How To Find a Good Doctor or Pediatrician, AKA an Osteopath

After having a nightmare experience at Anders's "well baby check-up" when he was three days old, I thought I might never go to the doctor again. Then I learned about osteopaths.

Osteopaths attend traditional medical school and get an additional naturopathic degree on top of the standard allopathic medical degree. Osteopaths generally have a specialty, so if you can find an osteopath pediatrician or osteopath family practice doctor, that is ideal. There aren't many of this type of doctor; I think there are two or three in the entire Los Angeles County.

My experience with the osteopath that I found has been nothing but positive.

I also highly recommend the book How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor. My grandfather, a doctor, gave this book to me when I was pregnant, and I read it cover to cover. It made me a lot more confident in my ability as a mom to know when to worry and when not to.

A reader tried to post the following comment to this post but couldn't so emailed me instead. This is what Bob has to say:

You can identify osteopaths because they have DO after their name rather than MD. They are a small fraction of physicians overall but a larger fraction of those in family practice and of young doctors still accepting new patients. They are a growing fraction due to a shortage of doctors. In my experience, and that of my nurse sister, they tend to be more open to alternative medicine. They also have some measure of humility. OTOH, my sense is that many of them did not attend a college of osteopathy because they were committed osteopaths but rather because they did not get into a top medical school. My current MD is much more up on all the latest in conventional medicine, but is also sometimes impatient and bossy. But I would prefer him if I had some complex problem to diagnose. He seems way smarter than the DOs, but with that comes some arrogance. All other things being equal, I might prefer a DO for routine care and an MD for anything complicated.

A Reader Asks About Three-Year-Olds Relating to Newborns: Just Be Real

A reader recently wrote, "I totally agree with your approach to dealing with big emotions outlined in your tantrum post and did most of what you are saying when my older son was an only child... The difficulty that I am having is finding ways to do this for my older son in the moment while he is having big emotions, while also taking care of the newborn, especially when I’m the only adult in the room. I find that the big emotions happen most often when the newborn is needing my attention. And, no surprise, the big emotions are bigger and more frequent now that the newborn is here! Please let me know (and I’m sure many other parents out there!) when / if you find good resources for this issue that fits in to your objectivist parenting philosophy."

First, for those of you that haven't already had the newborn, please consider waiting. All of my research has led me to conclude that children (and parents) do much better when children are spaced five or more years apart.

Next I would recommend reading, in order of importance, 1,2,3... The Toddler Years, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Dear Parents: Caring for Infants with Respect, and Tears and Tantrums: What to Do When Babies and Children Cry.

And in the mean time, here are some ideas:

Prepare the three-year-old. Talk to him about what is going on, about all the things he might be feeling. Talk to him about how when the baby cries, he will feel a great deal of stress in his body, and that the stress will make him want to freak out about something too. Tell him you feel the same way. Nature has programmed us to freak out when babies cry so that we deal with it. (Babies who cry in such a way as to destroy all those around them until they are no longer crying were, surprise, more likely to survive and pass on their genes. So the theory goes.) Tell him that it is normal to want to run, jump, scream, yell, hit, throw, or even cry himself when he hears the baby cry.

Tell the three-year-old that this will be an uncomfortable experience, but you want to teach him how to deal with a crying baby, so that he can be an amazing dad one day. Tell him that crying babies are okay, that we must take deep breaths and move slowly and just be with them. Tell him the next time the baby cries, you want him to run straight to you so that you can teach him about crying babies. Then, when it happens, pick him up and take him to the baby. Invite him to put his hand on the baby's chest. Speak softly. "She's sad. It's okay to feel sad."

Practice with the three-year-old. Tell him to pretend the baby is crying. Make eye contact. Show him how to move slowly and softly. Show him how to go to the baby and just watch. "The baby can't tell us what is wrong, so we have to figure it out." Is it the diaper? (Maybe it can be his job to check.) Is it gas? (Teach him how to rub her belly.) Is it the light shining in her eyes? Is she hungry? Make this a game and practice it as many times as you can before a real episode happens.

Tell him that as he gets more used to the baby, he will able to take action when the baby cries, trying to help the baby instead of focusing on his own inner stress. But tell him that for now, when he is just getting used to his inner stress, if he needs to run to you for a hug the minute the baby is crying, that could help both him and you. Look in his eyes. "THIS FEELS SO UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!" You can yell to him! Try to connect with him about the sheer discomfort of the sound of a crying baby.

But tell him if he can't handle it, if he is feeling something too big, he needs to tell you. Because often, the baby can wait. Tell him you won't want the baby to wait, because the baby's cries are soooooo stressful to you, and it will be hard for you to focus on his issue while the baby is crying, but that if he really, really needs you to, you will tell the baby to wait. He will test you on this, and in that case, you put your hand on the baby's chest and you say, "I hear you and I will be with you when I can." And then you focus on the older child. Perhaps you take the older child into a different room so you can really focus on his issue. Let him know that his needs matter. As soon that is dealt with, tend to the baby. He will feel much more secure knowing that if he ever has an emergency, you will be there for him. The goal is to help him feel so secure, that he does not need to use this and weaponize it against the baby. (This is also a good gage of how well you are doing at giving him enough attention. When he is not feeling like he is getting enough, he will want to punish the baby.)

And the of course always newscast. "Erin is crying. She needs me to find out what is wrong. Oh no. The crying is making Erik crazy too! Erik is only three! He needs help dealing with his big feelings! I want to be there to help him. I want to be there to help the baby too!"

And of course later, when everyone is feeling good, talk to the older child about how it feels for you, about how sad you are that he is not your only child anymore, about how hard it is to have two children that need you, about how much you want to do right by him and take care of him and give him all that he needs, about your fears that you won't be able to. I have always found children to be much more empathetic and less self-centered when they know I am having a hard time too. In this way I disagree with pretty much every parenting expert out there. They think children need Mountain Mom who is always calm and never has issues. I think that is presenting a false reality to children that they see through anyway. I think children do better with Real Moms who talk and express what is going on with them, who model how to deal with big, stressful feelings, and who let the kids know that all humans, no matter their age, are dealing with big, stressful feelings and we do better if we support one another during those times. This shouldn't be abused, of course as it is in alcoholic households, but three year olds love feeling competent enough to support their parents when they are having a tough time. I don't think it "stresses children out" if they are generally well cared for and have a secure attachment. On the contrary, I think it raises their self-esteem and makes them feel competent at life.

Unlimited Television? And Crack? Why I Am Not a "Radical Unschooler" When It Comes to Television and Other Drugs

A reader called me recently to discuss my approach to screen time. She found it fascinating that I am so strongly pro freedom, and yet strongly against unlimited screen time for my son.

How we do screen time: We don't own a television, but we do own computers, iphones, and an ipad. Occasionally, maybe once a week, we watch documentaries on our computers or the ipad. On the full moons we watch a fiction movie. We have educational games on the ipad that are played sporadically, maybe once a month.

This arrangement, for my family at this time, is quite simply not a problem. It's not a problem for me; it's not a problem for Tom, and it's not a problem for Anders. So first, I never really thought very much about the unlimited television question because there was just no problem that needed to be solved.

But my reader asked me to consider: Should Anders be watching more television? Is he being deprived of valuable life experiences? Have I poisoned him against television by reading to him  chapters from Remotely Controlled and Living Outside the Box and explaining to him that television is a drug to be used with care? Have I deprived him of making his own conclusions about television by helping him draw the connection between his ability to pay attention to his math and the amount of television he watches? Isn't it controlling and therefore against my philosophy to say to Anders, "I notice you have been watching television for over an hour now, and I am wondering if you want to do something else?"

Great questions!

My first response is that I don't believe in biting my tongue and taking a deep breath when my son is doing something that makes me uncomfortable. Because my needs matter too. When Anders was two he liked to climb very high and, though he never fell or even seemed unsafe, I would sometimes get uncomfortable and ask him to come down. "Anders, I am sure you are safe up there, but the stress in my body is so intense right now, I can hardly handle it. I feel so much fear I might start crying. I am wondering if you would be willing to come down?" He always came down – because my needs matter to him. I think that's wonderful. I think this negotiation of needs is the dance of healthy human relationships.

Because here's the thing: Bite your tongue all you want, if your veins are coursing with stress hormones, those are going to affect the people around you. Idealize that away all you want, it's a fact of human nature. (Presented compellingly in the book Connected by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.) The fact that anxiety felt by one family member will eventually most likely be felt by all family members for one reason or another is also written about in Bowen's work on family systems theory. These facts should never be used as control mechanisms, but between respectful people who have a healthy relationship – I need to know when what I am doing is stressing you out because your stress is going to get passed around to every member of our household.

