We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
July and August 2004
September and October 2004
November and December 2004
Blogs we read:
Monday, Apr. 25, 2005 - (Mamma)
More about Continuum Parenting
I've mentioned before that Rod and I are using continuum parenting principles in raising Jack.
So...what are continuum principles of child-rearing? The continuum concept web page describes it this way:
o a baby should be constant physical contact with his mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth;
o a baby should sleep in his parents' bed, in constant physical contact, until he leaves of his own volition (often about two years);
o a baby should be breastfed "on cue", in response to his body's signals;
o a baby should be 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;
o a child should have caregivers who 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;
o a child should be able to sense (and fulfill) his elders' expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.
Where do those principles come from?
Well, back in the 1960s, a rather disaffected and somewhat depressed young woman from New York City, Jean Liedloff, was invited on a diamond hunting adventure to South America.
While on her adventure, she spent time with the Yequana, a group of people living a traditional lifestyle in the jungles of Venezuela. There she saw people who had something she hadn't seen or experienced much of in her life. Contentment.
In 1975, she wrote a book, which she called The Continuum Concept; In Search of Happiness Lost. In her book she examined the way she saw people relating within the Yequana community and tried to find there the basis of the contentment she observed almost universally amongst them.
Liedloff was not an anthropologist. Nor was she a child- development expert. She has never married, nor had children. Her book was never intended as a parenting manual.
And yet ...
And yet, there is a great deal of wisdom to be had in Liedloff's observations of the ways we have lost so much of our natural well-being.
A large number of parents have been inspired to 'seek their continuum' and to parent their children there. As a matter of fact, Dr. William Sears' popular attachment parenting philosophy was inspired by Liedloff's writings.
I have come to realize that the way that I interpret Liedloff's observations isn't the most common interpretation. Some people seem to take the observations at face value and do their best to raise their children as much like the Yequana raise theirs as is humanly possible without moving to the jungles of Venezuala.
Like Sears', I prefer to look past the details of the Yequana way of life to the assumptions about babies and children, and then adapt those assumptions, as I see them, to life in the 21st century in the western world.
The priciples I listed earlier apply primarily to infants, and they describe pretty well how Jack was raised until he started walking around 19 months.
The Continuum Toddler
At that point, though, the rules begin to change.Up to that point, the simple rule of thumb that 'a paleolithic infant who was left alone for any length of time was likely to die -- and our modern babies are born with the same assumptions', sufficed to describe the mindset for caring for Jack.
Once Jack learned to walk, though, we had to think about parenting in a new way.
It was no longer enough to never put him down ... as a matter of fact, it wasn't long before he preferred to walk everywhere and returned to our arms only when he was tired or frightened.
My reading of Liedloff's observations led me to believe that children arrive hard-wired to learn about and take their place in their community as quickly as possible.
My experience of "having a place in the community" means, more than any other single thing, having a way to make a contribution to that community. Love and respect are all a part of that, of course, but unearned love is most appropriate in infancy. As we grow, we need not only to be loved, but to feel lovable. We do that by making a valid contribution of some kind.
So, before Jack could walk, he was helping around the house. As he has grown, he has learned more and more of the tasks needed to keep the family functioning smoothly. So far he mainly helps to cook, and to clean -- the two most critical chores in family life.
Now before you gasp in horror and imagine that I have a tiny indentured servant, I want to point out that Jack isn't doing much that other children his age don't do. Certainly, at 23 months, he is not yet responsible for independent chores. The major difference right now is that Rod and I take his contribution seriously and we encourage it.
Jack doesn't always want to do laundry or tidy up (he's never refused to do dishes yet ... but that may be because our boy LOVES water...) and if he doesn't want to, there is no pressure. ("Jack, it's time to do laundry." "No." "Ok, you read your book (or whaterv he's doing); I'll be in the laundry room.")
When Rod cleans out the cars on the weekend, Jack helps to pick up the trash and throw it away in the trash bag.
When we cook, it's Jack's job to wash the produce.
When we tidy up, it's Jack's job to take trash into the kitchen and throw it into the bin and to take laundry into the laundry room and throw it into the basket.
