I confess, I was never always against the idea of corporal punishment.  At one stage, I even believed that if you “spare the rod”, you “spoil the child”.  My only defense lies in the fact that I believed it back in days before I became a parent.  I used to think that juvenile deliquents existed because their parents failed to discipline (read: smack, because back then discipline to me meant smacking, spanking, hitting or whatever name it goes by under the umbrella term of corporal punishment) them adequately when they were younger, and that was why I was all for corporal punishment. 

And then I became a mother.

And the maternal instincts kicked in.

Okay, okay, perhaps it started a little before that.  I was pregnant and the dog was misbehaving and while I was threatening to smack him for being “bad” that was about as far as I could go.  I couldn’t bring myself to inflict harm upon him.

Even as I look at my son, I don’t think I could lay a hand upon him and justify it under the term of “discipline”.

I decided “to each his own”.  Corporal punishment may be the way for some parents but it wasn’t going to be for me.

That was when I started reading to educate myself on what other options existed besides corporal punishment.  How else could I raise a well-behaved, confident and socially well-adjusted child?

Reading led to the discovery of the mounting evidence against corporal punishment and the ill-effects of corporal punishment on the developing brain of a child.  I was alarmed.  If my decision not to discipline my son with corporal punishment was born from an instinct, my conviction for that decision had been cemented by the evidence.  Where I once told the hubby that he could discipline our son as he saw fit and I would do as I saw fit, I now felt compelled to convince him of the dangers of corporal punishment.

Why is corporal punishment so damanging to a child?

Because corporal punishment causes stress in a child that is no different to the stress a child experiences when being bullied or suffering from child abuse.  Brain scans show structural and biochemical changes that affect social behaviour. 

Cell death in the anterior cingulate gyrus affects a child’s ability to moderate fear and to empathise.  Changes in the brain’s pathways affect a child’s ability to manage stress and being more prone to being impulsive, agressive and/or anxious.  Long term changes to the adrenaline systems in the brain affect the ability to think clearly.  Impairment in the brain stem has been linked to ADHD, depression and impaired attention.  It also leads to more aggression and irritability.

Other changes to the brain have also been observed:

• decrease in size of the corpus callosum causing manic shifts in mood states
• reduced amygdala and hippocampus resulting in depression, irritability and hostility; and poor memory function
• affects the GABA system making a child feel unsafe and constantly living in a state of alarm

Violent methods of discipline also been linked to children with anti-social behaviour and increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders, while non-violent methods of discipline is linked to higher cognitive function.

A common argument for the corporal punishment camp is one that goes something along the lines of, “I was spanked as a child and I turned out okay.”

A couple of other arguments stem from this point as well.  Firstly, what is okay?  Could it be that if we weren’t smacked we might have more deeper and meaningful friendships?  Better relationships?  Lasting marriages?  Feel less depressed?  Perform better at work?  Have a better outlook and attitude towards life?

Secondly, children who have been hit by misguided well-intentioned parents are later able to reach a well adjusted adulthood, it is because of the love, nurturance and appropriate limit-setting not because of the physical violence they received.

Jordan Riak cites an excellent example that articulates the fallacy of this belief rather aptly (incidentally, each and every one of these examples apply to my own childhood, too):

Let’s test the I-turned-out-okay argument by examining a few real-life examples from my own childhood. See if they apply to you.

1. There were ashtrays in every room of our house. My parents smoked, as did most adult visitors to our home. The aroma of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke was always present. Nobody minded. In fact, not one day passed in my early life when I was not exposed to tobacco smoke. I was even exposed in the womb because my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. And I turned out okay. 
2. The first family car I remember was a 1937 Chevrolet sedan. It had no seat belts. When we traveled, I was merely plunked down on the back seat with the expectation that gravity would keep me there. It did. And I turned out okay. 
3. All the places in which I lived as a child were painted with lead-based paint. And I turned out okay. 
4. I used a bicycle throughout my childhood and teen years, but never wore any kind of protective headgear. And I turned out okay.

Was my family wise or just lucky? Today, we don’t do those things anymore. We don’t take such risks, and we don’t expose our children to such risks – not if we know the facts.

Quite possibly, one of the uncomfortable notions about bashing corporal punishment is that many of us (at least in the circle of people that I know) were smacked at some stage when we were children.  The idea that our parents did wrong against us can be a rather uncomfortable one to face.  I’m not bashing the way we were raised by our parents.  They did what they felt was right at the time because they lacked the awareness of the possible side effects.  All the examples listed above are other ways our parents did “wrong” against us but they were accepted practices in their day.

I could cite a few more…

When I was a kid, I was treated by dentists who never wore gloves.  Would you allow a dentist to put her hands into your mouth now without gloves?

