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By jamie, September 29, 2010 10:36 am

Hands down, my most terrifying parental moment (so far) was the time I potentially poisoned my daughter. I left my over-the-counter decongestant where she could get it, and I guess she mistook it for candy and plopped it in her mouth. In case you have not had to look it up yet, the U.S. number for poison control is 1-800-222-1222. And they no longer tell you to induce vomiting, because evidently children were being injured by this procedure. It also seems that cold medicines containing pseudoephedrin (you know, the ones you now have to sign for because of meth manufacturers) were not as potentially dangerous to children as the newer (less drug dealer friendly) ones. That upsets me so much.

Anyway, I finished the book. She puts in a special chapter at the end about stranger abductions, because this is probably our biggest fear as parents, and she wants to drive home the point that it’s rare. One important point she makes here is that most of the abducted children pictured in our junk mail, Wal-Mart and elsewhere are either runaways or were taken by family members.

She mentions that parents end up doing more harm than good with some of their keep-kids-safe techniques: “Don’t talk to strangers is one of the most useless pieces of advice ever foisted on us to foist on our children.” Last year I read a great book called Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane), by Gavin de Becker. He adds to this observation by saying that we also tell little kids to go to the nearest police officer if they need help, which can actually lead them into big trouble if they go with the wrong uniformed man. His advice: Teach our kids “if you need help, ask a woman,” particularly one with kids. He’s hugely stereotyping here, but women are less likely to be convicted as pedophiles, and, according to de Becker, are more likely to stay with that kid until parents or found or help has been administered. What do you all think about this?

The best piece of advice I heard while researching this topic comes from a psychotherapist named Michelle Maidenberg, and it’s really simple: tell your kids they can talk to strangers. They can ask for help from strangers. What they should never do is go off with strangers.

I like the quote above, and I think that Maidenberg is right on point here. However rare it is, some kids have willing walked off with their abductors, and some of these abductors have become their murderers. If we can be sure that our children will absolutely not, under any circumstances, willing go off with someone they do not know, I think we’ll be able to sleep a little better at night. Skenazy, and the experts she interviewed, recommend role playing with their children, helping them practice what they would say if approached by a stranger who needs help finding his puppy (or whatever). That way if (God forbid) it ever happens, they will have a better chance of staying safe. One of the experts also says we should teach our kids that “most normal adults don’t drive up and ask for help.” I think this is great advice because my potentially bad experiences involved people driving up to me in cars (they weren’t exactly asking for help, but still).

In all, after reading this book, I recognize that sometimes I have been unnecessarily paranoid and have kept my daughter and nephew from doing something that was actually safe (like playing out inside in an enclosed patio because I didn’t have time to sit out there with them – I could have easily monitored them through the large window and they could have spent more time getting vitamin D – see below, fresh air, and exercise) I will talk things over with my mom and sister, and see how we can make a few changes so our kids can have more fun and we can be less paranoid. On the other hand, I’m a firm believer in the safety of numbers – I would consider letting two kids (not preschoolers) do something I probably wouldn’t allow one child to do alone (like walking to a bus stop). Call it my culture, but I think we don’t teach enough interdependence – independence is great, but we should also teach our kids the great advantages of strong families and close friends working and doing things together.

Someone commented about my most recent post with regard to breastfed children having vitamin D deficiencies. She pointed out that lots of people are starting to be deficient in this nutrient because we get vitamin D from the sun and we have been taught to wear sunscreen every time we go outside. Skenazy included this on her list of parental fears but I hadn’t commented on it before – sunscreen is causing us to become nutrient deficient, at the same time as it saves us from cancer. So, if you hadn’t heard this before, wear sunscreen most of the time, but give your kids – and yourself – ten minutes or so of unprotected daily sun exposure except during summer months. (By the way, my favorite sunscreen now contains a vitamin D supplement – is this good or bad?)

EDIT: Someone sent me this link: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. If you have kids, it’s worth a click.

