Empty
EMPTY YOURSELF OF WORRIES To survive as a parent you must empty yourself Of your constant thinking, planning, and worrying. You and your children were born in the Tao, Live in the Tao, and will return to the same Tao. If you do not realize this you will mistake the sorrow you see in life For the final word, and you will become hardened with fear. But knowing how things really are, you gain true confidence. Being confident, your mind opens to see your children as they really are. Seeing them as they really are, your heart fills with genuine love for them. Truly loving them, you realize your...
Read MoreThe Art of Counting “1-2-3″
Two weeks ago I reported on “a little scene I saw at the park.” The whole thing lasted maybe 30 seconds, was very ordinary in many respects, and yet my bringing it up has stirred up many comments, questions, and even anger. (I had one conservative friend from the mid-west tell me that what I was saying was “dangerous.” She might be right: it probably depends on what kind of adult you are hoping your child grows into.) One of the recurring questions was, “What do you propose as an alternative for this dad from an attachment parenting perspective?” On...
Read MoreThe Ultimate Context
“The most important factor in the parenting equation is not what we do, but who we are to our children.” Gordon Neufeld The last post — “A Day in the Park”— elicited many great comments and questions from you all. It became clear after reading them that we need to unpack this very brief and ordinary incident with more precision and clarity, lest we leave ourselves open to attack from our own judging minds and the defensiveness that often ensues. Allow me to make a couple of points that may not have been clear in that post. It was not intended to be an indictment of...
Read MoreA Day at the Park
“How did the rose ever open it’s heart and give to this world all of it’s beauty? It felt the encouragement of light (of love) against it’s being, otherwise we all remain to frightened.” Hafiz The other day while at the park I saw a dad interacting with his son. He was telling the boy, somewhere around age four, that it was time to go. The child smiled wryly and then bolted off for the monkey bars (actually that is a projection from my era — this was more of a Buckminster Fuller-looking geodesic something-or-other). “Liam…,” the dad said...
Read MoreOpenness: Your Evolutionary Heritage
Maturation and resistance are the two primary forces at work in the developing psyche, and the two general states that support each are love and fear respectively. Now let’s look at some of the basic neuro-physiologic machinery through which these forces work. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is the most fundamental part of a complex neuro-endocrine system that we use to modulate the flow of energy through the body and nervous system depending on the needs of the moment. This system is the foundation for navigating the stresses of life. The activity of the ANS is more bio-behavioral...
Read More
Chris White, M.D. is a board-certified pediatrician whose parenting work aims to optimize the developmental potential of children and their parents. He regularly writes on 
