Is attachment parenting bad for kids?
Attachment parenting is a new parenting fad and its number of devotees are growing. This style of parenting places children at the centre of the mother-child relationship and flies in the face of how we have raised kids for thousands of years.
Attachment parenting means kids are breastfed until they choose to stop - four, five, six years of age. It doesn't matter. They stopped when they want - no weaning please.
Attachment parenting means kids are not nappy or potty-trained. Mothers do the toiletting not the kids. They poo and pee when and where they want.
Attachment parenting means that the child sleeps with his or her mother and dad is relegated to another room. Parents put their lives on hold.
For thousands of years we have raised kids to fit in with family or group norms. Healthy child-rearing is about children fitting in, rather than the other way around.
Developmentally kids are required to grow away from the parents. Attachment parenting stops them from separating and makes children helpless and dependent on parents.
Healthy families know a child's place in the person, partner and parenting triangle. When we put the person first (yes you do have a life) and the partner second(if you have a partner you nurture this relationship) we have the ideal conditions to be an effective parent. Attachment parenting denies the person a life of their own and places the mother-father relationship at the periphery rather than the centre of the family.
Attachment parenting reminds me of another child-centred fad - permissive parenting - that was similarly misguided and had disastrous results.
Your thoughts are welcome!
Michael Grose
www.parentingideas.com.au
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- Michael Grose
- Michael Grose is a leading parent educator, parent coach, writer and speaker on parenting and family matters. He is the author of the groundbreaking book Why first borns rule the world and last borns want to change it that tells everything you need to know so you can understand your birth order personality. Michael shows parents all over the world how to bring out the BEST in their kids. He is the first parent educator to conduct a parenting presentation to Australian politicians in Parliament House, Canberra.
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8 comments:
Hi, Michael
Either you've been misinformed or there are two kinds of Attachment Parenting in the world.
You might get a more balanced (and, incidentally, considerably more positive) view of this alleged "fad" from John Travis of The Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children. He's in Metung.
Here's the aTLC website:
http://www.atlc.org
With best wishes,
Bob Collier
Publisher of the Parental Intelligence Newsletter
http://www.parental-intelligence.com
Canberra
Totally misinformed. It's a pitty, coz I've heard you speak and read your newsletters and msot of what you talk about makes sense, but this is just like the 60 minutes story last week, which makes people who practice attachment parenting look like complete idiots who don't know how to parent and their kids as screaming brats who don't know how to behave. This is the opposite of what attachment parenting is about and there are many studies and sites on the web that talk about it in a positive light. Doesn't sounds like a fad or a new thing and actually produces confident, well adjusted kids as well as happy parents, so maybe some more research is required here!
attachment parenting is not as bad as you say it is.. we indians have done it from the ancient past to the present with no problems at all. the example youve given looks like AP practised by someone who does not know what she's doing. i will give you a brief overview..
in AP, the child sleeps with its mother..on the other side of the bed, usually in a crib-like extension of the bed. the father is in the same position as ever before. This is soo much easier than dealing with a waking baby in another room, when the mother has to wake up, go to the other room, feed/rock/pat the baby to sleep, come back, only to wake up again and so on all through the night.)New parents, often sleep deprived because of theis reason, can understand the HUGE releif of just turning to the baby's side, breastfeed and both go back to sleep, no need to drag yourself to the other room and sleepwalk back, no need to deal with a hysterical baby who's been crying for so long because you were too tired to wake up and go to the other room, etc.
the mother breastfeeds the baby on demand, but anyone who's ever even talked to a bfing mother knows that babies dont drink as often after their first year. usually they wean themselves around the age of two, and older kids just bf at night or at bedtime.even That stops around age 3. dont forget thatit is better that babies be fed breastmilk and not any other milk at least until the age of 2. by this time, theyre old enough to sleep on a separate bed, not attached to the parents bed.
i dont know why the guy in the example had to move to a different room, because every AP home i've been to is quieter than its nonAP counterpart at night. the child hardly cries, the mother hears it instantly and responds much faster than to a child sleeping in the nursery, so the baby goes back to sleep faster and mom can go back to dad, each without losing any sleep.
about potty training, we do use the diapers til theyre old enough to sit up. (some dont, but they are experts). after they are old enough we put them on the potty whenever they wake up,in the morning or after a nap . usually after feeding, after their tummy is full, they'll pass urine automatically, AP mums just know to learn the cycle of the child and takes it to the potty when we feel it will go. six month old babies dont know how to hold till they get to the potty, but they know to "go" when they are sitting on the potty. also, ask any native indian mom, the kids will be trained to go poopoo in the potty after their breakfast every morning..by the time they are one year old.it is not a matter of mom wiping up the accidents, it is the matter of teaching the children that there are cerain things that go in certain places..and in my understanding after raising 2 children of my own, any one year old who can sort shapes can understand the concept of potty.(my personal opinion is that leaving kids in diapers all day will teach them that excrements go in the diaper..and then it will be awfully hard later to teach them otherwise.)
and AP is not a lifestyle that excludes the father..in fact, it creates more connection between father, mother and child because since all its requirements (food, love, potty)are met, the child will be much more pleasant to be with, and the mother will have more free time to spend with the father, and the father will love playing with a happy child.
I'd agree with the above comments. Where did you get your information on attachment parenting??? Try reading some of William and Martha Sears books - the gurus of attachment parenting, and you may come across what it really is. And the father is definitely involved, more so than with other 'styles' of parenting. And like with most things there is no one right or wrong way. My toddler currently sleep in his cot in his own room, wears nappies etc but I still know that I am using the attachment style of parenting.
I agree with the above that you are most misinformed on what AP really is. In a nutshell, it's about emotional responsiveness with extended breastfeeding, babywearing, and co-sleeping as tools to help you acheive that. Even the Sears' put major emphasis on balancing your life between parenthood and your partnership.
We are very a very AP centered family and don't do *everything* the books say. We diaper our son (with gDiapers, which are flushable). We don't let our child do whatever he wants, we just don't wail on our kid either. He's never been subjected to the Ferber method or anything else like that and he is a well-behaved and confident child.
Michael,
Do you have a response to these comments? I would be interested to hear it.
Enjoying your blog!
Cheers,
Louisa
I usually agree with your "take" on things, Michael but this effort seems more worthy of a shock jock. The comments above are a more accurate depiction of the reality of AP and I am so grateful the authors took the time to write of their experiences. By the way Michael, did you know that the World Health Organisation itself recommends that children be breastfed until they are 2 yrs old OR BEYOND.
I think you are sadly misinformed about what attachment parenting really is. I wrote a post about attachment parenting specifically to dispel some of those myths:
http://phdinparenting.com/2008/11/16/what-is-attachment-parenting/
However, some of the myths you are perpetrating in this article are so outrageous that I didn't even consider addressing them in my article. Potty learning is compatible with attachment parenting, so I'm not sure where you got that idea. We do co-sleep, but both my husband and I sleep happily with our children.
Attachment parenting does not prevent children from separating from their parents. Rather, it provides them with the security to be able to do so with confidence when they are ready.
Attachment parenting is not a fad, but it is (hopefully) undoing some of the damaging effects of socialization. You should read Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld to better understand the impact of children substituting peers for parents:
http://www.gordonneufeld.com/
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