Try to step back and begin to question your behaviour

I always dreamt of having a child - I wanted to love someone in the way that I was never loved. I now have my beloved daughter. She is three and a half and beautiful, but she makes me so angry and I can’t cope. I know that having a child is demanding, but she makes me despair. I don’t hit her but I can feel the build-up of resentment towards her, even though I know this isn’t really about her. My parents hit me and I resent them for it - I could never do that to my child. However, I am frightened by the wave of anger that comes over me when I know that she is probably just behaving as a child.
Catherine

It isn’t just our behavioural responses to our child that affect their behaviour but the emotional content of those responses. These emotions are known as projections - feelings from within us that are linked to our own pasts and histories and that we then project on to our child. In effect, we emotionally dump on our children while all they are doing is responding as a child who is developing and learning the rules of the game of life.

I wonder whether, through your analysis of your relationship with your parents, you are left with an understanding of your own history that has left you feeling uncomfortable? These are the feelings that to some degree you have been projecting on to your child. Except that you are taking responsibility for that, so your daughter can carry on being a child. I congratulate you for doing this - it is tough, but is also an essential part of parenting - not using your child as your emotional outlet. You are tolerating the difficult feelings like an adult and not making them your child’s problem.

When you find yourself in a situation with your child where you acknowledge that their behaviour is stirring up such intense emotions in you, try to step back and begin to question your behaviour. In doing that, you will start to build an awareness of how your own emotional issues are being keyed into by your child - many people would say that their child “knows which buttons to press”. These buttons are our insecurities and emotional vulnerabilities, but is it fair to blame a child for pushing them? Do we honestly believe that they are scheming in their little mind to get what they want by profoundly upsetting us? No, they have learnt because we have taught them that certain behaviours give us the greatest problems and in those situations we are likely to give them the most attention.

It’s a mismatch of behaviour and interpretation of behaviour. And the projection comes from your own belief systems about yourself as an adult. If you believe you are a failure, or not good enough, or even worthless, you label yourself in a negative way. The moment your child does something wrong, or something that embarrasses you, or keys into that sense of “I’m a failure” or “I’m out of control” or “I am a terrible parent”, then you will go into meltdown. It becomes about you, when actually children are supposed to make mistakes. If your child’s mistake compounds your negative beliefs about yourself, which are in turn linked to your own childhood or difficulties in your life and relationships, then your child is going to find themselves in the path of a huge response that is completely mismatched to their behaviour.

It’s important for us as adults to accept that we can at times project our own inner feelings outwards, and a very good receptacle for those feelings can be children. It is easy to fall into the trap of pushing our anger, sadness, pain, frustrations and stress on to them and make them responsible for it, rather than taking responsibility for these feelings ourselves and understanding what they are really about. You have this insight already and you are stopping yourself hitting your child - this makes you a good parent.

My advice is to monitor these situations (keep a diary) and work out the specific triggers that set you off.Then, when you see situations about to occur, employ a range of creative distraction techniques when possible. When this is not possible, ignore the difficult behaviour and distract yourself (count backwards from 100 in threes; sing a song).

In the most difficult situations, use the “time out” method, whereby your child is separated from you for three minutes (one minute for each year of life in a safe place such as a bedroom). This allows them to learn that the behaviour will not be tolerated, gives you time to calm down and reduces the chance of hitting. Once you have managed the behaviour, do not bear grudges; move on with the day and praise them for every wonderful thing they do.

Finally, find support about your own history, either through talking about your feelings with those you trust and are close to or by having psychotherapy.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/child_health/article3598236.ece

(…) In the spring of 2004, Sweden was awash with debate about the growing prevalence of so-called “curling parents”. Drawing an analogy with the sport of curling, the phrase refers to parents who rush ahead of their children, frantically sweeping their path clean of even the most minor obstructions.

The phrase was coined by Danish child psychologist Bent Hougaard in a challenge to the perceived status quo. Parents had become slaves to their children, who ruled the roost, rejecting adult authority in all its forms.

