Major New Research Finds 40% of US Kids Are Poorly Attached–Middle Class Families Included.

Posted on September 15, 2016 by GREG

–New study reveals why parenting is THE social justice issue of our time.–

Image: Shutterstock

In a study of 14,000 U.S. children, 40 percent lack strong emotional bonds — what psychologists call “secure attachment”

Written by researchers from Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, the report uses data collected by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative U.S. study of 14,000 children born in 2001. The researchers also reviewed more than 100 academic studies.

Their analysis shows that about 60 percent of children develop strong attachments to their parents, which are formed through simple actions, such as holding a baby lovingly and responding to the baby’s needs. Such actions support children’s social and emotional development, which, in turn, strengthens their cognitive development, the researchers write. These children are more likely to be resilient to poverty, family instability, parental stress and depression. Additionally, if boys growing up in poverty have strong parental attachments, they are two and a half times less likely to display behavior problems at school.

The approximately 40 percent who lack secure attachments, on the other hand, are more likely to have poorer language and behavior before entering school. This effect continues throughout the children’s lives, and such children are more likely to leave school without further education, employment or training, the researchers write. Among children growing up in poverty, poor parental care and insecure attachment before age four strongly predicted a failure to complete school. Of the 40 percent who lack secure attachments, 25 percent avoid their parents when they are upset (because their parents are ignoring their needs), and 15 percent resist their parents because their parents cause them distress.

Susan Campbell, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said insecure attachments emerge when primary caregivers are not “tuned in” to their infant’s social signals, especially their cries of distress during infancy. “When helpless infants learn early that their cries will be responded to, they also learn that their needs will be met, and they are likely to form a secure attachment to their parents,” Campbell said. “However, when caregivers are overwhelmed because of their own difficulties, infants are more likely to learn that the world is not a safe place — leading them to become needy, frustrated, withdrawn or disorganized. The researchers argue that many parents — including middle-class parents — need more support to provide proper parenting…. READ THE REST HERE.

Detachment is the atomic level of the Culture of Death. We cluck about the immorality of our culture, about poverty, crime, violence, and porn. And these are all horrible things. But we fail to see the foundation for all these social evils that Satan is building right under our feet and in our own homes. It’s easy to fuss about “the media” and “the culture” etc. But it is hard, genuinely, really, really hard, to go pick up that crying baby when we already feel drained. And yet this the great spiritually transformative work that lies at the heart of The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy.

Am I saying that exhausted mothers should torture themselves to meet everybody’s needs all by themselves? Absolutely not. Every person needs help and has a right to get whatever help they need to be their best selves. That should go without saying.

Attachment: The Root of Social Transformation

But every time Satan convinces a mother or father to remain consistently deaf to the cries of their children because it is somehow “bad” or even “unnecessary” or “ridiculous” to respond to those cries, he is laying the foundation for all these other social evils. As Catholics, if we want to evangelize the culture, if we want to beat poverty, make children resilient against the evils of our fallen world, decrease the crime rate, drug usage rates, incidence of promiscuity, and pornography rates, the single most important things we can do are 1) respond to our babies cries promptly, generously, and consistently, 2) shower our children with extravagant affection, and 3) use gentle guidance approaches to discipline that teach our children how to behavior virtuously instead of simply punishing bad behavior and crossing our fingers that they’ll figure out how to do what’s right on their own through the process of elimination.

Oversimplification? Survey says…

I realize that this strikes some people as a ridiculous oversimplification. I remember the editor of the new edition of Beyond the Birds and the Bees saying to me, incredulously, “It’s like you’re saying that the way to make our kids more moral is to hug them more.” And, although that is a bit of an exaggeration, yes. That is more or less exactly what I am saying. Or rather, that is, more or less, what hundreds of studies of tens of thousands of children over the last 60 years are saying. Over and over and over again.

And why should this come as such a surprise to us? Our Church tells us over and over–and especially in Pope St John Paul’s theology of the body–that we were created for communion. The family is the “icon of the Trinity” the most intimate communion that ever existed! And we are made in the image of that intimate communion. Relationship IS the very essence of our being. When we try to escape that reality, or ignore it, limit it, or tamp it down, bad things happen–to our kids, our families, and our world. We think that having children need us is somehow crippling. The exact opposite is true. Creating communion with our children is the most liberating thing we can do both for ourselves and for them.

Want To Change The World?

Are there lots of social ills? There sure are. But the cure really is pretty simple. As St. Teresa of Calcutta put it, “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your families.” It turns out, there’s a lot of research to support that pithy, but powerfully world-changing, sentiment.

If you want to discover more ways parents can change the world through love, check out Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood.

Hate Attachment Parenting? So Did This Mom. Here’s The Surprising Thing She Discovered.

Posted on August 31, 2016 by GREG

God gives us the children we need. He speaks to us through our children. We can listen for his voice, or let the noise in our heads tune it out. The choice is ours. Here’s one mother’s heartfelt struggle to learn to listen–and experience the healing that comes in hearing.

