Attachment parenting just an excuse for letting kids do whatever?

[Bugsymalonemumof2]

Debate on a local mum page over 3 year olds being expected to sit at a table to eat dinner. One half expect their children to sit and eat and will remove the food if the child is up and down until they sit back down. The other is very much of the view that it doesnr matter if they are up and down as they are only little.

I seem to be seeing more and more examples of attachment parenting becoming an excuse for lazy parenting and it has detracted from the whole idea of it. At my daughter's childminders you can tell the two children who have very vocal attachment parenting mothers as they are the onea who wont sit and listen to stories, wont sit and eat lunch with other kids, have zero routines and zero consideration for any of the kids and not always getting what they want.

Surely you can attachment parent without also letting your child rule the roost and only have their feelings and wants considered.

Maybe I am just a dick with firm bed times (illness and certain circumstances excused) and simple boundaries over meal times.

We don't eat at the table as it is always being used for art.
However dd does have great table manners when eating out and at others houses. I had eating disorders as a teen so I've decided to make meal times fairly relaxed mostly tv dinners. Not saying that's right but suits us atm.
I know the kind of permissive parents you mean op. Attachment parenting has good intentions ...the idea is to establish a good bond so the child is secure.
I did the cosleeping thing and I'm not convinced dd is more secure or independant as a result. So you are probably not unreasonable.

I see parents who want to be the centre of their child’s world and have the child totally dependent on them. The child is more like the friend they never had. They want to be the child’s best friend and don’t encourage the child to be independent at all. A child close to me was having a tantrum, the mothers response was I’m letting him work through it, he’s processing it! Fair enough, there’s not a lot you can do when they are in full on tantrum mode, but I think this is a bit of a wankery way of thinking.

I think you are missing the point of the post chloe

AP is child led. People keep saying ‘oh, but that isn’t attachment parenting’ but yes, it is, or follows the formula at any rate even though individuals may elicit not to do certain things.

It follows the assumption that the child wishes to be close to his parents (more specifically to the mother.) So breastfeeding beyond an age that is usual for children in a first world country, co sleeping and carrying the baby in a sling rather than a pram or pushchair are common.

I have no problem with any of those things and did them all myself at varying times. And obviously people are free to parent in a way they feel suits them and suits their children.

I do however feel there are a few areas of concern with ‘AP’ - the way it is traduced in forums such as MN tends to express the view that not to AP is harmful to the child and to his future bond with his parents. That’s a real issue for me because it is nonsense, in a word. There is not one bit of evidence suggesting that children who are APd fare any better than children who are not. Not one.

I also think the promotion of such a parenting style which demands so much from the mother - extended breastfeeding and co sleeping in particular - i would argue is something of a feminist issue.

And finally I think in many cases it is unhealthy. Interestingly the people I know who have opted to go down the AP route so to speak are people with trauma and distress in their own childhoods. In one case in particular, almost six years down the line and the child still sleeps worse than a newborn.

Attachment parenting, gentle parenting, child led parenting, it’s one and the same. Do it if you feel it works for your family but I am not convinced by it at all.

Has anyone actually confirmed that the OP’s description correlates with AP?

Because I don’t think it does.

Attachment parenting isn’t about letting your child rule. It’s about respecting and building a bond with your child in age appropriate ways.

You still have rules and boundaries - it’s just about how you apply them.

So anyone who thinks it’s about them running riot hasn’t got a clue what they’re talking about and probably is one of those parents who shout “because I said so” when they’re too lazy to actually parent properly. Or bribe their kids to behave which will backfire when they’re older as they’re only “good” for a sticker.

@Swearymum

It hurts to force your kids to be uncomfortable when they're first learning to be independent but it's essential for their well being and for yours! So yeah, I think it's not a good way to parent, it's damaging.

Your story made me think a bit as my 21 month old (very gently and attachment parented) will still sometimes react to strange situations by sitting pretty well on me and doesn't like playing with other children very much.

But it has to be said I came to gentle parenting and attachment parenting because of the way she was from the very start, not the other way around. And the way she was was very distinct from other babies her age, who were happy to be passed around, who would settle themselves to sleep if left alone, who were content to lie on their baby gyms/moses baskets and coo while their mums got on with things. My baby just wouldn't do those things, couldn't do those things. And she still needs more of me than my other friends' toddlers, who happily bowl up to me and hug me about the knees when they haven't seen me in weeks, who need to be chased down as they run off all over the place. My mum friends who I see regularly now are all of the 'crunchy' variety (you pick your tribe after all after getting endless grief for 'still' breastfeeding or being so weak as to check on your child if they cry in the night ) but their children don't cling like my little one does. They never have. They are different, and have always been.

I am not going to force my child to 'level up' to the average child's ability to be independent in social settings before she's ready, and more than I'm going to force her to 'level down' and stop speaking in sentences because it's not 'average' for her to be doing that yet. You parent the child you have, responsively to their needs. That is the essence of AP.

Your friend's three year old may need more from her right now. Denying him and trying to force him into independence he isn't ready for isn't going to make him secure and happy, although it may indeed make him more independent as he will learn he isn't going to get his needs met. What you're basically saying is "it's not convenient for me that my friend's kid is like this." But she's parenting him, not you.

One of mine cannot sit still at a table and it's because of various special needs issues as it turns out. If we're at a restaurant or whatever though we do what we can to minimise the impact of that on anyone else - so we'll try to seat her with her chair backed into a corner so that when she does stand up and down from the chair she's contained and not disturbing other people, or I'll have the leg of her chair caught with my foot so if she suddenly stands up the chair's not going to go shooting back into whoever's sat near us - and she's definitely not allowed to go wandering off around the restaurant annoying other people.

