Respond with Sensitivity – Page 25

Editor’s pick: The heart of Baby Courts is attachment

Beginning this week, Attachment Parenting International (API) will be publishing weekly Editor’s Pick posts — through which we’ll be highlighting an article or blog post that takes a look at attachment science as it increasingly becomes commonplace in our society.

This week’s article, “Judges Are Using Brain Science to Help Babies Caught in the Court System,” written by health journalist Ada Calhoun and published on Quartz, is a must-read article for any parent or professional involved in family court.

Every parent is doing the very best they can, at any given moment, based on the knowledge and resources they have on hand as well as the inner emotional work they’ve done to prepare themselves for raising their child.

I truly believe this, and apparently so do professionals involved with “baby courts” — a revolution of sorts that’s been happening in the U.S. family court system aimed at reducing trauma among children ages 0-3 removed from their parents due to neglect and abuse.

At the helm of this baby courts movement that empowers parents — rather than puts up seemingly impossible conditions for parents to meet — to regain custody of their child, is Judge Cindy S. Lederman who first put the baby courts concept into practice in 2005 in her Juvenile Court of Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA.

There are now more than 30 baby courts across the United States.

The heart of baby courts is attachment. Baby courts work off Attachment Theory, child brain development and ACE science. Through high-tech brain imaging and research showing direct links between child trauma and poor physical, mental and social health in adulthood, attachment is increasingly validated as more than an “optional” approach to parenting — rather, a necessity to healthy child development.

“Toxic stress in childhood can make it hard for people to attach throughout life — and, some argue, to become good parents themselves later on,” Calhoun reports. “That cycle can keep the same families in the system generation after generation.”

Traditional family court still has the goal of bringing parents and children back together, but it’s hands-off approach more often than not fails to provide them the services needed to do this. For example, a judge may order parents to drug treatment, anger management classes or a parenting course. But most parents charged with abuse and neglect live in poverty, and there are a lot of challenges that go along with this, from jobs that don’t pay for time off and lack of money for transportation to difficulty with time management and other executive thinking functions that are common among at-risk populations. Yet, failing to comply with a judge’s orders means losing custody of their child.

“No parent wants to hurt or neglect their child. Even the ones who do it don’t want to,” said mental health consultant Brooke Allman Bubbico, as quoted by Calhoun.

Plus, traditional family court decisions rely on infrequent contact with a family and often incomplete information aided by lawyers who may withhold or manipulate information to protect their clients.

“All of this makes for a fraught process for children in the court system,” Calhoun reports. “Children can be reunited with their parents only to be taken away from them again, creating instability that produces even more trauma.”

Baby courts look at children and their parents as a unit, and works with teams of experts that come alongside both the child and the parents with the goal of uniting the family with better parenting skills and resources, a healthier emotional development atmosphere for children, and intact attachment.

As Calhoun reports, baby courts appear to be making a big difference in the lives of involved families. At one baby court, only .5% of the children had a maltreatment report in the following 6 months. Another baby court reported that 75% of its children were able to return to their parents, well above the national average of 50%. A therapist group reported that 60% of the young children who were referred through baby courts were able to leave special education classes within 5 years. A 2012 paper found that children served by baby courts ended up in a permanent home within an average of 1 year, twice as fast as children served by traditional family court.

And even if a baby court does eventually terminate parental rights, it orders therapy for the parents and the child to heal the relationship.

At the root of baby courts’ success and effectiveness are judges informed by the latest research in attachment and attachment trauma who then guide the lawyers, therapists, court coordinators and child representatives toward the goal of keeping the child safe and bringing the family together again.

In many ways, Judge Lederman sounds like a coach, trying to help parents understand how their children feels when they miss a scheduled visit or asking what they learned in parenting classes, not just that they attended.

“I’m not an umpire, just calling balls and strikes. I’m more like an orchestra conductor,” Judge Lederman said, as quoted by Calhoun.

This attachment-centered approach to family court is huge. There is no other way to put it.

