Skinship

Children's books

Since I was very little I had a special love for books and my mom has kept all of my children's books. When she said it will one day be for my kids I though she is a bit odd to save al this stuff but now, when I am browsing through those books with my son it makes me remember my childhood...piece by piece. My favourite characters, favourite rhymes and my own imaginary world.

We love to read together and we take him to the library every week and he is so proud when he can pick his own books and take them home. He loves those with animals...hen and peacock are absolute winners :-)

Which are your children's favourites?

Your competent child by Jesper Juul

I am reading Your competent child for the second time already. It is simply fantastic. I could easily write a post for each page in this book, but I will try first to just give you a short review in order to inspire you to read it. It is a life-changing book.

 

Jesper Juul, an internationally renown family therapist from Denmark, starts this book by explaining how the family structure has changed over the years and that we are at important crossroads. He explains why family shouldn’t be built on authoritarian force or democratic tyranny anymore but should rather encourage dignity and reciprocity between parent and child. He argues that children are competent to express their feelings from birth, and they are eager to cooperate. Even more, if they have to choose between preserving their own integrity and cooperation, they would almost always choose to cooperate with us. It is thus the parents who must “teach them how to look after themselves when they are interacting with others”. This book constantly reminds us to listen to and learn from our children. As one reviewer wrote on Amazon.com: “This is a book that helps you see with a child's eye, hear with a child's ear, and feel with a child's heart in ways that feel so natural and obvious, you will wonder why you haven't thought of them before. But trust me, you haven't”.

 

In this beautiful book author is using numerous real-life examples from his experience that bring his ideas even closer to our heart. He challenges parents to see parenting as an exciting time of growth and development. I couldn’t agree more with the reviewer who wrote: “This groundbreaking book should be on the shelf of all parents everywhere. If you read only one book on raising your child, this is the one.”

I can promise you that after finishing reading it you will want to read it again. First time I was reading it I was going through the lines as a child, analysing relationship with my parents. And only this time I am reading it from the parent’s perspective, learning even more about this magic but complex relationship that make us a family.

 

I recommended this book to many of my friends and I got couple of beautiful emails from them thanking me for pointing them to Juul. One friend wrote: “Juul is great. A real revelation. It is something that you already know deep down in your heart. But here it is…black on white, with examples. /…/ I can not thank you enough. And when my son grows up he will draw a picture for you, because this book has changed our lives.”

 

If you are interested you can read more about Jesper Juul and his Family Lab.

Are we really raising independent children?

Lately I have been thinking a lot about independence. It's partly because Jun is becoming a toddler and independence discussions are part of it. What I am noticing is that there is a big confusion in using the word independence when talking about babies and toddlers. Here I am mostly taking about discussions in the family or between parents (here I exempt the psychologists and other scientists who have clear definitions of this term). Going back to my point…on one hand we talk about “functional independence” (I know the word is mostly used for handicapped children, but it seems to best describe what I mean), which is supposed to be reflected in child’s ability to walk, get dressed, eat alone, help with the household chores, stand up for himself etc. of course depending on his age and developmental stage and on the other hand we talk about emotional independence, which basically means that a child can self-soothe, fall asleep alone, stay away from parents for prolonged periods of time, etc..

In our culture both meanings are often being “squeezed” into one word, namely independence. And since independence is on of the highly valued skills in our culture, we are urged to force our children to sleep in their own room, to self-soothe and fall asleep by themselves, to wean from the breast, start walking and so on. And we do this with our best intentions, thinking that we are doing our kids a big favor. It sounds simple and logical: if independence is important for one’s success in life, why not teaching him independence as early as possible.

But humans are complex and there are slightly more complicated processes behind all this. There are numerous studies explaining how parenting practices and child-rearing approaches influence human brain and some of them have been beautifully explained in the

Sunderland’s book What every parent needs to know.

Some interesting findings are also described in Commons’s and Miller’s paper (both from Harvard Medical School). Just to give you a hint, here is a short quote from their epilogue:

“One implication is that cultures that train for independence, and therefore self-responsibility,risk having more PTSD (post-traumatic-stress-disporder) later in life. That is because these cultures do not support infants (nor adults) during stressful and traumatic events to the same extent as do cultures that emphasize dependence and mutual support. Whether distressed or not, Individuals are isolated or separated and do not experience as much physical contact, which is known to be soothing (it has been shown to reduce blood pressure and so on). Early stressful practices may produce lasting effects, as these areas of the brain are still developing. As has been suggested by numerous investigators, the pathways that remain in place after early development are very determined by experience (as summarized in Todd et al., 1995). There may therefore be permanent alterations in stress-related neurotransmitter systems (such as the release of higher levels of cortisol).”

To conclude, I just wanted to show that it is great that we are helping our children to become independent in terms of "technical" or "functional" skills. But this does by no means imply that we should force them into emotional independence before their time. By practicing child-led-weaning (in all aspects: weaning from breast, sleeping and self-soothing, being separated from parents during the day, etc.) we can help to raise highly independent and emotinally stable individuals that will be able to better manage stress and trauma later in life.

