What is Progressive Parenting?

‘The Shepherdess’ parenting philosophy is based on Progressive Parenting.  The progressive parenting theory has its roots in attachment theory, which was originally proposed by John Bowlby who stated that an infant has a tendency to seek closeness to another person and feel secure when that person is present. Attachment theory encourages parents to listen to their babies cues and respond. It argues that any training or controlling over a baby by following a routine (such as controlled crying or sleep training) is damaging to the child and the connection they have with their parents.   Backed up by the latest research in the fields of sociology, zoology, anthropology, child psychology, neurology and psycho-history, Progressive Parenting extends the AP philosophy past the early years, and argues that parents need to continue to follow their child’s cues and unique needs, avoiding all form of discipline and punishment including time-out, rewards, praise, shame, and smacking.

Every day I help parents who want to be more progressive in their approach to move away from control and closer to connection.  Is it easy?  No, not always –parenting is a tough gig no matter what style you adopt.  No denials here.  But what this approach does promise is more joy and harmony with your brood than you ever imagined possible.  Won’t kids end up as unruly monsters?  Let’s be clear here –  parents should keep their kids safe and encourage respectful, socially acceptable behaviour.  But there are ways to do that without being controlling to the extent that children don’t have choices and options.  Children are still learning and figuring out their world and to do that they don’t need their requests denied and to be punished when they make mistakes; they need guidance and feedback. They need information and support. They need patience. They need to be listened to, validated and respected. They need a supporter rather than a dictator, an ally not an adversary. A wing-man. A partner. A friend.  They need doors opened to them rather than closed. They need a guide, not a policeman. They need a shepherdess.

So I encourage you to come here and ask questions, share your stories, concerns, problems and tips with us and maybe I will use them in my next book!  Here’s to progressive parenting and more peaceful homes around the world!

- The Shepherdess

Follow Your Heart not the Crowd

I have found that there is a very disturbing phenomenon relating to what happens to we mothers who follow a progressive approach to child-rearing. It appears that we commonly find ourselves judged harshly and marginalised. Although we are turning in our droves to child-centred methods of mothering, we are forced to do it secretly or risk ostracism. There is significant social and professional pressure to conform by not exceeding the limits of nurturance that our community feels comfortable with.
Breastfeeding in public places can bring disdainful looks and comments and requests to move elsewhere. It can be so hard to be strong enough to let people around us be responsible for their own prejudices. It is so sad that something so beautiful and natural can be made to feel ugly. When the sting of disapproving stares becomes too much, many of us turn to breastfeeding in secret, especially if our child is over six months. Mothers have confided in me the hurtful comments they have received from family and friends regarding extended breastfeeding. They have been accused of ‘doing it for themselves’, ‘being unable to let go’, ‘encouraging clinginess’, ‘being weak’ and their baby labelled as ‘manipulative’. Some poor women have even had relatives tell them it is ‘sick and perverse’ and demand it is not done in their presence.
Co-sleeping can also attract equal scorn with dire warnings of ‘they’ll never be independent’, ‘you’re making them needy and spoilt’ and ‘you’ll never get them out’. Also not smacking, punishing or yelling at our children is seen by many as ‘lazy mothering’ or ‘unparenting’ and can receive unwelcome comments from friends, family and neighbours.  As difficult as it is for us to resist the pressure to conform when it comes from friends and family, coercion coming from health
professionals can be all the more damaging. I have heard of many mothers who have been advised to use controlled crying methods, to turn to formula, not to co-sleep and to use punitive discipline, by child health practitioners.