I love NVC, but I don't buy into the idea that, "We are not responsible for other people's feeling's at all." There's just no common sense there. It may be a good approach to offenses caused by strangers or to unhealthy relationships, but in close, healthy relationship, I think it is more true and more helpful to believe that, "It takes two to tango." In our family, we consider all problems we have relationship problems for both of us to solve together. You're insecure? Yes, you need to take responsibility and do what you can do to solve that problem, but because we are married, it's my problem too. You're wanting to numb out into a drug? That's definitely a problem you need to look into, but because I am your mother, that's a problem I will look into too. You needs matter to me; let's solve this together.

This was one of the most interesting things I learned in marriage. Before I met Tom I lived by myself and I had no problems with myself so ... there just wasn't a lot of drama there. Then Tom moved in and suddenly I close all the cupboards too loudly and my desk is too messy. Suddenly, I had problems. Or rather we had problems. It wasn't my job to placate Tom by training myself to be quieter and neater, and it wasn't Tom's job to accept me for who I am and deal with his feelings on his own; it was our job to be sensitive to one another, accept one another, and give each other gifts.

When I peruse the unlimited screen time approach to television and video games, I find a lot of it disrespectful to parents, to their needs and discomforts. I find that the abstract ideal of freedom is presented as more important than creating a relationship between the parent and child that works for both of them. There is no right answer here. There is no "should" when it comes to how I keep my desk. There is only what works for me and what doesn't and what works for other members of my household and what doesn't. In a household focused on healthy relationships, everyones needs matter, even their irrational ones.

But I don't think my discomfort around television and video games is irrational. There is a reason parents feel instinctively worried when they see their child watching television or playing video games, because no matter how hard you try to tell yourself it's okay, deep down, you know your kid is on drugs. Meth to be specific. Television and video games are in the same addictive category as meth. 

"There are few things ever dreamed of, smoked, or injected that have as addictive an effect on our brains as technology. This is how our devices keep us captive and always coming back for more. The definitive Internet act of our times is a perfect metaphor for the promise of reward: We search. And we search. And we search some more, clicking that mouse like – well, like a rat in a cage seeking another "hit," looking for that elusive reward that will finally feel like enough.... Computer and video game designers intentionally manipulate the reward system to keep players hooked. The promise that the next level or big win could happen at any time is what makes a game so compelling. It's also what makes a game so hard to quit. One study found that playing a video game led to dopamine increases equivalent to amphetamine use – and it's this dopamine rush that makes both so addictive. (Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. in The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.)

"Television is unique, the perfect medium to produce strong rewards for paying attention to something. So what is so powerful about this reward? Compared to the pace with which real life unfolds and is experienced by young children, television portrays life with the fast-forward button fully pressed. Rapidly changing images, scenery and events, and high-fidelity sounds are overly stimulating and, of course, extremely interesting. Once you are used to food with monosodium glutamate flavour enhancer, real food doesn't taste as interesting. Television is the flavour enhancer of the audiovisual world. Nothing in real life is comparable to this. Television overpays the young child to pay attention to it, and in so doing it seems to physically spoil and damage his attention circuits. In effect, television corrupts the reward system that enables us to pay attention to other things in life." (Dr. Aric Sigman, Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives).

Our ability to pay attention is our life. Our ability to focus and control what we pay attention to is consciousness. To do a drug that damages your ability to pay attention is risking your ability to be consciously alive. That is why there is a direct correlation between how much television children watch and ADHD, among other things.

"Children who watch television at ages one and three have a significantly increased risk of developing such attentional problems by the time they are seven. For every hour of television a child watches per day, there is a nine per cent increase in attentional damage. The scientists suggest that their findings may actually be an understatement of the risks to children. They speculate that even if there is some educational benefit to be had from the actual programmes watched, this benefit may have covered up the even greater damage to the child's attentional systems that would occur if they watched programmes that had little educational benefit for them." (Sigman)

"A 26 year study of the 'Association Between Child and Adolescent Television Viewing and Adult Health' was recently published in the medical journal The Lancet, involving 1,000 children born in 1972-73. It found that children who watched more than two hours of television a day between the ages of five and fifteen suffered serious health risks many years later, at the age of 26. The study concluded that 15 per cent of cases of raised blood cholesterol, 17 per cent of obesity, 17 per cent of smoking and 15 per cent of bad cardiovascular fitness were linked to the television viewing that took place years before when the adults were children. This link remained, irresponsive of other factors such as social background, body mass index at age five, parents' BMI, parental smoking and how physically active the children were by the age of 15." (Sigman)

"Within 30 seconds of turning on the television, our brain becomes neurologically less able to make judgements about what we see and hear on screen. Our brain treats incoming information uncritically ... Our brain's left hemisphere, which processes information logically and analytically tunes out while we are watching television." (Sigman)

"Television provides the best means of persuading you to buy into the right values... Nowadays television executives talk of 'raising public awareness of...' This used to be simply called propaganda... Long after people forget what they hear, they remember how they feel. So Bonneville creates those unforgettable feelings..." (Sigman)

"And a study of 22,079 American adults for the pharmaceutical industry quantified the link between television viewing and rates of depression, concluding, 'The incidence of depression is a monotonic increasing function of television viewing' It seems that a television nation becomes a Prozac nation." (Sigman)

So television and video games are dangerous drugs. But, the argument goes, happy people don't get hooked on drugs. Happy mice can have access to heroin water and will choose to not drink it.

Of course, but first of all, those were adult mice not baby mice choosing not to drink the heroin water, and second of all, allowing my child the freedom to do heroin is entirely different from allowing my child to do heroin after I have told him about the dangers and risks involved.

I read these posts by these moms who advocate unlimited screen time, and I just can't imagine that it is possible for a mom to watch her kid do heroin and think, "He'll decide for himself what he thinks of it. Maybe he'll love it all his life long, and that'll be great! So important for them to find their One True Passion!"

So I have to assume that these moms either have never done any research on this particular drug or are television or gaming addicts themselves and therefore comfortable with passing on the addiction. The old, "I'm an addict, and I turned out fine," argument is reprehensible to some, but I am actually okay with it, because evolutionarily speaking, they're right. Likewise, the Christians that beat their children for the last thousand years had six times the birth rate of the modern day Swedes who don't. Not saying we should beat our children, just saying that we shouldn't immediately knock what has clearly worked (evolutionarily speaking).

Like moderation. Moderation served our ancestors well. Drugs are a part of life. Teaching our kids to use responsibly is an important part of parenting. I tell Anders that we must make sure we use the dangerous drugs like spices, to spice up our lives. If occasionally we want to use them as medicines, to change our mood, that's okay. But when we want to use them as drugs, to numb out, we need to find someone we love to talk to about it, because those feelings and choices can lead to very risky places.

Note that I have read some evidence to suggest that anyone allowed to do a drug as much as they want will, after a certain amount of time (almost never more than ten years), give the drug up voluntarily. There is possibly a "life cycle" to most addictions, an eventual end to the desire to numb out. But again these studies were done on adults, not children. In children, if I recall correctly, studies generally show that their brains alter to accommodate their addictions, making them likely candidates for lifelong abusers of that drug. I have, however, read anecdotes from parents that refute this.

Some moms who write in support of unlimited screen time say that it is not the abuse of screen time that is the issue – the issue is why the child wants to numb out. To this, I can only say, "Exactly! But then why are you handing him heroin instead of figuring out what is going on in his life that is causing him to want to not exist?!"

In my experience children, even the very young, are fully capable of having these discussions and of judging and moderating their use of dangerous substances provided they are given the information they need to make wise choices and a relationship they value. I have never had to force Anders to stop watching something. I have only ever reminded him that we don't want to overdo it.

For the record, Anders has overdone it a few times. I remember once he watched five or so hours of television in one day. The next day when he sat down to do his math it took him eight times longer than it had the day before. It took him a week to get his ability to focus back. The experience was very educational.

But back to my house where we don't usually overly indulge in screen time. It's interesting to me that none of us care very much about television. It's not like we have to exert great amounts of self-control to abstain from something truly glorious. A documentary is a welcome addition to an afternoon for Anders when he is curious and wants to know more about something. Both he and I appreciate what my ipad has to offer when I want to socialize at a friend's house, and he has to wait for me. He enjoys full moons when he watches movies that he has heard other kids talking about. But otherwise, television doesn't really occur to him as something to do with his time. He plays and when he is bored with playing he comes to see what I am doing and joins me. It's the same with me. I cook, clean, do errands, and write and when I need a break, I read or exercise or join him. Television isn't really on my radar. I love that.

I was raised without television. Of all the parenting choices my parents made, that was the single most wonderful gift they gave me – the gift of time, the gift of reading, the gift of not knowing what giant corporations wanted me to think.

When I was in elementary school my friends were obsessed with Full House. They learned that they were supposed to be obnoxious to adults and hate their siblings. During those years I read the Little House Books and thought families were supposed to be kind to one another and sisters were supposed to be good friends.

When I was in junior high school my friends were obsessed with Saved By the Bell. They thought school was lame and people who liked school were nerds, and the most important thing was to be popular. I read the Anne of Green Gables series and thought being the smartest girl in school was the best thing to be. I had no idea what popularity was, or that I was supposed to desire it.

