bearing blog

On the "choices" thing" mentioned in the previous post:  This technique is a slight improvement on punishing because of the clarity with which it is applied, particularly if it is applied with the caveat that the parent shouldn’t pretend the child has free will beyond the child’s developmental stage.

I believe in allowing a child to feel natural consequences, and encouraging them to feel sorrow for what they have done through empathy.  I also believe in imposing the condition that a child make restitution where possible.   But with very rare exceptions I do not believe in punishing, that is, responding to "bad" behavior by imposing a deliberately unpleasant consequence for revenge or deterrence alone.   (And we should encourage the child to experience making restitution as a good thing, a way of making it right, rather than as a mere unpleasantness.)

I feel there’s Catholic support for this — although the Church teaches that it’s good enough to repent out of fear of God’s wrath, tellingly she calls this "imperfect" contrition.  "Perfect" contrition comes out of love.

I was spurred by comments on my two previous posts about AP and Neufeld to pull Parenting With Grace off the shelf.  This is Greg and Lisa Popcak’s guide to "Catholic AP."  I wanted to evaluate their discipline techniques, which they ground in Catholicism, in the light of Neufeld’s theory.

The Popcaks start from the theology of the gift of self as the starting point for discipline — how God gives himself to us, how the Church mothers us through her sacraments.  So they say that they look for "loving, self-donative means" of discipline or training, and claim that corporal punishment, threats, shaming, etc., are not self-donative or are at the very least less self-donative.  (What they call "self-donative," I tend to call "get-off-your-butt parenting.")

They divide discipline techniques into two types:  everyday techniques to teach and to build relationships, and corrective techniques.  This post is only about the first variety.  About these they say: 

"Remember not to lead your child into temptation… A Christian parent must be careful not to give his or her child any greater responsibility than that child is developmentally capable of handling… it is our job to avoid putting our children into situations they are simply incapable of handling."

Here are the twelve techniques of the Popcaks, considered in the light of Neufeld’s theory of the six kinds of attachment (briefly:  through the senses, through imitation, through belonging and loyalty, through feeling significant, through feeling affection, through being known).

1.  Build Rapport.  Example given:  More hugs for a surly teenage son.  The Popcaks say that encouraging affection in this way "mirror[s] Christ" because it shows the parent generously giving of himself.  This is a technique which should build the child up to enable them to handle more situations.

In Neufeld’s book, this would translate to "strengthen attachment to the parent."  The Popcak’s example is of attachment through the senses; the result they are going for is "attachment through feelings of love and affection."  They caution that it means being a teacher, not a friendl in this, they appeal to the God-given authority of parents, whereas Neufeld would appeal to "natural authority"  — quite obviously the same thing, viewed from a secular vs. a religious perspective. 

2.  Write it down.  Post the house rules to make sure that everyone understands them.  The Popcaks say this works because it makes the rules clear, avoiding the child’s having to figure out the rules out for himself when he’s not developmentally prepared.  Though the Popcaks don’t articulate it like this, the Catholic connection is obvious:  God gave his people commandments before they became able to reason (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

In Neufeld-speak, writing down house rules would provide a compass point; give cues; orient the child; "provide something to hold on to."  Because it is a very specific and clear request for obedience, it gives the child an easy way to understand how to attach through loyalty.  Furthermore the house rules (being the ones that everyone obeys) show "what we do in this family,"  fostering belonging. 

I’ll take the next few together, keeping the Popcaks’ numbering scheme:

3.  Redirection.  "It is not enough to tell a child to stop doing something.  We must offer suggestions for what a child may do instead…"

4.  Restating.  "When children say something in an obnoxious way… [ask] them to rephrase their statement or ask them to repeat a more appropriate phrase that you suggest."  Two specific examples are given. 

5.  Do-overs.  Similar to restating but for behavior — show child how to get what he wants or respond to a situation the right way. 

7.  Reviewing/rehearsing.  Demonstrate expectations ahead of time, and reminding the children of expectations they’ve already learned, immediately prior to entering a situation (e.g. reviewing the rules on the way to church).

The Popcaks say that these techniques model respect for kids’ needs and teach them to come to you for help figuring out what to do.  Neufeld would say these are ways to give cues and orient the children.

6.  Choices.  "…[T]each your children that they are responsible for both the choices they make and the consequences… [P]resent your rules in the form of a choice."  To whatever consequences the parent plans to impose, this technique adds the explicit articulation of the child’s free will in the matter.   

This technique serves as a kind of orientation, too, because it lets the child know exactly what will happen to him in the event that he makes a particular choice.   (More on this in another post.)

8.  Transitions.  The example given is getting a child to leave a friend’s house willingly and promptly.   The Popcaks say:  "[G]ive… five-minute, two-minute, and one-minute reminders… [I]t helps kids adjust slowly to a new thing, and it teaches them to be better stewards of their time." 

Neufeld frames this kind of thing completely differently as a passing of the "baton" of a child’s attention and orientation from one attachment (the friend, or the friend’s mom, or whatever) to another (the parent).  After any separation, physical or other, the parent has to take time to "collect" the child — to reconnect, and to step into the position of "who’s taking care of you, who’s in charge of you." 

Neufeld suggests a few ways of doing so; the Popcaks’ suggestion to repeat the time-warnings over several minutes might work in the same way, as the parents re-assert their authority over the child with gentle persistence.

9.  Modeling.  The Popcaks frame this in terms of the Incarnation:  God Himself modeled humanity for us.     The example:  the father of a nine-year-old opening up to family discussion the stories of his own struggles with a bad attitude, and the two of them learning how to help each other meet life more joyfully.

Their example shows how modeling can go deeper than imitation and reach into Neufeld’s deeper categories of attachment through belonging and loyalty, affection, and being known.

