Worried for neighbor's kids psychological and physical safety

[mamaheids]

I got myself all worked up in a tizzy again today, because I saw my neighbor who will be giving birth shortly to her second child. They are babywisers/GKGW to the core- before she gave birth to her first child she indicated to me that she was planning on babywising, so I gave her tons of info, websites, AP books, breastfeeding resources- she esentially dropped the packet of stuff I gave her back off at my house the very next day and said "Sorry, this is what we have chosen for our family, we have already made up our minds and everyone parents a little differently." I prayed they would feel differently once they met their sweet precious baby. (They didn't, she was bragging on FB loudly at 9 weeks that her baby was sleeping through the night) I distanced myself a bit, because I am prone to anxiety and it was troubling to me- but I heard a few bits and pieces of info, from another AP/GD neighbor that really got me worked up. (Leaving her then- 4 mo baby to scream in a crib, alone upstairs, while you hold a dinner party downstairs?) Luckily, her 1st child (19 mo now) didn't have failure to thrive (in a physical sense-not sure what psychological effects). So anyways, new baby on the way- they transitioned 19 mo. to a big boy bed- with his room upstairs, and theirs down 2 flights of stairs- NO BABY GATES. They won't baby-proof, they shouldn't have to right since they are "training" him. They also have started "flicking" him in order to get him to comply/sit still/ face forward in his high chair/ listen. So so sad. I can' believe these people think this is the way God wants us to parent. It is insulting to me as a Christian.
So anyways-All of my other issues aside, I'm concerned for baby #1's safety, especially as baby #2 comes along. You can't trust "training" a child (well, maybe a 4 year old, but certainly not a 19 mo!) to not go near stairs, put fingers in outlets, get into cabinets where chemicals reside etc. Especially when your attention is divided and you can't always have an eye on #1
Seriously, what if he falls down the stairs?
I know it isn't my problem, but you know what- It kind of seems like a social welfare issue, YK.
Can I do anything? Or do I just pray that God keeps both babies unharmed? Our neighborhood is small, and everyone socializes. I can't just completely avoid them. But my stomach turns whenever I see her, because I am so uncomfortable with what is going on. Ugh. Any thoughts? Experiences?

[JL83]

I think you need to remember that people do parent differently.

We're super AP. But, we'd long since gotten rid of the baby gates by the time DD1 was 19 months. By that age she knew how to go up and down them with no problems. I seem to remember taking down the baby gates when she was ~12 months. We only put them up because she was a super early walker and would walk off things.

We also don't have any latches or other "baby proofing" things. I think they are useless. We keep an eye on our kids and put things that could actually kill them fully out of their reach.

We also never used a crib. From 9 months on, our DD started the night out on a single mattress in her room (and then came into our bed when she woke up).

While I think that their parenting practices, in terms of babywise and "flicking" are horrible, those are their choices to make.

Nothing you've described sounds incredibly dangerous.

[LaLaLaLa]

My DD was 19 months old when DS was born. At that point, her bedroom was upstairs. No gates. We also had a staircase leading from our main level downstairs to our entryway. No gates there, either. We had no outlet covers or bumpers around sharp corners or knob covers for our stove. We just didn't childproof like that.

Having no gates and minimal childproofing doesn't warrant a call to authorities.

My kids have each fallen down the stairs once; they were fine. I fell down the stairs TWICE in that place; I was also fine.

[nola79]

Not sure there's much you can really do. My ds was going up/down stairs well before 19mos. He was just very active and we showed him how and supervised of course. Both of our bedrooms were upstairs, though.
What is babywise?

eta: my son also figured out all "childproof" locks and gadgets at a young age, so they were useless with him anyway. Come to think of it, at 19 mos he would have just climbed over the gate to get to the stairs!

[NiteNicole]

At some point you have to decide that you can not be invested in all the details of other people's lives. It is a HUGE relief when you let that go and trust other people to do the right thing for their kids.

[mamaheids]

I guess I do have a really hard time separating some of the issues I see (flicking, CIO, sleep training, scheduled feeds) and the others (not babyproofing- which isn't necessarily non- AP/GD), because I have such an viseral (sp) reaction to the whole concept of Growing Kids Gods Way/Babywise. I guess also because her *reasoning* for not babyproofing is because she has such great faith in the "training" (GKGW) that she followed. So thanks for helping look at it more objectively. The mother in me just wants to save the world, one kid at a time. LOL

[JL83]

I take it you've never read the "AP Bible" AKA "The Continuum Concept"...

