Here’s Dr. William Sears’ response to the Time magazine cover that featured a mom breastfeeding her 3 Year Old:

The cover was risky but a brilliant hook by Time Magazine to attract readers, and they achieved their goal.  The writer, Kate Pickert, herself a new mother and one of Time’s most diligent writers, sincerely wanted to increase awareness of the Sears’ family contribution to parenting and family health.  She lived with our family for two days, followed me in the office, and spent hours with me on the phone in an attempt to be factual.  While the cover photo is not what I or even cover-mom Jamie would have chosen, it accomplished the magazine’s purpose.  And, as some attachment dads observed, finally a magazine displays a woman’s breast for the real purpose for which they were designed – to nurture a child, not to sell cars and beer.  Cover-mom Jamie is a super-nice person and highly-educated in anthropology, nutrition and theology.  I enjoyed the several hours I spent with her family and her kids shined with the social effects of attachment parenting.

Even though I’m used to being misunderstood and misquoted, as is attachment parenting (AP), I had a few concerns.  AP is not extreme.  It’s very natural and instinctual.  It’s the oldest parenting style in the world.  Nor is breastfeeding three years extreme, at least throughout the world.  The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends for optimal health children be breastfed for at least two years and sometimes recommends three years. 

Another misconception was AP is difficult for the mother who works outside the home.  It’s just the opposite.  Women are the greatest multi-taskers in the world.  AP, modified to the parents’ work schedule, helps busy parents reconnect with their child, which actually makes working and parenting easier.  It’s attachment moms that forged the long overdue workplace-friendly breastfeeding-pumping stations and laws which respect and value the ability of a working mother to continue part-time breastfeeding. 

Regarding the science criticism, it’s impossible to scientifically prove by a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized study (the gold standard in science) that AP works better than a more distant style of parenting.  You would have to take a thousand mothers who practice AP and another thousand who don’t, and see how their kids turn out.  What parent would sign up for such a study?   Yet there is one long-term effect that science does agree on: The more securely-attached an infant is, the more securely independent the child becomes. 

I’m disappointed the article did not pay more attention to the bottom-line of attachment parenting: how AP children turn out – and that’s where this style of parenting really shines.  In my 40 years of studying the long-term effects of what parents do to help their children turn out well, AP kids generally are more: empathetic and compassionate, relate better to people, are easier to discipline, and are just nicer to be around.  When I walk into an exam room in my office, an AP baby, like a little sunflower, naturally turns toward my face and lights up.  I’ve yet to see an AP child be a school bully.  On the contrary, they are the ones who try to comfort a hurting child.

Attachment parenting is not an all-or-nothing, extreme, or indulgent style of parenting.  I advise moms and dads that the seven Baby B’s (birth bonding, breastfeeding, babywearing, bedding close to baby, belief in baby’s cries, beware of baby trainers, and balance) are starter tools (remember, tools not rules) to help parents and infants get to know each other better.  And families can modify these tools to fit their individual family situation. 

Over my years of mentoring attachment parents, the main two words of feedback I have heard is empowering and validating.  My “helper’s high” file is filled with thank you letters such as: “Thank you, Dr. Bill, for validating what my heart and gut tell me is right.”  “Thank you, Dr. Bill, for empowering us new parents with your personal experience to help us enjoy our children more.” 

As an investment banker dad once told me: “AP is one of the best long-term investments you can make in giving your child a greater chance of growing up happier, healthier, and smarter.”  Aren’t those the three main qualities we all want for our children? 

I’ve been thinking a lot about body language lately since I attended a seminar on it last week. It was interesting to notice the body language of people I was working with as we helped staff the event about body language. One lady fluttered her eyelids during one conversation she had with me. Hmmm, that one wasn’t covered in the seminar.

Here are some basics about body language:

Eye movement is very important. Looking up means the person is looking into their memory or to God for inspiration. Looking to the side means they are thinking about what other people are thinking. Looking to the right means looking to the future. Looking to the left means looking to the past. Looking down means looking inward.

If someone licks their lips, that means they are soothing themselves. It could mean they don’t feel confident in what they are telling you, or maybe even lying. Swallowing means they have something really important to tell you. Biting the lips also can mean they have something important to tell you.

