"Back to Normal" by Enrico Gnaulati, PHD

It's always a pleasure to be able to recommend parenting books that are helpful and encouraging. I just finished reading Back to Normal by Enrico Gnaulati, PHD. This is a great book for any parent who is concerned that his or her child may have a learning disability or emotional disorder, or who has been approached by the child's teacher with a concern. (Disclaimer: the author is a friend and colleague – but this is truly a book worth your time!)

Dr. Gnaulati addresses multiple themes in his book. The first is that we are a diagnosis-happy, medication-happy culture. He is so right. And while there is nothing wrong with labeling certain disorders – for one thing, that's how kids with legitimate challenges get the interventions they need – we tend to overuse any new label until it just becomes a “miscellany section” for kids we don't understand. This what happened to terms like “hyperactive”/ADD/ADHD in the late twentieth century, and now it's happening with autistic/Asperger's/autism spectrum disorder and “bipolar disorder.” Gnaulati's point is that we have to really look and learn in order to understand each individual child. Sometimes that wiggly preschooler actually needs a new and better preschool (more about that later.) And sometimes that angry teenager needs family therapy, not just a pill to mute his feelings and make him more convenient to live with. In our impatience for a quick fix, we are rushing to diagnose and trying to solve problems with microwave solutions. Sometimes a long, slow bake in the oven is what's called for.

A second theme developed in this book is the insidious way that our reporting/evaluating/diagnosing community has come, over time, to skew female. Preschool and elementary school teachers, pediatricians and child psychologists are now predominantly women, in most cases by quite a majority. This means that children are actually being examined through a female lens. Should we be surprised that boys come up short under that lens? In a chapter titled “Abnormalizing Boys,” Gnaulati shows how this plays out. Girls, it turns out, are better at what he calls “doing school.”

A third theme is that parenting has really, really changed. Because of demanding work schedules, available time to parent has radically shrunken. Academic pressure is higher than ever before. And technology makes keeping tabs on one's child a daunting challenge. Gnaulati offers advice in his last chapter, “Parenting with Authority,” that is realistic, sound, and up-to-the-minute.

Often citing compelling statistics, he advances his thesis with thoroughgoing care. (Did you know that “over 30 percent of children diagnosed as autistic at age two no longer fit the diagnosis at age four”? I didn't!) I hope lots of parents will read this book. And I really hope teachers and administrators will read it too. A preschool that finds itself referring lots of kids (usually boys, hmmmm...) for evaluation might want to take a long, hard look at its curriculum. Do kids have plenty of time to run and climb and move about? Are there choices of activities, and are kids' play preferences respected? Teachers will find that kids who get to blow off steam before and after the quiet, structured times in the day will get more out of the “downtime” activities because they will be calmer and better-focused. And those same kids will present less of a behavior-management problem overall.

Gnaulati doesn't confine his critique of schools to the early years. He has a lot to say about how high schools fail to meet kids' needs. One big idea is that the 7 AM-to-3 PM schedule followed by most upper schools is completely out of sync with a teenager's natural circadian rhythm. And yet we know that teenagers get so much less sleep than they require! The kids are held hostage to bus schedules and other bureaucratic concerns. How much teen angst is due to the simple fact that these kids are horribly, desperately sleep deprived? The irony is that if we made the schools more age-appropriate and kid-friendly, we would be making our jobs as parents, teachers and administrators easier too.

Dr. Gnaulati has given us a wonderful resource. Please have a look at it, and share it with friends and family. I highly recommend this groundbreaking book to any parent you know who is worried about his child's demeanor or behavior.

The Death of a Pet - Further Thoughts and Book Ideas

In my last post, I talked about the death of a pet. These are some follow-up points you might find worth thinking about. Also included are books on this topic that I think are useful and comforting.

