Strollerderby : temper tantrums

When They Can Curse in Context

JeanneSager — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Madame didn’t like the bowl of chicken noodle soup. So she looked up at me through those too die for lashes wasted on pre-schoolers. “I want hot dogs.” I held my ground. “You asked for soup. You’re having soup.” Throwing herself on the floor, she screamed, “that’s bulls**t!”

Not just cursing. Curses used in context. Uh oh. Even the goody goody parents have at one time or another let slip a four-letter something or other in front the kids. Someone cuts you off in traffic. "Awww, f**k." Obnoxious lady in the grocery store hits you in the heels with the cart – again. "Son of a . . ." We expect them to repeat them, ad nauseam, at the most inopportune times. Your mother-in-law comes over. “Hey Gwandma, I’m a son of a beeeeeeep.” You had to see that coming.

But cursing in context? This is bad. This is very, very bad.

Oh Well, if I'm up s**t creek, at least my kid will know how to find me. Which makes me wonder - if our kids are going to pick up on bad words, do we really feel any better when they at least use them correctly?

Mom Takes Her Potty Mouth to Work

Bipolar Disorder: A Family Secret

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:55:00 GMT

What would you do if your 10-year-old daughter said to you, “I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to feel anymore. Why aren’t you doing anything about this?” Or if your normally loving son threatened to slit you open with a knife? Naturally, you would want to do anything in your power to make your children better, but what if that meant giving your six-year-old lithium? Or sending your 10-year-old away to a therapeutic residential school?

In deference to the many parents who face these challenges day after day, I highly recommend Jennifer Egan’s piece on bipolar disorder in children. She traces several families’ struggles to cope with children who rage against the world from the time that they can talk, and offers a comprehensive portrait of the uncertainties surrounding bipolar diagnoses in kids.

Until relatively recently, it was believed that bipolar disorder only affected adults. Now nearly all leading child psychiatry experts agree that children can suffer from the disease—but they mostly all disagree about how to diagnose childhood bipolar disorder. Most experts believe that it is over-diagnosed, in part because managed care usually only pays for one brief psychiatric evaluation a year and because of the highly questionable yet widely popular book The Bipolar Child.

Diagnosing mental health problems in children is further complicated by the fact that many of the symptoms of bipolar disorder overlap with the symptoms of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). And mania is not as clear-cut in children as in it adults--it's often normal for children to act grandiose or have terrible temper tantrums.

James, one of the kids Egan writes about, was diagnosed with ADHD, OHD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), and bipolar disorder by the time he was eight. With so much uncertainty about the disease, even parents whose children have seemingly clear-cut episodes of mania—stealing strangers’ cell phones or wearing outlandish clothing—followed by clear episodes of depression remain uncertain about their children’s treatment.

Once a child is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he and she is prescribed strong medication with harsh side effects. Making the decision to give such drugs to kids is a huge weight of responsibility on a parent’s shoulder—and this decision requires trusting a doctor whose personal biases will inevitably influence her diagnosis and prescribed treatment.

At the very least, I hope that Egan's article will bring greater awareness to this issue. As one of the mothers interviewed said of her son's horrible temper tantrums, "It's like a dirty little secret. It's like having a husband who beats you, only it's a kid. It's your own."

Image: New York Times

Top 5 Things You Want To Tell Your Babysitter But Are Too Conflict-Avoidant To Say

Amy S.F. Lutz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:34:00 GMT

5. Don't make me the bad guy. Please don't tell the kids, "Mommy doesn't want more than one kid on the trampoline at a time because she's afraid you might hurt yourselves," or, "Mommy doesn't want your brother to have raisins because she's afraid he might choke." Enforce my rules as if they're universal laws recognized by every adult on the planet.

4. Leave your gadgets in the car. I know it's important for kids to play independently and to play with each other, but that doesn't mean you can talk. text. or surf the web the moment my kids stop requiring your immediate attention. There's always stuff to do: straighten the playroom, throw those lunch plates in the dishwasher, etc.

3. Don't believe my kids. When my five-year-old tells you that yes, Mommy lets her eat an entire sleeve of oreos half an hour before dinner, or yes, she's allowed to watch four back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of Hannah Montana, stop and think: how likely is that?

2. Never say to my kids, "This will be our little secret."

1. DON'T GIVE IN TO TEMPER TANTRUMS! Even if you ignore every other rule, please, never, never, ever, give my kids what they want just to calm them down from the heights of hysteria. If my two-year-old throws herself on the floor screaming because her twin brother has the yellow sippy cup with the blue lid and she desperately wants that one instead of the yellow sippy cup with the purple lid you innocuously handed to her, just walk away. DO NOT SWAP SIPPY CUPS. If so, you will guarantee my daughter will grow up to be Leona Helmsley.