Strollerderby : stress and kids

Mom Arrested for Biting Slow-eating Son

Jen Chaney — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:58:00 GMT

Trying to get two kids ready for school in the morning can make any mother frustrated. Apparently one in Florida got so annoyed last week that, as the St. Pete Times reports, she bit her 5-year-old son on the cheek. Now she faces a charge of child abuse.

The mom, identified as Zhifang Chen, allegedly was angry with her son for eating his breakfast too slowly. She told police she "was just playing around" when she bit the boy, but his teacher reported the incident because the child had visible teeth marks on his cheek when he came to school. Chen is being held in jail without bond; the story doesn't say where the children currently are.

Clearly, most of us probably wouldn't characterize a bite that severe as "playing around." But I dare say that many of us have occasionally gotten mad enough at our kids to find ourselves teetering on the line that separates in-control parents from ones who totally lose their cool and do something regrettable.

In those situations, what do you do to stay calm (besides, you know, opting not to sink your teeth into your child)? I'm a big proponent of something I'll call inside-voice cursing: pausing for a moment, closing your eyes and screaming curse words in your head where, unless your son or daughter is one of those weird, telepathic kids from some lousy horror movie, the little one can't hear them. Yeah, it's kind of lame. But as an anger management technique, it sure as hell beats biting.

They Say: Early Childhood Stress Negatively Affects Health for Life

Shannon LC Cate — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Parents of children adopted as older babies or toddlers from institutional care settings have a lot on their plate. They have to assess the child's immediate physical needs which could include malnutrition, undiagnosed diseases and developmental gaps, all depending on the quality of care the child has been receiving and for how long. In addition to these physical concerns, adoptive parents of older children must work hard to create safe, nurturing environments and healthy emotional attachments for their kids.

The good news is that thousands of parents do this all quite successfully every year.

The bad news is that researchers are beginning to suspect that even once these things are addressed, children who began life in stressful conditions--particularly institutional care--have ongoing, lifelong health concerns.

The alarming study found that:

"Even the health of children adopted before the age of 3 who then spent more than a decade with their new families was no better than the health of children who had spent their entire childhoods in abusive families."

The study was done at the Child Emotion Laboratory in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman Center by Seth Pollak, Elizabeth Shirtcliff and Christopher Coe. It measured immunity by comparing teens adopted from institutions as young children, teens raised in abusive families and teens from a control group. By comparing the teens' levels of antibodies for the herpes simplex virus, they found that children living in abusive situations and children living in healthy families but with a history of institutionalization had similar immune responses to the latent virus.

The researchers conclude that children under stress have compromised immune systems, putting them at risk for other health problems throughout their lives.

Hopefully, learning about this phenomenon will help doctors whose patients have these kinds of early childhood stress histories. Researcher, Christopher Coe advises the thousands of international and foster-adoptive parents out there to "go into adoption with your eyes wide open...[and] love these children. Give them all the support they need."

Disabled Children Removed from Care of "Compulsive" Foster Mom

image: gleasonworks.com

They Say: Forward-Facing Stroller's Bad for Baby

JeanneSager — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:05:00 GMT

What great timing. In the middle of an economic meltdown (yeah, we know, another mention - sorry, we had to), a study out of Dundee University in Scotland will have parents casting aside their $1,000 strollers. The new must-have? An old-fashioned pram, the better for leaning over and cooing in baby's face. The better for baby's emotional and language development down the road, they say.

I say poppycock.

The study specifically states forward-facing strollers keep kids from interacting with their caregivers, making the children less likely to talk and laugh. How'd they come up with this? They followed nearly three thousand parents and came up with an experiment for twenty. Those twenty babies were pushed in forward-facing strollers for half a mile, then turned to face their parents for another half mile. Face-to-face, the parents were more likely to talk to their kids, and the kids were more likely to talk back. What's more, the scientists say the baby was twice as likely to fall asleep facing Mom and Dad.

Maybe because they were bored?

