My first born grew up demanding, sensitive and needy compared to my second child who spent more time in her baby seat or on the play mat (because I had a problem with my back after her birth and could not stand with her for long periods) and is now totally calm, resourceful and centered. You hit the nail on the head when you say that we live in the modern world with all its manic stimulation how easy can that be for a child? It must be so disruptive for the small babe in arms. I then went on to follow Liedloff’s principles with my first child, and have to say now that it was very hard. This is also a topic very close to my heart – I read Liedloff just before I gave birth to my first child and cried and cried, it made me feel very, very sad for my own childhood and dug up issues I never thought I had, let alone could recall about my mother and her method of bringing me up. Anthroposophy tells us that we no longer hear the voices of the ancestors and that our task as modern free human beings is to develop heart-warmed thinking which will help us form the correct conclusions. Liedloff says that what we need to do is to get in touch with our innate wisdom that has been programmed (sic) into us and which is wise. Anthroposophy, on the other hand, tells us that human beings, most importantly, human consciousness, has developed over the millennia and that our present modern consciousness is worlds away from that of previous eras or epochs. And this is the basis of her work – that human consciousness is a continuum and that modern babies carry their needs which were formulated in the dawn of human awakening with them. So one of my problems with Liedloff is the core upon which she sets out her work – as a materialist, her methods are based on what I would see as a very limited understanding of human development (if human beings are spiritual beings, then a way of understanding development which takes no notice of the spiritual element is of course going to be restricted). Print on Demand (local shipping rates for international customers).

The continuum concept by jean liedloff