(Please note - I don't actually think that the TCC is the AP bible, but many people do)

[PreggieUBA2C]

Mamaheids, having been a christian until last year, I can confirm that the pressure to keep one's children 'in line' from birth amongst most christians is very, very prevalent and led to me doing and saying things to my dc that I have gone to great lengths to repair over the last several years (as I concurrently distanced myself from christianity).

Probably the best thing you could do would be to spend more time with your neighbour, not less. Not so that she can be a project (ick) but because it would be beneficial to you to let go of your judgments of them, and to her to witness family life and child discipline without corporal punishment (ETA: and BW/GKGW child-training).

I am assuming from your post that you are both christian, so if you can have such different views while professing the same faith, she may open up to a gentler approach by seeing that it is healthy to leave a child's will intact and to treat children with compassion and respect both emotionally and physically- not a sign of weak parenting or disobedience to god, as is often cited by christian proponents of corporal punishment for children.

She may not have any trust in her own mothering instincts and so defers to training because it is what is offered, and her own innate intuitions and instincts have been so undermined (as is also very common amongst christians).

HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE!!! I am not at all accusing specific christians of anything, but rather expressing my own experiences and decades of christian 'training' that I received prior to becoming a mother (and eventually leaving christianity).

I know that the range of experience is vast and that I could only experience what I did. Obviously there are christians who do not hit/flick their children and have a vastly different view of children than many others; op is one, clearly. I just wanted to offer something that op might find useful in repairing both her feelings and also the potential relationship she has with her neighbour and reasons why her neighbour might be reluctant to give up 'baby training' which confuses op as evidenced by her amazement that her neighbour actually believes that god wants her to treat her child this way.

Deep breath. It is very difficult to express this sort of thing on the 'net, so please give me the benefit of the doubt. I was a gentle mother as a christian too, but also understood how far outside the norm I was, and received a LOT of criticism for my mothering from the church/christians.

[mamaheids]

Originally Posted by JL83

I take it you've never read the "AP Bible" AKA "The Continuum Concept"...

(Please note - I don't actually think that the TCC is the AP bible, but many people do)

No- though it is on my list! Any helpful tidbits that apply here that you would like to share? (I'm in the middle of 3 books currently)

[PreggieUBA2C]

Originally Posted by mamaheids

No- though it is on my list! Any helpful tidbits that apply here that you would like to share? (I'm in the middle of 3 books currently)

The first section is very hard to read; it may be exactly the sort of thing that would completely change some mums minds and hearts about ther children. It was heart-rending for both me and dp, and we had incidentally, without knowing anything about CC or AP, had our infants in arms and breastfed on demand, etc... Leidloff describes in detail the experience of the young infant beng left to cry alone. I cried through it; so did dp and neither one of us tends toward crying in general.

It was a very helpful book to me, confirming what I knew but helping me to clarify my own values and switching philosophical paradigms all over the place. I usually have 4 or 5 books going at a time and I read fast, but this short book took a while to complete because I couldn't just read straight through; I read something profoundly impacting and had to let it steep before moving on. I had a similar experience with Kohn's Unconditional Parenting.

I don't agree with everything she wrote, but the overall philosophical and anthropological ideologies she expressed are well worth examining, imo.

ETA: I didn't share any tidbits because it is an implicitly very rich book. Some people may find it a quick read, but I think that there are a lot of layers to what she has written, and to sum it up wouldn't really do, imo; it would be much more beneficial if you read it as it is written rather than paraphrased.

[JL83]

Originally Posted by mamaheids

No- though it is on my list! Any helpful tidbits that apply here that you would like to share? (I'm in the middle of 3 books currently)

Nothing in particular... Just that the author goes on at great length to say that the very act of saying "be careful" will disrupt a child's sense of continuum and cause them to hurt themself. She uses examples of small children in a "village" being left unsupervised around fire pits and things like that...

I enjoyed the book and thought alot of what she said was really good. But she strongly believes in not using baby proofing things. It was just a contrast to your post where you implied that part of your neighbor's non APness was not having baby gates.

[mamaheids]

Originally Posted by PreggieUBA2C

Mamaheids, having been a christian until last year, I can confirm that the pressure to keep one's children 'in line' from birth amongst most christians is very, very prevalent and led to me doing and saying things to my dc that I have gone to great lengths to repair over the last several years (as I concurrently distanced myself from christianity).