The discourse was joined later by “helicopter parents,” a term describing parents who pay very close attention to their children, hovering around them at all times.

In recent months, parenting in Sweden has again been under the microscope, with some 20,000 parents turning to state-sponsored parenting courses for help last year. But the courses are controversial and experts fear a traditionalist backlash.

Critics argue that the courses signify the return of shaming and the naughty step. Advocates however contend that the courses, which focus on behaviour, work.

Is Sweden, proud of a more “enlightened”, cooperative approach to parenting, losing faith in itself and rediscovering a more “traditional”, hands-on approach to raising its children?

Lars H. Gustafsson, paediatrician and author of several books on children and youth, is critical of the broad application of parenting courses and writes that many of the methods taught in courses such as Komet and Cope are not suitable for the average family. Many of the methods are designed for families with serious problems and could be counterproductive when applied universally, he argues.

“I want to emphasize that I am positive to the idea that parents should meet and discuss parenting, but there should be more of a menu of courses that parents can choose between. It is the content that I react against. There is an important distinction between treatment therapy for families with serious problems and the majority of parents that can manage perfectly well,” says Gustafsson.

Agneta Hellström at Cope, just one of the courses available to parents in Sweden, argues that attitudes have changed over the past thirty years and that state-sponsored courses are not as controversial as they were in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The courses are offered to parents and not imposed upon them. In my experience there has been a professionalization of parenthood. In the same way that the owner of a boat wishes to learn to sail, parents wish to learn to develop in their new roles. The courses are very much part of an ‘empowerment programme’ and it is the parents and not the course leader who shape the content.”

Gustafsson agrees that the courses are not as controversial and parents are less sceptical towards authorities today. “They should be though,” he warns, adding that “the recent vigorous media debate is perhaps an indication that there remains a healthy scepticism to being told by society how to be a parent.”

He reacts against the behaviour focus of many of the modern courses and would like to see courses focused more on “interplay,” “teamwork” and “parental dialogue.”

“Along the lines of a French language study circle.”

Methods such as “time out” and ignoring the child have been the focus of much of the debate. The “time out” method is argued by Gustafsson to be reminiscent of the “room arrest” that was once common in parenting. “Room arrest” was cited by the government in 1979 as an example of what could be considered a “prohibited violation of the rights of a child” and thus equivalent to the use of corporal punishment and thereby prohibited by the new legislation.

Sweden was the first country in the world to outlaw the corporal punishment of children, in 1979. In fact the right of parents to beat their children was removed in 1966.

Hellström argues that the “time out” method has been misunderstood. The method, she emphasizes, should be used selectively and only to “break a vicious circle,” in extreme cases, such as when the child is hitting another child.

“Time out is part of the ‘positive reinforcement’ taught in Cope’s courses and does not mean room arrest,” Hellström explains.

“It is important that parents remain in control. Time out is a so-called ’sharp tool’ - a means of breaking a more negative situation and reinforcing a positive one,” she adds.

It was not until after the end of the Second World War that physical punishment and shaming began to be questioned as methods of parenting in Sweden, Gustafsson writes in ‘The return of the naughty step.’

Children’s author Astrid Lindgren created the characters of Pippi Longstocking, Emil, Madicken and Ronja and was influential in embedding new attitudes towards children and parenting in the Swedish popular self-identity that led to a re-think in the 1970s and early 1980s.

“I was part of the process to develop parenting courses in the beginning of the 1980s. The thought was that we would develop a three-stage process taking the child up to school age, but financial concerns came in the way. Even then we were careful to avoid the word ‘education’ and we went for ‘parent groups’ instead,” Gustafsson tells The Local.

Hellström argues that today’s parents are not familiar with the 1970s tradition and seek “concrete, pedagogical methods for improving their daily lives with their children.”

One such “concrete” method is the so-called “balance of trust.” Deposits are made, in the form of praise, gold stars or “quality time” and, later, withdrawals in the form of punishments. Hellström emphasizes that it is important to consider what we mean by punishment.

“If I turn off the TV because it is time for my child to get to bed is that really a punishment? - It doesn’t fit the Swedish definition.”

