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Text of the page (random words):
e that god is pleased with each attempt we make to obey him or to honour him stumbling fumbling or outright useless as they may be without suggesting for a moment that he is displeased when we don t make those attempts or when we fail god is love and he loves us outrageously all the time share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in uncategorized tagged baby children father god parenting unconditional love 1 comment myth busting 10 newborns can t smile posted on october 8 2012 by claire my third child now 9 months old was not very happy about being born it was a lovely calm home birth in water according to the rules he should have been calm staring into my eyes with fascination and then when he was ready searching around for his first blissful feed but it was not to be as soon as our midwife lifted him from the pool my beautiful son screamed like a banshee the first thing i said in my exhaustion before i even turned around to look at him was teeny babies aren t supposed to make that sort of noise they re supposed to mew like kittens i d never heard anything like it from a newborn as it turned out this was the first indication of the difficulties we would have with him in that first hour all he wanted to do was snuggle up to me or daddy with his eyes closed and not move if i tried to reposition him slightly so he could reach my nipple he screamed if anyone so much as touched his foot he screamed and when he did finally try to feed i nearly screamed looking back i think he was born with a crick in his neck or some other discomfort in his body and putting his head back properly and opening his mouth wide and putting his tongue forward so he could properly attach to the breast was very uncomfortable for him eventually after a very nasty first week that involved cracked nipples and mastitis we finally found a way to attach so he wasn t doing me damage and was actually milking my breast one of the things we did in that process was to teach him to open is mouth and put his tongue forward on cue by playing an imitating game when he was calm and alert i would say wide mouth and open my own mouth wide and stick my tongue out my baby would copy and i would smile and act excited i started doing this on the advice of an australian breastfeeding association counsellor when he was four days old within a day he had learnt to associate the words wide mouth with the action of sticking is tongue forward with the help of another trick or two he got on the breast properly and my nipples started to heal a couple of days later i saw his first definite smile someone on facebook shared a beautiful photo of a newborn still covered in vernix beaming at the camera you can see the photo here when my facebook friend shared the smiling baby photo it was immediately assumed by commenters to be either photoshopped or wind i m not a good enough judge to say for sure it s not edited but there s no way that smile is wind where would a minutes old baby get wind anyway granted it is rare for a baby to smile this young none of mine did although come to think of it if you don t count the oldest who was born not breathing and ended up spending a couple of days on a ventilator or the youngest who was born screaming then really only the middle one was in a position to smile that early on but she didn t or if she did i didn t recognise it you certainly don t hear of it happening often but why do we think it s impossible it is considered the scientific view but where does it come from in fact according to the book how babies think by developmental psychologists alison gopnik andrew meltzoff and patricia kuhl babies are able to imitate sticking out their tongues and opening their mouths from birth yes the researchers had pagers and ran to the hospital to conduct their research within hours of the birth of their subjects in one case the baby was less than 45 minutes old they say for many years experts who in fact knew nothing systematic about babies took a certain perverse satisfaction in assuring parents that their new babies minds were somewhat less sophisticated than that of a slug babies couldn t really see their smiles were just gas the idea that they recognized familiar people was a fond maternal illusion so why am i raising this on a discipline blog partly because i thought you d like to see the beautiful photo but also because i think it says something about the way we view and therefore treat our children remember in old movies how they always slap the baby at birth to make it cry somehow our culture seems to think it s good for kids to cry from birth but not to smile what does that say about our view of childhood i think it contributes to or comes out of the unspoken belief that children and especially babies are not real people and therefore cannot have real emotions like happiness in fact we sometimes go even further and discount the reality of their negative feelings too as a teenage girl said cheerfully they re made to cry what why why would god make a child with the ability to communicate non existent pain god is not the author of confusion if a baby knit together by god s wisdom in his mother s womb is expressing distress surely we should assume that he is in distress as my story above illustrates a baby who cries is not happy and there is a reason even at birth although there may be no way of knowing what it is or being able to fix it and surely if god or evolution if you prefer has designed our kids with the ability to communicate when things are not right wouldn t it make sense to build in a positive feedback mechanism as well doesn t it just make sense that a newborn should be able to smile and here s a short youtube video of a 1 week old smiling when did your baby first smile share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in uncategorized tagged babies baby children emotions god parenting 15 comments approval ratings posted on august 31 2012 by greenegem good what does that word mean i mean specifically in the phrase good mother or good parent i could look up the definition of the word good and still have no idea what it means to be a good mother i would love to have some sort of system that could accurately measure and give me feedback on my success and progress as a parent sort of a nielsen rating for motherhood and why not after all we all need positive feedback don t we i do it is odd that in everything else i can tell you i am competent or i am not competent and give good and convincing reasons why but here well i feel like a pretty cruddy parent most times here it is maximus first day of school yesterday i feel like i failed entirely to do whatever it is a normal mom would have done for an event of this significance i m pulled in many directions attention divided by school insurance financial aid for college bills pimples you name it minimus oh baby i am so very sorry my baby for how much you have had to navigate this life unaided you are such a remarkable boy and i hope that when you are grown you don t remember me as detached and uninterested i m always so distracted i love you both so very much but am i a good