attachment parenting

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
attachment parenting
1781
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 3:17pm

A woman I know (I used to work with her dh) practices "attachment parenting". Here is a definition (for those who don't know what it is):

"Attachment Parenting includes respecting your child's needs, feeding on demand, and answering your baby's cries. Other parts of Attachment Parenting include co-sleeping, nursing on demand, sling or other baby carrier wearing, and cloth diapering. Not all Attachment Parents practice all of the above, but never the less love the idea of Attachment Parenting and comforting their children.

Attachment parenting uses mild discipline methods and avoids all physical or emotional punishment, such as inflicting shame on a child for inappropriate behavior. Children are encouraged and allowed to sleep with their parents, and you treat your bed as the family bed. Meeting your child's needs according to the child's time frame during the early years of development is an essential part of attachment parenting. Children will be allowed to grow and learn at their own pace and not according to standard time frames."

What do you all think of attachment parenting?

I don't see attachment parenting as something a WOH parent could do, or could they? What do u think?

I am also curious to see if SAHPs vs/ WOHPs will have different opionions on this topic.

If anyone here practices attachment parenting - was your decision to do so closely linked with your decision to be a SAHP?

josee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:50pm
no one is saying anything about the tradition of mealtime socializing, just that what food is being served for most people i know is not the important thing, but the fact that we are sitting down and socializing together
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:50pm

It is "rid" not "red." Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

And I never claimed to know what my child did when I'm not there. Since my very first post on this subject, I made clear that in front of me, *I* have never heard that kind of cry. I've also claimed all along that my kids have cried, and still do cry.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:51pm
No, I knew from beginning, as I stated, that I knew I didn't want to breast feed, and had made it perfectly clear to this nurse that it is not what I wanted to do. Yet, she continuosly went against my wished to try to make me breast feed, and practically put my nipple in my son's mouth. It was upsetting to be treated with such disregard to my wishes and feelings. Again, I knew before I even had children that I was not going to breast feed, but that nurse acting the way she did bothered me enough, and got to me enough, that it turned me off of it completely. Had she made it more of a suggestion, rather than trying to force it, I would have listened to her points about breastfeeding, and benefits of it (which, I already knew), but I still wouldn't have.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:55pm

Montessori is about an approach to children and understanding children, and although she pioneered in the field of childhood eduction, he ideas do cross over into parenting quite naturally. It is not just "let's teach children to be independent really young."

"Maria Montessori was a devout Catholic, so a lot of her theories are steeped in her faith (Foss, 1998, p.1). She is sometimes referred to as the one who discovered and revealed the qualities of children different from and higher than those usually attributed to them.. When she began her work, large groups of children were supposed to do the same thing at the same time and in the same way. She knew there was a better way to teach children. She based most of her approach to teaching on truths about human nature. E. Mortimer Standing, a former associate of Montessori's wrote, "No one has so completely understood the soul of the child in its depth and greatness, in its immense potentialities, and in the mysterious law of its development." (1952, p. 1). O'Brien wrote that Montessori considered the child often at a disadvantage because adults fail to realize that children possess knowing and willing faculties, which are greater than their ability to express themselves; therefore, she emphasizes the importance of trying to understand the child (O'Brien, 1998, p.3). From the hands to the mind is an expression often used in Montessori training. "The materials used by the senses are a doorway to the mind." (O'Brien, 1998, p.5).
Through giving children some freedom in a specially prepared environment that was rich in activities, children of 4-6 years learned to read on their own, chose to work rather than play most of the time, loved order and silence, and developed a real social life in which they worked together instead of competing against one another (Standing, 1952). In Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, it describes a typical room found in the Montessori school system (1965). There is usually a central room for intellectual work with some small rooms off to the side. A lot of outside space and the choice to work outside. The furniture in the room is light so the children can arrange it how they are comfortable. Cabinets containing items the children could use were set low so the children could reach them. When it was time for their meals, they were to help prepare their place at a table, wash their hands, and also clean up after a meal.

The book also gives a lot of little exercises for the children to do which will help them in three major focuses in this method which include motor education, sensory education, and language. Montessori felt it was necessary for a teacher to guide a child with out them being able to feel her presence too much. The teacher was never supposed to be an obstacle between the child and the experience. The 1912 first edition of Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook was sold out (5,000 copies) in four days.