Hellström compares this “balance of trust” to an employment contract that most adults at some point enter into. “Built on an agreement and most importantly, renegotiable”

The National Institute of Public Health (Folkhälsoinstitutet) has developed parenting courses in a Swedish cultural context. Sven Bremberg at the institute explains to The Local that “foreign” methods such as “time out” have been consciously omitted from its new parenting course material which has an emphasis on “warmth and limits.”

The popularity of parental courses could be argued to be a result of a period of introspection by parents prompted by the curling and helicopter debates. So what of the children?

One might ask whether these parenting courses aren’t more for the benefit of parents struggling to find a balance to “life’s puzzle” in the high-stress, “I want it all” 2000s, than for their children. Children are one more piece of the puzzle needing to be effectively managed; squeezed in alongside a career, a rewarding social life and free-time activities. Hence the focus on controlling behaviour, or perhaps more accurately, output. Gustafsson agrees:

“The definition of normality has narrowed in today’s society. That which was once considered normal is now considered to be deviant. Take sleep for example. Small children sleep badly, that’s normal, but parents today live with such tight schedules they cannot run the risk of their child having a bad night’s sleep.”

“I miss the children’s perspective,” he concludes.

Source: The Local, Sweden
http://www.thelocal.se/10282/20080305/

Researchers have uncovered another damaging consequence of spanking: risky sexual behaviors, or even sexual deviancy, when the child grows up.

Straus, who was the author of all four studies, hopes the findings will raise awareness among child development experts.

“My hope is to convince my colleagues that they ought to put this in their textbooks,” said Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, in Durham. “It’s amazing. Something experienced by all American kids gets an average of half a page in child development textbooks, and not a single one comes to the conclusion that parents should never spank.”

Even the revered Dr. Spock, who was anti-spanking, never came right out and advised parents outright not to do it, he added. Instead, Spock advised “avoiding it if you can.”

A meta-analysis of spanking studies conducted by Gershoff found 93 percent agreement among studies that spanking can lead to such problems as delinquent and anti-social behavior in childhood along with aggression, criminal and anti-social behavior and spousal or child abuse as an adult.

“There’s probably nothing else in child development that has 93 percent agreement in results,” Straus said.

Five percent of people who have never been spanked hit their partners, versus 25 percent of those who were spanked frequently.

However, some 90 percent of U.S. parents spank toddlers, according to Straus.

The review being presented at the meeting are the first to look at the relationship of spanking to sexual behavior.

They found that spanking and other corporal punishment is associated with an increased probability of verbally and physically coercing a dating partner to have sex; risky sex such as premarital sex without using a condom; and masochistic sex such as spanking during sex.

There is a “dose response” at work here. “The more parents spank, the higher the probability of harmful side effects,” Straus noted.

Of course, there’s a similar dose response for smokers. But if someone reaches the age of 65 without developing lung cancer, it doesn’t mean that smoking isn’t harmful. It means the person was one of the lucky ones.

It’s the same with spanking, Straus said. “If a person says, ‘I was spanked, and I don’t have any interest in bondage and discipline sex, that’s correct, but it’s not because spanking is OK, it’s because they’re one of the lucky ones.”

And spanking a child once may be like picking up that first cigarette. “The trouble is, if you have a 2-year-old, you pretty soon decide you can’t avoid it. The recidivism rate for whatever ‘crime’ you correct a 2-year-old for is about 50 percent in two hours.”

“I’ve been researching corporal punishment for 30 years and, in the course of that time, the evidence has accumulated that it doesn’t work any better than non-corporal punishment but has harmful side effects. I have come to the conclusion that parents should never, ever spank because, although it does work, it’s no better than non-hitting methods that don’t have harmful side effects. If there was an FDA for spanking, they’d say use an alternative that doesn’t have harmful side effects.”