When my daughter Azalea was born, I was flooded with feelings of love. But it wasn’t long before I returned to a more familiar sense of myself, and that love was mixed with ambivalence, internal conflict, impatience, and sometimes anger. Yes, I adored my baby, the way she nose-breathed on me as she nursed, her milky smell, her beautiful face, her charming smiles, her bright energy. Her. I loved her. But I was exhausted and overwhelmed, and what might be expressed as irritability in some parents felt more like rage to me. I knew better than to express anger at a baby, but my control dials felt out of reach. I never hit or shook my daughter, but I did yell at her, in real and frightening fury. One time, when she was 6 months old, she was supposed to be taking a nap, but instead she was pulling herself up in her crib, over and over again, nonstop crying. I was over it, done, nothing left. I sat on the floor in her darkened room, and made my ugliest, angriest, face at her, seething, yelling at her to just…go…to…SLEEP.

If this had been a one-off, I could have rationalized that every parent loses it at some point. But this kind of heat was all too available to me. I would occasionally confess my behavior to my husband, a psychotherapist, but he rarely saw it up close. So as much as he, my own therapist, and my friends tried to support us both, I was largely alone in my shame. And my daughter was alone with a warm and loving and sometimes scary mom.

I had read Dr. Sears and his attachment-parenting ideas before Azalea was born, but I was deeply suspicious that a checklist of behaviors could teach anyone how to raise a human being. I would read things like “Respond to your baby’s cues,” and think, Right. As if. Her cues were often inscrutable and always exhausting. Sears’s cavalier oversimplification annoyed me to no end and added to the weight of expectations and disappointment.

As Azalea grew, some things got easier. Language helped. Her ever-increasing cuteness and sweetness helped. Our connection developed, and I loved doing things together — reading books, going to Target, cooking, cuddling, walking, hanging out with friends. Things were good. Except when they weren’t. Like the time in the grocery store as I was checking out with Thanksgiving groceries while struggling to manage Azalea’s unwieldy 10-month-old body in front of a line of blankly staring, silently huffing adults. I remember the jaw-setting, skin-tingling, adrenaline-pumping feeling of anger overtake me. While I don’t remember exactly what I said to my squirming baby, I will never forget the disgusted look on the checkout lady’s face, confirming that whatever outburst I settled on was definitely not okay.

In my dark moments, I felt like something inside me was missing, that thing that functions deep down that keeps us from hurting the people we love. But I also tried to remind myself that the cult of perfect parenthood is a myth, that there is no way to avoid making a mess of our kids one way or another. That gave me some peace. Then, when Azalea was 4, I interviewed Jon Kabat-Zinn, the [therapist and] mindfulness expert who has written many books, including Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of the Mindful Parent. I think I was hoping he might encourage me to set down my burden of guilt and shame, maybe even offer a God-like let it go. But that wasn’t what happened.

Kabat-Zinn: The meaning of being a parent is that you take responsibility for your child’s life until they can take responsibility for their own life. That’s it!

Me: That’s a lot.

Kabat-Zinn: True, and it doesn’t mean you can’t get help. Turns out how you are as a parent makes a huge difference in the neural development of your child for the first four or five years.

Me: That is so frightening.

Kabat-Zinn: All that’s required, though, is connection. That’s all.

Me: But I want to be separate from my child; I don’t want to be connected all the time.

Kabat-Zinn: I see. Well, everything has consequences. How old is your child?

Me: Four and a half.

Kabat-Zinn: Well, I gotta say, I have very strong feelings about that kind of thing. She didn’t ask to be born.

I knew then that I needed to figure out why I am the kind of mother I am, and what effect it was having on my daughter. READ THE REST HERE

And to learn more about how to listen to God speaking through your children, check out Parenting with Grace: A Catholic Parent Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and The Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy Too): Living the Little Way of Family Life.

Millennials Less Promiscuous Than Any Generation for 60 Years. Here’s Why That’s TERRIBLE.

Posted on August 4, 2016 by GREG

Image: Shutterstock.

Some Christian news outlets are rejoicing at the recent study finding that Millennials are less sexually active than any other generation for the last 60 years. The perception by some is that this generation is experiencing a spontaneous outbreak of unusual moral fortitude.

Confronting the Nightmare

Would that it were so. If you read the reports, the reasons Millennials give for not being interested in sex is that they are not interested in relationship at all. Millennials appear to be so relationally broken that they would prefer to play video games, obsess over work, and dabble in porn rather than engage in any form of intimate relationship (not just sex) hardly counts as a win for our side. Rampant divorce, parental serial monogamy, an epidemic of absentee fathers, and households led by dual-parent workaholics. have killed this generation’s most basic, God-given desire for communion. It’s a nightmare.

Is It Porn?

