There is a craze erupting among some parents of young children in the U.S. Some are hosting “chickenpox parties.” The idea? If you don’t like the varicella vaccination, immunize your child the “natural and old-fashioned” way. Get them sick.

Ever since the autism scare with the MMR vaccination, may parents have opted out of childhood immunizations. I understand how strong parental fear can be, because I am a parent. But I also know science. And- I know that there is a whole lot of nonsense posing as science that parents can access on the internet.

Unfortunately, while the association between autism and thimerisol in the MMR vaccine has long been debunked (even by the authors of the “study” exposing it), fear still abounds.

Here’s the real problem with the chickenpox parties. First, when a child contracts the chickenpox infection through exposure, his risk of getting serious sequelae are much higher. When he gets the infection, he may get cerebritis (infection of the cerebellar brain tissue), pneumonia, painful oral sores, keratitis (eye problems), secondary bacterial infections from sores on the skin, shingles later in life and more. Avoiding these serious problems was exactly the reason that physicians began immunizing against varicella. Some of these can be life threatening. These DON’T occur when you immunize children.

Many of the parents are exposing their children because they know that getting chickenpox as an adult is very dangerous. They are right. But kids can also get what adults get when they get the infection.

Second, some parents want their kids to get the infection because they believe that it will confer lifelong immunity. While this may have been true thirty years ago when all kids got chickenpox, we don’t know if it is true any longer. Back then, kids had repeated exposure to the illness through siblings, classmates and others in the community but that no longer happens because we rarely see chickenpox anymore. Bottom line is, the rules have changed.

I strongly believe that parents should never make parenting decisions out of fear. Not immunizing your children is just that. What parents who refuse to immunize forget is that taking a different tact like this doesn’t minimize your child’s risk for problems. Sure, children won’t get reactions to the vaccines, but these are mild compared to sequelae from the infection. Unimmunized kids are extremely vulnerable to life threatening illness. We really have come a long way in making kids healthy, so let’s not go backwards. Taking kids to chickenpox parties leaves them wide open for many very serious health concerns that really don’t need to be part of a child’s life any longer.

If you are concerned about vaccine safety, visit the VAER on the CDC website for accurate medical information.

Parents consistently lament to me that their sons won’t listen and behave. Their discipline falls on deaf ears and stony hearts.

Well, there’s a secret to disciplining boys. Boys will do virtually anything their fathers want them to do.

Even at three years old, every boy wants to feel loved, accepted and valued. They quickest way he knows how to get there is by seeing mom or dad happy with him. That doesn’t change. A parent’s job is to understand this need and meet it. It gets hard because most parents get exhausted. And when the teen years hit, and our boys are home less, we feel pressured to get our points across quickly and emphatically.

In short, we speak (or lecture) too soon, too frequently to our sons and fail to give them an ear. No boy listens to a parent who lectures before he listens. No son wants his father’s advice if he is repeatedly interrupted or criticized. The truth is most sons already know the point a mother or father wants to drive home. Sons know what you like, dislike, want, or expect from them. That’s why, when dealing with a teenager, it’s less important to talk than to listen.

Many have heard the old adage that for every criticism made to a child, seven compliments must follow.

In the teen years, it is equally important that your son has seven times as much positive time with you (listening to him) as he has negative time (criticizing or correcting him).

Source: Boys Should Be Boys

While we’re eating ham, deviled eggs and Grandma’s green jello salad this holiday weekend, my prayer is that we can all remember the real meaning of Good Friday and Easter is to acknowledge that Jesus died for our sins to give mankind hope and everlasting life.

Wishing each and every one of you a safe, peaceful and happy Easter holiday weekend. May all families and communities enjoy fulfilling bonding time with the ones they love.

I want to thank all of you mothers who have been following our challenge these past two months.

Life is tough and I don’t anticipate that parenting will get any easier over the next years. We feel more pressure to make our kids happy, more pressure to keep up with our friends and more pressure to perform as Moms and women. Most of us have an image in our minds of what we look like as the “perfect Mom” to our kids. That image, I am convinced, is the very thing that gets us in trouble. As long as she- the mother that we should be- stares at us from the front of our minds, we can’t win. The mother in my own mind is calm, kind, patient, able to run a marathon (even though I can only run 3 miles on a good day), makes teal table settings like Martha Stewart does, whips together meals from Bon Appetit at 5:45 pm and well, sits and chats pleasantly at the end of the day with my husband. Hmm. How did this woman come to be?

As we look forward to Easter, let us be reminded that there is only one mother in each of our lives and she is reading this. There is no room for two. So let’s do to her what Dorothy did to the Wicked Witch of the West. Grab a big pail of water and throw it on her. Make her melt into the kitchen floor. Then will we be able to love and embrace the one true mother who is left. The real you and the real me. We who are left are more than good enough.

The truth is, no one needs teal placemats, to be able to run a marathon or to make every word we speak to our kids count. Being the Mom that we are is good enough for our kids.