I learned from Kirk Duncan last week that body language is not just about expressing what is going on in your mind and heart, but using it to attract more of what you want. In other words, it goes two ways. He said that when you stand with one leg bent that means you feel unstable, like you are on your last leg. During that same event I noticed that I wanted to do that a lot because I had to stand for long periods of time.  I thought, “That’s exactly how I feel in one area of my life! I do feel unstable!” Then he suggested to stay stable on both legs to attract more stability in your life. He said people will trust you more if you stand with both legs straight.

Kirk recommended the book What Every Body Knows: Secrets of an Ex-FBI Agent by Joe Navarro. I am going to delve into this book. It’s really fun to notice body language more and gently ask people what is going in based on what their body language is telling me. I think it’s fascinating that some body language is universal to all cultures and some is specific.

Sometime I want to do a body language class for moms of babies. Did you know that baby’s hands can tell you a lot about what is going on during breastfeeding? Baby’s hands held up by their face can mean that they are hungry. When they start nursing, the free arm goes down as the baby gets full. Here is more info:

http://media.clinicallactation.org/fall10/CLGenna.pdf

One of my friends shared this on FB and I love it! It is by Ryan Holiday, whoever that is. I have never heard of the guy before, but he sounds very in the know. It is so refreshing to hear that there is someone out there who reads tough books not to get credit for it for school, but because he wants to be wise, knowledgeable, and a leader.

If you have ever despaired that you can’t get an education because you are a mom who can’t go back to school, read this and apply it! The good news is you don’t have to go to school to get an education. The bad news is you still have to find the time to read and take notes and study your notes, which sometimes is as easy as catching a greased pig, I know. As a mom, sometimes the simple act of extricating yourself from constant demands and going to the bathroom can be a challenge. The good news is you have years and years to perfect the art of getting an education at home. If you apply these teachings, you will become very smart.

I have posted the first bit here and the link to the original web site where it comes from. Be sure to read the whole thing. He gives info on how to take notes and how to organize your notes. I can’t always turn down the corner of the pages or write in the book because I read from library books. What I do is use a sheet of lined paper that I fold in thirds lengthwise to be the bookmark. Then I write down the quotes in each of the columns created by the folds with the page number. Then I compile these pages in a three ring binder.

I like that Mr. Holiday emphasizes reading to get to the “lesson” of the book instead of understanding the technical details that really aren’t that important. I also recommend Audrey Rindlisbacher’s mp3 file here http://www.tenboominstitute.com/tinybrowser/files/principles_&_questions.mp3 of how to get to the principles, or nuggets of truth, in everything you study.

OK, so here’s the beginning of the article by Mr. Holiday on how to read to lead and study books:

The best advice I’ve ever got about reading came from a secretive movie producer and talent manager who’d sold more than 100 million albums and done more than $1B in box office returns. He said to me one day, “Ryan, it’s not enough that you read a lot. To do great things, you have to read to lead.”

What he meant was that in an age where almost nobody reads, you can be forgiven for thinking that the simple act of picking up a book is revolutionary. It may be, but it’s not enough. Reading to lead means pushing yourself–reading books “above your level.” In short, you know the books where the words blur together and you can’t understand what’s happening? Those are the books a leader needs to read. Reading to lead or learn requires that you treat your brain like the muscle that it is–lifting the subjects with the most tension and weight.

For more go to http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/05/14/read-to-lead-the-secret-code-for-cracking-tough-books-and-reading-above-your-level/

Last week I helped staff the Master of Influence event produced by http://3keyelements.com. It was a ton of fun!

Here are some new videos Kirk Duncan showed that he didn’t show at the last event:

This first one is about how we as a human race are conditioned not to freely receive money when it’s available. Let’s change that!

This next video is about how the little things you do in your life, like a vision board or using body language to attract more money, can be amplified into big results:

And if you don’t know who Kirk Duncan is, watch this video as he reveals what’s behind the body language of my friend Marnie Pehrson:

Here Kirk explains what “dot people” are:

3 Key Elements is holding a Master of Influence event in July for educators. I invite all of you homeschooling moms to come! Stay tuned for more details!