10.  Use your emotions.  The example the Popcaks give is of a mother demonstrating to her frustrated, tantrumming child her own frustration; after this the child "first felt his needs were understood."  The idea is to show the child that you have the same kinds of emotions — so you’re able to understand what it’s like to have those emotions. 

This is clearly a kind of showing your child that he is known and understood.

11.  Labeling:  pointing out specific virtues when we see them.  The Popcaks say this teaches the virtues. 

This kind of explicit communcation shows our child that he is known — in this case, as a virtuous person — and it also fosters "belonging" to a community that shares a love of the virtues. 

12.  Storytelling.  The Popcaks point out that Jesus taught through parables. 

Storytelling is a way of passing on your culture — and it could involve all of the six means of attachment.

More later.

Wednesday night I rushed MJ back to the urgent care center with a 101-degree fever.  She’d been throwing up her antibiotics all day.   I’d called the nurse hotline and explained that she’d just recovered from a UTI and hadn’t yet had her renal radiology workup; the nurse sent me to the clinic.  Another catheter, another urinalysis.  She was clean, and her ears were okay too, so I guess it’s just the same cold I’ve got.

Have you started solids yet?  Try mixing her antibiotics in with her rice cereal.

I don’t do rice cereal.  Mary Jane got some food when she started clamoring for what was on our plates.  She won’t put her fingers in stuff like her brothers did at that age, and another thing I don’t do is spoon-feed babies (boooooring),  so I dip her spoon in something and hand her the spoon.   She has had soft-boiled egg-yolk; yogurt; sweet potato; applesauce.

Yesterday I tried mixing the antibiotics into applesauce, and she made horrible faces and threw down the spoon.  I was about to try yogurt when Hannah suggested that maybe I didn’t want to risk turning her off such a useful food (especially useful for a baby who might be on continuous antibiotics for the next two years, depending on what the renal ultrasound shows next week).  I looked in my fridge and found a jar of natural apple butter:  apples, apple cider, cinnamon.   I mixed it up with her antibiotics and offered her a spoon; she took it greedily.   

I’m not totally opposed to cereal for babies.  This morning the boys ate oatmeal for breakfast (well, Milo did anyway — Oscar reheated a plate of Mexican lasagna from last night).  I tried making it in the rice cooker, which worked great, no burned oatmeal on the bottom and no stirring.  Lots was left over, so I mixed some up with some yogurt to thin it a bit, lifted up a few grains on a baby fork, and handed the fork to MJ.

Although it’s kind of a pain to keep handing her the fork, compared to the boys’ finger-feeding themselves, I must say she eats quite neatly for a six-month-old.  Here she’s already eaten about a tablespoon of oatmeal, maybe ten forksful.

I’ve been thinking some more about the shortcomings of traditional attachment parenting (must I start calling it "mainstream attachment parenting," distinguished from the "mainstream" parenting that AP itself rejects?), which I started writing about in this post after reviewing some more of Gordon Neufeld’s work.

AP prompts a strong negative reaction from some people (check the comment section of that post), I think because the proponents are sometimes dogmatic about it, and also because of the usual answers they have when behavior and relationship problems do arise.    Confronted with an "attachment parent’s lament" — But I did all these things!  I breastfed, I co-slept, I wore my baby, I never left him with anyone, what do I do NOW? — the answer seems always to be "attach more," by which is meant more co-sleeping,  more closeness, and more modeling good behavior.  The subtext:  Obviously you haven’t given your child enough love, or he would be ready — ready to become independent, ready to separate from you, ready to behave.

They’re almost right — the answer isn’t so much to "attach more" as it is to "attach deeper."  That is, to attach more maturely, beyond encouraging your child to attach to you through physical closeness, beyond encouraging your child toattach to you through imitating you — to encouraging other, longer-lived kinds of attachment.  From my previous post, Neufeld says they are:

• Through belonging and loyalty ("I’m on your side; I want to obey you")
• Through a feeling of being significant, important;
• Through a feeling of love and affection;
• Through being secure in the knowledge that they are known and understood (the deepest and most persistent and mature level of attachment).

So, yes, in a way, if there are (non-age-appropriate) separation problems, if there are behavior problems, more attachment is needed — but it doesn’t have to come from co-sleeping and cuddling. 

And sometimes it really can’t — especially when the desired behavior is one that necessarily involves a decrease in physical closeness — if you’re trying to help your school-aged child with behavior problems that arise while she’s away from you, for example, or if you’re hoping to help your young child make the transition from co-sleeping to sleeping in a different room.

It is pretty obvious once you know about it — kids need to be attached, and if the only ways you give them to be attached to you are physical closeness and imitating, then in any situation that calls for them to be away from you or to be doing something different from you, they’re going to be at sea (and looking for cues from someone else, who may or may not be a good example).

That’s not to downplay the importance of closeness and modeling.  That’s what the really young ones need.  And it’s why AP parenting really does work so well for babies and little toddlers.  They truly need closeness and modeling, the more the better while they’re so little.

The DVD series I wrote about has some very specific ideas about how to encourage the other kinds of attachment.  But it’s not hard to imagine some, too.  Often the easiest that comes to mind is "being significant" — communicating to the child that they’re important, that you think of them often even while you’re apart. 

I missed you while you were gone. 

While I was out today, I saw a chickadee sitting on a fence, and it made me think how they are your very favorite bird, and that made me smile. 

I took the birthday card you made for me and put it up in my office where all my co-workers can see it.

That kind of thing. 

There is something truly sorrowful about a six-month-old baby, sleeping in her mama’s arms, the sweetly flushed forehead smudged with ashy black.

It’s what I contemplated yesterday morning through the latter half of Mass.  Looking on her, marked, pierced me in some small and real and new way.