Other posts about Free Range Kids:

Post 1: Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy
Post 2: Trick or Treat – Ooh, Scary…
Post 3: Bird Man, or Stranger Danger
Post 4: My Kid is Smarter than Your Kid
Post 5: Breastfeeding, Vaccinations, and Cookie Dough
Post 6: DO Talk to Strangers

Comments (7)

By jamie, September 27, 2010 11:03 am

We have special locks on the door leading out to our swimming pool. We have child-safety wall outlets. Our lower kitchen cabinets are also equipped to keep out small children (although now she is just dragging a step-stool everywhere she wants to get to, so the lower cabinets are perhaps the most ignored places in the house at the moment). We get her vaccinations one at a time, even though it costs us more and takes more time (though less now that she is getting older). We do what we can to be safe. The section I read for today includes a list of potential parent fears, some of which I had not thought of. Here are my comments about the ones that interested me the most:

Breastfeeding – One thing that really bothered me when I was trying to learn how to properly nurse (to this day I think breastfeeding was more difficult than actual childbirth) was hearing women say things like “It’s the way human babies are meant to be fed, and they can get all of the nutrition they need by exclusively drinking mother’s milk from birth to age three” [some would say age five - yeah, because human evolution stopped, or is possibly moving backwards]. So I was almost amused to read the following: “A recent study of infants and toddlers at Children’s Hospital in Boson found that the breastfed ones were up to ten time more likely to be deficient in vitamin D, a condition that leads to the bone-softening disease rickets, because they were not getting the extra vitamin D added to the formula.” See, there is no clear answer about what is best, even with regard to the Holy Grail of motherly duties – as with everything else, the best way to nourish your child depends on the baby and the family, and all sorts of other variables that the judgers are not privy to.

BPA – She is going with studies that show it is safe. I can’t agree with her. We are learning too much about hormone disruptors, and things that we once considered safe (like using plastic containers in the microwave or drinking bottled water that was left in a hot car) are now suspect. I’d rather be safe than sorry here.

Germs – My kiddo always requests a “anti-bacterial wipie” to clean the grocery cart when we are in the store. I have to watch her closely and take it away from her when the cart is sterilized, or else she has a tendency to want to wash her face with it afterward, which I think is disgusting (and defeats the purpose of the cart cleanse). Skenazy talks to some experts who remind us that germs are all over us all the time and we really can’t run from them, and that it’s more important to vaccinate your children – I wish she had gone into more detail on this topic, because so many parents are believing faulty information.

I have a friend who works for “Big Pharma” (he’s a good guy), and he and I (and Facebook) were talking about this the other day. Certain celebrities (yeah, I’m pointing at you, Jenny McCarthy) and others are putting our children at risk by going on record against childhood vaccinations and, according to BPF (Big Pharma Friend), more kids are getting preventable (and potentially deadly) illnesses like whooping cough (which long ago took my Reyna’s little sister). Autism aside, I constantly hear parents spreading misinformation about shots (like “those flu shots are loaded with mercury” or “hepetitis B is an STD, and so it is pointless to vaccinate your child for this disease” or “we didn’t have a chicken pox vaccination and we did fine; it’s just a little itching and it’s better for kids to get it when they are small”). Then well-meaning parents take these untruths as fact because usually they are prefaced with “I have done tons of research on this topic…” and we have more un-vaccinated kids in schools now putting other kids at risk.

BFP made a very good point about pharmaceutical companies and their motivations – they thrive on repeat business, so they make their money from people with chronic conditions. Vaccinations can help prevent chronic conditions (and death – and the longer we live the more likely we are to become regular users of some pharm product or another), and only have to be taken at most a couple of times. In short, those magazine ads prompting people to vaccinate against pertussis are not a ploy to make more money for the drug folks; they are public service announcements trying to undo some of the damage caused by the no-shots people.

Mayo – She says it actually helps prevent food from spoiling, due to its vinegar content (so no need to put ice in the lunchbox). Who knew?

Stickers – No, she did not include this, but I added it because I’ve been noticing warning labels on stickers lately that say “WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD – Small parts, Not for children under 3 yrs.” When Baby Girl goes to her pediatrician, the first thing she asks him is for a sticker, and she usually gets him to provide her with several. One time he even went looking in every exam room for her requested Dora sticker, and he brought her one of each pose. He thinks they are safe enough to give his patients, a fact that my child deeply appreciates. I can completely see that we should not give stickers to infants (which may be tricky if those infants have older siblings – I often check before I leave the house to make sure I have not sat on any stickers and accidentally affixed them to my butt).

