Thursday, July 25, 2013

THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTACHMENT STYLE PARENTING

Simply put, the better a person's parenting skills the more likely their offspring will not only survive but thrive!

This can even be seen in the animal kingdom.
 Let's take most fish, they usually have little or nothing to do with their eggs and baby fish (there are exceptions).
Most fish lay eggs and abandon them offering no parental care or support.
With this lack of support, fish need an extreme number of  fry or offspring to even insure any will survive.
 A few like many species of the Cichlid family actually stay around and protect their young till they are old enough to protect themselves. The benefit is these fish have become very intelligent fish. with a high survival rate.
 Octopus who also protect their eggs and young are very intelligent. The mother is actually so protective that she refuses to leave them to find food and eventually dies from starvation.

As we go across the animal kingdom we continue to find the level of nurturing offspring and intelligence go hand and hand with parental protection and support and nurturing.
 Almost all mammals practice what we call attachment style parenting, while most reptiles practice detachment style parenting.

As animals evolve they parent more lovingly and their social skills and their intelligence increases. However within any given species some individuals, mostly those who are in captivity, may parent less diligently and/or lovingly.
The results besides having an effect on future generations, is an effect on  the offspring in ways we are only beginning to imagine, including these findings that you can look at on; Mothers action affect baby.  Francis Champagne, Josie Diorio, Shakt:Sharma andMichael J. Meaney... " "When a baby girl rat got an extraordinary amount of lick based attention from her mother she went on to have higher than average levels  of estrogen and oxytocin" These findings suggest that maternal licking/grooming influences the development of of estrogen sensitivity in the brain regions that regulate maternal behavior, providing a potential mechanism for the inter-generational oral transmission of individual differences in maternal behavior." 
Male babies from different species who got lots of maternal attention grow to be more protective and very strong members of their species. Perhaps this is due to confidence from nurturing.

This illustrates the extreme importance of care a baby should receive and the absurdness of the concept of 'the baby self soothing fad'  which will produce less connection to the mother and father and the human race as a whole.
Plus the next generation will also likely suffer and down the line it will go unfortunately, unless there is some intervention or healing on the individual.

I think many of you have seen the pattern including the usual superior intelligence of mammals and birds and the social skills of both and the usual caring and nurturing style parenting of both.

 A wild orangutan for example has only one baby at a time and nurses that baby for 7 years, the first few months almost constantly then several times a day for years and at 4 years of age nursing becomes a few times a day and over the next 3 years once a day or so or sometimes less ( offspring's choice), this very gradual weaning goes on for the last 3 years of the 7 year nursing period.
Wild Chimps nurse for 4 years. Both of these species practice attachment style parenting in the wild and except for humans encroaching on their habitat, they are extremely successful species.

Such dedication to parenting has brought many species to the top of survival and has contributed greatly to the intelligence within the species.

 If nurturing a child is a way to insure survival and a higher intelligence, why are so many parents behaving as if their presence and dedication is not very important?
Some people seem to feel like parenting is of second rate importance.

I feel and I hope you do too, that there is no other job in the world that is so very very important!
It is time we honor parents that are doing it in a patient and loving way!