ALL PARENTS WANT their children to grow up to be kind, affectionate, empathic, well disciplined, and, of course, bright and successful. The ways in which parents help their children develop these qualities differ, since every child is born with a unique personality. The first step in learning how to guide your child is to become an expert in your child. To help you to do this, we will introduce you to a style of parenting called attachment parenting (AP) and a list of helpers we call the Baby B’s.
Our ideas about attachment parenting are based on thirty-plus years of parenting our own eight children and observing moms and dads whose parenting choices seemed to make sense and whose children we liked. We have witnessed the effects this approach to parenting has on children. There is something wonderfully special about these children: they are compassionate, caring, and responsive, and they trust themselves and the people who are close to them. We believe that attachment parenting immunizes children against many of the social and emotional diseases that plague our society. How you parent your children in the early years really does make a difference when it comes to what kind of adults they become. While certainly we can’t promise you that attachment parenting will make you perfect parents of perfect children, we can promise you that your children will turn out better than if you hadn’t practiced attachment parenting. In addition, attachment parenting will make you a wiser parent and help you enjoy your children more.
Actually, attachment parenting is what most parents would do anyway if they had the confidence and support they needed to follow their own intuitions. In a way, this book is our attempt to give back to parents the instinctual, high-touch way of caring for their children that decades of detachment advice have robbed them of. We are passionate about attachment parenting because for more than three decades we have seen its effects. It’s wonderful! It works! Now let’s see how it can work for you.