Some commenters have suggested that this is the result of the porn epidemic. That certainly doesn’t help, but that misses the larger point. Under normal circumstances, even people who have a seriously compulsive relationship with porn historically indicated that a real relationship with a flesh and blood person would be preferable. That isn’t the case with man Millennials. The problem is much deeper.

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RIP Mary White, One of the Seven Original Catholic Founders of La Leche League, Dies at 93.

Posted on June 17, 2016 by GREG

Image shutter stock

From WSJ.

When Mary White and six other moms from the Chicago suburbs started an organization to encourage breastfeeding in 1956, they had to be careful about naming it.

“They couldn’t say ‘breast,’” said Clare Daly, one of Mrs. White’s daughters. Newspapers, they were sure, wouldn’t publish notices about meetings involving such a crude term. Looking for something more discreet, they settled on La Leche League, derived from the name of a Roman Catholic shrine in Florida (Popcak Note: see commentary below).

To their surprise, the league spread around the world. Now called La Leche League International, it has about 2,000 local groups in more than 70 countries. The league helped create today’s consensus that breastfeeding is far better for babies and mothers than infant formula.

Mrs. White died June 2 at age 93 of complications from a stroke she suffered last September. Her death leaves only two surviving founders of the league—Marian Tompson and Mary Ann Kerwin, Mrs. White’s sister-in-law.

In the 1950s, breastfeeding was widely considered backward and unsanitary. Around 80% of U.S. mothers chose formula instead, according to the league. Views gradually changed as researchers piled up evidence of the health benefits of natural feeding. As of 2012, about 80% of mothers in the U.S. were at least attempting to breastfeed, according to the latest government survey results.

A January report in the medical journal Lancet cited evidence that breastfeeding deters infections and enhances intelligence, while reducing breast cancer risks for mothers, among other benefits. Nestlé SA, once subject to boycotts because it promoted infant formula in poor countries, now says it favors “exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life.”

Mrs. White was born Mary Elizabeth Kerwin on April 3, 1923, and grew up in the Chicago suburbs of Elmhurst and Oak Park as the oldest of eight children. Her father was a financial vice president for the Brach’s candy company; her mother was a homemaker with a philosophy degree from DePaul University.

After earning a drama and speech degree from Rosary College in River Forest, Ill., she married Gregory White, a family-practice physician. Dr. White favored breastfeeding but believed women could be more persuasive than he could in promoting it.

The league traces its roots to a church picnic. Mrs. White and Mrs. Tompson were both breastfeeding. Other mothers said they were using formula but would prefer breastfeeding if they could get more information and help. Mrs. Tompson and Mrs. White decided to start a support group and invited five other moms to Mrs. White’s home to set it up.

“Mary was the first woman I ever saw breastfeed in public,” Mrs. Tompson said. Mrs. White, known for wearing spotless white sweaters and coats despite the exertions of raising 11 children, was self-assured and had the prestige of being a doctor’s wife. “If Mary did it, we figured it was safe,” Mrs. Tompson said.

Though these suburban housewives were defying medical authority, they didn’t flaunt their rebellion. Infants were swaddled in blankets during public feedings. “We would practically smother our babies trying to be discreet,” Mrs. Kerwin recalled.

Ignorance was their biggest obstacle. Most women didn’t know their milk was better for the baby than formula, and many feared they wouldn’t be able to supply enough to sustain the baby.

Doctors could be dismissive. Mrs. Tompson recalled that one told an expectant mother he would let her breastfeed if she “behaved” during childbirth.

Still, times were changing, Mrs. Tompson said: “Women were ready to make the decisions about their life instead of going to an expert.”

At first, the league grew slowly. After Reader’s Digest wrote about it, though, “we got phone calls from all over,” said Mrs. Kerwin, one of the founders.

Mrs. White helped write “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding,” a popular book, and edited other league publications. She often took phone calls at home from women who wanted her advice.

Her family has multiplied prodigiously. Mrs. White is survived by 10 of her 11 children, 61 grandchildren and 109 great grandchildren, said Mrs. Daly, one of her daughters. She kept track of all those birthdays on a calendar. “She was very organized,” Mrs. Daly said.

Mrs. Tompson, 86 years old and still active in the league, said she was pleased to see that some airports now have pods for nursing mothers. “We’re still running into mothers who are getting really bad advice,” she said, “but it’s so much better than it was.”

Has the pendulum swung too far? Mrs. Tompson said she would never shame a woman who chose not to breastfeed. If such women feel guilty, however, there is nothing the league can do about it, she said.

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Many people–Catholics in particular–are unaware that La Leche League was founded by 7 devoutly Catholic women and the internationally recognized Catholic physician, Dr. Herbert Ratner. The article mentions that the organization was named for “a Roman Catholic shrine in Florida.” What it doesn’t say is that that shrine is dedication to the Nursing Madonna, La Sonora de La Leche (Our Lady of the Milk). Their love of natural parenting grew as a result of their dedication to both natural family planning and understanding of the importance of the Catholic natural law perspective. Although today’s La Leche League tends to distance itself from its deeply Catholic roots, the original founders saw nursing as a powerful means of communicating the love of God to their children and to the world.