So let’s embrace the cracked, frazzled Mom that we are and be just a little kinder to her. Buy her a cappuccino today. After all, she needs it. She’s a little tired.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention just released a startling new statistic on autism: 1 in 88 kids in the US have it. And boys are about five times more likely to be diagnosed with it than girls ( 1:252 compared to 1:54 for girls.) They also state that since 2007, there has been a 78% rise in children diagnosed with the disorder. I’d like to make a few points about this news because I think they’re salient.

First, for those who are still convinced that vaccines cause autism (specifically the MMR), look at the gender distribution. Significantly more boys are diagnosed with autism than are girls. If vaccines caused autism, we would see equal numbers of girls as boys diagnosed because sex wouldn’t make a difference. Unfortunately, there is so much bad, inaccurate information available on the internet that many parents don’t know what to believe. I encourage you to always go to legitimate science sites (like the CDC, WebMD, or UptoDate) when you are concerned about serious health issues.

Second, as a pediatrician who has taken care of thousands of kids over the years, including many children with autism, I can tell you that we are much better at diagnosing autism than we were ten years ago. Perhaps the one good result of the MMR scare and autism is that it heightened awareness of autism by everyone. That is a good thing. So, I do believe that those in health care fields are screening more diligently for autism and diagnosing it much better. This accounts for some of the rise on the numbers that we see.

Finally, my instincts tell me that we are experiencing a higher incidence not just because we’re better at diagnosing it, but because the incidence is really higher. This is just my instinct- great studies are underway to validate or negate this fact.

In the meantime, for those of you with young children, here are a few things to pay attention to if you are concerned that your child may have autism.

Here are some normal milestones that your child should reach:

• 6 months- child recognizes parent’s face and smiles. Responds to parent’s voices.
• 9 months-copies your facial gestures and may be frightened by stranger. Clings to Mom and Dad
• 12 months-child plays social games like “bye-bye” and “peek-a-boo” with parent, tries to talk to you but babbles
• 18 months- wants to interact with others-hands toys over, shakes head “no” when unhappy, affectionate with loved ones
• 24 months- child gets excited when other kids around, points to objects you name, very interactive with parents

The most important thing is to trust your own gut feelings. If something feels off with your child, get him or her tested. If you have any questions at all, the best thing to do is make an appointment with your pediatrician and tell him/her your concerns about autism. Also, if you visit cdc.gov, there are many tools

We all know what boyhood should be. We carry the iconic images of Huck Finn, of boys trading baseball cards and carrying slingshots in their back pockets, of tree houses and “no girls allowed.” If we’re parents of sons we know what it’s like to see a boy with the instincts to be a leader, a protector, a provider; to be a hero and thwart the villains. Toddler boys don’t need any prompting to pick up twigs and use them as swords.

As a mother and pediatrician, I’ve seen iconic boyhood come to life both at home and in my clinical practice. But for too long, we’ve tried to kid ourselves in the name of equality that boys and girls are the same, or that we need to push girls to be more aggressive, competitive and focused on math and science. We think we need to temper boisterous boys to be more submissive, cooperative and quiet. Of course, as a woman and a doctor, I encourage girls to improve their science scores, but what is wrong, and what can be seen in too many social indicators, is social engineering that tries to change our children in to something they were never meant to be. My previous book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, discusses the challenges facing our daughters. But if anything, the challenges facing today’s boys are even greater, because we’ve been shortchanging the needs and attributes of boys.

Boys and girls bring different gifts to the world. We need to let boys be boys, to recognize the value of boyhood, and to understand how parents can help guide their young sons–yes, the ones with frogs in their pockets, dirt in their hair, and a guilty past of breaking windows with baseballs–into mature, confident, and thoughtful men.

(today’s post is an excerpt from Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons)

When we think of masculine men, we (women at least) envision those with one overriding quality: a spine of steel. Nothing makes a woman’s heart melt like a man with courage and resolve. We admire men who are willing to risk their lives to help good triumph over evil and who have the moral wit to distinguish between the two. Masculinity means strength. You see it in the way men work. Men in construction start their jobs early and end them late. Soldiers in Iraq risk their lives every day. Pilots continue to fly in spite of personal fear. Men in high finance are often highly charged, deeply driven, and propel themselves through hard work to success. Men work with such intensity because they have grit. Sometimes you can have so much grit, so much hard driving, so much silent internalizing of frustration and stress that it can kill you.

But that’s in the workplace. Now think about your home life. Here is your place of quiet and solace: a friendly family dog and a doting wife and children. Don’t you wish?

Home is work too, because just as people need you to do things at work, your wife and your daughters need you to do things at home. Not just fixing things around the house, but being the man they need you to be. That can sometimes mean intervening in their disputes and helping them solve their problems.

Pragmatism helps men find solutions to problems, and grit enables you to apply these solutions day after day, year after year. These two qualities teach your daughter to the same.

I believe that folks who comment on books or movies they haven’t read or seen are intellectually dishonest. Since I haven’t seen The Hunger Games, or read the books, I am not going to comment on whether or not they are good or bad for kids. I do know that themes: good vs. evil and heroes or heroines fighting to save town folk are noble and worthy. The catch with these, however, is that the wars  involve kids fighting kids. Many of you parents are familiar with the books and since you should always make the decisions about what your children see and read, I want to give you some important things to think about before you make that decision.

