enjoyable process.

 

RM: One of the things I certainly learned over the last couple of years is that there are indeed, varying understandings of what discipline is and what it looks like, and how it should be carried out. As a parenting expert and the mother of four, how do you define discipline? What is it exactly?

 

EP: I define discipline as teaching—teaching our children so they will have good morals and values and to be able to make good decisions when we are not in the same room with them.

 

RM: How does your approach say, different from some of the other approaches like authoritarianism or just some of the other approaches that are out there?

 

EP: The problem with authoritarianism is that you need to be in the room with your child, you need to be guiding and directing; you need to be involved in all their decisions. You are teaching them basically behave or you are in trouble with me. Basically discipline should be how to help children make good decisions on their own, how to help them create strong morals, values and decision-making skills within their own heart so that when they are out in the world, they are able to decipher right and wrong and make good decisions on their own.

 

So it is more looking at yourself in the role of teacher and guidance counselor and how do I help my child understand the world and his place in it?

 

RM: Okay. Well let’s talk a little bit about your book, “The No Cry Discipline Solution.” In the first section, you talk about some of the common myths parents have about child discipline. Do you mind taking us through some of those myths?

 

EP: There are a couple of myths that can really spoil the joy of raising your children. One of the most common is that if you are a really committed parent, if you really love your child, your child will behave. The truth is that all children misbehave. It doesn’t matter if you are a perfect saint of a parent, your child is still going to have temper tantrums and color on the walls and all those other things that we need to deal with.

 

Along with that is the myth that good parents don’t yell. The truth is that even the most peaceful, easy-going person looses their patience with their children and yells from time to time. Loving our children is easy, but raising them is very hard. Children are people, parents are people, and we cannot aim for 100% perfection, because then we are all going to be disappointed.

 

RM: Now your book is written for parents of children ages two through eight. Can you say something about age two as a stage of development and how this approach may be received by a younger toddler?

 

EP: Well, my hope is that a lot of parents of young children will get to read the book because a lot of things that we do when our children are toddlers and preschoolers really affect the things that happen when they are grade-schoolers and even teenagers. We want to start good patterns from the beginning so we are not scrambling to fix problems, but rather starting off on the right foot from the very beginning.

 

One of the most important things with toddlers and preschoolers, is to understand that misbehavior is usually a symptom. The real problem is simply their immaturity and their lack of understanding and their inability to handle their strong emotions. If we understand that our young children have so much to learn about life, we can approach discipline in a much more relaxed and positive way.

 

RM: My daughter Abi will be two in December and we are expecting our second in March.

 

EP: How wonderful!

 

RM: So I am sure that I will be referring to your book. In the book you also walk parents through the most common, every day disciplining challenges and you demonstrate how your approach can help address these challenges while minimizing the whining, tantrums and the tears. Can you talk about a couple of these?

 

EP: Sure! We’ll look at one of the more common issues: Bedtime battles. The minute the parent walks in and says it’s time for bed, the child breaks down. They cry, they whine, they fuss, they don’t want to get ready for bed, and if we step back and change our approach a little bit, we can just not have to deal with all of that.

 

For instance, if a child is having a good time playing and enjoying their toys and activities and you come in and say, “Time for bed, right now!” well, you’re going to get the tantrum and the fussing and the whining. They don’t want to stop their play and go to bed. Instead, I like to teach parents various skills that encourage willing cooperation. You might walk in and say, “We have five more minutes to play with our blocks. Can you build a tall tower?” And then, five minutes later, ask, “What do you want to do first? Brush your teeth or put on your pajamas? Let’s follow the Bedtime Train! Choo choo! Follow me to the bathroom!” 

 

So we’ve changed our approach enough to make the child want to cooperate with us. It is changing the upfront approach to make it more preventive discipline, doing things differently at the very beginning so we don’t have to deal with the tantrums and the whining.

 

RM: You also have a section in the book devoted to the really frustrating challenges—things like screaming, hitting, whining, and manners. If there are things that you can say to the parents listening today about these sorts of challenges, what would you say?

 

EP: I think the most important thing to know is that anything you deal with your children is normal and everybody else has to deal with it as well, whether it is a lack of manners, whining, fussing, or tantrums, everybody goes through that because it is just a normal part of growing up. So don’t think that there is anything wrong with your child or anything wrong with you as a parent, it’s just normal stuff that we have to go through.

 

Then taking a step back, taking a deep breath and asking yourself, “What can I do to get through this? Can I offer a choice? Can I get eye to eye with my child and say specifically what it is I want him to do? Can I validate his feelings? ‘I know you’re sad and you want to stay here and play, but we have to go because the bus is coming.’ Are there different things we can do?” Rather than looking at the fussing and whining as something that is a personal attack on us as a parent, look at is as a symptom of something that needs to be addressed and try to figure out what the real issue is and solve that before we go on to the next step.

