>>and the couple "teaching" our class has not a clue about child development
etc.<<

I have been learning quite a bit from an informal internet discussion group
between two GFI moms and 4 non-GFI moms. Among other things, the lead couple
are not considered to be "teachers" or even "teaching", but are referred to
as "only facilitators" who lead discussion; Anne Marie and Gary Ezzo are
considered the real teachers via the video.

Secondly, I have learned that the Ezzo's don't put much stock in child
development theory, seeing it tied too closely to psychology, which is
"influenced" by Freud and other humanists. It does drive one crazy when you
know you have a valid point but can't find an acceptable leg to stand your
argument on!

>>The example of a nightwaking three year old who was cured by seeing her
parents have couch time for a week was hard to take-all of their examples of
expected behavior changes seem totally unrealistic to me. To defend/explain
couch time a little better, I did not get the feeling from class that this
has to be done the minute the dad gets home. They encourage a time (30 min)
of focused communication with as little distraction as possible.<<

I have heard this example before, Debby, but with your posting I think I am
finally beginning to get a handle on it! This much makes sense: if there is
tension in the household, it may well be picked up by a child who may be
unconsciouly worried and who may wake frequently at night; the resolution of
some of this worry by actually seeing the parents being affectionate is
conceivable. Where I believe the Ezzo's miss out is that they may be seeing
this situation as a two-way street when it may be one way only. Their
assumption is that if seeing the parents together more helped a child to
sleep through the night, that night waking must be caused by lack of parental
public affection and time together. Not Exactly!  They may be failing to see
that there can be multiple reasons for nightwaking, and that their solution
was the cure to only *one* of these reasons, while they assume that they may
have found the cure for *much* of night waking!

I noticed this fallacious reasoning as well in the attitude towards ADD/ADHD;
they found that kids, including ADD/ADHD kids, often appeared to behave
better when raised under their structured environment; therefore, ADD/ADHD
must be *caused* mostly by lack of structure (aka poor parenting set up by
demand feeding, which is unstructured). Quite a guilt trip for parents! As
the mother of one ADHD son, I know that structure helps him, but doesn't
"cure" the condition.

I wonder how many other areas of their teaching that bother us, but we can't
always quite put a finger on it, are also due to unilateral, two-dimensional
analysis and logic? Hmmmmmmmm. You got me going, Debby.

>>The Ezzo's totally bash child centered parenting, basically saying the
devil will get you for the idolitry of worshiping your children. Their
definition of child-centered is what I have seen in some families where
everything revolves around keeping the child happy even when they want to
persist in a behavior that is not acceptable to the parents.<<

I would hope and think that few of us practice this kind of parenting. The
problem is that anyone not doing the Ezzo's style of parenting tends to be
automatically labeled as this, with no middle ground in between.  I have
certainly seen families where the child is not restricted and everyone is run
ram-shod, and I do not practice nor recommend this parenting style.  But from
another perspective, it is almost ironic to hear the Ezzo's claim that the
problem these days is "child-centered" parenting!  If you talk to the police,
the teachers, the sociologists, the psychologists, I think you are more
likely to find problem kids coming from families where the parents are very
much caught up in their own lives and are uninvolved with their kid's lives,
rather than where the world revolves around the child.  What does everyone
else think about this accusation/issue?

-Lisa Marasco, LLLL, IBCLC
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