Rita Brhel – Page 10

Struggling with Attachment Parenting?

I feel it is such a sign of true strength when parents can be honest with themselves and others that they, too, struggle.

Especially with Attachment Parenting (AP), many parents feel that they have to be “perfect” but that is an impossible standard. We all have moments where our knee-jerk reactions get the best of us.

Just the other day, I stubbornly insisted my oldest daughter was the one misunderstanding a situation. She was in tears, and I was adamant that I was “right.” It was a little past our usual lunch time, but it didn’t even dawn on me that perhaps I was seeing things in a different light because I needed to eat.

And then as soon as I got some food in me, my mood mellowed out and I quickly realized that I was completely in error in how I related to my daughter. So I apologized and we talked about how I need to work on taking care of myself better so I’m not taking out my low blood sugar on others.

Emotion coaching is such a huge part of AP. It’s not that AP parents always have it together, that we are superhuman in handling our strong emotions and therefore never raise our voices or give in to our knee-jerk reactions. It’s that we are comfortable with teaching our children that all of their — and our — emotions are healthy. We don’t need to be scared of our emotions, and there are ways to work through them in a healthy way.

That includes when we’re thinking thoughts that we think “real AP parents” never think of. Ha! It’s not that other AP parents don’t have these thoughts, and sometimes the actions that go with those thoughts, but rather how we repair the disconnection that happens when those thoughts/actions arise.

I try not to sweat an occasionally hard day of relating with my kids. But when I get into a pattern of relating with disconnection, I go back to Attachment Parenting International’s Eighth Principle of Parenting: Strive for Balance. I also go back and re-read my AP books to relearn and remind myself of what I’ve been taking for granted.

Earlier in my “career” as a mother, I had a very difficult time with API’s Sixth Principle of Parenting: Practice Positive Discipline. It took me seemingly forever to get the healthy patterns in place to change my mindset from punitive discipline to positive discipline. I was particularly vulnerable to others’ opinions of my parenting approach, especially from disapproving family members.

When I was a younger mother, and still figuring out how AP was going to work in our home, as well as healing my own childhood emotional wounds, it helped me so much to talk to parents who had “gone before” me and whose children were living proofs that AP works. There are times in the early years when it seems to some parents new to AP that this child-rearing approach might be setting a child up to be aggressive or “spoiled,” but so much of that perspective is part of the growing pains of wrapping the non-AP brain around the concept of Attachment Parenting.

The development is different for a toddler who is being raised AP than for a toddler who is raised in a way where strong emotions are suppressed, but when a child is raised with guidance through API’s Eight Principles of Parenting, the seemingly difficult toddler grows into a child very aware of his or her emotions who is empathetic and creative and exceptional at problem-solving.

I’m seeing it in action with my own children, the oldest of whom is 8 years old. And I’ve seen it in action with others’ AP-ed children, some who are in their teens or preteens and even a few who are grown, married and are raising a second-generation of AP kids. Attachment Parenting works.

There were times when I would have to remind myself that my child acts a certain way, because he or she was not raised with an iron hand or where crying was punished — and that is OK. For example, some of my family members’ views on children are that they are “to be seen and not heard, and preferably not even to be seen.” Children are expected to play by themselves in an out-of-the-way room while the grown-ups talk together. But my kids are used to, and like to, be part of the togetherness of family. They don’t want to be out of the way; they want to be with and connect with the grown-ups.

Some of my family members may see this behavior as impolite or bothersome. And that is OK. What any one person defines as “good” behavior is subjective.

What’s more important to me is that my children are absorbing the values I want them to have as adults — and right at the top of the list is a desire to connect with others, emotional health and authenticity. So much of that is how I respond when my own strong emotions come up — like anger, sorrow, fear, disappointment, jealousy, embarrassment and others — especially when I didn’t deal with them well the first-time around.

