Out of the Mouths of Babes: Parenting From a Child's Perspective

Being an attachment parent, I agree with so much of Dyan Eybergen's book, Out of the Mouths of Babes: Parenting from a Child's Perspective. She shares her views on Bedtime and sleeping through the night, toilet training, fears of our children, eating, sibling rivalry/conflict resolution, sexuality, discipline, and self-esteem. She shares how her and her husband easily grasped onto the attachment theory, which is meeting your child's needs when they have needs, when her boys were babies. They responded to the cues that they gave~crying when hungry, wet or tired...then they just acted on those cues. (I am an avid breast feeder on demand, and that is an example of attachment parenting.)

I was very encouraged by Dyan's book, because her and her husband did the same things with their children, like co-sleeping. Her toilet training stories are quite comical, and it is fun to read the things that some kids think. One of her quotes is, "I don't have to wipe; my pee will wash it away." Talen, age 2 3/4

One of the sections in her book shed some light on something I am dealing with currently...Fears of children. She talks in her book about the middle child feeling left out between the pride of the first born, and the darling baby. Two of our children are dealing with some middle child fears, I think, and it makes me realize I need to step it up in the attention department.

Out of the Mouths of Babes, is a great read! Dyan Eybergen has a lot of great advice and insight.

From the back cover:

For those who have struggled with parenting strategies that have failed or worked for one child but not another, Out of the Mouths of Babes offers a unique parenting approach tailored to working with the personalities of individual children, ultimately educating parents how to observe and appreciate every experience through the eyes of their child.
Parent, educator, and pediatric psychiatric nurse, Dyan Eybergen shares how relying on the principles of attachment theory works for both her and her husband as they raise three boys with very different personalities. Eybergen details how she learned to develop an understanding of how her children were thinking and feeling by paralleling their experiences with her own. She teaches that parents who learn to rely on this theory can uncover successful solutions to such frustrating child-rearing dilemmas as:
*Sleeping through the night
*Eating at all ages
*Toilet training
*Sibling rivalry and conflict resolution
*Effective discipline
This innovative guidebook will help parents empower their children to acquire new skills, effectively problem solve, manage conflict, and develop a healthy self-esteem, and most importantly, offers a new choice for parents who believe there are other alternatives to the one-size-fits-all paradigm of raising children.

About the Author:

Dyan Eybergen, a paediatric psychiatric nurse, has more than ten years experience working as a therapist and parent educator. Dyan and her family were guests on the cable television show "For Kids Sake," along with parenting expert Barbara Coloroso. Eybergen resides in Ontario, Canada, with her husband and three sons.

Thank you MotherTalk for this book review! It is a great resource for new and "seasoned" moms!