Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for February, 2008

Of particular importance, but sometimes overlooked, is talking to your children about how they feel.  By the age of three, children have a wide range of emotions available to them: they feel afraid, mad, sad, and glad.  While children may not have exactly the same meanings for these feelings as adults do, children can learn to label and identify “good” and “bad” feelings.  Don’t underestimate their capacity for understanding emotions and feelings. 

Parents can help their children develop a language for expressing and dealing with feelings by giving the feelings names.  While doing so, parents have a responsibility to manage their own feelings to help children deal with theirs.  Sometimes our own childhood experiences creep into how we handle emotions with our children.  For all of us, there are some feelings that give us trouble.  For instance, difficulties with such feelings as anger and aggression may spill into our parenting.  If we cannot tolerate angry feelings, we might try to prevent our children from displaying anger by saying “That’s no reason to be angry!”  when in fact a child may have good reason to be angry.  Through the use of play, you can provide children with some emotional avenues for anger, fear, and anxiety.

A Self-Concept Emerges

Between their second and third birthdays most children become fairly competent language users.  They readily use the personal pronouns “I,” “me,” and “mine,” particularly to defend ownership of their toys and possessions.  They have great difficulty letting anyone else play with something that is theirs.

Around this time, your toddler can refer to himself by his own name.  Sometimes, when playing with dolls or superheroes, your toddler may reenact earlier events.  Different roles may even be assigned to the dolls.  If you sit down and play directly with your toddler, you can get a glimpse of the inner workings of his mind.  This glimpse may be both delightful and unnerving, since you may observe firsthand how your child views your parenting style.  Many parents have heard their sweet little girl harshly send her favorite doll to her room because she didn’t “behave.”

By three years of age, your child has a good sense of “me” and “you” and of “self’ versus “non-self.”  With better cognitive capabilities and a wider repertoire of experiences, the three year old has internalized memories of the significant people in his life-his parents.  As their sense of self grows, children’s personalities become more representative of what they will be like as they grow older.  Preferences and dislikes are readily displayed in how they react with the world: for example, some children already prefer very physical activities, while others choose quiet, sedentary play.

Imagination is especially wonderful and exciting to watch develop in your child.  Through the windows of your child’s play and the talking he does to himself, you can actually follow your child, the “movie director,” casting a set of characters into their various roles.  Fantasy develops along with your child’s more sophisticated knowledge of the world, although he cannot yet differentiate fantasy from reality.

Some children have such great imaginations that they tell the most unbelievable stories-and sometimes get in trouble for doing so.  One child we know had an imaginary friend; whenever he did something really bad that he didn’t want to catch the blame for, his imaginary friend was there to cover for him.  Usually, the presence of an imaginary friend is just a sign of a healthy, imaginative child.  But imaginary friends can become too powerful; they can interfere with your child’s ability to accept responsibility, can be present to the exclusion of other friends, and can do all your child’s talking.  Luckily, this doesn’t happen very often.  If you are concerned about your child’s imaginary companion, you may want to consult with a professional.

By three, your child has internal pictures of the people in his world.  The television shows he watches, and daytime events.  The world is no longer viewed as a place as filled with magical powers: cause and effect relationships are becoming explainable to him.  Earlier, his parents were omnipotent; now there are some chinks in their armor.  Before your child was able to connect cause and effect relationships, he thought things happened because of the things he did.  Imagine how powerful and scared a two year old might feel if he thought he caused lightening to appear.  This kind of thinking takes years to change into the logical form it will acquire in adulthood.

Myths about giftedness permeate our culture. The prevalence of these myths can result in a variety of problems for you as the parent of a gifted child and for your child. Among the most common myths are the following;

1. “Every child is gifted”
2. “Gifted children are easy to raise”
3. “Gifted children are nerds and geeks”
4. “Gifted children are strangely manipulative and grow up to be white-collar criminals”
5. “Gifted children are so intensely emotional that they cannot exist in the real world. Often they commit suicide because they feel so tortured”

Society flourishes and moves forward because of individuals who have a vision, genius, or talent that enhances or improves our understanding of ourselves and of the world. To create a context where this can happen, it is imperative that talent, creativity, and genius be discovered and nurtured in our children. Schooling and the understanding of child development are the keys to developing gifted potential. Unfortunately, gifted education is neglected. The development of gifted children puzzles and concerns parents, educators, psychologists, and other mental health professionals.

