Is this the same couple that bit each other’s fingers off? Because her hands look intact in her flickr photos, just wondering. Gillian is gorgeous in her wedding photos and I noticed 10 well manicured nails unless I am counting wrong. Thanks

Yes “human beings” are not like most other living things but it you look hard enough and long enough you’ll discover that nature tries everything and if it works – there it is. If a little baby wolf does not shut the fuck up either his dad is going to eat him or the cougar his caterwauling has attracted to the den. Shannon’s “attached parenting” was a dirty little secret between himself and his mother. It was a power struggle he won. Now being a “tooth and claw” guy – I approve this message and his victory.

You must be aware of a phrase “learned incapacity” something that can happen to any of us when we are too young to defend ourselves. By the time Shannon went to school he was an artist able to create and had created paintings very much in the style to which he has evolved.

I can remember a few months into school he came home with these horrid stick figures as the teachers were teaching him how not to draw. Well a parent home-schooling their kids could do the same thing if they too were unable to draw or paint. It just happens that Shannon’s mother can paint and can play a piano (that’s a new pt) – if you have the unwisdom I had to wish to burden your children with winning (more about that later) – do three things early –
1./ Teach them to draw 2./ to play a musical instrument – and better a violin than a piano – and 3./ how to catch a ball (hand to eye).

A second language but when they are babes (damn – I’m up to four things and better stop counting). If you are over twenty – learning a 2nd language might be a practical thing to do – I mean if you’re boating to Cuba – learn some Spanish but don’t expect it to do as much for you as it can do for a babe during that zero to six period (the most critical time)
For making the best of what you got at birth.

In my case it my explicit memory begins when I was three years old and some of those memories are as important and as vivid as what my cup of expresso tasted like yesterday. What about you?

Thank each of you who has posted for not accusing us of suggesting “if you are hungry why don’t you eat cake” but having said that – I am thanking you and wishing you well in the completion of your PhD as that will you a professional voice to say something that should be common sense.

There is some evidence that an infant’s affectively structured interactions with its peers are fundamental to its cognitive growth. This doesn’t just mean language acquisition; it also includes non-linguistic social interactions.

Even very young infants seek out emotional engagements with others, and it appears to matter a great deal to them that such relations should be maintained. Infants whose attempts to engage affectively with their caregivers are not met can become withdrawn and stop attempting to interact to the same extent. The concern here is that much infant learning is social in nature, such that anything that undermines the infant’s social interactions may have implications for its learning.

Many of the milestones of cognitive development are social in nature – for example, joint attention. This emerges around 9 or 10 months and is when infant and caregiver both attend to the same object, and to one another’s attention to that object. It appears to play a necessary role in language learning. (It is also something not done naturally by apes, and something that autistic kids struggle with.) It’s plausible that what makes joint-attention between infant and caregiver possible has its roots in affective interaction – in particular, in the infant’s desire to share its experiences with others. It strikes me as possible that anything that undermines these interactions could have damaging repercussions for the infant’s development.

In some very extreme cases, infants whose social interactions have not been nurtured properly have developed autism-like symptoms. The extremity of these cases should not be under-emphasised – the best evidence is drawn from the infants in orphanages in Ceaucescu’s Romania, where infants received astonishing levels of neglect and where ASD symptoms were massively higher than normal. However, less dramatic effects have also been seen in infants of bi-polar mothers, the qualities of whose social-interactions can suffer. These cases have best been described by Peter Hobson, in his book ‘The Cradle of Thought’. I’d recommend it highly.

Now of course, there’s a big difference between wholesale neglect and leaving your infant to ‘toughen up’ by letting it cry. But if the radical neglect cases risk leaving your infant retarded, then it would seem not unreasonable to suspect that the milder cases could still be damaging. I won’t speculate on what these might be, since that extends beyond what I know about. But I would say that the evidence points to the fact that affective interaction, grounded in responsiveness to emotional needs, should be nurtured. They seem to play a hughely significant role in explaning human cognitive development – albeit a role that is not yet fully understood.

he wasn’t super rich and it was costing him a ton. I remember him and the dynamic between himself and the kids – well by then high school albeit he had some younger kids in the junior school

my sense is that they would have rather been day students like Ashleigh but they all believed it was better to board

the point is – it was working and i am sure it works still because those kids know how much love is driving their parents to not attachment parent

i don’t think my father even noticed me till i was old enough to drive a ten ton grain truck and double clutch and work a six speed transmission with a two-speed eaton rear end.

this was back when the hills – really ancient river banks were 20-30 degrees steep and the only way you make the grade is to hit the bottom of the bank at 75 mph then make 10-12 shifts down as you climb the bank with the truck

if you miss a shift the brakes won’t hold you’ll lose the load and if your lucky your life as you don’t want to explain it to you dad.

child abuse. i don’t think so.

Remember you were born in Victoria when I was doing the Amalgamation of the Medicare for the NDP so as a consequence all our friends without exception were serious card carrying socialists, tree huggers and friends of green peace. No “Kill a Whale for Jesus” bumper stickers in your zero to six… The first two years of your life were lived in a Tudor Mansion in Sannich. It was a big place plus a lot of grounds to care for. Goldfish the size of catfish. Once I was out the door in the morning your Mother could not set you down without you belting out a caterwauling that had her carrying you around till about 3:00 pm in the afternoon by which time Maggie would show up – and between them they would blitz the housework the grounds and Kathleen would start dinner – I knew nothing of this till years later when kv was lamenting that while I had not done a damn thing – true – never changed a diaper – the children knew nothing of her sacrifices in contrast with my program of enslavement – true – putting you to work programming, and Devon bringing in the firewood and so on.

To shorten this up – Devon got less of this pure attachment parenting which you demanded and got. Maybe it had something to do with us moving into Victoria or the dynamics of being a 2nd child. Devon never did that. Is it something primal like the more Adults around the safer I am. By the time Ashleigh was born – as the photo record attests – she had four parents – you and Devon adored her and ten years her senior did a lot of great parenting as you are so plainly doing with Ari.

Were I to join this argument it would be to the point that if you the parent ain’t enjoying it then why are you doing it. Get a Maggie Brucker to do it all. Hire a nanny. Or ship the kid off to Havergail or as with Ashleigh – Albert College – but boarding not day.

Mmm…future cake…