RIE: Is Hollywood's Latest Parenting Trend Wacky or Smart?
Jenna McCarthy ON Nov 2, 2010 at 12:36PM
There’s a new parenting trend in Hollywood, and for once it has nothing to do with giving your child a wacky name or parading her around town in a stroller that costs as much as a car. RIE, short for Resources for Infant Educarers and pronounced like "wry" (ironic!), is all about getting back to basics and creating an infant-oriented environment devoid of blinking, beeping, buzzing toys and parents who are inclined to swoop in at the first sign of tears. (Famous followers reportedly include Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen Hunt, Tobey Maguire and Felicity Huffman.) The RIE approach, proponents insist, helps raise children who are competent, confident, curious, cooperative, cheerful and aware.
Of course, RIE isn’t new. It was founded in the 1970s by an infant educator and a pediatric neurologist and, admittedly, lots of things about the parenting approach make sense. For instance, followers eschew fancy gadgets, pointing out that busy toys produce passive children who are destined to become tiny TV addicts. Instead, RIE-approved playthings include simple objects babies can use imaginatively in multiple ways, like stacking cups, empty water bottles and wooden spoons. Once the child is engaged, parents are taught to watch and respect the way he or she chooses to interact with a toy and not direct the play. Daily parenting duties -- think diapering, changing, feeding -- are viewed as opportunities to engage and instruct, not tedious roadblocks to playtime.
On the other hand, there are some aspects of RIE that could make it challenging to execute flawlessly. For instance, parents are encouraged not to immediately console a sobbing tot but to view a baby’s cries as intelligent, meaningful communication in need of deciphering. Which is all kinds of enlightened and fabulous in theory -- until you’ve got a career-making conference call or other children sleeping nearby. Similarly, while I agree that the RIE motto “never disturb a contented baby” makes a nice wall plaque, when you’ve got to get another kid to soccer practice, dinner is burning on the stove and the UPS guy is banging on the screen door demanding a signature, sometimes baby’s precious contentment is going to have to be disturbed.
There isn’t much opposition to RIE, save for a few claims that some advocates take the approach to extremes (No singing? No dancing? Didn’t these people see what happened when they tried to ban those in Footloose?), and that even in moderation, notions like “never disturb a contented baby” can be wildly inconvenient. Sort of like parenting in general.
MY THOUGHTS
anything extreme is bad. so, whether your a holywood parent or not, there are some RIE principles that should be taken seriously while some should be discarded.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
What Cavemen Knew About Parenting
What Cavemen Knew About Parenting (That We Don’t)
Jenna McCarthy ON Sep 24, 2010 at 3:59PM
Most modern, educated moms and dads are hell-bent on raising their children to be smart, sane and successful. We fill our homes with educational toys and props, shuffle our young from bouncy-seat to play mat to swing to keep them engaged, do our best to breastfeed for as many months as we can (unless we have a really good reason not to), and embrace tough-love practices like “crying it out” to foster independence and teach critical skills like self-soothing and falling asleep. Apparently, we’re doing it all wrong.
When researchers at Notre Dame compiled the results of a study looking at why our Neolithic ancestors had more intelligent, happier, better-behaved kids than we do, they came up with a laundry list of the cavemoms’ winning ways. Among them: Breastfeeding for at least two to five years (something most people today would consider “extreme”), immediate response to baby’s cries, constant carrying and natural, drug-free deliveries.
On a positive note, having multiple adult caregivers beyond mom and dad was considered a plus (I’m hoping preschool counts here), along with exposure to multi-age playmates (I gave the first kid a sister; was that enough?).
If you’re pregnant or considering adding to your brood, this is good information to have. But honestly, I’m glad I didn’t have it back when I would have known how much potential damage I was doing to my kids -- or else I would have felt compelled to have them both strapped to me at all times.
MY THOUGHTS
breastfeeding for 5 years? better plan the family well. if you have 2-3 kids one after the other, you won't have time to do anything else but breastfeed!!! but then, what else is there to do for a cavemom?
Jenna McCarthy ON Sep 24, 2010 at 3:59PM
Most modern, educated moms and dads are hell-bent on raising their children to be smart, sane and successful. We fill our homes with educational toys and props, shuffle our young from bouncy-seat to play mat to swing to keep them engaged, do our best to breastfeed for as many months as we can (unless we have a really good reason not to), and embrace tough-love practices like “crying it out” to foster independence and teach critical skills like self-soothing and falling asleep. Apparently, we’re doing it all wrong.
When researchers at Notre Dame compiled the results of a study looking at why our Neolithic ancestors had more intelligent, happier, better-behaved kids than we do, they came up with a laundry list of the cavemoms’ winning ways. Among them: Breastfeeding for at least two to five years (something most people today would consider “extreme”), immediate response to baby’s cries, constant carrying and natural, drug-free deliveries.
On a positive note, having multiple adult caregivers beyond mom and dad was considered a plus (I’m hoping preschool counts here), along with exposure to multi-age playmates (I gave the first kid a sister; was that enough?).
If you’re pregnant or considering adding to your brood, this is good information to have. But honestly, I’m glad I didn’t have it back when I would have known how much potential damage I was doing to my kids -- or else I would have felt compelled to have them both strapped to me at all times.
MY THOUGHTS
breastfeeding for 5 years? better plan the family well. if you have 2-3 kids one after the other, you won't have time to do anything else but breastfeed!!! but then, what else is there to do for a cavemom?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)