Pick Your Battles

We were about to go out this afternoon so I told my kids to put their shoes on and get ready to go. Four-year-old Eliana asked if she could keep her Tinkerbell costume on for our outing. Two-year-old Ami refused to wear his shoes. "Elmo slippers," he insisted. I smiled at my crazy kids, helped Ami put his slippers on, and shooed them out the door.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. You have to pick your battles. This is true with your kids, with your spouse, with your boss, with whomever.

Whether you want to "battle" with your kids on a particular subject depends on a number of things:

• How major/minor is the issue? (Hitting - Battle. Shoes on the couch - Up to you.)

• How many other things are you working on ingraining in your child simultaneously? A kid can work on learning approximately three different lessons at any given time. If you're working on teaching her not to lie and to look both ways before crossing the street, do you want to make speaking with an indoor voice your third issue or reserve that slot for something more important that might come up? Believe me, they'll be yelling next week too. You're not going to miss your chance. You WILL have an opportunity to teach them about indoor voices!

• What else is going on in the immediate environment? Did your child miss her nap? Is the baby crying to be fed? Are you stressed to get out the door and get to work on time? Is your daughter starving because you haven't gotten dinner on the table yet? Did she have a hard day in which she failed a test, was teased or bullied, or fell in the mud? Did YOU have a rough day in which you messed up a work assignment, had a flat tire, or argued with your spouse? Is it bedtime and you don't want to spend an hour arguing when it's time for the kids to start winding down? Your child's mood and emotional state, your own mood and emotional state, and whatever else is going on in your household at the moment is going to have an impact on her behavior as well as on your decision about whether or not to fight this battle right now.

Remember, anything that is an issue or a lesson your kids really need to learn is going to manifest itself over and over again. You will have plenty of opportunities to deal with the issue in the future, especially if your kids are young. Not only do your kids' immediate needs (food, sleep) need to come first, but any lesson you try to impart to them isn't going to sink in anyway if they're hungry/tired/upset.

Now I'll be honest. Sometimes I do tell Eliana an outfit she's chosen doesn't match. (And she has gotten to the point now that she will often ask me whether it matches.) But I know that not only is arguing over what she wears a waste of time and energy that I should be saving for the real issues, but letting her pick her own outfit also boosts her independence and self-confidence.

So let your kids pick out their own outfits sometimes. Even if you're not in a rush to get out the door. And even if you know you're going to get some funny looks because your toddler is walking around in Elmo slippers!

The Great Pacifier Debate

Q: I am against pacifiers big-time, especially since kids seem to hold on to them until they're 4, 5, 6 or older these days. My husband thinks I'm exaggerating and worried for nothing.

My eldest child, Katie, is 3.5 and has had a pacifier since she was 3 months old. From the age of one we have limited it to bedtime and naps.

We prepared her to get rid of her pacifier when she turned three and would be a "big girl," but when the day came my husband insisted she wasn't ready so we waited. A few months later Katie said "Let's have a party." We collected all the pacifiers, sang bye-bye to them, had cake, an it was finished! Or so I thought.

That night she was hysterical. We tried giving her toys and treats, staying in the room with her, nothing worked. It's been like this for a few weeks and I just don't know what to do.

I'm guessing that part of the problem is that Katie's brother, who is less than a year younger than her, still has a pacifier. The two are joined at the hip an think they are twins. I think he should give up his paci too, but my husband says I'd be "punishing" him by making him give it up at only 2.5!

Advice?????



A: There are two camps when it comes to pacifiers.

1) It's bad for kids' teeth and it looks ridiculous. Pacifiers are for babies.

2) Pacifiers fill an emotional need. If you take it away before they're ready, they're going to react/act out in some other way or just find something else to attach themselves to for comfort instead of the pacifier. Let your kid keep her pacifier for as long as she needs it. Eventually she will give it up on her own.

Until I heard position #2, I was a strong advocate of position #1. I still believe a pacifier should be gotten rid of at around a year, when dentists recommend it. Kids at this age should be able to soothe themselves to sleep and it's much easier to take it away when they're younger than if you wait till they're older. When they're young it's just a tool. When they're older it's almost a part of them.

Of course, this is irrelevant to you because your kid are long past that stage. So let's deal with the here and now.

You are absolutely correct that you're not going to be able to get Katie to give up her paci if her brother still has one. And at 2.5, he is old enough to get rid of his. Anyway it's best to deal with this all in one fell swoop - why have to do it all over again with him in a few months?

Unfortunately the bigger issue here is convincing your husband. Just like in my last post, this is not as much a parenting question as it is a marriage question. It is still partially a parenting question because you're still struggling with exactly how to get rid of Katie's paci, but it's more a marriage question because if you and your husband were both on the same page it would be a whole lot easier to make a plan and stick to it.

In general with questions like these in which the parents are at odds about how to approach a parenting issue, I say you have to pick your battles. But you NEED to get rid of Katie's paci. Dentists say a baby should not have a paci past a year old. Pacifiers can cause speech problems and recurrent ear infections. I suggest you collect some articles outlining these facts and present them to your husband. Tell him "To you it's not a big deal for Katie to keep her pacifier, but that's because you don't know the facts. Here are the facts. We need to do what's best for our kids, and we are starting today. I'm happy to discuss other aspects of parenting with you and come up with compromises, but when it comes to their health, if there is a clear-cut answer about what is better for them, we have to do what the research says."