As a child, I was weaned by my mother because that was the recommended practice of the day but I don’t blame my mother for it, nor do I complain that I am intellectually weaker than my peers who were lucky enough to be breastfed as a result.

The Efficacy of Corporal Punishment

One might argue that corporal punishment is effective in conveying the message across to a child that they did wrong and that nothing else works quite as well.  Longitudinal studies have shown that, in fact, the converse is true.  In fact, schools that had the highest rates of corporal punishment also had “the lowest graduation rates, the highest rates of teen pregnancy, the highest incarceration rates and the highest murder rates“.

From: The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime
By Adah Maurer, Ph.D. and James S. Wallerstein (1987)

You will find that adults who were hit as kids, while believing that it did them “no harm” can seldom articulate any way in which it helped them.  Let’s be honest, if you were smacked at a kid and you behaved after that, why did you behave?  Was it because you knew it was wrong?  Because you were afraid of getting smacked again?  Or because you didn’t want to disappoint your parents? 

Exactly what are the lessons learned from being hit?  Often it leads to bullying and the acceptance that it is okay to hit others.  What happened to the moral of the story?  Your child might behave in front of you but how will you know what goes on behind your back?  Discipline should be about raising morally-aware children with a social conscience, and not creating fear-inspired behaviours in a child that don’t last once the child is out of sight. 

There are Other Ways to Discipline

It also seems to me that a common misconception is that if I choose not to discipline my child by smacking him, I’m choosing not to discipline him at all (forgive me if I’m making a generalisation here as this is based on a comment made on a recent post I wrote about Choosing a Parenting Style).  Perhaps such thoughts are only limited to those near-sighted enough to believe that the only way to discipline a child is through violence.

There are other ways to discipline a child.  They are generally more time consuming and they also require more effort.  Let’s face it - it’s definitely a lot easier to just yell at your child or smack him for misbehaving.  It doesn’t require much thought and I’m sure the action alone will help you let off some steam from the anger buttons your child has just pushed.

This is a long and lengthy topic, but if you’re convinced that non-violent discipline is the way to go, then might I recommend these resources:

• AskDrSears
• The Discipline Book
• The Successful Child
• The Science of Parenting

Or at the very least read the evidence or dig deeper yourself:

• Plain Talk About Spanking
• Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children
• CORPORAL PUNISHMENT BY MOTHERS AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY
• Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders
• The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime
• The Science of Parenting

Popularity: 9% [?]

When the hubby first suggested we move in with his parents, I admit I had great reservations.  Firstly, let’s set the record straight - I would have had great reservations moving back in with MY parents had it been my parents in question.

Knowing how capable my MIL is and how determined I was to raise Gavin my way, I was sure I was going to end up bumbling along and feel like a complete idiot in my MIL’s eyes.  Then again, after reading Harvey Karp’s recommendation that more parents break away from the nuclear family style of living and expose their children to the extended family on a regular basis, I thought perhaps moving in with my in laws would not be such a bad thing (especially since my parents are living on another continent). 

There was a reason for Karp’s recommendation, but I won’t go into it in detail in this post.  The gist of it was that nuclear family-living tended to be quite tough on the parents who didn’t have a chance to take a break from parenting.  While extended family living meant that more people should share the responsibility of looking after the children, giving Mum and Dad a chance to take a break and get a little “me” time.

To be fair, it hasn’t been as bad as I had envisaged.  For instance, it is always nice to be able to “drop the kids off at the pool” (read: take a dump, do the no. 2, defecate) in peace without your toddler grabbing onto your knees and wailing because you can’t carry him while you’re on the toilet.  The times when I’ve had to do the latter put a significant amount of strain and pressure on a sphincter that has already been traumatised quite extensively during the episode of childbirth.

Then of course, there are the times when my MIL helps to mind Gavin when I’m having breakfast or when I’m sick and need to rest, or even lately, when I need an hour off to exercise.  These are the times when I’m really grateful to have someone trustworthy to watch over Gavin so that I have peace of mind when I have other things to do.

That said, there are also times when it has been quite trying.  For instance, when Gavin shows a distinct lack of interest in food, it is a cause for alarm for his grandparents.  Let’s face it - in any Chinese family, there’s no such thing as not being interested in eating.  To a Chinese family, food is love, so I guess you could say that a rejection of food is like a rejection of love. 

At other times, there is the unwitting attempts to help which have made things more difficult.  For instance, recently, I was trying to take Gavin to Kizsports so he could have another play at Playland.  At the same time, my MIL was leaving the house to go to the factory.  Because my car was behind hers, she had to wait for me to leave before she could go out. 