Proponents of attachment parenting, in particular owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mary White and her friends. They have made a huge impact on the world, transforming the face of parenting and infant healthcare. I pray that her soul, along with all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, would rest in peace.

MRI Shows Breastfed Babies’ Brains Develop Better/Faster than Formula or Mixed-Fed Infants

Posted on March 17, 2016 by GREG

Support for the developing brain MRI images, taken while children were asleep, showed that infants who were exclusively breastfed for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children who were fed formula or a combination of formula and breastmilk. Images show development of myelization by age, left to right.
Baby Imaging Lab/ Brown University

Several weeks ago, I posted an article on how nursing facilitates the development of structures in the brain responsible for moral cognition, and a follow up article on how certain “high -touch” parenting practices (extended nursing, extravagant affection, skin-to-skin contact, “baby-wearing”, prompt response to cries) facilitate the development of the social brain. In that latter article, I walked readers through how such parenting practices facilitate moral and social development. This latest study from Brown University’s Baby Imaging Lab provides further, hard data exposing the myth that formula feeding is “just as good” as nursing or that short term nursing is “just as good” as extended breastfeeding.

A new study by researchers from Brown University finds more evidence that breastfeeding is good for babies’ brains.

The study made use of specialized, baby-friendly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the brain growth in a sample of children under the age of 4. The research found that by age 2, babies who had been breastfed exclusively for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children who were fed formula exclusively or who were fed a combination of formula and breastmilk. The extra growth was most pronounced in parts of the brain associated with language, emotional function, and cognition, the research showed.

…Deoni and his team looked at 133 babies ranging in ages from 10 months to four years. All of the babies had normal gestation times, and all came from families with similar socioeconomic statuses. The researchers split the babies into three groups: those whose mothers reported they exclusively breastfed for at least three months, those fed a combination of breastmilk and formula, and those fed formula alone. The researchers compared the older kids to the younger kids to establish growth trajectories in white matter for each group.

The study showed that the exclusively breastfed group had the fastest growth in myelinated white matter of the three groups, with the increase in white matter volume becoming substantial by age 2. The group fed both breastmilk and formula had more growth than the exclusively formula-fed group, but less than the breastmilk-only group.

“We’re finding the difference [in white matter growth] is on the order of 20 to 30 percent, comparing the breastfed and the non-breastfed kids,” said Deoni. “I think it’s astounding that you could have that much difference so early.”

Deoni and his team then backed up their imaging data with a set of basic cognitive tests on the older children. Those tests found increased language performance, visual reception, and motor control performance in the breastfed group.

The study also looked at the effects of the duration of breastfeeding. The researchers compared babies who were breastfed for more than a year with those breastfed less than a year, and found significantly enhanced brain growth in the babies who were breastfed longer — especially in areas of the brain dealing with motor function. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

Biology is theology. God created our bodies in such a manner as to point to the fact that we were created for loving communion with him and one another. Science consistently shows that when we cooperate with God’s plan for parenting by respecting the self-donative nature of the body and nursing babies through toddlerhood, we lay the groundwork for more effective social and moral reasoning. To learn more about how the theology of the body reveals God’s plan for parenting, check our Parenting with Grace:The Catholic Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Three Years of Parenthood.

Incidentally, I would like to offer my congratulations to Dr. Darcia Narvaez, the author of the original article I linked on nursing and moral cognition. She was recently named a Fellow in the American Educational Research Association. Congratulations Dr. Narvaez! And thank you for your excellent work promoting those parenting practices that are best at facilitating children’s moral and social development.

New Study: Extravagant Affection in Infancy Leads to Healthier, Happier, More Relational & Moral Adults

Posted on March 3, 2016 by GREG

From new study accepted for publication in the journal, Applied Developmental Science.

Notre Dame professor of psychology Darcia Narvaez and two colleagues surveyed more than 600 adults. They asked about their childhood experiences. Darvaez was interested in things like how much affectionate touch did the adult receive as a child, how much free play, and what was family togetherness was like. What she found was, the adults who had positive childhood experiences evolved into adults with less anxiety and better mental health.

“These things independently, but also added up together, predicted the adults’ mental health, so they were less depressed, less anxious, and their social capacities — they were more able to take other people’s perspective. They were better at getting along with others and being open-hearted,” says Narvaez.

So, what does this mean for today’s parents?

Narvaez says parents should hold, touch and rock their babies and children and be responsive to their needs.

“What parents do in those early months and years are really affecting the way the brain is going to grow the rest of their lives,” explains Narvaez, “so lots of holding, touching and rocking. that is what babies expect. They grow better that way. And keep them calm, because all sorts of systems are establishing the way they are going to work. If you let them cry a lot, those systems are going to be easily triggered into stress. We can see that in adult hood — that people that are not cared for well, tend to be more stress reactive and they have a hard time self calming.”