When I was in high school my friends were obsessed with Buffy. They continued to hate school and began to obsess over boys and sex. I loved everything I got to learn in school. I thought every subject was fascinating and couldn't understand why they hated it so much. I was into Jane Adams at the time and though I did care a great deal about boys, I was just not as obsessed as my friends.

When I was in college my friends watched Sex and the City and were obsessed with sex and expensive shoes. And I ... was obsessed with James Joyce and couldn't care less about shoes.

The unlimited screen time moms shake their heads at me, "Do you really think reading is a more important activity than watching television? That reading is a more valid life experience in some way? How dare you claim that you might know what is better for me!" They're right. I don't know what is better for you and your family. But I do know that television is a dangerous drug that makes humans numb, unable to focus, passive, mainstream, unsatisfied with their real lives, poor, obese, and divorced.

I also know that while reading, our critical mind is active. A book is generally one person sharing his worldview. It's like a conversation. With television, you are hypnotized while exposing yourself to someone who will do anything to get your attention and keep it. When you watch television, you are the product. Your attention is what is for sale. Companies are not interested in providing quality entertainment, so much as they are interested in getting your attention and keeping it by whatever means necessary. Then they sell your attention to their advertisers. That is the nature of the business.

A writer has to sell his books. The reader is the customer. If the books are not good, the writer will not have customers. Not so with television. You are not the customer. You are the product. His customer is the advertisers. And the television writer will write accordingly. The more product they can deliver, the higher their ad revenue. (The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu)

This is why, if you are going to watch something, movies are much preferable to television. With movies, the viewer is the customer. (Though product placement often fudges that line a little.)

I also know that reading is directly related to our ability to think at abstract levels. According to the research of Leda Cosmides our brains cannot abstract verbally past more than five levels of abstraction. To think more abstractly than that requires writing our thoughts down in order to follow them. Reading is directly related to our ability to think complexly.

We ignore and override so much valuable information our subconscious brains feed us. There is a reason we smile and feel warm and fuzzy when we see a child curled up with a book and a reason why we feel disgusted and turned off when we see a child all zombied out in front of a screen.

"Most of the stories are told to most of the children not by their parents, their school, or their church, but by a group of distant corporations that have something to sell." (Sigman)

There are 150 different products linked to Dora the Explorer. The average American child watches 40,000 commercials each year. When the parents of TV free households are surveyed and asked how often their children pressure them to buy brand-name or otherwise popular toys, games, or foods, 97% of them answered never, rarely, or not very much. (Sigman)

"If you think about it in imperialistic terms, cultures and minds can now be colonised remotely.... Formerly known as propaganda, soft power lies in the abiity to attract and persuade other cultures of the validity and desirability of your own.... CNN, HBO and Disney have succeeded where napalm failed. Perhaps Apocalypse Now – The Sequel is playing out on the streets of Hanoi as young Communists can be seen eating M&Ms while watching Eminem." (Sigman)

"'The difference between children who can picture a story or scene in their mind's eye and those who were raised in front of a TV screen are obvious and very profound," wrote Sue, a TV-free mother who is also a kindergarten teacher. "This difference is evident in their play, their artwork, their writing, the foods packed in their lunch boxes, their show-and-tell, and their conversation. TV permeates every facet of thier being. I think children raised with screen shave never experienced what it's like to dream, create, and imagine inside their own heads–independent of externally supplied (usually corporate) vision.'" (Living Outside the Box)

"In 1990, the American Family Research Council reported that the average American parent spent 38.5 minutes in meaningful conversation with his or her children each week. That's less than six minutes a day. Given that our TV viewing has spiraled steadily upward since then, chances are the situation today is no better... For children raised without television, however, circumstances are different. The parents who participated in my survey of TV-free families reported spending an average of 55 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their children. That's 385 minutes per week...." (Living Outside the Box)

Another interesting thing I remember reading about television is that our brains cannot tell the difference between our television show "friends" and our real life friends. Because our brains are wired to pay more attention to higher status people than lower status people, we will feel a greater need to check in with our television show friends of high status than our real life friends of lower status.

I know that many parents rely on the television to be their babysitter and the thought of going without it is horrifying. It is for that reason that I began Anders's YouTube channel when he was young. I didn't want him to watch cartoons, but I did need some time off, so I created an hour long playlist of home videos on YouTube for him to watch. This worked like a charm, and I highly recommend it as a strategy for parents who want to avoid television. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K

I was not homeschooled or unschooled, but I was raised without television. Yet I am far less mainstream than the homeschooled and unschooled kids I knew growing up who were raised with television. Contrary to the stories some Unlimited TV Moms spread, I didn't pine away wishing I had television in my life or wishing I were more "normal," and I didn't turn into an adult who became a television addict, neither did my siblings. None of us actually watch a lot of television still today and all of us are happy about it. I am not advocating being TV free here – I don't know what would work in your family. But I would encourage parents to think twice about their choice to welcome screens, and especially unlimited screen time into their homes. Television is not in the same addiction category as sugar, it's more similar to METH, and should be treated as such. My research and life experience has led me to conclude that heavy television exposure is more damaging than sending children to school. 

Where RIE and I Part Ways: Magda Gerber's Ideas Are Excellent But Include Some Bad Victorian Ideas

A friend of mine was reading a Janet Lansbury's book and wanted my opinion on the following three paragraphs (which I have divided into chunks according to my responses):

"A child should have a child's life and not be an appendage of an adult's life. Children should have their own age-appropriate experiences.""

I have seen many children treated as if they were pets or trophies of their parents. To the extent that Lansbury means children should own their lives, I agree. But I think she doesn't mean what I want her to mean. I think she is a benevolent dictator. What is "a child's life?" Sounds like something an adult invented that he is forcing upon the child to me. The child should not "be an appendage" of the adult, but neither should he be a prisoner to the Victorian and Waldorf ideals of what "childhood" should consist of.

To the extent that she wants children to be excluded from the real world "for their own good," I completely disagree.

"Few adults adapt to a child's life--her size, temperament, and timing. Many expect children to adapt to adult life. This is very difficult for children to do. Children can adapt to anything, but it isn't in their best interest."

These statements I agree with. It is very hard to communicate effectively with a baby or toddler if the adult does not adapt to the child's timing. Notice when you talk to your baby, you have to count to four before you can see her reaction or comprehension.

Here is a great video of Anders to illustrate that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg4Jm4FEPhM&list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K&index=205

At the end of the video he finally accomplishes his goal and smiles. But that smile takes a few seconds to appear. When Anders was able to lift his legs for me at diaper time he did, but I had to say, "I am ready for you to lift your legs," and then count to four, before those little legs lifted.

This is why I so heartily recommend going to RIE classes and watching them with babies--how slow they are, and how effective their communication is. (But of course it doesn't mean I agree with all of their ideas.)

But I think it may be important again to say: balance. Sometimes the child adapts. Sometimes the adult adapts. As long as the focus is on everyone getting their needs met, as long as everyone's needs matter, I don't see this being a real issue.

"Sadly, children hang on to their parents' lifestyles. The mother needs to shop, so the baby shops. The mother needs to run errands, so the baby runs errands. Everybody survives this, though it's not ideal for your child."

It is one thing to take a child shopping, rush him, and ignore his needs. It is quite another thing to take a child shopping, be present, and enjoy it as a way for the two of you to spend time together.

I remember wonderful times with Anders in the grocery stores. I always asked him if he wanted to go beforehand. He was generally excited to go and loved running errands with me. Every store was an adventure for him, and it was fun for me to share that with him. Trips to the store were very slow with him along, of course. He often needed to check something out for so long that I was done with a few emails on my phone before he was ready for me to keep pushing the cart. There were days when we were in a hurry, but on those days he would hurry with me--we were a hurry-ing team. And if hurrying wasn't working out we would make a choice to skip something. If Anders ever didn't want to on an errand,  I would put my errands off until later when he was happy to go, or I would negotiate with him and make some sort of trade so that we could both get our needs met.

In relationships there are always conflicting needs. In the parent-child relationship, parents are too often given the choice between bulldozing their child or sacrificing themselves. Lansbury seems to be advocating for the parents to sacrifice themselves. But she is also advocating for separation--daycare and nannies. There is an implied threat here: If you can't sacrifice your own needs to give your child a "child's life" then you should hand him to a daycare where he can have a proper "child's life."

It's this false dilemma that has led to the destruction of our families.

In all of our relationships we have a similar dilemma whenever there are conflicting needs: Should one person's needs get sacrificed? Should one person's needs get bulldozed? Of course not. We compromise. We trade. We look for the win-win. We find a way for both parties to get their needs met. It is no different with children.

Why would we skip teaching our children this valuable life skill and instead teach them that when people have conflicting needs, they should split up and go their separate ways? Not saying there isn't a time and a place for people to go their separate ways, just saying that in the daily life of a baby, daycare isn't more ideal than being with mom, being home isn't more ideal than being out--as long as everyone's needs are being respected.

