http://dirtandboogers.com/powerful-way-help-upset-kid-calm-down/
Don’t say, “you’re making me angry”
This is really more of a pet peeve, I have no evidence that it helps or hinders, but what does that say to your child when you say, “you’re making me angry”.
That’s an awful amount of onus to put on a child and it shows by example, you are not in control of your emotions, they are. How do you expect your child to control their emotions and not throw tantrums if you are not in control of your emotions. Instead say, “I’m upset about that”.
There should be a clear delineation between emotions and consequences for their actions. I.E. Don’t say, “I’m angry, you made a mess, go to your room”. Teach them to control their emotions by example. Give them opportunity to correct their actions, make it clear what the consequences are if they continue, and then matter of factly tell them the reason they’re being punished.
I do believe it’s important to teach recognition of emotions. Emotion games, where you make a face and they guess what emotion it is, are fun and helpful, but those are usually caricatures of what real emotions look like. You should state your emotions, this helps you to recognize what you’re feeling as well as helping them learn the emotions. Even as adults we can learn to better recognize and regulate emotion.
We’re all human, we all hit are emotional limits. Practice recognizing before you hit your emotional limits and take a break. 45 minutes of crappy cartoons are healthier than yelling at your kid; for you and your child.
An excellent post on parenting upgrades!
Early Disapline
You can find opinions from Joe, Marge, and experts alike on the best form of discipline and how early it is effective. Before 2 years old, Your baby is essentially operating with a “monkey brain” and fight or flight “lizard brain”. Their “human brain”, the part of the brain dedicated to logic and reason, is not yet developed yet and won’t be fully developed for decades. Anything you want to communicate or teach at this age you will need to speak to these earlier brains.
You basically have five options:
1) Repetition
2) Reward based training
3) Punishment based training
4) Examples
(or 5 some combination)
Repetition. This is honestly one of the most frustrating and effective ways to teach a child under 2. If you want them to learn to do something you help them over and over and over and over. If they reach for something you don’t want them to touch, you move their hand over and over and over and over, every time they reach for it. It will feel like your baby is a robot with infinite patience reaching for something scores of times (or more) before loosing interest in the attempt. Babies have an instinct to try motions and sounds over and over to take advantage of the benefits of repetition. Once you start practicing a motion, putting a spoon in the mouth, crawling, looking when you say their name, etc, it will usually take a lot of time, but eventually you will see them start practicing the motion themselves. If you’re having difficulty, you may be starting too early. You want to wait till you see you baby making similar motions with at least semi-coordinated success. I doubt starting too early will have any detrimental effects (obviously you want to be gentle in guiding these motions), but its unlikely to be very beneficial, of course you’re baby will generally be happy to have any interaction with you. For this to be most effective you should be spending a lot of time with your baby or its possible (I theorize) that your baby will do whatever gets the most attention. Be sure to give the attention to the most desirable behavior.
Reward. There are two types of reward pathways I am familiar with, serotonin and dopamine. Both of these pathways are important and somewhat counteracting. Serotonin is converted from tryptophan (which you have plenty of in your breast milk) and converts into melatonin (in adults, I haven’t been able to clarify if some of these pathways change in children). Serotonin is generated primarily in response to food and touch. Serotonin is responsible for generating the desire for something and satisfaction. Dopamine is converted from tyrosine and into cortisol and is generated in response to interesting stimuli. What is interesting to a baby? I would speculate novel sounds and sights and touches. Dopamine generates a feeling of interest and cortisol solidifies its importance. I don’t think you should scare your baby to solidify their ABCs, but studies done in adults suggest it might work. The more dopamine in your system the more that will be converted to cortisol, so I don’t see any reason to accelerate this, it’s purpose is more to learn when to run from something that can hurt you. If you’re doing a motion (using a spoon), you could sing a song with big facial expressions as the stimulation. If your training for sounds/words, you could play with a brightly colored toy. Then when they eat, they will get the satisfaction from the serotonin spike (that activity is desirable) and as the serotonin is converted to melatonin, they will fall asleep. As they sleep the melatonin will remove the cortisol from the bloodstream.