General confusion about which children are really gifted stems from both the prevalent myths and the fact that there is no working definition of giftedness. Clearly, and unequivocally, giftedness is today misunderstood misused as a psychological educational construct by parents and educators.

A General Definition of Giftedness

Since psychology became recognized as a science in the 1850’s, psychologists have tried to demonstrate the existence of giftedness as a psychological phenomenon. Researchers have used twin studies for more than 150 years to prove that giftedness not only exists, but that intellectual potential is genetically determined. Although there are flaws in this genetic research, there are nonetheless conclusive indications that intellectual potential has roots in the child’s genetic endowment. Culture, environment, and parenting, contribute significantly to the giftedness laid down in the child’s genetic makeup.

Just as researchers disagree about what makes a child gifted, so do parents and educators. When I talk to persuasive and positive parents, I can totally understand why some have difficulty getting a grip on what is distinctive about a gifted child.

Only the top 2 percent of children on the bell curve qualify as gifted, while only 1 in 100 is considered highly gifted. But another part of me, the “grandmom about town,” knows that her words have a ring of truth if you hear them through the perspective of positive or naïve parents.

Why do most parents want to believe their child or children are gifted? This leap of faith is natural, healthy, and well meaning. Parents should believe in their children. From a psychological perspective, our children represent our hopes and dreams. By believing in your child, in essence, you believe in yourself and your capacity to create and nurture. Effective parents will at different times, see their son or daughter as talented, capable, brilliant, charming, and able to accomplish he or she wants to do.

Fighting usually centers on wanting to have a toy that someone else has.  Aggression is a normal part of growing up and may be related to our survival instincts.  Most children are fairly aggressive when trying to defend their belongings and themselves.

There are no easy answers for how to handle excessive aggression.  However, it certainly doesn’t make sense to the child or to the parent to handle aggression with aggression.  Imagine this scenario: Two sisters are fighting over a toy.  One parent comes in and yells at them to stop fighting, and hits one of them because the child won’t give the toy back.  What does this teach the children?  There’s quite a mixed message here-it’s all right to fight and to hit, but only if you are bigger and more powerful than your adversary.

Parental handling does influence how aggressive a child will be.  Children in families where physical violence, such as hitting or spanking, is used as punishment generally turn out to be more aggressive than other children.  The least aggressive children come from families that are nonpunitive, nonpermissive, and nonrejecting.  The parents in such families are consistent in their handling of aggression.  They don’t use physical punishment or unnecessarily harsh language.  They set firm and clear limits as to what is expected of their children, and they are accepting of their children.

Consistency is important in whatever intervention techniques you use in dealing with your child’s aggression.  A useful technique is to remove the child from the fight and isolate her for a few minutes.  Quick handling of the situation, before the fighting gets out of hand is helpful.  Once your two year old can talk, asking her to talk about how she feels or what she wants will help her learn to express herself verbally instead of physically.

Sometimes providing your child with an outlet foe her pent-up energy helps reduce the level of her aggression.  Particularly in wintertime, just as with adults, active physical exercise will help release the tension and reduce the level of stress.  Imaginative play also helps to work through aggressive tendencies.  The age old fairy tales can be used to work through some anxieties.  Parents can capitalize on the child’s imagination to help work out conflicts. 

More than half of all newborns have some type of birthmark.  The most common skin blemishes are red, flat areas on the forehead, upper eyelids, upper lip, or back of the scalp and neck.  These are often called “stork bites.” They are not caused by trauma during birth.  Although they may be extensive, they usually disappear during the baby’s first year of birth.

“Mongolian spots” are blue-black discolorations on the lower part of the back and the buttocks of newborns. They look like large bruises. They gradually disappear and are almost always gone by adolescence.

Strawberry hemangiomas affect ten percent of all babies.  They are usually not present at birth, but appear during the first few months of life.  They are red, usually raised, and may be up to two inches across.  They continue to increase in size, perhaps a few years, and then gradually shrink and disappear by age five or six.  They are an accumulation of blood vessels lying just beneath the skin.  If the overlying skin is broken, they may become infected. Except for infection, they rarely require any treatment.  It’s generally best to leave them alone; in rare cases, surgery may be needed.

