Parents' Lifeline

Wishing You Peace

2011-12-22T18:26:00.000-08:00

I haven' t written much lately but I wish for you and every family peace at heart and at home. Give your children your time and attention, allow their imaginations to flourish and instill in them compassion for all living things.
Lysa

New research on breastfeeding- It's more than just nutrition

2011-08-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting article on breastfeeding research at LaTrobe University that examines other aspects of breastfeeding other than nutritional value or the physical mechanics. The research found a phenomenon that describes the mother and baby's relationship as "interembodied, an intense connection in which they exist as one entity rather than two separate entities. (We moms could have told them that) They observed that when an infant cried, the mother's body responded because it knew just what to do, produce milk! Breastfeeding moms have long known about the "let down" reflex that happens when they just think about their baby, the milk gushes forth- with the sole purpose of keeping baby nearby. Mother nature is incredible and so wise. If only we humans would listen and respect her design.

Homebirth on the Rise!

2011-08-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

I have to say I was a little bit shocked and pleased to see a story about home birth on Good Morning America this morning. The journalist doing the report disclosed that she was born at home in the 70's but certainly that "trend" did not continue much past then and has been openly discredited by the medical community for years. However, in just the last couple of years, the documentary by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein called "The Business of Being Born" has had a major impact on birth in America. More than promoting home birth, the documentary began as a journey of discovery about birth in hospitals and at home showing very different experiences by the mothers- not in favor of hospitals I might add. It's a documentary that informs parents about how birth is big business for hospitals and sheds light on why there is such a dramatic increase in c-sections. Hospitals are run by risk-management teams and insurance companies so it doesn't leave much flexibility of choices for women.

I believe it's time that that women had a choice in birth in America and I'm happy that we, as a society, are talking about it again. Either out of fear or ignorance (or both), we have given up our rights to have choices in birth. To experience birth is a right of passage for women and should be considered sacred and handled respectfully, as should the newborn child. We all agree that we want our babies born safely, every mother wants that regardless where she gives birth. Every woman should give informed consent for every procedure that is done to her or her baby.

How has giving birth changed you?

Lysa

Study found spanking in real time on audio tapes

2011-07-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting story on ABC News of a study done by Dr. George Holden at SMU in Dallas. He was the coordinator of the Global Summit to End Corporal Punishment and Promote Positive Discipline. The study was actually trying to find out how many times parents yelled at their kids during the day, only to find out after listening to the audio tapes that they also captured when parents spanked or slapped their children. What was shocking to the researchers was that parents resorted to hitting for very minor infractions frequently; like one child was insistent about turning the page of a book that the mother was reading to him and she became annoyed so she slapped him. To me, it shows such a lack of understanding of children and a need to dominate the child's spirit. As you watch, let the commercials run because there are other little clips of related stories.

I have a confession to make. There was a time thirty blah, blah years ago when I used to believe spanking was necessary. Of course I would believe that, I was spanked...a lot... and everyone I knew growing up was spanked. However, I found it very interesting that before my mother passed away, and before I had children, she said " Now don't spank my grandbabies!" I thought, wow, after all the times she spanked me, something changed in her and what she said always stayed with me and it changed me too.

Now this little mantra runs through my mind and I don't know if it came from me or I heard it somewhere but here goes: "Humans aren't for hitting and children are human too. " We have laws to protect adults and animals from being hit but there are no laws to protect children. What does that say about us as a society?

If you spank now it's never too late to change and repair your relationship with your child. There are many other alternatives that begin with being more empathic with your child and seeing the world through their eyes not adult eyes and realizing they have precious little spirits that need to be respected and nourished with love, even more so when they seem out of control. At the heart of positive discipline is your relationship! So rather than overreact, assume your child's behavior is reflecting how they feel inside and try to understand her feelings. Is she tired, hungry, frustrated, feeling disconnected from you? Give you and your child time to cool off before talking about what happened. It is the perfect opportunity to reconnect and to teach boundaries and feelings of self and others. When you punish you miss all these opportunities. Contrary to popular belief, young children do not yet have the brain capacity to control overwhelming feelings; they learn how to regulate these powerful feelings from you, the parent, which means if you are calm, it will help calm them. Then when they are older, over the age of five, they have better developed capacities to self-regulate.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your comments.

