Stuff Files: Parenting Books

Ah, parenting books!  You can find one that tells you almost anything.  There are books that advocate for ignoring your child to an alarming extent, and books that advocate that you never put your baby down.  There are cry-it-out books, and there are family-bed-until-teens books.  There are back to the stone-ages books, and there are progressive new ideas books.  One thing that you must keep in mind when reading pregnancy and parenting related literature, is that this is a FAD-BASED genre of a TIMELESS and UNIVERSAL subject.  And though fads come and go, and parents the world over raise kids well in myriad different ways, many of them wonderful.

With that in mind, I pre-screen all my parenting books to try to find ones that fit with philosophies I already have and styles I already claim as my own.  My philosophy is basically the following:

• Know your values and model them for your children 
• Be kind and respectful to your child, always
• Be generous with your love and find varied ways to show it all of the time (cuddles, praise, quality time, etc.)
• Expect a lot of your kids, in every way 
• Be consistent
• Encourage your child's naturally increasing drive for independence and autonomy
• Be as patient as you can be with your kids, and with everyone in the house, and when you run out of patience, state your needs or take your space before you do something you regret
• Communicate honestly, clearly, and succinctly, and LISTEN to your child's words and cues, even when your child is pre-verbal
• Minimize your interventions to the most basic and important pieces
• Practice unconditional love

This is a Kate-centric list of reading material, so it's not surprising that I find something to like in everything on the list, and if you have different top-priority values, it won't be surprising if you hate the whole bunch.  That's okay!

I like to stay a step or two ahead of Elsie's stages in my reading.  There are a couple of books on here for older kids.  I draw from my sitting, camp, coaching, and teaching experience when I analyze these. The list is organized by the youngest age of child for whom it is applicable.

The Happiest Baby on the Block
I can't say I love the written style or substantive scientific explanation of this book, but I can say that it was a lifesaver for our family for the first 3 months of Elsie's life.  The basic idea is this: you can hypnotize your fussy baby into a trance using five steps.  If you can't hypnotize her into this trance, then she's probably hungry.  If she's not hungry, wet, etc. and you still can't hypnotize her, you might want to call the pedi, because there's probably something else going on.

The steps are as follows:
1) Swaddle your baby up tight (My advice: invest in a velcro-swaddle or two or three!!!)
2) Lie your baby on her side or tummy (in your arms, on your lap, etc.)
3) Jiggle your baby vigorously
4) "SSSHHHHHH" very loudly into your baby's ear, or provide some other white noise
5)  Stick a finger or pacifier in the baby's mouth for some non nutritive sucking.

It works.  It works beautifully.  You have to do all the steps, though, don't just throw your hands up when the baby seems to hate being swaddled.  The swaddle is just to keep her calm/asleep once you calm her down.  All my friends for whom these "5 S's" didn't work discovered other problems causing their babies pain, like acid reflux, food allergies, etc. So read the book, watch the DVD, or just do what I put in those five bullet points above, and call it a day!


Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
Oh, what a gigantic document this one is.  It's a reference book, and it spans infancy through teenage years.  Read the early chapters on the importance of sleep before you even have your baby, if you can manage it.  It is full of fear tactics and other antics, but I believe the message is a good one: kids need sleep.  More than you need.  If they don't get it, they're going to suffer, and so are you.  After you take home that sobering message, read chapters as you need to, whenever sleep problems arise.  This is the book that helped us turn Elsie's cat-naps of infancy into a sold, three-hour afternoon nap.  This is the book that had us sleeping through the night, every night, with a fuss-free bedtime, by the age of 5 months.  This is the book that helped me reestablish her naps after a six-week post-Christmas strike.  This is the book that taught me some of the most important lessons I've learned so far:

1) The more they sleep, the more they sleep, so DON'T wake your infant/baby up to try to make her sleep longer at night.  Lots of naps are a good thing.
2) Your child should almost certainly be going to bed earlier than you think.  Early bedtime can actually lead to a LATER morning wakeup hour and longer, less-interrupted night sleep.  Especially for babies.
3) A well-rested child makes for a very happy household in every way.

Not a one-night read, but a book that has helped me many times already.


The Happiest Toddler on The Block DVD
I've got to be honest with you, I just can't do the central technique of this one because it goes against a couple of my core values (mainly, expect a lot of your kids, and model the behavior you want to see in them).  It also makes me feel silly.

The technique is this: when your toddler starts to have a tantrum, you effectively mirror back that tantrum to your kid to show her that you get it, that you hear what she's saying.  You try to speak her language.  Karp calls toddlers "little cavemen" and so you're encouraged to yell "No No NO!" right along with your kid.  This does not come naturally to me, but if I were desperate enough, of course I'd try it anyway.  It definitely seems to help with the kids in the video, so that's great.

