Читать книгу The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five - Martha Sears - Страница 11

When in doubt, we listened and responded to her cries. She was trying to tell us something.

We also considered one of the earliest teachings that Martha had learned as a nurse and I had learned as a physician: first, do no harm (primum non nocere). We decided that if we tried to squelch Hayden’s personality, we would be doing her harm and crippling her development. Our job as parents was not to change Hayden into a behavioural clone of every other baby. It would have been wrong to try to change her. (How dull the world would be if all babies acted the same!) It was better to widen our expectations and accept her the way she was, not the way we wished she was. Our parental role was like that of a gardener: we couldn’t change the colour of the flower or the day when it would bloom, but we could pull the weeds and prune the plant so it blossomed more beautifully. Our role was to channel Hayden’s behaviour and nurture her special qualities so that instead of being a liability, these temperament traits would later work to her advantage and serve her well.