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Many current methods of childcare are unnatural.

Natural childcare includes:

Children's right to be loved and cared for - and trained in skills, behaviour and independent thinking
Lullabies and rocking for babies
Children's freedom to play outside in fresh air.
Children's freedom to develop their own hobbies and interests without constant interference or having to pack up.
Children living as part of the whole community, sharing and learning from adults and teenagers.   No parent and child to be isolated from everyday life, living in boxes, to drive each other nuts  
Courteous parental behavior  
Dummies and disposable nappies are only for emergencies. The fight against dummies was won years ago - it should not be lost again. Children not subdued or unnecessariy comforted with dummies have more chance to practice language, avoid developing dependencies on oral and artficial comforters, and even sucking their fingers has an advantage in shifting sensibilities to using their hands.

Lullabies and rocking for babies Lullabies Wanted - Unacompanied lullabies on CDs Babies need lullabies sung to them, to help them sleep, to bond with people, and to develop language well. Lullabies should be unaccompanied, as the playing disracts fro mthe singing,it   is more suitable for playing with babies - for example, dancing your lap, and twangs and drumming is not soothing - if bbies need a hearbeat, let it be he soft pulse on a parents' breasst.   Too much twanng and drumming music early may not even be good for later deelopment - who has tested this out? Tell your local chldren's hospital and other baby places of unaccompanied lullabies you know about. Please send any samples to Val Yule, c/- Psychology Department, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Austalia.   3052 Today one reason why many school beginners have   literacy problems is that they have not developed sufficient language or interest in the spoken language and its sounds.   I was once called in by a school to assess a child who had arrived with hardly any speech at all.   It turned out that his single mother had expected him to learn from television, and did not talk to him because he had not yet learned how to talk back. This is an extreme case, but represents a problem with TV as baby-sitting. Visual always wins over language. There is a multicultural CD of lullabies (Putamayo) and another   beautiful one by Sara-Jordan, but unfortunately the voices are accompanied in a way that reduces soothing properties and preventing babies' interest in language. The media could promote lullaby-singing in many ways.   Beginners' reading books could contain lullabies to sing. Unacompanied.

Children's freedom to play outside in fresh air - Babies calm down better when you take them outside 'Hyperactive' children can be seen as full of high-spirits normal to a child not cooped inside The world of nature is natural for children, not four walls and linear screens.

Children's freedom to develop their own hobbies and interests. Why should adults organize and entertain them all the time, or feel that they have to do this?

Children as part of the whole community

Children's right to be loved and cared for - and trained

Parental behavior in front of children Sometimes very simple things can help, such as-   Always behave courteously and kindly in the home. Think about the social age that you the adult are behaving at the moment - somewhere around three years or older? Let anger fizzle instead of exploding See your partner's face as you once used to see it Stop cruel and sarcastic words from yourself or anyone else, because they are barbs that will fester, so better not said Keep off drugs or swilling alcohol Do at least one kind thing a day

Dummies and disposable nappies are only for emergencies Even babies can be environmentally responsible

Unnatural childcare

Our current trends in child care are unnatural.

Methods of child-rearing have rarely been the best for child and parent.   They should be getting better, not worse.

Childcare meant caring for children fifty years ago. Its main meaning should not be somewhere to leave your child while you work.    Children should not be driven stupid and a parent driven desperate by being stuck alone together in a box. Children should not be constantly organized and entertained and segregated.   TV is bad for young children.

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