Category: Parenting

I recently took my 11 yo dd to the doctor for a well child visit, necessary because I needed to have the doctor fill out paperwork for summer camp.  (Last year I decided at the very last minute to send the two oldest and it was very hectic – this year I’m getting everything done well in advance.)   Generally I only take the kids to the doctor if something is wrong, and even that is very infrequent. 

Things have changed a lot from when I was a kid and went to the doctor.  The doctor would ask me how I felt, look into my eyes and ears, listen to my heart, and take my pulse.  After being weighed and measured for height, that was it.  Now all of that is part of a well child visit, but there’s lots more.  Lots of questions for the child – it was like an interview.  If I had known to expect all of that, I would have told dd about it so it wouldn’t have caught her unaware.  She wasn’t expecting to sit there for so long, answering questions like – do you smoke?  Do you buckle your seatbelt?  Do you eat healthy foods?  What are healthy foods?  Do you listen to your mother?  What subjects do you learn?  What extracurricular activities are you involved in? Do you play with matches?  Do you play with water?  What would you do if a stranger approached you?  Do you have guns in your home?  And on, and on, and on.  These are all things that I’ve taught them about, so there wasn’t any information that I hadn’t discussed with them.  But I don’t think it’s a doctor’s place to ask all of these questions – it smacks of Big Brother and governmental intrusion to me. 

Obviously the board of pediatrics has determined that parents aren’t doing a good enough job of teaching their children about healthy living, so now it’s their job to do it.  As a parent, I resent this attitude.  If I want to know about gun safety, I’ll take my kids to the experts.  If I want to know about nutrition, I’ll go to those who have training.  I found it especially ironic that a doctor who knows much less than my daughter about nutrition was telling her what to eat.  I’m not minimizing doctors – our pediatrician is wonderful. But nutritional training for doctors is a very tiny part of their training, and most doctors aren’t paragons of health.  I’ve often found it ironic how many nurses and doctors are visibly unhealthy, but they continue to tell everyone else how to stay healthy.

And what is equally frustrating is that if you question the necessity of this protocol, it makes them suspicious that you are a neglectful parent.  After all, why should a responsible and caring parent mind if a doctor takes the time to ‘educate’ their child about important issues?  But it’s not education, it’s more like screening parents through the answers their children give.  It makes me wonder how often doctors feel the need to notify child protective services when the answers aren’t to their liking. 

Dd found it a waste of time, and so did I (I found it downright annoying and frustrating, since the doc and I got into a discussion about the supposed benefits of specific vaccines, a topic I try to avoid unless directly asked about it), but the paperwork is signed and that’s what we needed – a simple statement that she was healthy enough to participate in camp activities. 

Avivah

Recently, I was noticing that the baby has been fussy, and I felt it was directly tied to his pacifier use.  To share with you my position on pacifiers, here it is!  We use the pacifier from about 1 month until 5- 6 months, usually, when they begin solids.  Or at least three babies used them for about that long.  One used it for 12 weeks, another four months, and the longest was for 9 months.  The only one who didn’t have a pacifier was my oldest, because I was adamantly against them.  He ended up sucking his thumb for years.  Now you know why I changed my position on pacifiers for the next babies.  🙂

Anyway, back to the fussiness.  The reason for using a pacifier is to help a baby, but at a certain point, I’ve found it becomes self-defeating.  When a baby gets used to having it in their mouth so often that they cry when it’s not in, then in my opinion, it’s time to break the habit because they’re more unhappy than they should be, and so is the parent.  The pacifier isn’t helping much in that situation.  And because we have some people in the house, and particularly visitors, who feel a need to push the pacifier in every time the baby makes a sound, he’s gotten more used to it than I would have liked.  So last week I pulled the plug.  When we drop the pacifier, we go cold turkey, and since we do it at such a young age, it usually only takes three days until they’ve totally forgotten that they ever had it. 

So I resigned myself to three days of crankiness.  It was a pleasant surprise when he started sleeping longer in the daytime and nighttime (probably because he didn’t wake up when he realized the pacifier had fallen out :)).  And he got so much cuter!  Really – when he was happier, he was really happy.  You know those huge smiles and beaming faces that make you feel like he really knows who you are and loves you?  I just love it!  And when he wasn’t happy, we were able to pretty quickly figure out what was causing instead of pushing a plug in (for example, if he was tired, put him to sleep).  Not being able to use the pacifier forced us to be more in tune with what he really needed.