Punishment. Punishment IS the easiest and quickest form of training, probably why it is resorted too so often, its also the most unpredictable. I am not against punishment, even in children younger then 2, but it should be used RARELY to be effective. I put the line at life threatening activities, i.e. running into the street, grabbing knives. Many people are against punishment, I understand that and there are very good reasons to be. Many people have said, why don’t you just put a fence up instead of hurting your child? Well… what is a child going to learn from that? I think its much better to teach your child than to restrain them so they never learn there are dangers in the world. My opinion is, punishment should be a last resort, you should try repetition first. Walk to the sidewalk, turn around and walk back, walk to the sidewalk turn around and walk back. If they haven’t learned to stay out of the street before they get to running, a swat or yell may be in order. (a well toned yell can often be more effective that a swat). Before they are running a firm hand squeeze is more than sufficient, if they reach for a knife for instance. I was making food with my daughter looong before she was walking, she enjoyed the interaction and stirring is good coordination practice.The issue here is that the punishment needs to come at the EXACT instant the action takes place. You can’t spank them before they enter the street, they haven’t done anything wrong. You can’t carry them back into the yard and THEN spank them, they don’t have the cognitive capacity to connect the events. You need to be right on their tail to deliver the punishment right as they step off the curb. Honestly, in the few times I’ve spanked my daughter, it didn’t seem to be very effective. Don’t spank when you are upset, you don’t want your child growing up with a feeling of fear every time there is conflict, that trauma will follow them the rest of their lives paralyzing them form asking for a raise or standing up for what is right. If you ever need to spank your child it should be with a cool head and afterwards a discussion of why they were spanked. It’s best to decide what the limits are for each discipline. If you can’t control yourself enough to stick to your predefined discipline measures, how can you expect a child to? Don’t worry, you surely will loose your shit at times, and so will your child, just do your best and try harder every day. When you do loose it and throw a tantrum, apologize. I’ve heard people argue that you shouldn’t apologize because that will send the message that it’s OK, or that it shows weakness and you need to maintain an image of discipline… I don’t think I’m making their argument well for them, I’m sure they could say it better. The fact is the damage is done, your kid already knows, don’t set a bad example by trying to cover it up. Set a good example of how they should behave once you’ve made a mistake.
Which brings us to the last option, this is pretty simple and will have the biggest impact on your child’s life. It’s not super effective in the short term, and it’s the hardest to do well in my opinion, but the subconscious behaviors it instills will be permanently lodged in their beautiful little skull. Set a good example. Always every time, set a good example. Be the person you were never able to be before. Be calm and confident. Be courageous and humble. Be loving and sure. Be all the things you want them to be when they grow up, but do it better. Kids who grow up in wealthy homes don’t become wealthy because they get daddies money, they get rich because they learn by example the attitudes and behaviors that make money. You’ll fail, but don’t worry, if you try really hard your kids will be better people than you were, what more could you ask of yourself as a parent, perfection is unobtainable.
Now before any of you who have the urge, comment and tell me I’m an awful person for spanking a kid, I’ve felt it important to spank my kid twice. Once for running into the street and once because I lost my shit. So ask yourself this, what kind of parent feels it necessary to criticize a person they don’t know on the Internet? (cause that’s me I do it all the time, I’m working on it). And ask yourself are you a full time parent? If you are a full time parent who never spanks and never yells at their kids and doesn’t feel the need to brag about their superiority, please brag… And give us some tips!
All polite comments are welcome, especially if you have differing opinions.
Not much to do
During these first few weeks there’s not much to do but hold your baby and watch its uncoordinated attempts and movement and facial expressions (better than any HBO show). But it’s not as though nothing is happening, though it will be months to years before your baby will learn anything fun or satisfying, the things that he/she’s learning right now is extremely important. Babies are programmed for facial recognition and breast feeding, don’t worry if your wife struggles with breast feeding, its very common. There are two main ways to handle difficulty breast feeding, see a specialist (no shame in it, very common), or get advice from everyone and wait till the baby is hungry enough to put enough effort into it.
As your baby watches your face and listens to your voice they’re learning about healthy emotional context. Yes, yelling/arguing around your baby will affect your baby, though a rare argument I doubt will have any identifiable effect you probably want to keep it to a minimum. Your baby is adapting its emotions to the environment it will be growing up in, keep that in mind, do you want a baby adapted for a world of argument and distress (it does have it’s uses) or love and kindness?
The other main thing your baby is learning in the first few months are the precursors to language. Your baby is learning the common language sounds and learning to listen and filter for the sound of your language. You want to talk to your baby often, clearly (NOT over annunciated), and without a lot of background noise.
Singing a variety of songs to your baby right now is good as well. I sang my baby the ABCs and number songs often hoping those words would be imprinted better/earlier. She could sing her ABCs at 8 months, but at 2 years she still can only recognize a few letters and hasn’t grasped the concept of letters making words, while she knows a significant number of shapes and colors. What the difference is between a “shape” and a shape we call a “letter” I can’t guess, but they seem to be different in her brain (which isn’t bad because we don’t really think of letters as shapes anyways). My point is, anything extra you try and teach your baby within the first year is unlikely to have a long term benefit. The best thing you can do is just spend time, smiling with good eye contact, talking and singing to your baby. (And usually when a baby gets hungry enough, even babies having a hard time with breast feeding will latch. It won’t hurt your baby to be hungry a few extra hours, and they do learn, but there are exceptions.)
