Good Enough Page 15

  Plowman recommends recalling fond memories of your own childhood and revisiting and reliving them with your little one (you should probably leave out Barbie bordellos, however). ‘Remind yourself that your special little person will grow up very quickly and play opportunities will soon be gone,’ says Plowman.

  If playing with a baby, toddler or preschooler is uncomfortable or hostile territory, the following top ten tips may assist:

  1. Leave your child when he is happily playing alone; only engage to initiate play or when he is restless, frustrated or bored. Help by setting up interesting spaces for him to explore using his senses. If you need to transition or redirect play, try putting on your favourite CD and sing and dance together.

  2. Play with your child as you go about everyday household tasks. Let him ride the vacuum cleaner, jump on the pillows while you make the bed, or wash up plastic plates while you are cooking. Include washable dolls, teddies, tea sets and child-size kitchen tools and utensils so he can imitate your actions.

  3. Keep safe recycled boxes of all sizes to play in or with. Larger ones may become a boat, car or tunnel; smaller ones a pretend mobile phone, hat or carry basket.

  4. Pack lunch and go to a park. Visit parks that have different play equipment. Fresh air and exercise will refresh you both.

  5. Visit your local library, which will usually have story and activity time for young children. Read the books your child chooses to borrow as part of his bedtime routine.

  6. Join a playgroup or start one with a few friends. Alternatively enrol in a specialised weekly group for young children based on swimming, physical activities, music or culture. Your child will make new playmates and learn from his peers. (Contact your local playgroup association or council for help and advice.)

  7. Set up play according to your child’s interests. Have a special cupboard, shelf or drawer for his toys. Put away toys he is currently not using and reintroduce them later. Borrow toys from a toy library to maintain and extend interest.

  8. Think indoor and outdoor play spaces that can be used in creative ways. A sandpit, digging hole or cubby for outdoors and a small table and chairs for tabletop play indoors. Creative play, such as painting and gluing, can get messy so have spaces that are easy to clean. Strategically place play spaces for appropriate supervision and interaction.

  9. Include him purposefully in your hobbies, family outings or extended family get-togethers. Go to fairs, festivals, concerts and other local events. Visit museums, libraries, art galleries, botanical gardens, wildlife sanctuaries, zoos and other places that specifically cater for young children.

  10. Develop an appreciation for nature by respectfully using natural play materials. For sensory play, use water, sand, mud, leaves, large shells, pine cones and rocks. Point out visitors to your garden: birds, bees, butterflies, ants and snails. Draw his attention to the weather, seasonal changes and life cycles of plants and animals. Draw his attention to what’s in the day and night sky.

  I smacked my kid

  There is always that one creepy scene in horror movies where the mother in the chic chignon realises her child isn’t just a seriously ill-tempered kid with a penchant for white pancake make-up, but is in fact Satan. You know the scene: the music builds to a crescendo, a Doberman with Seiko-red eyes suddenly comes running into the garishly decorated room, and if that’s not enough of a giveaway, we pan to the small child ruthlessly smashing his or her baby brother’s skull in with a skillet. Make no bones about it – that kid is evil.

  I’m having my own moment with Cella although there is no chignon or skillet in sight. Two years old, she is wild-eyed and bushy-haired and pummelling her fists on the carpet, while I am sleep deprived and utterly exhausted after her marathon 3am tanty. Standing there in my pyjamas watching her dramatic performance, I become more and more convinced a demon has jumped into her body and become her puppetmaster. This is clearly not the child I brought into the world. When I place my hand on her leg she reacts like I’ve poured holy water all over her, screaming, ‘NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!’ She smacks and kicks at me in fury and then it happens, almost as though in slow motion. I watch my hand rise up into the air, like I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience, and come down hard, making contact with her bottom – crack! And there it is, after almost three years of nothing more than a few firm words, time-out or a super-tight death grip while carrying her out of a shopping centre/friend’s house/ice-cream shop, I have smacked my daughter for the first time. The fallout is immediate.

