Lots of What to Dos? as a Parent

                                                               Henrietta the Hedgehog


Sometimes, I need the help of a child psychologist.

Luckily, I have one working for me. She’s an intern who took the job because she needed the job, not because it is going to be some prerequisite to a PR or marketing career.  We hired her because she blew us away in the interview process and she hasn’t disappointed since.

So in addition to having someone to do our crappy jobs here at work, I have access to someone who is studying the behavior of children and can be of help with advice on raising two toddlers. As most of you know, my answer to everything is to Google it. But some questions go beyond “How do I take a splinter out? or “What are these red splotchy things behind my son’s ears?”  and require a professional opinion.

And boy, do I have questions. For example, do I tell my daughter her artwork sucks, or do I pretend like she is the best at everything she does?

Sydney has a recent fascination with drawing and painting. I’m not sure her artwork is good even for a 3 year old. But if I tell her she needs to work on it, that could be really discouraging. If I tell her it is fantastic, will she ever work to get better?

For now, I play it safe and say something along the lines of, “Wow, that is very interesting.”

And really, when you are talking about art, could you be wrong? There is a whole genre of art – abstract – that makes no sense at all. I could drink two cases of beer on a Saturday night and puke on a canvas and someone would probably pay me $100 for my incredible abstract work of art.

But it gets fishier with other things. Sydney took a tumbling class this year. She is as athletic as the Big Bang’s Sheldon Cooper. I practiced with her, but she just can’t seem to grasp even the simplest of tumbling exercises. Her bear crawl becomes a butt crawl. Her crab walk becomes an exercise in pushing her stomach across the floor. Her somersaults have you fearing for her life.

I’m convinced, at 3 years old, this child will never be an athlete. I want to be encouraging. I want her to keep trying.  But I feel like oohing and aahhing at everything she does and telling her how great she is might lead to self-perception problems when she gets older.

I’ve yet to ask Sara, the child psychologist, about that question, but I did ask her the other day what to do about a child who uses a stuffed animal as a security blanket.

Sydney’s hedgehog, Henrietta, must go everywhere she goes. She cannot go to sleep or to day care without Henrietta. It has gotten to the point that when we head to the grocery, Henrietta buckles in the cart.

This can be a massive problem if “Henri,” as she calls her, gets lost. It results in massive, uncontrollable sobbing, and resistance to doing anything in life until Henrietta is by her side. So, should she have to go to bed while Henri is missing, there is no going to bed. We have to search the house high and low while she loudly sobs to the point of heaving.

Our previous day care provider once drove Henri to our house at 9 p.m. because Sydney had left her there that day. When we said , “You don’t have to do that,” her reply was. “Oh yes I do, because I know from experience how miserable your night will be if she is not there.”

We lost Henri once while running errands. She is likely in a Hyde Park parking lot as we speak. My wife thought she would be clever and went to Ikea and bought seven identical hedgehogs. It worked! Brilliant move.

But not for long. After series of lost and founds, Sydney now realizes she has three hedgehogs. And she actually has a favorite – the one that feels the fluffiest. If you try to substitute one of the others, you get the sobbing. She actually knows the difference.

The other day, she dropped Sydney off at day care and by the time she had arrived at work five minutes later, she had a call waiting from her from the day care provider. Heni was gone! We didn’t know it at the time, but she was sitting on the floor of our garage, the victim of a careless child and a too-busy-in-the-morning daddy.

When Brooke tried to talk some sense into Sydney, she was met with sobbing to the point of almost throwing up. The girl was in a complete melt down and on the verge of physical collapse. Luckily,  Brooke keeps a brand new “fluffy” emergency Henri in the car for just such occasions and was able to drive the few blocks to the day care provider’s house and save the day before the opening bell rang at her school.

Now, you can imagine how this goes over with me. There is no way I am driving back to day care after getting to work because of a stuffed animal. When it is time to go to bed, I am not crawling under every couch and chair in the house looking for a hedgehog.

My solution is, if she loses it, she lives with it. She will cry for a couple of days – cry massively – but then we will be done with this. Of course, my wife thinks this is barbaric.

So I ask the child psychologist.

She is more on my wife’s side. Tell her that just like Sydney needs some alone time from her brother, Henri needs some alone time from Sydney. Or, tell her that she won’t be able to take Henri to pre-school with her and, since this is something Sydney is really looking forward to, she needs to practice being without Henri.

I guess these are the humane ways of doing things.

This is definitely not the way my learn-by-hard-knocks dad would have handled things, but he never had access to a child psychologist.

Or patience.  

Maybe I am getting soft in old age. Or my kids have melted my hardened heart. I’ll give these new-fangled approaches a try. I’ll show everyone I’m no Archie Bunker.

My kids will be happy, my wife will be happy, even Sara the intern will be happy.