Patience isn’t exactly a virtue of my MIL’s so when Gavin decided he was going to be difficult about getting into the carseat, she decided to “help” by suggesting he sit in her car while we reverse the cars.

In case you haven’t spotted the problem with that, let me paint a clearer picture to illustrate:

Gavin sits in grandma’s car without having to sit in a carseat or wear a seatbelt (albeit for the whole of a minute or however long it takes to reverse the cars), and then he has to get back into Mummy’s car where he has to sit in that nasty carseat and put on that restraining belt. 

Now here’s my question:

How likely is it that he is going to cooperate and sit in Mummy’s car?

Yep, you guessed it - not likely at all.

Suffice to say we didn’t go out that day.

Then there was the time (which was honestly not my MIL’s fault as she was really trying to be helpful) when she put Gavin into the car and buckled him in without telling me.  There I was lounging over the newspapers and enjoying my cup of Milo thinking my MIL had taken Gavin for a walk in the garden.

Okay, let me explain again.  When Gavin gets into the carseat, there is a timer that goes off and starts counting down.  If you don’t get into the car and start driving before the timer runs out, Gavin will start going ballistic.  When I realised that Gavin was in the carseat, I had to rush like mad to get going.  It didn’t help that there were two cars behind me that needed to be moved before we could get out. 

In my haste to get out, I also rolled over the chickens’ house because the maid (for reasons unknown to any of us) decided to leave it behind the wheel of my car.  You can imagine my alarm and shock when I ran out of the car to see the box smashed to smithereens and no chickens in sight!  Thankfully the chickens weren’t in the box but that was one very eventful morning!

Living with the extended family obviously has its pros and cons.  While it does have its benefits, I do know it isn’t for everyone.  If do you decide to try it, here is my advice:

Expect to get lots of advice on how things should be done.  Listen with a selective ear and put to practice the advice that makes sense to you.  As for the rest, you can conveniently “forget” about them.  Occasionally, try to humour the grandparents with things that won’t compromise your parenting philosophies.

Disclaimer: I do realise that living with the extended family is different for everyone.  For some it certainly isn’t as easy as I’ve made it sound.  While for others, it can be a breeze.  So take this advice on a case by case basis.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I was browsing through a blog by Casia Talbert called Healthy Moms recently and came across one of her older posts about the topic of Parenting in which she asked her readers to share their thoughts.  With Gavin demonstrating a more willful nature of late and melting down into more frequent temper tantrums, I find my mind dwelling quite considerably on this topic of late.

What do I think?  Probably too much but I would still like to share what little experience I have gained since I officially became a mother some eighteen months ago (well, technically twenty-seven months ago if you include the pregnancy).

When the hubby and I decided that we wanted to have a baby, one of my biggest concerns was not knowing how to be a good parent.  I’m not talking so much about the basic stuff like bathing, feeding, changing diapers, etc, because those are things that are easily learned.  Neither am I talking about the areas of parenting which I feel are quite clear-cut regarding what is the best option for your child.  For instance, there is plenty of evidence substantiating breastmilk as the best source of nutrition for a baby. 

For me, the part of parenting that concerned me most was discipline.  How do you raise your child so that you can take comfort in knowing that when he is at school, he will make the right choices to stay away from drugs? How can you build a bond with your child so that when he is in trouble, the first person he comes to is you? How can you give your child the best start in life so that he doesn’t end up a juvenile deliquent?

When you read so many terrible stories in the papers about individuals who open up fire on innocent bystanders you have to wonder what happened in their lives that brought them to do such horrific acts.  I think the most horrifying article I have ever read in the papers was about two ten year old boys who tortured a six year old boy.  It really makes you wonder.

Well, it made me wonder anyway. 

When Martha Sears was criticised for having 8 children and contributing to the world’s over-population, she answered, “The world needs my children.”

What can I do as a parent to raise my children so that I too might be able to say, “The world needs my children”?

When the hubby and I started talking about having a baby, I admit I didn’t know the first thing about parenting books - who were the good authors, what were the different parenting philosophies and which ones should I rely on as a resource for raising Gavin.  In some ways, I feel like I missed out on doing a lot of things “right” for Gavin, especially in his first year, because I was too overwhelmed with being a new parent and all the things I had to learn to cope with.  I was too receptive to advice - good and bad.

When it comes to parenting, I find that there is plenty of advice floating around. Being a health science student, I find that I have always tended to look for evidence to substantiate theories rather than to follow the advice of heresay even if it comes from “experienced” parents who know better than me.  Perhaps that makes me annoying, but I would rather work with theories substantiated by studies of hundreds or thousands of children rather than advice that came from a single parent whose experience is limited to one, two or even ten children.

