Heidi you wrote: >Yes, Sears' book is good, but anyone who reads Ezzo is condidtioned >>against Sears and attachment parenting. In _Preparation for Parenting_ Ezzo really bags >>AP as being humanistic and producing little brats who whine, push children off >>swings, and steal. So, trying to get an Ezzo parent to read Sears is difficult. Thankfully I haven't found this to be the rule here. The bent of the instructor has much to do with the "conditioning" of the parents. The level of self-esteem the parents possess going into the classes is also a major factor in how much *takes*. I find that most parents attending ANY parenting seminar are parents who are truly concerned for their children. Think of the hundreds of thousands of parents who know or feel that whatever it is they're doing isn't working and still don't seek answers or options. The truth is that no published parenting plan is complete, perfect, or expected to work for all children or all families, not Ezzos' not Sears', nobody's. Even many of the Ezzo instructors caution parents to know their child and think, that not all families will find everything in the program useful for their family. I do personally know many many folks who have taken this course and very few of them are so rigid as to not entertain other parenting programs/options as well. I've had few GKI seminar "grads" turn down my offer of a Sears' book loan. Interestingly enough, many feel the couples advice up front in Sears' book realistic and down to earth...attention-catching for a further read. Many pastors are approachable when offered information that refutes only the breastfeeding/health aspects of the early programs, the one that encompasses the first two years of a child's life. A degree in theology does not include breastfeeding information. Sliding the AAP Policy Summary into Sears' book and asking the pastor to take the time to compare the breastfeeding information in either book with that of the information from the AAP may make a difference in some cases, it has here a few times and at least those church libraries have both on the shelves. If, indeed, the pastor has a degree in theology, it won't take him long to see the "holes"...they're pretty obvious. Why is this so popular? One of the reasons could be that not much of hte actual parenting content is original. Lots of ideas that have been used for years in all sorts of parenting books, and som ethat have also been recently revived by authors other than Ezzo. It is interesting to note that several churches that have had Ezzo seminars/classes also have the WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING in the nursery and library ;o) It happened in much the same way that many of those *awful* books get moved around in the book stores. Lorri Centineo *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html