Mother’s Day started out so sweet with my husband serving me breakfast in bed and giving me what I asked for: new earbuds for my iPod (a marvelous Mother’s Day gift he gave me four years ago) and a genealogy fan chart showing me and my ancestors back to nine generations. You can get your own here https://createfan.com/, as a pdf copy. You sign in using your LDS user account. Then, like magic, it pulls up whatever information you have for your family tree in new.familysearch.org. Then you, or your ideal husband, takes the file to Staples on a flash drive like my dh did so you can get it printed out huge and laminated. I love being able to see nine generations at once! I can easily see the “holes” or bare branches that I need to work on, although my tree is pretty much filled in, like the one above, which is not mine. By looking at the chart and doing some sleuthing I figured out that we are descended from even more Mayflower pilgrims, Francis Billington, and his parents John and Elinor.

My son gave a beautiful talk in sacrament meeting, giving tribute to me, and all the mothers involved in the Shakespeare play he was involved in, just the days before. He loves the theater and he acknowledged that he couldn’t be on the stage performing without all the homeschooling moms behind the scenes producing the play. I took photos but they aren’t very good. I couldn’t get rid of the glare from the bright stage lighting. I am going to have to post a lot more from my dad, because he took a ton with his fancy expensive camera, as soon as I can get him to send them to me.

A great Mother’s Day gift was my firstborn returning home from college after his first year being on his own. He spoke at the TJED Forum last week but couldn’t come back home with us because of his training with Youth for Freedom to be a youth counselor last Saturday. He now has his stuff parked in our front room because he is going to move to Provo soon. He has a job with a software company doing programming for the summer and then he will be off on his mission the end of September. I’m really proud of him. He also just got his braces off too!

That evening we went to my brother’s home to have a Mother’s Day barbecue with my siblings and parents. My kids love to play with their cousins there! They got to see both grandmas, as my mother-in-law attended as well.

My sister-in-law and brother showed us a beautiful surprise: portraits of my Swedish  second great grand father and great grand mother, JCarl and Ingar Nilsson. These have been stashed in my mom’s cousin’s basement for decades and finally have a new home with my brother and sis in law who have earned the honor of being the family genealogists and collectors of memorabilia. The portraits are water-damaged.  These ancestors were born in the early 1800s, so these portraits are not photos but something else, I’m not sure. Maybe hand-painted. My brother did his magic with photoshop and the results are beautiful.

My brother gave his wife as a gift for Mother’s Day this cool poster map showing all the temples in the world. http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/form=robots/item.html&item_number=40004292899&store=439&design=439#

My son who gave the talk in sacrament meeting did not attend the barbecue, because all of the sudden he felt feverish and chillish and achy at the same time. The next day, what should appear, but chicken pox. Yes, we have chicken pox at our house. He’s 14, so this is a really bad case! The youngest four will be getting it soon. Anybody want to have a chicken pox party?

Any suggestions for soothing the itch besides baking soda, lavendar oil, tea tree oil, and aloe vera gel? He has Shakespeare Showdown next week so we are working on speed healing this so his scabs form by Monday morning.

He’s smiling now, but he will be getting chicken pox soon, thanks to his brother!

I know I’m a little late here, but If you haven’t already picked out your Mother’s Day gift, or if you just want something else to satisfy you, here’s another great idea of a gift to give yourself for Mother’s Day. It’s the LOLIPOP Book, officially called, For the Love of Learning: Giving Your Children a LOLIPOP Education by Amy Edwards. This book is especially for you if you are a TJED homeschooling mom, but any mom can benefit by reading it. It’s all about helping your child fall in love with learning, so that the child has a true “love of learning phase” as touted in the book, A Thomas Jefferson Education. I love the book’s pretty lavender color with the multi-colored lollipop. It makes me want to just devour the book!

LOLIPOP stands for Love of Learning Integrated with Projects and Opportunities for service and Play. I picked up my copy at the TJED Forum last week where I got to hear the author speak. I am so excited about this book! Love of learning can often be the hardest phase to inspire learning. The core phasers can just go play and the scholar youth are self-governing with their plans and classes and projects, but the love of learners are in limbo. They don’t always know what’s out there to learn. They want to do hands-on things and explore but that need can seem daunting to a mom, at least to me. This book helps with that!