Narvaez say free play inside and outside is important. It is also important that children have a positive, warm environment inside the home.

“That they feel like they belong — they are part of the family unit or the neighborhood community and part of that is to have a lot of activities that you do together,” says Narvaez, who recommends going to the park or playing a game rather than spending time on a smartphone or in front of a TV.

And for those parents that need a break, Narvaez says a community of caregivers is important. That means grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends should play an active role.

“We need to, as a community support families so they can give children what they need,” says Narvaez, “we really didn’t evolve to parent alone. Our history is to have a community of caregivers to help — the village, so that when mom or dad needs a break, there is someone there who is ready to step in.”

The research also showed that when children weren’t given things like affection, free play and a warm home environment, they turned into adults with decreased social and moral capacities.

Narvaez says humans, have evolved to need these important things from birth. Which is why, she recommends parents follow their instincts. READ MORE

But Why Does This Matter?

OK. Let’ s take this apart. What could affection (or, nursing, for that matter, as I mentioned in a blog last week) possibly have to with moral development? As I explain in Beyond the Birds and the Bees, my book for parents on raising moral kids, brain research shows that affection facilitates moral development and overall relationship in four ways;

1) stimulating the “social brain”
2) facilitating the development of mirror neurons
3) facilitating self-regulation
4) facilitating communication between the higher and lower brain.

Before you learn any moral lessons OR before you can competently and consistently act on the moral lessons you’ve learned, these four functions have to be as fully developed as possible. Otherwise, we end up fighting against ourselves when it comes to putting other people first and making good (but hard) moral choices. Here’s what each of these functions has to with both good relational and moral reasoning and how affection, nursing and other high-touch parenting practices facilitate the development of these functions.

1. Stimulating the Social Brain

High touch parenting practices like baby-wearing, nursing, and responding promptly to fussing, help stimulate the so-called, “social brain”; that is, structures in the brain that help us pick up on other’s emotional cues and adjust our behavior based upon how we perceive our actions are coming across. The more the baby can be close to mom (especially) the more that the baby learns to read more and more subtle facial and body cues, understand their meaning, and adapt to them accordingly. The more attuned to other’s responses I am, the better I am able to make choices that foster relationship, express care, and avoid giving offense–all important skills for both good relational and moral decision making.

2. Mirror Neurons

Mirror neurons are structures in the social brain that allow us to get a “taste” of what other people are feeling. If I walk into a coffee table, you might wince because your mirror neurons let you feel a little bit of my pain so that you can empathize with me and be motivated to attend to my injury. High-touch, hands on parenting practices seem to stimulate the development of mirror neurons. This aids moral development by fostering empathy–the ability to literally feel the impact one’s actions have on another.

3. Self-Regulation

In order to make healthy relationship choices, delay gratification, or avoid lashing out impulsively when I have strong emotions, I need good self-regulation. Self-regulation is actually “taught” one body to another. High touch parenting practices help stimulate the young child’s parasympathetic (i.e., “calm-down”) nervous system. When an infant or toddler is overwrought, they don’t have an easy time getting themselves back under control because their calm-down nervous system isn’t fully developed. Picking the baby up and holding her close allows your calmer body to communicate with the baby’s stressed-out body. The baby’s “calm-down” systems automatically start to synch the baby’s heart rate, respiration, temperature and other stress signs to the parent’s calmer heart rate, respiration, temperature, etc. Just like parents teach baby’s to walk by holding her hand while she does it, parents teach baby’s and toddler’s body the steps of calming down by letting the child’s body learn regulation from the parents’ more mature calm-down systems. The more a child is left to cry it out, the harder it is for the child’s parasympathetic nervous system to master the art of self-regulation because it does not have a consistent model to lean on and follow.

4. Communication between higher and lower brain.

Finally, making good moral and relationship choices requires me to have the fastest possible communication between my lower brain (the seat of my impulses) and my higher brain (the seat of decision making). The impulse to do something actually occurs before our higher brain even becomes aware of it. Unless my higher brain can “catch up” with the impulse that shoots up from my lower brain and redirect it, I will simply do what my lower brain tells me to do (e.g. make a selfish choice, yell at you, cheat) before I am even aware of it. High touch parenting practices facilitate communication between the higher and lower brain by stimulating the production of the waxy, myelin sheath around nerve cells that allow electrical impulses to “slide” faster down the neuron. The “slipperier” our nerves are (i.e., the more well-myelinated they are) the faster they are able to send messages around the brain (like a child whooshing down a well-waxed sliding board). Affection facilitates good moral and relational decision making by stimulating the production of the very substance that allows our brains to “think fast”, harness inappropriate impulses and transform them into more appropriate actions.

Doomed?