As a first time parent, there is often a lot of trial and error with your first child as you try to navigate your way through the wealth of parenting resource and advice available out there.  Even with all my efforts to educate myself, there are many things I feel I would do differently with my second child that I regret doing or not doing with Gavin.  And if I could go back to the days when I was still pregnant with Gavin, I would read these books in preparation for parenting Gavin:

1. The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland
2. The Baby Book by William and Martha Sears

I have been criticised for being too much of a textbook parent and for relying too heavily upon what I read as opposed to “what works”.  For instance, since having Gavin, I have developed a stance against “smacking” and corporal punishment.  To be honest, I haven’t always felt this way.  I used to believe in the credo “spare the rod, spoil the child”.  What changed my views was when I read The Science of Parenting - which is a book I believe every parent should read before deciding that it is okay to smack their kids.  It was then reaffirmed when I read the parenting philosophy of Dr Sears.

I have heard the argument, “Well, my parents smacked me and I turned out okay.”  True, a child who has been smacked may turn out okay, but why would you persist with such archaic forms of discipline when you know scientifically what it can do to a child’s fragile and developing mind? Our parents may have used these methods because they didn’t know better.  They didn’t have the benefit of science and parenting textbooks to guide them.  Heck!  Even the so-called experts in their day were leading them up the garden path (albeit with good intentions) - consider the numerous doctors who used to promote infant formula over breastmilk!

Why The Science of Parenting? 

Because The Science of Parenting is not based on some doctor’s theory of what she thinks is right, but practical findings from scientific studies of groups of children and how the developing brain works.

Why The Baby Book?

Because William Sears has been a paediatrician for thirty over years, and Martha Sears is a registered nurse and together they have raised eight children of their own.  As health professionals in the field, they have shared the experience of thousands of patients and conducted numerous studies of their own. Being parents of eight children of their own with very different personalities, they are no longer just scientists looking down a microscope and making observations, instead they have first hand experience of what it is like to to practice what they preach.

Had I read these books while I was still pregnant, I would have practiced Attachment Parenting right from day one.  I would have carried Gavin more and not taken so long to accept co-sleeping.  I would have spent more time playing with Gavin and gazing into his eyes instead of watching TV or reading books.  This is because discipline doesn’t begin when your child is old enough to understand you - it begins from day one of your child’s life.

Although the difficulties I currently face with Gavin may have occurred regardless of whether or not I had practiced attachment from day one, there is always going to be a part of me that wonders if he might have been “easier” to handle if I had.  Perhaps he is difficult to manage just because he is like Hayden - the Sears’ fourth child - spirited and determined.  I will never really know.  But just knowing there is another way means I will always keep trying to be a better parent and all I can do is hope that what I do is enough.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Now here’s a tough debate…

I’ve generally been of a mind to “mind my own business” and let others do as they please, but circumstances have placed me in positions where I have been called to make a stand.

The first, which I wasn’t present, but the hubby observed, was when Gavin was at the book shop.  An older child around 5 years old was browsing books at a bookshelf.  Gavin went over to look at the same books and was pushed away by the older child.  Not to disheartened, Gavin went to look for his own bookshelf.  Shortly after, the older child came over to Gavin’s bookshelf and Gavin pushed the boy away.

Let me first clarify that I don’t condone pushing, although I am secretly pleased to note that my son can hold his own.  But at the same time, had I been there to witness the older child pushing my son in the first place, I would have stepped up to say something.  Likewise, I would have told Gavin that it was not right to push the older child back.

In the second incident, Gavin and I were sitting in a ball pit.  There was a slide that ended in the ball pit and some girls were playing on it.  After a while, they found it a little boring sliding down the slide and decided they wanted to climb up the slide.  The nature of the slide design was such that a person coming down the slide can’t see that someone is attempting to climb up the slide, so attempting to climb up the slide is not a very safe thing to do. 

Since the girls were quite old and more than capable of holding their own, I didn’t intervene.  After a while, a toddler saw what they were doing and he wanted to copy their actions.  At the same time, one of the staff came and told the girls to play somewhere else because it was not safe.  The boy continued to attempt to climb the slide.  Since the staff member couldn’t reach the boy in time, I went over and told him it was time to go and picked him up.

Now these are two rather situations that are rather black and white.  If the child is about to get hurt or is going to hurt someone else or if they are going to damage property, tend discipline is clearly necessary.  But what about situations that are gray?  Would you say something or mind your own business?

Popularity: 4% [?]

For all the difficult times we go through with our toddlers, inevitably, there will be some good days that make us feel proud to be the parent of our child.  During such instances, I think it is a parent’s duty to stop and celebrate our child’s achievements so we don’t lose sight of the good things in our children when the trying times threaten to overwhelm us.