The basic Montessori concepts are pretty well known by now (Montessori in Perspective, 1966). 1 - The teacher must pay attention to the child, rather than the child paying attention to the teacher. 2 - The child proceeds at his own pace in an environment controlled to provide means of learning. 3 - Imaginative teaching materials are the heart of the process. 4 - Each of them is self-correcting, thus enabling the child to proceed at his own pace and see his own mistakes. If you were to look inside a Montessori classroom, you would get the impression of "controlled chaos" because each child would be quietly working at his private encounter with whatever learning task he or she chose (Montessori in Perspective, 1966). Montessori often reminded teachers in her course, "When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of education." (Kramer, 1976, p. 217). Maria's theories of the sensitive periods in the development of a child were new to people at this time, however, now they seem to correspond with what we consider to be the "needs" of a child at different stages of their development.

In Maria's book, the Montessori Method, she further describes her system (1964). Educators in the field set up special environments to meet the needs of the students in three age groups: two and a half years, two and a half to six years, and six and a half to twelve years. The students learn through activities that involve exploration, manipulations, order, repetition, abstraction, and communication. The teacher is to encourage children in the first two age groups to use their senses to explore and manipulate materials in their immediate environment. Children in the last age group deal with abstract concepts based on their newly developed powers of reasoning, imagination, and creativity.

Back in 1913 when Maria arrived to America, she was considered to be at the height of her fame. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described her as, "a woman who revolutionized the educational system of the world...the woman who taught the idiot and the insane to read and write - whose success has been so wonderful that the Montessori method has spread into nation after nation as far east as Korea, as afar west as Honolulu and south to the Argentine Republic." (Kramer, 1976, p.15). This is a very positive review. However, these things that were considered new to the educational system are today viewed almost as a given. Our school systems take most of these issues into account.

Considering the time period in which Maria was raised and lived through, she did have some great accomplishments. Well into the 1890's, a woman could not walk in the street alone, write her own check, and basically not do anything with out her husband. Maria managed to succeed in school, go to college, and become the first woman in Italy to graduate from medical school. Maria was almost eighty-two when she died in Noordwijk, Holland in 1952. Kramer wrote that Maria was, "no longer considered a major influence in education, but a historical relic," when she died (1976, p. 16)."

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/montessori2.html#method

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:56pm
I could care less how you parent, to each her own, as different things work for different people. It's your insistance that a baby crying out of hunger is just the most horrible thing ever (or, by all of your posts, that is how it seems). That a mother who lets her child cry before feeding them is doing something wrong, does not pay attentiong to their child enough, or does not know their child. I have not once said that something you do is wrong, yet you continue to state that letting a child get to they crying stage before being fed is wrong, when I see nothing wrong with it. Not only are parenting styles different, but each and every child is different. Some may cry much quicker when hungry than others, that's just the way it is.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 1:57pm
but would easter cease to be easter without lamb, would the special feelings that come with the season, the closeness of family and friends at that time really cease to exist without that lamb. all i am saying is that for our family it is not the food that makes the times special but the being together, the sharing of ourselves not a particular food dish.
Jennie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-23-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:00pm
My sentiments exactly!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:02pm
It also comes from people that use food as a comfort tool. Watch Oprah one day. She will tell you all about it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2005
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:03pm

High quality alternative beverages? What no diet coke?

Formula is an acceptable substitute but bm is laways nutritionally better.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2006
Thu, 08-17-2006 - 2:03pm

i agree with your point but think there may be a misunderstood undertone too - i don't ever want my children to feel deprived of food...........food is a normal association to things like holidays, get togethers, it's even a normal reward system for things like potty training. the minute i deny m&ms or the cookie jar is the minute i've created a negative attention to something that can lead to later eating disorders etc.

and fwiw,i grew up in a large italian family. food was always connected to get togethers, lol!! my get togethers to this day still include some sort of food....i would feel a void if i didn't at least make the courtesy of offering something when friends visit.

edited to include.........i don't mean to imply that allowing the cookie replaces a kiss and hug nor does it mean that the entire cookie jar can be consumed because i've allowed it...kwim?




Edited 8/17/2006 2:11 pm ET by egd3blessed

 

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