MY CHILD WON'T COOPERATE

MY CHILD IS BEING UNREASONABLE

By Frances Harris

The story often goes with: my child is two years old and I know she doesn’t have insight, but her unreasonable behaviour is almost making me tear my hair out. Dinner time is one of the worst. If she sees anything green in her bowl, she has to pick it out, one speck at a time, and sometimes refuses to touch it afterwards.

It is well known toddlers have a short attention span, so if one of them is matched up with a set of parents who have a pressing lifestyle and a short fuse, then the words describing their child will be like: impossible, uncontrollable, difficult and tiring in their conversations. In a relaxed environment the outcome can sometimes be noticeably different. Unfortunately natural selection has little to do with order. Then, if you take another child who depends on routine for security and he is matched with parents who have a very layback, unpredictable lifestyle, they could find their normally sweet little toddler turns into an anxious little tyrant. A good indicator of how this is going is when the child goes to stay with grandma and grandpa who have very tight routines and plenty of time to nurture. The parents see on their return to pick him up their little tyrant has return to his reasonable adorable little self. Unfortunately it can cause conflict in families when the parents are not in a position to pay as much attention to their toddler as the grandparents. It’s easy to blame the child for his unreasonable behaviour, but sometimes we have to cast the net wider to find the cause.

The bottom line is - the first priority is to take care of the parents, because if they are not coping with family life, what chance does the innocent child have? One of the best tools in the arsenal is good company and someone the share stories with. There’s no point trying to talk about the lists of bad habits of your child with a childless couple or a neighbour who spends her life in the French Alps as far away from children as possible. It’s important to seek out like minded parents, so that way it is possible to gain new insights and solutions and friendships listening to the experience of others. Sometimes being part of a group can bring solace to a lonely exhausted parent. That way the tired mind can regain its balance, and adjust unreasonable expectations and ideas.  There are lots of parent groups that can be found by tapping into child care networks and local councils. Even if it requires getting help to finish the chores at home so parents can spend and hour or two in good company, would be a good idea. Such connections could significantly reduce tension in the family and especially with the child. Children are like little hair trigger sonar systems. They can locate a change in mood of anyone in the family at a moment’s notice and immediately adjust their insecurity levels up or down to match. 

Nobody has the magic wand to solve all of the childhood problems, and some take more intense motivation than others to reach an expected standard of development. For the parents who expect all milestones to be met within the expected times, I have to tell you disappointment will most likely be your closest friend. For those who are thinking of embarking on parenthood, it is important to accept that no matter what your best efforts may be, parenting is on a level with skating on thin ice. What you do, contributes somewhat to the eventual outcome of your child’s life, but much of it depends on who they choose to influence them, how they interpret large and small life events and the reliability of the body that can send all your good plans spiralling downwards at a moment’s notice. Essential is one or more sound role models, especially of the same gender. I have watched many parents raise their children and been surprised by the variations of success when I thought it was certain for most.

But I have noticed one enduring theme that can do a lot to pull a bad situation out of a ditch. It is the ability of the parent’s to laugh when others might cry. They laugh at the situation they have landed in, laugh at themselves and most of all teach their child to laugh with them. It can be the tonic that stops the dark clouds from spreading further and gives everyone the little pause to build up the will to go on. What if everyone could do this, wouldn’t the world be a better place?

WHEN MY TODDLER RUNS OFF

 WANDERING TODDLERS

 By Frances Harris

For many parents, they may find it hard to reconcile that their previously docile toddler has transformed into an instant sprint champion in training, just as soon as he or she steps outside the front door onto the street. Then, they can count on it that their child will build up speed as soon as they see an intersection coming up. When one toddler can leave both parents exhausted and frustrated from a simple day out, just imagine what two or even three toddlers can do to two previously well balanced adults. Then to add another level of frustration to the mix, just imagine when your best friend's two children walk quietly along the street beside their parents and yours suddenly disappear around the corner of the footpath when you turned your head for a second. You know they will be heading straight for a busy highway. I’m speaking from experience.

Most times children are not always being wilfully naughty or defiant when they suddenly run, in fact they are probably not thinking much at all. The most dominant motivation in the fast moving unpredictable toddler is the urge to explore. They are actively keen to investigate and challenge their new unknown world. The challenge to the parents is to teach the child to be careful and to clearly identify what should be avoided, like rubbish on the street. On the other hand, they need to know what needs to be done, like to hold the parent’s hand when in crowded streets and when crossing the road. There is no point getting annoyed about an innocent accident or oversight by the toddler, because they don’t have the insight to always make good decisions.

One very good technique to keeping the impulsive toddler close to the parent in times of uncertainty is to stimulate his or her imagination, to look at interesting things and discuss what they might mean to a small mind. To tell simple stories about the world around them should engage the growing imagination. Toddlers can be hard work when parents decide to take a leisurely walk, but little children are hard work no matter what path they decide to take. On the flip side, the other option parents have is to be constantly on the run. To the dismay of many parents, they discover that even if they set in place routines explaining to the child where to stop and wait for an adult, and at the edge of the road they should look both ways, they can never take it for granted their child will be consistent every time.