Yesterday, I took Gavin out to meet a friend of mine who is back from Russia for her Summer holidays.  We arrived early at 1Utama, so Gavin and I went browsing through the stores.  Fairly early on, Gavin spotted Starbucks and started pointing to indicate he wanted a hot chocolate.  I obliged and when I was getting the straw, he wanted one. 

After giving him the straw, I prompted him with, “What must you say?”

He immediately signed, “Thank you.”

Previously, whenever I wanted him to sign, “Please” or “Thank you” I would have to ask him to sign the words.  This was the first time he signed without being asked directly to sign the word.

I told him we were going to have lunch with my friend, V, and though he initially balked at the highchair, he later volunteered to sit in it on his own when V arrived.  During our entire lunch, Gavin sat patiently in his chair, feeding himself and entertaining himself.  He didn’t fuss and he didn’t interrupt our conversation.  It wasn’t until I finished eating that he wanted to get out of the chair to walk, to which he said, “Walk walk,” although it sounded more like “wok wok”.  He later signed “walk” as we were walking to the bathroom.

I was also pleased with his display of manners towards V.  When she was holding his water bottle, he signed, “please”.  V asked me what he was doing and I told her he was saying, “Please can I have my bottle back?” After she handed the bottle back to him, he signed, “Thank you.”  He did it all on his own without me having to prompt him.

As usual, he caught the attention of the waitresses who all remembered him from the days when my parents and I used to have lunch there.  And as usual, he was his charming self - smiling, waving, shaking hands, giving high 5s and blowing kisses.

I couldn’t have been prouder of how admirably he behaved.

Above: V, Gavin and me.

Above: Gavin, V’s friend and V.

Above: V and Gavin.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Since becoming a parent, I have discovered two very important lessons:

1. What goes around comes around.

2. Never say “never”.

It was the hubby that learned the first lesson the hard way.  Before Gavin was born, he used to criticise children who screamed in restaurants.  He even made himself a promise that no child of his would scream in a restaurant.

Now, he is the abashed father of a little screamer.

As for the second lesson…  I feel I know it all too well.  I was never going to let my child watch TV before the age of two.  I was never going to give my child sweets and treats before the age of two.  I was never going to bribe my child into good behaviour.  Ah… the list could fill a whole page, but I think you get the picture.

Popularity: 5% [?]

There’s a stomach flu bug going around and it struck me again, although I think I had a milder reaction to it this time.  Although I felt really crook, I didn’t have any fever (despite the fact that the doctor registered a mild elevation in body temperature).  I had a headache and muscular aches all over again - symptomatic of viral infections, meaning no antibiotics required, and I felt general malaise (that-out-of-sorts feeling you get when you’re getting ill) and fatigue.  I had stomach upset and a lack of appetite, an increased need to defecate, although no diarrhoea, and I was nauseous.

As usual, I was reluctant to go to the doctor because I knew what was wrong, what diagnosis the doctor would pronounce and what treatment he would recommend.  My MIL was concerned, so I agreed in the end to go.  Also because hubby and MIL have been wondering if I’m pregnant since my symptoms seem so mild so I wanted to get that score settled once and for all. It took me nearly an hour to see the doctor - this is exactly why I don’t like to see doctors when it feels so unnecessary.  I already feel crummy, all I want to do is sleep and I have to sit in a waiting room with sick people to see a doctor who’s going to tell me what I already know.

Well, I know better next time.  My poor MIL was forced to entertain Gavin for that entire hour while I waited so it can’t have been much fun for her either.

The doctor’s diagnosis? A viral infection originating from the stomach - apparently seems there’s a lot of this going around lately.  No kidding.  I just had it about two or three weeks ago.  He did ask about my period but since I only had it about a couple of weeks ago, he immediately ruled out a possible pregnancy.  It’s definitely way too early for any pregnancy symptoms to show.

The treatment? Stay away from oily and spicy foods.  Milk is still okay, unless I start getting diarrhoea.  100Plus or Excel will be good for the nausea (something I usually drink when I’m dehydrated, feeling nauseous or when I’ve had diarrhoea because it replaces lost electrolytes and because my body seems to naturally crave for it).  Paracetamol for the fever and aches, some anti-nausea pills and anti-diarrhoea pills (which I think were of a similar nature to lomotil).

Well, I could have told myself that…

Anyway, the thing that I’ve been wondering is whether Gavin’s been having the bug, too, and feeling crabby because of it?  It might also explain his two episodes of vomiting recently.  Although I know that crying hard can cause babies to throw up but I always thought that was only with really young babies - don’t quote me on this, I haven’t researched it. 

