February 2013 was a busy month in the world of parenting – lots of things going on. Here’s a snapshot:
CHILD-HATERS
The news that an adult male slapped a stranger’s toddler on a plane led to a conversation about how our culture may be breeding, at a minimum, a lack of respect for our youngsters – and at worst, provide a context in which child-hating is tolerated.
When a toddler cries, parents can get worn down and even ornery. People in a restaurant may be annoyed. Passengers on a plane may be especially ruffled.
I get all of that – it’s human nature. But human nature has hit (pun intended) a new low with the report that a man has been accused of slapping a toddler in the face during a flight because he was crying. The toddler was sitting on his mom’s lap. And for good measure, the man is also reported to have made a racial slur as well. And now the child is “scared to death.”
If the accusation is proven to be true (like you, I’m just reading the news reports on it and I wasn’t on the plane), it’s almost easy to dismiss this as the act of a child-hater gone wild. Maybe it’s just one guy who did an unbelievable and reprehensible (you can fill in your own words here – I’m almost at a loss to describe the actions) thing. But there is, I think, a deeper message.
In our culture, we’ve become too tolerant of directing anger at toddlers (and of course, babies and children and teens). It’s become too acceptable to complain and b**** about a toddler who won’t stop crying, or who is too clingy, or too demanding. People who don’t currently have a toddler do that. And some parents do as well. I get that parents need to vent – and sometimes it’s very helpful to do that. I understand that parents might find a bit of solace writing in exaggerated tones online as a form of release. I don’t have a problem with “Go the F**k to Sleep.” But I worry that this trend is going too far. Are we breeding and encouraging a parenting culture that hates parenting? Are we too accepting of some of the inevitable negative feelings that we have about kids and going overboard in being “honest” about everything we dislike about kids? I’d like our parenting culture to model acceptance and understanding and tolerance of our how our babies and toddlers and kids and teens act. And then I’d hope our broader culture would follow suit.
Let’s face some facts. Kids are dependents. They cry and scream and get upset because they are supposed to do this. It’s a signal to adults that they need comforting, guidance, and soothing – not angry looks and nasty tones. Yes, it’s frustrating – but we are, after all, the adults.
So as understanding as I am about the idea of banning kids from some restaurants and banning them from some flights, part of me wants to dismiss all of this. Part of me wants to remind adults that they were toddlers once. Part of me wants to say that, guess what, not all adults in restaurants or on airplanes are especially delightful to be around in public. Maybe it’s time we stop indulging all of the negatives about being around kids and start embracing all the wonderful things about it. So when we find ourselves on a long flight, and there is a baby crying and parents are trying hard to calm and soothe them, maybe it’s time we start practicing empathy rather than anger – and maybe even see if we can help. Let’s save the anger for adults who don’t treat kids right.
Mental health is one of the 4 public health topics being discussed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. Should it be part of the equation for trying to reduce the likelihood of future school shootings? The answer is yes.
The focus here, though, is not exactly going to be about the usual topics you’ve been reading about, all of which carry their own importance, such as: the need for better mental health screening; the importance of making mental health services more accessible to those who need it; failures in the system which make it difficult to continue with treatments. While these issues are important, we need to expand our thinking about “psychiatric disorders” with respect to preventing future shootings. Although there are empirical links between psychiatric illness and violence, the vast majority of individuals who suffer from any one diagnosed psychiatric disorder are not going to commit mass murder. Put another way, there isn’t one simple diagnostic test that would offer enough precision to tell us who may be at risk for that kind of behavior.
Our focus needs to be placed on promoting the healthy all-around development of youth, starting early in life, and parallel efforts to recognize signs of distress and maladaptive functioning and to do something meaningful about that. Psychiatric evaluation and diagnosis is part of the process, but experienced clinicians don’t treat disorders – they treat people. They know how to get a full picture of a youth’s life – how they behave at home and in school, how they interact with kids and adults, how they manage their emotions, what kinds of thoughts they have in their heads. Intervention for troubled youth is not simplistic, and there are many types of factors to consider. It takes a multidisciplinary effort to attend to numerous dimensions of development (cognitive, emotional, social, educational, neurological). And it’s critical to understand that key developmental stages (e.g., starting school, entering adolescence, transition from high school) offer particularly powerful windows into seeing which kids are making good transitions, and which kids may be troubled. They are important check points for evaluation and intervention – and looking for red flags in a kid’s developmental trajectory.
We know that when we see someone suffering we shouldn’t look away. And when we see young people coughing, wheezing or bleeding, we insist that they get attention. But when we see young people with disturbing behavior, or young people in clear emotional distress, we ignore them and hope these problems will go away.
The first signs of 75% of all psychiatric disorders appear by the age of 24. We need to be on the lookout for signs of distress in young people to get them help as soon as possible. Research shows that early intervention improves the outlook for anyone with a psychiatric disorder—and drastically reduces the likelihood of violence.
To achieve this type of vigilance and action, we need a dedicated effort that includes better information provided to parents and school systems – and an infrastructure that provides the ability to coordinate with developmental and mental health experts to deliver the best supported interventions. It will take money (something that’s not exactly flowing these days at the national level) and it will take commitment. It needs to start at most local level and eventually spread to a national level.