Many believe that the family courts system has long been well behind the times when it comes to considering family attachment and especially the emotional needs of young children. It is change like what is happening with baby courts that shows society’s increasing awareness of and confidence in attachment science.

The #1 support call received by API is parents seeking resources regarding child custody and keeping attachment intact, while going through divorce and separation. I am hopeful for a day when the concept of baby courts trickles down to divorce and child custody decisions, and now believe that day will come sooner than later.

*Photo source: FreeImages.com/Jason Morrison

Our kids in the midst of parents’ hostile conflicts

We often refer to kids as “sponges” due to their astonishing ability to absorb so much of the information around them. We are often amazed at their capacity to learn ever so quickly and soak up the world around them and expand from all that they see, hear and experience. I’ve seen it with my own kids, as I’m sure you’ve seen it with yours. They take it all in — all that is around them: the good, the beautiful, the bad and the ugly.

When I came across this video on social media — which went viral rapidly as it moved millions of people all around the world — I was reminded of how important it is for parents to understand and respect this reality:

It features Tiana, a 6-year-old girl who sat down her mom for a lecture following an argument between her mom and dad, who are divorced. When I watched this video, my heart was touched deeply: I was filled with feelings of delight and sadness.

I was amazed by the maturity and brilliance of this young child. Her words and message were so beautiful and inspiring, but I also felt sadness as Tiana shed light on how kids absorb their parents’ relationship dysfunction. They see it, they hear it, and they sense it all.

Tiana’s experience is that of many kids: The pain, agony and frustration they feel as they are surrounded by the turmoil and instability of their parents’ relationship, whether a contentious divorce, parents’ separation or constant, hostile conflicts between parents living together.

Reflecting back on your own childhood, you may remember a time when your parents were screaming, yelling, arguing and fighting. Or, perhaps, your house was the type that was uncomfortably quiet when your parents were at odds with each other — it was the kind of silence that filled the air with unspoken tension, anger and resentment. You might recall the thoughts, feelings and emotions you experienced at the time, though you may have not shared them with anyone. You were a sponge.

Many young children may not be as articulate as Tiana, yet they still share her feelings when their mommy and daddy quarrel. They are sponges, soaking up the actions and words of their parents. For kids, being exposed to an unhealthy relationship between the parents can ignite feelings of stress, helplessness, confusion and sadness. They do not, and should not, know how to handle adult issues. After all, many adults are still figuring it out for themselves.

We need to be aware of our own actions as parents and know that they affect our kids and their state of well-being. They may not necessarily verbalize their distress and may instead develop certain behaviors as another form of expression, such as aggression, isolation or acting out.

Little Tiana has a very important message for us parents: Our kids know and sense a lot more than we may think they do, and they are profoundly affected by the relationship of their parents.

As parents, in the role of leaders, we need raise above our own battles to show our kids a positive example of conflict resolution and always strive to find amicable solutions for the benefit of the beautiful hearts and souls of our kids. They deserve it, and so do we.

**Last photo source: FreeImages.com/Felix Atsoram

Building a castle with my 5 year old

I’ve always let my children try to do a lot of things on their own, but lately I’ve been making more of an effort to allow my 5-year-old son more autonomy in what he’s doing. It’s sometimes hard to back off and let him make more decisions for himself, but I’m finding it’s worth it.

Recently he announced that he wanted to do an art project, so I suggested he look through our art supplies for some ideas of what he wanted to do. Before long, he came back with a random assortment of supplies – a pair of scissors, used cardboards and plain colored cartons. He was also carrying along these heat guns you commonly see with wires dangling as he walks. As I talked to him about his plan, he still didn’t know what he wanted. I told him to let me know if he needed help, but otherwise I backed off.

After a few minutes, he showed me a piece of black construction paper that he’d cut into the shape of a castle.

