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Psychologist
& Educational
Consultancy
for people of all ages
Is something preventing you from
achieving your best? Perhaps
poor reading skills, or a bad
memory is letting you down?
Maybe your grades at school, uni
or TAFE aren’t what you need?
Or your child’s behaviour is
keeping you on edge? Whatever
issues face you in your life,
whether it be sleep problems,
post baby blues, stress, or if
you’re at a cross road in life and
don’t know which way is
right for you
Armidale, Alstonville, &
Browns Plains.
Call 02 6772 9686 for
information on how we can help.
byronchild 12
communication between you and your baby
and is a beautiful and I think essential part
of responsive parenting.
I have been reading your magazine
for only three issues, but I must admit,
for such a caring and conscious publication
I am surprised I haven’t seen it mentioned
either in article or reader’s letter.
I hope by sharing this I have opened the door
to even better relationships between parents
and babies and bring to people’s attention
that there is more to the cloth vs. single use
nappies than the Western world thinks.
Babies have the neural pathways and are
aware of and can control their elimination
processes and to do so before 18 months
is not psychologically damaging as nappy
companies like us to believe. Babies and
mothers from countries such as China, India,
Indonesia, the North American Inuits and the
Yequana plus so many more can attest to this.
For more information on this method visit
www.natural-wisdom.com or www.timl.
com/ipt and enjoy, because it’s so much
more fun than changing nappies.
Tanya Sambell
Queensland
Editor’s note: Thank you, Tanya, for your informative
letter. Indeed we have published an article
Byron
Community
Primary School
•
Leadership programs
• Excellence in thinking
• Personal development
honouring the pre-teens
• Opportunities in
creative arts — music, drama,
video, art, photoshop,
web design etc
Enquiries welcome
02 6685 8208
55 Tennyson St
Byron Bay 2481
www.byroncs.nsw.edu.au
on Elimination Communication in our
December 2003 edition. See also www.byronchild.com
in our articles section.
Fathers
I recently read the Dec-Feb 04 issue of
byronchild and in it you write an editorial about
fathers. It compelled me to write to you about
my husband and father to my two children.
When I got pregnant with our first child, my
now husband was a heroin addict. We were
both very young, I was 16 he 19. During the
months of my pregnancy he blossomed, grew
up. He was raised in a tribal lifestyle, however
his parents had divorced when he was
a child and it had affected his perceptions of
fatherhood a great deal.
He offered as much as he could be to me,
while I assumed he would be uninterested
and want no part of the life we had created.
During the early months of the pregnancy
he had assumed he would be no use to me
after the child was about three or so, and he
had promised to stick by the child until then.
As the child grew, so did his love for it. When
our son, Aquila, was born in 1999, he cried
more than any other person including me.
I suffered through post-natal depression
following the birth, made harder because
it is a condition often ignored in younger
mothers.
My husband stepped up to the plate
with ease, and assumed the traditionally
female role in our family. He let me work
on my problems, and he cared for our son
Aquila with all the things your editorial
mentioned; intuition, empathy — a complete
love for our child consumed him and it was
never again considered that he could leave
our child when he was three years old.
Two years later we had a daughter, Xanthe
who is now three years old, while Aquila is
five in a couple of weeks. My husband is the
primary caregiver, while working part time
for TWS, and I attend uni. Our children are
incredibly close to their father and he and
my son share an unbreakable bond, formed
in those early months when he took on
everything he could.
When we had a few months apart,
Tarquin kept the children out of choice, while
I moved away. He was the single parent and he
embraced it. He was thankful that I ‘let’ him
keep the children, while I knew it would be
so much harder on the children to leave their
father for that time. We were together again
three months later and we are secure, happy
and mature for our 22 and almost 25 years.
I share this with others because I feel that
men need to be encouraged and nurtured
into accepting that their feelings for their
children are justified and acceptable. We
learn by example and I believe my children