Psychology Today Article: Trustful Parenting May Require an Alternative to Conventional Schooling

The highlights:

"I think that the most powerful social force interfering with trustful parenting in our time is the school system. The power of schools over children and families has increased steadily over the decades, to the point where it is almost impossible now to be a trustful parent of a child in a typical public or private school...

...The school system operates on the assumption that children, including teenagers, are incompetent to make their own decisions. They are not competent to pick their own reading (even their own summer reading!); they are not competent to learn on their own initiative. The assumption is that children need constant supervision in order to learn what they need to know to become, eventually, effective adults. Children left to their own devices will just waste their time, or worse, get into serious trouble. And you, the parent, may be seen as negligent if you do trust your child...

...The loss, of course, lies in the children's own sense of autonomy and personal responsibility. Sadly, in many cases, the assumption that children are incompetent becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The children themselves become convinced of their incompetence.

To be a trustful parent, and to raise your children with the wonderful sense that they are trusted and trustworthy, you may have to remove them from the conventional school system..."

Read The Entire Article Here

The Importance of a Home Library

My husband's 600th post on his book blog is an excellent arguement for having an extensive library in the home.

http://bryansbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/post-600-why-have-library-of-books-in.html

He kept it neutral as far as spirituality is concerned, but here I would like to add that the last LDS prophet Gordon B Hinckley also stressed the value of having a corner of books where children could sit and read, and watch us reading.

"When I was a boy we lived in a large old house. One room was called the library. It had a solid table and a good lamp, three or four comfortable chairs with good light, and books in cases that lined the walls. There were many volumes—the acquisitions of my father and mother over a period of many years.

We were never forced to read them, but they were placed where they were handy and where we could get at them whenever we wished.

There was quiet in that room. It was understood that it was a place to study.

There were also magazines—the Church magazines and two or three other good magazines.

There were books of history and literature, books on technical subjects, dictionaries, a set of encyclopedias, and an atlas of the world. There was no television, of course, at that time. Radio came along while I was growing up. But there was an environment, an environment of learning. I would not have you believe that we were great scholars. But we were exposed to great literature, great ideas from great thinkers, and the language of men and women who thought deeply and wrote beautifully.

In so many of our homes today there is not the possibility of such a library. Most families are cramped for space. But with planning there can be a corner, there can be an area that becomes something of a hideaway from the noises about us where one can sit and read and think. It is a wonderful thing to have a desk or a table, be it ever so simple, on which are found the standard works of the Church, a few good books, the magazines issued by the Church, and other things worthy of our reading.

Begin early in exposing children to books. The mother who fails to read to her small children does a disservice to them and a disservice to herself. It takes time, yes, much of it. It takes self-discipline. It takes organizing and budgeting the minutes and hours of the day. But it will never be a bore as you watch young minds come to know characters, expressions, and ideas. Good reading can become a love affair, far more fruitful in long term effects than many other activities in which children use their time.

It has been estimated that “the average child on this [North American] continent has watched something like 8,000 hours of television before he or she even starts school.” A very large part of that is of questionable value.

Parents, work at the matter of creating an atmosphere in your homes. Let your children be exposed to great minds, great ideas, everlasting truth, and those things which will build and motivate for good.

The Lord has said to this people, “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” (D&C 88:118.) I wish to urge every parent within the sound of my voice to try to create within your home an atmosphere of growth."

Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Environment of Our Homes,” Tambuli, Oct 1985, 1

One of my requirements for long term relationships has primarily been that the boy or man in my life be a reader. I dated a variety of creative and interesting people, but the ones I gravitated towards the most, and tended to stay with the longest, and of course the one I married, were the ones who read.

I have wonderful and caring friends, as well, but tend to have a better rapport with the readers.

Books are a driving force, a preserving force, an expanding force, a healing force, both a constructive and a destructive force. They were a non-negotiable part of my over-all desirable package in a mate. They are a keystone of our parenting. And they are a central part of our home decorating.