He wanted it to be standing up on its own, so I encouraged him as he brainstormed ways to solve his problem. As he made more parts of his castle — which soon became several pieces of black construction paper taped together so they stood — I forced myself to keep from taking over, offering suggestions before he asked for them or telling him, “That won’t work.” I let him figure out on his own whether his plans would work, knowing that the experience of trying and failing is a big part of the learning process.

Each time he had a problem, I asked him, “How do you think you can solve this?” When he wanted to add a drawbridge, he came up with the idea of taping on an additional piece of paper. After he drew and cut out a king that ended up being too big to fit through the door, and I asked him what he could do about it, he answered excitedly, “Make the door bigger!”

I was impressed with how long he worked on the project, how many things he added, and how much he wanted to do on his own without asking for help. The end product wasn’t perfect. It didn’t stand up for long, and he probably spent more time making it than playing with it. But I also know he loved the experience and learned from it.

I know that, with more help or direction from me, the castle could have been much sturdier and neater, but I also know that my son wouldn’t have had as much pride in his work. And I know there would have been more arguments and frustration if I took it upon myself to do something in a way he didn’t like.

I’ve noticed that my allowing him to work on his own through projects like this, as with more daily tasks, has affected his attitude. He’s excited when I let him decide on things for himself or take on a new responsibility, and I feel that this change is helping to strengthen our connection.

Raising kids with grit…and an interview with Jane Stevens of ACEs Too High

Attachment Parenting International (API) is directly involved in building resilience in communities across the nation and around the world through its local API Support Groups and accredited API Leaders by supporting secure parent-child attachments.

It cannot be emphasized enough how important secure attachments are. To be sure, resilience is something we all want for our children — actually, resilience is something all children need.

This scientific-sounding term, “resilience,” may seem really abstract and difficult to define. Perhaps you’ve heard of resilience by its other names. Synonyms include: grit, hardiness, toughness, adaptability, rebound, perseverance, tenacity.

In the most basic definition, resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. I like to think of it as emotional toughness.

It’s the ability to rebound from frustrations and disappointments, to not get lost in life’s inevitable valleys between the high points, to persevere — all the while staying true to oneself, remaining passionate about life and never giving up hope.

Secure parent-child attachments and resilience-building go hand-in-hand. Positive discipline, coupled with warmth and nurturing, makes for an ideal child-raising atmosphere.

There is no need to expose our children to harsh situations with the misguided intention to raise them with grit. True grit — resilience — is not a mean-spirited or emotionally avoidant individual who has grown up building walls around his or her vulnerability. True grit is the ability to feel all emotions and to know how to manage healthy responses to those emotions, no matter the situation, without feeling a need to avoid or destructively act-out his or her strong emotions.

API helps parents learn how to develop this true grit within their children. API is a resilience-building resource, funded entirely by donations, yet offered free to all parents no matter their income class, life circumstance or location. Evidence-based parenting — like the approach advocated through API — is one of several areas of community-based resilience-building practices.

Jane Stevens, founder of ACEs Too High and the ACEs Connection Network, elaborates on resilience and its opposite — trauma — in this API interview.

API: ACEs are integral to understanding resilience. ACEs basically outline the childhood environments that are more likely to predispose people to grow up without developing a high level of resilience. Jane, what are ACEs?

JANE: ACEs are Adverse Childhood Experiences.

ACEs usually refers to the 10 types of childhood adversity that were measured in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, a family member who’s an alcoholic or addicted to other drugs, a family member diagnosed with a mental illness, witnessing a mother being abused, a family member in prison, and loss of a parent through separation or divorce.

That doesn’t mean that there are no other types of childhood trauma. There are, of course: living in a war zone, witnessing a sibling being abused, witnessing violence outside the home, and others. It’s just that in the ACE Study, only 10 were measured.

API: Thank you, Jane, for providing this quiz for readers to learn their own ACE score (as well as their own Resilience score).

JANE: Many people who learn about the ACE Study and who calculate their own ACE score say they’re relieved, especially if they have a high ACE score. They say that their life finally makes sense.