Fortunately more and more practitioners are now being trained in the benefits of attachment and progressive parenting methods. It seems that many people get very angry and vocal when confronted with a progressive parent – as if it is a personal insult to them. The reasons why we progressive parents and our children are viewed with disdain may be several and complex. Perhaps the possibility of deeper intimacy with our children can feel threatening if we already feel exhausted. It may be that exposure to it painfully reminds us of what we ourselves didn’t receive as a child. We tend to misguidedly get angry at those who trigger these feelings in us; we blame them and condemn them – a kind of ‘shooting the messenger’.
Some people just do not want to question the status quo and being exposed to progressive parents may force them to.
What is thought of as ‘normal’ is a reflection of our cultural bias and has nothing to do with what babies and child actually
need. Undoubtedly many of our old notions of discipline are changing and child-rearing is undergoing some very positive and evolutionary changes. Nevertheless, much of our world continues to be indifferent, at times even hostile, to those of us who wish to follow more progressive methods. I believe a far higher proportion of us would aspire to adopt the progressive parenting philosophy, if our society more adequately supported it. We can all take comfort in the fact that, although we may feel marginalised and unsupported today, that may not be the case tomorrow.

- Chaley

Bullying Begins at Home

When you teach children that a bigger person can and should dominate and manipulate a smaller person then it is easy to see how this can affect the whole of society. The seeds of bullying, domination, aggression, dictatorships all begin in the mind of a small child that was taught that stronger people can and should exert power over the weak. We can never move towards world peace until the power-based relationships in our homes are eradicated.
The media attention given recently to the phenomenon of bullying in schools is truly a cause for celebration. Finally our world has begun to take seriously the plight of children: the most powerless sector of the community. Initiatives under way in schools are designed to intervene by identifying bullies and their victimsand then providing counselling and education in more effective social skills. Programs have been developed to teach school bullies alternative behaviours, impulse control, conflict resolution and negotiation skills. The victims of bullying are offered support, protection and trained in assertiveness wherever practicable.
This is only a partial solution because it doesn’t address the core of the problem. If in our attempts to eliminate violence from schools, we narrow our focus to treating the bully, we might label them a ‘bad child’. It is all too easy and very tempting to blame bullies for their bullying behaviour. We single them out, brand them as ‘behavioural problem child’, or perhaps the ‘attention deficit child’. When we ask a child who is hurting to bear all of the responsibility for their aggressive behaviour, we have in a way retaliated by bullying the bully. This in fact adds up to ignoring that a bully is in
pain, they have been hurt in some way and are acting out their hurt on others. The truth is that violence does not sprout from within children, it is a symptom of families that are hurting, perhaps with members that are hurting each other – either physically or emotionally.
If we believe that better social interaction skills can be learned, by implication we must also believe that violent and dominating tendencies are also learned. Bullying is best understood as an adaptive behaviour that makes sense within certain family environments. A study by Baldry A.C. and Farrington D.P. (Journal of Legal and Criminological Psychology, September 1998) examined 11-14-year-old school children who reported being bullies and/or victims. Both types of children were found to come from homes where conventional styles of parenting were employed. It must be understood that bullying behaviour is a reaction to powerlessness. To consider bullies as offenders is superficial, when in fact, they are victims. The fundamental way in which the family operates must change, through exposure to alternative
means of parenting to power-based parenting.
As long as any kind of control and power is sanctioned in the home, there will be bullies. Bullies in schools, bullies in the community, bullies in the workplace, bullies in politics and so on. There will also be victims. This is not a fact of life, but an artefact of history. Historians and anthropologists have only recently discovered that, up until very recently and for most of human history, child-rearing has tended to be extremely violent and dangerously controlling. It is, therefore, no wonder that power-based relationships persist in so many forms, across all age groups and that most of us are capable of slipping and treating our children harshly on occasions, even if we strive against it.
The good news is that the beating, spanking and verbal abuse of children is on its way out as an overall world trend, but
manipulative control remains firmly grounded in our parenting culture. If we stop bullying in our home – cutting it off dead at the source – and remember that every bully we meet is someone who is being or has been bullied, our world will become a better place. Kimmel (Why We Hurt Our Children, The Natural Child Project) summed it up beautifully when he argued that punishment and power-based control in the parent-child relationship will only do damage to the human race. ‘Punishing our children sabotages the nurturing and protective feelings that we evolved to have towards them. It destroys the unity of parent and child. It teaches us to violate the rights of others. As a socially condoned practice in child rearing, it damages and insults the human species.’
After years working as a psychologist with disturbed children, Kimmel makes this equally profound statement in the preface of his book, Whatever Happened to Mother? ‘I am indebted to my children – Karen, Mike, Nima, from whom I learned what human beings need and to the emotionally disturbed children I worked with, from whom I learned what happens when human beings do not get what they need.’  We need to change the way we all interact with children. I believe society has no more urgent task.

