Guest Blogger
Guest Post: The Benefits of Attachment Parenting
I am an attachment parenting advocate. I think it’s the best way to parent. I think it’s the best way to achieve my parenting goals. I think it’s the best way to foster the type of relationship that I want to have with my children. I think it’s the best way to teach them to treat other people with compassion and respect. But I’m not doing it for any sort of prize or praise from other parents or society at large.
I don’t think that I am a perfect parent. In fact, I don’t think that anyone is a perfect parent. I resent and reject any societal or cultural pressure for us to be perfectly good or perfectly bad parents. For me, following attachment parenting is not about being a perfect parent. It isn’t about having a successful child. For me, it is about something much more important.
As parents, we are all responsible for meeting our children’s basic needs, such as food, shelter, etc. Any number of different parenting styles can acheive that. But I’m looking for more than that. I’m interested in having a meaningful and rewarding relationship with my children. One where we relate to each other as human beings and not one where I am the boss and they are to fall in line.
Sometimes I find attachment parenting easier than other parenting styles and sometimes I find it more difficult. But that’s life. Relationships are sometimes difficult. Relationships require an investment. Relationships require mutual respect. But good relationships are rewarding to the human experience and the type of healthy interdependence promoted by attachment parenting is what healthy societies are made of.
I want to be rewarded by my relationship with my children and I want my children to be rewarded by it too. That is my selfish desire. But my more altruistic desire is for society, as a whole, to place more value on the values of attachment parenting, both within the home and within the community.
- Annie, from PhDinParenting
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[...] Fostering meaningful and rewarding relationships [...]
I also do AP because my children’s emotion stability is important to me as well.
I am a firm believer in the tenets of AP. My daughter just turned 5 months old and I was watching her roll around today, pushing herself up on hands and knees, and I realized that she rarely looked back to see if I was watching. She was just doing her own thing, and when I verbally cheered for her, she finally looked up at me, grinned, and continued teaching herself to move.
It demonstrated to me that she is comfortable learning & exploring on her own, trusting that I am there if she needs me. That trust is, I believe, a direct result of the responsive, respectful AP style.
Plus, there’s nothing better than waking up, locking eyes with her right beside me, and being greeted with her big, beautiful smile, as if I am exactly what she wanted to see first thing in the morning!
[...] Guest Post: The Benefits of Attachment Parenting [...]
[...] don’t agree with using punishment as a discipline tool. As I’ve said before, for me, practicing attachment parenting is about the relationship I want to have with my child. I don’t think it will hurt my children if another caregiver uses other approaches that I [...]
[...] don’t agree with using punishment as a discipline tool. As I’ve said before, for me, practicing attachment parenting is about the relationship I want to have with my child. I don’t think it will hurt my children if another caregiver uses other approaches that I [...]