  We stand facing each other for what seems like eternity. Cella looks at me in shock and devastation, her big blue eyes welling up as she considers how I, the person she trusts most in the world, could have intentionally caused her physical pain. I watch her, absolutely sickened to my stomach by how low I have just stooped. As she sucks in a deep breath to commence the howling I know is about to begin, I picture an adult Cella doing a round robin with endless therapists as she tries to overcome her addiction to cheeseburgers/bad men/crack by getting to the bottom of why her mum ‘beat her’ all those years ago. Fuck! I drop onto her bed with my head in my hands and begin to sob, as Cella’s wails increase ten-fold.

  This is how Lee finds us as he comes tearing into the room. ‘What’s happened?’ he yells over the noise. ‘Mummy hit me!’ Cella screams, reaching out for him to pick her up. Lee gives me a look flashing with pure hatred. ‘You hit her?’ You HIT her? Why would you do that?’ He is furious and rightly so. He cradles our daughter and tries soothing her with kisses and cuddles as she bawls into his shoulder. I can only stare at them blankly as I try to come to grips with what I’ve just done. I can honestly say I don’t know why I hit her. I only know I felt out of control, like nothing else I’d tried over the past couple of hours was working and then suddenly my hand was making contact with her tooshie. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. ‘She’s going to hate me forever,’ I lament as I weep into Cella’s pillow, but my pity-party is a one-person event and I get no response. Lee scoops Cella out of the room and gets her away from me, the monster. This incident has only served to validate every concern I’ve ever had that I am a terrible mother.

  Remarkably, as the days go by, my relationship with Cella doesn’t change as I feared it might. She is still her affectionate self and the incident seems to be largely forgotten as we play together. But that’s not to say things don’t change. Although our relationship is still tight, her behaviour changes literally overnight. Her sweet and innocent tea party games are soon replaced by episodes where she swaggers around her room and smacks the bejesus out of her dolls like a drunken trailer-trash dad. ‘You’re being very naughty, Rosie, and I’m going to smack you very hard,’ she yells before commencing a fisticuff session with her plastic dolls which wouldn’t look out of place in a prison yard. She lashes out at me and her father, raising her hand and smacking at us whenever she’s displeased. And every single time she does it, Lee looks at me with an eyebrow raised as if to say, ‘See what you’ve done?’ The final straw comes when I get a call from Cella’s childcare centre to inform me she has attempted to strangle one of the babies as punishment for being naughty and could I come in for a chat?

  I seek guidance from Cella’s babycare nurse, whom I really should have stopped visiting, but whom I still consult whenever I screw up. It’s like she’s some kind of priest who can absolve me of my sins. ‘I smacked Cella on the bottom and now she’s trying to strangle babies and I’m worried she’s going to grow up to put people’s heads on sticks, because really, where else can you go from strangling babies?’ I cry on her shoulder as soon as I enter her room. She listens without judgment. ‘You’re not a bad mother, Dilvin,’ she insists. ‘But you need to make it clear you’ve made a mistake and hitting people is very wrong.’ She hands me a stack of pamphlets on disciplining toddlers, adding that babies and toddlers are unlikely to be able to make any connection between their behaviour and physical punishment and will only feel the pain of your hit. ‘Your
kids learn from watching their parents so it’s no surprise Cella is acting this way if this is something she has seen at home.’ No kidding. She sends me home to rewire Cella’s brain back to normal through the use of government literature, and to ruminate over my actions.

