Sensitive Mothering
Essays

Sensitive mothering: A theoretical overview

¶ … founders and important people who have applied and developed it. We then present its applications in the modern psychology.

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 patriarchal attitudes that run through Western culture? This paper addresses some of the most important traditions in how motherhood is conceptualized looking primarily at children of preschool age.