 

RM: It sounds like your approach is pretty empathetic; would you consider it to be?

 

EP: Absolutely! Children are little, but they are people. They do have feelings, emotions, and moods. How many of us have said, “Honey, I didn’t mean yell at you, I’m just tired and I have a headache.” Our little ones go through those kinds of things, too. They’re tired, hungry, and frustrated, and emotions come out in negative ways. If we can understand that in ourselves, we should understand that in our children. As much as we struggle to do the right thing every day all day, we can’t expect a two year old or three year old to do the right thing day after day.

 

RM: Lastly, I want to ask you about a section in your book devoted to managing your own emotions as parents. Can you talk about that section?

 

EP: That is critically important because parenting is a very difficult job—24 hours a day, 7 days a week from sun up to sun down and sometimes through the night as well. We need to understand when we are doing a job of that magnitude, we are going to get angry and we are going to get frustrated. We need to understand that those are normal feelings. When we don’t understand that, it creates tremendous stress and guilt every time you raise your voice to your child. So it is a complicated job, so there are a lot of emotions, as any job of this magnitude would invite emotions like anger.

 

We can unintentionally make things worse by saying, “Why is he doing this to me? What’s wrong with me? Why cant’ I get a handle on this?” Instead, let’s say, “What’s happening and how can I solve it?”

 

In the book I talk about a six-step plan for controlling your angry emotions. Being able to stop as soon as you feel the anger rising and take a deep breath. Put a little space between you and your child so you can gain control of your emotions and then solve the problem by understanding what it is that you really need to change.

 

RM: Well, Elizabeth, what do you think is the most important thing that parents should know about disciplining children?

 

EP: Well, I would have to say that they should know about relaxing more and stressing less and understanding that a lot of what happens in our day to day are insignificant details that can cause us excess trouble and overshadow a lot of the joy of being a family. And also to understand that discipline is not a one-time maneuver. Just like musicians practice and athletes practice and students study, you can’t teach a child something one time and expect it to stick. You are going to have to teach over and over and eventually they will learn the things you are teaching them. Try to find the joy in everyday parenting and really understand your children as little people who are learning.

 

Empathic Parenting: An Interview With Elliott Barker

Since 1975, Dr. Barker has served as president of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the organization that, from 1978 until 2003, published the highly-regarded quarterly journal Empathic Parenting.

RM: Dr. Barker, for almost 40 years now you have been assessing and engaging with both adults and teenagers who committed the most violent of crimes. You’ve also testified as an expert witness in approximately 200 Supreme Court cases.

 

EB: Well, they weren’t all Supreme Court cases, but some of them were.

 

RM: Okay. How have your interactions with these individuals shaped your convictions regarding the needs of young children?

 

EB: Well, when I started at Ontario’s maximum-security mental hospital in 1965, I developed programs there that got popular for psychopaths and many of them were transferred into the hospital for those treatment programs.

 

Worldwide, there is a clear awareness that psycopathy is next impossible to treat, but also the evidence and the research literature is quite clear that the failure of a capacity for empathy happens at the very earliest years. I was involved in developing treatment programs with a large number of psychopaths and aware of the world’s literature. We tried very hard with specialized programs to treat them and they were not successful.

 

I turned my attention, in 1975, to create an organization which would beat the drum for more enlightened care for children in the earliest years because society seems to be oblivious to that. In fact, on early radio shows, they used to say that the most formative years were 12 to 15 or all sorts of things like that. There was very little public concern about nurturing in the first three years. The Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children really was established to beat the drum for that and to increase public awareness of it.

 

Coincidentally, though, the world was marching towards daycare at the same time at a great rate. The CSPCC—which is the acronym for the Society—has really been out of step with mainstream society, although, I think in the last few years, that is beginning to turn around.

 

RM: You’re currently in private practice specializing in the treatment of teenagers. How would you describe the teenagers that you see on a regular basis?

 

EB: Well, many of them have difficulty with the law and most of them have difficulty with drugs and alcohol and difficulty with schooling, holding a job, or maintaining a relationship with a boy or girl.

 

RM: Do you attribute this behavior to biology, parenting received during the early years, or both?

 

EB: Well, it differs for, I think, different kids. Certainly, it’s rare to find a teenager these days who is in emotional difficulty or difficulty with the law who has a stable family background. Most of them come from split families or next to no families. It’s hard to know in any individual case to know what the causative factors are and it is very hard to get a clear history of the nurturing of the child in the first three years, and that is part of the problem. If you go back when the kid is 16 or 17 and talk to the mother about those early years, it’s tough to get an accurate impression of what was going on even if the mother was there or was consistently there in those early years because it is very subtle stuff—the interactions between a mother primarily and a child. Getting it in retrospectively after 15 years is even tougher.

 

RM: Sure. So what is the research look like in this area. Are there studies that attempt to show a correlation between let’s say the type of parenting a child receives and his or her likelihood to commit crimes?