I was caught out with by my beautifully reliable little toddler, the first child. I had been telling him about the red, orange and green intersection lights. I ran through what they mean and how we must not go across on the orange and red lights. On a stroll to the shops, we reached a set of lights and I was taking his new baby brother in a pram. As we were coming up to the lights and I was expecting him to take my hand, he decided he should rush across the street before the red. He made it to the other side when the light turned red. He was on one other side of a very busy road and I was on the other with the pram. I was terrified he would try to run back through the traffic to get to me. Luckily I had told him in fairly graphic terms what happens to people if a car runs over them and he didn’t want to chance it. (People become as flat as a pancake) Many might not agree with my parenting techniques, but I believe that day it saved his life. Things can get out of control very quickly with a toddler in tow, and even faster if there is another child to pay attention to.

I discovered another valuable technique to develop insight and confidence in my toddlers. When the environment is safe, let the toddler be in charge of the decision making. It’s good experience, a confidence builder and introduces them to the concept being responsible for the welfare of loved ones. As time goes on they begin to pick up the social expectations they will be faced with in later life.  This technique doesn’t work on all toddlers, as his brother showed little interest in taking the lead.

One day when my children were very young, I was driving to the shops on a quiet back street, to find a young child crawling down the white line in the middle of the road. My heart nearly stopped. There had been a lot of commotion about touching another person’s child and possibly being charged with a crime. I thought if I go to jail, at least I will know I saved a life. I pulled the car over to the curb and quickly picked up the little boy. I walked into the nearest house and asked - has anybody in the neighbourhood lost a baby? The man who came to the front door went back to the couch and explained how when he had been chilling out with a few cans of beer; the baby had crawled out the open front door onto the street.

No matter how many books I have read and how many professional and experienced people I have talked to, there is no substitute for never taking our eyes of the young mobile child. What if some of you know a better path? If you do, please share with the devoted parents of toddlers who should be applauded for their daily and lifetime dedication to their little people. 





BODY IMAGE

BODY IMAGE

By Frances Harris

Social media has some good points to it, a way to catch up, see beautiful pictures and a vehicle to dream and imagine.  Viewers can temporarily present as someone else if they aren’t satisfied with who they are. Winners on social media are expected to put their best foot forward and self-promotion or product promotion is the key. It becomes a problem when we and generations coming after us believe the spin.  The lines become blurred between fact and fiction but are presented to us as fact. A little like brain washing in a way. For developing minds, using social media has almost replaced the influence of mature adults for a child’s moral and personal compass. This is a daunting thought, depending on which stream they may decide to choose. The growing young mind is a very plastic organ which can be skewed in many ways with strong enough stimuli. And once the attitude is set in concrete, it’s difficult to change.

On a personal level, body image has become the new measure of self-worth. It determines who will be acceptable to marry and in extreme cases, can determine which people are acceptable to associate with. It is likely to influence future income and most of all, be the yardstick to measure the look of an acceptable friend, and what others might think of us. What a mountain of pressure to carry around on the shoulders! Is it any wonder a huge number of teens have considered suicide? Imagine wondering every day, - am I inside our outside the circle today? Guests may feel at every family gathering or social event, a sea of eyes of checking them out to see who has gained and extra milligram of weight since last time. Then when food is served, you see frightened committed people taking a micro serving of food, in case someone should catch them eating over the required calorie intake for the day. For me, I lived my life in a place where everyone is welcome to enjoy the food and a chance to engage in good conversation. I feel that the dimming of this concept is understandable when it is matched against potential income, but makes us all the poorer for it. Surely there is a way to find a balance.

Children watch their parents right from day one and carefully absorb their approach to life. When being super slim is more talked about in the home than being honest, caring and truthful, it bears some thought as to where we are aiming our future citizens. Our obsession with body image is cause for immense suffering. Those who can’t maintain the slim toned body, those who are showing a few signs of age and can’t maintain the momentum immediately fear their most valuable currency is slipping away, leaving them vulnerable. At the time of their life when they should be able to look back, appreciate the journey and reflect, they are stressed and preoccupied with maintaining a nearly unachievable body image. No matter what beauty products or body changing mechanisms are used, the truth is they doesn’t disguise age or attitude. Yes, the skin can be made smoother, teeth can be made pearlier, hair colour can be kept colourful, and promote the illusion of youthfulness, but the image is often only present only in the recipient’s thoughts. If we can’t accept that the body changes, there is surely a lot of pain ahead.  

Every time we log into social media, how often do you see a person with a regular body shape? Photo shop and air brushing can do wonders for the blemish or imperfect shape, but it is not a measure of reality. The pressure on us has become enormous. What’s wrong with a healthy body shape that suits our frame and height? With so many normal people and especially children being taken out of the equation of what is normal, is it any wonder that nearly one in four teens are showing signs of mental illness. This is energy taken away from achieving their life goals and put into something gruelling and unachievable. The madness is not with the children or the teens; it is with the adults and our willingness to promote the fairy tale. Remember Marylyn Munroe and her alluring beauty? It had little to do with calories. So what if we continue on this hazy path our future citizens and leaders are being encouraged to take? I don’t dare the guess.