Port-wine stains are smooth, flat and purplish.  They often are quite large and may be anywhere on the body.  Unfortunately, these birthmarks don’t fade.  Currently, there is no effective treatment for them in children younger than twelve years of age, but laser treatment is often possible in older patients.

The most common type of birthmark found in children and adults, the common mole, is not often seen in newborns.  Moles tend to develop as your child grows.  Most children will have ten to fifteen moles by adolescence.

From birth to about four to six months of age, your baby is only able to suck and swallow liquids.  His ability to take food from a spoon begins about the fourth or fifth month.  During these early months and for the whole first year of life, the very beat food for your baby is breast milk.  Breast milk provides just the right blends of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, and calories.  It also contains enzymes to aid digestion and minerals, such as calcium and iron, in a form which they can be almost completely absorbed by your baby.  Breast milk contains antibodies, which help protect your baby from infections and disease.  If your baby is exclusively breastfed, the incidence of allergy is greatly reduced.

If your breast milk is your baby’s only food, certain vitamin supplements may be recommended.  Your baby will probably be given vitamin K at birth, by injection or orally to protect him from hemorrhage.  Vitamin K is necessary to help blood clot.  If your baby has limited exposure to the sun, he may be given a vitamin D supplement.  Your baby’s doctor can discuss this with you.

Fluoride supplementation is a controversial issue.  Experts disagree about whether it is necessary or advisable. You should speak to your baby’s dentist about this.

Iron supplementation is not usually necessary for a full-term, healthy, breastfed infant.  The iron stores your baby accumulated in the last months of pregnancy in addition the iron obtained in breast milk should be sufficient until he gets iron in his diet in the second six months of life.

If you do not breastfeed, a commercial formula is recommended for the whole first year.  If you bottle-feed, your baby needs no supplements at all.  All the vitamins and minerals he requires are present in the formula.  Fluoride supplements may be suggested if the formula is reconstituted with water containing less than 0.3 part per million of fluoride.

During the nursing period, babies are generally fed milk on demand.  Breastfed babies will probably feed more frequently since breast milk passes readily through the digestive tract. You can expect to feed your breastfed newborn eight to eighteen times a day.  As he grows older, the number of feedings may decrease as he becomes capable of taking more milk with each feeding.

Bottle-fed infants often feed less frequently than breastfed infants because formula is not as readily digested and tends to leave the stomach less quickly.  Whether you feed your infant on demand or on a schedule, be sensitive to when he is finished feeding.  Even though it’s tempting to have him finish the bottle of formula you have prepared, do not force him-be careful not to overfeed him.

Some foods should be avoided during this period.  They include cow’s milk, skim milk, 2% milk, and homemade soy milk.  All are high in protein and mineral content.  The metabolic by-products of these would stress your baby’s kidneys, causing your baby to become dehydrated.  Skim milk lacks the essential fatty acids necessary for the development of the central nervous system and the vascular system, and it does not provide enough calories for growth.  Goat’s milk is dangerously low in folic acid, and if it is unpasteurized, it may be contaminated with disease causing bacteria.  Homemade soy milk contains no vitamin K and inadequate calcium [placing an infant at risk for rickets]

Solid foods are inappropriate before four to six months of age since your baby cannot digest and use the starches contained in such food as baby cereal.  Starting your baby on solids too early may cause diarrhea, impair growth, increase the likelihood of obesity, and increase the incidence of allergy.

Honey is another food that should not be given to your infant-in either raw or cooked form-during the first year of life.  Honey may contain spores of the bacteria that cause botulism.

A newborn looks very different from older babies and children.  Her head is relatively large, measuring one fourth of her entire length.  Her disproportionately short legs are only one third of her length.  Clearly in humans, brain development takes precedence over development of the rest of the body.

Head

Aside from being large, her head may look misshapen and even a little bruised.  The bones of the skull are separated, rather than fused as they are in adults.  This separation allows the bones to slide over each other as the head passes through the narrow birth canal.  Also this mobility is essential to accommodate an infant’s rapid brain growth.  If you caress the top of her head, you will feel the “soft spots,” or fontanels, in the skull.  Here the bones are widely separated, but the brain is covered by a tough membrane and scalp.  You won’t hurt your baby by gently touching these areas.  The anterior fontanel, located in the midline on top of the head, usually closes between nine and eighteen months after birth.  Behind it is the smaller posterior fontanel, which closes by four months.