"I cannot live without books." - Thomas Jefferson

Aha! Free Underwear Pattern

I wanted to share this as soon as I found it because many of my readers are either cloth diaper users, Elimination Communication practitioners, or both. It would be easy enough to make this in a gender neutral pattern and add a soaker to turn them into trainers. Fabulous!!!

http://panty.hanty.net/girl.html

The Cancer Prevention Coalition Wants To Ban Aspartame

...and it's about time. - Alisa

CHICAGO, IL, August 15, 2009 --/WORLD-WIRE/--

The artificial sweetener aspartame has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats, and should be banned for human consumption, warns the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

Under the explicit provisions of the 1958 Delaney Law, which requires an automatic ban on carcinogenic food additives, the Coalition is calling on Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the newly appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and public health advocate, to promptly ban the continued use of aspartame...

...Studies of the carcinogenicity of aspartame performed by producers of the sweetener have been negative. But Cancer Prevention Coalition Chairman Samuel S. Epstein, MD warns that the use of aspartame in foods, vitamins and pharmaceuticals is based on false safety information and political maneuvering going back more than 30 years.

In January 1976, then Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Alexander M. Schmidt, MD testified before Congress that Hazleton Laboratories, under contract to Searle, had been charged with falsifying toxicological data on aspartame.

The FDA convened a Public Board of Inquiry to review concerns about the sweetener’s carcinogenic effects in experimental animals. In 1980, the Board concluded that aspartame could “contribute to the development brain tumors.” Dr. Epstein points out that FDA then recommended that, pending confirmation of these findings, the sweetener should no longer be used.

However, then Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld, later Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration, vowed to "call in his markers," to get the sweetener approved.

On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame as a food sweetener, and Reagan's new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the Board of Inquiry's decision.

It soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally broke the tie in aspartame's favor.

- read the rest here

An Animated Video About Why We Need Universal Healthcare

There's A Reason Bryan Married Me....

...and it has to do with books. He says it was my breasts, and we all know it's really because I had a car and he didn't, but our first real conversation was about Timothy Zahn's Star Wars series, and it went from there, with "book dates" in book store cafes that we still have with our children, loaning books to each other to talk about later, and me nodding respectfully as Bryan discusses literature from his Literary Criticism courses that go way over what I thought was my fairly intelligent head.

Bryan has a book review blog and I read it dutifully, sometimes because I really do love books and love to know what he thinks about them, and sometimes because I know I married someone smarter than me and I try to keep up with him.

Recently Bryan's book blog has become more interactive, and I've decided that I want to play, too. The problem is that the books I read don't generally interest a wide audience - non-fiction parenting and homesteading books, for example. BUT, they do interest MY readers.

This has been a babbly and long-winded way of saying I am going to start reviewing and discussing crunchy books more often on my blog, starting with Bryan's new Teaser Tuesdays.

Here's how you play:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Herbs for Natural Beauty by Rosemary Gladstar, Storey Books

Obviously, there's no danger of spoiling anything with this book. I would like to add that I LOVE IT, have been experimenting with it, keep getting it from the library, and need to own it.

My Teaser: "Often in comics and children's stories, people are depicted expressing themselves through or how they wear their hair: flat against their face, standing on end, swirling around them electrified with energy. Samson knew where his strength lay." (50)

Born Free....Free As the Wind Blows.....

3 Pages of Baby Blues Breastfeeding Comics

http://babyblues.com/bfweek3.html

Breastfeeding on Sesame Street

World Breastfeeding Week 2009: Cartoons

World Breastfeeding Week 2009: Preemies

"The milk produced by the mother of a pre-term infant is higher in protein and other nutrients than the milk produced by the mother of a term infant. Human milk also contains lipase, an enzyme that allows the baby to digest fat more efficiently. Your breastfed premie is less likely to develop infections that are common to babies fed breastmilk substitutes. He will be protected by the immunities in your milk while his own immature immune system is developing."

- La Leche League International, "Is Breastfeeding Important For My Premature Baby?"

I consider premature babies an emergency, for 3 reasons - 1, they often have undeveloped lungs and need to be placed in the NICU, 2, thus separated from their mothers they are fed formula instead of colustrum and milk which would help protect them from infections and help them thrive, and 3, mothers and fathers have to fight to be able to give their preemies "Kangaroo Care," even though it is proven to help them develop.