But – I have to be honest and say that this past week has been a tough one.  In the back of my mind I was kind of wondering why he wasn’t as happy as he was the first few days off the pacifier.  That is, until yesterday one of my kids looked at the baby and saw the tiniest bit of a tooth coming through his gum.  If you’ve had a teething baby, you know that they aren’t much fun.  Lots of crying, and there isn’t much that seems to help for long.  Around here, I’ve been doing lots of baby holding and not much else except for basically keeping my house functioning.  Which I shouldn’t minimize, because that’s a really big job that I don’t give myself enough appreciation for.  But that’s another topic….

Avivah

Today I’m feeling discouraged.  I love helping other moms work through issues I’ve worked through, because I know how hard it can be.  That’s what I try to do here and on some other boards that I sometimes frequent.  But sometimes it seems really hard to effectively communicate and not be misunderstood. Parenting is such a charged issue that it’s hard to say  anything too non-generic without eliciting defensiveness or negativity from someone.   I’ve experienced this myself, and I’ve seen this dynamic a number of times in various venues with others. 

I’ve never tried to portray myself as perfect, and I’ve never tried to gloss over the challenges of raising kids.  I don’t have perfect kids – there’s no such thing.  Sometimes they misbehave, aren’t respectful, or do the wrong thing.  But having made that disclaimer, all in all they are really great kids. And putting aside false modesty – whenever you see a really nice family, you have to realize that it didn’t happen by default.  (I met a mom with three kids in the library and after noticing the interactions between her kids while I was there, commented favorably to her on her oldest child treated her younger siblings.  She said, ‘Yes, she’s a good kid,” and I told her, “You have to take credit for creating the environment where that developed, because something like that doesn’t happen by itself.”)

Let me be really clear – parenting is hard work.  I realize that some of my suggestions sound simplistic to some people.  I strongly advocate active and involved parenting, keeping your kids close by, and supervising closely.  Is that the answer to everything?  Of course not.  But it’s amazing what a big difference it makes.  When you combine that with actively and regularly building the relationship, it’s very powerful and effective.

Some people think that my suggestions are too hard and unrealistic.   That’s okay.  As the saying goes, ‘Take what you like and leave the rest.”   I can only share my experience and what’s worked for me.  My intent is never to hurt or slight anyone, or to judge anyone who does things differently than I do.  What works for me isn’t necessarily going to be the best approach for everyone.  But I really hope that anyone who’s been reading my blog for a while knows my intent is to share and be helpful.  I’ve finally come to the realization that I can’t keep people from reading into what I say/write intentions that I don’t have, no matter how careful I try to be. 

Please feel free to ask for clarifications if something I say doesn’t make sense, or to disagree (that’s what the ‘comments’ are for). 

Avivah

A mom asked how to handle her anger when her 3 year old didn’t listen to what she said.  She said that she felt her problem was her anger, not the child’s behavior (though the 3yo was disobedient, threw tantrums, and ignored her mother whenever she told her to do something). 

My response: Please, please look at the post I just wrote about sibling issues – you will see a loving, firm approach that will keep you from getting angry and ensure your daughter clearly gets a sense of her boundaries.  In my experience, I have seen that this is probably the most common issue for moms, not knowing how to effectively discipline, and then feeling guilty because they feel angry/hateful towards their child.  But it’s very exciting when you see what a major change it makes in the home environment to get this aspect of things under control; you’re happier, your child is happier, and you can enjoy each other lots more.

I feel very passionately about this because I really struggled with this issue earlier on in my parenting. I’ve been very fortunate to learn better ways to deal with things, but have continued to see the same mistakes I was making be made all the time – and the same ineffective suggestions continue to be made to parents in how to deal with it.  I also see many people with older kids who have gotten out of control. Effective discipline is crucial to the short and long term relationship between the parent and child.  It’s interesting but sad to note that many of these parents were so concerned about gentle parenting that they didn’t want to even say ‘no’ to their children now have hostile and strained relations with their resistant teenagers.  It’s hard to enjoy being around undisciplined children, even (especially?) if they are your own.

I’m not saying mine is the only approach that works well, and if someone finds something else that works for them, then that’s great. I haven’t, and I’d read just about every book out there at some point! But I do have enough years of parenting behind me (my oldest is 14) to really see the fruits of using an approach like this. I spend all day, every day with my kids (we homeschool) and love it. I rarely get angry (annoyed, yes, but angry, no) and it’s not because I’m super patient, because I’m not at all. I’ve just taught my kids that when I say something, I mean it, and I’ve invested the time and effort into really building relationships with them.