They also understand that they’re not bad. They coped as best they could under dire circumstances. And knowing that they’re not bad people opens the opportunity for them to change their lives. It’s quite empowering information.

API: Looking at your website, we can see that higher ACE scores are associated with adult alcoholism, chronic depression, perpetrating domestic violence, smoking, being raped, suicide attempts, teen sex and pregnancy, employee absenteeism and job performance. From your website:

“At the same time that the ACE Study was being done, parallel research on kids’ brains found that toxic stress physically damages a child’s developing brain. …

When children are overloaded with stress hormones, they’re in flight, fright or freeze mode. They can’t learn in school. They often have difficulty trusting adults or developing healthy relationships with peers (i.e., they become loners). To relieve their anxiety, depression, guilt, shame and/or inability to focus, they turn to easily available biochemical solutions like Marijuana, if your son us medicated check out this online dispensary canada for a great variety of strains for medical use.

Using drugs or overeating or engaging in risky behavior leads to consequences as a direct result of this behavior. For example, smoking can lead to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or lung cancer. Overeating can lead to obesity and diabetes. In addition, there is increasing research that shows that severe and chronic stress leads to bodily systems producing an inflammatory response that leads to disease.”

This is significant on an individual level, so what does this do to a community?

JANE: Communities whose residents have high ACE scores and few resilience factors are difficult places to live.

Essentially, the community is in a state of constant and chronic traumatic stress. This means that it’s difficult for people to thrive, or to raise children who will thrive.

API: What are your hopes in helping people learn more about ACEs, their own ACE and Resilience scores, and creating a network of resilience-building groups?

JANE: Once people learn about the consequences of ACEs, the effects of toxic stress and that trauma-informed practices and building resilience can create healthy individuals, families, communities and systems, they can never look at a homeless person without seeing an abused child.

They can never look at a young man in juvenile detention without wondering why the schools he attended did not intervene in his journey from the classroom to prison.

They can never look at communities without wondering if they are implementing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices. And if they are not, they begin asking: “How can we start?”

API: It’s wonderful that people like Jane Stevens are working to raise awareness of ACEs and the effect of traumatic childhood stress. In addition, through her ACEs Connection Network, she is working to guide connections between trauma-informed and resilience-building groups to help individuals with high ACE scores find pathways to healing. This is much needed.

API works at the issue of trauma and resilience from another angle — prevention. It’s clear that the key to positively impacting a community is to first address the family, to get to the heart of the matter — the parent-child attachment relationship — in order to both prevent high ACE scores and to help our children develop resilience.

On Jane’s website, she writes about how resilience fits in with ACEs:

“Fortunately, brains and lives are somewhat plastic. The appropriate integration of resilience factors born out of ACE concepts — such as asking for help, developing trusting relationships, forming a positive attitude, listening to feelings — can help people improve their lives.”

This is exactly how children are raised in evidence-based parenting approaches, such as is advocated by API.

Read the entire API interview with Jane Stevens in The Attached Family‘s online “Nurturing Peace” issue.

What’s the harm in saying “there are starving kids in Africa” to get your child to eat his veggies?

You know this saying since it’s pretty much a parenting cliché used to cajole children to eat their vegetables: “There are starving children in Africa. You should be grateful that you have this food to eat.”

I have never understood the logic that leads people to believe that mentioning such tragic information could motivate anyone to eat, let alone to develop a sudden appreciation for asparagus or rhubarb. If there are hungry children, then there is a serious situation that should be fixed, right? How could begrudgingly eating the last bites alleviate trouble of that magnitude?

The statement is meant to imply that the kids who are refusing the last bit of zucchini casserole are supposed to feel lucky. But — aside the frustration of the dinner table — if we are trying to raise compassionate human beings, it is not the best tactic to suggest to them that they be relieved that misfortune happens to other people.

