The Dream Team: Advanced Preparation and Problem-Solving by Alice Kaltman It’s easy to love kids. However it’s not always so easy to get them to do what we want. At some point even the most… Read More »Can You Get Kids To Do What You Want?
This post isn’t about fighting over dinner with your kids…but with your partner. Do you and your partner have different ideas about mealtimes, what should be eaten and how much? Donna Fish counsels a couple over their issue of “clean your plate”. Luckily, they resolve it.
by Donna Fish
The other day I was counseling a couple who came to me over their own fighting over their kids’ food. He: “I think Karen defers to the kids too much. They should eat what is on their plate, and finish it all!” She: “I refuse to make my kid eat chicken if she doesn’t like chicken; she has great eating habits and was happy with the cantaloupe and salad.”
Sound familiar? Perhaps the genders are flipped in your household, but invariably, parents differ over leniency, or how to handle it when kids don’t want to eat what is given to them. Often it is related to how we as children were raised around food. As this Dad said to me plainly: “I had to eat what was there for dinner, or I didn’t get food. I just want Karen to respect my position and not fight me in front of the kids.”
Then he sheepishly shared a story of how he had a standoff once with his Dad over being forced to eat something he didn’t like. He stayed at the table all day.
Feeding our kids, and feeding ourselves, often can raise lots of issues. Unfortunately in their case, this couple came for help because they were in a stalemate over how to handle their differing perspectives and were fighting in front of the kids. Like any couple issue, the ghosts of others are lurking there in the room as we are playing out the current scenes. Add to the mix the stakes of teaching kids good eating habits, and you have a perfect storm of tension, anger and polarization.
A few tips:
1) Think carefully Read More »Parents…Fighting Over Dinner?
This is a particularly interesting post to me. Birch has been diagnosed as “possibly having allergies”. It started with his constant blinking. At first, we thought it was an attention-getting measure, but he did it even when we weren’t looking. Then his eyes started watering all the time. We took him to an opthamologist who diagnosed it as “possible allergies” and prescribed Patanol. (See Dr. Gilgoff’s reference to it below). I was interested to read Dr. Gilgoff ‘s advice to use Patanol “as needed”. I am so relieved that we don’t have to pin Birch down every night for his drops. It has been torture for all of us! If Birch’s symptoms don’t disappear in 3 months, we are supposed to go back and consider his far-sightedness as the possible cause. Honestly, I hope it isn’t allergies. I have had them all my life, and can’t seem to make it through a season without Claritin, nasal spray and eye drops. Ugh!
by Dr. Gilgoff
Achoo!!! Indeed, it’s that time of the year once again. The flowers are blooming and the pollen count is rising. Every year around this time we have a flood of “sick visits” – kids who are sincerely suffering with seasonal allergy symptoms.
Allergies can actually present at a young age although usually not before 6 months. Why they don’t start earlier is interesting, but it often takes repeated exposure to an allergen before you see a reaction. In addition, the mechanisms of inflammation in the body are not fully developed in a newborn.
Allergies often run in a family, and sometimes they are signs of a “sensitive” or atopic child in general. Quite often a child may have sensitive skin, or eczema and some allergic kids have asthma as well.
Symptoms and Signs of Allergies
The severity of allergies can be anywhere from mild to severe, and they can indeed mimic other disease processes. The eyes are usually itchy and mildly red, but there is usually NOT Read More »Does Your Child Have Allergies?
I always think of my friend Josh as culturally literate and open to all new ideas. This opinion of him started in college when he was carving a totem pole with a chainsaw (!) next to me in art class. Since then he has worked on David Letterman, PBS’s “Egg Show”, The Charlie Rose Show, ESPN (okay, that was a lapse in my mind), and now, he is a freshly minted lawyer. Josh has always had piles of media around him. Though he lived in a 200 square foot studio in the village, the only sign of real living done there was a futon. The rest of the place was piled with vhs tapes, hardcover books, newspapers, New Yorkers and notebooks. He even had his fireplace stacked with books. It was definitely the apartment of a media junkie. So, when a publicist wrote me to ask if I would review these new comic books for kids, I knew I wasn’t the best candidate: Josh was. Since Josh was studying for the bar at the time and missing (I think) a dose of cultural fun, I sent the books his way. He tested them out on some kids too. You can see him here reading to one of them.