My children are learning how to navigate life from me, and it’s important that part of what they learn is how to navigate when I make mistakes in my relationships so they know how to do that when they are parents themselves.

A grandmother’s take on Attachment Parenting

By Donna Wetterlund

Like every grandparent, the arrival of my first grandchild was a rite of passage with mixed emotions. I was in denial about the label that clearly identified me as “old,” but I was fascinated with my daughter’s changing body and the life growing inside it.

I was proud of my daughter’s healthy and well-adjusted approach to pregnancy. But most importantly, I was celebrating the addition of a baby in my world without the morning sickness, stretch marks and sleepless nights. I was excited!

When pregnant, my daughter Sharon and her husband traveled to attend a wedding and asked me to dog-sit at their house while they were away. I was so excited to take care of this little puppy and I seized the opportunity to be involved in my granddaughter’s life before she was even born by kick-starting the renovation of the baby’s room. I spent two days tearing out paneling with my bare hands. I scraped and patched and primed the walls. It was a physical labor of love.

Sharon and Jim took over from there and created a darling room with murals of woodland creatures. My sweet baby granddaughter was going to have a spectacular room complete with a birdie mobile over the crib.

I was extremely impressed with Sharon and Jim’s commitment to natural childbirth and equally impressed with the hospital staff that supported her throughout the delivery. The hospital room was akin to a small apartment, which housed her birthing support team of two grandmothers and her spouse.

I literally pulled up a chair in between her legs to witness the birth of my granddaughter up close and personal. Witnessing a baby being born is amazing, and when it is your daughter giving birth to your granddaughter, well…I still burst into tears of joy thinking about it now.

I had spent eight months adjusting to the idea of being a grandmom. This adjustment included happy visions of babysitting and childcare, bonding with the baby while bottle feeding and taking the baby out in a stroller to visit friends and show off what my daughter had made. After all, I’ll have a new baby, too…a new mind to mold, a new person to be proud of, to share love with and have fun with.

Motherhood came so easily and naturally to Sharon from the second our baby was born. She was a breastfeeding champ. She followed her instincts. She could not fathom the thought of letting her baby sleep in the quiet and adorable empty room down the hall, so they slept together.

Her breast pump lay idle as mother and child nursed with ease and on demand. The stroller became a convenient place to hang winter jackets as the baby was worn in a wrap close to her mother’s beating heart. My daughter soon discovered that her instinctive parenting style had a name: Attachment Parenting.

I was struggling.

My access to the baby was already diminished by the one-hour commute that made visiting difficult. Without the ability to produce my own milk, I was out of luck when it came to bonding by meeting the baby’s nutritional needs. The idea of spending more than an hour away from her infant appeared to throw Sharon’s hormone-soaked body into a quivering, milk-leaking frenzy. She decided not to return to work so that she could spend her time focused on the most important thing: her baby.

I questioned whether her decisions were a response to feeling that I had been a poor mother: balancing my career while exposing her to a diversity of caregivers and experiences. I thought I was doing it right, but was I all wrong?

I have not been called to babysit. There have been no sleepovers or walks in the stroller. Thank goodness for Facebook — if not for that, none of my friends would “see” the baby.

Dreams shattered? Not exactly…

I have done my own research and reading. But more importantly, what I witness when I visit my daughter’s family is a calm, happy home. Our baby is content and thriving. She is intelligent and vocal. She is healthy and beautiful. Mom and Dad have created a loving environment where a child will grow to be confident and strong.

It has taken another eight months to adjust my expectations for grandmotherhood.

I don’t babysit. I baby-Skype, reading books to her through technology, making my face and voice a regular part of her life.

I don’t push a stroller. I walk beside my daughter wrapped with her baby.

My friends have not yet complained about the multitude of pictures and videos I post on social media.

And now that she is a bit older, my granddaughter smiles with satisfaction when I slip her a taste of my dessert at the restaurant.