-Chaley

If I Let Them…

So often parents  are incredibly fearful of the progressive approach to parenting. They commonly see the logic but express that they don’t think it will work for their children. Because their children are different. Their children are too wild and unruly and they NEED rules, otherwise there would be chaos. With their permission, here are some of their comments:
• If I let them they would live off chocolate and watch horror
films all day.
• My son would only eat bugs if I let him.
• My daughter would kill her sister and the dogs and the cat
if I let her.
• My twins would only play computer games all day and
never eat and never sleep if I let them.
• I know he would run in the road and disappear down the
street and get abducted.
• My boys are so lazy and rude that if I didn’t say anything
they would just play all day long.
• If I answered every question my son asked I would be
answering questions all day long.
• If he had his way all I would do is play with him all day long.
• If she had her choice all I would do is hold her 24/7 (this
was about a 6-month-old baby)
• All she wants to do is talk to me all day if I let her.
• If I let them do what they wanted the house would be burnt
down.
• If I didn’t make them do chores my house would be
condemned, full of garbage and bugs.
• If they had free reign they would roam the streets, steal, lie,
hit people, stay up all night, eat junk all day long, swear
and get put in jail.
When we look closely at how we view our children it isn’t very nice is it?. The truth is that all children are capable and intrinsically motivated to learn generosity, respect, politeness, curiosity, gentleness, consideration, and social graces when given the freedom to do so.

Positive Parenting Attitude

So often a parent’s attitude to parenting, childhood and life itself will be a huge barrier to successful child-rearing. Our children will not benefit from having a parent who is negative, pessimistic, cynical and critical.  They will not benefit from a parent who is stuck around the ‘hassle of parenting’ or the ‘sacrifice’ of it all, rather than embracing parenting as a blessing and a gift. What they will benefit from is a parent with a lust for life, a sense of wonder and a positive, joyful outlook.
Negative thoughts affect the whole body and negativity is contagious and harmful to a child. Parents who have thoughts
that paint their life as powerless, who forget that parenting is a choice and a gift, who get drawn into thoughts of ‘I have to’ or ‘I am forced to’, need to refocus.  Parents who feel hard-done-by, anxious or fearful a lot of the time will have a body, face and voice that will be saying to their child ‘I’m needy’ and ‘I’m a victim’ and ‘I’m scared of the world”. They won’t be able to support their child; they will drain them. If ever we feel that we don’t have enough – time, money, space, food, stuff – we need to think about how much we actually need to be a loving parent. We can and should make this change!

Think about it – how much money do we need to smile at our child? How much stuff do we need to play with them or speak to them warmly and hold them lovingly? How much space do we need to enjoy a game, a song or a tickle session with our child? We need to stop looking at what we don’t have or what we can’t do, and start focusing on what we do have and what we can do. Once we reframe our situation and start to see ourselves as rich in love and life only then can we parent successfully. What we choose to say and do and feel will affect how our child feels  about themselves and about the world.  We have the power to make our child feel as big or as small as we choose, and to see the world as either glorious or garbage.

- Chaley.