I see the parent-child relationship as a fantastic place to practice "Both our needs matter! Let's find a way to get both our needs met!" Lansbury's "sacrifice or separate!" doesn't work for me at all.

"A child's life should be boringly the same--boring for the adult rather than for the child. In this way she develops an inner rhythm. Children aren't happy spending hours in car seats or shopping. Malls are not for children. They are overstimulating. Children need a life of their own."

This first sentence is very sad. Time for parents to sacrifice in the name of this ideal of their child developing an "inner rhythm." Whatever that means.

I totally disagree that a child's life needs to be boringly the same. It will be, even if the parents don't sacrifice themselves. The average adult only goes to seven places on regular basis. I think that qualifies as "boringly the same." Should the child join the adult in his/her life, the child will learn how to be in those seven places and that is great. The child will feel competent at life in the world and be competent at life in those places and have a life beyond his house, relationships beyond his parents.

Children, in my experience, love the world and want to know about the world. They also love their houses and want to stay home. Same as grownups--we want to go out sometimes; we want to stay in other times. There is no One Rule like "children need a boring schedule that is always the same." This is hogwash. I am a big advocate of striving for authenticity rather than consistency. The whole idea behind being consistent with children is that it makes it easier to control them. I have found that even the very youngest children are capable of complexity (e.g. inconsistency).

Children are not happy to spend hours in carseats and neither are adults happy to spend hours in the car. When Anders was a baby he would strongly object to being in his carseat after two hours. So when we had a drive longer than that I plan the trip so every two hours we could stop somewhere for at least an hour. Usually we would stop for lunch at a park, other times we would check out a random store (like a book store) to give us a break. Other times we would rethink the trip. There is nothing we truly have to do. Everything is a choice.

As long as I approached every situation with the belief that Anders's needs mattered too, there always seemed to be a way for us to both be content.

"Allowing your child a child's life means letting her play peacefully at home, indoors and out, with her play interrupted only by daily caregiving necessities and occasional errands. In earlier times children had more of a chance to do this. In modern culture, life is more urban and less rural, and it takes effort to provide a child with this kind of environment."

For Lansbury, "allowing" her child to "have a child'd life" means imprisoning him in the Victorian childhood.

For me, I "allow" my child to own his body and be in charge of his property. His needs and opinions matter; he is invited to help plan his own schedule and have input on family decisions. He is encouraged to decide what is best for him--staying home or going out and then negotiate accordingly. He is not shut out of aspects of my life in the name of "childhood."

My distaste for Lansbury's wording aside, it's important to note that Anders largely lived her ideal childhood. He spent a great deal of time at home when he was a baby. I tried to never interrupt what he was working on. He played peacefully, indoors and out. He had a chance to really explore the world around him--the very safe and contained little world in our Oxnard house and then our LA house. As soon as he could scoot, he generally scooted to wherever I was and sought a way to join in with what I was doing. The series of videos on my Anders playlist on YouTube illustrates his early life pretty thoroughly. I didn't overstimulate him. I let him be in charge of what he was interested in. I did my own thing (cooking, cleaning, reading, writing) and he found ways to join or not. Sometimes I stopped what I was doing and just watched what he was doing or interacted with him if he wanted to interact.

What I see is that children want to play versions of or explore whatever adults are doing. But how can they do this if they are deprived of adults? To me, respecting a child means inviting him into my world and then letting him be free to explore it how he wishes (as long as it is respectful to me).

Also, I think Anders had a fine baby-hood, the best I could do--but it's not the ideal childhood I envision. It was much too much work for me (and Tom) and far too lonely.

When Anders was an eighteen-month-old we attended a family wedding at a campground resort. Each family had a little cabin and outside our cabins was a grassy area with picnic tables, trees and a creek. That's where all the action was. There were always kids and adults out on that grassy area doing something.

During that long weekend Anders would wake up in the morning, get dressed, and rush outside to the grassy area. He felt totally comfortable saying, "Bye!" to me and heading there all by himself. He played with his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and family friends, and explored the creek, plants, and trees. He would come back to the room looking for me every few hours for a diaper change, food, or cuddles (though I was often outside and then he would find me there). It was really beautiful and effortless. In our regular life he could only join in on whatever I was doing. There he could choose from among what twenty or thirty different people were doing. He could choose which activity was the most interesting to him, or what person he wanted to get to know better. That is what I envision as the ideal childhood.

The nice thing about what I envision is that if the child wants to stay in the house and not be with people or be out in the world, he totally can. But there is a world out there for him to be a part of if he chooses.

What Maids, Cooks, Drivers, Gardeners Have to do with Raising Children

*I just updated the Nicaraguan gulch post with this paragraph, but I thought it also deserved its own post.

I ran into an Argentinian couple the other day. They met in New York and lived there until the birth of their first child. They found raising children in NYC to be unbearable, so they moved to Nicaragua. Not Argentina. Not elsewhere in the US. Why? Because they wanted more children. And in Nicaragua (unlike the US or Argentina) they could afford it and enjoy it. Because to truly enjoy raising your children you need help, they told me. In Nicaragua they could afford the maid, cook and driver that make raising children so much more enjoyable.

This hit home for me because I worked for some of the wealthiest families in Los Angeles--they had full time maids, cooks, and nannies--but raising children in those lonely houses was still unbearable.

I envisioned how a city gulch (a place where one could enjoy raising her children) could work, but it required too much capital to get it going. So I chose the farm gulch, where raising Anders is every bit as idyllic as I imagined it would be. It's not perfect, but if there were 120 voluntaryists here it would be as close to perfect as my ideal life could possibly be.

It's hard for egalitarian Americans to understand the value of having help. The fact is: All parents would be significantly happier with maids, cooks, drivers, gardeners, personal secretaries, and the like. Raising children is not a two person job. Yes, I would rather the help be grandparents, bachelor uncles, spinster aunts, strange cousins, and single friends but that was not an option for me. So I chose the paid staff. What I don't consider a viable choice is the two parents doing it alone. It's just too miserable and hard.

Every parenting book talks about the time crunch, and how you have to lower your cleanliness standards, lower your organizational standards, lower your cooking standards, lower your expectations of your own behavior: That is the only way the two-parent household can cope with parenting. This is nuts.

When raising children our behavioral standards and cooking (nutrition) standards should be of the highest quality in our lives. Or at least that's what I wanted for my parenting experience. So, like the Argentinians, I live in Nicaragua.

"It was a very simple decision for us," the Argentinian woman told me, "if we still lived in New York, my younger two children would never have been born."

I concur!

That being said, let me state the problem in a different way so that other solutions become apparent: A child is a 98 hour a week responsibility, not including nights, cooking, and cleaning. 98 hours is a hard load to carry. This load would be easier divided up among three people. Interestingly enough, here in Nicaragua I have a cook, a maid, and me here to care for one child. This is easy and an enjoyable way to do things. But with this arrangement, I could handle a lot more kids, up to six I would say. Now, I can't pop out five more kids because I spend about five months of the year in Los Angeles (or Santa Barbara or Whistler or wherever we decide to go). Those months are grueling. But, what if, in Los Angeles, three sets of parents decide to live together and share a cook and a maid? Now, not only do I have a cook and a maid in Los Angeles, I have companionship at home and so does my son! Now parenting is more enjoyable.

The same can be done in other places. I think parents would be wise to form groups of 4-5 couples. The couples decide to raise their children together. Perhaps they buy one big house or apartments all next door or they live in a neighborhood and make one big backyard instead of five backyards. Better yet maybe there could be a house with four different wings and then a shared play space for the children and cooking space in the center. This is very similar to the extended families that reared children for so many centuries. The kids are happy because they have people to play with. The women are happy because they have people to cook and clean with. The kids can connect with more than just their moms (they have other adults around). Better yet if the guys work within walking distance or at home so the working world can be part of their lives as well. But now we are getting into the "City Gulch" idea I wrote about before:
http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-ideal-unschool-community-here-and-now.html

I am not saying that the two parent household isn't doable. Children have been raised in two person households (and one parent) for almost a century. I am saying that it is not enjoyable. Sure, everyone loves their kids. But man is it hard! So hard, that most people, as soon as they leave their extended family situation, will opt for having just 1 kid. The birthrate in all affluent societies is always negative. Immigrants live with their extended families and have a lot of kids. Then they adapt to the Western way of doing things, switch to a two parent household, and voila, negative birth rate for them too.

The solution in some societies has been more and more compartmentalization of life and government involvement in the family. "Oh no, we have a negative birth rate! Let's get them to have more kids by paying for child care and school!" The problem is: This doesn't fix the problem. It makes parenting doable but not enjoyable. Children raised by other people become alienated from their parents. Children removed from the world require parents to be removed from the world or to be separated from their children. Instead, people interested in solving the negative birth rate problem need to think: Under what set of circumstances is raising children enjoyable. If it is enjoyable people will do it more.

