Excerpts

1 A Fresh Perspective I'm going to start by telling you something you probably don't hear enough: You are doing a great job. Whether this is the first parenting book you've ever picked up or the most recent of many, the fact that you care enough to read a book on parenting and think deeply about the subject means that you are most likely already, in fact, a good parent. Probably better than good. I want you to let that sink in. I meet so many parents who beat themselves up because they believe they are letting their children down with their failures. The baby cried all night and they couldn't figure out why. One day they were too demanding, another day they were too lax. They have been known to heat a box of frozen fish sticks for supper. They have yet to chaperone a single field trip. So many are carrying around an image of the perfect parent and are painfully aware that they're not one. My hope is that by the time you're done with this book, you'll be okay with that. The goal of this book isn't to make you a perfect parent. It's to make you a more optimistic, confident, lighthearted, and fearless one. It's for anyone who has ever felt stressed out, strung out, anxious, exhausted, frustrated, or flummoxed by the challenges and pressures of parenting young children and who believes this is the normal, unavoidable face of parenting today. I assure you it is not. Many of the parents I have spoken with around the world are just as busy and just as invested in their children as we are, yet I have rarely heard them express the complete exhaustion and frustration that is such a regular complaint for the parents I have met in my pediatric clinics in Colorado, Idaho, and other parts of the United States. And it isn't just because their governments provide social services like ample paid parental leave, free childcare, and universal preschool, although those benefits help tremendously. As I see it, the big differences between these populations and the average American parent seems to be simply that those parents aren't judged for putting their own needs on par with their children's, and they don't spend time worrying about what everyone else thinks or what they could be doing more or better. Free of that mental anguish and second-guessing, they seem better able to project a calm, positive, relaxed attitude. While some families and cultures are stricter than others, in general I have found that parents living in or hailing from many other parts of the world seem to have a more optimistic outlook, firmly believing that with a stable environment and a nurturing family, the kids really will be all right. The end result of this approach is not only happy, healthy kids, but also happy, healthy parents. Why is this confident, laissez-faire parenting philosophy in such short supply in our country? It has been squelched by a culture of fear, one that gleefully finds new ways to scare parents every day and lays the responsibility for their child's every triumph and failure right at their feet. There are of course those who try to buck the trend by instilling independence in their children at an early age, letting them make mistakes, or simply refusing to be afraid, but they are increasingly taking a risk. Many find themselves judged harshly by their peers or, worse, confronted by Child Protective Services, such as the Austin woman whose neighbor had her investigated for child abuse after she allowed her six-year-old son to play outdoors unsupervised within view of his own front porch, and the Maryland couple charged with "unsubstantiated child endangerment" for allowing their six- and ten-year-olds to walk home alone from a neighborhood park. You would be hard-pressed to find any American who would disagree that it is the parents' job to protect their children from any risk or danger, that children's outdoor activities must be monitored to keep them safe, that parents must assess and encourage their children's gifts and talents early or risk squandering their child's potential, or that parents must be actively engaged with their children's schools and academic life. To buck these "rules" is to be irresponsible, even negligent. And they sound reasonable. Yet upholding these high standards requires a level of time, commitment, and effort that was never expected of generations past. For many parents, especially mothers, the demands-and the guilt and anxiety that arise when they can't meet those demands-can be overwhelming, leading to stress, exhaustion, and depression. Now, if extreme caution and vigilance resulted in the healthiest, most well-adjusted kids on the planet, maybe one could make the argument that parental happiness really should be secondary to the success of the child. But the facts don't support that theory at all. Much has been written about how our American form of fear-based parenting is leading to epidemic levels of stress and anxiety, making mothers (and many fathers) feel crazy and miserable, but so far, knowing that anxiety is deleterious to our health hasn't been enough to force us to change our parenting approach. But maybe this will: There is ample evidence that the way we parent today isn't just hurting us-it's hurting our growing children, physically and cognitively. In the United States, we have seen a 600 percent increase since 1992 in the rates of full-term babies suffering from flat head syndrome, many by their two-month well-child visit, which over time can result in cognitive delays and visual impairment as well as other medical problems. 1 in 68 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder 1 in 8 children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder increased rates of asthma a 50 percent increase in ADHD diagnoses for school-aged children since 2003 increased levels of juvenile depression, even in children with good self-control and emotional awareness a 35 percent increase of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in youth aged ten to nineteen between 2001-2009, diagnoses almost never seen in pediatric age groups until recently Curiously, "all-in" parenting and making safety our number one priority isn't making our kids emotionally or physically healthier. And similar consequences are being felt in other countries, like England and Canada, that are adopting our parenting standards and habits. In this book we'll explore how the stress and fear we invite on ourselves can exacerbate or even set the stage for these conditions in our kids. We don't even have to look for extreme symptoms to see the damage our over-involvement and heightened state of anxiety can cause. I saw it in my office every day. So do parents, they just don't realize it. It often manifests itself in the form of babies who won't sleep through the night, toddlers who won't eat balanced meals, young children prone to temper tantrums and separation anxiety, and older children who resist discipline. Parents are assured that children are biologically wired to behave this way; that daily struggles, screaming matches, and stress are natural parts of family life. But if that were the case, parents around the world would be wrestling with these issues as frequently as we do. Yet you rarely see Asian or Scandinavian toddlers having temper tantrums. Few Indian children turn their nose up at their vegetables. It's unusual for parents in Holland or France to spend months in a row tending to their wailing infants or restless toddlers. Are American babies and children somehow physiologically different from others? Of course not. The truth is that much of the time, these "inevitable" issues are in fact quite preventable and more likely caused by environmental and cultural factors than by biological ones. Through my travels and conversations, I have found that parents hailing from or living in countries that report high levels of parental satisfaction and family harmony embrace a number of principles that may seem counterintuitive and even shocking to many American parents: 1. It is not natural for mothers to be with their young children all day and night. 