Reviewed by Josh Block
Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever, 40 pp. By Dean Haspiel & Jay Lynch
Stinky, 40 pp. By Eleanor Davis
Jack and the Box, 32 pp. By Art Spiegelman
Ages 4+
$12.95 Each
TOON BOOKS published by RAW Junior, LLC.
In recent years, films like “Crumb” and “American Splendor” have brought the story of the underground comics movement to movie audiences. A major player in the movement was Art Spiegelman. But Speigelman has greater goals than just reaching the natural post-teen audience that has gravitated to graphic novels (the name given to the longer form comic book aimed at an older audience). After all, Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize for his Holocaust memoir, presented in comic book form, “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale,” and has had his work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. His life obsession has been to popularize the comic book, to bring comics from the hands of pimple-faced teenage boys to readers of all ages and both genders. He is a proponent of the notion that comics can serve a higher role in our culture.
So perhaps it is not surprising that Spiegelman is going after a new demographic to convert into comic book lovers, the youngest demographic, children. Under the auspices of RAW Junior, (RAW was the alternative comics anthology published by Spiegelman and his wife, Francoise Mouly, in the 1980s) three new children’s books have been published, “Jack and the Box,” by Spiegelman himself, “Stinky,” by newcomer Eleanor Davis, and “Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever,” by Jay Lynch and Dean Haspiel, both established in the comics field.
I took the books on a test drive with four different children, grades pre-K–2, and all were received well. While each book is listed as “Ages 4+” and grades K–2 or K–3, “Jack” is best for the younger children in that range, “Mo and Jo” for older.
Perhaps the idea of bringing new readers “to the pleasure of comics” is not so novel. Children’s books are not so different from comics, small lines of story with illustrations, the narrative told sequentially. The only real difference in the Read More »Famous Artist’s New Children’s Comic Books
I read this post on one of my neighborhood forums- and, I asked the writer, if I could share her story. I think it is so important that we all hear it. Thanks “anonymous” (since she preferred to remain so).
“At the risk of exposing my husband and myself as less than the rocket-scientists we are 🙂 I’m sharing this story. Our kids slept with a nightlight in their room for the past year, next to one of the kid’s beds. His covers often were touching the nightlight. It actually did make me nervous, and I wondered if his blanket could catch fire. Thinking I was just sort of paranoid, I never did any research, but did try to turn it off before I went to bed. This morning, I went in his room and realized I had not turned it off last night. The plastic Read More »Nightlights Can Be A Danger
It’s hard to ignore Dr. Sears. His son’s book, The Vaccine Book is very popular and discussed in my circle of parents. He has a wide presence on the internet. He has created the entire… Read More »The Case Against Dr. Sears
Don’t you envy those parents whose kids eat their vegetables with ease? They don’t use tricks, ridiculous acrobatic uses of the fork, pleading and bribing! ‘What did they do right and I do wrong”, I… Read More »Could Picky Eater DNA Be The Reason Your Kid Doesn’t Eat
In Defense of Dads by Alice Kaltman In a previous post, I talked about how important it is for dads to stay involved with their kids and how moms need to step aside and let… Read More »In Defense of Dads- Roughhousing Is Good?!
Does your child do something that makes you overreact? How about your partner? Or your own parent? Do you know why you react that way? Soho Parenting helps one couple find a solution to their… Read More »Do You Have A Parenting Blind Spot?
How many times have you lied to your kids? Once, twice, too many to count, never? Some of those little lies like, “the cookies are gone” aren’t ones we would question. But, what about lies… Read More »Should You Lie To Your Kids?