• Be sure that you share the sad news with all the important people in your child's life – teachers, babysitters, grandparents. You can tell them what your conversations have covered so far. Constructing an understanding of death is the work of a lifetime, and you have laid a few foundational bricks. Those close to your family may, if invited by your child, lay a few more. At the very least, they will want to commiserate.
• Avoid euphemisms. People use the phrase “passed away” a lot these days, but it has no meaning to a child. Not only is it unclear, but it delivers a vague hope of return. Get comfortable with words like death, dead, died, dying. They won't bite! And definitely avoid using “sleep” as a metaphor for death. This can be scary.
• If the pet who died was young, you won't be able to use the “old age” scenario described in my previous blog. Explain that it's very unusual for young animals to get this sick, and that the illness was quite serious – not at at all like a cold or tummy virus. Tell your child that the doctors tried really hard to make Muffy well again, but she was just too sick. 
• A word about euthanasia: it's really hard for young kids to understand the need to “put down” an old or suffering pet. Naturally optimistic, they see this as giving up. It's nearly impossible for them to understand it as an act of compassion. In this case, I'd just say the doctors tried everything but couldn't keep the pet alive. (This is not untrue. The veterinarian could not, in good conscience, keep Muffy alive.) By the time kids enter adolescence, they might have the maturity to accompany you when Muffy is euthanized. For the older child (I'd say a very mature ten-year-old, at the youngest) I'd check with the vet and give my child a choice about participating. Saying goodbye and seeing the animal die peacefully might be really consoling.
• Unfortunately, a lot of modern, urban kids only experience the sad part of the life cycle. So many of our pets are “fixed” (and IMHO, that's a good thing) that most kids don't get to see animals being born. Look for ways to expose them to this joyous and awe-inspiring part of the life cycle through media, or a visit to a farm, zoo or county fair.
• Kids can be immensely curious about what happens after death. If you are asked, I think it's best to tell your child what you believe. If you have faith in an afterlife, and you hope to be reunited with your pet, say so. If you're a nonbeliever, it may be tempting to paint a picture you yourself don't actually buy. That just kicks the discussion down the road. Also, it erodes trust.  You can say that the pet will be forever in our hearts and minds.  But what if each parent has a different idea of what happens after death? Why not? Each parent can say what (s)he believes while respectfully honoring the other parent's view. In the end, we all choose what and how we believe. Our kids will too.

Here are some really wonderful books about the death of an animal:

Brown, Margaret Wise, The Dead Bird is a classic that simply and eloquently depicts a group of children who bury a dead bird they have found.

Kantrowitz, Mildred, When Violet Died depicts the “appropriate fun, yet honorable funeral for a pet bird [and] uses the cycle of life and the bright future of a pregnant cat.” (Parent review on Amazon)

Viorst, Judith, The Tenth Good Thing About Barney is a realistic, tender tale about a pet cat’s funeral. The neighbor kids in this book disagree about whether Barney is in heaven.

When your child starts asking questions about people dying, or death in general, have a look at:

Grollman, Earl A., Talking About Death, A Dialogue Between Parent and Child is something of a “bible” on this topic. It is really two books in one, a text for children and a companion book for the parent which includes resources, an extensive bibliography and more.

Mellonie, Bryan and Ingpen, Robert, Lifetimes, The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children provides a poetic yet straightforward explanation of the life cycle.

The Death of a Pet

Dear Susie,

Our dog died last night. My sons are just five and 2 ½. This is going to be such a hard conversation! I'd appreciate any thoughts you can share.

Dear Parent,

I'm so sorry! We always had a houseful of pets and I loved each and every one of them. This never gets easier, does it?

As with any  "tender topic," I think the best rule of thumb is to say the smallest true thing you can.  Your child's questions will lead the rest of the way.  You can start with, "Something very sad has happened in our family.  You know that Muffy lived a long, long time. [I sure hope this is the case.  If not, modify. I'll talk more about this in my next post.] She had a wonderful, happy, doggy life. She got very old and finally her body stopped working and she died.  I'm going to miss her so much."

Then let the questions come.  Try to answer them simply and honestly.  Please try not to worry that you may cry during this talk. The topic is sad – and your sadness, though a little upsetting, will make sense to your kids. Crying gives them permission to grieve too. Faking a stoic attitude would create a mismatch between your words and your demeanor.  This would be awkward for both you and your kids. To a certain extent, you will all be comforting one another, which is part of family life and family love. Your child's mirror neurons (related to empathy) will be firing like crazy. That's how we learn to care about, and care for, each other.

Your younger child may be a little baffled by everything about this conversation. For him, the biggest challenge will probably be to grasp the permanence of death. He may ask for Muffy a lot in the coming days. It could take weeks for him to understand that Muffy's not coming back. Your five-year-old may already have an understanding of death as permanent. He could be comforted by starting a little “memory book” of pictures and recollections that you can all contribute to, over time.

I'm a big believer in pet funerals. Doing something simple but ceremonial at home honors life and seals a memory. Let the kids help plan and carry out the funeral or memorial. When I was a little girl, we buried them under my favorite tree, right near my swing. I followed suit with my own kids. (Please don't flush Swimmy down the toilet! It's a clean and practical thing to do, but think of the message it sends.)

