Part 1 - Phenomenon of Peer Orientation

Power to parent is necessary. Or else it turns into a game of bribes. Most parents turn to books on tricks of parenting because they have losses power in the relationship. Their children are not attached to them and do not depend on them.

Society puts a large premium on teaching kids to be self dependent, self motivated, self reliant, self oriented. But With that we can lose sight of what childhood is about. Parents complain of kids off putting behavior and fail to note that the kids stopped looking to them nurture. They are sad the kids don’t comply with basic expectations and fail to note that the kids stopped seeking their affection. When attachment is displaced, dependence is displaced. And with dependence, the power to parent.

We can get occupied in trying to master all the skills a parent needs. We think they are not doing something right because we haven’t learned how to “teach” them that thing because we don’t h e the skill in how to teach that.

When we focus narrowly on what we should be doing, we become blind to our attachment relationship with our children and it’s inadequacies. Parenthood is above all a relationship, not a skill I’m to be acquired. Attachment is not a behavior to be learned but a connection to be sought.

Part 2 - Sabotaged: How peer orientation undermines parenting

From Help to hindrance: when attachment works against us

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Attachment is for the parent just as much as the child. A parent is abused, used and taken advantage of. It is back breaking work without thanks. But you endure it because you are attached to your child. The gestures of affection they give us keep us going. They don’t do it out of appreciation though, it just out of attachment.

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A child’s attachment starts with the need of physical proximity. This can be exhausting for a parent. But also had a positive side. The child mayb want to always be in you and such, and it’s annoying espcecially when you are trying to get something done. But that need helps the kids stay close, like a baby bear cub following its mom. We have to learn how to parent in harmony with that attachment priniple, rather than fight it.

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Attachment to parents motivates kid to be good. To have a desire to be good.

Never abuse that desire. Never make a child feel bad, ashamed, or guilty to get them to behave good. Children will feel bad when anticipating a sense of loss of connection, it don’t use that to get good behavior. Abusing the attachment conscience can lead to insecurities and them turning off that altogether to avoid pain.

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Kid wants to be good for the parent, naturally. Nurture that and don’t violate their trust. Assume the intent and desire are good. External motivators like rewards and punishment can destroy the internal motivation to be good.

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“Natural consequences”

In your logic, the behavior has a natural consequence. But in reality the child doesn’t see that logic, and their experience it seems arbitrary.

If consequences are truly natural, whey do they have to be imposed on the child?

Nurture and cherish their desire to be good. That is all they need to earn our trust. Not that they can live up to our expectations.

Counterwill: Why children become disobedient

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Children motivated to do something will stop that when the rewards are gone. Stop the pay, stop the play.

Motivators change behavior temporarily, they are forms of psychological manipulation and coercion.

Attachment is the real lasting factor for change.

The flatlining of culture

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Peer culture is sterile. It can’t reproduced. It has. Not depth to it to last or any real motivating influence at deep levels. Hippie culture doesn’t have multi generations continuing with it, and it even had deeper values than the peer culture of today.

Peer culture lacks sense of tradition and history. It doesn’t consider the last, only concern is the present dads and trends.

Dangerous because it can lead to repeating mistakes. South Africa example - kid complaining about learning about racism from parents post apartheid.

Peer culture raises voltage on tribalism. It may appear ppl are more similar not due to technology, but they are superficial. Seeking to be the same as someone means you have to be different than others, and those differences can be accentuated to the point of hostility.

Part 3 - Stuck in Immaturity: How peer orientation stunts healthy development

The Dangerous Flight from Feeling

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Peer oriented children will be more sensitive to stress. The insensitive actions of their peers will cut them deep and they will be constantly worried about their status.

Attachment to to parents is a shield to that. When a peer says some thing hurtful, they will look to parent for validation. When attachment is their, they can move on from the peers comments.

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With peers they take on a posture of being invulnerable. This make its impossible for them to find a safe space to show emotion. Imagin living without feeling physical pain? Emotions are essential and when shutdown lead to depresssjon, insecurity and anxiety.

Having an attached parent helps us be able to feel.

