Well duh . . .

So Lisa and I were right all along . . . I'm just saying (like I've been saying since the earth began to cool, if parents want to know about how their kids are doing ask someone who's not their parent. Better yet, ask someone who doesn't have kids.

On second thought, don't ask someone who doesn't have kids because that would mean you would be asking Lisa or I and we are far too sensitive, caring and gracious to give you the honest answer that you really deserve. Well, that and if we did, we would have NO friends what so ever - come to think of it we really don't have that many close friends and the ones we do,  never talk about their kids except in the most superficial way - well at least until the kids are grown and the parents have finally begun to shed some of the scales from their eyes and actually begin to see their own children the way every one else see's them.

Of course none of this applies to any of my friends, co-workers, Lisa's friends, co-workers, clients or anyone who we've ever met in the last 30+ years. If you think it does apply to you I can assure you that you are horribly mistaken and in fact you are one of the very few exceptionally awesome parents that Lisa and I have ever met and are so in tune with your children that it's kind of spooky. You should get an award actually.

To be honest I was just talking to Lisa the other day about who I should send the nomination for Parents of The Year Award to. So you should read the article below and sit back and thank your precious Lord for blessing you with above average parenting skills and such gifted children :)

************************
From the January 23rd 2009 New York Times.

How Well Do You Know Your Children?

By Lisa Belkin

Do you know your children? Really know them?

Research out this month hints that you don’t.

A study released in the Journal of Nutrition and Behavior Education looks at parents’ perceptions of their children’s eating and exercise habits – perceptions that turn out to be wrong much of the time. These researchers were looking specifically at nutrition, the I think the broader point applies to the whole of parenting – that there is often a mismatch between what we see when we look at our children, and what is really there.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and at Brown University surveyed 172 parents about the exercise and nutrition habits of their children. Those with preschoolers reported that their children ate healthy food and exercised regularly, and those with middle schoolers reported that theirs did not. But when examined more closely, there was very little difference in eating and exercise between the two age groups.

Wrote Hollie A. Raynor, a University of Tennessee nutritionist and an author of the report: “Although preschool-aged children engaged in more healthful behaviors according to parent recall, the preschool-aged children only met 2 dietary recommendations, fruit and low-fat dairy intake. All other parent-reported eating and leisure-time activity patterns did not meet current recommendations.”

In other words, we think we are doing well by them, we want to do well by them, but we are blinded by the emotional connection that makes us want so much in the first place. We, who know our children best, are sometimes too close for a focussed view. Even while we think we are paying meticulous attention (and heaven knows, we have all seen parents who are smothering with their attention) we still miss what is right in front of us.

Within my own circle of family and friends, and in emails lately from readers, I hear story after story: parents who didn’t notice a six year old’s pattern of sloppiness and frustration until a first grade teacher suggested occupational therapy; parents who didn’t hear their seven year old’s lisp until the child himself pointed it out and asked for help; a family who hadn’t a hint that their middle daughter was throwing up after every meal until the plumber explained that’s why the pipes had corroded; an ADHD diagnosis after years of parents telling their child she could do better if she’d just put her mind to it.

In part, perhaps, all this is because we really don’t know what we are doing. We are parents, not doctors or therapists (though one of the above tales happened to a doctor and another to a therapist…) A study out of the University of Rochester last year screened the parents of more than 10,000 9-month-old babies, asking such questions as “Should a 1-year-old child be able to tell right from wrong?” and “Should a 1-year-old child be ready to begin toilet-training?” A third of parents got fewer than five of the 11 questions correct, meaning they had what researchers labeled a “low level knowledge of typical infant development.” (The answer to both those questions is no, by the way.)

Another reason we don’t see what is in front of us, I think, is that we don’t want it to be true. (Which is one reason why doctors and therapists are not supposed to treat their own children.) We’re in denial, pure and simple. And a more complicated corollary to that is “it can’t be true, because if it were, as his parent, I would know.”

One of my most haunting memories is of back when my older son was seven and he hurt his leg on the playground. It wasn’t swollen or discolored. I full out accused him of milking a minor hurt. I even insisted that he walk on it. When I took him for x-rays 24 hours later, the films showed a god-awful fracture. Looking at them I was flattened by one thought: If he was in that much pain, how come I didn’t feel it?

Comments

[onjejank]

as a parent, the longer I do this thing the more I realize just what the article posed: I have no idea what I'm doing. As a good friend said: Just don't f@&* up your kids. I figure I'll make mistakes - I'm just trying to keep from making the really big ones. Great wisdom!

[Sarah]

So I'll be getting my Parent of the Year around soon then? :)

[Sarah]

Oops..I meant award not around...see what those kids have done to me!!!

[Lisa Buchanan]

I am just going to smile and wave.