Extremes

Lately I seem to have come across a fair amount of parenting things, sometimes in seemingly surprising locations.  I don't seek out parenting books or the like, and never have really (with the exception of The No-Cry Sleep Solution, by Elizabeth Pantley)  Something I've noticed in some of these is the tendency to paint things in extremes.  For example, I was skimming a book (a homeschooling book, incidentally, so I was a bit surprised to find this in it) that mentioned that you should train a baby to sleep through the night after 6 months, and then spoke of how you need to do this training and discipline because you shouldn't have a child to whom you never say "no".  Leaving aside my views on sleep training, this seems a rather extreme jump in logic, doesn't it?  Suggesting that not training your child in this way means that you never say "no" to your child isn't the logical deduction to make, in my opinion.  I'm sure these extreme jumps can go the other way, too, so I'm not trying to just pick on one parenting style/philosophy.

Personally, though, I'll just keep doing what comes naturally, what works for my family, and not seek out what a parenting book says.  And while I'm not homeschooling at the moment, I see no reason that continuing to be an attachment parent, something I follow instinctively and did prior to even knowing there was a label for this style of parenting, should impede educating my children.