It’s reasonable to get angry when what is important to you is regularly being trampled on. I really don’t think the answer to being a calmer parent is to try to understand your child more. Yes, it’s really important to be respectful of her and to think about her feelings, but at the same time, justifying her bad behavior isn’t helping either of you.  You should to respect your own boundaries and emotional needs as much as you respect your child’s!

Avivah

A mom of a 4.5 year old and infant asked how to handle the following situation: the 4 yo was repeatedly roughly stroking the baby’s face and body, regardless of being redirected or having it explained to him why he shouldn’t do it.  My response is below:

Having had a 4.5 year old son as well as a 9 month old, I can relate to this issue as well.

My first thought is that he knows exactly what he is doing, and it’s not to show affection. He wants to do something hurtful but not look like he is being hurtful. So he’s doing something that looks nice just a little too much. 4 year olds understand a lot more than most parents give them credit for, and the need to be gentle with someone much younger than them is well within their understanding and abilities. The way he is doing it shows he is being purposeful.

Practically speaking, as soon as you see his hand reaching out to do something, catch his hand in yours (before he can hurt her) and in a firm voice, say “No!” Obviously, this means you need to stay very close by when the two of them are in the same area (which is pretty important for many reasons for any kids this age :)). Intercept him every time. Let him know that you will not tolerate any hurting in your home. Then show him how to show the baby he loves her when he tells you he is doing it because he loves her.

By dealing with it like this, you will be able to deal with him from a position of calm and firmness, not anger, because you are preempting the situation instead of responding after the fact. He will learn very quickly that it’s not going to get him anywhere to try to hurt her. It sounds like you are already giving him lots of attention in a nice relaxed atmosphere. If that’s the case, it’s not because he’s not getting attention that he’s upset, but just because she is getting attention that bothers him. I think he’s old enough to talk with about this, that sometimes he will get attention, and sometimes she will get attention, and her getting attention doesn’t make him any less. When a child is filled up inside, he doesn’t feel threatened by someone else having something nice, and it seems there’s some insecurity going on inside of him. If you can identify where that is coming from, by addressing that you will get to the root of the issue.

I don’t think you need to worry that it’s because of his sister that he’s getting a negative reaction from you – it’s a result of his actions. I think that dealing with this right away is the most loving thing you can do for him and the entire family – it just keeps getting worse if it’s not dealt with. Someone called me last week for help with her ten year old, who is out of control now because she never taught him to control himself when he was young, and excused his behavior as normal, something he would grow out of, and felt bad that he must be missing something inside to make him act like that. The measures she needs to take now to teach him to have consideration for someone other than himself are really hard and could have been dealt with so easily when he was young.

Be consistent and don’t give up; change won’t be immediate, but it will definitely happen, and you will enjoy being with him lots more until then!

Avivah

>> How do you keep young children who have access to crayons and markers from decorating your house?<<

Keep the coloring supplies where he can’t reach them so that you need to give them to him when he wants them, and supervise him carefully when he uses them.  Immediately intercept him and matter of factly remove whatever he’s using as soon as you see him about to use the crayons or markers inappropriately.  He’ll realize very quickly without you saying much that if he wants to use them, they will have to be used in the right way. 

Isn’t it nice to have an issue that’s so easy to resolve?

Avivah

Yesterday dh’s back was feeling sore from having been in one position for too long, and since his regular chiropractor couldn’t see him until Monday, he got an appointment with a chiropractor we know in the neighborhood.  After his appointment, he was describing to me the differences between the approach of the two chiropractors.  His regular chiropractor said that when there’s pain in the muscles, it’s because there’s something underneath it which is the problem, and the muscles are protecting the joints below.  So  he deals with the underlying joints and once the deeper physical issue is resolved, the muscle pain will clear up on its own.

This is exactly how I feel about parenting.  There are often the external symptoms that something is wrong in the relationship – the child is disrespectful, won’t listen, doesn’t help, etc.  Most parents, when asking for help, want specific suggestions how to improve a particular issue.  But my approach is to look at what is at the heart of the matter, what is really causing the problem.  If we try to fix just the symptom, the problem will recur because the underlying cause of the symptom is still there. 

What it always seems to boil down to is: relationship and connectedness.  I know this seems simplistic, but my experience is that when I deal with my child’s deepest need (which is for attachment) by spending time with them and actively building our relationship, the topical problems often just melt away on their own.  The child doesn’t need to misbehave anymore because the underlying need has been met.  

(That doesn’t mean that just love alone is the answer.  Part of loving our children is having the courage to appropriately guide them.  But disciplining children before addressing the heart doesn’t work.)

Avivah