Questions may come fast and furious, or very gradually. What kinds of questions might your older one ask? We as adults tend to get past the nuts and bolts of burying or cremating a pet and focus on how sad we are. But for a four- or five-year-old, often the emphasis is on “the science of death.” Is Muffy asleep? Can she feel her body? Is she thinking? I would never liken death to sleep (this can be scary) but sometimes kids who see a dead animal wonder if it's sleeping. If, and only if, your child expresses curiosity about this, point out that death is not at all like sleep. When Muffy was alive, she was doing a lot of things while she slept – her lungs were breathing, her heart was beating, her brain was dreaming, her stomach was digesting food. Now none of those things is happening because her body has stopped working. (A solid understanding of this makes the idea of cremation or burial a lot less upsetting.)

Parents have sometimes told me they didn't want to have small pets such as goldfish or hamsters “because they die.” I would argue that this is one very good reason to have them! Experiencing the life cycle on a manageable scale informs and steels your child for the profounder losses that will follow throughout life. Without suffering loss, a child cannot learn that loss is survivable. Maybe I should state that another way: suffering a loss will teach your child that it's survivable.

The Picky Eater

Dear Susie,

My best friend's little girl, age 2 ½,  is a very adventurous eater.  Also, she eats a good amount at every sitting.  My daughter, who is a little older, eats like a bird and always says "I don't like that" when any unfamiliar food is put before her.  My friend and I share recipes all the time, and our families have similar tastes in food.  What could be causing this?

Dear Parent,

Right up there with toilet learning and oppositional behavior, this is an often-raised topic among parents of toddlers.  Kids in this age range are notoriously poor eaters.  I'd say the “adventurous eater” is the exception, not the rule.  Often I point out two kids at snacktime.  They are about the same height and weight, both equally robust and active.  Yet one eats like a stevedore and the other is – well, in the words of one of my moms, “he's an air fern,” apparently subsisting on airborne nutrients!  It would be nearly impossible to find two grownups with such disparate eating habits who share the same physiognomy and energy level.  What's up with that?

I have to think that Nature protected our hunter-gatherer ancestors by making sure that just-weaned two- and three-year-olds could thrive in times of plenty (without getting too chubby to keep up with the clan) while also being able to subsist when food was scarce.  The gorging stevedore and the air fern may be simply playing out these feast/famine conditions, respectively.  And both kids are fine!

But, since no one seems to worry about the hearty eater, let's focus on why some kids are picky about food.  In some cases, the answer is found in temperament.  Back in the fifties, Alexander Thomas, Stella Chess and others began studying infant temperament.  Their longitudinal study provided concrete evidence of innate personality traits.  This merely provided scientific underpinnings to long-held folk wisdom.  Shakespeare knew it (remember “the four humours”?) and for that matter, so does any parent with more than one kid! 

One feature of temperament, as identified by Thomas and Chess, is Approach.  Approach is about how a person enters into an unfamiliar situation.  For “cautious approach” folks, new foods, new people and new places pose more of a challenge than an opportunity.  These people tend to be that way for life.  Another feature of temperament identified by the researchers is Sensory Awareness.  Kids who are acutely sensitive to sights, smells and textures may balk if the carrots are cut differently, or if the butter on the asparagus is unsalted today.

That said, some toddlers/preschoolers just go through a picky phase.   Some hints on helping a balky eater:

✔     First, try to adopt a blasé, take-it-or-leave-it attitude.  Avoid coaxing and bribing. If you are over-invested, you child can sense this and may try use it for attention and power.  Not pretty!  A toddler's natural obstinacy can extend to the dining table especially if (s)he knows that this is a good way to get your goat.  If I've learned one thing, it's that trying to control either end of a child's alimentary canal (what goes in and what comes out) is a fight you cannot win.  Rely on good vitamin supplements to fill the gaps in the diet.  And vent your frustration on this subject out of earshot of your child.  “He's picky eater” can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

✔     Introduce new foods one-by-one, gradually but consistently.  A daily dose of unfamiliar foods makes this child feel as disoriented and overstimulated as you might be if I dragged you to a different shopping mall every day.  Experts say that you might have to present a food ten or twenty times before the child will try it.  Most parents give up before the child has become sufficiently familiar with the look and smell of the new food to venture a taste.

✔     “Ooh” and “ahh” about your food, saying how much you like it and describing why.  Do this spontaneously and casually, not in the context of persuading your child to try something.