Source: U.S. News & World Report, DC
http://tinyurl.com/3crcf2

Once it was taboo. But parents are no longer dismissing corporal punishment out of hand (…)

At lunch recently, a father of four who works in publishing told me he occasionally gives his children ”a clip around the ear”. The threat of minor violence, he said, was the fastest way to get his brood into the people carrier if they were all to get out of the house on time. It wasn’t so much the fact that this otherwise modern thirtysomething father would slap his children that shocked me, but the fact that he spoke about it so openly. A decade ago, he might have been worried that I’d call social services - or at least recommend an anger management course.

In the 21st century, however, discipline is in. Thanks in part to the rise of television programmes about parenting, such as Supernanny and House of Tiny Tearaways, naughty steps, finishing what’s on your plate and strict bedtime routines are back in vogue. And yesterday the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which sets down rules for magistrates and judges, called for leniency in sentencing parents who are brought to court for smacking their children - a sea change in attitudes from just four years ago, when the right to a defence of ”reasonable chastisement” was removed under the Children Act.

As a mother of two, I know how testing small children can be. The closest I came to lashing out was when one of mine almost ran into a busy road. I stopped her just in time, but I was so lost for words, so horrified at what might have happened that a smack felt almost natural - the only language either of us might have understood.

Although I stopped myself before the message transmitted from brain to back of hand, because I feel slapping is a lazy form of discipline, I couldn’t promise I would never lash out. So when friends confess, as many have, that they have hit their children, I find it impossible to be too judgmental.

My generation grew up in a culture in which smacking children was commonplace. Talking to friends, it is clear that they all remember, in vivid detail, when they were smacked. My primary school in the 1970s offered the slipper - in front of the school - or the cane for the very naughty.

Now those days are back - for some families, at least. Smacking is no longer taboo. Yesterday, on mumsnet.com, the popular parenting website, whether or not to smack your child was the hottest of topics. “I don’t, because I don’t like it or find it a necessary way to discipline my children,” said one mother. “But others find it effective and don’t have a problem with it.”

Said another: “I have smacked my son twice and he is four. Both times it was for something quite serious. I have threatened a smack when I have been tired or ill, but not followed through.”

Another exhausted mother explained: “I smacked my seven-year-old disabled child when he was trying to gouge out his father’s eyes, quite deliberately… My husband was strapping him into the car and couldn’t defend himself. Violence with violence. Not great. But I did it.”

Justine Roberts, co-founder of the site, says women are becoming more open about their anger towards their children: “A few people are saying [smacking] is a strategy for managing their children and it’s the only effective one they’ve found. But most admit they’ve done it once or twice in anger but feel awful about it. There’s a huge amount of sympathy for parents who are being pushed to the limit.”

None of my friends needed any persuasion to off-load a little guilt about parental crimes. One, a 37-year-old marketing director, said. “It was three years ago when my daughter was two and I have never, ever forgotten it.

“We were with my husband’s family and we’d had a taxing day on the beach. My daughter was hot and sandy and exhausted and so was I. I was trying to change her nappy and she just would not stop wriggling. Suddenly I lashed out and whacked her on the leg. She was stunned and just froze. She stared at me and all I could see was that she had been humiliated and betrayed. I felt sick and then cuddled her and said sorry. I’m ashamed to admit that I said: ‘Please don’t tell Daddy’.”

Another, a 40-year-old novelist, told me: “One afternoon after school I held on to my 10-year-old and just shook him. I felt very stressed about work and my relationship, and he had broken an expensive toy. I felt terrible afterwards, apologised and promised to myself never to do it again. I think it’s really bad parenting to hit children.”

While some parents may be more relaxed about corporal punishment, Elizabeth Hartley Brewer, an expert in child development and parenting, believes that such attitudes must be resisted. “Children can’t defend themselves verbally or physically,” she says.

Those who have never lost their cool and hit out should not be feeling smug, however. There are, Hartley Brewer admits, worse forms of punishment for children. “Some of those horrible TV programmes have made people proud of disciplining their children, regardless of how they do it,” she says. “I’ve met people who don’t hit but think it’s perfectly OK to make their child wash their mouth out with soap or even eat their lunch naked as a punishment. As for the naughty step, that can be just as damaging as a smack if it is used to humiliate a child.”

