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Pastimes : The New Judge Bleonard's Assorted Reef Life&Bottom Feeders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (129)	6/17/1998 5:13:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 174

Alex, it sounds like you have gotten your knowledge of Dr. Spock from the religious right or something!! They don't like him very much, and in the very simplistic way that they attack most issues, have blamed almost everything that happened to the Boomers on his sweet little child care book. When Dr. Spock started writing, American children were essentially seen but not heard from; the fashion in child rearing was very strict and stern. The needs of the developing child were not considered at all. A prime example of that was scheduled feedings. Regardless of how much your baby was crying from hunger, the parent was supposed to ignore the poor little thing until the written schedule said it was time to be fed again. It was also thought that responding to a crying baby's needs, in general, would spoil the child. What Dr. Spock did, over a long period of time (his writings evolved gradually over many editions and years), was to urge parents to respond to their child's needs, to treat the child as an individual with a personality and feelings. He recommended feeding on demand, for example. I know from having a baby that she did not always get hungry on a schedule. It would have seemed cruel indeed to ignore her cries of hunger because it wasn't two o'clock yet. What responding to a baby's needs tell the baby is that it is loved and cared for, safe and protected. Healthy personalities develop out of having infantile needs met. Hunger is physically painful to a child, and being helpless, crying out for help and not being responded to causes a child to feel helpless and out of control. Babies like this shut down emotionally over time, becoming actually numb as a defensive protection. Spock never counseled that a parent should get out of a child's way, discipline wise. When he started writing, he still advocated that spanking was an acceptable disciplinary method, in fact. He changed his position later, because he came to believe that it was unnecessary. I cannot find my copy at the moment, but I cannot remember anything permissive about Spock at all. He did advocate that parents should trust themselves--not to be afraid of parenting. But as far as I can remember, he believed in gentle, but firm and consistent, discipline. Parental permissiveness and parental authoritarianism are equally negative in rearing healthy children. And children learn almost totally by example. I have no idea what really caused a wave of parental permissiveness, but I know it could not have been Dr. Spock. pathfinder.com@@mTaETQUAHMRUvlyw/ParentTime/Newsroundup/spockobit.html usnews.com