Helping a grade school child who has always been surrounded by his or her parents learn to adapt to sleeping alone can be a difficult task. While the exact age is dependent on parental styles, here are some reasons why it's a good idea to mobilize your child to learn to sleep on her own.
I like who they are turning out to be. And while I don't attribute their delightfulness entirely to attachment parenting, I do think that being raised with such extravagant love as had a profoundly positive effect on my kids. In my experience, here are some of the long-term benefits of attachment parenting.
As parents -- as people! -- we all (I'm pretty sure all of us, yes?) wish there were a simple way, a method that is tried and true and guaranteed to get us the results we hope for... be this a fitness program, a healthy diet, a supplement protocol, a parenting handbook, a financial plan, a spiritual practice, a qualified approach to ANYTHING.
It can be seen at any long grocery store line-up: the older brother starts pestering the younger sister who is asking the parent for the 27th time to please buy them that sugar-loaded treat. The parent is becoming increasingly exasperated.
Helicopter parenting has become the go-to buzz word in the child-raising world. Everybody is critical of parents deemed to be overly protective of their child and helicopter parenting has become blamed for the failure of children everywhere to successfully grow up.
When we feel supported in this essential way our bandwidth for meeting life's challenges expands. Adult human needs are pretty simple really and when they are met we are likely to thrive and live rich, satisfying and ultimately fulfilling lives.
My vision for Meera is that she will walk through the world emanating the feeling that she has been raised in a loving and caring two-home family and that as a result of this she will move with joyful grace trusting the stable base of love within her as she rises up to welcome the life that is hers to live.
