Category Archives: Secondary Attachments: Fathers, Grandparents & Other Loved Ones

For fathers, grandparents and other relatives, close family friends, childcare providers, teachers, and any other adult who serves as a significant attachment figure in a child’s life.

Peace at Home: Military Families Embrace Attachment Parenting

By Kit Jenkins, babywearing educator for Babywearing International, communications coordinator for API and a co-founder of The Carrying On Project, www.carryingonproject.org

One of the best things about Attachment Parenting is the consistency in all of its principles. Everything is done from a perspective of mutual comfort and respect for the whole family. It creates an ongoing safe and comfortable environment, even when the outside world gets crazy. For military families, often “crazy” is part of the daily programming. Parents are in and out of the home for days, weeks or months at a time; there is often lots of moving, new people to meet and places to go; and there is so much chaos. For a grown adult, it is an adjustment. For children, it can be terrifying. To help combat that, more and more military families are turning to Attachment Parenting, either pieces of it or sometimes “the whole enchilada.”KJenkinsBabywearing2

Like many military families I have spoken with, we stumbled into Attachment Parenting almost by accident. My husband and I had a courthouse marriage a few months before our ceremony. We knew that we would also be in the middle of moving to our next duty station on the other side of the country and wanted things to be as seamless as possible. The day we signed on our first house, bought in Colorado from New York City, we also found out we were pregnant.

Once we arrived in Colorado, I started looking at prenatal classes. We were pointed by family to the Bradley Method because I wanted a natural birth. I am allergic to several kinds of medication, and decided that the less I had to potentially die from, the better! Through our class we learned a little bit about various parts of “crunchy parenting,” as my husband called it, and we knew that we wanted to do some of it but weren’t sure about all of it. We knew we wanted to breastfeed and cloth diaper, and were mildly interested in babywearing, but we didn’t want to co-sleep, had made no real decisions about disciplinary approaches, and so on. Continue reading Peace at Home: Military Families Embrace Attachment Parenting

Prevent Your Child From Becoming a Bully

By Sarah Fudin, social media and outreach coordinator for USC Rossier Online.

According to a recent infographic from USC Rossier Online, “School Bullying Outbreak,” one in four children are bullied every month and 160,000 students miss school every day to avoid bullies. But what is really disturbing is how many children can easily become the perpetrator. Up to 42 percent of students have admitted to bullying a peer, and 43 percent of middle school students have threatened to harm a peer. Thus, not only do we need to teach our children how to deal with bullying, we also need to teach them not to engage in bullying behavior.1159995_79733938 outkast

Several studies have shown that secure attachment to parents decreases the chance of a student becoming a bully. In a 2010 study published in the Canadian Journal of School Psychology, “Attachment Quality and Bullying Behavior in School-Aged Youth,” Laura M. Walden and Tanya M. Beran found a correlation between lower quality attachment relationships to primary caregivers and bullying behavior. Students’ sex and grade levels were not significant factors. Students that reported higher quality attachment relationships with their parents were less likely to bully others.

A University of Virginia study conducted by Megan Eliot, M.Ed. and Dewy Cornell, Ph.D., “The Effect of Parental Attachment on Bullying in Middle School,” found a relationship between insecure parental attachment and children who bullied. Continue reading Prevent Your Child From Becoming a Bully

The “Go Away, Persona” Mystery: Helping my Young Child Adjust to a Change in Caregivers

By Tamara Brennan, Ph.D. , Executive Director of the Sexto Sol Center,  www.ourcozytime.com

In the pine covered Sierra Madre Mountains of southern Mexico we are raising our young daughter on a small permaculture farm. We keep our door open to the people from the tiny mountain communities who come here to learn how to grow their own food organically. It is work we love, but the demands of managing multiple projects through our non-profit organization make it absolutely necessary to have full-time household help.   1182571_99590542

The young women who have worked for us managing our home have been real lifesavers. Our housekeeper provides order, structure, and lunch in our busy office-school-home. She also fills in the gaps in care for Nicole when Mommy is on the computer or attending visitors.

Flori was one of these indispensible helpers. Nicole, just 3 years old, adored her. She would pick up her play phone and pretend to be Flori talking to her boyfriend. I was grateful that, as the mother of a grown son, Flori understood my daughter’s needs and knew how to keep her feeling cared for. With Flori here I could get a little more sleep, knowing that Niki would happily run into the kitchen for the breakfast she would make in her predictable way.    Continue reading The “Go Away, Persona” Mystery: Helping my Young Child Adjust to a Change in Caregivers

Visiting Family for the Holidays

By Dr. Laura Markham, author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting, www.ahaparenting.comDLM_183 crop (1)

We all want our relatives to see how wonderful our kids are.  Unfortunately, taking children to visit over the holidays often doesn’t really give them a chance to shine.  The kids get off their routines, overstimulated and disconnected from us.  At that point, they crash and burn.

