Sensitive Mothering

From the Nursery and Beyond

Does the mother matter? The most obvious response is that, of course, every close caretaker of a child matters to that child's development into a healthy -- or less than healthy -- individual. But how much and in what particular ways do mother and mothering (their general and overall style of interacting with her child/ren) affect the development of the child? This is a point that has been debated in professional conversations for decades. In many ways, the assumptions and positions that are made by scholars mirror the questions that families have: What is the best way for a mother to interact with her child/ren? How important is the relationship between mother and child compared to that between child and other caregivers? And how much of the modeling of the good mother -- in this case the "sensitive" mother -- is based on...
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