  There’s no judgment on my part (obviously), but you’re either pro-smacking or you’re not. If you think it’s okay to give the rugrats a little smack when they misbehave, you’re certainly not alone, some 69 per cent of Aussie adults are on your side, but you probably wouldn’t do it in public, right? Not unless you’re one of those rough mums who slams their kid in the middle of the supermarket, screaming, ‘Jai! I said don’t fucking hit your sister!’ Whack. If I lived in one of the 32 countries where smacking children has been banned, I could reasonably expect the cops to come to my house to arrest my child-beating arse for abuse, I suppose, but in Australia not only is it considered justifiable punishment (in most states) when it is ‘reasonable chastisement’ for misbehaviour, but most Aussies still have the mentality that ‘our parents smacked us and we turned out alright’. Of course, politicians are loath to touch the issue, which polarises debate between happy-slapper parents furious over so-called ‘nanny state interference’, and those who claim such relaxed laws only serve to sanction child abuse. Some industry leaders, however, have become more vocal in their stance against smacking. On the back of Britain’s call for a ban, citing ‘Today’s smack becomes tomorrow’s punch’, many of Australia’s leading paediatricians and child psychologists (who probably know a thing or two about kids) have declared smacking to be tantamount to child abuse and have called for a ban here, and frankly, they have some bloody good arguments. Not only has smacking children been proven ineffective and unhelpful, countries that have banned smacking have seen reductions in the level of child abuse. Also, let’s be honest: most of us would not think it okay to start smacking another person in the street, so why do we think it’s acceptable to do it to vulnerable children?

  These practitioners are not just being hippies, either – they have the studies to back up their arguments. In fact, one of the biggest studies done on this subject has shown that children who are spanked, slapped, grabbed or shoved as a form of punishment run a higher risk of suffering from a wide range of mental health and personality disorders in adulthood. Another study published in the Medical Journal of Australia declared school-aged children in Australia are twice as likely to be killed as their British peers, usually as a result of child abuse by their mother or de facto father. Yet another study of kids aged between three and six has shown that children exposed to physical punishment have far less self-control than those who haven’t been exposed to it, and they also fall short when it comes to verbal communication, decision making and resisting temptation. Add to that the strong evidence that smacking kids isn’t actually effective – kids who are hit actually misbehave more once the punishment begins. Yep, it turns out some seriously screwed-up kids can view smacking as an actual reward, not punishment, because they see it as attention from ma and pa they might otherwise not get – which really makes you question these people’s parenting skills. (I know I said no judgment, but sheesh!)

  In the end, the brochures are read, apologies are said, and Lee and I begin the difficult task of trying to transform our renegade Bandido toddler back into the sweet-natured child she used to be. I learn to concentrate on rewarding good behaviour rather than focusing on punishing her for the bad and this seems to work a treat. When on the odd occasion she becomes too feral to talk to, we employ the old ‘time-out’ method, using the general ‘one minute for each year of age’ rule of thumb. But for the most part, we talk about why hitting other people is bad. I tell her I made a huge mistake, that we should never ever hit anyone and she seems accepting of this. A few weeks of this and she doesn’t raise another hand; she is back to being sweet and lovable Cella. As for me, I’ve definitely learned my lesson.

  Not long after this episode I watch a 60 Minutes interview involving a mother and her son, who was smacked as he was growing up. She was highly indignant and defended her decision to inflict physical punishment on her children, but her well-spoken son brought down her whole argument with a single quote: ‘Apart from the obvious pain, I found it very disrespectful. She talks a lot about respect and she constantly says, “You kids don’t respect me.” I find it laughable because when you hit someone throughout their childhood, how can you expect to have their respect?’ Food for thought, really.

  Is smacking our kids ever a good idea?

  Child and family psychologist Katharine Cook (familypsychology.com.au) spent 15 years in child protection before leaving to work in private practice. She says while our propensity to dish out a smack or two in retaliation for ‘bad behaviour’ (not without irony!) has been decreasing, the numbers are far higher than we like to believe. ‘Parents are less likely to punish their children physically if they have knowledge of other methods of discipline, but when we’re stressed, we often react instinctively,’ she says. One way we react instinctively is by mirroring how our parents disciplined us, so if your parents smacked you as a child, you’re more likely to lash out in a way that’s familiar to you.

