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Attached Teens - Angels of the Future?

© Heike Boehnke

I often look at my daughter, who just turned two, and ask myself what she will be like when she is twelve? I wonder if she will be independent, or if she will follow the crowd? Will she be into sports, or will she be a bookworm? Will she want to be popular, or will she be a rebel? As much as I anticipate seeing my daughter bloom into an adult, I fear the influences she will be subjected to over the years. I started analyzing myself, how I grew up, and I find myself recognizing the influences of my mother and the other key people who were a part of my upbringing. I also see my friends and their children, and how the child's character is formed by the attitude of the parents. Not every outgoing adult is going to have an outgoing child, or vice versa. Nor can you form a child, you can only "give suggestions" while they are form their little character. My daughter has inherited my shoe fetish. She is only two. This is not something that comes in the genes, or is it?

Studies have shown that attached teens are more apt to shy away from the things we parents fear most: Drugs, Alcohol and Sex. I don't think because they were necessarily breastfed, or home-schooled, or any one factor of Attachment Parenting. I think it is because AP parents build a relationship with their child that goes way beyond the toddler years that are so often stressed. We seem to build a communication path with our children that break the barriers of " I can't stand anything my parents represent". Attached teens feel confident about talking to their parents. This is not because we have lost the role of a parent and have become a buddy, this is because we have built this confidence over the years, in trial and error! Attached teens will not necessarily be the angels of the world, but they can go to their parent to discuss a problem, probably not as a last resort, but before a rash and harmful decision is made. Or before they let peer pressure push them into a situation they really don't want to be in. We will have the chance to stand behind our children and give them advice, they will make the choice whether to take it or not (I can just see my mother nodding her head in agreement!). Many parents don't have that chance, nor do they consider it, which is sad.

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