Principles – Page 108

It’s OK to Get Mad

Good parents don’t get mad. They’re never tempted into power struggles with their children, no matter how violent a toddler’s tantrum or how venomous a pre-teen’s backtalk or how silent a teen’s cold shoulder. Good parents never have to raise their voices or say “no.”

Who is this good parent? It certainly isn’t me. But there is this myth about Attachment Parenting that we don’t get angry, that no matter what our children do, we are always calm and don’t experience the strong emotions that parents not practicing AP do.

Being an attached parent doesn’t mean we don’t experience emotions like anger, disappointment, and frustration. Oh, we experience them – just like any parent does! What being an attached parent means is that we choose to express these strong emotions in ways that don’t hurt our children. We choose to look inward to ourselves when we’re feeling angry, instead of blaming others, in order to see the real reason for our feelings. Instead of “You make me mad when you throw your bowl of food on the floor,” we teach ourselves to think, “I feel angry when you throw your bowl.” No one can “make us mad” – we make ourselves mad. It is our expectations we place on situations that don’t get met, and that is what makes us mad.
Continue reading “It’s OK to Get Mad”

In His Special Bed

My two and a half year old son Cavanaugh is asleep in my childhood room, the room I slept in throughout high school, weekends home from college, and which my mom still calls mine though I haven’t lived here in 21 years. Tonight is the second night my son has ever slept in a bed without me.

Last night, we were at my dad’s house. His guest bedroom has wood floors, rugs from Southwestern Rugs Depot, a high antique bed that’s set in the middle of the room so neither side is against a wall–and Cavanaugh rolls, turning himself into the horizontal bar of an H, flips upside down so his feet rest at the pillows. He’s a mover. At home, where we sleep on our king sized mattress bought from Sleepyhood.com, on the floor, this is not a problem. If he ever rolls over the pillow barricade around the edge of the mattress, and travels the eight inches from the mattress to the carpeted floor, he sleeps through it. His slumbers would be disturbed by a two+ foot tumble bumping over the jutting walnut frame to land on the cherry floor. Not even if I put a pad down. It is dangerous.

When we arrived at my dad’s last night, Cavanaugh was asleep. He hadn’t napped on the flights from Austin to Albuquerque. A visit to a friend, a trip back to the airport to trade out one rental car for another, then sloshing through a beautiful hard rain that pulled all the sage and dirt scent to welcome us into not-Texas weather sent our boy to the Land of Nod. I transferred Cavanaugh from the car seat and he slept through the cool air and the lie down. He slept on his own Murphy bed all night long, which he bought after scrolling through the reviews on the posh100 website. He always loved the concept of Murphy bed since I can remember cause it used to save a ton of space which he would then use for various other things.
Continue reading “In His Special Bed”

The Meat of AP

I first came to Attachment Parenting like most parents do – because it felt wrong to let my baby cry herself to sleep and it felt good to hold her all the time. And I came to Attachment Parenting International, because gosh, there are a whole lot of people in the world who feel compelled to criticize the way I raise my children.

It was through my membership to API, plus a whole bookcase full of parenting books and neuropsychology texts, that I learned exactly what Attachment Parenting is: that it isn’t just a feel-good approach to parenting. It is a set of eight parenting principles proven by science to raise our children to be well-adjusted, emotionally healthy members of society who are able to establish and maintain secure attachments with other adults and their future children. (Read Attached at the Heart by Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker to learn more about what the research says.)

We hear a lot about these attachments. What exactly are they, and why are they so important? Attachment is the emotional bond between two people in a relationship – in this case, between the parent and child. A relationship can either be healthy and stable, producing a secure attachment; or it can be stifling, violent, or otherwise dysfunctional, which indicates an insecure attachment. Relationships are absolutely vital to our individual happiness in life – they determine our success in school, our careers, our friendships, and our marriages – and our ability to attach to other people in a healthy way and maintain that attachment over the long term is absolutely vital to our relationships.
Continue reading “The Meat of AP”

Following the Principles: Feed With Love and Respect

Part 2 of a series of 8. Long before I knew I was pregnant with LF#5 (Loin Fruit Number Five), I’m pretty sure that T-Bird knew something was different. We had just moved into a new home, in a new city, and I figured T-Bird was seriously ramping up her nursing efforts in order to establish some of the security she was missing. Surely, it would pass soon enough. Then I assumed I had come down with the flu—crippling fatigue and all day nausea. T-Bird needed to nurse more to receive those healthy immunities. Surely, it would pass soon enough. Sir Hubby was at work more and more growing the business we had moved to a new city to support. T-Bird wanted to comfort nurse because she missed her daddy, or sensed the added stress I was under when he was away so much. Surely, it would pass soon enough.

It hasn’t passed. Continue reading “Following the Principles: Feed With Love and Respect”

The End Of Fertility

A few weeks ago, Justine wrote about coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy.

I’m coming to terms too, but I’m not pregnant. Instead, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be having any more babies.

There’s nothing wrong with me, nothing wrong with my husband, nothing wrong with my fertility. We have two children, a boy and a girl, and we have decided that those two will be it.

Sometimes it’s an easy choice to come to terms with. Like when we’ve spent an exhausting day with two cranky children and bedtime didn’t go as planned and tempers are flaring and we’re burnt out and the idea of one more kid is just too crazy. Continue reading “The End Of Fertility”

Striving Toward Controlled Chaos

Striving Toward Controlled Chaos
By Rita Brhel, editor of The Attached Family

I am naturally a very high-strung perfectionist with a short fuse. A bad combination for relationships of any sort. After seven years of marriage, my husband would now describe me as much more mellow than when he first met me. I can walk through a kitchen with dishes that haven’t been washed for three days, a table covered in an odd assortment of items with a small surface cleared off to allow for a family dinner, and a mine field of kids toys without batting my eye once. I can now look past many of the messes that come with a busy family with young children, especially the messes that come with a laidback husband who just doesn’t care if things aren’t perfectly in order and the messes that come with two toddlers. I just strive toward “controlled chaos” – that is, things don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough.

It is through attachment parenting, specifically the approach advocated through Attachment Parenting International, that I have found a way to control my natural tendencies to demand too much from everyone around me including myself and then punish them when they don’t meet my expectations. I credit Attachment Parenting International not only for creating a truly joyful family atmosphere in my home but also for finally giving me peace and especially for saving my marriage.
Continue reading “Striving Toward Controlled Chaos”

Too attached?

I’m thankful that my circumstances allow me to be a stay-at-home mom, and because Germany makes it quite easy, most of the mothers I know are in the same situation. And apart from me, all of them put their children into day care several times a week to have time for themselves.

I do sometimes feel like I’d like some time for myself, but it’s not really a pressing need. Many moms say it’s so their kids get socialized, but I don’t find my son lacking in social skills. Continue reading “Too attached?”

No “No”

While I was doing my grocery shopping the other day with Sweet Pea snuggled on my chest in the wrap, I passed another momma with a child who was probably about three. When we first crossed paths, she was telling him, “No, you can’t have cookies.” When he pushed the issue, she said, “There’s cookies at home!” Our families ran into each other (once literally, since my cart had a broken wheel) about four times over the next hour as we stocked up on yummy things to eat. Three out of those four times, she was telling her son “no” about something.

My intention isn’t to criticize her parenting, or the use of the word “no” in general. She was using it to set boundaries, some of which were specifically to keep her son safe (“No, you can’t ride on the side of the cart.”). It did reinforce for me, though, how important I think it is to not overuse the word “no.” Continue reading “No “No””