Serious child abuse is on the rise!

While many reports about child abuse show that it has declined over time, one recent study looked at serious child abuse…abuse where there are fractures and brain injuries and found that there was a slight increase of about 5%.

Before you think or say 5% is not such a major increase – ANY increase in child abuse is too much!

And the study also found that

Hospitalizations among children less than 1 year old increased 10.9 percent….

[The data used was from between 1997 and 2009 – so we do not have more recent similar statistics.]

In the past I worked in the field of Child Abuse and Neglect, both as a Psychologist and as an Attorney,  and it is not a pleasant field and one where all those who worked in it, fervently wished ourselves out of business…..

Seeing infants hurt by parents and caretakers – often for what most would consider trivial reason is not pleasant.

My happiest moments came when parents gave up the rights to their abused children and they were adopted by loving families.

This abuse is an issue we all need to be aware of and work at stopping!!

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you….

In this series, there has been a post about competing in education, and competing in toilet training and weaning.

This post is about competing in sports.

No – not as in the kids competing as they play –

it's about the parent's competing with each other as to whose kid is good, better, best.      

We have all read the tales of parents fighting with each other at Little League games, fighting with the umpires or screaming at the kids…their kids and the other kids.

Ditto at soccer games. The kids are there to have fun and learn "sportsmanship" but the parents are teaching a far different lesson.

And cheerleading? I do recall news about a mother hiring a hit-man to kill her daughter's rival!

So why are the parents competing with each other? Why not let the kids have fun and enjoy the sport?

Are the parents that ego involved in their kid's sports because they see it as a ticket-to-wealth or a ticket-to-college?

Or is it to give a boost to what they consider their great parenting skills? And show that off to everyone else?

Next up: parties

Thoughts? Comments? Additionall areas of competition? Thank you for your input….

This is an idea I have had in my head since years ago when working with suicidal male teens.

Most were suicidal because at ages 13, 14 or 15 they were experiencing a failure or a loss for the 1st time! No matter their background, they had never learned about failure.

And learning it when hormones are raging and your body is out-of-whack is not the best time developmentally to experience what you consider a major loss.

What were their losses?

• Being dumped by a girlfriend.
• Failing a class.
• Failing a test.
• Not getting a high enough grade.
• Not making the basketball team….

From an adult perspective we might not see these as major loses. But these boys were in a hospital because they did – and they wanted to end their lives!

As parents we want to help our kids and protect them from failure and here are 2 examples:

• we intentionally lose games so they win
• we do their homework so they get good grades or don't feel "bad"

But are we helping our kids?

Failure can be a learning experience – and part of growing up is learning that actions have consequences [both parental and child actions]

Parents, let your children lose that game when they are losing!

If you are capable of winning it – win it.

Yes they will probably have hissy fits but they will also learn a lot.

Talk to them about losing games and emphasize that a loss has no reflection on their worth as a person! And after a bit they know you lost on purpose anyway and that is an odd lesson!

Please don’t do their homework.

This is wrong on so many levels it needs a post of its own.

Help? Sure? But do all or most of it?

Whose homework is it?????

To be continued……..

Thoughts? comments? thank you

Part 1 was about competitive schooling.

Part 2 is about competitive toilet training and weaning…..

In the United States we tend to use a calendar or an aging system to mark when children should do things. If you ask most American parents when their children were weaned or toilet trained they will give you the child’s age at the time of the “event.”

Parents sometimes feel that the earlier the child is toilet trained, the more “brownie points” they [the parent] get.

In some cultures toilet training is just not an issue. There is rarely pressure on the child to “act like an adult” and use the bathroom. Again, in the USA parents tend to compete to be able to say, “my child was fully toilet-trained at X age.”

Sadly X may be an age at which toilet training is not all that probable or even possible. I have seen too many cases of child abuse resulting from a child wetting a diaper when the parents thought the child should have stopped doing so.

Regarding weaning, in many places in the world, an infant is breast-fed for long periods of time. [And great that more recently there has been a move in the United States to also encourage longer periods of breast-feeding.]

Still, some USA parents pride themselves for having their child drink out of an infant cup at an early age. No bottles for these competitors!

When parents ask me what's the best time for "x" – I tend to ask back "Is the time an important issue?"

And "why?"

Next: sports, birthday parties and ?

please suggest more areas where you see competing

Comments? Thoughts? Thank you.

3 tips for new parents to help you lessen guilt

Tip 1 – Stop chatting with everyone

Everyone has parenting advice – even people who have never had kids!

You start getting this mostly-unsolicited advice when you are pregnant because unless you never look pregnant, you are a target for child rearing advice.

t’s part of the human psyche to offer advice to pregnant women – and it’s been done since way back when.

Here’s the way it usually goes:

h, you’re pregnant. That’s great. I know a good pediatrician – her name is…or there are such good new toys for newborns – you can get them at… or have you heard about the new music to play while you are pregnant – it will make your child a genius – and by the way – do you know if you’re having a girl or a boy?

You almost can’t avoid this onslaught of advice – so best to be polite and say “thank you” – but do not engage in the conversation.

