Friday, May 30, 2008

Beyond Consequences by Heather Forbes and Bryan Post


I am almost finished with the book. I can see how so many of the ideas in this book will be effective especially with my older son who so obviously lives in fear. It does talk a lot about going back and dealing with your own fears when you feel negative feelings coming up about your child. I think this is often true. I go back to a past experience and bring the emotion into the situation. Not always though. I remember our youngest saying some very shocking angry things to me and part of my issue was that no one had every said anything like this to me before at all. It was a totally new and shocking experience. Although, now that I think about it I guess my fear was hearing those things for the first time. I am going to try to apply the principles "I see you are stressed/afraid in this situation. I love you and I am not going to leave you." Then talk to them calmly about it later. My only real problem with the book is the constant negative talk about traditional attachment parenting. It worked with my youngest child. Attachment therapy would not be where it is today without these great pioneers in attachment therapy that have developed and worked so hard to study the brain, development, trauma and how to help these kids deal with this past trauma and love, trust and feel safe. I feel I owe them great respect and gratitude for their work. I believe their methods are effective just as I believe the methods in this book are effective. We have to do what works best for each child. Each family. They are individuals. Just as a doctor would not prescribe one medication to all cancer patients, I believe one book or one method is not the only way. So my review of this book is. GREAT METHODS. I believe they will work and am excited to use them with my child. I just wish she had left the traditionalist alone.

2 comments:

~Bren~ said...

Here is my view on traditional attachment therapy (only my view), if it works, it is wonderful. If it does not, it can cause some pretty serious setbacks and even cause some deep trust issues between the child and primary parent. It did not work for us, but I am glad we tried it. I was given some great tools and some not so great tools. I think if I had not given it a try (a serious 4 year try) I would always wonder "what if". My husband on the other hand thinks it did irreversible damage. You are right. It is like cancer medication..it may heal one while making the other sicker.

Brenda said...

I was very interested in hearing your view on this bren. Thanks for sharing! I value your opinion since you have used both.