More on why it is not selfish but responsible to attend to your own needs

This article in The Listener a few months ago was highlighting research that when parents have a good relationship, their baby is more likely to have good sleep paterns. I was intrigued by further research cited in the article:

... a group of parents of young children attended either a relationships course or a parenting course. Ten years on, the children whose parents had been through the relationships course had better behavioural and emotional outcomes - and did better at school - than the children of those who had been on the parenting course.

If you improve the dynamic between couples, you improve their ability to be good parents ... If a parent had good mental health, he or she will be more able to parent well.

When we are parents, we bring all of ourselves to that relationship. While it might seem like we can section off parts of ourselves and our experience, to really understand what is going on for a person we need to think holistically.

Read the article at http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3658/columnists/15615/dream_team.html