Alpha Mums!

I don't know about you, but I am feeling the pressure to alpha up my life a bit.

The Alpha Mum is the latest marketing buzzword, referring to the modern mum who is educated, tech-savvy - and a big influence on how other mums spend money.
First, the alpha mums had to be, completely conversant in the latest techno-gizmos, hot vacation spots, parenting trends and nail polish colours. Alpha mums had to be connected, concerned and influencing peers 24/7. An Alpha Mum is online 87 minutes a day - seven percent more than the typical internet user. The Alpha Mum also has a high social-networking factor online. Alpha mums had to somehow put themselves and their kids first, never settling for second (or beta) best. Type A meets Martha Stewart meets Mary Poppins. The alpha mum was the woman of the moment.

Until the Alpha Wife showed up.

Yup, according to research, 22 percent of all wives now make more money than their husbands. A sizable chunk of wives, more than 20 percent, are more educated than their husbands too. In short, smarter and richer, yet somehow, I bet still doing more housework than ever. That doesn't sound very alpha to me, but it has a lot of people atwitter about the rise of the power wife.

Is it possible to be both an alpha mum and an alpha wife? Frankly, I am sure that there are capable women who are everything alpha.

Attached at the Heart

Attachment Parenting

When my daughter Eva was born my good friend Hellen, a psychotherapist, turned me on to Attachment Parenting and sent me a Sears Book – The Baby Book and a note that said “I’d have half the patients I have now if everyone was raised with Attachment Parenting.” And she really believed in it. People in her field talked about it a lot, and the importance of the bond between parents and child.

Attachment parenting is an approach to child-rearing intended to forge strong, healthy bond between parents and children. For many parents, this approach feels instinctive and natural. And anthropological research suggests that some attachment parenting practices—-such as baby-wearing and co-sleeping—-have deep roots in our evolutionary past .

The term, "attachment parenting", was conceived by pediatrician William Sears and his wife Martha, to describe a highly responsive, attentive style of caring for a child. Attachment parenting promotes physical and emotional closeness between parent and child through what the Sears refer to as the "Baby Bs." The Baby Bs are bonding, breastfeeding, baby wearing, bed sharing and boundary building.
Attachment parenting advocates encourage parents to hold their baby often in the early sensitive weeks of life to foster bonding. Breastfeeding is promoted because it enhances the mother's natural instincts to respond to her baby through physical closeness, hormonal influences and promotion of attentiveness. Both babywearing, the practice of carrying the baby on the parents' body with an infant carrier or sling, and bedsharing, parents and babies sleeping in the same bed, provide additional opportunities for closeness. Boundary building is a discipline philosophy that entails responding to the genuine, age appropriate needs of the child and using gentle guidance. All of the Baby Bs are aimed at promoting a trusting, intuitive relationship between parents and baby through the physical and emotional closeness that makes it easier to know and appropriately respond to the baby's needs.

Attachment parenting is about knowing your baby and responding to what your instincts and knowledge of your family tell you is right. Attachment parenting is a vehicle to get to know your baby and develop your own unique and sensitive parenting style.

It Tests Even Your Sanity

Nothing can prepare you for being a parent. It tests your stamina, your nerves, your emotions and at times even your sanity. You start out fretting over how to change a nappy or bath the baby without drowning it, and before long you discover that’s the least of your challenges. And just when you think you’ve got one phase of childhood cracked, they grow a bit older and there it’s a whole new scenario. Toddling, school, boyfriends or girlfriends, driving lessons – in never stops. Luckily the rewards are huge – the fun, the hugs and the closeness. Even the thanks eventually, if you’re very lucky. And most importantly of course the pleasure of seeing them grow into the kind of person you can be proud of.

Listen!

How well do you listen? How well do your children listen? Were you ever tought - to listen?
Listening is not a school subject like reading and writing. Many of us seem to feel it comes naturally and that as long as we can listen to directions on how to find the restroom, nothing more needs to be said. The latest studies reveal that listening is a very large part of school learning and is one of our primary means of interacting with other people on a personal basis. It is estimated that between 50 and 75 percent of students' classroom time is spent listening to the teacher, to other students, or to audio media.


So can we as parents teach our children to be better listeners?
According to research on listening skills, being a good listener means focusing attention on the message and reviewing the important information. Parents can model good listening behavior for their children and advise them on ways to listen as an active learner, pick out highlights of a conversation, and ask relevant questions. Sometimes it helps to "show" children that an active listener is one who looks the speaker in the eye and is willing to turn the television off to make sure that the listener is not distracted by outside interference.


So how can I as a parent put this into practice?
1) Be interested and attentive. Children can tell whether they have a parent's interest and attention by the way the parent replies or does not reply. Forget about the telephone and other distractions. Maintain eye contact to show that you really are with the child.
2) Encourage talking. Some children need an invitation to start talking. Children are more likely to share their ideas and feelings when others think them important.
3) Listen patiently. People think faster than they speak. Children often take longer than adults to find the right word. Listen as though you have plenty of time.
4) Hear children out. Avoid cutting children off before they have finished speaking. It is easy to form an opinion or reject children's views before they finish what they have to say. It may be difficult to listen respectfully and not correct misconceptions, but respect their right to have and express their opinions.
5) Listen to nonverbal messages. Many messages children send are communicated nonverbally by their tone of voice, their facial expressions, their energy level, their posture, or changes in their behavior patterns. You can often tell more from the way a child says something than from what is said. When a child comes in obviously upset, be sure to find a quiet time then or sometime later.


Parents play an essential role in building children's communication skills because children spend more time with their parents than with any other adult. Children also have a deeper involvement with their parents than with any other adult, and the family as a unit has lifelong contact with its members. Parents control many of the contacts a child has with society as well as society's contacts with the child.

Adults, parents, and teachers set a powerful example of good or poor communication. Communication skills are influenced by the examples children see and hear. Parents and teachers who listen to their children with interest, attention, and patience set a good example.

The greatest audience children can have is an adult who is important to them and interested in them.