Editor’s Pick: AP Month on “Daily Tips”

“We believe in parents. We believe that every parent deserves free access to complete information about parenting and childhood. It need not be overwhelming, just complete and accurate. And leave the blame behind. …We believe it so strongly that we do what few, if any other organizations, do: We provide free support to all parents.” ~ “API cherishes parents” on AP Month 2014

I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s AP Month daily tips that have been publishing throughout October. There are still a few days left, and by subscribing, you can get a daily tip emailed directly to your inbox each year during October when a new, timely AP Month theme is observed.

Here are a few of my favorite 2014 daily tips so far, but there are a lot more to be found on AP Month’s website:

From October 4’s “Parenting and child health“:

Parenting is probably the most important public health issue facing our society. It is the single-largest variable implicated in childhood illnesses and accidents; teenage pregnancy, substance misuse; truancy, school disruption and underachievement and vehicle accidents. Teens are more likely to get into a car accident when they are barely learning how to drive. Making sure they are OK in every situation is important, especially when their health is involved. If you child is every in a car accident make sure to get the best medical and legal assistance you can find. For legal services you can visit https://www.edwardspattersonlaw.com/accidents/motorcycle-accident-lawyer/.

Parenting is a buffer against adversity and a mediator of damage. Parenting has three essential components:

Care protects children from harm. Care also encompasses promoting emotional as well as physical health.

Control involves setting and enforcing boundaries to ensure children’s and others’ safety in ever-widening areas of activity.

Development involves optimizing children’s potential and maximizing the opportunities for using it.

How can you increase these components in your family’s life?

From October 5’s “Parenting stress and its effects“:

High parenting stress has been connected with negative consequences for both parent and child. Within the examined age range — 6 months to 3 years — child gender or age did not relate to parenting stress.

Older, less educated and single mothers reported more stress. A higher stress experience was also associated with more care-taking hassles, psycho-social problems, high work load and low social support.

Mothers with high stress reported more depressive mood and were judged to be more unresponsive to their children. They also regarded their children as more temperamentally difficult. Social support was shown to have both a direct and a moderating influence on parenting stress.

What can you do to reduce stress?

From October 7’s “Everyone needs a little help“:

Studies suggest that a parenting style characterized by warmth, inductive reasoning, appropriate monitoring and clear communication fosters a child’s cognitive functioning, social skills, moral development and psychological adjustment.

In contrast, parenting practices involving hostility, rejection and coercion have been shown to increase the probability of negative developmental outcomes such as delinquency, psychopathology, academic failure and substance abuse.

These findings point to the importance of studies concerned with identifying the determinants of parental behavior. This chapter presents our model for integrating theory and research on this topic. The model identifies social support as an important cause of variations in quality of parenting.

How can you reach out and lend a hand to those who need the support?

From October 11’s “Cherishing parents, flourishing children“:

The AP Month theme this year of “Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children” is intended to bring to a wider audience an awareness of the findings about early life experience and its effects on brain structures and functioning over the long term.

In order to help reverse current negative trends in well-being, we need to foster a widespread understanding of our evolved capacities and the types of brain systems that are a human evolutionary birthright.

API Board of Directors member Darcia Narvaez, PhD, of the University of Notre Dame, has written extensively about the evolved developmental niche for young children, which includes frequent, infant-initiated breastfeeding for two to five years, frequent positive touch, multiple adult responsive caregivers, free play with multi-age playmates and positive social support as well as natural childbirth.

From October 17’s “Who cherishes you?“:

Take five minutes today and instead of going on Facebook, write a list of 10 adults in your life who cherish you. These can be people from your past or present, from all aspects of your life.

Who are your champions? Who makes you laugh? Who do you turn to in times of need? Who remembers the time when you laughed so hard milk came through your nose? Who made you laugh that hard? Who always makes you feel welcome? Who makes you feel loved? Who hugs you when you need it? Who helps you with practical things? Who comes through? Did you count yourself?

“Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children” is the theme of this year’s AP Month, but put another way , it might also read: “Cherished Parents, Flourishing Children.”

From October 18’s “Cherishing you“:

What if today we all just walked around appreciating parents everywhere and validated the unknown struggles?

What if we all just smiled at each other and offered a knowing, supportive glance?

What if we all just left the “shoulds” at home for the day and embraced the messiness of it all and loved our children and each other anyway?

What if we all found a way to generously support peers who are struggling in a moment?

What if we found a way to accept the help of peers who witnessed our own struggle in a moment?

What if we forgot for a day about how “right” or “wrong” we or others are and just reveled in everything the day brings?

What if we all just did one of these?

What effects might this studious acceptance and camaraderie have on the public health? On parents? On our children?

From October 24’s “Children flourish with API Principles“:

It’s true. The cat’s out of the bag. And, as a bonus, it’s for free.

Attachment Parenting International’s Eight Principles of Parenting are really a neat little package of information that contain a significant chunk of the expert knowledge about child flourishing. And you can read it and actually use it without having a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. The really cool thing is that you might already be doing it! Without any expert training!

In fact, the API Principles are super flexible. Some of us already do most of it without even realizing it and that’s great — keep on!

Some of us like to check in with the API Principles when we hit a bump — like new parents, those of children ages 2 and 3 or any developmental stage through the teen years. Some of us check in when conventional wisdom doesn’t jive or work for us. Some of us want to parent our children differently than we were parented and feel like part or whole “renovations” are helpful in one or more area or age of development.

Whenever or however often you come to the API Principles, they’re free, based in science and they’re very often what our heart already nudges us to do anyway.

Parenting confidence in the bag. For free.

And from October 25’s “API cherishes parents“:

Attachment Parenting International (API) works to turn the parenting puzzle around.

We believe in parents. We believe that every parent deserves free access to complete information about parenting and childhood. It need not be overwhelming, just complete and accurate.

And leave the blame behind.

Moreover, we believe that information is not enough. Information oozes from every device and drowns us these days, but API believes that every parent deserves free face-to-face support as they raise their children. It really does take that village, and we think this old/new idea is one of the best ways to cherish parents. We believe it so strongly that we do what few, if any other organizations, do: We provide free support to all parents.

Editor’s Pick: AP Month on “How to get from there to here”

“We nod our heads recognizing scientific ‘child outcomes’ as…parenting goals regardless of our style of parenting. But how do we get from there to here? What’s the parenting analogue that allows us parents to be all that, enough of the time, so that these child benefits are possible?” ~ “How to get from there to here” on AP Month 2014

On today’s AP Month post, we’re posed the question: How do we get from there to here? How do we, as parents, raise our children to fulfill the positive child outcomes that science shows is the result of effective parenting?

How do we get from there — a child-rearing mindset that might include hostility, rejection and coercion — to here, where we are consistently responding to our children with sensitivity, trust, empathy, affection, compassion and joy?

Many parents find themselves practicing Attachment Parenting all on their own. They may naturally incorporate all or a few of Attachment Parenting International’s Eight Principles of Parenting.

I envy those parents a bit.

I was not one of those parents who stumbled upon Attachment Parenting International (API) and had an “aha” moment, recognizing myself and my parenting approach in API’s mission and vision.

I came to API and Attachment Parenting off a jagged path. I wasn’t looking for Attachment Parenting. I had no conscious decision that I was going to raise my children differently than how I was raised.

Before my first daughter was born, I was thrilled about the pregnancy but largely ignorant of preparing for parenting and all that entails. I remember thinking I would do cry-it-out and spanking just as I was raised, because…well, that was how I was raised, and I turned out fine, right?

Then, my first pregnancy ended in a placental abruption and preterm birth at 30 weeks gestation. And my world turned upside down.