You can get the table of contents of the book here and order it as well http://sdlaa.com/For_the_Love_of_Learning.html . At that website you can also see one classic book recommended each month for ages 8-14 and then 14 to adult with discussion questions http://sdlaa.com/Classics.html. You can read the author’s blog here http://lolipoplearning.blogspot.com/. She also has a facebook page called “LOLIPOP learning” where you can get bits of wisdom from the author.

The author, a homeschooling TJED mom, Amy Edwards, wrote this book as part of her master’s thesis at George Wythe College. It is an outgrowth of the Thomas Jefferson Education philosophy. If you haven’t already read the book Thomas Jefferson Education and the sequel, Leadership Education: the Phases of Learning, it’s best to read those first before you read this book.

in this book, you will read about how the love of learning phase, which is around ages 8 to 12, actually has three subphases: Love of Play, Love of Sampling, and Love of Producing. Amy has identified these phases based on her study of the work of Piaget and Erikson. Understanding these subphases will help you better understand your child’s developmental needs and how they learn best. By reading this book, you will understand that content learned by children at this age is not so important as learning thinking skills and confidence in themselves in their ability to learn. Love of learning is the time for children to learn that they can be self-learners. The confidence and skills learned in love of learning build a foundation for them to learn whatever they need to learn as a scholar later in scholar phase and for the rest of their life.

You will better be able to “inspire, not require” by understanding these things. I can’t wait to digest this book and implement the ideas with my love of learner. It even has some ideas to help you with several LOLIPOP projects.

I like that the book emphasizes that children learn accountability and follow-through best until scholar phase by doing chores with their parents, not academics. The book is strongly grounded in the philosophy of Raymond Moore, that “school can wait.” Children forced to finish academic projects can get a “hate of learning” instead of falling in love with learning. I love this quote from the author on the LOLIPOP facebook page.

One reason that giving each child a foundation in a love for learning, self-confidence, and learning strategies is so important is that lack of this foundation is often the root of disruptive and unproductive behavior in older students. When confronted with challenging academics, a teen who lacks a love for learning will do the minimum. Teens who lack the confidence that they can learn anything with some hard work will disengage and often become disruptive in a group setting. Teens who have no strategies for learning will become frustrated.

Oooh, I just got this new book, written by some of the members of this network, Sheridan Ripley, and Heather Farrell, who owns the blog over at  http://womeninthescriptures.blogspot.com. Getting this book in the mail was like getting a new baby. It put a huge smile on my face! I’m sure the authors feel like they have given birth to a new baby as well. I’ve been working on my book for years so I know what’s it’s like. Like labor…(’nuff said). Moving on…

I haven’t read it all yet, but I couldn’t keep it under wraps from you until I was ready to give a book review, so I am giving a book preview. If you haven’t yet picked out a Mother’s Day gift for your hubby or kids to give you, go order the book here http://thegiftofgivinglife.com/and say it’s a late gift from them! The cover alone is gorgeous, and I can already tell I am going to feel gorgeous reading all the sacred and beautiful stories inside. I love the book’s premise, that the whole process of the creation of life, from conception to pregnancy, to birth, is divinely appointed.

I am so thrilled that finally, some LDS women have dedicated a whole book to the topic of giving life! The authors are LDS doulas, childbirth educators, and moms. It’s about time we had a book like this! The book is loaded with stories and guidance about pregnancy, blessingways, morning sickness, labor, C-section birth, medicated birth, natural birth, nourishment, postpartum depression, the connection between the atonement and childbirth, breastfeeding, fear, miscarriage, healing from loss (stillborn babies), and more. All from an LDS perspective with frequent references to scriptures and LDS Church leaders like Elder Bednar, Pres. Benson, Julie Beck, Mary Fielding Smith, and more! My favorite philosophy professor, Chauncey Riddle, from BYU is even quoted. I already love this book! So far my only problem with it is that it didn’t come out 19 years ago when I was pregnant with my first baby. It also has photographs and so important, an index! Go get your copy today! http://thegiftofgivinglife.com/ When I’ve read the whole thing I will be doing a book review and I’d love to hear your comments about it. I am looking forward to having another baby with the knowledge I glean from this book!

Thanks to Family Watch International for this beautiful video honoring motherhood. The organization created the video  clip to be shown at the United Nations as part of its efforts to counteract the emerging war on mothers and to promote respect for their critical role in society.

