Tuesday, April 29, 2008

EC Article on Essence Of Life Website

Today I discovered another article about elimination communication. Most of the article explains what EC is and takes you through the the author's journey to beginning it with her daughter, but there are the following great insights:

In older books, I discovered that before the advent of disposable diapers, average toilet training ages were equivalent to that in the third world; around twelve to eighteen months, while in the West, where the vast majority of mothers put disposables on their babies from birth onwards, and never let them go bare-bottomed, the average age had crept up to almost three years old!...

EC is about communicating with the child, and helping the child to become aware of her body, rather than letting her ignore her bodily functions and then need to clean up after the fact, and finally, having to "train" her to control herself, often using shame and guilt, later in childhood.

I believe this is the gentlest way of raising a child, with love, respect and dignity, and it works to form a stronger bond between parent and child.
The site has this to say about the author:

Ela Forest is a natural parenting consultant, a rebirthing practitioner and does intuitive healing and massage using reiki, aura balancing, meditation, cleansing and Gestalt. She gives workshops on women's health and fertility and practices as a lay doula and breastfeeding consultant. She is also the mother of Sequoia.
But I know her better as the awesome Majikfarie of http://majikfaerie.blogspot.com/

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