Punishment without spanking

A mother spanks her little boy with a shoe in 1891. Parents have different ideas about punishment in 2011

Punishment without spanking -- Noël Plummer can't imagine making a conscious decision to inflict physical pain on her 8-year-old daughter as a punishment. She's only slapped her daughter once, without thinking, when her then-5-year-old was having an enormous tantrum.

She's never hit her again.

While she recognizes that physical punishment may encourage immediate fear-based compliance, "I'm interested in my child respecting my authority and decisions, and adopting my values about appropriate behavior," says Plummer, an attorney living in Albany, California. "When I discipline my child, I am teaching her how to behave appropriately."

That's why Plummer uses a rewards system for positive behaviors and regular "time-ins" where she gives her daughter her undivided attention. She also decides what behavior she wants and gives her daughter advanced notice of what to expect -- no surprises in her home.

"It's getting late," she'll tell her daughter in the car. "When we get home, I want you to brush your teeth and get into your pajamas. If you're done in 15 minutes, I will read to you. If not, I won't be able to read to you tonight."

Just like practicing a musical instrument or practicing the backstroke over and over in advance of a performance or competition, teaching our children to behave properly in a variety of situations takes preparation on our part and practice, practice, practice.

Here are some suggestions to get started.

Decide what you want.

Before your child throws a tantrum in the grocery store or breaks a treasured vase, choose the positive behavior you want to cultivate rather than the negative behavior you want to prevent or punish.

Unless you decide to teach that positive behavior -- good manners at the grocery store or handling delicate things with care -- your child will always return to the negative behavior, says Dr. Alan Kazdin, professor psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University, director of the Yale Parenting Center and author of "The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child."

Practice makes perfect.

Once you decide what behaviors you want to cultivate in younger children, play a game of make believe to train them how to behave positively.

It can take anywhere from one to three weeks of practicing the new behavior once a day as a game, but Kazdin says the new behavior will replace the old one. After you praise them effusively and specifically for the good behavior, hug or otherwise touch your child (a teenager may only accept a high-five or thumbs up).

"You have to practice it a little bit, just like the guy (Capt. Chesley Sullenberger) landing the plane in the Hudson," says Kazdin. "Can you imagine someone saying to him, 'There's no need to practice in the simulator'? You have to get this behavior into your child's body, and then it gets into his mind."

Praise the good behavior.

Praise your children making good decisions and acting the way you want. Is your middle-school child actually telling you about a bad day? Say you appreciate her talking to you about her rough day before launching into suggesting a quick fix. Did your toddler put away his toys when asked? Praise him specifically for doing so. Does your kid like to get mail? Send a card telling them you appreciated that he's learned to do his own laundry.

"We try to acknowledge and recognize when the boys do something right, no matter how trivial, rather than always focus on the negative and disciplining," says Erik Botsford, a stay-at-home father of twin boys, age 3. "If the kids are sharing a toy, we always make a point to say 'that's great sharing.' It's regular positive reinforcement of cooperative or positive behavior."

"Time in" is necessary.

The "time out" method popular with parents who don't believe in corporal punishment won't be effective in the long-term if there's no "time in."

"We believe in a lot of talking with our son, and especially a lot of listening to his point of view, and his reasons for doing things," says Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, whose son is 12 years old. "So far that's worked out very well for us. Parents need to keep in mind that the investments that they make in their children in terms of love, emotional warmth and time spent with their children have powerful positive effects on child behavior."

Calm down.

Your child has broken your grandmother's antique rocking chair, and you're so angry you could spit fire.

Unless your child is in harm's way, don't parent while angry (at your child's behavior or anything else).

Unless you want your child to learn to make quick decisions while furious, take a minute to calm down. Taking deep cleansing breaths might do the trick, or perhaps a quick relaxation exercise, says Dr. Robert Epstein, a research psychologist and author, former editor of Psychology Today and father of six children.

"Even just waiting a few minutes can help, because intense emotions usually subside on their own fairly quickly," says Epstein, who developed the Epstein Parenting Competencies Inventory test of parenting skills, available at MyParentingSkills.com. "A parent should never let anger guide his or her parenting. A single slap, insult or shriek can be traumatic for a child and also cause serious damage to the relationship between parent and child."

Know your kid.

Some children act out even more in response to time-outs. Others are happy for the alone time. Knowing what works for your child is key because it may be different than any parenting book's recommendation. Some kids love time-out so would seek it out. Others hate it and would behave even more defiantly.