Finding The Yes

Progressive parents focus on listening to the needs of their child, validating those needs and responding. We shouldn’t judge what our child wants but accept it as valid and do everything we can to try and meet that need. We need to try and ‘find the yes’ in any request our child is communicating to us (in their words or actions). In our culture we tend to say no so commonly it becomes almost a verbal tic for us – but why don’t we make more of an effort to always ‘find the yes’ for our child? Why are we always saying no?
Of course, this can be very difficult in the real world and sometimes safety, nature and time stop us from saying yes. The point is, though, we throw around the word ‘no’ for arbitrary reasons all the time, or simply for our own convenience. I have often thought if mothers were given a set of 200 ‘no’ cards when their baby was born, that once they ran out of they could no longer use, it would be interesting to see how quickly they were used up. In two years? Three? How wonderful if there were still some left over when they reached adulthood.
Progressive parents try not to use ‘no’ as their default response and say yes more – or some form of yes. It can be helpful to think that unless the request is a genuine safety issue then why not? Progressive parents  see their role as doing their utmost to ‘find the yes’ in any request – putting their child’s needs before what’s most convenient for them and dropping arbitrary rules for why they can’t do something.
‘Yes’ can come in all forms:

Yes, we can do that when I have finished this – if you help me we
can do it even sooner.
Yes, you can have that – let’s look at ways to help you save the
money.
Yes, we can do that later as I am tired or busy right now.
Yes, you can jump up and down, but how about we take it outside?
Yes, you can draw or paint on walls – but how about we do it on the
garage walls, or in the yard?
Yes, you can eat in the lounge – let me get a blanket for you or a
tray.
Yes, you can do some hammering – let’s move it outside and get
you some things you can smash.

Saying yes and affirming our children as human beings is a gift to everyone involved. So go ahead, say yes to your kids!

-Chaley.

Progressive Parenting: No Rules, Restrictions or Control!

Conventional mothering wisdom is all about restriction and control and rules. Time-outs, smacking, punishments, shaming, yelling, rewards, consequences, restrictions and limits are common parenting tools to encourage ‘good’ behaviour.  These all cause considerable damage to the child and the parent-child relationship.  But what exactly are the alternatives?  Is it really possible to raise happy, well-adjusted, socially acceptable children without any control measures at all?
I realise that what I am proposing is very hard to grasp when the only models you have experienced are either rules or no rules. Of course, our children do need help figuring out the world. They can’t do it alone and they don’t want to. Parents who don’t give their kids any guidance or feedback or help in making decisions aren’t being progressive, or kind for that matter. Progressive parenting is about being their support and information system as they navigate the world. It is a rejection of the traditional power-based relationship we commonly have with our children, replacing it with a partnership based on love, trust and mutual respect.

What is Progressive Parenting in a Nutshell?
Progressive parents use no form of discipline at all and focus on principles rather than rules. The focus is on
continuing the attachment built up in the early years, by using gentle guidance and support rather than conventional practices. Conventional parenting is conditional. It focuses on the destination whereas progressive parenting focuses on the journey. Conventional parenting is goal-orientated – it’s about ensuring our children have the best behaviour, get into the best school, best university and ultimately get the best job. Progressive parenting is all about enjoying our children ‘in the now’ and guiding them on their journey to becoming their true selves.  Progressive parents know and trust in their child’s innate ability to learn everything they need in life to become whole, happy human beings.

Maternal Instincts: Should We Listen to Them?

It is extremely important to question what you feel your natural instinct and your heart is telling you as a mother. When we aren’t mindful, it can often feel instinctual and natural to shame, belittle and hit our kids because we are damaged and hurt from a life of pressure, shame, rules, and “have to’s.” From a wounded place, our intuition and instinct are wounded too and, if we listen unthinkingly, it will feel like our heart is saying, “It’s what was done to me, and I turned out fine.”
So often what we think is our ‘natural instinct’ or our first instinct is in fact something else entirely. Usually it is the voices of our own childhood and of society we hear loudest, but those are the ones that come to the surface when we are tired, stressed out, sick, or unhappy. Some parents believe following their heart or instinct means they should trust their urge to hit and shame and discipline and control their children. When a person yells at, or hits their child, they are not following their true natural born maternal instincts or intuitive nature because they have been obliterated by social conditioning, cultural environment, and fear. Question your ‘instincts’, and if what you are doing in any moment isn’t creating more peace and harmony in your home – don’t do it! – Chaley.