Do we want their awareness to stop at feeling happy that they got skipped over when calamity was being dished out? Are we suggesting that the suffering of those other children is not important? Or is it possible that they might interpret it that we want them to be afraid that if they forget to eat, they will starve like the African children who can’t eat? It is a confusing piece of information at the best.

Let me share my own experience at 3 years old when I first heard about the frightening situation faced by those hungry kids:

It was a dinner guest who broke the FOOD NEWS about their situation and told me that they lived in Africa. And though I searched the faces of my parents, no further details were offered. I froze in my chair, feet dangling above the floor. My mind raced to imagine children, maybe as many as 10, who were without food in a place that was probably so far away that it was beyond the city where my grandma lived!

How did it happen that they had no food in their house? Where were their parents? Were they going to die? It was very upsetting to consider their plight, the circumstances of which were beyond my ability to imagine.

I did not feel like eating.

I can still remember the sense of urgency I felt the next morning as I stood in my pajamas at our cupboard, searching for relief supplies. I took the bag of my favorite cookies over to my mom who was cooking breakfast. “We have to take these to them, the children.”

What my mother did next was inspired by pure mothering genius, and I will always be grateful to her for her insight. She looked at me, understood and said, “Okay, good idea.”

We got into the family station wagon, the humanitarian aid cookies on my lap, and drove to our church. We found Father John who was wearing his priest-collar, so I knew he was still on the job even though it was not Sunday.

My mom explained to him on my behalf that we needed his help to get the cookies to the children who were starving in Africa. I searched his face to see if I could trust him with this urgent mission. Without missing a beat, he said that he would do that right away.

“Please, it’s very important,” I told him. I handed the bag of cookies up to him. We got in the car as he pointed to the cookies and waved goodbye.

We drove back to our house in silence, passing through neighborhoods of children on bikes who seemed to my searching eyes to be well-enough fed.

Read this article in its entirety on Attachment Parenting International‘s “Nurturing Peace” issue of The Attached Family.

*First photo source: FreeImages.com/Milka Huang

**Second photo source: FreeImages.com/Mark Karstad

Insightful parents may choose AP, but AP can also inspire parents to develop insight

After my post “To spank, or not to spank” was published on APtly Said, my friend Ingrid and I had a conversation about the challenges of raising kids and how difficult it is at times to discipline them in a positive way — moreover, how hard it is to keep our composure, especially when we are distressed with other matters in our lives. With our voices cracking and our eyes welling up, we each recalled that one time when we betrayed our own conscience, crossed that line and spanked our child. Ingrid said she felt awful and understood she needed to find more constructive ways to deal with her anger.

Our conversation highlighted a notion that I have been pondering for some time. By its very nature, those of us who are insightful and mindful gravitate toward Attachment Parenting (AP) as it fits in with who we are as individuals.

A lack of deep awareness and insight could prevent some parents from appreciating and accepting the AP approach. Attachment Parenting International‘s Eight Principles of Parenting entail that parents have awareness and introspection, which is needed with this gentle and intuitive approach to parenting. In order to respond with sensitivity, provide consistent love and care and practice positive discipline, a parent needs to be able to regulate his or her emotions and actions.

I believe that, as people sharing the same wonderful and challenging experience of being parents, we need to support and help one another. I’m enthusiastic to share words of advice and resources with the parents who approach me with parenting-related questions. Although we may be rowing in different styles and in different directions, all parents are in the same boat — trying to reach the same destination of raising healthy, happy and successful kids. When we model positive discipline and any other of API’s Eight Principles of Parenting, other parents may be inspired and interested in learning more about our parenting approach.

Last week, at school pick-up, I couldn’t find my son. He had gone with his friends outside of the school parameters without my knowledge or permission. I wasn’t sure where he was and who he was with. I was furious with him. When I walked over to the school yard, I found him playing. I called him over, knelt down and explained to him that, as his mother, it’s my job and main responsibility to make sure he is safe. I also told him how upset I was when I didn’t know where he was. When I concluded our conversation, a friend who was standing nearby asked, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” I asked.