Imperial Leather for supper hardly counts as “reasonable chastisement”. Perhaps if modern mothers knew more about such extreme parenting styles, we’d stop beating ourselves up about the occasional outburst.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/yslwgp

Smacking naughty children could help create schoolyard bullies and wife-beaters and should be outlawed, a former judge said.

“In my view, the only way we are likely to break this cycle is to stress from the earliest possible stage that violence is not a solution to anything.”

Mr Nicholson, who was caned by teachers and prefects at Scotch College in the early 1950s, called on state governments to follow New Zealand’s move last year to abolish the legal defence of “reasonable chastisement” for parents who hit children.

In Australia, this excuse has been used successfully by parents accused of whipping a child with implements including a cattle prod, stock whip, dog lead, belts and sticks, of forcing a child to eat cigars, and of tying up a child with a dog chain.

“I am concerned that we will have to wait for some particularly brutal attack upon a child to occur and be publicised before the current torpor of our politicians . . . can be overcome,” Mr Nicholson said in a recent article in the international journal Family Court Review.

Almost 70 per cent of parents, many of whom were hit as children, believe spanking is acceptable discipline.

But Mr Nicholson believes most would change their minds if they knew the probable effects.

NSW passed Australia’s only anti-smacking law in 2001, banning the application of non-trivial physical force.

But even this was a weak compromise sending the wrong message, he said.

A British think-tank last week called for a ban after releasing a study that concluded hitting children, however lightly, increased the chances of anti-social and criminal behaviour in later life.

“Banning parents from any form of physical punishment of children . . . would not only reduce criminality in the long term, but would also send out a message about the kind of society we want to be — one in which violence and physical abuse are not tolerated,” the report said.

Australian Childhood Foundation chief Joe Tucci echoed the call for law reform, but doubted the occasional smack would damage children.

“It’s persistent physical punishment, not the occasional smack, that increases aggressive behaviour among children,” he said.

“But you don’t have to hit kids to teach them a lesson, and it’s time the Government took this seriously.”

But Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said a ban would only create anger and defensiveness among parents, undermining their confidence.

“To make discipline work, parents need to be the boss.

“What we need is parental education and policies that give tired and overstretched parents the time and resources to understand what constructive discipline looks like.

“Try screening positive parenting programs on television at a time when parents can sit and watch.”

Source: NEWS.com.au, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23249497-2,00.html

Think-tank demands ban on hitting youngsters

Smacking children, however lightly, should be outlawed because it increases the chances of aggression and anti-social and criminal behaviour in later life, a new report concludes.

An outright ban would ‘reduce criminality in the long run but also send out a message about the kind of society we want to be, according to the study by the Institute for Public Policy Research.

The think-tank, which is close to the government, also calls for children to be given cognitive behavioural therapy from the age of five, in an attempt to stop them turning into teenage criminals.

‘The evidence shows that the most prolific criminals start offending between the ages of 10 and 13,’ said Julia Margo, associate director at IPPR and author of Make Me A Criminal, Preventing Youth Crime. ‘You need to deal with the problem before it manifests. The biggest risk factor is not their behaviour, but their parents.‘

Instead of punishing young children with anti-social behaviour orders, specialists should look into whether their parents were condoning delinquent behaviour, Margo argued. She called for ’sure start plus’ centres for children aged five to 12, through which parenting classes, one-to-one reading sessions and counselling could be carried out.

But Margo said a total ban on smacking would also reduce the number of children turning to crime. ‘There is a lot of evidence that children who are smacked regularly - once a week - are more likely to develop aggressive personality disorder,’ said Margo. ‘Hitting a child teaches them to act out on emotional impulses. We need to give out the message that children should be nurtured and taught to manage their behaviour. We should ban corporal punishment properly.’

It is currently not lawful for a parent to smack a child if it leaves a bruise but a lighter smack or ‘reasonable chastisement’ is allowed.