2. Nurturing a marriage or partnership is as important to child-rearing as nurturing the child. 3. Children are strong and resilient-unless parents teach them not to be. 4. Sometimes a parent's needs must come first. 5. Picky eating is learned, not innate. 6. There is such a thing as being too careful. 7. Raising successful children is about providing interaction, not just opportunities. These are the principles that underlie much of the advice I have offered the families in my practice over the years and the ones that have seemed to make the most positive difference in their lives by preventing or reversing almost every typical early-childhood challenge, from colic to sleep resistance, from tantrums to separation anxiety. A Problem That Transcends Class The knee-jerk reaction to any critique of the perfectionist pressure put on American mothers in particular and parents in general is that it is a problem for only a certain upwardly mobile, affluent demographic that has the time to wring its hands over such things. But this phenomenon is no longer limited to upper-middle-class white families, if it ever really was. I have served a broad swath of American families, from the relatively homogenous families in northwest Colorado to the urban and ethnically diverse communities in North Carolina to isolated, rural Idaho where 40 percent of the population was on Medicaid. I have treated the children of well-off professionals, middle-class couples, teen moms, and recovering meth addicts. Most of the parents I meet adore parenthood and describe this time as one of unbelievable love and joy. But across the board, they often qualify that description by adding that it is also a time of unbelievable anxiety, stress, and even exhaustion. Many even wear their fatigue and stress as a badge of honor. After all, no one said parenting would be easy, and everyone knows it takes sacrifice and hard work to raise a well-adjusted, healthy child. But should it? Is it a universal given that good parents should be willing to give up just about anything for the benefit of their children or that good parenting is inherently stressful? As this book will show, no. Parents in many other countries juggle work and children. They want what's best for their kids. And of course they sometimes worry. But they are not consumed by it because unlike us, they are not bombarded with the message that parenthood is a trial, that childhood is a dangerous time for children, and that anything could happen at any time to destroy their happiness. It's often a subtle narrative, but we hear it all the time, and it is constantly reinforced by the multitude of rules we've developed to stave off our worst nightmares. Rules Made to Be Broken Nothing makes a risk-averse society feel better than a nice list of rules. Parents love them. Rules take all the guesswork out of decision making, offering parents a few moments of respite in a job that requires endless improvisation. They also give us an immediate way to categorize ourselves and other parents: Those who follow the rules are "good" parents; those who break them out of willfulness or ignorance are "bad," or at the very least, irresponsible. I have a strong aversion to too many rules, especially when it comes to raising children. With the exception of the ones grounded in physiological facts, rules are generally culturally biased, and therefore completely subjective. For example, many Americans were appalled by the story of the Kaufmans, a young couple raising their one- and three-year-old daughters on a sailboat while embarking on a round-the-world trip, only to be rescued by the Coast Guard when they lost control of the boat and their younger daughter fell ill. In blogs and comments, people accused the Kaufmans of selfishness, negligence, and child endangerment. Because we live in a society that aspires to a certain level of material comfort and has established that children should be raised on terra firma, to many, the Kaufmans' actions seemed inexplicable and dangerous. They broke the rules, and many people thought they should pay. And yet, families take their children on adventurous trips all the time-we just don't hear about them because the media aren't all that interested in family success stories. And really, their decision wasn't that wild, globally speaking. The Bajau-Laut and the Moken people of Southeast Asia raise their children in boats or in homes built over the water, and you won't find a life preserver anywhere. The Korowai tribe of New Guinea lives in tree houses, sometimes perched up to 150 feet off the ground. Does the fact that the Moken and the Korowai have different safety standards mean that families who sail should leave the lifejackets behind or that apartment dwellers with children should forgo window guards? Of course not. (The Korowai are said to still practice cannibalism, too, so they're not necessarily role models.) But clearly, with proper planning and preparation, humans can adapt to almost any living environment. The rules governing the "right" way to raise and care for children are far more flexible than people realize. You might be surprised at how many rules invoked in the name of safety, and accepted by many American parents as dogma, are unheard of or taken with a grain of salt in other countries. For example, this one, emblazoned in big block letters on the label of every jar of honey sold in this country: Babies under a year old shouldn't eat honey. Everyone knows that, right? Yet around the world, in places like Greece, New Zealand, France, and the Middle East, parents feed it to their young children without a moment's thought, often mixed in dairy products or drizzled on toast or fruit. Is there something different about the honey they feed their children? Are our children particularly vulnerable to illness in ways that children in other countries are not? Not at all. The reason we see this stringent warning repeated over and over again is because at one point back in the 1970s, California saw a few cases of infant botulism, which is extremely rare. Later, researchers found traces of botulism spores in some samples of honey. Thus the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set the recommendation that parents avoid feeding honey to infants, whose gastrointestinal tracts are incapable of handling any botulism spores that might be present. Botulism, especially in a small infant, can be deadly. It's not a trivial matter. But let's put things in perspective: On average, there are only 80 to 100 cases of infant botulism reported in the United States per year out of approximately 4 million births per year. Of those cases, only about 20 percent are related to honey. Botulism spores can be found in dirt, water, and dust, including the dust from your vacuum cleaner. Excerpted from The Confident Parent: A Pediatrician's Globally Inspired Guide to Caring for Your Little One--Without Losing Your Joy, Your Mind, or Yourself by Jane Scott, Stephanie Land All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.