First, whether your child is four or fourteen, you be the one to make the decision about what books she reads and what movies she sees. I realize that teens can be unbearably naggy, persuasive and they throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their way, but remember, they don’t process visual imagery and complex behaviors the way you do. And- the problem is, they don’t know this. Their minds capture and filter themes (especially graphic ones) from a very different perspective than adult minds. In short, what they see and read makes a different impression on them than the same would on you.

Second, don’t be duped by the lame arguments like: the world is violent and real so my son’s simply reading about/or seeing a slice of reality. Nonsense. Here’s the gaping hole in that argument. First, there is a difference between reading about violence and seeing it. Kids process images they construct in their minds from written words differently than they process large, hyper-real images on a screen. During the preteen and teen years, children’s minds are mentally pliable. They are being hard-wired. Our adult brains are already wired. So, when an image comes into a teen’s brain it melds into that wiring and sticks. It becomes part of his interior mental fabric.

A simple question to ask yourself is, if watching kids kill each other is a healthy form of entertainment and one which won’t have a negative impact on your child, why not take him into the hood and find some street gang fights? Would you do that? Of course not. So why bring it into your home?

Third, scads of medical data clearly tell us that watching violence changes teens’ behaviors. Period. You need to know that even your sensitive, kind, straight A student will be a slightly changed person after watching kids kill each other.

The final dumb argument I hear is: my child’s going to see violence (or sex) anyway, I want to go with him to talk about it later. In a child’s mind, he has two sets of rules. Yours and his. This is a good thing. There are things that he knows you approve of and things you don’t. When you bring him to a movie that you don’t think is good for him, he gets very confused. Once you take him, in his mind, you’ve sanctioned it and now he believes it’s not bad for him. He watches, becomes disturbed and now feels that something is wrong with him because he was disturbed.  Since you brought him, he thinks he should be able to handle it. He doesn’t allow himself to feel what he does because in his thinking, you believe it won’t bother him. See how messy this gets to kids? Bottom line is, once you buy the book or ticket, you’ve given it your blessing and now he has to handle it.

As I said, I haven’t seen or read The Hunger Games. I am sure they are entertaining, even fun for some folks to watch. Before you indulge your teens or preteens (I don’t even want to know if your 8 year olds are seeing it) think about these things. Ask yourself a few questions. In a world where kids are shooting each other for real, do you want to add more of this to your child’s growing psyche? Are you ready to accept that your kid may be disturbed by violence? Actually- if your child reads or sees them and isn’t disturbed, you’ve got a much bigger problem on your hands. What about doing something radical like finding books and movies with themes that are fun and actually good for kids and pulling more of those into your child’s world?

It’s your decision, not mine. So if you think I’m all wet, that’s OK. But remember, one day your 14 year old will be 25 and she will pass judgment on what you did and didn’t allow her to do. For your sake, never her look back over her life and say, “Mom, what we’re you thinking?”

Assignment: Read Chapter 9 “Let Go of Fear”

Watch this video:

CHALLENGE:

Come clean with your biggest fears. Bringing them into the open and facing them head on is the only way that we can desensitize the power that they hold over us.

Commit yourself to finding the root of your anxiety.  If you can’t do it yourself, get professional help through counseling or therapy. You’ll be glad you did.

The New York Times recently ran a story about the staggering numbers of unwed mothers under thirty who are having children. The national average of single women under 30 years old having children is 53 % but in one small town in Ohio, it is 63%. There are a couple of troubling things about this story.

First, as a staunch child advocate, I am deeply troubled that the rates are so high. Children born to single mothers are born with a profound disadvantage. The likelihood that the children will be poor, engage in high risk activities, suffer depression and sexual abuse (to name a few) is much higher than if their mothers were married. Not to mention the pain of growing up without the consistent involvement of their fathers. But we know all that. Beyond this, there is the troubling phenomenon reported in the story that these young women birthing children complain that there are no men out there “marriage-worthy.”

Here’s what bothers me. When did we come to the place where young women feel that men are “worthy” enough to engage in sexual intercourse and birth a child with them, but not suitable to marry? How profoundly sad for them (and their children) that these women believe women that sexual activity is divorced from commitment and respect, not to mention marriage, that they avail their most intimate selves to men they feel aren’t marriage material.

Second, the great hypocrisy is that many Americans, like some reporters for the New York Times, would accept single mothers having children as a positive, acceptable, even laudable gesture if these women were older, wealthy or famous. The truth is, we can’t have it both ways. Either intentionally birthing children into a single mother household is good for kids or it isn’t. Period. Studies show that it isn’t good for kids. We can’t ooh and ahhh at the young mothers in Ohio who are poor, single and living with a child or two and claim how sad their lives are and then oogle over single Moms in Beverly Hills. Regardless of the household income, age of mothers or notoriety, kids without Dads hurt.

Finally, we, as parents need to teach our daughters and sons that recreational sex divorced from mutual respect, commitment and marriage hurts kids. And ultimately, it hurts the single mothers left with children and the fathers who so often fade into the woodwork.