✔     Try eating family style, as in a Chinese restaurant.  Allow your child to choose for him/herself from the community platter, assisting only with transferring the food, and only if necessary. Your child will feel a sense of control and autonomy, which reduces tension around eating. (Yes, you will have a few more dishes to wash, but it's actually thriftier, since food that spends time on someone's plate and doesn't get eaten usually ends up in the trash.  Food left on the serving plate is perfectly suitable as leftovers or for packing in school lunches – right?)

✔     Kids like “cute food.”  Broccoli trees can grow on mashed potato islands.  Sandwiches can have faces, or come in funny shapes.  Use your imagination!

✔     Reframe “I don't like it.”  If this is a new food, you can respond, “Sounds like you're not sure what this tastes like.”  This addresses the underlying uncertainly (while piquing your child's curiosity) instead of focusing on the negative.

✔     Kids are often more amenable to eating foods they helped make or which they can put together themselves.  Enlist them to tear lettuce for the salad, or cut soft (or parboiled) veggies with a plastic serrated knife.  Serve tacos with all the fillings displayed so the kids and can choose and assemble their own customized dinner.  They often enjoy dipping veggies in ranch dressing, apple sauce + yogurt, peanut butter or hummus.  (A lot of kids prefer raw veggies to cooked ones, and what's the harm in that?)  They enjoy decorating an English muffin or pita with food, then baking and eating it.  Or try deconstructing a pizza:  serve veggies, mushrooms, chunks of cheese, salami and bread sticks that they can dip in pizza sauce.  Play with your food!  (Not literally.  If this devolves into messing, say “Looks like you're not hungry” and take the food away.)

✔     Indulge the need for sameness at breakfast and lunch, but don't let a child's limited repertoire completely derail your family dinner.  Having mac and cheese every night just to cater to one person is pretty dispiriting for the others, and it sets the wrong tone – narrowing options rather than branching out.  Maybe you can compromise by having that child's favorite once a week. (We had Taco Tuesdays for about ten years.  Sometimes I thought I would go utterly mad...but it was a night off from grumbling.)  And whatever you do, don't become a short-order chef, whipping up that special meal for one kid.  My daughter was something of a picky eater, and would often turn up her nose at my dinner offerings.  I was not willing to make separate meals to accommodate her.  The rule was, if she decided not to have what we were having, she could eat corn flakes for dinner (the only allowable alternative – the idea was that Plan B should be a single non-negotiable option as well being something she could prepare herself.)  This went on for about five years, but both of us survived. In fact, as an adult she loves to eat – and enjoys cooking more than her mother does!

Touching Mom

Dear Susie,

Lately my son Rafe, who just turned five, has started to want to touch my breasts all the time as he did when he was smaller. I breastfed until he was nearly three. After that he would stick his hand down my shirt for comfort – but then in the last year that totally went away. Now he wants to sneak grabs all the time. It is like a little game to him and I think maybe it is comforting for him in some way.

But I'm not comfortable with it. My comfort level is this:  there are times at home when I say it's okay, that he can touch the top part for a sort of quick pat. They're still there. I have said they are part of mommy's private parts and he needs to treat my body with respect – just as he treats his friends and as mommy and daddy treat him. But I had to hold his hands away yesterday – he was being pretty tenacious. 

We have cuddle time before bed – special time with just me where he gets heaps of affection. He gets hugs and kisses a lot during the day. And he definitely knows not to touch others that way and is very conservative with touching others. He's a rule-follower out in the world.

But because this has increased so much the last two weeks, I just wanted to check in with you. I don't want to shame him. I want him to have comfortable feelings around bodies and sexuality. I want to create proper boundaries. Is he just testing?

Dear Parent, 

What an interesting question! I think your instincts are right on this one. We should be clear with others when something makes us uncomfortable. The key here that the behavior went away and came back. Letting Rafe touch and check in (“they're still there” – hilarious!) was appropriate when and just after he was weaning.

But now he's five and your breasts have changed jobs – they are back to being your private parts. (A couple of years ago you probably would have been unfazed if someone caught a peek of your breast when you were nursing in a restaurant or other public place. But I doubt you'd consider going topless now!) Your talk with him about privacy and respect is right on the money. You're accomplishing your goal without bringing shame into play.