Probably the best thing you could do would be to spend more time with your neighbour, not less. Not so that she can be a project (ick) but because it would be beneficial to you to let go of your judgments of them, and to her to witness family life and child discipline without corporal punishment (ETA: and BW/GKGW child-training).

I am assuming from your post that you are both christian, so if you can have such different views while professing the same faith, she may open up to a gentler approach by seeing that it is healthy to leave a child's will intact and to treat children with compassion and respect both emotionally and physically- not a sign of weak parenting or disobedience to god, as is often cited by christian proponents of corporal punishment for children.

She may not have any trust in her own mothering instincts and so defers to training because it is what is offered, and her own innate intuitions and instincts have been so undermined (as is also very common amongst christians).

HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE!!! I am not at all accusing specific christians of anything, but rather expressing my own experiences and decades of christian 'training' that I received prior to becoming a mother (and eventually leaving christianity).

I know that the range of experience is vast and that I could only experience what I did. Obviously there are christians who do not hit/flick their children and have a vastly different view of children than many others; op is one, clearly. I just wanted to offer something that op might find useful in repairing both her feelings and also the potential relationship she has with her neighbour and reasons why her neighbour might be reluctant to give up 'baby training' which confuses op as evidenced by her amazement that her neighbour actually believes that god wants her to treat her child this way.

Deep breath. It is very difficult to express this sort of thing on the 'net, so please give me the benefit of the doubt. I was a gentle mother as a christian too, but also understood how far outside the norm I was, and received a LOT of criticism for my mothering from the church/christians.

I like this idea. I need to do some hard work on myself though, admittedly, before I can do this. (Spend more time with her, without judgement).
There are Christians out there with similar ideas to yours and mine and have a deep respect for the special little people God created. I'm blessed to be in a church and live in an area with quite a few like-minded Christian parents. I'm so sorry for your negative/unsupportive experience.

[Just1More]

I'll have to say...I've had it up to *here* with Babywise. I am SO sick of hearing about it. And I hear about it a lot. A lot of people think it's just the best thing ever. Well, I read the book, and I confess to being a fairly authoritative parent, but I was beyond disgusted. I could hardly finish it, and I only did in order to be able to have a few things to say in retort when it comes up again. Awful, awful book.

BUT...as I was reading, and the more I talk to people who have done it, and then regretted it, I've learned that it is a brain-washing of sorts. You can't reason with someone using it because they truly believe that it is THE way. There is a lot of time spent in the Prep for Parenting classes, and then reminders throughout the books, informing/convincincg a person that they have no instincts...they HAVE to follow THIS method or grave consequences may follow...all the way from a rotten child, to an unhealthy one, to loss of salvation, etc. It's mind-blowing.

SO...remember where she is coming from. I know four families who are babywisers, mostly. None of the 4 adhere totally to the books, but it's enough to bother me at times. They are all great parents, though, who clearly love their children. I encourage you to look at what you feel she does right, and slowly try to give her confidence that she does know what she's doing. I try to say things that I hope will pester their brains in the middle of the night, and now that my children are usually well-behaved and getting a little older, my opinions sometimes have a little more weight than they used to. I say things like, "Oh, I'm so glad I got up with ds. We didn't know he was in pain. I would have really regretted it if I hadn't held him and then learned he was sick!" And then I move on, and don't dwell on the topic. Or, "Dd had trouble gaining weight, and nursed all the time. I was amazed how much she could still eat as a toddler and I'm thankful I let her nurse all she wanted."

You can catch more flies with honey...

[Mrs.Burke]

Originally Posted by mamaheids

The mother in me just wants to save the world, one kid at a time. LOL

same here..sometimes i worry to much about other kids..i just convince myself that no parent want harm to come to their own children..and yes we still have our baby gate upstairs and i have no plans of removing it just because it was there ever since i got pregnant and had babies..lol

[One_Girl]

People do parent differently. Taking this to heart and not allowing yourself to get involved in other people's parenting lives unless invited will help you to be a more relaxed person. When you live in a house with stairs you teach the kids to use the stairs from a very early age so I think that you should trust that this kid can use the stairs. It may be that the child is a climber and the baby gates are more dangerous because he climbs over them and risks a nastier fall. I have only read the baby book and the teenager book, but I was shocked at the way the teenager book encourages more of a discussion and hands off approach. You might consider getting it for her and seeing if some of that approach helps her with what she is doing now or gives her a different perspective on what she is doing now. I was shocked by the lack of influence the book seems to assume parents using this approach have over teens. I don't think that waiting until a child is too old to hit to build a relationship is a good idea and she may also feel the same way after thinking about it.