As Sunderland (2006) beautifully says: "Perhaps fuelled by a fear of our own dependency, our parenting traditions can push children into early separations." (p. 52)

Preparing for birth- the reading list

Here are three books that I usually recommend to my pregnant friends:

Ina May Gaskin: Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

Janet Balaskas: Active Birth

Penny Simkin: The Birth Partner

Scientific American on children

The Scientific Amrecian has recently dedicated two special issues to children:

• Scintific American REPORTS offers a special edition on child development
• Scientific American MIND offers a special on-line edition on child's mind

They are both fantastic and worth reading...with top researchers in the field presenting their scientific studies. Great papers.

In the next posts I will share with you some of the most interesting findings and ideas.

The Science of Parenting

The Science of parenting by Margot Sunderland, one of Britain's leading experts on children's mental health and director of education at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, is so great that I couldn't put my hands off...

The market is so full of child-rearing guides written by "baby training gurus" that it is a real relief to find a book like that. It is not just another guide that tells parents what to do, but after reading this book you will definitely consider co-sleeping, baby wearing, breastfeeding and other ways to keep your child close to you. The book is based on 30 years of scientific research but is written in a very pleasant way with many pictures and practical examples. The author goes through the most common parenting practices and explains how they can influence our children's brain development. For example she tells us what is going on in the child's brain and body when he cries and she explains what happens if we either hug him to calm him down or let him cry it out.

The book is structured in a way that covers the most important parenting issues, including:

• crying and separations
• sleep and bedtimes
• the chemistry of living life well
• behaving badly
• all about discipline
• the chemistry of love

and many others.  It explains them from the perspective of human brain and chemistry of emotions going on in child's body. It is quite chilling to realize that some ways of parenting can live the children vulnerable to suffering from stress, depression, rage and  lack of drive in later life. However, she gives many examples how to stimulate the chemistry of love, passion, creativity and optimism in our child's brain...and it is so easy...they just need lots of love, gentle touch, laughter, play and positive thinking.

This book, which is a comprehensive review of more than 800 scentific studies, is a must read for all parents no matter how old their children are and even for those without kids, because this book helps us understand ourselves, too.

Vaccination- reading list

More reading...

I just ordered more books from my Amazon.com reading list...

• "Your Competent Child: Toward New Basic Values for the Family" by Jesper Juul
• "The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain" by Luis Cozolino
• "Baby Matters, Revised 2nd Edition: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby" by Linda Palmer
• "Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves: Transforming Parent-child Relationships from Reaction And Struggle to Freedom, Power And Joy" by Naomi Aldort
• "Connection Parenting: Parenting Through Connection Instead of Coercion, Through Love Instead of Fear" by Pam Leo

Now I should really go to www.ikea.com and get some new bookshelves because tehre is no more room for all the new books in our flat.

Nursing is more than breastfeeding

Take couple o minutes to read this beautiful article by dr. Linda Folden Palmer. She explains why there is a lot more to breastfeeding than nutrition and immunity.

Breastfeeding advocates mainly focus on the importance its nutritive and immune support roles but breastfeeding is designed to be much more than just providing food. "It is a time for nursing, a time for comfort and nurturing. This is a time for studying and memorizing each other’s faces, for speaking or singing to your baby and developing her trust and nonverbal communication."

The article is based on several scientific studies but what gives it the real value is the human warmth and understanding of the most basic baby’s needs for nourishment and comfort. And responding to those needs can give you and your baby a wonderful beginning.

“In your arms or snuggled alongside you, your baby is nurtured by the snuggly warmth of your body and comforted by your familiar scent (pheromones). He hears the beat of your heart and the sound of your voice. His neurons and hormones program him to desire and flourish in this environment — a means of ensuring his protection, survival and optimal development.”

Continue reading the article here!

More great articles by dr. Linda Folden Palmer and presentation of her book “Baby Matters: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby” can be found on her web page.

The article also stresses an important point that I often miss in breastfeeding literature; nursing, cuddling and skinship are not only for breastfeeding babies. Bottlefeeding children can also enjoy this truly peaceful time with their mothers!

Diaper free life or what does EC stand for

Did you ever consider life without diapers­? Did you think how we were brough up? Or what do African, Asian and South American mothers do with their babies?

The advertising campaigns for Pampers, Huggies and other brands are so agressive and repeatedly appear on TV, magazines, billboards and other places that they almost made us believe that babies come »naturally« in dipares.

When Jun was born I didn't feel comfortable to leave him in diapers for prolonged periods. Eventhough we were using cloth diapres I still didn't want him to spend the entire day and night in those bulky (and usualy wet) diaper.

We started searching the web to find an alternative solution and than we found the book by Ingrid Bauer »Diaper free: the Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygene«. You can get more info on Natural Wisdom web page.  This is how we got familiar with the concept of elimination communication (EC). We started using it for bowel movements quite early and lately we even do it for urination. It works great and now I am wondering why haven't it introduced earlier.

For those of you who are interested in the topic you can find more information at Diaperfree Baby.

I also recommend the article from NY Times Dare to Bare by Meredith F. Small, a professor of anthropology Cornell University and the author of "Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent."

There are also couple of blogs on this topic like for example Free ro EC or EC Journey.

I am getting more and more exciting about it. Because it really works and is actually a lot of fun :-) I will write more about how we got started and about our experience in the future.

I am also very interested in your experience. Does any of you practice elimination communication? How does it work for you and your baby? Do you use EC all the time or just during the day?