The solution I propose is:
1. Invite children back into the world
2. Keep families together
3. Get rid of the nuclear family as a child-rearing model

Lastly, if you want to go all conspiracy theorist, consider that the government does not benefit from happy families that are wonderfully bonded and love each other. Governments do not like multigenerational extended families because they are their own little worlds--and if they get big and strong they may end up wanting to be their own government.... Governments benefit from raising the kids. They get to decide what values are imparted onto them. They make the kids into "Americans" instead of proud member of "Clan Garrett." The loyalty is to them, not the family. The family bonds, severed in childhood, keep the government in power. Moreover, the harder and more miserable parenting is, the more willing people are to hang their children to the government to be raised (free school! free daycare! let's be like Sweden!)

Not saying there is a conspiracy going on. Just saying people make decisions based on what benefits them. Those in power are not benefited by competing powers.

Another way to think about it though is that multigenerational families is akin to tribalism. And tribalist societies (collectivist societies) suck. The Christian church went to a great deal of effort to dismantle the extended family--and it is possibly their success at that that led to the creation of the West, of individualism, of the invention of the scientific method and everything we enjoy today that has been invented because of it! So ... we need to find a balance of individualism and collectivism. Pure individualism is too lonely. But Collectivism is too corrupt and uninventive.

Things I Got Right and Wrong: The First Five Years

Before I had Anders, I had worked with kids for over a decade and had read hundreds of books on raising children. I had developed many hypotheses that I didn't get to fully put into practice until I had my own family. (And perhaps, if you have read the same books I have read, you have similar expectations.)

Here are the things I got wrong and right in my little n=1 study.

As Henrik grows I will update this list. If it says x2 it means I had the same results the second time around as well.

PREGNANCY

-By eating a high fat, med protein, low sugar diet I won't get morning sickness: RIGHT x3. (But pregnancy was still horrible.)

-By having my baby at home, where my subconscious brain feels safe, I will have a complication-free birth: RIGHT x3

-By having my baby at home, I will have a peaceful birth: WRONG. Birth is horrific (in my opinion). It doesn't matter where you do it.

-A water birth will make birth suck a little less: WRONG. Birth is horrific on land or in water. 

-By having my baby at home, and by studying birth psychology (hynobirthing, reading Baby Catcher), I will have a fast birth: RIGHT (3.5 hours for Anders, 6 hours for Henrik (water slowed it down), 30 minutes from start to finish for Soren (walking sped it up)

BABY

-By not using artificial light in the first two weeks, I will have a newborn that effortlessly learns night and day. RIGHT x3

-By eating a WAPF + bland/nursing friendly diet I will have a baby that does not spit up. RIGHTx3

-By eating a WAPF diet and breastfeeding for two years, I will have a baby that never gets cradle cap, eye infections, or other illnesses. RIGHTx3

-I don't need to hire a lactation consultant as breast feeding is natural and easy. WRONG (I had actually always planned on having a lactation consultant as everything I had read told me that if I wanted to be successful at breastfeeding, that was the way to go, but then my mother put in her two cents and, well, I took her advice. Terrible mistake. Anders didn't get enough food for his first week. With Henrik I had a lactation consultant come to make sure we were doing it right. We weren't. I was trying to do lay-down nursing before Henrik was developmentally ready. With Soren I did not need one.)

-By following Dr. Mendelsohn's advice in How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor, I will avoid needless (all) trips to the doctor and the emergency room. RIGHT (after his well-baby, Anders went to the doctor only twice before he was five, once to retrieve something he put up his nose and once for diagnosis of impetigo rash. Henrik went to the doctor once for a bad cold he had at nine months. Soren has never been.)

-By following Baby-Led Weaning I will have a baby that does not choke on food. RIGHTx3 (Though ... most babies don't choke on food so....) 

-By putting my baby in cloth diapers, I will have a baby that never gets diaper rash. RIGHT, however, I used disposable diapers for Henrik and Soren. Henrik got a diaper rash once while we were traveling and I used an unnatural brand. Soren never had diaper rash.

-By following RIE techniques I will have a self-confident baby. RIGHTx3

-By following RIE techniques my baby will develop good communication and cooperation skills at a very young age. RIGHTx3

-By not buying entertaining toys (only passive toys) my baby will be able to entertain himself for long periods of time. RIGHTx3

-I don't need to be "consistent;" babies are smart enough to understand that we do things this way one time and that way the next time. Explaining these things to babies makes them better decision makers. RIGHTx3 *Now that I have three kids, I find routines and consistency to be life-savers in terms of the chaos of parenting.

TODDLER

-By feeding my child whatever I am eating, I will have a child with an expansive palate, who enjoys flavorful food, including fish, sushi, and spicy foods. INCONCLUSIVE All three of my kids are annoyingly picky. But all three also love things other kids don't. Anders and Henrik love liver. Soren won't eat it. Henrik and Soren love caviar. Anders doesn't. All three eat fish. Only Anders eats shellfish. All three love sushi. Anders loves spicy food. All three hate (most) Nicaraguan food. 

-By never having an opinion about whether or what my son eats when meals are presented to him, I will raise a "good eater." WRONG (Soren is a good eater. The other two don't eat enough in my opinion.)

-By raising my son with RIE techniques he will be a safe climber and never get a hard hit to his head or break a bone. RIGHTx3 (Due to failing to follow RIE techniques for a while when Henrik was young, he actually became super dangerous from 10-12 months before I realized what we were doing wrong.)

-By raising my child in reality--and therefore never giving him floaties or help that will give him an artificial relationship with the water--he will teach himself to swim at a young age, and be safe around pools and other bodies of water RIGHTx2 (this means I sat in a chair near the pool while he crawled over and explored the water, not that I let him play near the pool while I went and made dinner. I spent a lot of time on the steps with my toddlers. They did get overexcited and throw themselves into the water once or twice, but I let them go under for just a second before fishing them out and they don't do that again. By 18 months they have been safe around pools. Both Anders and Henrik taught themselves to swim at 3.

-By inviting my son into the bathroom with me, discussing what is interesting about poop and pee, and allowing my son to spend time naked, I will have a child that is a) not afraid of toilets b) not afraid of pooping c) potty trains himself with ease. RIGHTx3 (At the age of 18 months Henrik started showing interest in using the toilet. I bought him a little toddler potty and five minutes after I set it down in the bathroom and took off his clothes he pooped in it. However, a child cannot be potty independent until they can pull their own pants down and back up. This happens around 2 1/2 to 3, so I make zero effort to do any real potty training before then, as in, it's all just for fun until then. But once they are ready, I have been blown away three times by how easy and relaxed it has been.)

-There is no super-defiant "no" phase for respectfully raise children. RIGHTx3 

-Because I don't chase after him or control him, because it is "our" goal to not lose one another, I will have a toddler that never runs away in stores or parks or other places. RIGHTx3

-By giving him information about safety around cars but not being controlling about it, my toddler will make safe choices in parking lots and around cars. RIGHTx3 

-If I use NVC, the woods good and bad will never be necessary. WRONG (concepts exist because we experience them, not because the words create them. It's important to be cognizant of what we are trying to express, but good and bad are fine, useful concepts.)

-If I create a respectful relationship with my son, he will give to me when I ask, for example, we will not struggle over him getting into his carseat. RIGHTx3 (Anders was forced into his carseat against his will only once in his life. Neither Henrik nor Soren have ever been forced into their carseats. *I think another key to my success in this area is giving the kids ample time to play in the car.

-By raising my child respectfully, he will not throw tantrums. RIGHTx3

-By never hitting my son, I will have a child that never hits. WRONG

-By focusing on creating a secure attachment and respecting his needs, I will have a child who never protests when I drop him off somewhere or have a sitter come. RIGHTx3 (I never once dropped either of my babies off and let them cry, or hired a baby sitter and let him cry. It it always their choice ... and yet they always choose to give me time off if I ask for it.)

-By inviting my son to life with me, I will have a child quite advanced for his age in the study of real life. RIGHTx3 (Note this is where RIE and I part ways. RIE does not invite children to life with their parent, but rather puts them into daycare.) Note what Anders could do when he was two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uenJsBFd5wU.

PRESCHOOL

-By eating a WAPF diet, we won't get colds. WRONG. (Though none of them have been serious.  None my kids have ever been on antibiotics.)

-By eating gourmet, adult food from a young age, I will have a child that does not like the classic kid foods like pasta, pizza, hot dogs, and french fries. WRONG 

-By eating adult food from a young age and having absolute authority about what goes in and what does not go in to his mouth, I will have a child who is an "adventurous eater," willing to try new things. RIGHT MOSTLY (If Soren is full he will not taste the desert.)

-Children allowed to freely choose will choose to wipe their noses. WRONG I am fully onboard with coercive nose-wiping now.

-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to bathe. MOSTLY RIGHT x3 (I do suggest they bathe. The idea doesn't occur to them on their own.)

-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to wash their hair with shampoo. WRONG I still don't know how I feel about shampoo.