I love the quotes from this video:

“Heaven is under the feet of mothers.”

“There is no substitute for motherhood.”

“This is my granddaughter. When I see her, I feel I own the whole world, when I hear her voice from afar, I feel happy.”

“Motherhood has given me purpose, meaning, and joy!”

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers!

Please watch the speech by Family Watch Intnl. founder Sharon Slater that she gave recently.

This is a great webinar about how mom and babies are biologically designed to be a unit. In my lingo, that unit is a tree with the fruit still attached. This is the core of tree of life mothering. Babies are designed by Heavenly Father to stay attached to moms until they are ready to self-wean, which our culture tries to force close to birth but really is biologically supposed to happen later. I am not going to give an age, I will just say that it’s best for the baby’s physical and emotional health to wean later than earlier. You as a mom are the expert on your baby and know when it’s best to wean. A mom is the only one who can give the gift of her own milk to her baby and be a tree of life to that baby, so please feel honored about your ability to breastfeed, instead of constrained. Your baby is only a baby for a short time.

It is presented by Dr. Christina (Tina) Smillie, a mom, lactation consultant, and physician. I like that the presenter shows works of art from Western art and mentions the first family, Adam and Eve.

Watch the webinar here https://ics.adobeconnect.com/_a1122382289/p5en7pugmb7/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal.

Here is what the GOLD (Global Online Lactation Discussion) website says about her and the webinar.

The GOLD Team is thrilled to present our Keynote Address on April 24, 2012, by Christina Smillie, MD, FAAP, IBCLC FABM: Keep it Simple: What mothers and babies already know, how they think, and why this matters! Starting with a bit of recent history, we’ll look at how western observers began to recognize and celebrate the innate mother-baby behaviours that facilitate breastfeeding. In other mammals, these behaviours have long been termed the mammalian feeding sequence, and now, in humans, they are variously described with such language as self-attachment, baby-led breastfeeding, biological nurturing, and the breast crawl.  Mother-baby interactions are key, and this is where we’ll get into how mothers and babies think, why mothers are so foggy and confused postpartum, and why this is actually a good thing. All of this has huge implications for how we communicate with mothers, and suggests some profound changes in how we support mothers and babies as they learn to breastfeed.

An American physician board certified both as a pediatrician (1983) and as a lactation consultant (1995), Dr. Smillie founded Breastfeeding Resources in 1996 in Stratford, Connecticut, USA, the first private medical practice in the USA limited to the specialty of breastfeeding medicine. A member of the (international) Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine since its 1995 inception, she was honored with Fellowship in 2002, and has served two terms on ABM’s Board of Directors. She continues to serve as a member of La Leche League International’s Health Advisory Council. Speaking around the world about the physiology, pathophysiology and clinical management of a wide variety of breastfeeding issues, always stressing the role of the motherbaby as a single psychoneurobiological system, Dr. Smillie emphasizes the importance of the innate instincts underlying both maternal and infant competence. Her video, Baby-Led Breastfeeding: the Mother-Baby Dance, available in 7 languages, illustrates these instinctive behaviours in mothers and babies learning to breastfeed. 

Come Learn About

Keystone – Christ Centered Learning

Have you ever asked yourself: 

• Am I teaching my child everything he needs to know before he leaves home?
• What is the “right” thing for this child?  
• What does she need now in order for her to be a great mother in the future world?
• Is he well equipped to go out on his own? 
• Where are the instructions?  –  Believe it or not there are instructions!

We asked ourselves these same questions and spent years finding the answers, mainly through trial and error.  We have discovered a formula that has brought great clarity to these answers and we want to share it with you! 

Join us May 12 from 9:30-1:30 and discover the simplicity of the answers.  Learn the most important thing your child should know; the formula for raising spiritual, successful children; and the tool or framework for helping children and adults do what they are “suppose to” do.

Also, Tresta will be teaching about the divided number two.  Discover how the Fall happened and how it was apart of the plan.  How working with the natural laws will help you in teaching and learning with your children.  Learn how and why opposition was exactly what “the physician” ordered.

With increasing light and learning,
Tresta Kay Neil,
The Creative Mathematician at

KeystoneEd.com