Now, you're still going to have to deal with Katie's emotional attachment to her pacifier. She might become clingy, or weepy, or obstinate. She is definitely going to need a lot of love, attention, cuddling and understanding. One thing you have on your side is that your two kids have each other. If they're anything like my kids, Katie might be so busy taking care of her little brother and telling him "Don't be sad, it's OK, you can do it" that she'll forget about her own plight!

There's a good possibility that Katie will feel the need to replace her pacifier with a different comfort object. You'll probably be annoyed if she does, but I say let her do it if that's what she needs to feel secure. At least it won't be ruining her teeth. She'll get rid of her comfort object when she's good and ready.

I slept with my blankie until I was ten or so, and I think I turned out OK.

Petel for Babies and Cake for Breakfast

Q: My husband gives my baby "petel" (concentrated fruit-flavored syrup mixed with water to make "bug juice") when I'm not around. Sarah is only 14 months old. How do I get him to understand that it's not good for her? Now she throws her sippy cup when she discovers it's only water!

A: This is not really a parenting question, it's a marriage question. "My husband's not doing what I want, how do I get him to do what I want him to do/to see things my way?" Of course, in a way it's much simpler than this because it's not just something you want, it's actually what's best for your child. Unfortunately, some dads just don't get it. Or it's more likely that they get it but it's easier if they pretend they don't.

I just asked my husband why a dad would give his baby petel. After the first three answers he refused to give me any more because I was laughing so hard he was afraid I'd hurt myself.

1. They give babies sugar water at the bris. It's authorized by a "baby expert."
2. Babies don't have teeth yet anyway. It's not going to give them cavities.
3. He's probably not giving her real petel. It's probably the healthy kind.

When I raised my eyebrows, he explained:
"There are some brands of petel that list all the vitamins and minerals they have. There's even a picture of a dragon on the bottle that says it has calcium" (so it must be true, right? The marketers of this "sugar water" have the gall to call it "Vitamin-chik!")

OMG, I was rolling on the floor.

Then I asked him why a dad SHOULDN'T give his baby petel.
He said all the sugar would make her hyperactive.

That's the difference between hubby and me. He sees the immediate consequences that he's going to have to deal with: a hyperactive child.

I see the whole forest, not just the individual tree.

• You and I know that Sarah is going to fill up on empty calories and not want to eat real food.
• I'm sure she already has some teeth, and even if she doesn't, she'll get them eventually. Your husband's not going to get up one day and say "Oh, you have teeth now, no more petel."
• Of course, too much sugar causes all kinds of health problems, not just tooth decay.
• But you're already seeing a serious problem here. Addiction. No, she's not seriously addicted like, say, I am to coffee, but she's already refusing to drink water because she knows something tastier is out there. (Even though the "tastiness" of petel is up in the air - who actually likes that disgusting swill? Kids who don't know better, I guess. And for some reason our husbands.)

The real issue here is not convincing your husband that you're right and he's wrong. No matter what research you shove in his face (and I do recommend shoving research in his face if you want this to stop), even if you do convince him to stop giving her petel, it's all about your husband's attitude. He sees things differently than you do for all sorts of reasons. He's a man and you're a woman, he's a dad and you're a mom. When it comes down to it, he's him and you're you.

And that's a good thing. Imagine what your life would be like if you'd married someone exactly like you. You can't imagine it because you never would have married someone exactly like you. We married our husbands because "opposites attract." Of course, we have the important things in common, but we have to differ in some ways or we just wouldn't be able to stand each other!

Anyway, as it is to many questions in marriage as well as in parenting (believe me, it's a theme you'll see repeated here often), the answer to your question is that you have to pick your battles. There are going to be a million things your husband and children do that drive you crazy, and you can't bite their heads off for every one. You have to look at the specific scenario and decide if this one is worth fighting for.

In my house, it would be.

When my Eliana was a baby I told Hubby in no uncertain terms that we were going to raise her on healthy food and she was not to get any junk. As far as I know he stuck to that for the first year. Then at her first birthday party she had chocolate cake with delicious sugary pink icing. To you and me it would be obvious that a birthday is a special occasion and that the next day we would return to life as usual. But my husband got up in the morning and served birthday cake to our 12 month + 1 day-old for her breakfast. "Oh, she's one, I thought she could have cake now," was his response when I asked him what in the world he thought he was doing. I was dumbfounded. But looking back, I shouldn't have been. You can't just assume your husband knows what you're thinking. As obvious as it seems to you, sometimes he needs it spelled out for him.

Hubby grew up on cake for breakfast. I don't know if it was a cultural thing or what, but his parents ate cake for breakfast and they let him eat it too. Sure, I love a good donut in the morning, but I know it's not good for me and it's not a nourishing breakfast that will give my kids (or me, for that matter) the energy and brain power they need to make it through the day. They need protein and healthy, whole grain carbs.

Hubby's response? "What's wrong with cake? It has milk. It has eggs. It has flour. It's a great breakfast!"

Three years later my husband gets it. Or claims to. After it being pounded into his head a bazillion times. Because I decided this was a battle that was worth the fight. But there are plenty of times I just shrug my shoulders and walk away. You have to decide now and every time something like this happens if you're going to fight for what's right or let it go and live to fight another day.

And by the way, when my husband thinks I don't know about it, he still gives the kids cake (or Cocoa Pebbles) for breakfast once in awhile. But I know - I can see it on their faces and smell it on their breath. And I let him know that I know. But I don't admonish him. Just the fact that he knows that I know teaches him that he'd better be careful where he treads because WIFEY KNOWS ALL!