The following is an excerpt from "Handout #1a. The Importance of Skin to Skin Contact. Revised January 2005, Written by Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC. © 2005"

"Studies have shown that even premature babies, as small as 1200 g (2 lb 10 oz) are more stable metabolically (including the level of their blood sugars) and breathe better if they are skin to skin immediately after birth. The need for an intravenous infusion, oxygen therapy or a nasogastric tube, for example, or all the preceding, does not preclude skin to skin contact. Skin to skin contact is quite compatible with other measures taken to keep the baby healthy. Of course, if the baby is quite sick, the baby’s health must not be compromised, but any premature baby who is not suffering from respiratory distress syndrome can be skin to skin with the mother immediately after birth. Indeed, in the premature baby, as in the full term baby, skin to skin contact may decrease rapid breathing into the normal range."

The University of Michigan created this Breastfeeding Wheel to show the steps for breastfeeding a premature infant.

This is their description for each step:

Step 1 - Skin-to-skin contact starts as soon as infant is stable, and is the first step toward breastfeeding.

Step 2 - Mouth / nose against the nipple. Baby may just rest with mouth against nipple.

Step 3 - Mother expresses milk for the baby - With mouth against nipple mother expresses drops of milk or colostrum onto baby’s lip. Baby may lick nipple or open mouth and---

Step 4 - Smell, Suckle breast, or may open mouth and hold nipple or take one or two tentative sucks.*

Step 5 - Rooting - Baby is awake and alert and actively searching for breast. Putting hands into mouth, licking and showing feeding cues. *

Step 6 - Awake / alert for first suckling. May take one or two sucks, or have a sucking burst of five to fifteen sucks, with long pauses between sucking bursts, or may take a few sucks and come off breast. *

Step 7 - Holding on to the nipple- Suckling and swallowing. Infant has sustained nursing session, may last for 5 to 10 minutes or longer, with frequent pauses but stays latched on to nipple. May nurse with eyes open or closed. Soft swallows can be heard (sounds like ah). *

Step 8 - Breast Meal - Check weight, reduces supplements. As infant takes more milk at breast, he/she will need fewer supplements. Consider pre and post test weights on Baby Weigh Scale. *

Step 9 - Breastfeeding partly on demand. When infant is awake and showing feeding cues, and mother is available, baby should be breastfeed. When sleepy or not interested in feeding Baby should be gavaged.

Step 10- Mother and baby are together day and night and breastfeeding frequently. This step often does not happen until after discharge from the hospital, and frequently is around or after the date baby was due.

*A "wheel" rotates in both directions. Baby may be at Step 6 for one feed, and then move back to Step 4 for the next several feedings. Patience and support, for both the mother and infant are most important!

I found, with my hospital births, that it was a constant fight to keep my babies with me. On the surface they seemed supportive of my desire to co-sleep and feed on demand, but then different procedures kept coming up that separated them from me for long lengths of time, procedures that were more "CYA" than evidence-based.

It is counter-intuitive to prepare yourself to demand that hospitals act in accordance with logic and current research. The hospital's number one goal is the well-being of my child, is it not?

Hospitals are first and foremost businesses that must remain profitable and reduce liability. I have actually come across family doctors who stopped delivering babies because of the restraints placed upon them by hospital policies.

If you have a premature baby, breastfeeding and holding that baby is vital. Do not let hospital policy stand in your way. Do not leave your child in the hands of "experts."

"When my grandson, Sebastian, was transferred back to the local hospital at a week old, my daughter-in-law was surprised to have the nursing staff tell her that it would be too stressful for the baby to continue with the Kangaroo Mother Care she'd been doing.

"Too stressful?" she asked. "Well, let's just see." Sebastian was already connected to monitors that traced his heart rate, his breathing, and his temperature on the computer. She settled him against her chest again and buttoned up the bottom of her shirt to keep him warm and secure. We watched the lines on the graph. His breathing became more regular, his temperature more stable, and the pattern of his heart beating less jagged and erratic.

The nurse looked, too, and didn't say a word. But no one suggested he be put back in the incubator, and from that day on, until Sebastian came home three weeks later, he spent much of the time enjoying KMC -- easing his transition into the world."