“How do you stay so calm?” she replied. “I would go crazy if my son did that. Do you ever scream and yell, or just lose it?”

I was surprised by her statement, because I didn’t feel calm. I felt as though I had a ball of fire inside me. I responded that I have my moments when I yell, but I don’t like it when I do. Yelling doesn’t produce any positive results, so why continue doing it? I’ve learned there are more effective ways to deal with an uncooperative child.

Parenting is not about perfection, but exploration — finding out what works and what doesn’t, and adjusting accordingly. Acknowledging that we have faulted is not shameful but courageous!

Inherently, to be an attached parent, we need to be in touch with ourselves. When raising our kids with personal awareness and insight, we grow and transform with and from our kids. The inner examination and work is difficult and, at times, can be painful. But the rewards of personal growth and raising happy, content kids who will grow to be positive and productive additions to our society are priceless.

Want your child to learn self-control? First, teach self-validation

A child’s ability to form healthy self-validation is a vital goal of child development. In fact, a child’s capacity for self-validation has everything to do with the development of emotional safety — the overarching developmental goal of childhood.

To use the word “validate” in the context of relationships, we’re referring to the process by which a person values that which she (or he) knows and feels is true and right for herself, and then acts in accordance with her inner knowing in support of her own self and her own needs.

As we raise our children to be intimate with what they feel, sense and know, and to honor and support themselves in their knowing, we are providing them with this fundamentally valuable tool for successfully navigating their internal and external experiences throughout their life.

This is the foundation for a child’s capacity to acquire the more complex self-regulation skills he (or she) needs to actualize his potential. It’s the very important task we have of validating his unconditional goodness, and what he feels, thinks, desires and knows — which then tells him he is “right” in the world, that his experiences are important and that his dreams are valuable.

It’s we — the parents — who largely determine how a child comes to validate him- or herself. Let’s keep this in mind as I describe “Sarah.”

Sarah is 4 years old, joyful, full of life and wicked smart. I was called in to observe her and consult with her preschool teachers and parents due to her “impulsive, inattentive, non-compliant, emotional, potentially dangerous” behaviors of refusing to sit in circle time and constantly banging into objects: outside with her tricycle, and inside where she would run into and purposefully, though playfully, try to topple both other children and adults. Sarah could also be irritable and angry, displaying explosive behaviors when caregivers attempted to redirect her and minimize her complaints.

Sarah had a typical complaint of wanting to do what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it. She argued that she could in fact listen while doing other things during circle time; however, the teachers wanted all the kids sitting “criss-cross apple sauce” on the floor, eyes on them. Because of her complaints, fidgeting and refusal to cooperate, Sarah was made to sit in a chair at a table removed from the group, and to color while the rest of the class conducted their weather discussions, reviewed the alphabet and learned the letter of the day.

Although this decision to exclude Sarah from circle time appears to wrongly shame her, one of her teachers demonstrated both compassion and insight to see that this form of physical structure — sitting on the chair at the table — with an activity to calm her mind and busy her hands — coloring — in fact enabled Sarah to participate fully in their discussions and add to it with more intelligent, creative contributions than most of the other students.

It took some prompting in this rigid classroom, but the staff learned to tweak their expectations and appropriately loosen their requirements of the children, who were then given the choice to sit for circle time or not. Sarah was no longer shamed for being different, and she experienced validation from her teachers that her way of participating in circle time was best for her.

Her teachers’ validation of her translated into her own self-validation for speaking up about what she knew to be true for herself.

In the play yard, we reviewed Sarah’s sensory needs that were mistakenly seen as aggressive in intention. The plowing into objects and people instead suggested she was seeking physical gross-motor input in that she displayed no anger at these times but seemed to have a lot of fun doing the plowing. It served her.