But there are some tips that will make a smooth visit more likely.

1. Check your own expectations. If your toddler is teething, he won’t suddenly become less whiny. You can expect your difficult relative to be difficult again this year. But life doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Your children can act terribly, and it doesn’t mean you’re a terrible parent— it means they’re kids!  I bet your parents remember you acting terribly once or twice, and you came out ok.  Continue reading Visiting Family for the Holidays

Grief in Children

By Margie Wagner & Callie Little, Child Development Media, www.childdevelopmentmedia.com, reprinted with permission

It goes without saying that the grieving process is a complicated and intensely personal one. It is difficult enough for adults to deal with the loss of a loved one, but it can be even more difficult for children, particularly if their adult caregivers are working through their own grief. Understanding how grief affects children at various developmental stages and knowing the best ways to assist children as they grieve can help children to process their grief in the most healthy way possible. Keep in mind that, while grief is usually associated with a death, there are many circumstances under which children grieve. Separation due to the dissolution of a relationship or due to a military deployment or job-related separation can also cause grief in children.

Reactions to Loss and How to Help

How old a child is at the time of loss certainly affects the child’s perception of the event.  Although babies are unable to express themselves verbally, they will certainly exhibit reactions to loss. They may seem more fussy, inconsolable, or have changes in their eating and sleeping patterns. Very young children, ages 2 to 4, are egocentric: they think the world revolves around them, and their concept of death is limited. They may think that death is reversible, and their main reactions to death may be that their daily routine and care are altered. The adult whom they have lost, or who is also grieving, will be either absent or unable to care for the child in the accustomed manner. At this age, reactions are often regressive, exhibiting themselves in eating, sleeping, or toileting disruptions. Children this age need reassurance and consistency. Try to maintain regular routines and to be comforting, giving hugs and kisses and lots of gentle touches. Keep the discussions of death short, but keep interactions with the child frequent. Even if you feel like the baby or young child cannot understand your words, they will understand your interest in their feelings and your wish to console them. Keep talking – it will help you to get used to the discussions that will become longer and more detailed as the child gets older, and it will help you to figure out what to say.

Continue reading Grief in Children

Ten Tips for Raising a More Peaceful Child

By Bill Corbett, author of Love, Limits & Lessons, www.cooperativekids.com

The General Assembly of the United Nations declared September 21st as the International Day of Peace. Since the first year of celebration, many schools around the country have used that commemoration to influence children on the importance of world peace. So this past September 21st, I took a film crew with me to an amazing Montessori school deep in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, to see what they were doing.

Meagan Ledendecker, the school’s director of education, asked each of the classes to create a project that would represent their own celebration of world peace. I thought this was an awesome day at the school and featured Meagan and some of the school projects on my television show. You can watch the clip on my website.

Everything I teach in my parenting program and all that I feature on my television show are dedicated to increasing the peacefulness in families and classrooms. If we hope to have less war and conflict in the future, and more love and compassion for one another, then it’s up to us to cultivate that in our children, who will be responsible for carrying out the plan. Here are ten things any parent or guardian can begin doing immediately to raise more peaceful children.

Continue reading Ten Tips for Raising a More Peaceful Child

Don’t Believe Everything in the News: What Pro-Spanking Research Misses

By Ralph S. Welsh, PhD, ABPP, the “father of Belt Theory,” www.nospank.net/welsh.htm

I was horrified to discover the [2010] media attention given to the findings of Prof. Marjorie Gunnoe’s small, twice-rejected-by-peer-reviewed-journals, study on the positive value of spanking children. It gives an extremely bad message to many desperate parents of troubled kids who are stumbling around trying to find the best methods of discipline in dealing with them. Moreover, there is a mountain of data flatly refuting her claims that can be found in thousands of carefully planned and executed studies on the relationship between spanking and later aggressive behavior. Why the media would spotlight this shabby piece of research is beyond me.

Parents of angry, troubled kids are already confused and frustrated with these youngsters. They don’t need this kind of “scientific” support in justifying their strong desire to throttle a kid who is giving them grief. Just this week, I evaluated an angry 15-year-old youth in detention who was being constantly suspended from school for fights and insubordination, and was heavily into marijuana. He admitted he was full of anger, but did not know why, but indicated that his mother frequently use to beat him with a large wooden spoon. During an interview with the mother, she admitted it, laughingly commenting, “I even broke a number of spoons on him, but it just didn’t do any good.” His father was in full support of the discipline, explaining, “We were never as rough on our son as my parents. I was hit with belts, extension cords, and shoes, and whatever my parents could pick up.” They both attributed their son’s delinquency to his ADHD and bad friends, and were looking for a military school in which to place him, as if he hadn’t been exposed to enough authoritarian rule already. Continue reading Don’t Believe Everything in the News: What Pro-Spanking Research Misses

How Independence and Maturity Develops

By Shoshana Hayman, director of The Life Center/Israel Center for Attachment Parenting, http://lifecenter.org.il

A father of an 18-year-old boy recently consulted with me because, among other things, his son had totaled the family’s car. As any parent would be, this father was very worried about his son’s poor judgment, impulsiveness, and lack of consciousness. How could he give him responsibility if his son could not handle it?

