Attachment or detachment parenting?

being 'with' your children; not above or below them

It’s important to know your performance score on how you raise your children. Appraisals are required even at work so we know about our own performance and accordingly we can better ourselves. Sometimes you need to stop and ponder on your parenting style and how you behave with your kids. Parenting is little theory and lots of practice. Yet, theoretical awareness allows you to apply the right principles into making your practice better. It’s like any profession. Law or medicine or architecture; all need a strong knowledge base and practical experience. Unfortunately we have courses for all of those, just not for parenting. So you never know what’s going wrong. Trial and error is the only way, and one fine day your child has grown up. And you’re not sure what you did right or wrong to develop this temperament or that personality in him. If only you could be more aware when your kids are still young…

Cultivating the right emotion

Raising an emotionally expressive child is one of the biggest challenges of parenting.  Most of us sadly weren’t allowed to really express our feelings while we were children. A baby who can express her needs becomes a child who can express her feelings. This is why we emphasize the importance of being responsive to your baby's emotional cues. Everything we (as well as what as children do) is laden with emotions. Have u noticed:

• Your one-month-old cries to express a need for food and holding?
• You pick up on these cues and respond to your child sensitively?
• Baby learns that these impulses within themselves have meaning?
• The child’s cries always bring comforting responses to the child?

Attachment parenting

‘Attachment’ is not about cuddling your child and keeping him with you secure and shielded from the outside world. Attachment parenting implies awareness of your child’s needs and bonding at a deeper level to get a mutual understanding of each other’s expectations. You need to know what is exactly happening when you respond to your child when he or she needs something. They express in their own way and we understand what they are saying and our child also understands this very well. Now the positive outcomes that come of this:

• Expressing their needs makes children communicative
• By responding to their needs, you encourage expression
• You anticipate their needs by identifying delicate signals
• Children find appropriate means to express themselves
• They don’t have to now cry to get what they really need
• Your kids now become such a pleasure to have around!

How you make it wonderful without knowing it

When you respond to what your children need, you are assuring them that you are always there for them. You may not fulfill all their needs but you will communicate and let them express themselves in acceptable ways even if you challenge their demands later on. Your children feel your acceptance and understanding of them and learn to appreciate and understand you too. They ‘connect’ with you and become extremely capable of recognizing and exhibiting deep feelings because there are people who appreciate it!

Detachment parenting

This is not about neglecting your child because essentially none of us really do that. But we may still be the devilish detached parent by not responding appropriately to our children’s needs at that emergent moment. We worry about over pampering our children and we want to the ‘right’ thing by not being too permissive, so we choose to ‘ignore’ our child’s whines so that he gets alright by himself. However we may be initiating a negative cascade here:

• You leave your child to cry because it's a ‘tantrum’
• The ‘fear-of-spoiling’ the child makes you ignore
• Your child thinks there is no response to her needs
• She now stops asking you because you cannot deliver
• She learns to ‘not express’ what she really feels ever
• She is frustrated and let down but you wouldn't know
• She may now become openly (or secretly) aggressive

How you make it awful without knowing it

Your detached child may adjust to your schedule, be well behaved, seem like an angel; but is deeply dejected and depressed because apparently nobody cares about her. She may also be covertly upset with you and misbehave clandestinely in your absence to express her hidden resentment. Such children grow to become adults with psychopathology owing to repressed emotions. And lastly of course they may be openly aggressive because they act out their unhappiness (all arising from their feelings for you.)

Your children are all about YOU

Of course your children are all about you because you are their progenitor! When they secure accolades in school or sport, you get the credit. So if they turn out to be rebellious and defiant, you must have done something that made it turn out that way. Your own behavior can ensure that your little ones become toddlers and adolescents and teenagers who are obedient and emotionally secure gems; or stubborn and emotionally distraught teens that are hard to manage. You can shelter your child’s emotionality by developing that attachment in them. If you establish that bond with your child at their tender age, your children will learn to deal with themselves responsibly and be a source of pleasure to others. Parenting is very hard work, but the rewards are more than fulfilling; so good luck with it!