-Children allowed to freely choose will choose to clothe themselves around the age of 5. RIGHT x3

-By making him largely responsible for his own safe choices, my son will make safe choices. RIGHT x3

-If I use NVC with my son, his pretend games will have NVC. WRONG (Ish, he uses more non-NVC communication in his games than he does NVC, but he does use a little NVC.)

-If I am not violent and threatening, my son won't play games in which he uses threats and pretend violence. WRONG

-By focusing on creating a secure attachment, my child will not exhibit the nervousness, eye-twitches, and stuttering that are common at this age. RIGHT x3

-By teaching my son that his needs matter, and taking them seriously, I will have a child that does not whine--not because he is told not to whine, but because it would never occur to him to whine. RIGHT x3

-By treating my son with respect and empowering him to make his own choices, I will raise a child who is not obsessed with power (like dinosaurs, police, anything that represents being big and powerful to a child). WRONG (My conclusion here is that small, powerless people know they are small and powerless, even if you treat them otherwise.)

-If I raise my child in reality, my child will not get nightmares. INCONCLUSIVE Anders and Soren never got nightmares. Henrik is a sleep walker plagued by nightmares. Henrik has also gravitated towards fiction in a way that Anders and Soren never did.

-If I raise my child in reality (no night lights) and spend time with him looking at the stars, my child will not be afraid of the dark. RIGHT x3

-Because we don't watch other types of television, my son will enjoy documentaries. RIGHT x3

-If I homeschool my child, he will confidently converse with and make friends with people older and younger than he is, including teenagers and adults as well. RIGHT x3

-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will happily play with girls in addition to boys. RIGHT x3

-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will not care about the current popular toys or clothes. RIGHT x3

-By opting out of preschool and bringing my son to life with me, I will get along with him better, have more in common with him, and like him more than other parents with children the same age. RIGHT x3 (This is completely subjective of course.) 

-By not entertaining Anders from the beginning, I will have a child that is able to entertain himself. RIGHT x3 

-By never dropping Anders off anywhere against his will or hiring a babysitter and leaving him against his will, I will have a child who is not clingy, happy to go to camps and have babysitters, and who is an excellent judge of those caring for him. RIGHT x3 

OVERALL

-It is not necessary to read to a child before he is three years old in order to have a child who loves to read and can read at a young age. RIGHT x2

-Raised with information and freedom, young children will choose to eat healthy foods in addition to unhealthy foods. RIGHT x3

-Raised to see their bodies as their responsibility young children will take good care of their bodies. WRONG Teeth-brushing and health eating must be strongly encouraged or required.

-Children can be exposed to reality (including death and violence shown documentaries) and it will not make them anxious if they have competent parents and a secure attachment. RIGHT x2

-Children raised in reality are focused on their futures from a young age. RIGHT x2

-If brought to life with their parents rather than put in a room with other people their age, young children will act more mature than their peers. RIGHT (Though the most noticeable difference is in how they speak.)

-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun. WRONG. Despite the success of most of my hypotheses, parenting in this way is not easy and is completely exhausting. And being so different from the mainstream is stressful.

-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live on a farm. RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT SOOOOOOO RIGHT

-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live in an office complex like the one I describe here: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-ideal-unschool-community-here-and-now.html I WAS NOT ABLE TO TEST THIS ONE

OTHER THINGS I LEARNED

-Diet makes a big difference. When Anders has a lot of junk food, he can become quite emotional and obnoxious.

-Cavities that don't hurt don't (usually) don't need to be filled. Honest dentists do exist.

-Topical medications can cure impetigo if you are dedicated; internal antibiotics are not necessary despite the doctor dramatically insisting.

-Despite efforts to not prop Anders and other efforts to encourage core development, he still did not retain his ability to squat nor does he bend from the hips. I am currently unclear on why this is.

-Four-year-olds are competent to follow a complicated route to a store a mile away from home without help (if they have traveled it before).

-Four-year-olds are competent to purchase items on their own.

-Even the youngest of children are competent with sharp knives, provided they are supervised (at first) and taught proper chopping techniques.

-Homeschooled children can be quite advanced academically compared to their pre-schooled peers, despite spending very little time each day doing school work.

-I am also surprised by just how influential I am, how many instances Anders simply defers to whatever I think is best. It's hard to explain because Anders is a very opinionated and strong willed little guy, yet ... he's also very compromising and reasonable and easy to get along with.


THINGS I DON'T KNOW YET

-By eating a WAPF diet and having him take cod liver oil every day, I will have a child who has a broader palate than he would have had otherwise i.e. a child who does not need braces despite the fact that both his parents wore them. (This wont be entirely conclusive with Anders as I did not start eating the WAPF diet until right after he was born. WAPF says you have to eat their diet for two years prior to conceiving to have a child who does not need braces.)

*I am sure there will be a lot more surprises! I just don't know what they are yet...

A Reader Says, "My Son Has a Negative Relationship With Naps"

A reader recently emailed me and asked what he could go about his 18-month-old's negative relationship to sleep. Here is what I know:

Children who don't want to go to bed may--

1: Lack correct information about sleep

2: Have a controlling relationship with the parent in regards to sleep

3: Not live in reality

4: Have an insecure attachment to their caregiver

Solution 1: Correct Information

Always assume your child will make great choices for himself if given great information.

I gave my son a lot of information when he was younger (and I still do) about his body and the care of his body. I told him how important sleep was for him and for me, how our bodies heal while we sleep, and how his grows. I helped him make the connection between how he felt at certain times and the amount of rest he had gotten. "You didn't sleep very long last night, you may be crabby today." And then later, "I'm noticing how emotional you are today. You are crying a lot--which is fine, crying is good for you, but, I think part of the reason you are so sad is because you didn't get enough sleep last night."

I talked about how I felt on days when I didn't get enough sleep. "Anders! I just realized why I am in such a bad mood! I didn't sleep enough last night!" One of my favorite things that I do as a parent is make my internal dialogue available to my son. I talk about feeling tired and feeling exhausted. I talked about how happy I am to go to bed and rest my body and how good it feels. I cuddle up in my sheets and say, "Ahhhhh. Thank goodness I finally get to sleeeeeep!" I took naps when I needed to--sometimes while he played nearby. I talked a lot about energy, "I need more energy, so I am going to go to sleep." "I feel sooooo good now, I had suuuuuch a good night's sleep."

So of course, these are all the things I heard back from him as he got older (and still do). 

I also talked about the process of getting more and more tired:

"You might notice your eyes are dry and you start to rub them a lot, that means they have been open for too long and you should probably take a nap."

"You might notice you are yawning. That is also your body telling you it's time to think about a nap."

"You might notice that you feel sad and crabby and kind of like crying. That means you ignored your body's first signs and now you better get to bed right now or you're going to freak out."

Notice that I am not telling him to take a nap. His body is telling him that he needs to take a nap. I am just noticing and newscasting reality for him. "You're rubbing your eyes. I think your body may be telling you it needs rest." "You're yawning, do you want to get some sleep?" "You're feeling very emotional right now. I think you missed your window. This is going to be hard."

Solution 2: Freedom, Respect, Responsibility

I gave my son information and helped him see the connections. It was then his responsibility to take care of himself. He certainly let himself get overtired at times, and then I would say, "You feel this way because you didn't listen to your body and go to sleep when you needed to! Now, you may be too tired to go to sleep on your own, and I may have to help you. I know you like to be in charge of your sleeping, but going to sleep when you are too tired is really hard. Your body becomes full of stress hormones because being too tired is so stressful. Your body needs to release those hormones--usually by crying. Do you think you need to cry? Or do you think you have time to go to bed right now and then you wont have to cry?"

I offer other ways I can help, "Can I take you for a walk in the stroller to help you?" "Would you like me to cuddle up with you to help you? Sometimes being able to hear someone's heartbeat can help you go to sleep." "I'm working right now, so I can't help you too much, but you are welcome to come curl up on my lap."

I was there to help, but his sleep was never my job.

Anders saw going to sleep as his responsibility. He saw himself as capable of caring for his body. "It's your body, you get to decide." I always tell him. As soon as he could scoot, he scooted himself to his floor bed and passed out. He put himself to bed often before he was 18 months. He rarely needed my help. Around 18 months we moved, so he wanted to be closer to me when he went to sleep. At nap time I would get in my bed and read a book, and he would curl up next to me and pass out. Sometimes I would read whatever I was reading out loud to him--if he asked. Sometimes he didn't take a nap and would end up super crabby, and I would support him as best I could and remind him to not miss his nap tomorrow, so he didn't feel this way. Then he got used to the new house and went back to sleeping on his own.

But it was always very fluid. He slept on his own for a few months, then with me for a few months. I loved both arrangements, so I always left that up to him.

At some point when he was 2 he often wanted to stay up later than I did, so he would kiss me good night and go to his bed. Or I would say, "Goodnight, I'm going to bed!" and go to bed. He generally only stayed up five to ten minutes later than I did, but it was his thing at that age. It didn't last long. Now he if I say I am going to bed he gets ready for bed super fast because he does not want to stay up later than I do.