  Yes it may hurt and leave a red mark, but is a good smack ever effective? Not a hope, says Cook. ‘Physical discipline doesn’t work as a way of changing the child’s behaviour; it only serves to create fear and pain.’ But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act in the face of bad behaviour, because equally ineffective is no discipline. ‘It is very important for parents to understand that effective discipline takes time and effort and there isn’t a quick-fix solution.’

  What are the top five reasons parents smack their kids?

  1. It’s the only thing that works with my child. Physical discipline doesn’t work. It merely creates fear and causes upset. A vast amount of good research shows that smacking is not as effective as other techniques. Behaviour change is ineffective when brought about by fear; it is temporary at best.

  2. My child is difficult . . . he doesn’t respond to time-out . . . he needs a good smack. I have spent years working with children who have serious conduct disorders, who are hard to work with and are often impulsive. No expert believes those children are best dealt with by physical punishment because our research tells us otherwise. Often the most difficult children need tighter boundaries, need to learn that they are valuable and need to be treated with more patience and consistency.

  3. Smacking never did me any harm. It’s true that not every child was harmed while being driven around without child seats in the 70s. But we have so much information telling us that what we believed to be harmless in the past may not be so now. Most of us now accept that smoking while pregnant isn’t the best idea and that drink driving is somewhat dangerous. With new information, people gradually start to change their behaviour, especially those who are well educated and have access to information. Our parents and grandparents didn’t have the wealth of information about child development and child psychology available to them – they didn’t have any alternatives.

  4. Smacking teaches them right from wrong. How can we expect children to play with other children without hitting each other if we, as adults, teach them with smacks? How can we expect children to grow up believing physical violence is not the best method for resolving conflict, if this is how mum and dad deal with being angry and cross?

  5. You can’t reason with a child. Children are not stupid and they do respond to firm, consistent boundaries and reason. Time-out, done properly, is time consuming but it is effective and no one needs to feel any pain, shame or excessive distress.

  What are some effective alternatives to physically disciplining your child?

  * Learn about the correct way of using time-out, either to diffuse the situation or remove your child from what they are doing. I especially like the concept of time-in, where a parent removes the child, and stays with them while they calm down. Once the child has calmed down or some time has elapsed, the paren
t asks the child what they have done. The parent then helps the child understand what happened, asks for an apology and guides the child to do something to repair the situation (ie help clean the mess, pat the dog gently, hold hands while in the shop, etc).

  * Don’t always react immediately. I suggest parents sometimes give themselves time-out to calm down and contemplate how to deal with a situation (if the situation allows it). Lock yourself in the bathroom for one minute while the initial anger fades and so you can think of another way of dealing with the child.

  * Use logical consequences for children’s difficult behaviour. In the face of ongoing tantrums, remember that your child may actually need your help to calm down and regulate their emotions. When being tired, upset and/or cross has led to a tantrum or difficult behaviour, a child may just be in need of a hug or one-to-one time with a parent.

  * Ignore (or pretend you didn’t see) the less serious difficult behaviour. Pick your battles.

  Immunisations are the best thing ever (and no one can convince me otherwise)

  It’s not every day you ask your barista for a double shot of the good stuff because you know you’re up for a barrage of hate mail the minute you enter your office. But as I walk into my regular cafe on a Monday morning, I know that’s exactly how my day is going to pan out. I know this because a contentious article I have written for a national magazine has hit the stands today and there will no doubt be thousands of women around the country baying for my blood.

  I turn on my computer and, sure enough . . . email after email of cheerful morning sentiment along the lines of, ‘Why won’t you die, you evil bitch?’ – exactly the sort of prose everyone hopes to wake up to (Hallmark take note). I scull my coffee and gingerly click on the first email. ‘Dear Ms Yasa,’ it opens. ‘Blah blah blah . . . you’re using your public position as a journalist to poison the brains of Australian women . . .’ fumes the writer, who at the very least, I should point out, is cordial enough to sign off with a ‘Kind regards’. Another reader writes in to say I ‘wouldn’t know the first thing about journalism such is the quality of your shoddy research’. Others? Well, let’s just say they’re not as kind.