February 2011

AP on the Road

February 24, 2011

My 22-month old daughter zooms around the living room like an airplane, making whooshing noises. “Mama!” she says, “Whoosh!” “That’s right, honey, Mama’s getting on an airplane soon. But I’ll be back in two days, OK?” “Uh-huh,” she smiles, and hugs my leg tight. She knows I’ll come home, and that I’ll miss her terribly [...]

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10 Ideas to Help Children Learn to Say “Thank You”

February 21, 2011

I do not believe in forcing or shaming children into reciting social niceties when they don’t mean them, (1) but I can appreciate that children who practice those niceties can find it easier to function among peers and adults. And while I think that modeling is the most effective (and easiest!) way to impart the [...]

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On American Parenting and Independence

February 18, 2011

I’ve been reading Our Babies, Ourselves, recently, and it really drives home why Americans parent the way they do. Land of the free, home of the brave. Our country was founded through a popular uprising against the British monarchy. Our credo can be found in the Declaration of Independence. And the economic system we embrace [...]

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Interview Series: Martha Wood

February 17, 2011

We are continuing our interview series with API Contributing Bloggers with Martha Wood.  Read on to hear more about her thoughts regarding weaning, co-parenting, and how she peacefully deals with breastfeeding criticism. Tell us about your family. I am a single mom, co-parenting with my daughter’s father. She is 2.5. She is my only child. [...]

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Does AP Get Easier or Harder?

February 16, 2011

I keep thinking about this lately – does attachment parenting get easier or harder as your child ages? Admittedly, I’m at a pretty early stage of the game, with a daughter who is not quite two. But even in that span of time, how AP functions in our household has undergone a number of transitions. [...]

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Striving After Balance

February 15, 2011

The eighth principle of Attachment Parenting International is Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life. I like this principle, because it recognizes that everyone’s needs matter in a family, including the parents. Obviously, at certain times one person’s needs will be more urgent than others, like a newborn’s need to breastfeed. You just can’t [...]

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A Look at Extreme Parenting

February 14, 2011

If you haven’t bothered to read any parenting-related news sites or blogs the past few weeks then the ‘Tiger Mother’ controversy will be news to you. Although author Amy Chua caused a lot of uproar with her Wall Street Journal essay about the superiority of Chinese mothers, the controversy caused others to look beyond Chua’s [...]

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Lying: The Developmental Truth

February 11, 2011

I stared at the toast lying on top of the trash in disbelief. I was ticked. My four year old told me he had eaten all of his toast and wanted something else to eat. I went into the dining room where he was eating his peaches. “I thought you told me you ate all [...]

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