- from Kangaroo Mother Care: Easing Baby's Transition into the World
Teresa Pitman, From NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 24 No. 2, March-April 2007, pp. 52-55

World Breastfeeding Week 2009: Breastfeeding In An Emergency

I taught both of my babies how to drink from a bottle and sippy cup when they were very tiny. As a person with OCD, I was constantly worried about how they would eat or drink if something happened to me. I pumped milk and always kept some in the freezer. I knew which stores sold organic formula if it ever came to that.

I now know that my friends would have rallied around my babies and breastfed them, because they breastfed my toddler and preschooler for me while I was having emergency gall bladder surgery. However, I am part of a unique tribe of mothers. Not everyone is surrounded by women who breastfeed their own children, let alone someone else's.

This year's World Breastfeeding Week includes the theme "Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response. Are You Ready?" and focuses on the following objectives:

OBJECTIVES OF WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2009

To draw attention to the vital role that breastfeeding plays in emergencies worldwide.

To stress the need for active protection and support of breastfeeding before and during emergencies.

To inform mothers, breastfeeding advocates, communities, health professionals, governments, aid agencies, donors, and the media on how they can actively support breastfeeding before and during an emergency.

To mobilise action and nurture networking and collaboration between those with breastfeeding skills and those involved in emergency response.

RATIONALE

Children are the most vulnerable in emergencies – child mortality can soar from 2 to 70 times higher than average due to diarrhoea, respiratory illness and malnutrition.

Breastfeeding is a life saving intervention and protection is greatest for the youngest infants.

Even in non-emergency settings, non-breastfed babies under 2 months of age are six times more likely to die.

Emergencies can happen anywhere in the world. Emergencies destroy what is ‘normal,’ leaving caregivers struggling to cope and infants vulnerable to disease and death.

During emergencies, mothers need active support to continue or re-establish breastfeeding.

Emergency preparedness is vital. Supporting breastfeeding in non-emergency settings will strengthen mothers’ capacity to cope in an emergency.

My plea to breastfeeding mothers is to not only be prepared to ask for the help you may need during an emergency, but also prepared to give help. Not every mother is going to have the capacity to breastfeed someone else's child, especially if she struggles to breastfeed her own. Nevertheless, you may find within yourself that you can and you will.

Why I Tell You How To Parent

In case you were ever wondering where I get the nerve, here it is.

I grieve over the plight of babies and children and want to minimize their discomfort.

That seems high and mighty because most parents also want to minimize their children's discomfort. We all have times when causing our children a little suffering is inevitable - no matter how much it distressing my daughter, I am not going to let her play with the pin cushion.

However, a lot of parenting philosophies and practices are misguided in their attempt to cause a little suffering now in order to spare more later. The baby must learn to self-soothe, the toddler must learn to solve his own problems, the child must sit alone and think about what they have done, this medical test must be performed now "just in case."

For some reason, comforting little children will ruin them, make them rely on us "too much," keep them from independence.

But there's more. We believe that little children can bounce back from our bad moods, our rejections, our rolled eyes. We believe it is important for them to sit still for extended amounts of time, and if they can't or won't, we label them as hyperactive or diagnose them with learning disorders. We assign them sinister motives, and say they are manipulative, rebellious, challenging our authority.

We want them to leave us alone.

When they want us, we want them to be more independent, but when they act independently, we punish them.

We separate them from their mothers at birth, not because of any evidence-based medicine, but to gather data in order to prevent law suits. We strap them down to a board and cut them because we believe it will prevent problems later. We stab them in the arm or leg to prevent disease they have almost no chance of ever catching. We deny them a drink if they are thirsty before their scheduled feeding time. We make them cry themselves to sleep because we believe helping them get to sleep every night will spoil them. We send them to their rooms to be alone when they upset us because we believe little children have the ability to reason and connect the punishment with the crime.

I tell you how to parent, not because you aren't doing the best that you can and I want you to feel guilty, but because I cry when I think about babies and children, and I am hoping that every day, somewhere, something I have said or written inspires someone to try something else. I want you to believe that all the good things you want for your children can be accomplished with less suffering. Health, discipline, independence, none of these things require tough love. None of them.

I have the audacity to tell you how to parent because I need to hear it, too, sometimes.

I have the balls to judge you because sometimes we need someone to step in and say, "try this softer alternative first."

It doesn't always work. There's no such thing as ideal. Everyone's circumstance is different.

But I have to try. And I won't stop trying.