The Baby Analyst by Amazing Jesz

"Life is best organised as a series of daring ventures from a secure base" - John Bowlby I have talked about attachment in past and I just thought to share here for reference and expand on it a little bit more.  First of all, attachment is not inherently a bad thing. It is the type of attachment that is a problem. We hear things like "that child is too attached to their parent" and automatically assume it's bad. Next instinct is to train them to become tough or independent so as not to be so attached.  Dear mostly African and Asian parents, before you start training on toughness, please hear me out... Attachment Theory (thanks to Bowlby and Ainsworth) tries to explain the close relationships or bonds that exist between people, starting from childhood. Since my interest is children and their development and behaviour, I will talk about it from the context of a parent-child/caregiver relationship. I would have considered romantic relationships, but I haven't q...

"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders" - Abigail Van Buren Children get bored when they are not sufficiently engaged, and they start to become cranky or fussy. Sometimes, this is followed by disruptive behaviour and eventual recuritment of other children into the disruption. It's incredible how quickly children are able to recruit other children in unacceptable behaviour (usually inadvertently). It's like a cue that gets other children started. Apart from enaging them in tasks, one way that I try to manage this is by giving them responsibilities. I learnt this earlier, and have seen it play out and work in different situations. And trust me when I say children love responsibilities. We do them a disservice when we "shield" them from responsibilites because we think they're too young to understand or that they will slow us down, or we're usually looking for the kind of perfection that their ...

"You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no to people" - Unknown A friend sent me a video a couple of days ago to get my opinion. I get these sort of videos every now and then. Now I'm starting to wonder if it's because they genuinely want my opinion or a debate because my opinions almost always seem to be different. LOL.  Anyways, the video was about a guy advising that parents shouldn't always affirm or praise their kids when they do things, otherwise they would create in the children a desire to always want to have that sort of validation or affirmation from people. And in doing this, they'd inadvertently become people pleasers.  So when his daughter draws a beautiful picture for instance and shows him, rather than praise her by saying great job, he would first ask her how she feels about it, then affirm whatever she says.  People pleasers are known to be sacrificial even to their detriment, and do not have an independent opinion that is co...

"Children learn to lie from parents that lie. Lying children grow up to be lying adults...and the cycle continues"     - Unknown My not-so-baby sister asked me a question yesterday in her usual manner. Bless her heart for believing that I would always have answers to all her children and parenting questions. 

"The beauty of the  world lies in the diversity of its people"   - Unknown My Dad was in the military so I am a military BRAT (Born, Raised And Trained). One common thing is that they move around a lot.  Unlike the Navy that lets the family reside in a location while the military parent moved (I think), my Dad was in the Army, so we did move around a bit with him. For me, it meant I hardly kept childhood friends. As we were settling into a new location, our neighbours were moving out, or as our neighbours were settling in, we were moving out. No mobile phones and internet meant no keeping in touch.  Home/land phone numbers and addresses changed too often to keep in touch over phone calls or snail mail.