The time in your arms, at your breasts, and in your bed lasts a very short while in the life of a growing child, but the messages of love and security last a lifetime.
6. Become a Facilitator
At each stage of development, a child needs significant people who care about him and whom he cares about. These people act as facilitators, helping the child learn how to conduct himself in the world. A facilitator is like a consultant, a trusted authority figure who provides emotional refuelling to the child, a person to lean on who helps the child both develop his skills and take advantage of the resources around him with a view toward becoming self-sufficient. The facilitators don’t tell the child what to do; they help the child learn what to do. They don’t give commands; instead they take cues from the child and weave their wishes into the child’s wants. The child says, “I do it myself”; the facilitator says, “Yes, you can!” The facilitator watches for teachable moments and takes advantage of them. A wise disciplinarian in my practice describes her role as facilitator: “My job is to help my child glean from life’s experiences lessons he might not otherwise glean for himself.”
Babies need facilitators.
You have been functioning as a facilitator ever since the moment of birth. You positioned your baby at the breast to make it easier for her to feed. You held the chair steady to make it safer for the beginning cruiser to keep his balance. You arranged child-sized furniture, utensils, and cups to make it easier for your child to have a snack. A facilitator structures the environment so a child doesn’t waste energy. She helps the child focus on important tasks.
There needs to be mutual trust between the child and the facilitator. They are interdependent (see meaning of “interdependence”). The child relies on the helper’s availability and the helper is sensitive to the child’s needs, taking cues from the child and filling in the missing steps to help the child complete a task. The facilitator anticipates what the child needs at each stage of development in order to thrive. Thinking of yourself as a facilitator keeps you from hovering over and smothering your child with overprotection. Being on standby as needed helps you and your child negotiate an appropriate level of independence. When your child is going through a healthy independent stage you stay connected, but at a distance.
Expect discipline problems to occur when the child lacks a facilitator. A child forced to function on his own will become frustrated and discouraged. I’ve watched children try to function without the help of a parent or someone else to act as a facilitator: The child seems angry, as if he senses that he is missing out on the help he needs. He will either withdraw out of insecurity or, if gifted with a persistent personality, make himself noisy enough to get help. Either way, his emotional and intellectual development are compromised. One of the main features I have noticed among attachment-parented children and their facilitator parents is these children know how to use adult resources to their advantage, and the parents know how to respond appropriately. Ideally, for two years, the facilitator is mainly the mother and then gradually both of the parents as the father helps the child move away from “mother only”. As children grow they may latch on to additional facilitators: grandparents, teachers, coaches, scoutmasters, and so on. It’s the parents’ job to monitor these, persons of significance in their child’s life. Behaviour often deteriorates when a child must function without these special persons. Throughout this book you will find many suggestions to help you become a facilitator.
how attachment parenting makes discipline easier
You probably never thought of these attachment tools as being acts of discipline, but they are. Attachment parenting is like immunizing your child against emotional diseases later on. Here are other ways this style of parenting improves the behaviour of your child and the way he experiences life. Jill, an attached mother of three, told us: “Knowing my children empowers me.” This kid knowledge becomes like a sixth sense enabling you to anticipate and control situations to keep your kids out of trouble. Our daughter-in-law Diane describes her experience with this style of parenting: “I know Lea so deeply at every stage of her development. Attachment parenting allows me to put myself in her shoes. I imagine how she needs me to act.”
Attachment parenting promotes mutual sensitivity. At six years of age Matthew would come to me with a request, “Dad, I think I know the answer, but …” Because our mutual sensitivity and trust is so high, he knows when to expect a “yes” or a “no” answer. He tests me, but knows my answer. The connected parent and child easily communicate each other’s feelings. Once connected to your child you will be able to read his body language and appropriately redirect behaviour, and your child will be able to read your desires and strive to please. As one connected parent put it: “Often all I have to do is look at him disapprovingly and he stops misbehaving.”
Attachment parenting produces people who care. General Norman Schwarzkopf once said, “Men who can’t cry scare me.” Many of the world’s problems can be traced to one group of people being insensitive to the needs and rights of another group. One of the mothers in my practice arranged a talk for a group of attachment mothers, and she invited one of the survivors of the Holocaust to come and tell her story. Commenting on the social benefits of sensitive parenting, the survivor concluded her talk, “Because of children like yours, this tragedy will never happen again.”
an exercise in sensitivity
Because of misguided teachings from “experts”, some mothers have to go through “deprogramming” before they can let themselves respond naturally. Try this exercise: When a baby cries (yours or someone else’s), examine the first feeling that comes over you. Does the cry bother you in the right way, prompting an irresistible urge to lovingly pick up and comfort the baby? Or does the baby’s cry trigger insensitivity: “I’m not going to let this little person control me.” If you have a less than nurturing response, you are at risk for a disappointing disciplinary relationship with your child, and you need to learn more about the needs of tiny babies and to rethink the giving end of parenthood.
A mother I counselled in my surgery during a prenatal interview was worried that she wouldn’t be a good mother. I asked her how she feels when she hears babies cry. She responded, “I just can’t stand to leave a baby crying. I want to rush over and pick that baby up. It bothers me to see other mothers ignore their babies’ cries.” I assured this woman that she was very likely to be a good mother because she had the quality of sensitivity. Cries bother sensitive women – and men too. Cries are supposed to bother us.
Attachment parenting organizes babies. To understand better how attachment parenting organizes infant behaviour, think of a baby’s gestation as lasting eighteen months – nine months inside the womb, and at least nine more months outside. The womb environment regulates the baby’s systems automatically. Birth temporarily disrupts this organization. Attachment parenting provides a gentle, sensitive, external regulating system that takes over where the womb left off. When a mother carries her baby her rhythmic walk, familiar from the baby’s time in the womb, has a calming effect. When the baby is cuddled close to his mother’s breast, her heartbeat reminds him of the sounds of the womb. When baby is draped across mum or dad’s chest, he senses the rhythmic breathing. Being kept warm and held close calms him and helps