Many also confuse power with force. That is not the sense in which we employ the word power in this book. In our present discussion of parenting and attachment, power means the spontaneous authority to parent. That spontaneous authority flows not from coercion or force but from an appropriately aligned relationship with the child. The power to parent arises when things are in their natural order, and it arises without effort, without posturing, and without pushing. It is when we lack that power that we are likely to resort to force.
