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______ There are a number of names for 'attachment
parenting' - natural nurturing, baby wearing, baby carrying,
hands on nurturing, in-touch parenting. Whatever you call it,
the research and statistics are clear: attachment parenting is
one of the best ways to raise your child to embrace a non-violent,
non-aggressive future.
______ Today's love of wealth and consumerism
is not only the driving force behind the professional lives of
many mothers and fathers but has now become the single most important
factor in their personal decision making as well. Of course,
money is important. It is necessary to pay the rent, feed your
family, clothe them properly, and utilize health care. And certainly,
no one is begrudging the pleasures that money can buy. The problem
comes when we are so heavily in debt that financial concerns
are of primary importance, requiring both parents to work outside
of the home full time in order to keep our heads above the financial
waters.
______ This means that our children are without the important closeness for neural development of vital touch (skin to skin contact), best provided by a parent, for a significant portion of every day. Left to fend for themselves they are forced to learn to interact with the world around them without loving guidance. The research suggests that, without a constant physical parental presence in the primal year, infants feel threatened when simple daily needs for affection, attention, and human closeness are unrequited. Their reaction is often aggressive and violent, an anger response to the frustration of not having vital needs met on a regular basis.
______ While this is by no means an indictment of single parents who must work or two parent homes with financial necessity incurred by elder care and multiple children, it is an invitation to help ease the increasing violence and aggression in our society today. Violence begins with an individual and that individual comes from a family. It is logically conclusive that if steps are taken during the first, highly impressionable years of childhood a great deal can be done to instill your children with love, contentment and peace. A sense of wellbeing that a child with unrequited parental love is unlikely to experience.
(con't on the right)
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The prevalent 'arms-length' model of nurturing is unnatural. It is counter to our species survival instincts. Our inordinately high rate of divorce is strongly postulated to be a direct result of thwarted attachment. Natural healthy attachment and bonding teaches us how to foster long term relationships for a happy satisfying life. Scientifically, the concept of attachment parenting leading to a more peaceful adulthood for your child can be found in research done on vestibular and somato-sensory responses. Briefly, a baby's brain goes through intense neural development in the first year. Healthy psychological and physiological development is greatly enhanced by touch, motion, smell, sound -especially of the parent's voice and the sight of their face, close up. Much research suggests that how well we satisfy our intense need for skin to skin contact and physical affection in the early years has a vast impact on our use of aggression later in life.
______ Touching, attention, affection, co-sleeping,
baby carrying or baby wearing - all of these contribute to a
non-violent upbringing, the sort free from jarring and traumatic
crying jags and extended periods of dissatisfaction in the formative
years.
______The cycle of distress can be broken with you. By showing your child intense, constant love and including her in all of your activities instead of excluding. By example children will in turn offer the same inclusiveness to siblings and others.
______ Upon receiving the Nobel Peace prize,
Mother Teresa was asked how an individual may best strive for
world peace, she replied, "Go home and love your families." By cuddling your baby in a your arms or a carrier during her first year, she will eat, sleep and explore the world around her from the safety of your arms, experiencing your love, peace, and contentment first hand. There is no better classroom than your arms. She will learn to deal with things as you do - peacefully - without the trauma of loneliness clouding her vision.
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