When we do laundry, Jack helps to sort the laundry and to put wet laundry into the dryer and clean, dry laundry into the basket.
When we clean the kitchen, Jack puts the flatware into the basket in the dishwasher. Then he washes the food storage plastics while I do the rest of the tidying up. Then he hands me the clean flatware from the dishwasher piece by piece so I can put it away.
Over time, Jack adds tasks to his list of contributions. He never works alone, and there is no pressure to help if he wants to do something else...but what he *wants* to do is to be a part of the family. He sees Rod and I working together and it makes him very, very happy to be a part of that.
Interestingly, Jack is "playing" -- and yet he also observes and gets better at his tasks. When he started putting flatware into the dishwasher, everything -- fork, butter spreaders, and spoons -- all went into one basket opening and overflowed. He observed that when we opened the dishwasher to put away the flatware, it was separated into all six basket openings. (I did that once he was busy elsewhere.) He started to use all of the basket openings. Later, he noticed that it was sorted, spoons in one opening, forks in another. Now the flatware is mostly sorted when he's done and I no longer need to resort it before it washes.
When we shop, Jack walks beside us or helps to push the cart rather than riding in it. When we get produce, Jack picks it out for us and puts it into the bag. ("We need three onions today, Jack. Lets count three onions into this bag.")
Usually, he's extremely cooperative, though he occasionally gets into mischief -- in which case, he rides in the cart for the remainder of the trip, which we end as soon as we can.
All of this takes a little longer than just doing it ourselves. Some days, it takes *a lot* longer than just doing it ourselves. When he's first learning a new task, it can be frustrating to see him almost finished, only to start undoing the job. (Sorting the flatware onto the floor, for instance, or throwing it into the bottom of the dishwasher.) But if we continue with what we're doing without comment, he usually ends up finishing it up more or less correctly. Once he's lost interest, we take a moment to sort out the worst of it (getting dishes off the floor and into the dishwasher, for instance) without comment. And slowly, incrementally, Jack gets better at his tasks over time.
But the real reward for our patience is a very happy, very confident little boy who almost always seems to operate on the assumption that we're on the same team. If we announce that it's time to do something that he doesn't want to do but that is non-negotiable, he will voice a protest and then he's cooperative anyway. People comment constantly about what a calm, confident little guy he is.
Some of that is luck of the draw, of course. He's just a very easy child. But I like to think that some of that is because he's being raised in a way that values his contributions and yet doesn't pressure him to make contributions beyond what he's capable of yet. He knows his place in the world and that he's good at filling that place. Isn't that what most of us wish for?
Another aspect of continuum parenting is the issue of parental authority.
The parenting styles common today seem to fall mainly into two classes: permissive and authoritarian. Both of those styles are based on the idea that there is an inherent conflict between parents and children.
In the authoritarian family, conflict is always resolved in favor or the parents and in extreme cases, like some interpretations of the Pearl method or the Ezzo method for example, the goal is to "break the child's will" to raise a "Godly" child.
In the permissive family, (some interpreations of Sears, Brazelton, and Spock) if the child isn't openly calling the shots, then most things are open for negotiation.
Continuum parenting espouses the belief that toddler need their parents to be role models and to be in charge. Children don't thrive when they're raised in fear, as is often the case in an authoritarian home and they are alarmed by permissiveness, because on some leve they know that they don't know enough to make good decisions, but they're not yet experienced enough to know which are important decisions and which are not.
This one where Rod and I are still feeling our way.
I was very permissive with my older sons and Rod started out on the other end of the spectrum, with a very authoritarian world view. We both came to see the fatal flaws of 'the way we did it last time', and the continuum approach seems a sensible one, though, of course, that's easier to say than to follow through on.
Lucky for us, Jack is pretty easy going and hasn't seen the need to force the issue. Yet.
Wow, this got long...I'll sign off for now and I hope to catch you up later this week on what Jack's been up to while we've all taken turns being ill the last couple of weeks.
Ahh, right after I finished this, I wandered over to Catawumpus and found out that similar themes have been on Kim's mind. If you haven't had enough, you might have a look. Kim's posts are always erudite, well reasoned, and a whole lot of fun!