In addition to creating safe places for Sarah to get this physical input — like jumping onto heavy mats from a not-too-high step during scheduled and play intervals throughout the day — we got her mom’s written permission for teachers to give Sarah frequent, deep-pressure hugs and squeezes as a preventative measure to the more impulsive plowing behaviors. I also made a referral for a physical therapy consult. We asked Sarah to let us know when she was feeling out of sorts and to seek the big, bear hugs that immediately calmed her, as soon as her body began to tell her that she needed them.

Her caregivers at school and home began listening to her more — and began seeing her more clearly as a child who needed their support to speak up about her experiences and needs.

I also recommended a nutritional consult, and as a treatment team, we began incorporating the foods into her diet — and eliminating others — that would prove to seem to balance her nervous system so that some of the impulsivity diminished.

Additionally, we built in the time, place and space for her to enjoy more creative, stimulating activities to express herself, learn and teach us about herself: how she thinks, feels, senses and relates to herself, others and the world.

What worked for Sarah is that we were able to see her through various lenses of her holistic health and well-being. By using protocols within the sensory, biology-physical expression, creative self-expression, nutrition and attachment-relationship lenses, we successfully learned to honor what Sarah knew to be true for herself, and we provided her with more knowledge and supports that she needed to further know and support herself.

Sarah learned how to validate herself by internalizing 2 concepts:

“I am someone who needs, seeks and gets big hugs and squeezes, special play activities and the best foods to make me feel calm, balanced and safe.” She knows that these are the right things for her. And because Sarah taught her caregivers that they need to listen to her and to fully see her and learn from her, Sarah was able to internalize an aspect of her identity as a person of value in the world.
“I am valued. What I think, feel, want, experience and express matters to others. I am worthy of being heard and seen and respected.” She needed us to validate her so that she could further validate her own self and know that she is doing the right things to keep herself in balance and feel safe.

You can substitute just about any example of a child’s life situation here. The experiences and lessons will likely be the same: We want our child to know what it is that she (or he) knows, to honor what it is that she knows and, when old enough, to seek the supporting knowledge to inform her decisions further.

The thing is, we need to really see our child and listen to him (or her). We cannot try to make him fit into an old ideal of how he “should” behave, act or be. We must meet him “where he’s at” and start there. Our goal is that we use and teach skills sets containing “ways of thinking and doing” to support children in being themselves throughout the trajectory of their lives.

Children can and do fall through the cracks. If we had continued to ignore what Sarah was telling us, she may likely have developed increased shame, anger, rebellion and, over time, an attitude of “Forget you, you’re not listening to me. I’ll do what I want and feel good about it.”

She might have someday came to validate herself in other ways that create rage, division and resentment. She very well could have tied in with peers who not only validate these emotions but — worse — use them to fuel deeper discord, judgment, intolerance, hatred, retaliation and violence.

To some, Sarah’s classroom experiences may seem small. It may seem like the negative outcomes I postulated are a stretch to what actually happened in the classroom. I am telling you, this is so not a stretch. This is how it begins: We do not see our children, so we do not listen to our children and then we try to put them under our thumb. This is not holistic child care. This is not the way we promote secure attachment at home or at school.

In another scenario, Sarah may have other tendencies. Perhaps instead, she withdraws — becoming depressed and later numbing out with drugs, food and dysfunctional relationships. Are those fates any less happy for her? With another who validates her anger and aggression, at least she feels like she’s accepted and belongs somewhere. In all cases, she’s only simply seeking to keep herself safe.

Feeling balanced on the inside by people and circumstances who support her and provide balance “on the outside” do this. We do this. Our child’s emotional safety, her (or his) happiness and her success depend on us. The level of peace in the world depends on us.

I’ve seen the outcomes of ignoring kids’ true needs before, and so have you — in the variations of the same tragic stories that we hear about in the media so often we are becoming numb to them. Do you see that this is an epidemic?

Do you see that we can stop violence, and all that goes with it, in our children if we pay more attention to how we see them and relate to them? It is a simple concept — though a complex process that requires work and perhaps new paradigms for teaching teachers, supporting parents and addressing mental health.