What you've correctly intuited is that a five-year-old boy's interest in his mom's breasts is different in quality than a baby's or toddler's. That's probably why you're uncomfortable with it. Fours and fives tend be very sexualized. This doesn't mean they are lecherous or weird, just highly attuned to sexual differences and immensely curious. This curiosity usually targets the opposite-sex parent. They also try to engage in exploratory play with friends. There's a lot of giggling and pointing, and silly sexual talk. Setting limits as you have done honors your privacy and keeps him from getting overstimulated.

And it protects Rafe in other ways. Having these boundaries means he won't open himself up to a clueless admonishment or shaming comment. (This goes for self-exploration, very common at this age, as well as for touching others.) Over-worry about “stifling” or “shaming” a child can prevent parents from teaching appropriate public behavior. Then those same parents are aghast when Auntie Ruth or an appalled stranger says something really awful to their child. What a mess to have to clean up.

Furthermore, when you set personal boundaries you provide great modeling. Let's say Rafe doesn't like to have his head patted. Because he has been watching you, he will feel comfortable telling people so. He can do it politely but firmly. And because he can do this, he experiences a healthy ownership of his own body. I can't prove it, but I tend to think that giving a child this sense of self-stewardship helps to inoculate him against being exploited.

So keep on keepin' on! This too shall pass...Best, Susie

Post Script: the next day I received the following email from Rafe's mom. Their conversation was so amazing I will close with it, giving Rafe the last word:

Dear Susie...so today there was no “boob grabbing.” I told Rafe I appreciated that and asked him if it was confusing that when he was a baby and toddler he could have my boobs a lot for milkies, and now they had become private parts. He said very reasonably, "It might be confusing if I were a baby, but it's not now. I understand."

Mixed Messages

Today's guest blogger is my daughter, Sarah Meadow Walsh -

     

               I was always pretty sure I would have kids someday.  I babysat, nannied, worked as a camp counselor, and planned for a career in which I could work primarily with young children, completing Master’s degrees in education, children’s literature, and library science.  But when my husband and I found out I was pregnant, and the abstract idea became a reality, suddenly we were both thrown into this new and very unsettling position of not knowing what the heck we had gotten ourselves into!  When it’s your body changing, and an addition to your family arriving in a matter of months, all bets are off.  It can be overwhelming figuring out how to prepare for it.  Unfortunately, there’s a very aggressive and very calculated market out there targeting wide-eyed, unsuspecting new parents, working to convince them of all the things they “need” to keep Baby happy, healthy, safe, comfortable, and intellectually stimulated. 

  It can feel reassuring that someone has done what seems to be the necessary legwork.  Many online retailers go so far as to provide “handy” lists for parents creating a registry so they can just check off items as they go.  But remember – they’re trying to move inventory!  As with any consumer situation, it’s important to take a step back and separate the wheat from the chaff.    For example, almost all of these retailers suggest that a diaper pail is an absolute necessity.  Well, we got a small foot-operated trash can, which we empty frequently.  Problem solved (was there a problem to begin with?)  Here’s another one: wipe warmers. You’d think from how they’re marketed that they are parenting gold.  We thought, hey, our daughter flinches when a cold wipe touches her bum, and who wouldn’t? But then I read online that they only warm the wipes inside the container; once you pull one out to, y’know, use it, it might as well have been sitting in a bucket of ice.  Read reviews, ask friends who are parents, and figure out the must-haves, the kind-of-usefuls, and the don’t-needs.

Some of this you won’t discover until your baby arrives. And a device, brand or lovey that one family can’t live without, you could take or leave.  There are gigabytes of data devoted to this very topic on baby forums and parenting blogs, so I won’t do the rundown here.  But I’ve noticed a few trends lately that have me either scratching my head or downright concerned, and I want to discuss those here.

When our daughter was only about 2.5 months old, my mother-in-law saw a picture of her chewing on her hand with a look of intense concentration, and said, “She’s teething.”  We haven’t yet seen any teeth push through, but the preliminaries have been rough on her at times.  We have a few teethers that we got from our registry as well as some that people found for us, but I decided to do some shopping online to see what else there was.  I came across a company that makes what’s called “Droolery,” a line of trendy-looking necklaces and bracelets in a rainbow of colors that are actually made of silicone and safe for Baby to bite and chew on, so Mom can accessorize with the best of them and still help her little one relieve the pain and tenderness of teething.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  But it got me thinking…this is just one in a very long list of toys and baby items that replicate actual products that adults use or wear.  A teething necklace is handy, but what if Mom puts on a treasured heirloom?  At best, the child puts bite marks in it (this happened to a necklace that was my great-grandmother’s) and at worst, he or she could choke on a bead that comes off.  And then, as babies become toddlers, parents are encouraged to buy plastic “Shaving Kits” and “Fix-it Sets” for boys, and “Beauty Salons” for girls.  Aside  from the overwhelming gender bias of these toys, I find it problematic that these products, while cute or stylish or endearing, might make it hard for children to understand the difference between their toy and a real, potentially dangerous tool.  I wouldn’t be surprised if a child gets confused about why it’s perfectly okay for him to use a plastic razor, but when he grabs Daddy’s,  he gets yelled at and the razor is taken away.  Plenty of parents let their babies and toddlers play with the real pots and pans, and what’s the harm in that?  Well, if their “toys” are on the hot stove, suddenly they’re dangerous.  Same idea.  Little kids have enough to figure out without trying to differentiate between something they can play with and something that looks just like it, but is off-limits. 

