There’s a lot at stake with how we raise our children, with how our communities view and treat children. We, as a society, are slow to put into practice what research solidly shows as the most effective, and healthiest, way to parent. We, as a society, still struggle to see how the parent-child relationship and the home environment it creates translates not only to that child’s happiness as a child but also as an adult, as well as the lives that person will touch, especially his or her own children.

Many of the mothers and mothers-to-be that I talk to are young—teens and early 20s—a challenging group to promote healthy parenting practices to, as they are still growing and developing themselves. We know this anecdotally. We also know this scientifically. This 2010 UK study is among many that show that the brain doesn’t reach maturity as once theorized until people are at least age 30. Executive functioning, such as planning and decision-making, social awareness and behavior, empathy and other personality traits, are the last bits of cognitive functions to fully develop.

This is also why it’s most important to educate these young mothers’ personal support networks. Unlike older mothers and mothers-to-be who look more to professionals and evidence-based resources for guidance in their choices, overwhelmingly young mothers seek and follow advice from their peers, significant others, and family members regardless of whether they are “with the times.” These young mothers’ own mothers are especially influential. This is also a challenge in that the older generation raised children differently than what is now recommended.

We really have to be careful with what terms we use, when we refer to our children. Even if not spoken aloud, the labels that we put on our children in our own minds can influence the way we interact with them and consequently how they grow up thinking of themselves.

Recently, a woman told me that she’s glad that she held her babies when they were younger and coslept with them and breastfed them on demand, even though they were clingy, because it was only for short time that they are that small and want to be that close to Mom around the clock. Another woman in my position might have smiled and nodded, knowingly, or if she disagreed, might have rolled her eyes. Instead, I smiled and told her that her babies weren’t clingy: They were normal!

Biologically normal babies—babies who are developmentally right on track—want to be held all the time, they want to be breastfed on demand, they want to sleep in Mom’s room at night, they want to learn from the world from Mom’s physical and emotional safety. Clingy is a term that is only used for babies when their normal child development isn’t taken into consideration.

Last weekend, I picked up the fourth edition of A Child Is Born by Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, an absolutely brilliant, breath-taking photographic journey of a baby’s development from conception to birth. I am using it as a way of introducing sex to my children, the oldest of whom is six years old.

Some parents, especially of the generations before me, might gasp at the idea of teaching pre-pubic children about sex, but children are learning about sex younger and younger with every generation. I’m not just talking about images of sex on TV or what kids gossip about on the playground, but even more so, what their parents are modeling to them about their view of sex.

I’m hard core when it comes to attachment-minded parenting practices in my home. I’m full-on natural birthing, breastfeeding, bedsharing, holding baby all the time, stay-at-home mommying or bringing baby to work with me, and loving guidance—which is why it surprises people that I don’t automatically condemn other parenting styles. For example, in another post, I made a statement that I don’t find spanking to be necessarily abusive and one person commented that this was Attachment Parenting heresy.

No, I don’t think that spanking has any place in an AP home. But, I’m also not naïve enough to think that spanking doesn’t sometimes happen. It may not be spanking—for some of us, our vice is yelling or sending a child to his room. We all make mistakes, and the idea that an AP parent never loses her cool is unrealistic. As importantly, we are all in different places on our own parenting journeys and just because a parent is still working on her issues and emotions doesn’t make her a bad parent.

Balance, as in balance between family and personal time, is an elusive component in parenthood. I, as well as any mother I know, have been chasing the perfect balance since my first trimester of my first pregnancy. I have learned many lessons through the years on how to balance parenthood, career, marriage, and me time. But still, it seems that any formula for balance that I find only works for a few weeks before something – illness, car needs repair, a giant work project, and so on – forces me to throw all up in the air again and re-organize.

In the last post, I introduced a situation between my daughters that required parental intervention: My daughters had been playing on the bed when one fell off. My older daughter immediately apologized, but my younger daughter would not hear of it and lashed out angrily.

I had asked you to let me know how you would’ve dealt with it. This was to be an exercise in looking at this common situation in a new light – instead of thinking that child needs a timeout, considering what else might be going on to contribute to the situation.

I’ll admit, sibling rivalry is difficult to deal with. But, I’ll give you a hint – the unmet need in this case had nothing to do with her sister, the bed, the fall, or their father. It was a basic need for attention.

My kids yell at each other. One of them is yelling at the other right now. My husband is dealing with it, although by the sound of it, I may have to step in.

Last week, I posted something on my Facebook page about my parenting style:

“I do parent differently. I don’t spank, I don’t punish. I don’t use reward systems. I guide, I teach. My kids are happy, loving, and I often get compliments on their good behavior. I breastfed on demand, I coslept. I base my parent on individual relationships with each of my children, I base my parenting on that children have equal worth as adults. And, when fully embraced, it works. For me, for my kids, and for my husband. Especially for my marriage, because the attitude I take toward my kids is the same that I take toward my husband. I accept, I love unconditionally, I love our differences. It’s a different way of looking at kids, at parenting, at marriage, at the world. And it has a name: Attachment Parenting.”

I got 11 likes. But that wasn’t the point.

Our hearts hurt today, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School. As you draw your children closer, Attachment Parenting International shares these resources on being a safe haven for our children if they are aware of this recent tragedy:

Helping your children manage distress in the aftermath of a shooting
American Psychological Association

Talking to Children About the School Shooting
Susan Stiffelman, Parenting without Power Struggles

Talking with Children about Upsetting News Events
Massachusetts General Hospital

Resources from Mothering on talking with children about tragedy
Mothering.com

Helping Children with Scary News
PBS.org Parents

Little Listeners in an Uncertain World
Zero to Three

How to Talk with Kids about Tragedies like School Shooting
Dr. Laura Markham, Aha! Parenting.com

Helping Children Heal
Attachment Parenting International

Children and Grief
The Attached Family.com

Children and Death
The Attached Family.com

I was shocked to hear of actress Mayim Bialik’s divorce recently, just six months since the release of her parenting memoir, Beyond the Sling. Many people would say they weren’t. They would say that she was too invested in her children, in her style of parenting, to be able to sustain her marriage. And, of course, they would bring up the cosleeping as a major cause of unrest in the union.

How about that their divorce is occurring because marriage is just plain hard? No matter whether you parent this way or that. No matter whether your marriage has major relationship difficulties, such as mental illness, or not. It’s just hard. Two very different people living in close quarters – more if you add in kids – and a constant balancing and re-balancing of individual versus family versus couple priorities. That’s hard!