Attachment Parenting

[InboundSound]

If you know what this is, then I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

We have family and friends who steered away from this approach with much success , yet we have one specific family member and one friend who have gone the AP route and they are having drama of massive proportions.

I know there are plenty of folks on here with kids,

What say you?

 

[DA-LION-619]

Attachment parenting, a phrase coined by pediatrician William Sears, is a*parenting*philosophy based on the principles ofattachment*theory in developmental psychology. According toattachment*theory, the child forms a strong emotional bond with caregivers during childhood with lifelong consequences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_parenting

 

[InboundSound]

I wasn't asking what it was, I was asking your experience with it

My feeling is that if you don't know what it is, then you won't have any experience?

Edit: thanks for posting what it is though

 

[noxibox]

If you know what this is, then I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

We have family and friends who steered away from this approach with much success , yet we have one specific family member and one friend who have gone the AP route and they are having drama of massive proportions.

I know there are plenty of folks on here with kids,

What say you?

Unless we know exactly what each did and details of the children's personalities it would be hard to tell anything. Attachment parenting is a term thrown around, but it doesn't mean much without a description of how the parents in question interpreted it and what practices they implemented.

I know plenty of people who have done all these things and it has worked out extremely well for them. Montessori appears to follow an approach of listening to children and meeting their individual needs, and it is highly successful.

On the other hand you have people who seem to interpret attachment parenting to mean allowing your child to do whatever they like whenever they wish. That's bound to go horribly wrong. Alternatively you have people who go to the opposite end. That ends really badly too.

 

[binkybozo]

My wife and I have a 32 month old son and we have been doing attachment parenting with him. So far it has worked out really well. It is a ton of work though, and it isn't easy to do. Our son seems to be very well adjusted and very confident of himself. (and it is not just me saying that, others outside the family have said that about our son as well) He is also a very independent, very social and very loving child. He has his moments (as any 2 year old has) but I would say overall he is a good child.

I think a lot of people think of attachment parenting as being soft parenting and about spoiling your child but it really isn't. It is about spending a lot of time with your child and listening to them. We are firm with him but we don't spank, he knows that "no" means "no". We don't just say no and leave it though. We stop him and get him to focus and explain why we say no to something and he seems okay with that most of the time. He is a typical 2 year old though and will throw a temper tantrum from time to time but we don't punish him for it. If at home and he throws one, we sit with him till it is done and if we are in public and see one coming on (he has only done it once in public so far) we remove him from the situation to a quiet place and then wait for him to calm down. And we never give into the tantrums.

My experience with it has been positive. Like I said it is a lot of work. I left my job to stay home with him which has been hard both emotionally and financially. I also miss not having as much time to myself as I once had but would I do it again if we were to have another child? You bet! We are nuts about our son and the little person he is becoming. He is developing an amazing personality that my wife and I are crazy about. We both enjoy our son and I don't think a lot of parents can really say that about their 2 year olds. I think that comes from the way we are raising him by attachment parenting.

We pretty much followed the basic principles of attachment parenting with the exception of co-sleeping. We did not allow our son to sleep in the bed with us but he was in our room beside our bed for the first 6 months. Then we moved him to his room and he was fine with that move.