The Successful Child

!: The Successful Child

For over twenty years, the Sears have been leading parenting experts in the US with over a dozen published books in the Sears Parenting Library. This book follows up on their other works including: Attachment Parenting, The Discipline Book, and The Birth Book. It explores how the parent child relationship grows and changes as the child ages and gives some simple tools that parents can use to maximise their child's potential at each stage of development.

One of the key differences between the Sears and other parenting 'experts' is that despite a medical degree from Harvard, over 30 years in practice as a paediatrician, and eight children of their own, they firmly advocate that you are the expert on your child. Rather than give parents sets of strict rules to follow, they offer what they call tools.

We realize that every family is different, so your lifestyle, your baby's personality, and your own temperament will influence how you put these attachment tools to work. If you find that medical circumstances or other issues get in the way of using some of these tools, keep in mind that the goal is to get connected to your infant. Attachment parenting is not about following rules; it's about strengthening relationships. The Successful Child, page 14

The Sears believe that rather than being a new parenting technique attachment parenting is actually what is instinctual. I would have to agree, especially considering that it is how I have raised my children...my oldest was born five years before their first book was published and until six months ago I had never read any of their works. What the books do is bolster parents' confidence that they are doing the best they can for their children in a world where 'experts' know more about children than parents.

So if you feel as the Sears do that success is best defined as:
1. To be a person who forms meaningful relationships with others
2. To be empathetic and compassionate
3. To be kind and polite
4. To be smart
5. To be healthy
6. To make wise choices; to think and act morally
7. To have confidence
8. To have a healthy attitude toward sexuality
9. To communicate well
10. To have a joyful attitude

Then perhaps you should check out The Successful Child by William Sears, MD and Martha Sears, RN with Elizabeth Pantley. I highly recommend it.