For Crissi Dillon of Petaluma, California, the most effective punishment she's used for her 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son is to give them an extra chore when either of them misbehaves.

"Neither of them like cleaning but respond to this form of discipline better than having their things taken away," says Dillon, moderator and blogger for SantaRosaMom.com, the parenting blog for the Press Democrat newspaper.

"It helps them to work out the anger they are feeling as they are working. And when they've finished the job, they're done with their punishment. If the job is only half done, they have to do it again." ( cnn.com )

READ MORE - Punishment without spanking

Fiber Beats Other Remedies for Constipated Kids

Fiber Beats Other Remedies for Constipated Kids, Study Says -- Many children in western countries suffer from chronic constipation, and when the going gets slow, fiber seems to beat all other non-drug remedies, new research from the Netherlands suggests.

A review of nine studies with 640 children up to age 18 with functional constipation, which has no known physical cause, found that fiber supplements were somewhat better than placebos at reducing kids' abdominal pain and improving frequency and consistency of stools.

Other common non-drug treatments -- including prebiotics and probiotics, which help restore the digestive tract's balance of "good bacteria," increased water intake or behavioral therapy -- were deemed to be of little use, a finding that puzzles some doctors.

"Treatments we typically use were not, in fact, proven by these studies to be effective. I find that very difficult to believe and put into practice," said Dr. Roya Samuels, a pediatrician at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., who was not involved with the research.

"Anecdotally, that doesn't really jive with what I see in clinical practice. Increasing water intake helps with the improvement of establishing normal bowel habits, and I find it hard to agree with the concrete findings of the study," Samuels added.

Study author Dr. Merit Tabbers, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Emma Children's Hospital in Amsterdam, pointed out that a lack of well-designed trials on children's constipation made it difficult to determine how credible the results really are. The results should be viewed cautiously, said the authors, noting future studies of high quality and uniform standards are needed to obtain definitive answers.

The study is published in the Sept. 26 online edition and the October print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Constipation affects many small kids who eat lots of processed foods. Low-fiber, "white" diets, replete with bread, pasta, rice, crackers and dairy products, are mostly to blame for the 3 percent estimated prevalence of chronic constipation among children in the Western world, experts said. In addition to infrequent stools, the condition is characterized by abdominal pain and "fecal incontinence," or uncontrollable soiling caused by leaking stool.

Over time, chronic constipation may impair a child's development and disrupt psychological and social functioning, the authors pointed out.

Dr. Howard Bennett, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C., and author of It Hurts When I Poop! A Story for Children Who Are Scared to Use the Potty, said the first thing many doctors do is ask parents about a constipated child's diet and suggest either cutting back on white foods and adding fiber-rich foods and supplements, or both. Stool softeners and other gentle medications may also be recommended, he said.

"We can't force a 3-year-old or an 8-year-old to eat a prune . . . so if we cut back on cheese and highly processed foods and increase fruits and vegetables . . . we find most of these kids do better," Bennett said.

Samuels and Bennett said they recommend stimulant laxatives -- which are thought to be potentially habit-forming -- after other options are exhausted.

"By and large, we see these kids pooping," Bennett said. "Often parents won't use enough (medications) or use them long enough. Constipation is not a serious problem, but you have to take it seriously . . . or the ability to evacuate gets worse." ( HealthDay News )

READ MORE - Fiber Beats Other Remedies for Constipated Kids

Children need a firm parent before they need a friend

Children need a firm parent before they need a friend - We all know where a "laissez-faire attitude" to parenting leads, writes Michael Deacon.

Frank Field, the Coalition's poverty adviser, wants school pupils to be given classes in parenting. A needless scheme, you may argue, given that most girls today are already seasoned mothers by the age of 13, but for the few with no experience of raising children, I think it sounds a great idea.

The main problem, Mr Field says, is that parents today have no grasp of "tough love". They fail to "set boundaries for [their] children". I once interviewed a psychologist about this subject – Dr Aric Sigman, author of The Spoilt Generation – and he said much the same. "There seems to be a confusion between being a parent and being a friend," he said. "People want to endear themselves to their children. In our liberal age, it's thought to be much better to have a laissez-faire attitude to children doing what they want than to be authoritarian. But this is a highly destructive trend."