WHAT IF WE HAVE CHILDREN?

WHAT IF WE HAVE CHILDREN?

By Frances Harris

Long after the battle is over, and each of the children has chosen a path in life, it is the reflection by the parents on what happened in those difficult years that provides the questions that follow – what if?  On a T.V. program yesterday I heard that fewer couples than ever are prepared to have children and wondered why?  - Or why not? Each of my children has a personality not like the others, but somehow by pure luck we all managed to get by.

Maybe grandparents will remember Dr Benjamin Spock and his series of books, the first being, Baby and Child Care, 1946. This one had become the new mother’s bible of how to raise the perfect child in the late 1940’s and further on. One of the guiding tenants in the Spock series is that the child should not be spoiled. If a child cries excessively, it should be put in a quiet secluded room and let it cry itself out. Experienced grandmas were still cuddling and rocking their grandchildren to sleep while the parents were away, as they had raised their own children, then when the parents came back, the same child was left to fend for itself in the back room. Spare the rod and spoil the child, was the enduring theme, and some parents even went so far as to believe the more they spanked their children, the better they would become. All this gives me the feeling that children grow up fairly well adjusted in spite of their upbringing, not because of it.

The Dr Spock experiment was shelved and replaced by a new one that came out in varying forms in the 1980’s. Imagine from the 1940’s, a whole generation of people now know they were brought up the wrong way, and they will never be sure if their problems evolved because of their upbringing. So who took the guilt, frustration and the blame for these forays into psychology? - It’s the mother of course. Imagine life before the 1940’s when it was presented as medical fact that if a child went off the rails, it was unquestioningly the mother’s fault. There was little effort put into analysing the problem because the outcome was already decided. It was considered the father did not contribute to the outcome one jot. Good children were a father’s joy and bad ones, a mother’s shame.

I have since come across a book called; Toddler Taming by Dr Christopher Green, first published in 1984 that provides some clues about what happened next to child rearing. The conventional view had evolved from the 1940’s giving instructions to the mother from a professional, then to ones that ventured into pure speculation of the 1980’s. This book written is an 80’s looks at the personalities of good, not so good and difficult children and gives advice on what not to do to raise them. It analyses and discusses the effects of nature versus nurture and theories on how they might contribute to childhood behaviour. It also tries to pick out the thorns of a rocky relationship formed when a child and a parent are totally unsuited to each other.

The one common quality in this and similar books since, is that qualified authors rarely commit to advice on what a parent should actually do to modify childhood behaviours. They have a few good chapters emphasising consistency and order being the key factors in successful parenting. They focus on theories of what the author thinks went wrong after the event. They offer ideas about what may influence toddler and child behaviour as a guiding light to new parents. Is it any wonder people headed for the hills in a caravan and gave fate a chance in the raising of their children?

Now, in 2013, we have new generations of couples trying to grapple with the important decision whether to build a family, or not to building one. The inconstancies and escalating costs of child care first come to mind in the planning. Most couples don’t have the luxury of extended family members willing to take up the slack when the things go wrong. Couples tend to examine what happened to their friends who have gone into parenthood ahead of them. How often do we see a new mother returned to work just to find there has been - a need based review of positions, where the mother’s job has been either abolished or downgraded? I hear of it all the time. This is a major factor included in the list of pros and cons compiled by couples. Presently there is no Australian legislation strong enough to prove there was discrimination intended.

A sick child can mean a lifetime of poverty from taking care of its needs. Marriages and relationships regularly break up and instantly the full weight of parenthood will fall heavily onto the mother’s shoulders. It can take the next twenty years or so of sorting out the mess before she can financially and emotionally rebuild her life.  Then for some very unlucky parents, at the end of child raising they may find their children declare they don’t like them, and cut the ties.

In the big picture of things, if enough couples decide to opt out of parenthood there are profound economic consequences for countries. Japan is feeling the pressure right now. Governments are going to extraordinary lengths to convince their young people that they should have children. If not, there will be less future tax payers to support aged parents and social services, and this has worried politicians. Despite the Japanese efforts, the population is still decreasing there, and in European countries, in the USA and others. I still recall one of Australia’s past treasurers saying to couples ‘have one child for the father, one for the mother and one for the country.’ There was a baby spike in the population shortly after when the government increased the baby concessions. I think the numbers have since levelled out.

The next point that most potential parents like to consider, is the worry that they could spend their old age alone, vulnerable and sad. When a partner dies, there is likely to be no one in a position to help out. So there I leave the discussion, not judging or being surprised when young couples decide not to have children, and not being surprised when they do. Whatever their decision, I wish them well, and if they do, I can say nothing in this world compares with the joy parents feel when handed their new little person for the very first time.