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Creating Healthy Relationships

“When you have a baby you have five years of hard labor ahead of you. If you don’t get it over at the beginning, you’ve got it coming to you later.”

- John Bowlby

Relationships begin well before children are born and more likely even before conception, as indicated by the emerging field of epigenetics. As parents, this means that we have great influence over what happens or doesn’t happen with our child’s development and we have the ability to change the trajectory if we are aware and have the tools to make changes. We need to understand that our children are not born as blank slates, but that children absorb what happens to them in utero, during birth, and long before they can consciously remember.

Our early parenting decisions help to form the basic structure of a child’s brain in the early years, while later decisions only add to or lessen the impact of the basic structure. Loving and valuing our babies through meeting their needs establishes a neural pathway in their brain that enables them to believe they are loved and valued.

Because these early parenting decisions make such an impact on development and the course of the relationship, it becomes even more important to try to meet children’s needs when they are young. It is possible to change things later, but you are looking at changing the structure of the brain and the neural pathways. It is possible to do, but it requires LOTS of work on a daily basis to make changes.

One of the best tools we've found to promote creating a healthy relationship is Attachment Parenting. The concepts underlying attachment can be a great guide to point you in the right direction to get a good start.

Green Light Parenting Behaviors          

• Education
• Attachment Parenting
• Baby Wearing
• Conscious Conception
• Conscious Pregnancy
• Conscious Birth
• Nighttime Parenting (co-sleeping or sleeping in close proximity, responsive to night time needs)
• Rhythm to day/week
• Feeding on cue (preferably breastfeeding)
• Bottle nursing when breastfeeding not possible
• Time out for parent as needed
• Taking care of needs of parent for self care and community

Links to Resources for
Creating Healthy Relationships