Attached Family Magazine

Attachment Parenting International's quarterly magazine, Attached Family, delves into the difficult area of shame, including the use and effects of shame in parenting for this Winter 2016 issue. In this issue of Attached Family, "Parenting Without Shame," edited by Publications Coordinator and Writer, Rita Brhel, API examines shame versus guilt and how shame contributes to emotional trauma.

In this issue of Attached Family, we take a look at the cultural explosion of breastfeeding advocacy, as well as the challenges still to overcome. API writer Sheena Sommers begins this issue with “The Real Breastfeeding Story,” including a look at “Extended Breastfeeding Around the World” by API writer Rivkah Estrin, followed by API Professional Liaison Patricia Mackie’s interview with the founder of Breastfeed, Chicago! and finally, I present researcher Jeanne Stolzer as she makes “Nature’s Case for Breastfeeding.” 

This time of learning how to parent is crucial to the mother-infant relationship. Attachment Parenting helps mothers—whether breastfeeding or bottle feeding—view infant care in the context of the holistic parent-child relationship and learn how that give-and-take interaction that builds the foundation of secure attachment can be applied beyond feeding with love and respect. In this issue of Attached Family, we take a look at the “other side” of breastfeeding advocacy—championing compassion for the mother who encounters challenges in breastfeeding and who may not be able to breastfeed at all. API’s The Attached Family.com Editor Lisa Lord opens this issue with “When Breastfeeding Doesn’t Work,” followed by a look at “The Milk Bank Movement” by API writer Kathleen Mitchell-Askar, and an API presentation of API’s Parent Support Deserts project—each with accompanying parent stories (including that of Sara Jones Rust, who graces the cover, on page 9).

Scattered throughout this double issue are parent stories, project highlights and additional resources from around and beyond API.

Attachment Parenting is about loving each of our children as individuals with unique character traits. But this can be difficult to do in a culture that increasingly blames behavior on disorders and difficult temperament.

"Difficult" and "different" are not synonymous with "disordered"...

In this issue of Attached Family, we delve into temperament and how it intersects with parenting and the development of attachment style, and we challenge the notion that every hard-to-handle child needs a diagnosis.