Attachment Styles: What Does the Parenting Look Like?
Often, parents will ask me how do the different parenting styles play out when taking care of your infant or child. Parents who are determined to form the optimal attachment with their child want to know how that looks moment-to-moment. This informational sheet comes from the Attachment Parenting program that will be released in February 2025. It can also be found in my ebook Why Mood Matters to be released on Amazon in February 2025. The Attachment Styles: What Does the Parenting Look Like? printable can be downloaded below.
Mood Matters:
What Every Mother Needs to Know
eBook by Laura Alfonso. all rights reserved.
There are so many different ways of parenting and every mother is looking for the right formula. What are the variables that must go in to an infant and later a child’s experience to produce a prosocial, contributing, and happy member of society? The questions start when a child is first born. Do I have to breastfeed? What happens if I don’t? Should I spend hours playing music for my baby? Should I keep my infant close every moment of the day? Should I sleep with my baby? Does my infant need to be on a predictable schedule? Should I let my baby get frustrated or respond immediately to each need? How much time with other children is necessary? What’s the best way to discipline? Should I make sure my child does not watch TV? How many activities should my child be involved in? Should I go back to work? Should I send my child to daycare? Most mothers have so many questions about how to raise their child and the truth is there are far more questions than there are clear answers.
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There are many researchers in the field of psychology and related fields dedicated to finding the answers to all these questions. The exciting news is that there are answers out there. Unfortunately, much of the research examining these questions ends up in clinical psychology journals read only by clinical psychologist and little of it ever reaches the mothers for whom these questions and answers are pertinent. If it does reach mothers, it is often through popular media which more times than not ends up watering the knowledge down, either by sensationalizing it (e.g. “Day care is bad for children”) or completely washing out the nuances of what research has revealed, most likely under the misguided notion that mothers do not want too much or too technical information. My work with mothers suggests that this is not true. Most mothers are hungry for all the knowledge on parenting they can get their hands on. Mothers want this knowledge and then armed with this knowledge they want to figure out how it can be used by them to be the best parent they can be to their child.
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The purpose of this book is to bring this information to the warriors in the trenches, digested but undiluted. As a psychologist and a mother myself, I am often amazed at the amount of knowledge that lies dormant in psychology journals that could be extremely useful to mothers on a daily basis. Within the field of child psychology, so many gifted researchers are working to create a science of parenting. Although the old truism of the more we know the less we know seems to apply to child psychology, there are some truths that seem clear. This book is about one of those repeatedly supported findings in the research on parenting. As a psychologist, I feel that this one principle is perhaps the most illuminating principle that the field has revealed for mothers. This one guiding principle often revolutionizes how a mother approaches parenting and her decision-making about her daily interactions with others and with her children. While it is hardly ever an answer within itself, this principle provides clear parenting direction: Mood Matters.
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This book attempts to illuminate this guiding principle and how it can apply to a mother’s daily choices. The goal of this book is to bring the research that has been done by scientists in the field of parenting to the mothers that need these answers. This book pays special attention to the communication of this knowledge, focusing, as aforementioned, on digesting the scientific knowledge for consumption by mothers but not diluting it. This goal of this book is to communicate the findings of cutting-edge research in the field of parenting in a clear and understandable way for parents that are searching for the answers that the science of child psychology has revealed.
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Every mother knows that her relationship with her baby is key but let's learn how that relationship should look and why it's so important.
To download Parts 1-3 of free, please complete the form below.
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Oppositional Defiant Disorder Informational Sheet
The ODD Informational sheet provides general information on the diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. General research findings on children diagnosed with ODD are reviewed, including some parenting variables, comorbidity, traits, etc.
Download should have 2 pages.
Attachment Styles
The Attachment Styles Informational sheet provides general information on Attachment Styles. You can take a quiz on attachment style here. Being aware of your attachment style as a parent is critical. Parent attachment style shapes the relationship with their child. This important attachment between parent and child can influence the child across their lifespan. You can read more about this here. This worksheet is taken from the Parenting the Misbehaving Child Program.
