Attachment Parenting Gone Wrong. . .

I just read the main article in CityPages, "Safe Child Syndrome - Protecting Kids to Death." It talked about attachment parenting, and just plain ol' parenting, going too far. It reminded us that every parent does it, to some point or another, but that a lot of parents today are taking it way too far and how this limits your child's development.

It hit home with me, big time. I'm the mom who couldn't stand the thought of leaving Noah in a crib sleeping by himself at a couple months old. My anxiety levels of "what if?" were in overdrive and I couldn't sleep because I was listening to him breathe over the monitor, willing him to take that next breath, waiting for him to cry so I could channel my anxieties and actually do something.

I know that my little man is spoiled. I know that we give in way too much. I know that he's wearing the metaphorical pants around here most of the time. But we are getting better. We do try to keep him in line. And he is a good kid, He's very polite, he's very affectionate, and he's stubborn as hell. He can throw a tantrum and reach decibel levels unheard of by normal human children (he gets that lung capacity from me, thank you very much).

We also make sure he plays with other kids. No one can let you know you're not really the center of the universe like another two year old. And we give him room explore new toys and places. It's always tempting to jump in and show him how things are "supossed" to work, but he usually figures it out on his own, and sometimes even comes up with better ideas on his own. The overwhelming bordeom of parenting makes this even more difficult, but it's worth fighting.

I want him to be independent and have high esteem and confidence in himself and his abilities. I just have to remember to keep my sticky mitts off of the controls.