Ten Ways to Grow a Happy Child

by Jan Hunt

The first real choice a human baby must make is whether to trust or mistrust other humans. This basic trust-versus-mistrust stage is the first building block upon which all later love relationships are formed.
- Dr. Ken Magid

1. Fall in love with your baby by having a positive birthing experience for baby, mother, and father. Then strengthen that love by breast-feeding your child until he or she no longer needs it.

2. Breastfeed your baby until he or she no longer needs it. Breast milk contains immune-system enhancers that help keep your baby healthy. Any other food, even sugar water, permanently destroys many of these important substances. A healthy baby is a joy!

3. Breastfeeding is also good for mothers. A nursing mother produces hormones that help her to be patient and loving, making parenting easier. As well, a breast-feeding mother and her infant share sleep cycles and dream in unison, so the mother is less likely to be awakened by her baby during dreams or deep sleep. A refreshed mother is a patient mother!

4. Keep your baby with you as much as possible. Separations and changing caretakers make it harder for your child to learn trust and to grow into a loving and trusting adult.

5. Share sleep with your baby. This makes nighttime parenting easier and can help prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Your child's need for your presence does not magically disappear at bedtime.

6. Respond quickly and compassionately to your baby's cries, both day and night. This reassures him that he is important to you. Picking up your baby will not "spoil" him. Carrying him increases brain cell connections. According to Dr. George Wootan:
The increased opportunity for parent-child bonding offered by breastfeeding is a widely known benefit of nursing, which brings up an interesting sidelight. A baby can have lots of brain cells, but they won't do any good unless they're interconnected. The nerve fibers that connect these cells are called dendrites. And what develops dendrites? You probably said breast milk ... right? Wrong! Touching develops dendrites. Holding, touching, and stroking a baby, as a mother naturally does while nursing ("you can prop a bottle but not a breast"), helps the child develop the way nature intended, both physically and emotionally. You can't love a baby too much!

7. A close bond between mother and child, naturally achieved through breastfeeding, holding, and shared sleep, is the best prevention of child abuse.

8. Remember that punishment teaches violence, destroys self-esteem, creates anger, interferes with learning, and damages the relationship between parent and child. "People are not for hitting, and kids are people too!"

9. Allow your child's sense of trust plenty of time to grow strong before having a new baby to claim your attention. A three- or four-year spacing between children reaps enormous emotional benefits for each child.

10. "Bad behavior" is a sign that a child's basic needs have not been met. Remember to give your children undivided attention, eye contact, and touching, and try to see things from their point of view. The best gifts you can give your child are your time, patience, and understanding.


An extract from the book, The Natural Child: Parenting from the Heart by Jan Hunt.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

Jan Hunt is the Director of The Natural Child Project and the author of The Natural Child: Parenting From the Heart and A Gift for Baby. She is also the editor of The Unschooling Unmanual.

Jan offers telephone counselling worldwide on attachment parenting and unschooling. For more information on counselling or to order her books, please visit www.naturalchild.org or write to Jan here.