Читать книгу The Good Behaviour Book - Марта Сирс - Страница 32

You probably never thought of these attachment tools as being acts of discipline, but they are. Attachment parenting is like immunizing your child against emotional diseases later on. Here are other ways this style of parenting improves the behaviour of your child and the way he experiences life. Jill, an attached mother of three, told us: “Knowing my children empowers me.” This kid knowledge becomes like a sixth sense enabling you to anticipate and control situations to keep your kids out of trouble. Our daughter-in-law Diane describes her experience with this style of parenting: “I know Lea so deeply at every stage of her development. Attachment parenting allows me to put myself in her shoes. I imagine how she needs me to act.”

Attachment parenting promotes mutual sensitivity. At six years of age Matthew would come to me with a request, “Dad, I think I know the answer, but …” Because our mutual sensitivity and trust is so high, he knows when to expect a “yes” or a “no” answer. He tests me, but knows my answer. The connected parent and child easily communicate each other’s feelings. Once connected to your child you will be able to read his body language and appropriately redirect behaviour, and your child will be able to read your desires and strive to please. As one connected parent put it: “Often all I have to do is look at him disapprovingly and he stops misbehaving.”

Attachment parenting produces people who care. General Norman Schwarzkopf once said, “Men who can’t cry scare me.” Many of the world’s problems can be traced to one group of people being insensitive to the needs and rights of another group. One of the mothers in my practice arranged a talk for a group of attachment mothers, and she invited one of the survivors of the Holocaust to come and tell her story. Commenting on the social benefits of sensitive parenting, the survivor concluded her talk, “Because of children like yours, this tragedy will never happen again.”