So where do we go next? Since the Sandy Hook shooting, some have argued that mental health is not the issue – that our focus should be on gun control because we don’t see this type of violence in other countries who have similar rates of mental illness. I get that perspective – but I still believe that we are failing if we have individuals who are so socially isolated and filled with anger and rage that they commit murder-suicide. Trying to apply our best efforts to reduce the likelihood of having youth and adults in our society who get to that point is not the full answer – but it’s part of the equation.
Tomorrow, I will address gun control as one of the 4 public health issues we are all discussing.
Coping with divorce is a challenge for kids at any age, but especially so when they are very young. To this end, the Sesame Workshop has launched a comprehensive multimedia kit, called Little Children, Big Challenges: Divorce, which offers a variety of extremely helpful tools to help young kids (the target being between 2 and 8 years of age) and parents navigate the challenges. A focal point is one of the Sesame Street characters – Abby Cadabby – who shares with her friends that her parents have been divorced for some time. This perspective allows Abby to share her experiences and ways in which she has learned to cope with divorce in a very specific manner (see the image of her showing pictures of the two houses she lives in) that will resonate with youngsters.
Jeanette Betancourt, Ed.D. (Vice President, Outreach and Educational Practices) shared with me via phone a number of the key points that inspired this important initiative at the Sesame Workshop. Most importantly, the multimedia kit will help kids who have gone through divorce (as well as kids who are just experiencing it now) understand that they are not alone (which is a typical feeling for very young kids). Based on the research done at the Sesame Workshop, Dr. Betancourt explained that the goal is to help kids with their biggest concerns they have – especially in terms of what’s really going on in their heads even if they don’t typically say it. The tools will help kids understand big issues like:
divorce is a grown-up problem that the parents tried to fix, but couldn’t
kids don’t cause parents to divorce (for example, it’s not because a kid didn’t pick up their clothes)
the parents still do love their children (even if they aren’t living with them all the time)
why some things – like where everyone lives – will change and how to handle that
Parents will also find very helpful and supportive tips, including:
the need for kids to maintain a routine (including bedtime, basics like when they brush their teeth, etc) across multiple houses
the importance of being truthful (including saying that the parents will not be getting back together)
why it’s essential for both parents to maintain good communication in terms of consistent parenting (with respect to things like praise and discipline practices)
The power of the approach taken by the Sesame Workshop is that they are promoting coping strategies that will help kids feel safe, secure, and loved, despite the enormous challenges that divorce can pose for families. Dr. Betancourt emphasized that this developmental foundation, set in the early years, will help young kids now and later in life as well. So I would strongly encourage any family who is dealing with divorce to put all of the tools from this initiative to good use – especially given the engaging way in which the Sesame Workshop can promote coping skills in toddlers and young children.
We all know that depression is very common in women, and that it can have a profound effect on parenting when a mom is affected. But even though depression affects more women than men, this doesn’t mean that it is rare for a man – and hence a dad – to get depressed. And since some of the symptoms can differ by gender, it’s worth knowing some of the signs that men might show that could signal depression.
There is a terrific feature on Yahoo! Health that provides 12 symptoms of depression in men – I strongly suggest that you click here to read it. The list includes fatigue, sleep problems, physical problems, irritability, indecision, difficulty concentrating, anger/hostility, stress, anxiety, substance abuse, sexual dysfunction, and suicidal thoughts. Below I provide a short summary and some comments.
Let’s start with what you won’t find on the list – sadness and crying. This is potentially the biggest gender difference you will find in terms of depression symptoms. Of course, not every woman who is depressed is teary or overtly sad, but it’s very common for this to be the case (especially when a woman is deep into a depressive episode). This does not seem to be the case for men. So it’s important to recognize that a man may be depressed even if he doesn’t appear to be very sad.
Some of the symptoms overlap with those you see in women. Fatigue and sleep problems can be common. Keep in mind that sleep issues can involve either not getting enough sleep, or getting too much sleep. Physical problems (aka somatic symptoms) are also common – including backaches and headaches. These are not imagined – they are truly physical symptoms. You can count sexual dysfunction in here as well.
Cognitive problems – difficulty concentrating, indecision – can also be a red flag, especially if they are observed in conjunction with other symptoms.
Problems with emotional regulation can be telling, but again not so much in terms of sadness – rather they manifest as irritability and anger/hostility. Look for changes in these negative emotions (which may signal the onset of a depressive episode). Men can also experience and report high levels of anxiety. While this is true for women as well, keep in mind that it may not be accompanied by sadness. In addition, as indicated in the Yahoo! Health feature, men may say that they are “stressed” – and sometimes this can be their way of saying “depressed” (perhaps without even knowing it).
Substance abuse can also signal depression in men. While, again, the same may be true in women, it’s important to remember that these kinds of signs in men may be there even without what you might think of as the classic signs of depression. And, of course, any report of suicidal thoughts should be taken seriously.
Every individual is different, so the main thing is to see if some of these symptoms come together at the same time (or close in time) – and if they seem to be getting worse. Remember, depression is an episodic disease, so you will see notable increases in symptoms that happen before the onset of a severe episode. Do keep in mind that each of these symptoms don’t necessarily indicate depression – rather, it’s the combination of a number of them that makes you consider depression.
There are two truisms that apply equally to men and women: depression is a disease, and effective treatments exist. So if you suspect that a man may be suffering from depression based on observing some of these symptoms, it’s important to support evaluation and treatment.
Coping with 