[bonamarq]

I say things like, "Oh, I'm so glad I got up with ds. We didn't know he was in pain. I would have really regretted it if I hadn't held him and then learned he was sick!" And then I move on, and don't dwell on the topic. Or, "Dd had trouble gaining weight, and nursed all the time. I was amazed how much she could still eat as a toddler and I'm thankful I let her nurse all she wanted."

This is just the best, most effective, least offensive approach you can take - Every opportunity you have to share these "teachable moments" will perhaps plant the seeds you hope will sprout.

Good luck!

[heartmama]

I understand the worry. But my mind was forever changed towards the issue of "whether I should do something" in situations like this when I learned (at MDC actually) what the rate of physical and sexual abuse is in the U.S. foster care system. It is *horrible*. Far, far worse than I ever could have imagined. I know it is hard to believe, but the numbers were an eye opener for me. So, unless a child is actually being abused--not just benign neglect, carelessness, over zealousness or poor parenting--but actual bruises or sexual abuse, then I absolutely stay out of it. There is no better alternative waiting out there for these kids. Intervening in any way, beyond sharing your thoughts in a helpful, non confrontational way, could be disastrous.

The best thing to do is just share what you know in as kind a way as possible. Live by example.

[nextcommercial]

Well, I was pretty AP. But, My baby was sleeping through the night well before 4 months. In her own crib.

She slept in a twin bed from 16 months on, and had a bedrail, but no baby gates. I don't childproof much. I left my books and video tapes in her reach and told her "no". I didn't pad anything for her. I expect my kids (even daycare kids) to sit forward in their chairs, sit through lunch and eat until they are done. When they leave the table, they are done.

I don't think you need to worry about their choice of parenting. They have made a choice for thier family, and I respect that completely.

[nextcommercial]

Originally Posted by mamaheids

I have such an viseral (sp) reaction to the whole concept of Growing Kids Gods Way/Babywise. I guess also because her *reasoning* for not babyproofing is because she has such great faith in the "training" (GKGW) that she followed. So thanks for helping look at it more objectively. The mother in me just wants to save the world, one kid at a time. LOL

I went to one "Growing Kids god's way" pre-meeting. I got an immediate weird vibe from it. They explained some of it there. Then, they told us that we would be signing paperwork stating that we agree to everything, and will follow through. They also frowned VERY heavily on me, and they hadn't decided if they would "let me in" since I was a single Mom.

My sister in law was really pushing the trainer into letting me come to the training classes even though I was a single Mom. My sister in law was willing to "sponsor" me. (that was my first sign something was wrong)

It started feeling very cult-ish. I didn't know anybody else in the class.

I was talking to my pastor's wife the next morning at church, and asked about the training. She said "Our church has chosen not to host Growing Kids God's way, because we just don't feel it fits in with what we believe, but we will be happy to sign your sponsership papers if you would like us to".

So, I went with my icky feeling and decided not to go at all. I never even looked at the contract again.

When my daughter was two, there were several families in our church who had gone through the training. They did things I didn't agree with. Like putting out their kid's clothes every morning, and the kids weren't given a choice. And, "Obey the first time, every time, and answer with 'yes mam, yes sir'' so we know you heard us".

All of our kids are 17 this year. ALL of our kids have grown up to be wonderful young people. Those kids who's parents took the GKGW and those of us who didn't. We all have great kids. They are all respectful, obedient, helpful and creative. Some are more strong willed than others, but that was obvious when they were babies. Seven of these kids are in Honduras teaching and working in a mission. They are all happy, helpful, and I am proud of them. You can't tell the difference between the kids who's parents did GKGW, and those who just parented by what they felt was right.

[maryeliz]

I really don't think there is anything you can do to make these parents parent differently. You tried talking to the mom and giving her info and she told you she was not interested. Frankly, I don't think CPS would take seriously the behavior you are describing.

So, instead I would suggest protecting yourself from information about what these parents are doing. Tell your mutual friend you would rather not talk about this family. Hide the mom on facebook so you don't have to see her updates. Don't talk to the mom about parenting at all. There is no point exposing yourself to information that is anxiety provoking if you can't do anything to change the situation.