Being There

Zusatztext 44951678 Informationen zum Autor Erica Komisar, LCSW is a clinical social worker, psychoanalyst and parent guidance expert who has been in private practice in New York City for the last 25 years. A graduate of Georgetown and Columbia Universities and The New York Freudian Society, Ms Komisar is a psychological consultant bringing parenting and work/life workshops to clinics, schools, corporations and childcare settings including The Garden House School, Goldman Sachs, Shearman and Sterling and SWFS Early Childhood Center. She lives is New York City with her husband, optometrist and social entrepreneur Dr. Jordan Kassalow, and their three teenage children. Klappentext A powerful look at the importance of a mother's presence in the first years of life Featured in The Wall Street Journal, and seen on Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, and CBS New York In this important and empowering book, veteran psychoanalyst Erica Komisar explains why a mother's emotional and physical presence in her child's life--especially during the first three years--gives the child a greater chance of growing up emotionally healthy, happy, secure, and resilient. In other words, when it comes to connecting with your baby or toddler, more is more. Compassionate and balanced, and focusing on the emotional health of children and moms alike, this book shows parents how to give their little ones the best chance for developing into healthy and loving adults. Based on more than two decades of clinical work, established psychoanalytic theory, and the most cutting-edge neurobiological research on caregiving, attachment, and brain development, Being There explains: • How to establish emotional connection with a newborn or young child--regardless of whether you're able to work part-time or stay home • How to ease transitions to minimize stress for your baby or toddler • How to select and train quality childcare • What's true and false about widely held beliefs like "I'm not good with babies" and "I'll make up for it when he's older" • How to recognize and combat feelings of postpartum depression or boredom • Why three months of maternity leave is not long enough--and how parents can take control of their choices to provide for their family's emotional needs in the first three years Being a new mom isn't easy. But with support, emotional awareness, and coping skills, it can be the most magical-and essential-work we'll ever do. Chapter 3 What Does It Mean to Be a Present Mother? How Do We Define Presence? You are sitting on the floor with your one-year-old, close to him but giving him room to play. You make eye contact frequently and lovingly touch him often. You watch him play, cooing and observing and describing his emotions and actions to him. You smile when he smiles at you and wait patiently when he needs to look away or at an object, ready to reengage when he gives you the cues he is ready. When he is frustrated or angry, you mirror his feelings using your voice and facial expressions. It is helpful to try to imagine your own experience of discovery and wonder as a baby looking at and touching an object for the first time, experiencing it with your own mother. You are enjoying sitting on the floor, playing with your baby and being engaged in the experience, not thinking about the dishes in the sink or your email. You and your baby are involved in a dance of connection and space, attachment and separation, engagement and disengagement, rupture and repair. Sometimes your baby leads and you follow, and sometimes you lead and your baby follows. This playfulness and intimacy helps shape your baby's developing brain and personality. To do this you must be in the moment , let go of all the adult means of distraction and stimulation. You need to focus on eye co...

ldquo;A must-read for young women struggling with the inner conflict between mothering and career-making. Komisar brilliantly distills the potency of present mothering from her experience as a psychoanalyst and parenting coach. She also evokes the emotional pain of babies and toddlers when their mothers are often absent or inattentive and the ‘wormhole to adolescence’ where all those unresolved losses will be replayed at a more punishing stage. I only wish that I and many driven career women of my early feminist generation had read this essential guide before we sacrificed Being There to proving ourselves in a man’s world.” 
--Gail Sheehy, author of Passages and DARING: My Passages 
 
“Being There is a terrific and very timely book that is much needed as our country is dealing with an epidemic of emotionally troubled children, adolescents, and mothers. Well-written and researched with excellent documentation from respected experts in this field, it should be read not only by current and prospective mothers and fathers, but also by those who care for young children in a variety of settings.”
--Thomas McInerny MD, FAAP, Past President of the American Academy of Pediatrics
 
“It’s hard to believe but the United States is actually behind, well behind, the rest of the world in maternity leave policy.  We all, not just the mothers, fathers and children pay dearly for this. In this book, Erica Komisar provides hard headed and practical advice for families and policy makers.  It is a rare and valuable contribution to the field.”
--Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations
 
“It should not take a psychoanalyst to explain the importance of maternal love and support in the formation of a child, but Erica Komisar in her book Being Theredoes just that, cutting through the head-spinning Mommy Wars that have haunted this generation of parents. Her challenging assessment that absent and distracted mothers leave their children forever less happy will upset apple carts and give many over-taxed young parents pause, but she accompanies her tough medicine with realistic tools and strategies to help caregivers meet their challenging task. Komisar's book is difficult, but necessary reading for any parent-to-be.”
--Eric L. Motley, Ph.D, Executive Vice President, The Aspen Institut**e

"Being There is a mindful and honest approach to both the joys and challenges of motherhood. This must-read guidebook for stay-at-home and working mothers shows us how to be present not only for our babies but for our lives."
--Mary T. Cantwell, Co-Director, Garden House School of New York

“Here’s the problem. That beautiful baby doesn’t arrive with a how-to manual in his chubby arms and I’d come to believe that there is no right way to bring up a child. But along comes Erica Komisar, a warm and experienced psychoanalyst, with the key to the puzzle of how to achieve two things at once: a kid set to become a happy, emotionally secure person and a mother who is effective and fulfilled. It happens, simply, by “Being There” most of the time throughout the first three years of a baby’s life.  If you think this isn’t for you, just read this book and think again. Nobody said it would be easy.”
--Marilyn Berger Hewitt, broadcast journalist, contributing writer Washington Post and New York Times and author of This is a Soul

“Timely and highly informative. Using the direct voices of the most important scientists in the field, Erica Komisar describes in clear and compelling fashion the foundational events of the early years, an unparalleled time of growth of the baby’s right brain that is indelibly shaped by the maternal relationship. In addition to providing practical and very personal information to the reader on how to be ‘the best, most present mother she can be,’ t…