For that matter, instead of surrounding kids with toys (and the sorts of things Magda Gerber, the genius founder of RIE, would call “contrrrrraptions”) give them experiences and watch them wonder.  Go for a walk, understanding that it will take three hours to get to the next street over while they inspect every bug, crack in the sidewalk, and stray leaf.  Visit the park and sit back, letting them dig in the sand with their hands instead of a shovel, so they can feel it sift through their fingers.  When they want to pretend to cook, resist the impulse to outfit them with all those costumey accoutrements and take a cue from my brother when he was about 3 years old.  My mom saw him playing in the kitchen and she said, “I should get you a chef’s hat.”  He responded, with an implied eye-roll, “Mom, I’m wearing a chef’s hat!”  Boy, he sure showed her.

Reasonableness

Many years ago, my child and I were enrolled in Pacific Oaks' infant-toddler program. The parent discussion portion of the program was not “instructional” in the programmatic sense. There was no set curriculum, but the conversations (led by a child development expert) were always lively and informative. We were, in every sense of the term, a support group.

A pearl of wisdom shared by one of the moms was something she learned from her pediatrician. Her child's doctor had told her that a good guide about how to respond to a baby or child was “reasonableness.”

Reasonableness? What did this mean? For one thing, it's a moving target. It's reasonable for a newborn to wake you, needing care and attention, multiple times during the night. But a four-year-old? Probably not, if that four-year-old is typically developing and in good health. So our adult idea of reasonableness has to mature and shift along with the growing child. Sometimes we get stuck in old behaviors, catering or accommodating in a way our child no longer requires. If don't up our game, we may be stifling when we mean to nurture.

Babies and very young children don't know what's reasonable. They are completely unfettered by thoughts of “is this a good idea?” Kids don't know about time, money, safety, nutrition or a lot of other concepts that govern our ideas about what's reasonable. It isn't until they are about four or five that they have mastered “the rules” and have developed enough self-control to, say, stop themselves from sneaking that cookie out of the jar before dinner.

The thing is, you can't expect reasonableness from a child – but you can (and should) model it. Often, I hear parents complain of being overpowered by a child's will, moaning “He insisted...”

Really? Your very young child derailed a playdate, or made you late to an important appointment, because he insisted? Sometimes, even when you have taken all the “right” measures, your child is going to be unhappy about events because she simply doesn't understand how important it is to stay safe or to be on time or that there isn't enough money for something. Let's say you have to take your three-year-old to a toy store to buy a birthday gift for another child. You prepare her by describing the purpose of the trip to the store and by reminding her that this isn't a time to buy things for her. Almost inevitably she will see something she believes she can't live without. You try to keep her “on mission” by reminding her about the stated purpose of the visit. She begins to cry.

Oh well. Tears are to be expected in the face of disappointment, but it's not reasonable to buy your child the toy, or even commence negotiating, just because she is upset. It's not either/or. She can be upset and you can stick to your plan. You may have to pay for the gift and carry her out of the store in a very agitated state. After she has settled down, you can retell the story, including how sad and disappointed she felt not to get the toy she wanted. Your resolve is paired with, not compromised by, your compassion.

Bear in mind that whenever you agree to an unreasonable demand, you are tacitly agreeing that the demand is reasonable. This is like telling your child up is down or red is blue. By being compassionate but firm, you help him learn what is reasonable.

A good first step is to agree with your co-parent what is reasonable. That could be harder than it sounds. Even if you need to compromise (creating a hybridized version of your two points of view) just having the two of you on the same page provides clarity to your child. Then be sure to get everyone (carers, babysitters, grandparents, anyone who spends time with your child) on that page.