Kids see their parents all day long. What they don't get to see out of the old pram is the world around them. They don't get to watch a dog sniffing the ground or the way a shopper swings his bag in time to his own steps in the mall. Ever notice how quiet a kid gets when they're getting into trouble? When their minds are at work, kids often shut off the volume so they can concentrate on imagining. Could explain why babies who have something better to look at than the same old Mom face they're used to seeing are staying mum. Could explain why they're staying awake too - there are too many new things to see.

Researcher Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk of Dundee says the study suggests forward-facing babies are experiencing a life that's "emotionally impoverished and possibly stressful." I say she's just putting more undue stress on parents.

But who am I to say anything? It's getting too quiet in my living room - I have to go check on my emotionally impoverished daughter. I think she's up to something.

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They Say: Parents Who Use Forward-Facing Strollers Treat Their Kids Like "Accessories"

Yo, Yoga For the Kiddies

Kelly Mills — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Have you heard? Kids these days (cue grandpa voice or concerned reporter voice, depending on your preference) are too sedentary, they plug into video games all day long, they are completely stressed out by all the pressures of school and overscheduling and the constant barrage of media reports saying kids are going to hell in a handbasket ahhhhh!!! Which makes this the perfect time for kids to become part of a trend that celebrities and gyms have been lauding for a while now: Yoga.

This article is on the phenomenal success of the YogaBugs program, and while I generally enjoy nothing better than teasing new trends, I do think yoga is totally great for kids. We had an awesome teacher at my kid's preschool (where I live, yoga is almost mandatory, like organic food and free expression and ugly yet comfortable sandal-shoes.) The children love making hissing noises as they do cobra pose, and barking like (downward) dogs. And it's a great way for kids to develop things like awareness of their bodies and the ability to regulate breathing and relaxation techniques. Sounds like it's doing pretty good business too.

Photo: Reuters/Kimberly White

Your Holiday-Stress Affects Your Kids

Karen Murphy — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:33:00 GMT

Hey! Isn't it great to know that everything you do is watched by people who file every little thing away in their huge complicated computers?

And no, I'm not talking about these annoying people who make studies that blame all our kids' problems on the parents. No, I'm talking about your kids. Our kids, because we all have the same situation: kids pick up on what we are feeling in everything we do and are affected by it.

Hmm, I'm not sure why this is exactly news. After all, you're affected by how people around you feel, right? So of course kids are. And the stress that comes around this time of year, they feel that too.

Me, I feel some weird internal pressure to create an event this time of year that everyone will be happy with, to create magic for my kids, so I worry about anal little things like which wrapping paper to use on certain packages, and whether Santa's handwriting should look a whole lot different from mine, and where the hell is Santa going to find the SAME little chocolate Santas to hide them around the house for the kids to find, and, and, and.... And I realize that this is wholly an internal pressure and likely the kids don't care that much, but on the other hand, kids are tied to and grounded by family traditions, samenesses they can count on from year to year, and frankly there's already a whole lot of upheaval in their lives as it is so I'm reluctant to let go of those traditions just yet, but managing them is, you know, stressful.

And kids feel that.

Obviously, there can be tradeoffs. And it's not like I go to the crazy lengths that I hear of some families doing, either ("Reindeer tracsks! On the roof! C'mon kids, let's go look!"), but on the whole I like to think more about time spent together and less about things that don't matter that much, like which cookies we make. Or even if we make them at all.

So if you're looking to create a holiday that's less about stress and more about your family, there are some ideas here. The ones I like were these:

1. Find out what aspects of past holidays your kids liked best. The things they think of as important may not be what you thought.

2. Let the kids do more of the work. Oh, I am so on this one. If they want cookies? They'll have to make them.

3. Be sure to get outside a bit. Excellent idea; we forget that in colder weather. Bundle 'em up and shove 'em out the door.

So, what do you think? What have you backed off on, in the interest of preserving your holiday sanity? Or do you go all-out?