It took me a week to get up the nerve to hold my baby girl. I felt an immense need to be close to her but was terrified of that feeling. I was terrified of giving my heart to her, lest she not survive her fragile state and my heart would break. I had to convince myself that it was better to love, and know, her than not — even if she didn’t make it.

More than that, I had to learn how to love her.

Love is a verb. It’s not a feeling. You can “feel” you love someone, but if you don’t act on that feeling — or if your actions don’t communicate that feeling — is it really love? If your significant other told you he/she felt love for you but then neglected your emotional needs, is that love?

No, love is a verb. It’s an action. It’s not something you “feel,” but something you do. And if you do it, if you build your world around “love” as a verb, your attitude and thought patterns eventually encompass what love is so that your whole self — mind, body, spirit — is loving, but even then, love is a verb, not a “feeling” that can be separated from your actions.

And more than that, “to love” isn’t some arbitrary action that you decide for another person. In order to love, the action has to be what the other person needs. If you have your baby cry it out or if you spank your child, you may feel that is “loving” them because you feel you’re teaching a life lesson, but crying it out and spanking is not perceived as loving actions by your child. It hurts.

Your child may learn, but through discomfort and fear. Do we want our children to associate love with hurt, fear and discomfort? Especially when it’s quite possible that we can teach our children through warm, safe, secure, compassionate actions?

Love, by its very definition, isn’t hurtful. So what does your child need instead?

It can be a hard concept to explain, because it does require a different way of thinking than the authoritarian model, but here’s an illustration:

Before my first daughter’s birth, I had preconceived notions that crying it out would be the best thing to do for my child. She would need to learn to sleep through the night and self-soothe, right? But then I gave birth to a very ill child, one that defied death for weeks after she was delivered, sometimes hanging on the very brink.

I had no idea how to parent such a baby! So I relied on the hospital staff to teach me how to care for my baby.

I learned that love wasn’t a feeling. It is an action. It is meeting my child’s needs, physically and emotionally. More than that, the physical needs and the emotional needs are tied together. They cannot be untied.

To love my baby, I needed to pump my breast milk. She needed that breast milk to help her grow faster and protect her against infections. Formula wouldn’t do. Premature babies fed formula are high risk of the deadly necrotizing enterocolitis.

To love my baby, I needed to visit the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit frequently. She needed to hear my voice and have oxytocin-boosting, heartbeat-regulating, breathing-regulating skin-to-skin contact with me and her father to grow better.

To love my baby, I needed to allow myself to follow my biological instincts to be close to her and to bond with her. She required my adoration, attention, encouragement, warmth, compassion, trust in the process and joy in order to grow and develop.

To love my baby, I needed to attend to her cues before she cried. Crying wastes calories, and she needed every calorie she could get. Calories meant growth, and growth meant development, and development meant survival.

To love my baby, I needed to room-share. She was born with severe apnea and was on an apnea monitor for nine months. She needed my rapid action if she stopped breathing, which she did a few times.

To love my baby, I needed to take care of myself emotionally and physically. She needed my presence. I needed to find a sense of balance, and so I began writing about my experience and joined a local La Leche League group. My baby needed to be able to rely on someone who feels refreshed.

To love my baby, I needed to find a more family-friendly workplace. She was highly susceptible to infections and still had numerous problems with her breathing. So I found a job that allowed flex time and for me to work part of my hours at home when my husband was working, so we had the flexibility to care for our daughter’s health issues.

To love my baby, I met her needs. I didn’t go along with parenting choices just because I was raised that way or because my friends did it that way or because “that’s the way it always been done.”

Not everyone understood. I remember several people telling me when I brought my daughter home that I should do cry-it-it as she didn’t need the same level of care as she had in the hospital, that I needed to undo the habits that had created a baby that expected to have her needs met whenever she wanted them, that my baby was being taught to manipulate.

