Born Dancing - parenting book

[MysticHealerMom]

It's old and out of print, 1987!!

Anyway, I was shopping and found a copy, and it's so cool. I wasn't looking for it, it found me. Has anyone read it?

Here's the amazon link (nothing extensive at Powells, but they do have a copy inky) Born Dancing Book

The whole title: Born Dancing: How Intuitive Parents Understand Their Baby's Unspoken Language and Natural Rhythms by Evelyn Thoman.

The premise is that baby's are complete persons when they are born, and all have individual needs, so it's not a "do this when this happens" type of book. Just how to pay attention to what's going on. I know what you're thinking, duh, we do this. It's kinda cool to have some confirmation. And she goes on about how new physics, new systems theory and parallel developments in psychology bear out the AP mind-set (although I don't think they used the term AP, yet).

anyway, i've barely gotten started, but it's really clicking - perhaps by chapter 2 I'll be going - ew, what tha??

Do I chat too much??

l8r

Lori

actually, she's not telling anyone how to do anything - how to pay attention to your child. She's describing what happens when people do these things, instead of what and how to do it.

[MysticHealerMom]

This is so cool. She's discussing baby geniuses and why you don't need to teach your 1yo to their ABC's, because they're already learning a hell of a lot, like the basics of euclidian geometry and altruism. If you push them into learning something they aren't ready for, they will tend to be worse at it later or worse, not want to do it. they compared 1st graders learning to read and 2nd graders learning to read and the 2nd graders caught up, no point, right? well, then they found that the early readers didn't enjoy reading and didn't seek it out. wow.

She specificallly mentions The Beter Baby Institute and Glenn Doman as an example of the fruitlessness of trying to teach a baby something they aren't ready for and the the damage that can be done by focusing on the wrong data at the wrong time. Doman stresses math over every subject, and doesn't even mention socialization or altruism, etc. I haven't heard of this institute, but I am familar with the superbaby concept.

She says: "So next time someone tries to tell you of a baby that does great things (implying yours doesn't) you have an answer. You can say you feel your baby isn't ready to specialize yet, that he has far more important skills to learn than reading, and that he's already mastering profounder tasks than long division - without special lessons."

Next chapter she describes why being Supermom isn't something to be concerned about, now that we know that Superbabies aren't something to worry about.

I know, you're prly thinking, we know all that - it's fabulous confirmation for me! This type of information supports the notion of unschooling so firmly for me. And if you're already there, way to go!!

[MysticHealerMom]

Alrighty - in chapter 2, she discusses the supermom or parent problem. Basically, she goes back a bit to explain how mom's have become the scapegoat for society. has a lot to do w/Freud and potty training failure and whatnot. And basically, this is just wrong. One of the things about the supermom and wrong parenting ideas is that babies aren't programable machines - as mentioned in the 1st chapter, they're complex persons, and beyond that, we're complex systems - in later chapters she goes on to talk about how systems theory has changed the way experts view childrearing. Part of the problem was that given the mechanistic view of t he world, and the limited aspect of the laboratory environment, what the experts had to recommend didn't work in the real world, only in a simplistic, for this situation only this one time type of thing. Once they started doing natural research, viewing babies and their mothers (families) at home, they started getting the big picture. Unfortunately, there's a still a lot of the old information out there.

The dance she's referring to is that we are a system, so complex, they could never figure it out in a lab.

She goes on to discuss Trivial Inconsequential *somethings* - and to say that these little things that we think will make or break our children aren't really all that important. Children don't remeber every little thing - the more traumatic the thing, the more likely they'll remember, but the little choices probably won't effect the outcome.

And one of the major points she makes is that play is important. interaction with you (the best toy in the world) is more effective than any lessons.

The Dance has to do with responding to the baby so they feel happy and cherrished and if they aren't responded to when they ask, they become frustrated and withdrawn.

but you knew that, that's why you're here. it's good to be reminded.

and the systems theory is pretty fasicinating stuff.

l8r

[The Lucky One]

Sounds fascinating! I'm going to check into it!!

Thanks!