Tip 65: Natural parenting is the best

I was reading blogs on parenting and came accross this site on natural parenting. Did not know that our world has grown leaps and bounds that we need to remind ourselves that we need to get back to the natural path. Of course, we can not stick to strict rigid laws on Do's and Don'ts but need to be flexible to accomodate health, environment and lifestyle situations as it is important that we are happy and comfortable parenting our children. Its actually a very broad philosophy based on the principles of attachment theory in development psychology with the term attachment parenting and well summarised by wikipedia. It says, a strong emotional bond with parents during childhood and birth leads to a secure and emphatic relationship in adulthood. Failure to form this early childhood parental bond will give rise to a psychology disorder of varying degrees. Wow! It has 8 principles ... but I will start with one today. Tomomi did not tell me in detail what books she reads, but I know that the type of parenting style she has been following is in line with these principles. (Glad she finally agreed to immunize Haruka after her initial reservations listening to some fanatics that are proponents of this theory thats not the mainstream theory). Its tough sometimes as she read books in Japanese and may get impatient trying to share everything in detail to me in English, especially complicated theoretical concepts like this. But let me go through a few tips in the coming weeks on this topic.

I will share the first principle - natural birth and pregnancy. I do understand that certain parents choose C-section or artificial insemination for various reasons, but whenever possible, natural birth and pregnancy leads to an attached parent to baby. Tomomi did not use any knives, surgery or anaesthetic in her natural birth. Sometimes, the pain and length of time in labor can prompt a quicker method encouraged by doctors. But if mother and daddy is healthy (with a strong heart, daddy needs to give the support to mummy by her side), patience through labor yields better results. According to this natural child birth site, it also makes the baby more alert which explains Haruka's eyes circling around the delivery room the moment she came out. When a mother and daddy is more attached to the child instead of leaving the child to play by herself all the time, the bond shapes up the child's psychology. I looked back and realized even when my bond with my dad was not strong in my teen years, he was taking me out for walks when I was a child coupled with the strong bond I had with my mum, helped me psychologically later in my current life facing mountains of stress by not giving up. This theory does mention that even if we do engage non-parental childcare, these childcare givers need to love the child and maintain healthy secure attachments with the baby/child. Here is a photo of me and Tomomi at the delivery room. It was in a midwife room where their hands are well trained to receive babies with the right eye to know the direction the mother needs to push to get the baby out without knives. I read with interest a mum sharing about making birth a family event to get the second child involved in childbirth. Involvement in birth and parenting is truly the theme of attached parenting.