As our children get older, we expect them to be able to handle more responsibility and become more independent. We intuitively know whether or not we can count on them to cooperate with us and be able to make commitments in order to achieve a goal. They should also be able to sense danger and exercise caution accordingly. In addition, they should experience the feelings of caring that are needed to temper their reactions and impulses. True independence also requires of them to be able to consider different sides of a situation, different points of view, and different contexts in order to make mature decisions. We also hope that they will be conscious of the values needed to guide them through life.

As children get older and develop these abilities, we naturally and spontaneously live together cooperatively.  It doesn’t even occur to us to ask questions about how much independence to give a child, because we can see that he is moved by consideration and a growing desire to take more responsibility. He is developing the character traits of a mature person. Continue reading How Independence and Maturity Develops

The Invisible Bond Not Limited to Parents

By Shoshana Hayman, director of the Life Center/Israel Center for Attachment Parenting, http://lifecenter.org.il

Ricki was in trouble again with her first-grade substitute teacher, this time for accidentally spilling water on her desk. She missed her regular teacher who was on a four-month leave of absence after giving birth. Ever since the new teacher came, Ricki hated school. She was sure the teacher didn’t like her — for forgetting her homework one day, for not paying attention another day, and now for spilling water on the desk. She returned home each day, filled with foul frustration, which erupted in attacking her younger brother, taunting her older sister, and talking back to her parents.

She counted the days until her real teacher would return to teach the class. She was so excited with anticipation that she prepared a folder from an empty cereal box and decorated it with foil paper and stickers. Then she drew some pictures, wrote her teacher a letter, and put these in the folder. On the morning her teacher was to return, Ricki got up extra early and carefully got dressed and brushed her hair. She wanted to look her best for her teacher. She also wanted to make sure to be at school early.

There she was, the teacher, standing at the head of the stairs. When she turned around and saw Ricki at the end of the hallway, her face lit up into a big smile and she stretched her arms out wide to Ricki. Ricki, too, smiled and ran as fast as she could into the inviting arms of her teacher.

What magic did the teacher possess that drew Ricki to her,that commanded her attention and brought out in Ricki the desire to please her? It’s called attachment energy, and it works like a magnet. The teacher knew intuitively how to collect Ricki and activate the deep attachment instinct that is meant to connect a child to the caring adults who are responsible for her. It is an invisible bond that creates an irresistible attraction that is felt but not seen. It is what we all long for, children and adults alike.

But children need it even more because they are not yet mature enough to exist without it. They cannot learn without this invisible connection. Children of elementary school age, and even many high school students, have not yet developed enough independent thinking, personal goals, or maturity to sustain the effort needed to achieve these goals. They are still of the age when they do the bidding of adults in order to fulfill their attachment needs. It is so important that these needs be met if children are to develop the mature independence and social responsibility we long to see in them. Ricki loves and wants to please her teacher, because her teacher smiles at her and takes delight in seeing her. Her teacher gives her the generous invitation to come into her arms and exist in her presence. Her teacher knows how to collect her with her eyes, smile, warmth, and making Ricki feel special. Ricki can feel that her teacher loves her. Continue reading The Invisible Bond Not Limited to Parents

Creating a Village

By Jenni Pertuset, parent consultant, API Leader in Seattle, Washington USA, http://apiseattle.org

The life of a parent can feel very isolated. Warm relationships with caring adults can sustain us when we’re struggling and help our children feel at ease when they’re away from home. So, how do we build the village we need to raise our children?

What is a Village?

My working definition of a “village” is that it is a connected community of caring adults who support us in nurturing our relationships with our children. A village isn’t just a set of friends. It is those friends, neighbors, extended family members, and acquaintances who, whether it’s intentional or even knowing, help deliver us as a parents to our children. We are of course not just recipients of support, but full participants, offering our caring and support to others.

Principles

Building a village requires effort and persistence. It is rare to stumble into a ready-made community where you are and feel immediately welcome. Even in inclusive and inviting organizations, it takes reaching out, showing up frequently, extending invitations repeatedly, and having patience.

It also requires vulnerability. This is apparent in the effort itself — extending ourselves and making invitations that may not be accepted can be challenging. And the challenge doesn’t end once we’ve established relationships, either. Opening our homes and our lives to other people also opens our heart to hurts, but we can hardly find genuine relationships without that willingness.

Building a strong village also requires accepting differences. While we’re all looking for people who share our values or who are otherwise like us, true community allows for diversity, where our connection is deeper than our similarities. (Although there is of course a point at which we will not sacrifice our values for the sake of connection.) Continue reading Creating a Village