Alicia Silverstone is making headlines once again with her… unique parenting methods!
The Clueless star has been extremely vocal about the ways she’s rearing her son Bear. He is being raised vegan, doesn’t have to be “disciplined or yelled at”, and at age 9 was still taking baths with his mother — it’s safe to say he leads a very interesting life! And now the actress is giving us even more information on the very very close relationship she shares with her son.
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On Tuesday’s episode of The Ellen Fisher Podcast, the Senior Year actress spoke about her “attachment parenting” style once again, revealing that she and her now 11-year-old still co-sleep! She admitted:
“Bear and I still sleep together.”
Yep! She still shares a bed with her tween son! This comes as quite less of a shock than the whole “chewing up food and spitting it into his mouth” baby bird video that’s still burned in our minds from 2012… But it’s still pretty far out from what experts recommend!
She went on to joke about how she expects that she will “get in trouble” for saying that she still sleeps next to her son — but quickly added she wasn’t worried about the potential backlash, declaring:
“I don’t really care.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with sleeping next to your child! For some families it’s necessary and it can even offer a bit of comfort to the parents and children alike. It’s not uncommon for families to share a bed for years. Every child is different and requires their own distinctive needs.
That being said, some studies suggest that continuing to co-sleep for too long can cause problems with some key developmental milestones in early life. According to child psychologist Leonardo Rocker, continuing to sleep in the bed with your kid for extended periods of time can disrupt their development of “night time independence”:
“Children with night time independence are confident that they can fall asleep on their own, and know-how to comfort themselves if they are stressed or anxious around sleep — key steps in healthy emotional development.”
However, this sleep style can also be a problem for parents! Rocker states that it can cause parents to experience a lack of sleep, which in turn makes them more “grumpy” along with their children. He also says it can have a “detrimental effect on a couple’s intimacy”. That does not seem to be a concern for Alicia — whose priority is 100% her son.
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Spilling more on the podcast about her other unconventional methods — which she swears work gangbusters — she discussed the “elimination communication” she used when potty training Bear. She says she didn’t need diapers because she learned to watch the physical “cues” he would give her when he needed the toilet. She explained:
“There was a period of time where I was watching him naked and watching the cues. The cues part for me was really fun because I thought that he was flirting with me because he would do this little smile. That’s when he had to pee.”
As odd as it sounds, she says it made everything a lot easier for her than for some parents:
“It’s so awesome. It’s so easy. When I was done feeding him, he would go to the bathroom in the toilet. When he woke up from a nap, he went to the bathroom.”
Silverstone shares her son with her ex-husband Christopher Jarecki. If you’re wondering how he feels about all this, well, she admits he initially called the attachment parenting style “hippie s**t” — Ha! But now, she says, he loves the process!
What do U think about Alicia’s attachment parenting style, Perezcious parents? Ch-ch-check out the fill interview and sound OFF in the comments (below)!
[Image via Instagram/Alicia Silverstone]