It is a policy that many doctors oppose. ‘This is an extremely important report,’ said Rosalyn Proops, the child protection officer at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. ‘Like all people, paediatricians have a variety of opinions. However, the majority believe that all forms of smacking are an assault of a child and should not take place.‘

But others argued that making smacking illegal would be unfair on those parents who did not know how else to punish their children.

Alex Griffiths, an educational psychologist, said any ban would have to be met with an educational programme: ‘My worry is that before it can be made illegal parents need realistic alternatives as to how they should handle their children. Otherwise, a large group of people, whose children are out of control, will be left with no sanctions whatsoever.’

Parents, meanwhile, congratulated the government for not banning smacking completely. Andy Hibberd, co-founder of the Parent Organisation, said: ‘If you can reason with a child in any other way then you should. But can you reason with a two-year-old who is reaching for a hot pan? Parents should be able to use a smack as a sanction - not in a way that will injure a child. Sometimes a short, sharp slap is a reminder to the child.’

A spokeswoman for the Department for Schools and Families said they were not prepared to change the laws on smacking, arguing that violence against a child was illegal but decent parents should not be criminalised.

Source: The Observer, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/10/children.justice

Children who live in poor neighborhoods may be at increased risk of verbal and behavioral problems. A new study suggests that for some of their parents, living in poor neighborhoods is associated with poorer mental health, poorer family relations, and less consistent and more punitive parenting. The study aimed to determine the relationships between neighborhood characteristics and parenting, and between parenting and children’s preschool performance.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Ottawa, Johns Hopkins University, the University of British Columbia, and Statistics Canada, the study appears in the January/February 2008 issue of Child Development.

“This study does not show that poverty leads to bad parenting, which in turn leads to poor outcomes in children,” according to Dafna E. Kohen, adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa, senior research analyst at Statistics Canada, and the study’s lead author. “Rather, this study shows that in neighborhoods where there is socioeconomic disadvantage, children’s verbal and behavioral outcomes are influenced by poor parental mental health and parenting behaviors.”

Children’s neighborhoods play an important role in their development, yet little is known about how the characteristics of those neighborhoods affect young children. Existing research suggests that children who live in poor neighborhoods are at greater risk of problems when entering school and of behavioral and emotional difficulties. This study goes beyond the existing evidence to explore characteristics of neighborhoods and how those characteristics relate to the well-being of parents and children.

The study examined 3,528 preschoolers from a nationally representative sample of Canadian children. Specifically, the researchers looked at characteristics such as neighborhood cohesion, or the sense of trust among neighbors, and the sense of community organization (whether or not residents can get together to address community issues or problems, for example). They also looked at family factors such as mothers’ mental health and how families function, and parenting behaviors such as reading and discipline. And they measured the children’s verbal ability and assessed how their parents rated their children’s behavior.

The researchers found that there is less neighborhood cohesion or mutual trust in poor neighborhoods, which, in turn, can be associated with poorer mental health in parents and greater family dysfunction. Furthermore, these factors are associated with less consistent and more punitive parenting, the study found. Punitive parenting is associated with a greater incidence of behavior problems in children. Families living in poor neighborhoods also are less likely to read to their children at home, and children who are not read to by their parents have lower scores on tests of verbal ability.

“Findings from this study demonstrate that the impact of living in a disadvantaged neighborhood exerts its influence through both neighborhood and family mechanisms,” according to Kohen. “Children benefit from parents who are physically and emotionally healthy and live in safe neighborhoods where they trust their neighbors. Among the implications of these findings are community-based initiatives to promote literacy activities and parenting behaviors for the healthy development of children and their families.” (…)

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/sfri-pni020108.php

Mothers lacking confidence are likely to also be dysfunctional parents who hit their children or shout at them, a study has found.

A survey of 126 Australian mothers of toddlers aged 18 months to three years found a lack of confidence — rather than out-of-control children or financial stress — made it harder for them to cope.

University of Queensland researchers Dr Alina Morawska and Prof Matt Sanders have called for parental education to include ways of raising the confidence of parents.

“Mothers who felt more confident reported less dysfunctional parenting and less stress, and there was a trend for fewer child behaviour problems,” the researchers say in Child magazine.

