Later in the 1970's a very courageous woman named Jean Liedloff, an American writer, published her now cult classic "The Continuum Concept". Jean spent two and a half years deep in the South American jungle with Stone Age Indians. On her journey Jean observed many interesting things happening in South America regarding parenting and child rearing that wasn't happening back home in the U.K. She observed that children of all ages took care of one another and played together contentedly. There were no tantrums, arguing and fighting. Whining or terrible two's seemed non-existent. The children seemed to listen to their parents and played for hours unsupervised.
"Far from being disciplined or suppressed into compliant behavior, these little angels are relaxed and cheerful. And they grow up to be happy, confident, cooperative adults!"
http://www.continuum-concept.org/reading/whosInControl.html
Out of her research Jean created the Continuum Concept.
According to Jean Liedloff, the Continuum Concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings — especially babies — require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as...
- constant physical contact with his mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth;
- sleeping in his parents' bed, in constant physical contact, until he leaves of his own volition (often about two years);
- breastfeeding "on cue" — nursing in response to his own body's signals;
- being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually his mother, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business — until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his own impulse, usually at six to eight months;
- having caregivers immediately respond to his signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of his needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making him the constant center of attention;
- sensing (and fulfilling) his elders' expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.
Jeans book The Continuum Concept became wildly popular and brought into the western hemisphere the concept of "child wearing", slings, baby carriers, co-sleeping, breast feeding on cue, etc.
At the time this book was hugely controversial and not well accepted in some circles as you can imagine. Though it changed to course of parenting...
Later on, in the 80's Dr.William Sears wrote the book Creative Parenting: How to Use the New Continuum Concept to Raise Children Successfully from Birth Through Adolescence. Now of course what I am about to say can't be proven but his works were obviously based on Jean Liedloffs work. While writing his books he coined the term Attachment Parenting yet the idea was developed long before his work. Here is the basic concept of Dr.Sears Attachment Parenting:
Dr. Sears Eight principles of Attachment Parenting
Per Dr. Sears' theory of attachment parenting (AP), proponents such as the API attempt to foster a secure bond with their children by promoting eight principles which are identified as goals for parents to strive for. These eight principles are:
- Preparation for Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting
- Feed with Love and Respect
- Respond with Sensitivity
- Use Nurturing Touch
- Engage in Nighttime Parenting
- Provide Consistent Loving Care
- Practice Positive Discipline
- Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life
These values are interpreted in a variety of ways across the movement. Many attachment parents also choose to live a natural family living (NFL) lifestyle, such as natural childbirth, home birth, stay-at-home parenting, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing
homeschooling, unschooling, the anti-circumcision movement, the anti-vaccination movement, natural health, cooperative movements, and support of organic food.
However, Dr. Sears does not require a parent to strictly follow any set of rules, instead encouraging parents to be creative in responding to their child's needs. Attachment parenting, outside the guise of Dr. Sears, focuses on responses that support secure attachments.
For more details on this see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_parenting.
To Summarize, the Attachment Theory was developed by John Bowlby working with Mary Ainsworth, and the studies of Harry Harlow's monkeys greatly contributed at the same time.
A short while later Jean went out into the research field and brought back many findings from South America. Bringing the Continuum Concept to the Western world which was later coined Attachment Parenting by William Sears.
From here many people have taken the basic info and used it to their liking, adjusting here and there. Now days the term Attachment Parenting does take on many different meanings. So when I hear it, I don't think of only Dr.Sears but the many people that initiated this life changing parenting style.
Tomorrow I will talk about my own take on AP.
Sincerely,
Ashley
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