Toilets, tubs, etc. – One time when my daughter was littler, I forgot to get a towel for after her bath and I left her sitting the tub for just a second to grab one from the linen closet in the same room. When I returned, she had stood up, and was about to crash head first onto the tile in front of the tub. I have no idea how she was able to move that quickly, but she was. This experience frightened me enough that I now still gather all possible needed items, and even take the phone into the bathroom with me when I bathe her and GB is not home. I don’t want to take any chances. As for the toilet, she occasionally takes herself to the potty, but, at almost 2 1/2, I think she is big enough for the toilet to be safe. We have little stools positioned in each of the bathrooms so she can use the big toilets if she wants to (she also has her kiddy potty in the main bathroom).

Raw dough – Again, for my family I’d rather be safe than sorry even though she puts our risk of dying from tainted eggs at 0.05%. I’m sure she did her research here, but until I am eating eggs from someone’s back yard chicken coop (not ours), I’m not going to take any chances. Which reminds me, does the Wendy’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Twisted Frosty contain actual raw cookie dough, and if so, does it contain raw eggs? Just checking.

Other posts about Free Range Kids:

Post 1: Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy
Post 2: Trick or Treat – Ooh, Scary…
Post 3: Bird Man, or Stranger Danger
Post 4: My Kid is Smarter than Your Kid
Post 5: Breastfeeding, Vaccinations, and Cookie Dough
Post 6: DO Talk to Strangers

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By jamie, September 24, 2010 12:39 pm

When I was in the seventh grade, we had a math teacher who seated us based on our grade in the class. After every assignment she would have us all stand up and wait for our names to be called. There we were, hoping to achieve a spot in the coveted First Row. I was a contender, and I worked so hard that year, but I never did sit in the First Chair (I often sat behind that person, and I stayed in the first row, but I just couldn’t quite cut it for the top position). That distinction was shared by three students that I can remember: L, J, and R. I scrambled just to be in their company.

Skenazy talks about those bumper stickers people put on the cars – “My kid is an Honor student” or some such brag, and features a psychologist who says that these stickers are not good for our children – it should not be their job to give us things to brag about. It’s too much pressure, and makes them afraid to fail (or try). Much of this section is a reiteration of NurtureShock For example, we are so focused on the achievements of our children that we have all but eliminated play from their school days (and we know how important play is for our kids).

I like that this information is being shared with a lot of parents. I still see a lot of the stickers though, so I’m not sure how much they are listening. It’s funny, I was just thinking about those stickers the other day: several of them include a logo for none other than McDonald’s. So our kids work very hard to earn us the right to put a McDonald’s bumper sticker on our cars. Nice.

I finished the first section of the book. The last half of the book is a like glossary of common parental fears (plastic bags, for example) along with an explanation of whether or not we should really be afraid. I’ll let you know if I feel more relaxed after reading it.

Incidentally, I Googled those excellent math students from my past (well, not L – she’s my Facebook friend, so I knew about her). L has an MBA and an absolutely adorable new baby, R is a very successful artist, and J is a (high powered?) attorney. Those kids I stood with waiting to learn our spot, and now we have all taken such different paths (literally – we have all moved away from our high school district, with two still in California and two on the opposite coast). I hope we’re all happy, and that we refrain from giving the next generation ulcers in elementary school from too much pressure.

Other posts about Free Range Kids:

Post 1: Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy
Post 2: Trick or Treat – Ooh, Scary…
Post 3: Bird Man, or Stranger Danger
Post 4: My Kid is Smarter than Your Kid
Post 5: Breastfeeding, Vaccinations, and Cookie Dough
Post 6: DO Talk to Strangers

Comments (2)

By jamie, September 18, 2010 5:54 pm

One day when we were kids, we got in a lot of trouble. There was this really nice man who lived in our neighborhood and he had a lot of birds. We would see him walking around with different birds on his shoulder (when he got into and out of his car – he didn’t just walk around with birds), and some of them talked. We called him Bird Man, and thought his birds were really cool. Anyway, on this particular day, he invited us over to see all of the birds at the same time. There were at least half a dozen of us who played outside in the afternoons, and we all agreed that this little “field trip” would be fun. None of us thought to ask our parents. Anyway, we saw the birds, had a great time talking to them for all of five minutes, and went home to tell our moms about our mini-adventure – it was almost like going to the zoo right without leaving your street. Cool huh?

Well, our moms did not think it was cool. They were horrified. Something Bad could have happened. He could have been a Bad Man. They locked us up in the slammer (aka grounded us for a long time), and some of us were even spanked, all to make sure we would never again have such a terrible lapse in judgment. We had surely dodged a bullet that day, and might not be so lucky the next time. We were supervised much more closely for a long time after that little episode.