Is the research saying that if you let your kids cry it out and you don’t nurse them that they will grow up to be axe murderers? Of course not. What the research does say is that the more hands-on and high touch you can be as a parent, the more you are actively growing your infant’s and toddler’s social and moral brain. This gives your child a neurological leg-up on using all the good moral and relational lessons you will teach him later on. God created our bodies to cooperate with making good, moral choices. Of course he did. This is what it means to speak of the theology of our bodies. The more we can give our child’s brain the things it needs to cooperate with grace and make good moral/relationship choices the happier everyone will be. For more ideas about how you can cooperate with God’s plan for helping parents raise healthy, happy, moral kids, check out Beyond the Birds and the Bees , Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids , Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving & Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood, and Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids.

Breastfeeding Could Save Lives of Over 800,000 Babies & 20,000 Moms Annually

Posted on February 2, 2016 by GREG

New report in the British Medical Journal The Lancet. H/T HuffPo

New research highlights the economic advantages of exclusive and continued breastfeeding in rich and poor countries alike, and the enormous cost of failing to support it writes Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO Assistant Director-General.

As a young doctor working with refugees in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, I saw how breastfed babies can prosper even under such challenging circumstances, and even when they are sick or small. So I am delighted that new research published today in The Lancet again confirms the health benefits of breastfeeding.

The findings show that breastfed infants are more likely to thrive physically and mentally into adulthood. Breastfeeding should be exclusive for at least the first six months of life and then with a mix of other foods, ideally up to the age of two. The authors — a team of independent scientists, together with the World Health Organization and UNICEF — also conclude that the health benefits are as significant in rich countries as in poor ones.

Breast is best: benefits worldwide for moms and tots
The message that “breast is best” applies equally the world over, and to children as well as mothers. Longer durations of breastfeeding improve maternal health by increasing birth spacing, and saves thousands of lives every year from reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

According to The Lancet series, improved rates of exclusive and continued breastfeeding could prevent:

~820,000 deaths in children under 5 years annually

~20,000 additional deaths from breast cancer annually (even at current rates, 20,000 deaths are averted)

~Ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes for some mothers.

Economic dividends

A less familiar finding is that higher rates of breastfeeding could also pay enormous economic dividends. Purely in terms of reduced healthcare costs due to improved breastfeeding practices, the study projects total savings of more than US$300 million in the US, UK, Brazil and urban China alone. These add to the other economic benefits associated with breastfeeding, such as higher IQ, greater school attainment and higher salary in later years. These economic findings are yet another brick in the now imposing wall of evidence that supports the case for exclusive breastfeeding. READ MORE

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The Theology of the Body points out that our bodies are given to us so that we can work for the good of others. In order to be truly fulfilled in our life and relationships we need to ask God how he would want us to use our bodies to serve others. God gives breastmilk to the mother to be held in trust for the baby. When mothers faithfully respond to that trust, both mom and baby benefit on so many levels. In Parenting with Grace and Then Comes Baby, my wife and I offer ways moms can get the information and support they need to create a healthy and mutually nurturing breastfeeding relationship with their little ones. Discover how breastfeeding isn’t an obligation or a cross, but a blessing for you and baby!

HOW CAN I GET THEM TO LISTEN?!? The Secret of Cultivating Discipleship Hearts In Your Children

Posted on January 15, 2016 by GREG

Image via Shutterstock

Every parent wants their children to listen to them, not just about the requests and directives they make, but about the faith and moral lessons they want to pass on. But how can you get them to listen? Even more importantly, what does it take to get kids to OWN the lessons you teach them and willingly live them out in their own lives? The key, as we reveal in Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, is fostering a discipleship heart in your child.

Forming Discipleship Hearts

Cultivating a discipleship heart is separate from teaching faith and moral lessons. It refers to how successful a parent is in helping their child be receptive to these lessons and, moreover, actively seek out the parent’s advice on these issues (and follows that advice willingly). A child has a discipleship heart if they consistently turn to you for help and guidance in meeting their spiritual, emotional, and relational needs and finding answers to their questions about living an abundant life. They do this not only because they have to (because you make them or because they have no other options) but because they want to.

Discipleship & Attachment

A “discipleship heart” is the fruit of the strength of your attachment with a child. Did you catch that important distinction? Attachment isn’t about how close the parent feels to the child (that’s called “bonding”). Rather, the word “attachment” refers to how strong the CHILD feels his relationship is with the parent. When parents respond promptly, generously, and consistently to the child’s practical, emotional and spiritual needs and requests for guidance the child develops a strong, gut-level sense that his parents are THE source for learning how to live life to the fullest. This is what attachment is; the degree a child feels compelled to turn to the parents–as opposed to anyone else–to meet his needs and answer his important questions about how life works. Because discipleship is all about forming a child in what it means to live life in a faithful ways, discipleship is the fruit of attachment.