We have a lot of fairly vocal "gentle" parents around here - and by school age their kids are fucking anarchy. They're rude to random adults (they'll do things like go up to random strangers and just announce "you have a big nose" while mum is in the background either ignoring them or just going "oh he's so observant and honest"), they just run riot on the playground before school opening the PE store and pulling all the equipment out, or climbing on furniture and pulling things to bits.

One of my kids you have to be very firm with in terms of boundaries and expectations and she will challenge them constantly to check they're still there - if you relax the boundaries she doesn't cope well and panics over things. The other of mine you can get away with parenting in a much more "gentle parenting" style - totally different personalities and I have to play it differently with how I handle both of them. One thrives on independence and responsibility to the point of veering toward the despotic if allowed to be unchecked (the Head at school jokes she's going to have her doing her job soon), the other likes trying to be responsible but still is a lot more dependent upon me at an equivalent age - will come to check in on me if she's playing and the like - the other one comes to check in on me to make sure I'm not doing anything more interesting to her!

@Ennirem

Absolutely, she can parent however she sees fit. Except she doesn't see fit, she struggles, has anxiety and often can't cope with having a toddler that won't even let her crap in peace (sits on her lap while she poops). I understand that some children are more sensitive than others but in my opinion if you're crying almost everyday because you can't get a break from your extremely attached 3 year old.. something needs to change.

I also co sleep, have a 'healthy' attachment with my children and am very in tune to their needs, without denying myself some peace and sanity. Mothers should be allowed and able to set boundaries as well.

Absolutely, she can parent however she sees fit. Except she doesn't see fit, she struggles, has anxiety and often can't cope with having a toddler that won't even let her crap in peace (sits on her lap while she poops). I understand that some children are more sensitive than others but in my opinion if you're crying almost everyday because you can't get a break from your extremely attached 3 year old.. something needs to change.

Well that's very sad. But before you said she did nothing to discourage it, so I assumed she was on board with it. If not then definitely things would need to change, because having a mum who is stressed, exhausted and eventually going to crack under the strain is not good for anyone.

It can be sodding knackering having a high needs child and trying to parent them where they're at, and a good support system is essential to stop you burning out.

What winds me up is when people say something is 'not healthy' when the mum is happy, the kid is happy, and the only people who aren't are outsiders who don't like the idea of it (cf 'extended' bf, bath sharing, bed-sharing past extreme infancy etc). e.g. my LO needing a lot of support in social settings doesn't bother or impinge on me - what does is my dismay as I see others judging her and me. Co-sleeping was the only way we got any sleep when she was little, I liked it and she liked it, but got endless grief from friends, family and even my DP in then end because it 'wasn't normal'.

I hope your friend can get some support and make some compromises to enable her to parent happily x

Haven’t RTFT but I agree with this:

Don't conflate attachment parenting with permissive parenting, they are not the same thing

True attachment parenting is not lazy - very far from it! I’ve been doing this with my almost 1 year old DS and it has meant carrying in slings (when younger) exclusive breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, no sleep training - DS still sleeps on me for most of his naps (asleep right now)
It has been very very intense and i am exhausted
We plan on having plenty of boundaries in place too for when the toddler years truly hit us!

And finally I think in many cases it is unhealthy. Interestingly the people I know who have opted to go down the AP route so to speak are people with trauma and distress in their own childhoods

This is true. I certainly didn’t have a good bond or attachment with my mum when I was little. She wasn’t available to me in the ways I needed her to be.
Still, so far DS is a very happy and relaxed baby. Although we don’t know for sure if that’s down to AP of course as I can’t go back in time and parent him differently to see if the outcome changes!
To be honest, I’ve tried to rely heavily on instinct rather than anything else and my instincts have tended towards an AP style.

I think every child is different and some need more firm boundaries than others. One works for one may not work with others.

My DDs best friend is parented this way and it's so tiresome. I don't like having this child round for play dates, I'm dreading DDs party, starting school was all about them...it completely affects other people, so let's stop pretending it's not OPs business.

These parents have two kids and only the eldest gets to dictate everything, the youngest has to fall in line with the eldest. One parent even moved their working hours to fit with when she woke up, they didn't try thicker curtains or anything, just put their workmates out by having a colleague start at 5am and finish at 1. One term of reception and they are moaning at everyone about how unnatural school hours are and having an almighty drama at every single drop off because they want to come in the classroom.

I wouldn't say they attachment parented though, although they say they do. If I have to give someone a heads up, I'd say they were "child centred parents, very child centred."

A member of my family is doing child-centred attachment parenting. I do wonder what will happen when the child has to go to school. The whole household is on a 24 hr clock with the child often up in the middle of the night and being played with and then falling asleep at 9.00 am! They are just 3 and have no structure, and I mean nothing, I think it is stopping their development if I’m honest.

I know a twin mum who has her bed between the twins beds and they wake and breastfeed throughout the night and they're nearly 3, they seem really naughty and needy. They have zero boundaries and watch tons of TV while she's on her phone all day.

Meant to say, she says she attachment parents but I really don't see it!

@ohshitonit
I think you're conflating two issues. Breastfeeding during the night has nothing to do with them having zero boundaries and her being on her phone all day. The latter is a problem; the former a matter of personal choice.