I would say every six months or so he would try something new in regards to his sleep. When he was 3, he had a playhouse outside that he liked to sleep in. I couldn't let him stay in it all night as he would get bitten by too many bugs, but he would put himself to bed it in it and pass out, and I would carry him to his bed. (I of course got his permission to do this while he was awake, "Anders, it's fine if you want to go to sleep in there, but after you are sleeping can I carry you to your bed so the bugs don't bite you?")

Here is a video of that time--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGN2NOz48m0

Note that he is telling me he needs to go to bed to get some more energy. 

If the parent sees it as his job to "get their kid to go to sleep," his goal is to control the behavior of his child. When we seek to control another person, that person is our enemy and our relationship with that person becomes a war--Who will win?! 

If the parent sees it as his job to "get their kid to go to sleep," the child cannot be responsible for going to bed and getting enough sleep. It becomes the parent's job. That sounds so stressful! And for the kid, all he can do is be a good boy or a bad boy. How demeaning.

Anders's sleep was not my problem. It was his. You may think, "But when my tired toddler is having a meltdown, it becomes my problem!" I think, when my toddler has a made a poor choice, I will help him get through it. It is our poor choices that teach us how to make good choices. Better to make poor choices now than later! 

Your toddler will not choose to be an overtired, melting person very often. Every six months or so he will do an experiment to confirm that yes, not getting enough sleep is a terrible choice. And every three months or so he will just forget. But that is a heckuva lot less drama than a power struggle every day at nap time and every night at bed time.

Unless of course you are a supreme and benevolent dictator like I was when I was a nanny, training children that they had no option but to be automatons, and do what they were told. But even then, Anders is still easier to put to bed.

At 4 1/2 Anders still experiments. For example, right now Anders has camp in the morning and to be on time he needs to be awake by 7am. To wake up by 7am he needs to be in bed by 7:30pm. In the evenings, I let him know what time it is. He gets ready for bed, and then we read. He usually gets very involved in the story, and then I say, "It's 7:30!" and he rolls over and goes to sleep. Literally, it's that easy 90% of the time. He knows that 7:30 is the ideal time to go to sleep because one night he went to bed late--8:30. We were having too much fun, and we (mainly he) decided to do an experiment and see what happened. Well, he woke up at 8am the next morning and was 45 minutes late to his camp. He asked me why I didn't wake him up, and I told him that rest for his body is more important than being on time for camp, and that I would feel very uncomfortable waking him. He understood and was late for camp. He did not like being late.

When I picked him up, he asked if I would wake him up at 7am if he ever overslept again and made it quite clear that he never wanted to be late again. I said, "I know you want to be on time to camp, and I want to support you in that goal, but preventing your growing body from getting the rest it needs is not how I want to support you. I would rather we just go to bed by 7:30." We talked about this for a while, and in the end I did agree to wake him if he ever slept past 7, but he agreed to try really hard to be asleep by 7:30. It has been 6 weeks of camp now, and he has always been asleep on time.

Even if I am not there to put him to bed. He goes to bed at 7:30 because that is HIS goal. For example, one night I was exhausted and went to bed at 6:30pm. I showed Anders the clock and told him that when it said 7:30, he should turn out his light and go to sleep. I got in bed, and Tom called. We talked for a while, and then I saw Anders's light go out in the other room. I looked at the time. It was 7:03. When I went to check on him ten minutes later, he was fast asleep.

I do think any kid can do this. Anders has been putting himself to bed for years. Even when he was just a year old, I trusted that he was capable of this task. Actually, even when he was an infant it was his job. I never rocked him to sleep or carried him or swaddled him. I stayed with him while he was sad, curled up next to him or with my hand on his chest so he knew he was not alone. But carrying or rocking or swaddling--these are all distractions. To feel my emotions and feel okay feeling my emotions, the support I need when I am crying is not words or movement, but just the presence of someone who cares. Note that this way of being with infants is taught in RIE parenting books like Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect.

But back to how Anders learned to go to bed at 7:30pm. As much as it kind of sucked to rearrange my morning that one time, I am so happy that Anders got a chance to make a solid connection between what time you go to bed, what time you wake up, and "being on time." Better to learn this lesson at four by being late for summer camp than learn this lesson later by being late to something much more consequential.

Solution 3: Reality

Besides freedom and information, there are other reasons why Anders may have a positive relationship with sleep. He has been raised in reality--there are no monsters, no witches, no villains with magical powers, no dragons. He has never had nightmares except for one in which someone took his cookie.

The kids I cared for had nightmares often, almost every night, usually about fantasy creatures they had seen in movies. They were scared of under their beds and their closets. They were scared of shadows and the dark. Raising Anders in reality has made him not scared of fantasy at all. Older boys will sometimes try to be mean, and say things like, "If you do that, Santa Claus won't give you any presents!" He laughs and tells them, "You know Santa Claus is not real, right?" 

Solution 4: Secure Attachment

I am not a supporter of "attachment parenting," but I am a big supporter of healthy attachment.

I am pretty sure Anders feels very secure in our relationship, but he does like to hear that I will be there when he wakes up, that I will not leave him. It almost offends me that he likes to hear these things! But he does, so I tell him. 

I have another blog post about sleep here--

http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-reader-asks-should-i-put-my-foot-down.html

How Often Did You Touch Your Son's Body / Invade His Sovereignty Without His Permission?

A reader emailed me this question, here is my answer, done in a hurry, but still possibly useful to those of you with young children!

I rarely had to move or touch my son's body without his permission. I would always request first that he be in control of his body. "That's my necklace, and I need you to give it back. Can you put it in my hand?" usually worked. If not, "That's mine, so if you can't put it in my hand, I am going to help you... Oh I see, you can do on your own!" My son always chose to do it on his own rather than be "helped." (And when I say always here I mean it--every single time he chose to give me back whatever object it was.) It should also be noted that he was proud of himself when he was able to do this, like it was hard to let it go but he DID IT and would say, "See! I did it!"

Another example would be, "I need you to get out of the street. I realize there are no cars right now, you know it, and I know it, but it's just stressing me out. Can you come back onto the sidewalk? ... Thank you." Again, he always complied, if not the first time, then the second or third time I asked. I would just keep asking in different ways, assuming that he wanted to meet my needs but didn't understand what I needed or why. So maybe if he didn't get out of the street the first time I would say, "Anders, the stress in my body is so intense. My heart is beating so fast, and I am just freaking out, like I want to cry. I really need you to help me by getting out of the street." (Note he was in the gutter, and not technically the street during these conversations, but he learned at about 11 months old that he needed to stay on the sidewalk--and he always did. I always made him in charge of moving his body onto the sidewalk, not me.)

For asking him not to play with something or even not allowing it, I would get between my son and say, the printer. And I would just repeat, "I'm not going to let you touch this... yes, you want to touch it and learn about it, but I won't let you... when you are 4, I will show you how it works, but not right now...." I would not let his hands touch the printer, but otherwise I would not touch his body, I would just keep moving his hands away and then let him be in control of his hands again. He would start crying and then I would just be with him while he experienced his disappointment. He would cry and I would say, "You feel disappointed. Can I hold you while you are sad?" At the younger ages offering something else was generally helpful as well, "I won't let you touch the printer, but you may type on my computer for a little bit if you're gentle."

There were times of course when I was upset or needed something to happen quickly and at those times I got-er-done, and if that meant moving Anders's body without checking first I did. This got harder as he got older--he would get very offended and then I would have to apologize. Sometimes he would bring it up at night or the next day. "I didn't like it when you did that!" he would tell me. And I would model how one owns up to her poor behavior and how to apologize and make amends. This didn't happen often, but it did happen, I don't want to pretend like it didn't!

If I Home School My Kid... How Do I Get Time Off??!!!

I was asked what the right amount of time to spend with our kids is, and I can't answer that question. Every person and every relationship is different. But what I can say is that to build a life together requires time and purpose. For sure we need a little play time with our kids, but most of the time working with our children is the ideal. How to do this well depends entirely on the work you do.

Figuring out how to fit children into our work is literally The Challenge of parenting. When Anders was a baby I mostly cooked, cleaned, did yard work, and errands. He fit perfectly into this work. When he got older I spent time writing, and he fit perfectly into this work. There was a period of adjustment while we learned to do our work together, but we always figured it out.

Children learn the work they are exposed to. Children of shoe-makers can make shoes at a very young age. Children of hunters can hunt at a very young age. Though they are exploration oriented rather than goal oriented, children constantly surprise me with their competence at things no one thinks a child their age can do (see this videos of Anders cooking breakfast when he was barely two-years-old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNRroZ1gcMo).

That being said, I have not yet figured out how to fit Anders in to Tom's work life at his office, but then, I have never tried. I imagine that if that was our goal, Anders and I would need a month and then we would figure out how to be helpful at Tom's office. Or maybe it wouldn't work out, and we would decide to start Anders on office work when he was seven or so as people have in the past. This is why having two parents is a lot easier than having one. Though having twenty, as the hunter-gatherer groups or the extended family arrangements of the past had, would be even better.