While it is still possible that he threw up because he was upset, I did notice that on the first night he was nursing quietly for a while and then suddenly, it was as if something upset him and he sat bolt upright and starting howling until he threw up (despite all my best efforts to pacify him).

Regardless, I have found a way around the night-time crying before bedtime (or at least minimising it).  I’ve discovered it isn’t so much to do with whether he had one nap or two naps during the day (although, clearly, having that morning nap does improve his disposition somewhat).  It’s got to do with how I put him to sleep.

Sometime back when I had the first episode of the stomach flu, I was so achy, I just couldn’t bear the thought of rocking him and carrying him up and down the room for half an hour to an hour.  Praying that Gavin would be kind to a sick Mummy, I just popped him on my breast and lay down beside him to sleep.  Although I had to go through a routine of switching breasts everytime he came off before he had fallen asleep, I found it infinitely better than having to rock him.  The great thing was that Gavin eventually fell asleep (and so did I).

It worked so well, that even after I got better, I decided to continue this method of putting Gavin to bed.  And it continued to work, at least, up until the day he threw up.  After he threw up the second night, I decided to switch his naptime routine back to its original timing - morning nap when he started to get tired, and an afternoon nap if I could get him to sleep.  That night, I started his bedtime routine by nursing him.  It seemed like he was almost about to fall asleep, then suddenly, as if someone pressed a magic button, he was up and about and ready to explore again. 

Without missing a beat, I scooped him up and started to rock him as I paced around the room.  Clearly he was tired because I noticed his head dropping onto my shoulder shortly after I started pacing.  When he was almost asleep, I brought him back to the bed and nursed him to sleep again.

Although it’s more tedious this way, and definitely more exhausting for me, I feel better about it because it stems off the crying.  Indeed, when I reviewed The Science of Parenting, Sunderland writes that “if your under-five child is hyperaroused and out-of-control, pick her up and hold her.  With high levels of physical arousal, she won’t be able to focus on what you are saying, however simply it is expressed”.  When you hold your child, make sure you’re calm, not angry.  Your child needs to feel that you are in control because their out-of-control state can be very terrifying for them.  It helps them to know that there is some big and calm who can help them manage their intense emotions.

I’ve been reading one of the parenting forums about toddlers and sleep and it seems parents feel pressured to get their toddler to sleep in their own room after the age of one.  They do so even if it means crying spells and vomiting, although the latter seems to cause a certain amount of distress to some parents.  Somehow they can take the crying, but they can’t take the vomiting.  What I found particularly alarming is when parents write that they feel their child is vomiting on purpose.  I mean, we’re talking about a child under two, who is in a hysterical state - the child is highly unlikely to be in any frame of mind to manipulate his parents into feeling guilt by forcing himself to vomit.

Even adults have difficulty thinking straight when they’re upset.  Imagine how much more difficult it would be for a toddler…

While we’re on the topic of manipulation, yes, I don’t doubt that children are often testing the boundaries with their parents and seeing how far they can push them to get a reaction.  They are learning how to push our buttons through observation and they also quickly discern who the weakest link is.  At the same time, you can also learn a lot about your child as you watch him grow.

For instance, when Gavin throws a fake cry, I know instantly it isn’t real.  He makes a few coughing sounds that appears as if he’s trying to cry but not succeeding.  It’s also easy to get him to forget about his pretend state by engaging him in other activities.  Whereas when he’s really upset, it’s almost as if nothing you say appears to penetrate the howls.  It takes time to calm him down.

I guess that’s the challenge of being a parent - being able to distinguish when your child is playing up and when they’re crying for you to save them from their emotions.  As your child grows older and becomes more adept, it gets harder, but at this age (Gavin’s age now), I think it’s still quite straightforward.

Popularity: 17% [?]

When I first got pregnant, I met a friend and experienced mother of two grown kids (one in University and the other still in school) who said motherhood was an amazing journey.  She also said that of the three stages in motherhood, the delivery was the easiest, raising the baby was the most challenging and the pregnancy was somewhere in the middle. 

Now that Gavin is growing more “terrible” everyday of his second year, I’m beginning to agree with her.  And when I think about having number two, I’m not sure I have it in me to go through all this again.  As much as I adore my son, there are times when he can be so trying, I don’t know whether to pull out all of my hair or curl up into a corner and cry. 

The last two nights have been particularly hard - yesterday more so than tonight because the hubby was late home from work so I had to deal with Gavin on my own.  I’m beginning to suspect the cause (or rather possible cause) of it all, but I won’t know until I test it out tomorrow.