I have thought about that day quite often, especially now that I am a parent. I don’t remember if there was a Mrs. Bird Man, but I do know that his home was in a central location, there was a large group of us, and he had never leered at us or anything to make us suspicious. Our parents talked to him when they saw him around, and everyone knew him. We had been taught to avoid strangers, but he wasn’t a stranger. We had been taught never to go off alone with a non-family member/stranger, but we were not alone. At the time I thought our mothers over-reacted. Now? Well, I’m a mother now, so I have second- and third-guessed them several times over.

I have read through chapter 11, and, while I agree that U.S. parents are big worriers and over-reactors, I can’t help but think that we are just trying to do our best so that if (GOD FORBID) anything bad ever happens, at least we know that we did everything possible to avoid it:

If we really think that a child could be abducted at any minute, for instance, we can’t just let our kids walk to school the way we did. We have to drive them there or wait at the bus stop with them, both of which take up a lot of time, even while ratcheting up the very anxiety they’re supposed to allay. Why are we at the bus stop that kids used to wait at alone? Because now it’s way too scary. Why is it too scary? Because if it weren’t scary, why would we all be waiting there? We’re all at the bus stop because we’re all at the bus stop. Worry is contagious.

At the same time, many of us have personal anecdotal evidence to support our fears. When I was a little kid my mom used to walk me to school, and one day a creepy guy tried to pick us up. When my mom turned him down, he drove ahead of us and pulled his car over right in front of us and tried to convince us to get in the car. What if I had been walking alone to school, as Lenore Skenazy suggests? Our school was in a decent neighborhood, and only a few blocks from our home. Later, when I was a teenager, I attended an Amnesty International meeting at a record store. I went with a male friend, but my mom needed to pick me up early for some reason, so I left the meeting alone and went to meet her in front of the building. In the five minutes it took my mom to arrive, a creepy guy had pulled over in front of me and begged me to go for a ride with him – just a little ride, come on…

Anyway, I mention these things to say that we can be “Free Range” and careful at the same time. Maybe it’s safe to send your kid alone three blocks to the grocery store. You know your neighborhood. But maybe she should go with her sister, or her friend, just to be safe. I think you can still learn independence if you travel with a friend.

“Since the nineteenth century,” says historian [Peter] Stearns, “we’ve progressively come to believe that if something bad happens to a kid, parents have to have done something wrong. That’s a huge trip. And ironically, it got worse when children stopped dying. When it became so rare for children to die, it became absolutely unacceptable for them to die. And even though it was unlikely, now you had to worry: Maybe they will.”

Got that? The more safe our children became the more we started to worry about them, because now if anything dangerous did happen to them, it would clearly be our fault. Fate has gone out the (electric) window, replaced by parental omnipotence. And it is this belief in control combined with the fear of screwing up that is driving us mad.

I don’t know that I have ever felt “omnipotent,” or that I have complete control over my daughter’s life, not even when she was in my womb. There is too much that is out of our hands. I admit that I have been quite the paranoid parent at times, like when I have made my daughter sit down to brush her teeth so she won’t accidentally fall down and injure herself with the toothbrush. I am also afraid to get acupuncture because what happens if there is an earthquake or for some other reason the acupuncturist trips and falls on me after the needles are in, or if I accidentally fall off of the table? What? It COULD happen. So see, maybe I am just paranoid as a general rule.

I haven’t allowed my two-year-old to use the stove, but I might let her when she is five. We’ll have to see how responsible she is then. I don’t let her carry around her scissors, but I do allow her to use them to cut paper (as long as she is sitting on my lap). L.S. mentions that, in times gone by, four-year-olds were hired as chimney sweeps – we think of kids that age as babies, and some of ours are not even potty trained yet! She is not calling for the repeal of child labor laws, but I think she does give us some perspective in how much we hold our kids back because we are so terrified of everything. I was so inspired by this that I gave my little one a bucket and a sponge and put her to scrub the front door. She had a great time – of course, I had to scrub everything above four feet – you really didn’t think I was going to let her climb a ladder, did you?!?