But onto what I know that may possibly be helpful to other parents today.

Infants are awake ten to twelve hours a day. That means a minimum 70-hour work week for the stay-at-home parent or 35-hours a week for each parent. Having a baby is not one, but TWO full time jobs.

In less than a year, the infant sleeps less and becomes an even bigger time commitment–84 hours a week. That only lasts a year or two, and then the energetic preschooler is awake for 98 to 112 hours a week depending on sleep habits. That is THREE full time jobs.

No parent is "working" with the child every minute it is awake. The child will get involved in Doing Something and that leaves the parent time to care for the child in other ways–cooking and cleaning.

Either way, a stay-at-home parent cannot be expected to work 112 hours a week and not become extremely unhappy or insane. Neither can two parents split the work equally while also maintaining a 40-hour week outside the home without the same consequences.

A century ago history was not studied gratuitously. No one memorized dates and facts. We looked to other times (and other places) to see how our fellow human beings solved the problems we were up against. So–

In the average hunter-gatherer group, infants were in the care of others for four hours each day, which means Mom got four hours "off" each day. She slept with her baby at night, so they spent on average 20 hours each day together, 6-8 of which were awake.

By the time a child was two or three it joined in play with the other children. The children's playgroup was overseen by the grandparents. Mom, no longer needing to nurse her baby throughout the day, was often three miles away gathering food with the other women of the tribe. This mom got four to six hours "off" each day. She still slept with her baby at night, so she spent, on average, 18 hours with her child, about 6-8 of which were awake.

Similarly, in many times and places in the past, children were raised in extended families. The main caretakers of the very young were the older-young (kids 8-12) and the old (grandparents).

In fact, evolutionary scientists argue that humans would not live as long as they do if it did not contribute to the survival of the young. Most animals do not live long after their children are grown and have children of their own. But human grandparents (and especially grandmothers) made such important contributions to the survival of their grandchildren (by caring for them and freeing their mothers to gather more food) humans evolved to live longer and longer.

Evolutionarily speaking, grandparents exist to be of service to their grandchildren. Today the opposite is generally true. Grandparents do not serve their grandchildren but rather TAKE from them in the time and resources that they take from the child's parents. It is not surprising at all that we are seeing a fall in average lifespan.

It is insane to me that any grandparent would take from his or her grandchildren, and yet I hear nothing but demands from grandparents. Grandparents often see themselves as "matriarchs" and "patriarchs" of a clan whom everyone should bend over backward to care for and please. But, as I said in my last piece, I believe this is a mistake.

Those over 70, whose brains function at the same speed as a 5-year-old, are not and should not be the leaders of their clan. They should be advisors who serve the current leaders. This is how I plan to do it anyway. (For more on this idea, see http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2016/07/living-right-story-parents-as-kings-and.html#comments)

But, though I can be that contributing-grandparent for my children one day, I don't have that for myself, and I imagine you don't either. In a world without contributing Grandparents (and older cousins) to help the young couple with a baby, how is a couple to survive their 112-hour a week time commitment (not to mention the other 40 to 80 hours a week required to acquire money for food and shelter!) without going insane or becoming severely depressed or turning to government schools because after working 112 hours a week for six years they are so desperate for relief?

Tangent: I highly recommend thinking this out BEFORE you have kids. Better yet, think this out before you graduate from college. Because, if you think you will have kids one day, instead of focusing on the perfect job, maybe move to a place where you have the most social capital–i.e. make finding people who share your parenting ideals a priority, live near them, and create your life/income stream there.

But enough of these ideals, here is what I actually did to survive my first 4 1/2 years with Anders:

*Note my arrangement with my husband is that I am 100% responsible for Anders's care. Tom has an extremely demanding job and though spending time with Anders is a priority for him, I must plan my life to never rely on it. On average, I get three to five hours a week off from Tom, which, brings my work load from 112 hours-a-week to 107 on a good week. I am not complaining here; I am very happy with our arrangement, especially now (on the farm). I was less happy with it when we lived in Los Angeles for reasons I will make clear below, and even less happy when I expected him to pull a certain number of hours per week and was constantly frustrated when his job got in the way.

INFANCY

When Anders was an infant I followed RIE parenting methods and had plenty of time off as Anders entertained himself for long periods of time. Long attention spans and ability to play independently from infancy are two of the things RIE teaches.

*Note that "attachment parenting" is the style of parenting that is quite well-known in respectful parenting circles, and I do not advocate it at all. Here is a post I wrote about it: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2015/02/attachment-parenting.html

When I needed time out of the house by myself, I hired a babysitter.

TODDLER

When Anders got older, I became friends with a RIE teacher who had four children, one of whom was a 10-year-old girl. She became a "mother's helper" for me. I hired her to come to my house to play with Anders while I rested.

I tried not to hire babysitters to "get work done." Work is something I tried to do with Anders. I "played" with him very little. Rather, I "brought him to life with me." As I said above, Anders helped me cook, clean, do errands, yard work, and make social calls. He made everything take twice as long as it would have taken otherwise, but he also made everything a lot more interesting and was extremely cute about it. I actually really hated doing errands before Anders. With Anders, errands became much more tolerable because even though I loathe the activity, at least I had someone I loved to do it with.

I did hire plenty of babysitters at this age. Anders generally slept for around 9 hours every night, leaving me with a 15-hour day. I found that a twelve hour day was doable for me, but 15 made me cranky. So I tried to make sure I got 3-4 hours off each day to take care of myself.

When I hired babysitters, I always looked for people who knew nothing about children, but were willing to read the books I gave them. (As the people who "knew" things about children generally were the opposite of what I wanted in a babysitter!)

One babysitter I used in emergencies (after Anders was 2) was YouTube. See my Anders Playlist on my YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K

I took videos of Anders and made a playlist that lasted 60 minutes. There were also a few movies out there that I think are okay for kids at this age. See the list here:

http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2016/03/anderss-bibliography-by-age.html

I tried used these as babysitters sparingly though, about once a week.

At this age I also read the Little House books to Anders, and they helped me to feel a lot better about my extremely hour-intensive work-week.

PRESCHOOL AGE

I moved to a farm in Nicaragua. Here, maids and cooks cost a dollar an hour, so I have virtually no cooking or cleaning responsibilities.

And the kids who live on the farm across the street come over to play every day. One is 5, her name is Jesslyn. Her brother takes care of her and is always with her. He is 12, and his name is Yesnir. Moises and Ramon, from a different family nearby, also come over, but not every day. The kids join Anders in watching the workers; they swim; they run around; they pick fruit they can reach; they pick carrots; they paint; they play legos; sometimes they find a way to help the workers with a project; they play with the dog, the cats, and give treats to the chickens; they helped feed the cow when we had one. When they are ready to sit down, they ask me for their workbooks. They think their math and reading Kumon workbooks are super fun. We also play board games, do puzzles, and lots of brain teasers. We are watching the Families of the World series on my computer. They also love the documentaries we own. We watch these sporadically, maybe every third or fourth day.

Most days here the kids play for four to eight hours, so I get plenty of time off. Do I worry about the local kids' influence on Anders? Not very much. They are very respectful kids. They are more tough and less empathetic than I am raising Anders to be, but because Anders gets plenty of exposure to empathy and compassion with me and at camps in the US, I think the exposure to the tougher kids may be a good thing. Also they are almost always at my house where I can make requests regarding their behavior which makes me more comfortable as well! But we will see as time goes on.

Here at the farm Anders and I get to see a lot more of Tom, and that is another reason why our life here is really working out.

At this age, the work I do is managing the workers, overseeing construction, shopping for decorating, and writing. Anders now does these things with me. When I want to write, I tell Anders, and he says he is going to write too and works on his little scribble books for an hour at a time. The result is that he is very motivated to learn to read and write. I also spend time each week computing hours and wages and paying our workers. He fits perfectly into this work, siting patiently and watching while I count money and put it into envelopes. The result of this is that he is very motivated to be better at math. He often walks around the construction area with paper and pen and "takes notes" about improvements that need to be made. He is less interested in the decorating, but is very good at it–his opinion is valuable.

When Anders and I travel to Los Angeles, he does camps–theater camp and gymnastics camp last spring. This summer he will do a Montessori summer camp. A camp day is six hours long. Six hours is the maximum number of hours I would want Anders to be raised by other people (for now). Unless it was a close friend who I knew shared similar values maybe.

When baby number two comes (hopefully in late 2017), now that I live here at the farm, I think it will not be nearly as hard. Baby 2 will be so lucky to have not just me to bond with as an infant, but a whole farm full of people. Not to mention that Anders idealizes Yesnir and hopes to take care of his little sister the way Yesnir takes care of his. (In Anders's head it is definitely a sister.) I am SO glad that I have waited five years for baby number 2. I will let you know how it works out, but right now it feels very ideal.