We’ve got to fully wake up and act on how this dynamic works for the sake of helping our children grow up happily, confidently and peacefully. We have no one to blame if we do not target this now.

Editor’s note: Photo source

This Children’s Day: It’s time to break Watson’s legacy in childrearing norms

By Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson, API Cofounders and coauthors of Attached at the Heart

Editor’s note: November 20 is Universal Children’s Day, created by the United Nations in 1954 to improve the well-being of children. As Attachment Parenting International (API) observes Children’s Day today, we want to remember the rights of children to a safe, nurturing home where they can grow and learn with attachment-based care and discipline.

For hundreds of years, the treatment of children in many cultures has been harsh and disturbing. We know that the residuals of some of those abusive practices are still present today. Great strides have been made in the treatment of children, but we still have a long way to go.

Until the evolution of our modern Western culture, children had to grow up fast and get to work, usually on the family farm. By the time they were 8, 9 or 10 years old, their childhoods were over.

The period we call “adolescence” is a stage of development rather newly identified by child development researchers. With the identification of this new stage of development, coupled with new laws in the 20th century to protect children from abusive work practices, children were allowed to enjoy a longer childhood.

All along the way, attitudes about children and parenting practices were largely influenced by strict religious dogma or experts in the fields of psychology and human development. Over the years, thousands of parenting books have been written claiming to have the answer to raising “good,” obedient children — leaving many parents confused, anxious or feeling guilty and many children feeling disconnected from their parents.

One classic example comes from the work of psychologist John B. Watson, who admonished parents not to hug, coddle or kiss their infants and young children in order to train them to develop good habits early on. In 1928, Watson published his hugely popular childcare book, Psychological Care of Infant and Child. His parenting advice had negative and devastating effects on children and their families — sometimes for generations.

In her book Breaking the Silence, actress and comedian Mariette Hartley writes about the heartbreaking legacy for her family and millions of other families created by the advice of her maternal grandfather, John Watson, or “Big John” as she called him:

“In Big John’s ideal world, children were to be taken from their mothers during their third or fourth week: If not, attachments were bound to develop. He claimed that the reason mothers indulged in baby-loving was sexual. … Children should never be kissed, hugged or allowed to sit on their laps.

My mother’s upbringing was purely intellectual. The only time my mother was ‘kissed on the forehead’ was when she was about 12 and Big John went to war. Although she was reading the newspaper by the time she was 2, there was never any touching, not any at all. Grandfather’s theories infected my mother’s life, my life and the lives of millions.

How do you break a legacy? How do you keep from passing a debilitating inheritance down, generation to generation, like a genetic flaw?”

Suicide and depression have been the legacies left her by her family, having lost her father, an uncle, a cousin and almost her mother. Not without her own emotional “demons,” Mariette was able to break the chain through therapy and raising her awareness about life, love and spirit. She became a loving mother of 2 children and continues to work as a successful actress while donating her time to suicide prevention.

Watson’s legacy, like others’, continues to permeate our cultural psyche in many ways: how we view children, how we speak to them and how we treat them.

In order to discipline children, our culture has accepted numerous ways of keeping kids in line. They are often talked down to or spoken to harshly, hit, humiliated, shamed, ignored and, in some extreme cases, tortured, such as by placing hot sauce on a child’s tongue or forcing a child to stand for long periods of time with his arms straight out.

These culturally accepted forms of discipline — now being recognized by some as “normative abuse” — have been so much a part of our culture that we sometimes don’t think twice about it. We have learned to desensitize ourselves to the actual physical and emotional pain that it causes children. After all, that’s how we were raised, and we turned out OK — right? Maybe we were lucky and turned out well in spite of how we were treated…maybe we still suffer in ways we don’t realize are connected to our early childhood years.

Some of us were lucky enough to have strong, loving families with parents who did the best they could with what they knew then. We can understand that, embrace it and even forgive, because we know that there are no perfect parents and their love far outweighs anything else. But now that we know better, we must try to do better for our children.