Title: The Attachment Connection
Author: Ruth Newton
Publication Year: 2008
Website: www.newtoncenter.net
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Review: I consider myself to be an unintentional attachment parent and I’m always a fan of sources that affirm my family’s choices. I’m also a scientist and I am grateful to people that attempt to relate “fluffy” parenting philosophies to concrete scientific facts. I think the author has done a good job in attaining her goal of backing attachment parenting principles with scientific evidence. However, I’m just not sure how useful her book is to the average parent.
If your main goal is to learn more about attachment theory all the way down to neuroscience and brain chemistry, this is a good place to start. The author explains the different categories of attachment and describes which behaviors lead to each type of attachment. She also uses many real-life examples of how to apply the principles of attachment theory to daily life. However, the book seems a little disjointed to me.
While the information is interesting, the examples are so specific as to seem inapplicable in many cases. For example, I recently re-read the section on 2 to 3 year olds, since I have a 2 year old. Nearly a third of the section focuses on a single example of a child needing and not wanting vision treatment and how the author and mother were able to sensitively deal with the situation.
Another third is spent describing typical behaviors and skills of a 2 year old. Maybe a brighter person would be able to pull it all together and see how to apply this information to their child, but I need things spelled out directly for me and while mildly interesting, I just didn’t find this information very useful. While I found the first couple chapters to be informative, I feel the book as a whole is lacking in a unifying, overarching theme. (Personal Rating: 6/10)
Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
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