I am usually not a "bible quoting" person, although I love and respect all religions and would welcome any quote that can be used to support us parents...but I came across this and thought "IT'S PERFECT!!". Parenting based on fear, out of fear and instilling fear is USELESS!!! Parenting by trusting yourself, instilling trust in your children is POWERFUL!!
Think about it
Parenting out of fear of following your heart or the way you truly want to parent will limit you. It will confine you and consume you. You are afraid and our child will be afraid. I was afraid to follow my instincts in the beginning. I knew I didn't want to "force" anything on my little girl, especially sleeping in her crib, but I was afraid..."Will she ever want to sleep on her own?", "I don't want to start bad habits", "Will she rely on me forever to fall asleep?"and so on and so on...but the real doozy of my fear...going against the norm, especially the norm of my family...Can I "break" away from the way EVERYONE has parented and the advice that I have been given...I did...and everyone in my family comments on how my Took is so different than other kids, so social, so connected, confident, happy, smart....so yes...I trusted myself and trusted our instincts. I trusted the information I read as I was researching AP principles and knew in my heart that it was the best decision for our family.
Parenting to instill fear does NOT WORK. EVER. PERIOD. It does NOT foster relationships. It does NOT promote a healthy attachment and does not encourage the child to feel connected. Even worse, hitting and spanking. Just don't do it. Don't consider it. If you get to that point leave the room. Remember that it does not do anything for the child, aside from hurt, scare and push them away from you. We will get into this more...but in the meantime...if you don't believe me, read this: hitting your kids increases their risk of mental illness! That is what AP is truly about. Feeling connected, as a unit, as a family.
We will get into discipline and using a nurturing later on when we talk about that principle in attachment parenting. For now..where did we lose trust in ourselves as parents?
Why is it ok that we use fear of "how the baby will rely on us" as a threat to follow your heart? We want the baby to rely on us....for comfort, for security, for love, for closeness. Isn't that what we all want..isn't that what we all want to teach our children? That they can feel love and secure and that we can provide that for them? It is ok to change your perspective as you explore your journey as a parent. You can already be a parent, but have a different type of child. That is ok, changing and evolving is perfectly normal! We are always afraid to be different, or to change our perspective and philosophy....but that is the way it should be! Each child is different, why would our parenting be a cookie-cutter version of the same throughout generations? The parents would know and lead from their heart...and that is trust. <3
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