Dangers of “Crying It Out” | Psychology Today/Thanks, Carrie! :)

Letting babies "cry it out" is an idea that has been around since at least the 1880s when the field of medicine was in a hullaballoo about germs and transmitting infection and so took to the notion that babies should rarely be touched (see Blum, 2002, for a great review of this time period and attitudes towards childrearing).

In the 20^th century, behaviorist James Watson, interested in making psychology a hard science, took up the crusade against affection as president of the American Psychological Association. He applied the mechanistic paradigm of behaviorism to child rearing, warning about the dangers of too much mother love. The 20^th century was the time when "men of science" were assumed to know better than mothers[...]

Full article at psychologytoday.com

 

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