I imagine most of us have witnessed examples of what this "laissez-faire attitude" leads to. I'll list a few of mine. Take the children flinging Frisbees around a National Trust garden, too busy decapitating flowers and trampling beds to notice the signs saying it isn't a play area. "Yes," murmured one of their parents fondly, looking on, "it's so good for them to let off steam."

Frank Field wants school pupils to be given classes in parenting

Then there was the mother who politely tried to coax her five-year-old son off his seat and on to her lap because the bus they were travelling on was crowded, and several elderly passengers were having to stand. The boy said no, so that was that.

Tame stuff, of course, next to the boys who broke a window of a woman's house by throwing stones at it. The woman shouted at them and they fled. The next day the police called on her. Not to ask her to describe the vandals, but because the parents had reported her for intimidating their children.

It isn't just parents who are lenient with unruly children, though. One woman I know saw a boy hurling eggs at a neighbour's house, so she went to the police. After looking into it, the officer said he couldn't do anything because the boy "has social deprivation in his background". The woman was puzzled. "He doesn't know his father," explained the officer.

...

Among the most popular Christmas stocking-fillers these days is the humorous anthology of dim things people say: Dumb Britain, Colemanballs and so on. This year there's one called Universally Challenged: Quiz Contestants Say the Funniest Things. Here's an example from it. Q: "The Ashmolean in Oxford was England's first what?" A: "Indian restaurant."

I enjoy these books but really I'm in no position to laugh at other people's unworldliness. When I was a teenager, I saw a newspaper advert in which a zoo invited the public to adopt an animal. Immediately, I rang up. "Excuse me," I said, "but is it true you want people to adopt your animals?"

"That's right, sir," said the voice at the other end.

"But how on earth," I said indignantly, "can you expect an ordinary, untrained member of the public to raise a baby baboon or armadillo or zebra in their own home?"

...

Today is my 30th birthday, but I should probably lay off the cake and champagne. Last week I had a health assessment. It revealed that my body is 20 per cent fat. For a man my age and height (6ft), the figure should be 12 per cent, or 18 at most.

Human beings are 70 per cent water. Which means, I suppose, that my body is 90 per cent a mixture of fat and water, plus 10 per cent other, unspecified matter.

I'm basically a supermarket own-brand sausage with eyes. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Children need a firm parent before they need a friend

Breastfed babies 'more intelligent'

Breastfed babies 'more intelligent' - Breastfeeding your baby gives them a headstart in the classroom, according to research showing that it raises a child's IQ.

The most comprehensive British study of breastfeeding to date shows that it continues to have an effect on a child's mental ability right through secondary school.

The study of more than 10,000 children from the Bristol area found that those breastfed exclusively for at least the first four weeks of life consistently outperformed those put on the bottle from birth.

Breastfeeding appears to boost IQ, the study found

Researchers at Oxford University and the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) in Essex made their conclusions after "pairing up" children who in all major respects, such as family circumstances and maternal IQ, were identical.

The only difference was whether or not they were breastfed. They then compared each of these "twin" pairs to gauge the difference made by breastfeeding.

Maria Iacovou, a research fellow at the ISER, said breastfed babies had IQs that were on average between three and five points higher.

The results are from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which follows the lives of more than 14,000 mothers who gave birth in 1991 and 1992, and their children.

Ms Iacovou said the data show an effect at aged five, seven, 11 and 14.

"We wouldn't have been surprised if the effect faded with time, but it didn't," she said.

She added that other studies showed there was an effect in the pre-school years. They excluded such information from this study, as in the Avon study pre-school ability was assessed by the mothers, who she thought were "probably a little biased".

She said there were two schools of thought on how breastfeeding had an effect: that long-chain fatty acids in breast milk helped the brain develop; and that the act of breastfeeding improved the mother-child bond.

Numerous studies have shown that breastfeeding improves a young child's health. For example, breastfed infants tend to get fewer infections. However, relatively few have looked at its impact on intelligence.

Ms Iacovou said: "This is more evidence that breastfeeding is good for your baby."

However, while she said that increasing numbers of studies were pointing to the conclusion that it aided intelligence, the theory remains controversial. In 2006 a study published in the British Medical Journal showed it had no effect.

Britain has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. At a week old, only a third (35 per cent) are exclusively breast fed, while the proportion drops to a fifth at six weeks and just seven per cent at four months.

The Department of Health recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed until six months, although many paediatricians say babies should be weaned earlier if they show an interest in solids. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Breastfed babies 'more intelligent'