Attachment vs. Spoiling

One point of clarification. Although forming healthy attachment/discipleship hearts does require meeting children’s needs promptly generously and consistently, meeting children’s needs doesn’t mean spoiling them. Spoiling comes from either neglecting a child and pacifying them with stuff or from giving them whatever they ask for without any thought. Building secure attachment/strong discipleship heart with a child requires an active effort to understand the positive intention or need that motivates a child’s behavior–even when that intention or need isn’t immediately obvious–and then working with the child to find healthy, godly ways to meeting that need or intention.

The Payoff

Creating strong attachment/discipleship hearts requires hard work, openness, patience, and generosity on the part of the parent. BUT the reward is two-fold. First, the process of building attachment is what makes child-rearing a source of sanctification for the parents. It challenges us to grow in virtues like patience, compassion, understanding, generosity, and love; all qualities that will help us become the saints we are called to be. Plus, it connects us with the way God our Heavenly Father Second, it fosters the child’s absolute confidence in your credibility to be THE source of information and guidance on how to live an abundant life.

In general, there are four signs that a parent is succeeding at fostering healthy attachment/discipleship hearts in his or her children. The child who has a discipleship heart/secure attachment…

-offers cheerful obedience. (They aren’t automatons, but they willingly and faithfully respond to requests/directions and will often offer to help without being asked.)
-willingly initiates and accepts generous affection with the parent. (as opposed to being awkward or uncomfortable around parental displays of affection)
-openly seeks and regularly accepts advice and counsel from the parent. (as opposed to being resistant to/rejecting of advice).
-regularly initiates and eagerly accepts offers to spend time with the parent. (as opposed to strongly preferring to spend time with friends and seeing family time as mostly an obligation)

Is Your Child A Disciple?

How effective are you at cultivating discipleship hearts in your children? Ask yourself, “How would my child answer the question, “Do your parents respond promptly, generously, and consistently to your needs, questions, or requests?” Any doubt/hesitation on your part means that you might have some work to do. The more a parent may put a child off, frustrate their needs, shame them for their requests, or present obstacles to getting what they want out of life (instead of helping them seek healthy alternative means of getting those things–think “qualifies yes technique) the more that parent is increasing the likelihood that their children will turn to people other than the parent–including peers–for guidance and formation.

By contrast, parents who are able to respond to their children’s needs and requests promptly, generously, and consistently teach the child that they are the best and easiest source to turn to for help and guidance. This cultivates a sense of openness and gratitude that makes the child receptive to input from mom and dad even when the child hasn’t asked for it. To learn more about cultivating a discipleship heart in YOUR child, check out Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids and Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parent Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.

Are Your Relationships “Frozen”? What Disney Can Teach Us About A Common Relationship Problem

Posted on October 27, 2015 by GREG

There is a terrific article at The Science of Relationships on what Disney’s Frozen can teach us about a common relationship problem and how it can negatively impact even our physical health!

While the Disney animated film “Frozen” is most famous for its lovable characters and award-winning song “Let it Go”, this kids’ movie can teach us a thing or two about attachment styles in close relationships and the important interplay between partners’ preferences for intimacy versus independence. In “Frozen,” the relationship difficulties that occur when these preferences clash are most evident between the two protagonists, sisters Elsa and Anna.

Anxious Anna and Avoidant Elsa: Attachment in “Frozen”

Attachment style describes the degree to which we perceive our relationships (usually romantic partnerships) as being secure, capable of meeting our needs, and a source of comfort in times of distress. People who are securely attached are comfortable depending on others as well as having others depend on them. Some people, however, have negative expectations in relationships, leading to insecure attachment styles. For example, individuals with an anxious attachment style fear rejection and abandonment, yet their cravings for closeness may inadvertently drive others away. In “Frozen”, Anna is anxiously attached. Her parents’ death and her sister’s abandonment leave her alone and desperate for love – so desperate, in fact, that she almost married a man she just met (Prince Hans). Whenever Elsa seeks distance in the movie, Anna continues to pursue her and ends up getting hurt in the process. Anxiously attached people may engage in behavior like this because they over-rely on their attachment figures for reassurance.

On the other hand, avoidant attachment is characterized by feeling uncomfortable with closeness in relationships and a desire to maintain emotional distance. A person high in avoidant attachment would find it difficult to depend on others. In “Frozen”, Elsa exemplifies avoidant attachment. As a child, she was encouraged to “conceal, don’t feel” after her magical ability to create snow and ice accidentally injures Anna. From that moment on, Elsa increasingly pulls away from her sister both physically and emotionally. When Anna finally confronts Elsa about her habit of shutting everyone out, Elsa responds by lashing out with her powers and running away (self-protective strategies, such as defensiveness and withdrawal, are how avoidantly-attached people typically respond to relationship stressors).¹ People high in avoidance also tend to underestimate others’ care and support for them. For instance, even after Anna communicates her desire to help Elsa, Elsa rejects her sister’s support and insists on being alone.

