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from Natural
Life Magazine, September/October 1998
What is Attachment Parenting? Attachment parenting, to put it most simply, is believing what we know in our heart to be true. And if we do that, we find that we trust the child. We trust her in these ways: We trust that she is doing the very best she can at every given moment, given all of her experiences up to that time. We trust that though she may be small in size, she is as fully human as we are, and as deserving as we are to have her needs taken seriously. We trust that she has been born innocent, loving, and trusting. We do not need to “turn her around”, to teach her that life is difficult, or train her to be a loving human being – she is that at birth and all we need to do is celebrate that, and support and sustain it. We don’t have to give her lessons about life – life brings its own lessons and its own frustrations.
We recognize that in a very beautiful way, our child teaches us – if we listen – what love is. We understand that if a child “misbehaves”, instead of reacting to her behavior, we should always examine what has been taking place in her life: What stresses, frustrations or frightening, confusing, or difficult situations she has just experienced. We also need to examine whether we have brought about any of these experiences, intentionally or not. It is our job to be responsive parents, meeting the needs of our child; it is not the child’s job to meet our needs for a quiet and perfectly well-behaved child. We understand that it is unfair and unrealistic to expect a child to behave perfectly at all times; after all, no adult can do this either. Yet behind all punishment is the unstated expectation that a child can and should behave perfectly at all times; there is no leeway. We see that so-called “bad behavior” is in reality nothing more than the child’s attempt to communicate an important need in the best way she can, given the present circumstances and all of her prior experience. “Misbehavior” is a signal to us that important needs are not being met – by us or by others in the child’s life. We should not ignore that behavior any more than we should ignore the sound of a smoke detector. We should instead see “bad behavior” as an opportunity – an opportunity to re-evaluate our own behavior, to learn about our child’s needs, and to meet those needs in the best way possible. As Albert Einstein wrote, “Behind every difficulty lies an opportunity.” This is true in general, but it is profoundly true in parenting. For example, if a child chases a ball into the road, there is an opportunity to teach her safety measures by practicing for similar situations in the future. The parent could ask the child to purposely throw the ball into the road, then come to the parent and report the situation. In this way, the real lesson can be learned: It is the parent who needs to spend more time teaching safety, not the child who should somehow have known this information, and obviously does not yet know. Punishment is the most damaging response: it is unfair, upsetting, and confusing, and... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's online edition. |
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