[This onslaught continues if you have a baby or toddler with you so practice now.]

If you engage – you are caught for a long chat about babies!

Tip 2 stop reading every book or magazine you find on parenting

Google “books on parenting advice” and you will find 1000’s of sites! You cannot read them all – even in several lifetimes. Don’t even try.

Tip 3 trust yourself

Stop and ask yourself who will be raising your baby? The people with advice?  The books?

• Who will responsible for making the moment-to-moment decisions?
• Who will feed?
• Who will diaper?
• Who will play with?

That baby is YOURS!

You the parent[s] have to trust yourself at some point and you can start right now.

Comments? Thoughts?

I sure hope you do have questions about being a parent.

My son is in his 30's and I am still learning how to be a parent.

Now it's being a parent to a married grown-up man!  And is different, I hear, from being the parent of a married grown up woman.

If you have been here before, you know I don't answer questions – or answer with specifics.

Why?

As I say in the movie and the book – ask yourself  – who is raising your child?

That person has the answers. not me. Not the books. Not your neighbors, in-laws, etc.

Comments? Thoughts?

Thank you….

I've written a lot about obesity and why it is detrimental to your children.  [Some of these posts are listed below in the area for related posts.]

Here, I’m suggesting a few ways you can start better eating habits in your own family – starting with things you can control:

• your own kitchen
• your own food
• your own children

Keep healthy, more natural, food around the house. If there is no candy, no soda, and no sugar-laden cereal – the kids will not be eating it.

Get daily exercise – play with your kids – toss balls, chase each other, run around the house, apartment, yard or street, take walks together [especially easy if you have a dog.]

Limit the amount of time in front of the TV and have a rule of NO FOOD while watching TV. This is for the adults too – we tend to munch mindlessly when we watch TV.

Drink more water. Many times we think we are hungry but we are really in need of hydration from water. Skip the sodas completely – they don’t count as hydration! And they have not-so-good stuff in them [read the label] and they do not-so-good stuff to our bodies.

Cook with your kids. Cook up a storm with your kids one day a week and freezing the foods makes it very easy to have good, healthy and fast meals all week. Microwaves are good defrosters – but if you do not have one, take out the frozen meals in the morning and they will defrost by dinnertime.

Yes there may be more of a mess – but your kids will have had fun, be eating healthier foods – and you know what? have them help clean up the mess…that’s part of cooking too.

There is more info and more suggestions in my ebook: It's Not Always Baby Fat

[I do love this photo! It's of my own non-linear child taken way back when.]

Parents!

Does your child march to his or her own drum?

Is your child creative?  Color on self with markers?

Are you thinking of your child as having ADD or ADHD? [Or did someone suggest you might consider this diagnosis?]

Please read this and give it some thought. It may just be that you have a child who has a non-linear mind!

If you find yourself asking asking ”What is a non-linear mind?” – you are probably in that super majority of people who have a linear mind. And if you are linear – you may not really understand what it is like to not be one of the linear minded people.

But – that small percent of us who are non-linear minded do “get it.”

We non-linears even understand that you “do not get it.”

What is a non-linear mind? It's a mind that is constantly in motion – scanning, thinking, creating, jumping from point <a> to point <h> without seeming to pass through points b to g.

[We non-linear people could, at some later time, fill you in on the b through g parts – we just don’t see a need to include it in the conversation.]

Conversations between two or more non-linear minded people may sound bizarre to the linear minded. The talking may seem confused, disconnected and on several topics at the same time and many or all may be speaking simultaneously. Yet the non-linear people having the conversation understand each other very well.

Why are some of us non-linear? It’s probably genetic but, like most development, it can be influenced by one’s environment. Because we live in a linear society we are more often exposed to that type of thought. And in our culture – we also have a notion that children who display the above listed non-linear qualities are ADD/ADHD.

And so your parents and neighbors and well-meaning "others" behave toward your child in ways they think are best and try to get the non-linear child to act like "everyone else" and to not be so "unfocused."  Or it may be suggested that you just get your child on medications.

For adults, other aspects of being non-linear are that we can get lost in books and the Internet as it is ALL so interesting. We may not finish all our projects because something more interesting comes along and we may not follow a secure career path or have a major interest in retirement funds and pensions.

Some, usually the linear-minded, see the above as negative aspects of non-linearity. But the world is changing and is beginning to function in a more non-linear fashion.  We are beginning to recognize major brain/thought differences and we are no longer so quick to label one type of thinking as "good" and another as "not-so-good."

We each encompass linear and non-linear aspects – and the non-linear creativity and entrepreneurship in all of us should be encouraged!  Especially in children!

If you find yourself saying "ah…that's me" – you are most likely non-linear and you may have felt there was something "wrong" with you! Nope – you are perfectly fine – and the world is slowly catching up to you. And your child is just like you – but hasn't been in the world long enough to know his or her brain is non-linear. He or she is just doing what non-linears do!

So let your child's non-linear run free…and tell the well meaning others "thank you but we are just fine!"

And both of you – go – be creative – the world is waiting for YOUR non-linearity!

Thoughts?  Comments?  Thank you.