Other posts about Free Range Kids:

Post 1: Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy
Post 2: Trick or Treat – Ooh, Scary…
Post 3: Bird Man, or Stranger Danger
Post 4: My Kid is Smarter than Your Kid
Post 5: Breastfeeding, Vaccinations, and Cookie Dough
Post 6: DO Talk to Strangers

Comments (0)

By jamie, September 17, 2010 8:23 am

So, what are your kiddos dressing up as for Halloween? It seems early to decide, but I waited until the last minute for Baby Girl’s first Halloween and she ended up being a witch by default. A cute witch, but still… I’m thinking either Alice in Wonderland or Abby Cadabby this year. I’d prefer Alice, but she has no idea who that is, and it may be tough to convince her. Halloween is my favorite holiday – we already have our window clingies ready to go – is it too early to put them up now?

Cute little witch.

Skenazy talks about the parental fear associated with Halloween (I read chapters 4 -7), and how it’s not as fun as it used to be because of all the fear. There are disclaimers on the costumes and accessories, and of course we are all afraid of the candy. Guess how many known, verifiable cases there have been of kids being poisoned by Halloween candy from strangers? Scroll down for the answer.

One chapter talks about how crazy we have all gotten with “babyproofing” our homes to keep our kids safe from things that may not be dangerous in the first place. Did you know they sell locks for refrigerators? My toddler is constantly opening up our fridge, but there’s only food in there, so I can’t really see what the danger is. I guess if she drinks a bottle of hot sauce she may cry. We don’t have beer in there, so we don’t have to worry about accidentally getting the baby drunk.

Here’s my paranoid parent story on the topic of fridges: the other day my kiddo kept opening the refrigerator while I was getting dinner ready, and it was getting on my nerves. So I walked over and held the door shut so she couldn’t open it. Well, our determined little daughter responded by grabbing both door handles and leaning back with all of her weight (think tug-of-war). Anyway, I swear she made the fridge wobble a bit, which caused me to freak out about the potential of her accidentally pulling the entire thing down on top of herself. No kidding – those locks might be creating more danger than they are worth! Think about it! That said, do any of you guys lock up your fridge and know of a danger I’m missing? We could maybe bolt the fridge to the wall if we need to. (Maybe I should lock it from myself sometimes, like when there is cake in there.)

Onto educational toys and media. Lenore Skenazy is not a fan. We don’t approve of the videos either. She says that manufacturers should be truthful and print something like the following on DVD packaging: “Here’s something for your kids to watch while you answer your e-mails and then start mindlessly browsing the Web. It won’t make them any smarter, and may make them cranky when you turn it off, but it’s not the end of the world if they watch it, either.” (Wish I’d written that – so true). We kept our girl away from television for her first two years, but we couldn’t keep her out of the stores, so she is obsessed with all things Dora (it started with yogurt). So now she asks to watch the show, every day – we allow her to sometimes, but on the computer so we can control commercials – kid ads are evil, and we can’t eliminate them all, so limit we do). I have to say, it makes me nervous, watching her watch the show – she gets this glassy-eyed look about her that is kind of spooky, almost like she’s in a trance. How can that possibly be good for babies? I can see popping in a DVD when you need a shower (although we didn’t do that), but for hours a day? That can’t possibly be educational.

Another point she makes is that we have taken much of the fun away from our kids by “thinking like lawyers.” I’m full of stories today, so here is another one: You know how we are taught to keep plastic bags away from children? They could suffocate – I can see that this is a real danger. Well, we were visiting my Reyna when my nephew was a baby, and he was taking a nap on the bed one afternoon. We were visiting in the living room, when suddenly our Nutty Aunt (there’s one in every family) emerged from the bedroom looking all angry and accusing, holding a small container of face lotion that I had purchased earlier that day. “This was on the bed, and it has plastic on it [it was still in the box]. Don’t you know that you can’t have plastic around little babies? It could cause them to suffocate.” She was completely panicked about the idea of a sleeping infant accidentally choking on a small, solid plastic box. “You can’t be too careful” she said. Um. Yeah, most kids’ toys are actually made of plastic and, while we might get into a discussion about environmental dangers, we shouldn’t get ridiculous about what constitutes a plastic bag.

Halloween candy poisonings? None. If you followed my link you know that already. There have been a few cases of parents poisoning their own kids’ candy because they thought they would easily get away with something that “happens all the time.” That IS scary.

Pirate Girl trick-or-treating. Oooh, scary....

Other posts about Free Range Kids:

Post 1: Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy
Post 2: Trick or Treat – Ooh, Scary…
Post 3: Bird Man, or Stranger Danger
Post 4: My Kid is Smarter than Your Kid
Post 5: Breastfeeding, Vaccinations, and Cookie Dough
Post 6: DO Talk to Strangers