It’s easy to see how an anxious-avoidant pairing could snowball into relationship dysfunction: in the face of an attachment threat, such as an argument or confrontation, anxious individuals are likely to pursue their attachment figures in an attempt to reestablish feelings of closeness, just as Anna did when she ventured out into the blizzard to chase after Elsa. When the avoidant partner responds by pulling away – as Elsa did when she told Anna her intention of never returning home – the anxious person’s fears are reinforced and the relationship is likely to suffer (i.e., Anna feels abandoned yet clings to her hope of reconnecting with her sister; Elsa feels overwhelmed and inadvertently strikes her sister with a nearly-fatal blast of ice).

Attachment and Physical Health

“Frozen” conveyed the disastrous consequences of attachment style mismatch when Anna was physically injured after continually provoking Elsa. But what are the effects of anxious-avoidant pairings in relationships in the real world? Can being with a romantic partner who has conflicting attachment goals actually harm you? A number of studies have found evidence that yes, insecure attachment styles are associated with physiological stress responses and lifestyle behaviors that put people at risk for health problems….CONTINUE READING.

Protecting YOUR Family’s “Heart Health”

Posted on July 28, 2015 by GREG

Image: Shutterstock

Your family’s spirituality is the heart of your home. Do you know how to protect and nurture it?

Are you attending to your family’s heart health? Your family’s spiritual well-being represents the true heart of your family, the spiritual heart that pumps joy, meaning, and connection into your life as a family and as persons. Experts note that the degree to which your family shares a spiritual life actually predicts the degree of satisfaction you can expect from both your family relationships and life in general. Do you know how to protect your family’s “heart health”?

What is “Spirituality” Anyway?

Psychologists assert that a healthy spirituality promotes three qualities that are essential for a joyful, meaningful life; transcendence, transformation, and integration.

Transcendence refers to times of special connection with God, moments filled with a sense of wonder and awe. Transcendence promotes well-being by reminding us that we are part of “something bigger.” That we are not alone in the world and that each moment of life is packed with divine meaning and purpose.

Transformation refers to our commitment to embrace the changes necessary to become healthier, happier, and more fulfilled people. For the Christian, authentic transformation is all about embracing God’s plan for our fulfillment in a conscious (versus merely cultural), willing (versus coerced), and whole-hearted (versus grudging) manner.

Finally, Integration refers to spirituality’s power to promote greater peace in our lives–both between us and others and within ourselves. A healthy spirituality compels us to harmonize any conflicts between our beliefs, values, and identity and enables us to live with integrity no matter where or whom we’re with.

Properly understood, “being spiritual” is about becoming fully-formed, vital people who know who we are, what we stand for, where we are going, and what we need to do to get there.

Family Spirituality: What Does it Look Like?

Families play a critical role in cultivating each member’s spiritual life and all the above benefits that flow from it. Family life is primarily about forming persons–parents and children growing together, learning from each other, supporting one another in living out a shared mission and goals–all of which has to do with spirituality. Without a strong sense of spiritual well-being, families too easily become collections of individuals living under the same roof and sharing a data plan.

3 Steps To A “Heart-Healthy” Family

There are three basic activities families can undertake to promote their spiritual well-being; Worship, Devotion, and Discipleship.

Worship, is how Catholic families prioritize their connection with the sacramental and spiritual life of the Church. Going to mass together. Attending adoration, confession and other spiritual opportunities afforded by the parish as a family. Participating in parish life together. Research shows that an important part of family well-being is creating shared experiences. Worshiping together as a family creates experiences that connect us to the larger family of God.

Devotion, involves the ways families live their faith at home, including family prayer, practicing Catholic cultural traditions (celebrating saints days, cultural holiday traditions, etc) and learning how to live out the Church’s vision regarding family dynamics, love, and sexuality. Devotion facilitates spiritual well-being by bringing your faith into the laboratory of your everyday life where you do the lion’s share of the integration and transformational work that an authentic spirituality requires. Ultimately, it prevents you from seeing your faith as merely an escape.

Discipleship is about creating positive, open-hearted relationship within the home. Discipleship involves all the relational activities that inspire your family to feel like a team, to be receptive to each other’s thoughts, experiences and guidance; things like rituals that carve out time to work, play, talk and pray together, ample one-on-one time with each other, and other activities that make deposits to your relational bank accounts. It also involves formational activities like reading bible stories together, discussing faith questions, exploring values, sharing spiritual concerns, and showing your children how to walk in your spiritual footsteps.

Ultimately, discipleship tasks enable children to open their hearts to their parents’ attempts to form them as godly persons, and it helps parents make sure they have taken the time to get to know their children–inside and out–so that they have things to say that their children will experience as relevant and meaningful.

Family Spirituality: Living the Gift.

In our forthcoming book, Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, my wife and I demonstrate the many ways that fostering your family’s spiritual well-being is anything but an abstract luxury for people who have all their other problems worked out. Rather, it is what enables families to celebrate the love that comes from God’s own heart, to discover all the ways that life is a gift, and to help each other become everything God created you to be.