They didn’t understand that it is in meeting those needs whenever my baby requested them, that she was even able to come home and be with us. Babies don’t have “wants.” They only have needs. Whatever my baby wanted is what she needed. In that realization, babies only appear to be manipulative when they struggle against their physical, communicative and emotional limitations to get their needs met.

An aside: Children learn to do behaviors that appear manipulative if their needs are not met, because those needs for secure attachment are as vital to their growth and development as eating or breathing. So not meeting a child’s needs for secure attachment is like taking his/her oxygen away, and like adults, he will “fight” for his life and find another way to get those attachment needs met. The question is, what exactly do children need and how can parents go about meeting those needs? API can help.

While it was La Leche League that introduced me to Attachment Parenting, I was already searching for support to continue what I had learned in the hospital from apparently knowledgeable staff — they had saved my baby after all — amid the flood of criticism.

At some point, on some Internet search, I found Attachment Parenting International. The closest API Support Group was in another state, five hours away, so I contacted API and asked if I could volunteer with them — because I knew that if I didn’t affiliate myself with API in some way, I would not have the strength to continue on with Attachment Parenting without support at home.

API saved my family. I had a lot more to learn about child rearing than the introduction the hospital gave me and I had a setback early on regarding discipline, but through the years, Attachment Parenting has transformed the way I look at myself, my children, my spouse, my community, my world.

API got me from there to here.

All through October, AP Month has been posting daily tips based on this year’s theme: “Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children.” All of these tips are written by an amazing API volunteer, Kelly Johnson, the coordinator of AP Month. You can read through all of the tips so far, as well as the tips from previous years, on the AP Month website. Or start having daily tips sent to your inbox by clicking here or “Subscribe” in the upper right corner of the AP Month website. Today’s post is especially inspirational:

How to Get There from Here

Warmth, inductive reasoning, appropriate monitoring and clear communication. We easily identify these as the parenting behaviors associated with beneficial child outcomes that include positive cognitive functioning, social skills, moral development and psychological adjustment.

We nod our heads recognizing these scientific “child outcomes” as the equivalent of our AP Month “flourishing children.” We also recognize all of these benefits as parenting goals regardless of our style of parenting.

But how do we get there from here? What’s the parenting analogue that allows us parents to be all of that enough of the time so that these child benefits are possible? What are the names of the concrete resources that we parents need to have available so that we can provide all of that?

At other times, maybe we also need these resources to help extricate ourselves from situations that may involve our use, inadvertent or planned, of more or less hostility, rejection and coercion.

We can get there from here with support. Telling our stories can help unravel the stress. Taking the breaks we know we need, yet consistently ignore, provide moments of respite. Turning to a hobby, physical activity or just quiet for a brief period allows the spin cycle to slow. How else do you replenish your resources?

How can you plan five minutes (or more) this week to do so?

Editor’s Pick: AP Month on “Flourishing Parents”

“Are your children flourishing? Are you flourishing?”~ “Children Flourishing” on AP Month 2014

These are poignant questions, particularly the second one.

I think we, as parents, often ask ourselves whether we feel our children are doing OK. Especially those of us involved in Attachment Parenting (AP) closely monitor this in our children and make adjustments accordingly so that our children can flourish.

But we are less likely to ask ourselves if we are doing OK.

It may be that we assume we are flourishing if our children are. Parenting is so personal, and by our very biology, much of our own self-worth can be tied into how well we feel our children are doing.

It may be that we feel selfish or guilty if we feel that we are not flourishing alongside our children — if we are feeling burnt out, if we feel that our life balance is off.

We may fear that if we take a bit of “me” time that our children will suffer, since they won’t be getting all of our attention.

Because many of us grew up in families that did not practice Attachment Parenting, we are still getting a feel for what a good balance is. Some of us may wish to give our children more attention than we had growing up, and so we may be timid to give ourselves more “me” time because it feels like we may be taking too much.

And it can take a while for parents to feel confident in their parenting approach, so that they are able to feel better about taking “me” time.