I'm lucky, though.  Elsie is a VERY verbal child, and a child who has few tantrums.  Ever since she started having tantrums, I've encouraged her to express her emotions in words.  "I'm FRUSTRATED.  I need HELP!"  Is a phrase we hear around our house a lot.  I can, therefore, tell her, "You're feeling frustrated?  Let me come help you!"  And that's basically mirroring back what she says, showing her I get it, without feeling like I've stepped out of my personality entirely.  Harvey Karp and I have compromised on this one, I guess!

Some of the other things he suggests, I like a lot, like "topping up the meter" on your child's attention.  That is, making sure you are paying positive attention to your kid throughout the day, for no reason other than that you love them.  That makes them feel well-attended, and diminishes the number of attention-seeking tantrums they'll have.  Sit down and read your kid a book, or draw a picture, or go play tag in the yard.  Even in 5 minute chunks, this will go a long way.

My biggest criticism of this dvd isn't that I don't feel comfortable doing the caveman stuff (that's my problem, not Harvey Karp's), it's that he under-emphasizes the time-out, or the removal of attention.  He does suggest the technique, but only in 30 second chunks, which, in Elsie's case, is not long enough to actually help at all.  We've had a great deal of success with slightly longer (2-10 minute) time-outs.  Which brings me to...


The Manipulative Child
I can't imagine how many people are put off by that title, but I picked it up because I think all tots are manipulative.  I think it shows their increasing intelligence, grasp on social relationships, and engagement with the world around them. In short, I think if your tot isn't manipulative, there might be something wrong.  I also think that it's our job, as parents, not to let ourselves be manipulated by our children, and that's why I picked up this book.  Turns out, it's not a book for toddlers, but a book for all kids from the age of 1 or 2 until they leave for college.

Style-wise, this book is the opposite of Karp's common-man literature.  These authors write like the academics that they are.  The writing is DENSE.  I had to use my special bookmark with a hole cut in it to read down the pages without getting lost.  I am also probably dyslexic, which is why I have a bookmark with a hole cut in it.  Your mileage may vary.

That said, the content is gold.  Pure gold.  The target audience is parents, teachers, and nannies of strong-willed, difficult children -- those who feel they've lost control -- that is to say, not me.  Elsie is basically the easiest baby and toddler ever.  Consistency and expecting a lot of my child (values he pushes strongly) are already part of my credo, and Elsie doesn't push back on me to an exhausting level the way some kids do.  Even so, I really enjoyed the read.  It reinforced so much of what I've learned by trial, error, and observation as a nanny and teacher.  It is a gem for anyone who just wants to throw their hands up and wave the white flag to their children -- and isn't that all of us at one time or another?  Even me with my little angel?  Of course it is.

There are a few specific techniques discussed in the book.  The one we use at least weekly is the Stop, Pause, and Redirect.  It's basically conditioning your child to respond to very brief time-outs by changing their bad behavior.  You interrupt the bad behavior and sit your child down, pause (during which time you remove your attention from your child, either by ignoring or by sequestering in traditional time-out), and then, whenever the waterworks and pounding the pavement with fists cools down and the kid has been calm for about 30 seconds, you give them a positive thing to do -- it can really be anything, as long as it's specific and non-punitive (Here, let's read a book!).  These SPRs may not start brief.  If your kid is really manipulative, you may have to ignore your child for long periods of time, and those early tantrums might be EPIC.  But once the pattern is established consistently, it should go a very long way to diffusing bad behavior in short measure.  We use this all the time for behaviors we want to train Elsie out of.  I find it easiest to ignore her when she's in her room, so we use traditional time-out structure for the Pause phase of SPR, which means it's a lot easier to do at home than at the park or at the grocery store, but there are suggested modifications for those scenarios in the book.  As long as it's not a hunger-motivated tantrum, it works every time.  The duration is anywhere from a minute to about ten.  Totally tolerable.

There are more techniques that seem better-suited to older children, like teenagers who never do their homework.  They rely on pattern repetition, but I haven't had occasion to try them out yet. 

As for SPRs, in my experience, there is no medicine for bad attention-seeking behavior like interrupting it and ignoring the fallout, and never losing your cool.  It takes a lot of reassurance and support for the parents, because it may be simple, but it is not easy.  We're only human.  You'll find that support in this book.  Highly, highly recommend it.

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Elsie's nap time is over, and this is already an unreadably long post, so I'll add some more books tomorrow.
Hope it helps!