momma maximus had what he needed for school a good lunch appropriate clothes he was clean and had a backpack and a notebook for his teacher to communicate with me he knew it was coming ok i forgot to brush his teeth we were a few minutes late but no one blinked an eye minimus and i walked in with max and my big boy said momma i don t need a hand when i held mine out to him oh i did remember to take his picture well i guess we did ok after all poor minimus started a new care situation many more days than he has ever had to be cared for by someone other than me i feel i have abandoned them both they had a fantastic day so did i then the guilt hit i enjoyed abandoning my babies i was horrified at myself for this now i know i didn t abandon them and i know that if i had i would not have enjoyed it but fear and guilt are irrational things i look at my parenting as always having room for improvement and i am always adding more tools but i get stuck in that self check mode am i an ok mom then it s the end of a badbad day and i am crying to a friend about how differently i should have handled max especially and she says you are good mom no i protest i am a barely adequate mom this afternoon i figured out that what bothers me about being or not being a good mom is that i can not know this about myself there is no way to step outside of myself sufficiently to see that i hate not knowing i wish for my sake and maybe for the boys too because maybe if i knew and was confident i could relax a little i wish parenting had approval ratings gg share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in figuring it out grace based discipline greenegem s story tagged approval ratings baby college bills first day of school good mother maximus minimus nielsen rating tools 5 comments spare the rod harper s bazar 1867 posted on july 30 2012 by barefootbetsy from the november 23 1867 edition of harper s bazar pg 50 spare the rod spare the rod and spoil the child says solomon which the severe interpret to mean literally the laying on of the birch the rattan and the cat o nine tails but which the amiable explain as having merely a figurative signification these humanely say that the wise king understood by the rod a symbol of discipline and in advising that it be not spared in the bringing up of the young meant that they were not to be treated with too much indulgence we confess ourselves in favor of the less rigid interpretation and as altogether opposed to the use of physical violence in any form whatsoever a resort to the rod is the most impotent conclusion of discipline it is a confession of the want of that moral power which the superior in authority should always possess over the subordinate it is the exercise of a physical might which is sure to leave with those who may feel its weight a sense of wrong and oppression neither could be more fatal to the affectionate relations which should always exist between parent and child pupil and teacher and which are so necessary to make the one patient and the other docile a resort to the rod in ninety nine cases out of a hundred is merely an excuse for laziness or impatience without energy or perseverance to pursue a systematic course of moral training the parent or teacher avails himself of the ready resource supplied by his superiority of muscle it is so easy to raise an arm or wield a stick the mere brutal force of man s nature gives that power and to use it does not even require premeditation it comes with the flash of anger for the instinct to wound accompanies the irritation of the human as it does that of other brutes the blow is doubtless the easier process and not a disagreeable one to the administrator for it may be made to fall very heavy on the weak without much cost of effort to the strong and affords a sensible relief to the pressure of passion if it were only effective in its purpose the use of it might be conceded to the parent and teacher for its evident facility of application and the gratification it seems to give them but it is not effective virtue and learning to be pursued must be loved and we are yet to learn that the association of the painful and disagreeable and to the child the rod the birch and the cat o nine tails are probably both however enjoyed by those who apply them is favorable to strength of attachment the moral and intellectual discipline of the child is certainly no easy matter and the sooner the parent or teacher makes up his mind to it the better it will be for all he should understand that it is not the summary process of a blow given in a spasm of passion but a serious business requiring time and patience the use of the rod begets an awe of the parent which never leaves the child so that when he advances in life if he becomes superior to fear he yet feels toward father or mother a reserve which prevents that intimate companionship which is the best safeguard of youth against the dangers of the world it is not safe to trust the strong with the power of exercising their animal force upon the weak parents though controlled by all the supposed influence of natural affection have not seldom perverted this claimed privilege to a violence which has even resulted in death how much greater then the risk of trusting the teacher who has not and does not profess to have a love for his pupils in france there is a law which forbids the application of physical violence to the child under any pretext whatsoever and the rod is not only thus banished from every school throughout the empire but from every home but the most brutalized the use of it is regarded as the practice of any other gross vice the relations between parent and child teacher and pupil are nowhere more tender and their union more abiding than in france the law should interfere also in our country and make it a penal offense for any teacher or other than a parent and perhaps even for him to raise his hand to a child with the present license there is what must be considered by those even in favor of the rod excessive abuse those who were not supposed to be cruel by nature and who even have passed in the ordinary relations of life for benevolent men have as teachers been guilty unconsciously it may be of the greatest inhumanity a late learned professor whose disposition is said to have been naturally kindly issues when master of a school this edict the last five boys of the class at the end of each day s lesson shall be caned the fault if a fault was inevitable and the penalty certain could the severe draco himself ever have conceived so cruel as law as this share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on reddit opens in new window reddit email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading posted in grace based discipline tagged 1800s bible children death discipline gentle history indulgence interpretation parent parenting punishment rod spank spanking strike student teacher uncontrolled violence leave a comment the language of love posted on july 10 2012 by greenegem i often end up with tiny people sleeping in my bed i don t mind most of the time and the last few nights i have treasured their presence maximus poked me mommy i am ready to get up now yaaawn in a few ...