Or perhaps your children are at ages or stages that makes it difficult to take “me” time.

There may be another reason why you’re reluctant to make changes so that you feel that you’re flourishing, but balance a critical part of Attachment Parenting. If you’re dealing with burn-out or trying to figure out how to gain more life balance, reading Attachment Parenting International’s Eighth Principle of Parenting: Strive for Personal and Family Balance can give you some ideas to get started on adding more “me” time to your life and start you back on the path of flourishing.

So, how do you know if you and your children are flourishing? Check out the list on AP Month’s “Children Flourishing” post, but here’s one that I think sums it up nicely: “Living on a trajectory of decreasing fear and increasing love in self and others.”

API post-conference: Who is Kate Frederick?

Kate Frederick.

She wasn’t a speaker at Attachment Parenting International‘s 2014 conference. She wasn’t even in the audience. But her name is stuck in my head.

As a bonus for early conference attendees, API hosted a showing of “The Milky Way” film on the evening before the weekend “Cherished Parents, Flourishing Children” conference at Notre Dame University at the end of September. As an added bonus, the lactation consultants behind the film, Chantal Molnar and Jennifer Davidson, were available for Q&A.

And during that Q&A, the name “Kate Frederick” became part of the conversation.

In the film, Kate’s part was just a brief glimpse of a 2013 newspaper article about a mother being fired from her job for breastfeeding. Her name wasn’t mentioned in the film, just a reference to the many mothers who have been discriminated against because of their choice to breastfeed.

But after several showings of “The Milky Way” film, Chantal and Jennifer received a letter that was different than other notes of support. This one was from Kate, who identified herself as an API member from New Hampshire, USA, and the woman about whom the article featured in the film for maybe a couple seconds is about.

Kate was a child support officer for the state Department of Health and Human Services at the time of her job termination due to failed negotiations with her employer regarding her right to breastfeed and her desire to leave the workplace to breastfeed during breaks.

She is now an event planner and has since founded The Rustik Baby Project, through which she advocates for breastfeeding mothers’ rights. Among her projects is a New Hampshire legislative bill that would provide greater protections to breastfeeding mothers.

It is exciting to think of what Kate’s hard work — borne of a passion ignited because of a low point in her life when she refused to give up on what was her biological right — has the potential to give all of us.

Of course, Kate — like any of us — is just one person. And each person can only do so much. But think about what amazing things all of us working together can do!

Some names, like William Sears or Ina May Gaskin, are household names in our Attachment Parenting (AP) communities. And these AP “celebrities” have done so much for the Attachment Parenting movement. But there are so many people whose names we don’t so readily know, or names we may never know — people who are all doing their own little part in their communities, even if only in their homes, to make the world a more compassionate place for their children and future generations.

Kate Frederick is one of those names that we might not otherwise know, but a person who is doing great things in her own little corner of the world — things that when added up with all of our efforts are changing culture.

Every one of us could be Kate Frederick.

Editor’s Pick: AP Month on “Celebrating Family”

“That’s what Attachment Parenting International is trying to do – to change culture from one that ignores the critical importance of attachment to one that embraces the normality of healthy family relationships, securely attached children and connected communities.” ~ “2014 Conference: Life Giving, Mindful Beginnings” on APtly Said

Having just arrived home from API and Notre Dame University’s 2014 conference in South Bend, Indiana, USA, my head is spinning with all that was shared by researchers and experts in the Attachment Parenting (AP) field.

It was a wonderful way to celebrate API‘s 20th Anniversary with some really special bonus events, like Friday night’s showing of “The Milky Way” film with live Q&A with the lactation consultants who produced the documentary on the U.S. cultural view of breastfeeding support as well as Saturday night’s anniversary celebration reception with Irish music provided by Kennedy’s Kitchen.

