I pride myself on being pretty relaxed when it comes to most parenting decisions. I’ve written in the past about those feisty “helicopter moms” and, while
I’m not “hands-off” by any stretch, I like to think that I’m more of a sweet little sparrow rather than a massive Blackhawk.
These ideas I pride myself on, however, always get slapped with a dash of reality when I read a story like this one, that was passed around my social circle no less than 5 times. Written for The Atlantic, the title of the post alone is enough to make any parent, even those really relaxed ones, open their mouths in fear.
“How to Land Your Kid in Therapy,” title notwithstanding, is actually one of the more balanced parenting articles I’ve read in a long time. It actually should be required reading for parents. Written by a therapist and mother, Lori Gottleib, it points out key things we, as parents, do to ensure our kids have happy childhoods, but may make them be unhappy adults. An example:
Paul Bohn, a psychiatrist at UCLA who came to speak at my clinic, says the answer may be yes. Based on what he sees in his practice, Bohn believes many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.
Consider a toddler who’s running in the park and trips on a rock, Bohn says. Some parents swoop in immediately, pick up the toddler, and comfort her in that moment of shock, before she even starts crying. But, Bohn explains, this actually prevents her from feeling secure—not just on the playground, but in life. If you don’t let her experience that momentary confusion, give her the space to figure out what just happened (Oh, I tripped), and then briefly let her grapple with the frustration of having fallen and perhaps even try to pick herself up, she has no idea what discomfort feels like, and will have no framework for how to recover when she feels discomfort later in life. These toddlers become the college kids who text their parents with an SOS if the slightest thing goes wrong, instead of attempting to figure out how to deal with it themselves. If, on the other hand, the child trips on the rock, and the parents let her try to reorient for a second before going over to comfort her, the child learns: That was scary for a second, but I’m okay now. If something unpleasant happens, I can get through it. In many cases, Bohn says, the child recovers fine on her own—but parents never learn this, because they’re too busy protecting their kid when she doesn’t need protection.
This kind of example actually came up in my previous article – we want to protect our children to the extent of ensuring that we can avoid every scrape, nick, bump or bruise. It’s just not realistic.
After reading these types of articles, I always reflect on myself – what do I do that maybe won’t land my kid on the therapist’s couch, but that might undermine is independence?
I was caught in that moment this week.
It started earlier this week when I discovered something unsettling happening at my son’s camp: they were using spray sunscreen on him. If you know me, you know the lengths I’ve gone to to eradicate the bad bad sunscreen there is out there on the market. I’ve researched and procured perhaps not the easiest-to-apply products, but what I think are the safest and best choices for our family. So that’s what, of course, I pack in my son’s bag for him to take to camp.
When the lotion I packed kept its contents steady and as my son got darker and darker from the sun, I wondered… was the sunscreen even getting on him? The answer was mixed.
“We don’t use my sunscreen, mom,” I was told earlier this week. “The counselors say it’s too hard to apply so they spray us every day with spray sunscreen which I know you don’t like.”
I love my kid.
I went into a semi-panic. Here I am, BPA, paraben, nano-particle free while my son is inhaling oxybenzone every morning in the swim locker room.
“They didn’t put it on my face,” he said proudly. But it wasn’t that much of a relief. I don’t give a lick if he eats Popsicle and chips almost every day while at camp. I can’t worry about packing him his own snacks – that’s crazy, right?
But, the chemicals in the sunscreen are ones I’ve vowed to avoid. So I did what any mother trying to protect her son from the evils of the world would do. I called the camp and complained. (It was the first time this whole summer.) And I was promptly told that the sunscreen sticks are impossible to apply, the spray is easier and if I want my son to have his own private sunscreen application I need to send lotion, not a sunscreen stick, and that she’d have to tell the UNIT HEAD of the camp that we have special rules for him.
OMG.
“You must think I’m totally crazy,” I told the camp director. “You must think I’m insane, but I hate spray sunscreen.”
OMG.
After there wasn’t much more that I could do or say. I found an old tube of California Baby and threw it in the bag. But there was more to that. What kind of ramifications would my neuroses about sunscreen chemicals have on my child, who, in wanting to protect what I think might be harmful for his health, may put him in a position of ridiculousness at camp? It’s only 8 weeks of his life, right?
At the end of the day what did I reflect on about this? That I acted bat-sh** crazy about zinc. Freaking goopy icky white zinc sunscreen.
Here’s to hoping the only couch he ends up on is the one in my basement.
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