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Your privacy is a PRIMARY consideration of AskDrSears.com. Your e-mail address is used ONLY by AskDrSears.com for the purpose of announcing news, events and special offers available only AskDrSears.com registered users. THE 7 BENEFITS OF ATTACHMENT PARENTING
1. MUTUAL GIVING The more you give to your baby the more baby gives
back to you. There are small quiet moments of pure joy when your baby smiles at
you or gazes seriously into your eyes. There is wonder in discovering the world
anew through the eyes of a child seeing it for the first time. There is peace
in knowing that all it takes is your presence, your arms to soothe and calm your
baby's fears. Consider how you and baby benefit from being connected:
2. Mutual shaping Along with the benefit of mutual giving, we
find that attachment parenting also leads to a mutual shaping of behavior and
personality. After becoming parents, you will never be the same – and you want
the change to be for the better. Your baby can do something to you – or better,
for you. An example of mutual shaping is well illustrated by how you and your
baby learn to talk to each other. A baby's early communication is a language of
needs. Crying and smiling are the earliest tools used by your baby to
communicate and reinforce your responses to his needs. As you learn and respond
to your baby's language, you may feel you are regressing to the level of your
baby. You will act, talk, and even think at your baby's level. As you are
mastering your baby's language, your baby learns to speak the language of the
family. The baby then learns to act, talk, and think at the parents' level.
All develop communication skills that none had before. Mutual giving and mutual
shaping is what makes attachment parenting so special.
3. Mutual sensitivity Attachment mothers speak of a flow of
feelings between themselves and their babies.
4. AP promotes independence Attachment and independence can be
illustrated by what we call the deep groove theory
. Think of your infant's mind as a record into
which life's experiences and relationships cut deep grooves. Suppose the
strength of parent-infant attachment is represented by the depth of the grooves
in the baby's mental record. Between twelve and eighteen months, a baby can
recall a mental image of the most familiar caregivers. We call this person
permanence . This image helps to provide a
secure base so the infant can begin to move more easily from the familiar to the
unfamiliar. The mental presence of the mother allows the infant to, in effect,
take mother with her as she moves further away from the mother to explore and
learn about her environment. The most securely attached infants, the ones with
the deepest grooves, show less anxiety when moving away from their mothers to
explore toys. Periodically, these babies mentally and physically check in with
mother for reassurance and a familiar "it's okay" to explore. The mother seems
to add energy to the infant's explorations, since the infant does not need to
waste energy worry whether she is there.
When going from oneness to separateness (a process called "individuation") , the securely attached toddler establishes a balance between his desire to explore and encounter new situations and his continued need for the safety and contentment provided by mother. During an unfamiliar play situation, the mother gives a sort of "go ahead" message, providing the toddler with confidence to explore and handle the strange situation. The next time the toddler encounters a similar situation, he has confidence to handle it by himself without enlisting his mother. The consistent emotional availability of the mother provides trust, culminating in the child's developing a very important quality of independence: the capacity to be alone. A toddler with shallower attachment grooves lacks confidence that his attachment figures will be accessible to him when he needs them. He may adopt a clinging strategy to ensure that they will be available. Because he is always preoccupied with it or else spends tremendous energy "managing" without it. This preoccupation hinders individuation, exploration, and possibly learning. In essence, the attachment-parented baby learns to trust and develop a sense of self. These qualities foster appropriate independence. Studies have shown that infants who develop a secure attachment to their mothers are better able to tolerate separation from them when they are older. As one sensitive mother of a well-attached child said proudly, "He's not spoiled; he's perfectly fresh!" 5. Attachment parenting improves baby's behavior Attached babies
cry less. They are less colicky, fussy, whiny, and clingy. A very simple
observation lies at the root of this observation: A baby who feels right acts
right (operates from a sense of well-being). An in-arms baby whose cues are
read and responded to feels connected, valued. Because of this inner feeling of
rightness, the baby has less need to fuss.
"If attached babies cry less, what do they do with their free time?" 6. Attachment parenting improves development They use their cry-
free time to grow and learn. During the last twenty-five years we have watched
thousands of mother-infant pairs in action and interaction. We are constantly
impressed by how content babies are who are worn in a carrier, breastfed on cue,
slept with, and sensitively responded to. They just seem to feel better, behave
better, and grow better, and here is why: Attachment parenting promotes the
state of quiet alertness (also called attentive
stillness). There seems to be some, as yet poorly understood, connection
between a baby's behavioral state and the inner workings of his or her body. A
baby in the quiet alert state is more receptive to interacting and learning from
his or her environment. The state of quiet alertness promotes an inner
organization that allows all the physiological systems of the body to work
better. Babies divert the energy that they would have spent on fussing into
growing, developing, and interacting with their environment.
The growth-promoting effects of attachment parenting can be summed up in one word: organization. An attached baby is organized. In their early months, babies spend a lot of energy trying to become organized – that is, adjusting to life outside the womb. For an attached baby, the womb lasts a while longer, birth having changed only the manner in which the attachment is presented. Healthy, attached mothers and fathers act as behavioral, emotional, and physiological regulators for their baby. They act as conservators of their baby's energies, diverting them into growth and development, not into anxiety and fussing. In essence, attached babies thrive . All babies grow, but not all babies thrive. Thriving means that your baby grows to his or her babies fullest potential. Attachment parenting and caregiving helps babies be all they can be. Researchers have long realized the association between good growth and good parenting. "If attachment parenting helps babies act better and grow better, does it make them smarter?" 7. Attachment parented babies are smarter Attachment parenting
is good brain food, and here's why. The human brain grows more during infancy
than at any other time, doubling its volume and reaching approximately 60
percent of its adult size by one year. The infant brain consists of miles of
tangled electrical "wires," called neurons. The infant is born with much of
this wiring unconnected. During the first year, these neurons grow larger,
begin to work better, and connect to each other to complete circuits that enable
the baby to think and do more things. If nerve cells don't make connections,
they die. The more connections they make, the better the brain develops.
Brain researchers suggest it is these connections that we can influence to make a child smarter. Many studies now show that the most powerful enhancers of brain development are:
I believe that attachment parenting promotes brain development by feeding the brain with the right kind of stimulation at a time in the child's life when the brain needs the most nourishment. Attachment parenting helps the developing brain make the right connections. Many studies show that a secure mother-infant attachment and an environment responsive to the cues of the infant enhance brain development. Basically, these studies show that four relationships enhance a baby's intellectual and motor development:
A simple explanation of how this style of parenting contributes to early learning is that it creates conditions that allow learning to occur. Infants learn best in the behavior state of quiet alertness . Attachment parenting fosters quiet alertness, thus creating the conditions that help a baby learn. If you are beginning to feel very important, you are! What parents do with babies makes them smarter. In the keynote address at the 1986 annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics, infant development specialist Dr. Michael Lewis reviewed studies of factors that enhance infant development. This presentation was in response to the overselling of the superbaby phenomenon that emphasized the use of programs and kits rather than the parents' being playful companions and sensitive nurturers. Lewis concluded that the single most important influence on a child's intellectual development was the responsiveness of the mother to the cues of her baby. In caring for your baby, keep in mind that relationships, not things, make brighter babies. For more benefits of AP, see: BENEFITS OF ATTACHMENT PARENTING – A SUMMARY
BABY
PARENTS
RELATIONSHIP
Parents and baby experience:
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