I am only sorry that I had to duck out early due to health reasons. But, like many of you, I have been keeping up on the final days of the conference via API’s Facebook page. I would have loved to have been there when George Holden, a psychologist and parenting expert at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA, made the comment how “Attachment Parenting International is one of the largest positive parenting organizations in the world.”

For those who were unable to attend the conference — as well as for those who, like me, did attend but were blown away by the amount of really great information — API is planning to release video of the speakers at “Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children” portion of the conference in a few weeks.

In the mean time, I would like to point you to AP Month. Every year, during the month of October, API and this year’s sponsors — Peter Haiman, Kindred, Ergobaby, Tummy Calm/Colic Calm and Lamaze International — challenge parents to re-examine their daily activities, routines, beliefs, habits and traditions and learn new ways to engage with their children to grow with each other and remain close while promoting opportunities for healthy exploration, individuation and development.

This year’s AP Month, which begins today, centers on the same theme as API’s portion of the 2014 conference: “Cherishing Parents, Flourishing Children.” You can follow along each day of October on 2014 AP Month Calendar.

You can also participate in the 2014 AP Month blogging and photo events, read the research supporting this year’s theme and watch for special activities in other API resources, including here on APtly Said and API’s Facebook page.

Happy Attachment Parenting Month, everyone!

2014 Conference: Life Giving, Mindful Beginnings

“Attachment is not only a benefit to kids but is the gateway, the whole gateway. But its a complicated topic.” ~ Lu Hanessian, API Advisory Board and speaker at the 2014 API Conference

So let’s get the conversation rolling.

I’m here at the 2014 Attachment Parenting International conference, “Pathways to Child Flourishing,” at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, USA. It is amazing and humbling to be in the presence, the audience, of these speakers. It’s mind blowing.

In the first session, this morning, we heard from Lu Hanessian, author, educator and founder of WYSH; Darcia Narvaez, psychology researcher at Notre Dame and co-coordinator for this conference; Kathy Kendall-Tackett, psychologist and founder of Praeclarus Press; and Lysa Parker, founder of API. Peggy O’Mara, longtime editor of Mothering, founder of Mothering.com and founder of PeggyOMara.com, was unable to come due to the widespread flight cancellations yesterday.

Darcia opened this first session, “Life Giving: Mindful Beginnings,” with a very interesting introduction to her new book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality, particularly the early body-mind co-construction of the infant by caregivers.

She talked about how the human infant is born really 9-18 months too early, compared to other animals. And that for most of our time on earth, secure attachment has been essential to our survival as mankind.

Those survival tools have been: nurturing touch, sensitive response, breastfeeding through toddlerhood, alloparenting (raising children in a community with multiple trusted caregivers), free play (especially with multi-age peer group), positive social support (the feeling of being wanted) and soothing perinatal experiences.

Through these experiences, children developed not only secure attachment and healthy family relationships, but also exceptional right brain development. Well, I shouldn’t say “exceptional,” because in reality, the results of Attachment Parenting are normal.

What is the right brain responsible for? Self-regulation, introsubjectivity and social pleasure, emotional intelligence, empathy beingness, self trancendance, higher consciousness.

And in normal human development, these right-brain features are able to control our brain’s survival systems, which include stress response. For many in Western society, however, as infants, they are exposed to toxic stress such as long-term mother-baby separation or insensitive response. As a response, the brain’s stress response takes over the mind.

“What you’re left with is this very self-protected, easily stressed brain. It changes development,” Darcia continued.

And it changes culture. It’s a closed loop, actually, so that our childrearing practices dictates culture and our culture dictates childrearing. And that’s why much of the Western culture is competitive, self-contained, autonomous and disconnected rather than the connected communities that healthy right brain development promotes.

That’s what Attachment Parenting International is trying to do — to change culture from one that ignores the critical importance of attachment to one that embraces the normality of healthy family relationships, securely attached children and connected communities.

“We’re all trying to get back on track,” as Darcia concluded.

Yes, we are — one family at a time.