API Norman, Oklahoma

I read a great blog post about nurturing creativity in your child. At this stage in my daughter’s life, there’s little that I enjoy more than watching her role play with her dolls or play with legos. I’m happy for her, that she is curious and creative about her surroundings and these are qualities that I want to nurture.

Let’s say, for discussion’s sake, that you can only nurture ONE quality in your child - or ONE at a time. Which one do you focus on at whatever age your child is right now? Is it compassion or curiosity or creativity? How do you practice this in your every day life? What are your struggles in creating an environment where these things can blossom in your child?

For me, the biggest challenge is letting go of direction and expectations of any activity going a particular way. I don’t want to direct my daughter how to play or how to see the world, but I want to create a world where she is encouraged to color outside the lines and to discover her own perspectives and help her understand how her actions impact others.

What are you encouraging?

Posted by Peter

We can’t help but worry about our 21 month old being 12 or 13 years old and the types of challenges that we’ll face together. To get right to the point, what’s the difference between protecting and sheltering? We’ve discussed this and read two books that were wonderful in giving us some perspective: 1) Bringing up Geeks and 2) Hold on to your Kids. Ultimately, we want our daughter to enjoy growing up at age-appropriate intervals and we definitely want to protect her from influences that might compromise that. What ideas and inspirations do you have for doing the same?

Posted by Peter

It’s spring-ish and we’re now officially tired of being locked up inside.  Your mission, if you choose to take it, is to come up with family-friendly suggestions for local events (that can be added to the calendar) or just things that you do in the springtime with your kids. We’ll start. Here are 3 things that we’re excited about doing with our 21 month old daughter. Since our daughter is still pretty little, it would be great to hear from other people about activities for older kids too.

1. We had a great time last summer at the Norman Splash Pad at Andrew’s part, although I do recommend reading this article from the Norman Transcript about a water issue. I’m sure that it won’t reopen unless it passes water inspection.
2. Sam Noble Museum discovery room.
3. We built and planted a raised vegetable garden to do something together in the back yard. Our daughter loves the outdoors and helping.
4. A bonus list of ideas we found at the Norman Mom’s Club

Posted by Peter

Our 21 month old daughter is going through a phase where she seems to be feeling more separation anxiety. Probably normal developmental behavior for this phase, right? I hope that we can help by being more nurturing and create a good schedule of interaction so that she feels reassured and emotionally safe.

Here’s my issue - I work from home. “I don’t know about you dog, but for me,” as Randy Jackson might say it; it’s breaking my heart to see her pleading for Daddy when I go in my office. When my work day starts, I have clients and deliverables, etc… I’m concerned that at 21 months, she doesn’t understand that I’m off to work and not ignoring her. Am I already creating a feeling of abandonment in my little girl and will this turn into a never ending quest for her to fill her life with surrogate daddy-types? Ok, I’m exaggerating, but I would appreciate good ideas about helping her and helping us work with this situation - especially from those of you that work from home.

Posted by Peter

Welcome to website for the Norman, Oklahoma chapter of Attachment Parenting International. My name is Peter and I’m a member (not a leader) of the Norman API group. My wife and I joined in 2007 shortly after the birth of our daughter (featured above). When our new baby came, we looked everywhere, but it turns out that she didn’t come with an instruction manual! Although we read books and took classes before her arrival, nothing prepared us for the transition to parenthood and the flood of emotions that we felt–one of which was the powerful desire to use gentle, nonviolent, respectful and loving parenting that would put the relationship with our daughter at the top of the priority list.

Relatively new to Norman, we set out to find a group of families that embraced the compassionate parenting philosopies of API so we could participate in a non-judgemental, open discussion that would help us formulate good parenting strategies Over the last year and a half, we have have been so lucky to be part of a community of wonderful parents and children to learn from and be supported by.

Posted by Peter