The moment you become a daddy
I remember my brother telling me a daddy doesn’t become a daddy till he holds his beautiful little baby in his arms. The first time I saw my baby was during the ultrasound… earning her the name jellybean (which all relatives revised to peanut). Second ultrasound, gummy bear. I saw my little gummy bear move and I felt a short lived little *gasp* in my heart. For the most part I felt a little numb, I didn’t really feel anything, I took my brothers words to heart and hoped I would once she was born.
As I stood beside my wife, her screaming and writhing, and watched out daughters head deformed to an egg (with a full head of hair) breach and slide out, it really was amazing. We took our baby and laid her on mommies bare chest and I felt euphoric, not as euphoric as mommy though. During the stress and pain of child birth the human body will create crazy quantities of drugs (natural forms of the best street drugs), and mommy will probably look a little high afterwards until she’s passed out. This is your turn.
Take off your shirt, lay down and snuggle your new baby onto your chest, before they give her a bath or wipe off the vernix if possible (vernix is the white slime all over a new born baby). Your body and the babies body will create a symbiosis of hormones imprinting on each other. Biology is extremely powerful, just like the chemical rush you got when you fell in love with your wife (hopefully) and you couldn’t get enough of being around her, you’ll get a similar chemical rush that will make your daughter the most important creature in the world to you. (Which you may need during the sleepless months to follow to protect your baby from you, you get thoughts of murder when you haven’t slept for weeks on end.) Along with the exchange of hormones your baby will also acclimate to your skin biome, the bacterial flora on our skin is very important, having a healthy balance will prevent unhealthy bacteria from gaining a foothold. Your baby needs these healthy bacteria during the first vulnerable years while her immune system develops. Its perfectly healthy to sleep with your baby the first few months, and you’ll be surprised and how comfortable it will be. (Just don’t drink a lot or take sleep meds, it would be tragic to roll on your baby in the middle of the night, its happened.) The first few days of trying to catch up on sleep, snuggling with my baby, is where I became a daddy.
Your wife will ask for help with the birth plan.
I’m assuming you’re significant other has conceived, or at least don’t expect having any problems doing so. The mechanics are fairly well understood and I don’t have anything to add to it at this juncture. Now there are some difficult times ahead if her conception was recent, just pretend like you are a little dog, happy to do anything for her NO MATTER WHAT! Don’t worry, I broke a few times, trying to explain how unreasonable she was being… my advice stick to the dog routine (it might help if you pant a little). She has crazy amounts of hormones running through her body. Its like somebody trying to explain to you at 15 that it could have consequences to have sex at 15, at 15 sex seems like the best answer to everything. Well, her body is telling her all kinds of crazy things right ’bout now. She’s gotta deal with all that, you gotta deal with her… be the puppy, “yes dear I’d love to, of course, anything you want, let me get that for you”.
She’s probably gonna ask for help and advice on the birth plan, much of this is for moral support, but as moral support you should know enough to make her feel like you are supporting her in this process. Here are my pros and cons on different birth styles. The internet is full of these, especially from significantly more educated people. Whenever someone more educated tries to devalue my opinions (that are usually fairly well founded) I ask them if they’d feel better if I went and found someone with more eduction than them to disagree with them. There will ALWAYS be differing opinions, even among the most educated persons, so you’re allowed to make opinions of health and birth even if you’ve never had a biology class. I’d recommend you read a few more things other than this blog if you want to actually know something about it however.
C-sections are a modern day miracle, I have nothing bad to say about a cesarean any more than I’d have to say about an appendicitis. A C-section is a major surgery. Part of the reason they jump to doing one so quickly is that the liability for surgery is much lower (repeating hearsay). People aren’t supposed to die during pregnancy anymore, but people die often during surgery. I see an unnecessary C-section as an elective surgery. I know this is going to sound gross to many people, but evolution designed children to pass through the birth canal, picking up all those vaginal microbes and come out right next to the anus where there’s another unique culture of microbes. Some doctors would want to wisk the baby away to have it disinfected, of course some microbes in your body could make your baby very ill, on the other hand NOT having some microbes on your baby could make him/her ill in the long run.
Drugs are great. Even with a family I actively participate in (safer) experimental drugs (i.e. phenylbut, racetams, modafinel, etc). The point to remember about drugs is that the human body is extraordinarily complex, and when you take drugs you’re changing it with a sledge hammer… but now there are TWO bodily chemistries involved. In an epidural a small tube it put into your spine so they can administer a numbing agent into your spinal fluid. This is a fairly painful process to begin with, and has in some cases resulted in chronic pain decades afterward. An epidural can also cause the baby distress, causing him/her to poop in the womb, however it has also been shown babies get better oxygen because the mom isn’t hyperventilating. They can also result in a longer pregnancy, so they aren’t the end all best thing ever. Breathing correctly can help reduce pain without the use of drugs, some branches of the military teach breathing for pain and stress management.
