Question: What exactly is “attachment parenting”
as it applies to all ages, not just babies? My children are moving
beyond the breastfeeding, babywearing and family bed stage, and
I want to continue to be able to give them the kind of parenting
they need.
Jan Hunt responds: Attachment
parenting, to put it most simply, is believing what we know in
our heart to be true. And if we do that, we find that we trust
the child. We trust him in these ways:
• We trust that he is doing
the very best he can at every given moment, given all of his
experiences up to that time.
• We trust that though he may be small in size, he is
as fully human as we are and as deserving as we are to have
his needs taken seriously.
• We trust that he has been born innocent, loving and
trusting. We do not need to "turn him around," to
teach him that life is difficult or train him to be a loving
human being -- he is that at birth, and all we need to do is
celebrate that and support and sustain it.
• We don't have to give him lessons about life -- life
brings its own lessons and its own frustrations.
• We recognize that in a very beautiful way, our child
teaches us, if we listen, what love is.
• We understand that if a child "misbehaves,"
instead of reacting to the behavior, we should always examine
what has been taking place in his life -- what stresses, frustrations
or frightening, confusing or difficult situations he has just
experienced. We also need to examine whether we have brought
about any of these experiences, intentionally or not. It is
our job to be responsive parents, meeting the needs of our child;
it is not the child's job to meet our needs for a quiet and
perfectly well-behaved child.
• We understand that it is unfair and unrealistic to expect
a child to behave perfectly at all times; after all, no adult
can do this either. Yet behind all punishment is the unstated
expectation that a child can and should behave perfectly at
all times; there is no leeway.
• We see that so-called "bad behavior" is in
reality nothing more than a child's attempt to communicate an
important need in the best way he can, given the present circumstances
and all of his prior experience. "Misbehavior" is
a signal to us that important needs are not being met by us
or by others in the child's life. We should not ignore that
behavior, any more than we should ignore the sound of a smoke
detector. We should instead see "bad behavior" as
an opportunity -- an opportunity to re-evaluate our own behavior,
to learn about our child's needs and to meet those needs in
the best way possible.
The hidden opportunities
of parenting
As Albert Einstein wrote, "Behind every difficulty lies an
opportunity." This is true in general, but it is profoundly
true in parenting.
For example, if a child chases
a ball into the road, that is an opportunity to teach him safety
measures by practicing for similar situations in the future. The
parent could ask the child to purposely throw the ball into the
road, then come to the parent and report the situation. In this
way, the real lesson can be learned: it is the parent who needs
to spend more time teaching safety, not the child who should somehow
have known this information and obviously does not yet know.
Punishment is the most damaging
response; it is unfair, upsetting and confusing and distracts
a child from the learning that needs to take place. Instead, we
should give gentle, respectful instruction at the time the behavior
occurs. This is exactly when the child can relate it to his life.
In this way, the best learning can take place.
What does attachment parenting
teach?
Through attachment parenting, children learn to trust themselves
and understand themselves. They will eventually be able to use
their time as adults in a meaningful and creative way, rather
than spending it in an attempt to deal with past childhood hurts
in a way that hurts themselves or others. When an adult has no
need to deal with the past, he can live fully in the present.
As the Golden Rule suggests, attachment
parenting is parenting a child the way we wish we had been treated
in childhood, the way we wish we were treated by everyone now
and the way we want our grandchildren to be treated. With attachment
parenting, we are giving an example of love and trust.
Our children deserve to learn what
compassion is, and they learn that most of all by our example.
If our children do not learn compassion from us, when will they
learn it? The bottom line is that all children behave as well
as they are treated -- by their parents and by everyone else in
their life.
Dr. Elliott Barker, a Canadian
psychiatrist and Director of the Canadian Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty for Children, describes attachment parenting as having
these two facets:
• being willing and able
to put yourself in your child's shoes in order to correctly
identify his or her feelings
• being willing and able
to behave toward your child in ways which take those feelings
into account
In short, attachment parenting
is loving and trusting our children. If we can do that, they will
be able to trust us. In turn, they will trust others and become
trustworthy persons themselves. The educator John Holt once said
that everything he wrote could be summed up in two words: "trust
children." This is the most precious gift we can give as
parents.
© Jan Hunt
Jan Hunt, M.Sc., is a parenting
counselor, director of the Natural Child Project and editorial
assistant for the Canadian journal Empathic Parenting. She is
an advisor to Attachment Parenting International, Child-Friendly
Initiative and Northwest Attachment Parenting. A parenting columnist
and writer for many years, she is the author of The Natural
Child: Parenting from the Heart. Jan and her 22-year-old
son (who homeschooled from the beginning with a learner-directed
approach) live in central Oregon. You can see Jan’s work
at The Natural
Child Project.
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