♥♥NOTE♥♥
This is the newest page that I added to the top tabs. It fits as part of this blog’s theme, so I’ll probably keep it there for a while, so check back for updates as referenced below.
I found this book in my search to learn more about attachment, as we bring Mateo and Kaia into our lives, so that my children can develop a healthy attachment to me and Pearlie. I put this on my love with presence page because to me, it speaks to the core of being present in the lives of those I love and in this case my children. As it is with a lot of good books, the information can carry over or branch out into other areas of life and learning for me. I also was able to contrast and compare my life, when I was a child, and see the areas I might be strong or weak in, relating to parenting, compared to my parents and what they taught me.
One of the things that drew me to this book was reading a few lines and relating it to the parent vs. peer struggle that threatens the parent-child attachment, and hence threatening my childs learning, development, charactor, and ultimately….life. Here are a few of my favorites so far:
“Our children are growing up peer rich and adult poor.”
What the authors mean is that our culture is changing. In the past, children were surrounded by other adults that parents trusted and shared authority with to help guide the child when the parent wasn’t right there. Today, our communities are different. Our families are spread out. We don’t have the time to guide and direct our own children, yet alone someone else who may walk through our “yard/life”. I’m looking for “those” adults who will care about my kids and tell them so by teaching them also. Because without those adults, who do our kids turn their attachment to…peers? I did. I had way more kids/peers around then influencial adults.
“Although the young human is driven by a powerful genetic drive to attach, there is no archetype of parent or teacher embedded somewhere in a child’s brain. That brain is programmed only to orient, to attach, and finally to preserve contact with whomever becomes the working compass point. Nothing induces the child to seek only someone who looks like mom or dad or who seems nurturing, capable, and mature. There is no inherent preference for choosing the adult in charge, no respect in the primitive attachment brain for a person who has been certified by the government or trained for child-rearing. No inborn circuitry recognizes socially appointed roles or cares that the teacher, the day-care provider, or ultimately even the parent is ’supposed’ to be heeded, respected, and kept close.”
So, this point drives home to me the importance of my role as my children’s parent and how presence is vital…not so much perfection, but giving my kid’s the chance to attach and grow in safety and love. Can you tell I really dig this book?
“The critical issue is not how astute our teaching is, but who the child’s attachment programming appoints to be the guide to follow. It is important to be good at giving direction, but it does not matter how wise or clearspoken if we are not the ones the child is looking to for cues. That is where the parenting literature has gone wrong…”
Isn’t THIS book, parenting literature? Yes! Anyway, the point is well made. It’s progress not perfection. I’m human and I want my children to know and experience that “sloppiness” that comes with learning and to see how dad admits and takes credit for mess ups as well as “deep and insightful” knowledge too. Well, maybe more like lucky guess, but either way I don’t have all the answers but I do have what I have and boy is it valuable…to me, you, and them/others. All of that I say is not out of arrogance or ego but humility and love, that grows out of the roots of being present with God, myself, and others. I KNOW who has the answers…I KNOW Him personally…He’s even on my speed dial.
(check back – I am only 1/2 done with this book. more to come. if you’ve read it, are in the process like me or just want to comment on any other related point feel free)