Opiates (morphine) in low doses are generally safe for the baby, your body makes natural opiates to deal with pain and stress. However doctors may want to give higher doses of opiates requiring the baby to be administered opiate withdrawal drugs, personally I don’t think this is good. In personal experience (if I can call my wifes experience personal), she had a long pregnancy and they gave her a low dose of morphine hoping it would help her sleep so she could start fresh in the morning… it didn’t. She said it felt like it just inhibited her ability to push and she was up all night and exhausted in the morning (I slept on the couch like a good supporting husband…. HER MOM WAS THERE TOO!).
My personal preference is to find an easy going doctor/midwife, in or near a hospital, that will let the baby come when it comes. That will let things progress naturally, but won’t mess around if theres an issue and will rush you to the hospital when needed. It’s surprisingly difficult to find this, many states are making it difficult or flat illegal for midwifes to deliver babies. (because you aren’t smart enough to make your own decisions, and home-births are more dangerous than a c-section…I jest.) Ultimately you’re gonna have to let her make the decision, no matter what you’re opinions are. But I’d recommend offering some suggestions and as soon as she seems to have decided, support her whole heartedly.
You’re gonna be a daddy, congratulations!
What?!
I’ve been thinking about doing this blog for some time. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, she bought me a book, Dude You’re Gonna Be a Dad. I’m sure its great for some men, but as a nerd who’d seen 3 of my siblings born at home I found it’s presumption that I had no education in womens health and MUST like football… slightly offensive. Though honestly, thats probably many, if not most, men. If you really like football and don’t know anything about pregnancy, quit reading this and pick up that book.
This will be mostly about my ideas and philosophies on raising children. I don’t have a lot of time… so I’ll be doing these during my morning poops (hence the name, it sounds catchy to me anyway). What experience do I have? Not much really, I have a two year old daughter (which means I’ll probably say ‘she’ a lot when I mean a P.C. genderless could-apply-to-your-kid-too term). I did grow up in a big family though, I remember a lot from my childhood. I remember what I liked, what I didn’t like. I remember what helped me and what didn’t. Most of all I remember what I was confused about, greater-and-less-than symbols, IT’S THE SAME THING JUST BACKWARDS, oh poor first grade me.
I was homeschooled and after a valiant effort of structured education my mom fell on ‘Unschooling’? (I might look that up at some point, I really don’t remember, if so that will be corrected and this will be deleted). It basically assumes children are curious and will educate themselves given the resources to do so. A lot of people are REALLY negative about homeschooling, especially unstructured homeschooling, I guess everyone has a team. Admittedly I could have really used some clubs, I wish I’d known about Makers clubs, but to my moms credit she really tried. I have anxiety, though I didn’t realize it as a young’n, and I put up a FIGHT at the mention of going ANY where. However, I taught myself maths through programming video games. I read a LOT of science. I read quite a bit in general and to this day I still love learning. I had a few gaps in my education, though I never figured out what was missing, I didn’t get algebra until I went to college. I didn’t need it, I could isolate any variable by typing it into WolframAlpha. I knew orders of operations from computer programming, but every time I tried an algebra problem, feeling fully confident I knew what I was doing, it would come out with a different wrong answer. When I was lucky enough to get it right, I had NO idea why. So that, and some history, were missing. When I got my GED my scores were good though most of my siblings (also homeschooled) actually did much better. I can teach quantum mechanics and calculous to kids, because I know whats understandable and what will take time and practice. I know no subject is hard to grasp, its just different and sometimes takes time and practice. I know whats important and whats just “busy work”. My point is, this education greatly affects my opinions and I’m preemptively defending it as viable. At the end of high-school age I was as well educated as most high-schooler graduates. I’m taking it one step further and suggesting that through little effort a child will pick up reading, writing, arithmetic and more, just by being, if you behave certain ways. The important things to teach a child are the most difficult, most ignored and hardest to define. Grit, compassion, stoicism, humility.
SO. I won’t be citing sources often, you probably won’t check them anyways. I’ll try to accommodate questions as time allows, but honestly you’ll probably believe it more if you Google it for yourself. If I say something wrong and you have proof, I’ll change it, I’m not dogmatic about most of my viewpoints. However a single study or someone else’s opinion blog (even if that person has credentials) isn’t proof, that’s supporting evidence at best. I’ll update information and insert references as I learn and my mind changes, I’m not a politician, I’m allowed to change my mind. I’ll do this for a while and see if it goes anywhere. I hope someone out in the internets finds it helpful.
Daddy Tips from the Toilet 