“Often parents have adequate knowledge and information regarding appropriate parenting strategies and child development; however, they may lack the confidence to be able to implement this knowledge.”

Their earlier research also showed dysfunctional, coercive parenting practices were common, with more than 70 per cent of parents saying they were likely to shout.

More than 40 per cent had given a single smack with a hand to deal with child misbehaviour, the research showed.

But dysfunctional parenting has little to do with child behaviour and a lot to do with the emotional state of the parents, they believe.

Their recent study also found mothers worried most about whether their parenting style would spoil the child, their ability to manage the child’s aggressiveness, limiting destructive behaviour and coping with a tantrum. (…)

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23153890-662,00.html

Lessons on how to discipline young children using “Supernanny” techniques have no effect on how naughty a child is, researchers claim.

A study showed that modern methods of discipline, such as those popularised by the child care expert Jo Frost in her Channel 4 television series, Supernanny, did little to improve behaviour and mothers were equally stressed regardless of how they disciplined their child.

Parents who were told to praise and distract their children rather than shouting or smacking them found that their offspring were just as badly behaved by their second birthday as any other child.

The research, carried out at the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) in Melbourne and published in the British Medical Journal Online, involved 733 mothers with eight-month-old children.

They were divided into two groups with half of the women bringing up their children as they chose. The others were given parenting classes devised by the CCCH and Parenting Research Centre.

The classes, which ran from children between eight and 15 months, tackled issues such as how to overcome defiance and aggression and encouraged parents to praise their children when they had done something good instead of criticising them when they were bad.

Both mothers and children were assessed when the child reached 18 months and 24 months.

The researchers found that by the age of two, there was no improvement in maternal distress or toddler behaviour.

The authors, who claimed that the study was the first of its kind to examine children from all social backgrounds, said that their results showed there was little point in introducing behaviour classes for children under the age of two.

Research suggests that behaviour problems affect up to 20 per cent of children and if left untreated, up to half of behaviour problems in pre-school children can develop into mental health problems in later life.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/ywddhv

(…) According to Marks, a parenting instructor and hypnotherapy expert in Pacific Palisades, kids of all ages want their parents to set - and enforce - reasonable boundaries.

While that sounds like common sense, it runs counter to some of the liberal doctrines of recent decades, when parents worried that practicing discipline would bruise their kids’ self-esteem.

But experts also note that it doesn’t mark a return to the authoritarian parental role that sparked the revolution in family dynamics.

“We learned that spanking and corporal punishment were a problem and then we swung the pendulum too far,” said Bette Alkazian, a mother of three and a licensed marriage and family therapist in Westlake Village.

Over the past few decades, she and other experts have seen people who grew up in a strict environment raising their own children with few, if any, limits on their behavior. The effects of that ultra-lenient style are surfacing, as parents seek help in coping with rabble-rousing preschoolers, insolent teens and self-absorbed college students.

“Punishment and rewards are both a form of control,” said Dr. Aletha Solter, director of the Aware Parenting Institute in Goleta. “The problem is that neither of them lead to true self-discipline, and they don’t teach children real values.”

Experts say many parents turn a blind eye to inappropriate behavior because they don’t want a confrontation with their children.

“There are parents who watch their kids hit during play and say, ‘Well, they’re only 3. They don’t know any different,”‘ said Kimberley Clayton Blaine, a licensed therapist who runs the parenting Web site TheGoToMom.TV. “I would say 40 percent of parents do not respond to violence.”

Other parents are allowing their kids to make decisions that they themselves should be making.

Diane Clarridge, director of the Growing Place in Westlake Village, recalled hearing a parent ask a 4-year-old to decide if he should attend the preschool three or five days a week.

“You get the feeling that they don’t want their children making scenes, so they give in to the child,” Clarridge said. (…)

Indeed, most therapists say it’s never too late to change behavior, although it gets harder after the child turns 5.

“Parents need to be parents, not friends,” Alkazian said.

Source: Daily Breeze, CA
http://www.dailybreeze.com/lifeandculture/ci_8121441