Flight from vulnerability is a flight from self. if we do not hold our children close to us, the ultimate cost is the loss of their ability to hold on to their own truest selves.

Stuck in Immaturity

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We liberate children not by making them work for our love but by letting them rest in it.

The Making of Bullies and Victims

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Bullies - elephant population got to hard to manage on elephant preserve in South Africa. Killed parents of kids that could survive on their own. After a while, they noticed a lot of dead rhinos. Thought it was poachers. Ended up being a band of male elephants that had grown up with parents. They became bullies. They brought in male elephant to lead and the killing stopped.

A Sexual Turn

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Joan Jacobs Brumberg

The body Project

50 years ago when girls talked about self improvement , they had in mind academic achievement or some contribution to society. Now appearance is the foremost.

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The divorce of sex from vulnerability may have a liberating effect on sexual behavior, but it derived from a dark place of emotional desensitization.

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The safest sex, from the perspective of attachment and vulnerability, would occur not as a way of forming a relationship, but in the context of a relationship that is already satisfying and secure.

Unteachable Students

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Kids oriented to peers are unteachable. It’s too risky to be curious and engaged in learning because you have to enter vulnerable territory.

Kids that are constantly struggling for base attachment will not be able to be curious because they don’t have a base

teaching harder, or new curriculum or new technology is not the answer. What is needed is more attachment.

Part 4 - How to hold on to our kids

Collecting our children

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Morning routine. Don’t just jump into parenting, have some warm up to collect them back to you and engaged. Things will go smoother.

invite dependence

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We champion independence. But it’s only a transfer one dependence to the peer group.

In thousands of little ways, we pull and push our children to grow up, hurrying them along instead of inviting them to rest.

Discipline That Does Not Divide

7 principles of natural discipline

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1. Use connection, not separation

   1. Don’t exploit the kids deepest fear (abandonment) to get them to behave. It can lead to insecurity.

2. Work relationship not incident

   1. Needing to Usethe situation forthwith to teach a lesson is not true. It’s based on studies with animals, that don’t have consciousness and can’t be communicated with.
   2. Collect them first and then when they are in right mindset bring the behavior up again and talk about it

3. When’s it’s not working, draw out tears instead of teaching a lesson

   1. If kids is getting so frustrated and they are having a hard time adapting. Help them express the feelings, and the lesson will come out of that
4. Solicit Good intentions instead of demanding good behavior
5. Script the desired behavior

6. Draw out mixed feelings instead of demanding good behavior

   We often tell our kids to cut it out — as if they could perform psychic surgery on themselves! We cannot cut out of a child’s repertoire behavior that is deeply rooted in instinct and emotion.

7. When unable to change child, change the child’s world

   1. Try to identify what you can change to help the child. Bedtime resistance? Maybe it’s actually not desire to be disobedient, but a fear of darkness and loneliness

Who alone has good reason to lie his way out of reality? He who suffers from it. - Nietzsche

Part 5 - Preventing peer orientation

Don’t court the competition

Peers are not the competition. It’s orientation to them. It might seem like peer orientation is a liberation because peers can be peers best babysitters

We send kids to be with kids under assumption that learning to be social is our first priority. But it’s not. If not attached and matured first, then they won’t have sense of self apart from the group. They will comply and conform to “get along” which is not necessarily an indicator of healthy social skills. They are giving up themselves to get along with the group.

What is praised as getting along in children would, in adult life, be called compromising oneself or selling oneself short or not being true to oneself.

Place higher value on child being able to hold on to themselves when interacting with others. That can only happen with a firm attach to nurturing adults.

Day care is stressful for kids. Level of stress hormone cortisol is higher when kid is at daycare than at home.

Part 6 - Digital Age

When we eat empty food, the consumption of food increases. I believe this tells the story of social networking. Paradoxically, Facebook is not successful because it works so well but for exactly the opposite reason: it doesn’t work. Attachment never comes to rest; the pursuit or proximity is never satiated.

Social media kills the appetite for what you really need. It mocks the need to connect. It gives appearance of filling that need, but leaves no nutrients to give lasting nourishment.