It appears that Gavin has been hovering between 1 to 2 naps a day for some time now and in the past week, he seems to be closer to 1 nap than 2.  He’ll start to feel sleepy a couple of hours after waking and by the time I get him down for a morning nap, it’s closer to the afternoon than morning.  He’ll wake up in the early afternoon and refuse to sleep again until almost dinner time.  Since we eat dinner early, he ends up crashing immediately after dinner which doesn’t really work out for three reasons:

1. I can’t let him sleep because that means he won’t get to bed until almost midnight.

2. If I keep him up, he’s cranky through dinner and he won’t want to have dinner at all.

3. If we decide to go out for dinner, it’s even worse because by the time we get home, it’ll be pushing 7 to 8 hours since he woke up from his nap.

So in effort to adjust his routine a little to fit ours, I decided to move his nap time from morning to early afternoon.  I started this yesterday.  He slept poorly and only got in about an hour and a half which clearly wasn’t enough because he was still tired at dinner.  What was worse, when I took him up to sleep, he nursed for a while and then he had a crying fit until he vomited.  He seemed in a much better mood after throwing up and fell asleep relatively easily after roaming around the room and doing a little pre-bedtime exploration.

Figuring it was because his afternoon nap was disrupted, I tried it again today.  This time he had a more restful nap and slept for two and a half hours - quite decent for a single afternoon nap.  Everything seemed okay and he even decided himself that he was ready to say “bye” to Ah Mah and Ah Kong and go up to our room (normally, we have to fight him).  Since it was still early, I let him chill for a bit where he “read” some books, played with Daddy, tinkered on his Leapfrog Piano and roamed around the room again. 

When we were pushing five hours since he woke up, I decided it was time for him to sleep.  Unfortunately, Gavin had other ideas and sleep was not one of them.  I tried reasoning with him, I tried Toddlerese, I tried bargaining, I tried being firm and I tried ignoring him.  Suffice to say, none of it worked.  He cried again and he threw up again.

The hubby felt I should just have ignored him - which I did for about thirty seconds and then I would peer over the edge of the bed (he was on the floor), reach out my arms to him and wait to see if he would come to me or continue sitting on the floor.  If he persisted, I would wait another thirty seconds.  If he came to me, I would cuddle him, offer him the boob and try to soothe him.  I’ve tried this routine before and it worked, so I thought it might work again tonight - it was no go.

Finally, on the hubby’s suggestion, I turned on some music and let him watch the changing colour patterns on my Windows Media Player, while I paced up and down the room.  When he finally started dropping his head on my shoulder, I nursed him to sleep.  It took about five to ten minutes for him to fall asleep.  I figured he had to be really tired because it was about six hours since his nap and well, let’s face it, if I had cried like that I would have been quite exhausted by the end of it, too.

My suspicion is that Gavin isn’t taking too well to my attempt to reschedule his nap time because that’s the only major change that has happened recently. Perhaps I will try putting him down for a nap when he’s ready, regardless of the affects it has on our routine.  If we eliminate this crying and vomiting episode, the problem will be solved.  And if it doesn’t…  well, I don’t really want to think about that one.  I don’t think I could bear going through this again.

I know the hubby thinks I spoil him by responding to him when he cries, but I can’t ignore it when he cries like that.  I mean, I can ignore a fake cry but this was something different altogether.  Perhaps it’s time for me to take out “The Science of Parenting” again for a bit of revision.  It seems the lines are getting blurred and I’m not sure about what I’m doing any more.

At times like these, I’m not sure if I could endure having another child.  I honestly don’t know how other parents manage.

Popularity: 15% [?]

When I told a friend that I had decided that I was going to avoid using smacking as a form of discipline, she gave me the following advice:

She thought I should avoid the pitfall of becoming a textbook Mum and follow my own instincts, citing her case study of her friend, because she felt that smacking was an essential tool to discipline. According to her, her friend’s parents were paediatricians who took the textbook route to looking after her friend when she was a baby and never once smacked her friend while she was growing up. Her friend eventually grew up to be as messed-up a person as there ever could be. When her friend’s parents raised her friend’s sister, they decided to use their own instincts instead and her friend’s sister turned out to be well-balanced and as normal a person as there ever could be.

Naturally, I scoffed at her.  Firstly, there are many textbooks and many different parenting philosophies around. Since she’s talking about her friend who would be about my age, I would say that the textbook philosophies that her friend’s parents followed date back to my parents era and is most likely obsolete by now or at least superceded by new philosophies based on longer term studies and a better understanding of the brain. Secondly, I doubt she has ever read any books on parenting herself since she’s not even a mother, so I think it is a little rich to be criticising something you don’t really understand and stereotyping it as a whole that they are all one and the same.