Lysa

The Breast Milk Cure

2011-06-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

There was an incredible op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday by enlightened author Nicolas Kristof about using breast milk as the cure for so many children's deaths in third world countries. It really was rather shocking to read that too many of these countries have very low breastfeeding rates; they are too poor to buy artificial milk and yet somehow they do, using contaminated water. How did this happen? Breastfeeding is free, easily accessible and breast milk protects children from numerous diseases and infections. In fact here in the U.S. nearly 1,000 babies lives would be saved from breastfeeding.

While I admit that there are a variety of reasons for this, I can't help but be a little suspicious and cynical because breastfeeding has been undermined by big business for decades here in the U.S. and abroad. Breastmilk is free, natural and can't be patented (at least not yet) which may be one of the reasons it's not been its not being promoted. The West has tremendous influence on the rest of the world and until we as a society are committed to breastfeeding we will continue lose the lives of millions of children every year. So read the article and judge for yourself.

Lysa

I was spanked and I turned out OK!

2011-06-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

It's a familiar argument. Yes, I was spanked and I did turn out "ok"but I think I turned out ok in spite of being spanked. My mother had no other tools to discipline an active child. My father said he remembered being spanked nearly every day of his life until he was twelve. His parents believed that was the biblical thing to do. Yet the research is unequivocal; spanking, smacking or otherwise hitting a child can cause emotional and psychological problems down the road. Even in an otherwise loving home, spanking can breakdown the relationship of trust and feelings of safety with the child's parents. One child was quoted as saying to her parent, "If you love me why did you hit me?" Children clearly understand the mixed messages of love and pain; that the only way to resolve a problem is to hit. It is a curious phenomenon to me that we have laws in our country that protect adults and animals from being hit but not our children.

Spanking (otherwise known as corporal punishment or hitting) was the key topic at the first ever, international Global Summit to End Corporal Punishment held in Dallas, Tx in early June. It was an honor for me to attend because I finally met many people with whom I've been communicating and following over the years. They are movers, shakers and staunch advocates for children; researchers, professors, educators, parent educators and parents.

What inspired me most was hearing two children speak at the conference, one eleven year old girl form Dallas and a seventeen year old young man from New Zealand. They were so empowered, articulate and awe-inspiring. Having "fought the good fight" for many years now, the older generations are encouraging and welcoming children's voices on this pressing issue. I would love to hear from young people about their thoughts and feelings about spanking.!

It is appalling to me that the American Psychological Association and other national organizations that promote the welfare of children will not take on the issue of corporal punishment, although the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a statement against its use. It has been described as a "conspiracy of silence" in this country and yet other countries are far more ahead in their progress to abolish CP in the schools and in some cases in the home. Amazingly, twenty four of those countries were represented at the conference.

If you're interested in learning more, check out these video interviews on YouTube from the conference of some of the leaders in the abolishment of corporal punishment movement or go to the website End Corporal Punishment to learn what's going on worldwide . I've included a picture of me with Raffi, the popular children's song troubador, advocate for child honoring and Nadine Block, founder of The Center for Effective Discipline.

You can make a difference by choosing positive discipline strategies over corporal punishment in your own home. You can start right now, today. I made the change in my family and I know you can too! If you need ideas or have ideas to share, write a comment .

Coming Soon! Attached at the Heart parenting curriculum

2011-06-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

A colleague in family life education and child advocacy, recently told me that she felt that our book, Attached a the Heart, was the best parenting book she had ever read. She told me that few programs focus pre-birth all the way through the first three years (as we have also found), so we're excited to fill that important void. The major emphasis of our evidenced-based curriculum will be to help parents become more sensitive and empathic to their children which is at the root of so many parent-child relationship problems.

Our next big step is to enlist the help of a select few universities and agencies to help pilot the program this fall and help us gather data. Anyone interested?