Eyes

Your baby’s eyelids may be red and swollen from pressure during the delivery.  In most hospitals, antibiotic drops are applied to the newborn’s eyes.  The droops may cause mild, temporary inflammation.

As your baby studies your face, you may notice that one eye wanders or the two eyes don’t move together smoothly.  Unless one eye almost seems fixed in position [cross-eyed or wall-eyed], this wandering is normal and will be corrected as the baby gains strength and coordination in the muscles that move the eyes.

Ears

The cartilage in the outer ear is very flexible in the newborn.  If an ear looks folded, don’t worry-it will probably straighten out.  If the problem continues, talk to your doctor.

Nose

At birth, the nose and mouth are often filled with mucous.  After the delivery, suctioning by hospital staff with a rubber syringe clears the airways and helps your baby to breathe.  Her own sneezing helps clear her nasal passages and is not necessarily the sign of a cold.

Mouth

An occasionally baby already has one or more teeth at birth, which usually fall out.  Your doctor may want to extract these teeth so that your baby doesn’t later choke on them.  If your baby did a lot of sucking in the womb, blisters may be present on the upper lip, as well as on the fingers, hands or forearm.

Skin

Your baby’s skin is wonderfully soft. It may not, however, appear as flawless as the complexion of an older infant.  The newborn’s skin often has a ruddier hue.  For the first few days, the hands and feet may appear to be tinged with blue.  Soon the baby’s circulation will improve and the skin color will be more uniform.

Over half of newborns have some degree of jaundice in the first week of life.  In most cases, this condition is due to the immaturity of the liver and is not a threat to the baby.  The liver is the organ that helps to clear bilirubin, a waste product of broken down red blood cells.  Since the liver is not completely mature at birth, babies are often not able to excrete bilirubin as well as adults.  It is the deposition of bilirubin in the skin and the whites of the eyes that give them a yellowish tinge.

Jaundice first appears on the face and spreads downward as the bilirubin level increases.  Normal newborn or “physiologic,” jaundice is usually first visible between the second and fifth days of life, peaks between the fifth and seventh days, and clears within one to two weeks.  In some breastfed babies jaundice may last a bit longer.

Unless your doctor determines that the bilirubin level is too high, you can probably manage your baby’s jaundice at home.  The mainstay of home treatment is frequent feedings at breast or bottle.  Bilirubin is eliminated in the urine and feces; the elimination can be accelerated by increasing fluid intake.  Bilirubin is broken down in the skin, and light stimulates the action.  The wavelength of light that hastens bilirubin breakdown in the skin passes through glass and plastic.  Because this is so, placing the baby near a sunny window [for short periods of time] is beneficial.

Your doctor may follow your baby’s progress by checking the bilirubin level with a simple blood test.  If the level rises excessively, the baby will require hospitalization for phototherapy treatment [exposure to light at a wavelength similar to that of ultraviolet light] and to determine whether the jaundice is due to something more serious than immature liver function.

In most babies, the jaundice resolves spontaneously.  If your baby has jaundice, your doctor will tell you what to do to speed its disappearance.

Birthmarks are a fairly common skin condition of the newborn.  Babies of darker skinned parents may have “Mongolian spots,” due to a bluish pigmentation under the skin over the lower part of the back and buttocks.  “Stork bites,” also called [“angel kisses”] are red, flat birthmarks usually located on the bridge of the nose, the upper eyelids, or the back of the neck.  They usually disappear by the second birthday, but may reappear with crying.  Sometimes the spots on the nape of the neck persist into adulthood.

Rashes often develop within the first few days of life.  Although parents tend to worry bout these skin blemishes, most of them are harmless and go away on their own.  Milia are small white “pimples” on the face, caused by maternal hormones.  They go away in several days without treatment.  Erythema toxicum-a rash of red bumps with yellow centers and a generally “flea bitten’ appearance-occurs in half of all newborns.  It is harmless and disappears on its own in a week or so.