I was trained a long time
ago as a child psychiatrist. That training usually lasts two years and takes
place after the first two years of a psychiatric residency. In my case, it came
also after two years in the army and a year of doing research in child
development. The training of the other child fellows was similar. Still, I
noticed that we frequently disagreed about what should be done in certain
situations, despite the fact that we were all being trained at the same
institution and were similarly committed to doing the best we could. We were
similar in other ways. We were all intellectual types, and many of us were
Jewish. We were all about the same age, and some of us had grown up around New
York City. I mention these facts because I came to believe after a while that
the circumstances of our growing up had more to do with the way we thought of
child-rearing practices, and other matters, than our training did. Still, we
disagreed frequently.
For instance, I noticed
after a while that I was admitting fewer patients to the child in-patient
service than the other child fellows. When this became obvious I started asking
them what it was about a particular child patient that inclined them to admit
that patient. When they told me, I was always inclined to agree with them. I
thought had that patient been evaluated by me, I, too, would have admitted the
child. Similarly, when I described why I did not admit a
particular child, they always told me that they too would not have admitted
that child. The reason for our varying decisions became apparent after a while:
we were eliciting different stories when we evaluated the children.
I saw one child who was
sent by his school for an emergency evaluation. I was told that he was setting
fire to the hair of the other children. But when I enquired further, it turned
out he was lighting matches and throwing the lit match at someone who was a
number of feet away. Perhaps, he was disturbed emotionally, but not so severely
I had to take him away from his family and put him in a psychiatric hospital.
Had he actually been holding a lit match up against someone’s hair, I would
have felt differently. Similarly, I evaluated another child who was said to
have jumped out of a window. It turned out it was a ground floor window.
In these two situations I
know I was right not to admit the child. But I have to wonder whether other
children whom I did not admit might more appropriately have been admitted if I
had elicited more information.
Our ideas about proper
child-rearing practices differed also. Some of the differences:
1.
Should a child be forced to taste a food that he/she does
not want to eat?
2.
Should a child who has not had dinner be allowed to eat
later on?
3.
Should a child of a particular age be expected to go
to sleep at a particular hour?
4.
When should toilet training start? (There are national
differences in this matter also. When I was stationed in Germany, I was
startled to discover that most German children were toilet- trained around one
year of age. The Americans started toilet training when their children were
around two, and some parents held
off until three or even four years of age.)
5.
Even at a time when it was known that breast-feeding was
advantageous to the child, the residents disagreed about how long it should be
kept up. And just how important was it, anyway? Could a working mother bottle-
feed?
6.
Should a child be allowed a pacifier? For how long?
7.
When should parents be concerned about a child sucking its
thumb. (Thumb-sucking can cause dental problems.)
And there were many other
such issues. There is a particular matter which parents have always felt
strongly about and disagreed strongly about: whether or not corpora punishment is ever permitted. I am sure that anyone
reading this blog will have a definite view about this. But there are others
who will feel just as certain that the opposite way is correct. I polled the
child fellows after we all finished our training. Three of the
child fellows thought corporal punishment was okay in certain circumstances;
the other three thought it was never okay. In other words,there was nothing
in our training that could settle this matter one way or the other. Knowing
the people involved, I think their opinions were more a reflection of the way
they were brought up than anything else.
There were, of course, matters
that everyone agreed on: having a child sleep in its own bed, having the child
get used to baby-sitters, even strange baby-sitters, and having children, in
general, do for themselves everything they are capable of doing. For example,
when they are able to tie their shoe-laces, they should. When they are able to
go to school by themselves, they should.
Of course, the fact that
there was a consensus about these things does not mean they are right.
Throughout history, strange child-rearing practices became the rule in a
particular society and were thought to be the only right way to bring up
children. These included tying feet to the point where the feet become deformed
and shaping the head similarly by constraining it with bonds. So, we
cannot even rely on what seems “common sense,” or what is considered
conventional wisdom.
Why have we not
determined over the years what is the best way to bring up a child? Because it
is too complicated! The right thing to do depends on a particular culture,
depends on what the other parent might feel, and depends, especially on the
particular temperament and personality of the child.
I have my own ideas about
the questions mentioned above, and about all sorts of other issues. I feel
strongly about some of these matters; but I have to admit to myself that others
who are no less knowledgeable and sophisticated than I am, feel differently.
So, what do I want to
communicate to parents? First of all, listen carefully to what others tell you,
(doctors, parents, in-laws) and then decide what is best for your children with
the understanding that no one knows any better than you. Even those of us who
are trained as child psychiatrists. But see what works. If your child is not
doing so well, for any reason, consider the possibility that you should treat
them somewhat differently.
I think in order to be a
good parent, two things have to happen:
1.
You have to love your child. This is the easy part. I think
most parents love their kids.
2.
You have to be willing to listen to your child. You have the
last word; but it is important to listen, and for your child to know that you
are listening.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fighting-fear/201209/how-bring-children-properly
No comments:
Post a Comment