I, too, have had my share of misconceived ideas on how a child should be raised and I, too, once thought smacking was okay, but that was before I became a mother and started educating myself in the various philosophies of parenting.  I believe that until you become a mother yourself, you will never really know what you will do or which method works best for you.  Though I read books about parenting and follow their advice for guidance, the manner in which I raise Gavin is still the sum of that which I have read and my instincts on how best to apply what I’ve read to the real life situation. 

Although there is a belief that the way we parent our children will largely be derived from the way we were raised as children, I think my last post on the topic says enough of what I thought of my parents’ parenting methods.  I don’t believe that we should follow tradition or the methods our parents employed just because they are supposedly more experienced than we are having raised x number of children who have turned out the way we have and since there is nothing overtly wrong with her, it therefore proves that their methods are the best way to raise a child.  Given the fact that we have access to far more parenting resources than our parents ever did, we owe it to our children to examine those resources and choose the methods of parenting that make the most sense to us.

While some parents may have philosophies that differ from mine, and even if some of those philosophies alarm me because of the harm I believe they can cause to a child, I don’t believe that any parent in their right mind would do anything to deliberately harm their own child.  If such methods are employed, I believe they are done so because of a lack of awareness of the potential damage they can inflict upon that child.  All I can hope is that their children are sufficiently robust on an emotional level not to be affected by CIO or that their parents wisen up to the inadequacies of such parenting methods.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Whenever I hear about “CIO” (cry-it-out) and mothers using this method to train their babies to sleep on their own, I often get alarmed.  Even though these mothers may be able to boast children that appear to be better behaved and more “independent”, I fear the CIO method of rearing a child can be so emotionally scarring that the effects of it will last even as your child enters adulthood.  That is because CIO teaches a child that when they cry (when they hurt, when they need help), no one will respond to them.  This then translates to a lack of trust or willingness to open up to others because they have learned from an early age that the world cannot be depended upon and everything must be dealt with on their own. 

Why do I feel so strongly about CIO?  Because I was a CIO baby.  I was weaned from birth and spent a large part of my childhood in the care of people other than my parents.  I was looked after by two different aunts, then I went to a home where I only got to see my parents when they visited me on the weekend.  Although my parents met all of my physical needs growing up - they provided food, shelter, and clothing - I was emotionally dry.  I endured the three worst periods of my life alone when I should have gone to them for support and yet I didn’t because I had never asked for their help with anything that really mattered in my life.  Despite how difficult it had been, I couldn’t bring myself to get help from them.  No doubt I would might made different decisions if I had had their support. 

In every essence, I was extremely obedient all the way through school and into University until I finally plucked up the courage to rebel in my final year (though not without enduring a lot of unnecessary emotional turmoil and anguish).  My aunt even told me once that she used to envy my parents for having such “well-behaved” children and wonder why her children weren’t like us.  That was, until she realised how much both my brother and I had kept to ourselves.

In fact, I can’t even take credit for being a good kid.  I believe I never got into any real trouble because I was lucky to be among the right crowds at school (read: I hung out with the goody-two-shoes-nerds).  I never had to face the peer pressure of doing drugs or alcohol and my few encounters with alcohol abuse were among responsible, trustworthy friends who made sure I got home safely.

I don’t blame my parents for the way I was raised - I put it down to the fact that they didn’t know better.  After all, my mother was from an era where even the doctors were encouraging them to wean their babies.  She was encouraged to let us cry it out so we wouldn’t become spoilt.  I was cared for by other people because my mother had to work and couldn’t manage both my brother and me.  I know they regret the parenting decisions they made - there were a few times when my Dad tried to apologise for sending me to that home.  In fact, becoming a parent myself, has been quite therapeutic in its own way because I have learned to put the past behind me and strengthened the relationship I have with my parents.

The one good thing that came out of my childhood was that it made me more determined to get it right with my children.  When I was a teenager, I promised myself that unless I could devote the time necessary to ensure I could be the best mother possible, I would not have children.  This promise is the only thing keeping me from taking up job offers from the headhunters that call me, because I won’t deny that the ambitious part of me would love to take on a regional role and be a corporate high flier.

I know my story is just a study of one - but it is the personal factor that has strongly motivated me to look further into the parenting philosophies available and pick the one that made the most sense to me.  It was Sears, with his years of experience in paediatrics, sharing the experiences of his patients’ parents, learning from them and his own personal experience of having eight children, who seemed to me to be one of the more credible personalities to be handing out parenting advice.  And it is Sears’ view of differing parenting methodologies that explained best my childhood experience and how it affected my later life as an adult.

Though it may be quite draining sometimes to have to handle Gavin all the time on the days where he only wants me, I think it’s worth it.  What’s a few years of his life taken to set up the foundation for a bond in our relationship that will last a lifetime?

Popularity: 20% [?]