NCFR fall Family Focus article "Taking it to the Streets"

2010-10-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

I couldn't agree more with Dr. Erickson in her article about the "contradictions, confusion and quackery" around the world of parenting. It's frustrating that anyone can call themself a parenting educator or expert without any credentials and unfortunately it often does more harm than good to the child and to the parent-child relationship.
I would like to clarify a few points that Dr. Erickson brought up in the article regarding the extremes of parenting that she cited, beginning with attachment parenting. Ok, this just happens to be my area of expertise so I want to demystify some perceptions and set the record straight. It was inferred that attachment parenting (AP) strategies are not supported by research, much like the cry-it-out strategies. I will agree that little research has been done on AP families per se but there is a wealth of research that supports the optimal development of children that is rooted in attachment research. Attachment parenting, as defined by Attachment Parenting International (API)strives to establish higher standards for optimal development and should not be confused with the antivaccine movement or any other movements. While there are important personal decisions every parent must make for child and their family,as an organization, API sticks strictly to eight basic principles that are related to attachment theory. API believes in providing the best evidenced-based information possible so parents can make informed decisions for their children rather than following the herd.

In our book Attached at the Heart, coauthor Barbara Nicholson and I spent many years compiling research studies from various fields. We were frankly shocked that the abundance of research wasn't getting to parents so we decided to do just that, starting with attachment research and adding neuroscience, anthropology, developmental psychology and child developments studies. Rather than aiming toward "good enough" parenting we wanted to establish, with the support of current research, standards for optimal neurobiological and psychosocial development of children. Our theory is that if we strive for optimal development, knowing that we aren't perfect and can't, as Dr. Erickson wrote, "apply what we know 24/7" we will likely land somewhere on the "good enough parent" spectrum.

Here's an analogy: We know that for optimal health we should eat lots of fruits and vegetables, organic if possible, to avoid pesticides etc; cut out the bad fats, sugars and artificial sweetners, eat a balanced meal and so on. Let's assume that everyone knows this (which actually they don't or they can't afford), that is the high standard for optimal physical health. In reality there will be days when life is crazy busy, when you and the children are hungry and cranky so you weaken and pull in McDonalds. You order a Big Mac for yourself and chicken nuggets for the kids. You and the kids are satisfied and all is well in the world once again. You know that this was not a good choice but it was the best one for that moment in time. Tomorrow you get back to eating healthier food. As a parent you are conscious of the higher standards but give yourself flexibility to "fall off the wagon" now and then so to speak. The same for physical exercise, the general opinion from the experts is to strive to exercise everyday, knowing that there will be days that doesn't happen, but more than likely you will have exercised at least 4-5 days of the week rather than none at all.
The problem is that many parents don't know what "good enough" is let alone what the optimal standards are, they have no clue and no preparation before they become parents. Media confuse the matter or reenforce stereotypes, myths and misperceptions about childrearing. What we find interesting is that the parents who are trying to be conscientious about how they raise their children, what they eat and how they live are the target of criticism for being "too" this or "too" that when there should be outrage by all of us in the family life education field at some of the most popular advice being given which we believe to be a form of normative child abuse, such as crying-it-out. Infants as young as 1-2 months of age are being subjected to sleep training strategies that include allowing them to cry it out until they learn to "self-soothe". The dangers are that this puts an inordinate amount of stress on infants, causing the brain to be flooded with cortisol, the stress hormone. An infant should be responded to and fed on cue in order to stimulate physical and neurological growth. When allowed to cry-it-out they learn that the world is a harsh place, that they can't depend on anyone so the brain shuts down as a way of adapting to the environmental stress. There is absolutely no evidence to show there is no long term damage when letting a baby cry it out. Some books by doctors advise parents not to pick their baby up when he vomits in the bed (from crying) except to clean up the mess. Doctors and pediatricians regularly promote such books and it's overwhelming to think about the damage being done to infants and no one is advocating for them.
That was just one example of many and I don't want to belabor that point but bring it back to the need to provide parents with optimal standards with flexibility. Even with my background, knowledge and dedication to all children and my own two sons, I feel like I was probably a "good enough" mother. But if I hadn't had higher standards to guide me I surely would have lost my way. As with Dr. Erickson, her knowledge and research background guided her but being "good enough" isn't good enough and should not be the standard we hold for parents. Our children deserve better than that so they can develop to their fullest potential possible, mentally, physically and spiritually.