ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610020001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
A parent who really wants to do a good job of rearing children needs to think like a good girdle, suggests author and pediatrician Laura Walther Nathanson.
What does a good girdle do, for those who've never worn one?
"It allows for movement, stretches and molds and helps you feel confident in public," Nathanson said recently during a telephone interview from her California home.
"The Portable Pediatrician's Guide to Kids," Nathanson's third book in three years, was released in August by HarperCollins Publishers. It sells for $20 and is one in the currently popular genre of books designed to help people care for themselves or their children without being so dependent on a doctor's guidance.
This kind of book is being encouraged, even distributed, by health care companies that hope we'll use them and not make unneeded visits to the doctor, and therefore save on medical costs. But, the self-help guides also give the individual a considerable amount of control over her or her children's health because they cut down on the panic factor associated with illness.
And parents need this kind of help more than ever, Nathanson says.
Nathanson maintains a full-time practice, seeing an average of 35 children a day, so she writes from current experience.
"We are in danger of losing a sense of what it means to be a normal kid," she says in the introduction to the book, which traces the social and physical development of kids ages 5 to 12.
Her writing style is conversational; she said she tries to talk with parents as a doctor's equal because parent and pediatrician need to be partners.
Chapters open with parent-child conversations that reveal the issues of the ages being discussed. Then comes a more formal look at the age and its challenges. Example one: Five-year-olds want to be "good"; sixes want to be "right." Good is decided by parents, right by outside rules.
Example two: Seven- and 8-year-olds are tough on parents because they need the parents, but also are becoming more conscious of self.
It's a good period for parents to keep close tabs on how their children's friendships are going because this age hasn't developed much of an understanding of fairness and doesn't have enough background to handle some of the moral and ethical dilemmas they have to face, Nathanson writes.
Example three: Nine-, 10- and 11-year-olds live in the land of rolling eyeballs, when they believe their parents' "mission in life is to embarrass them."
"Parents today really want to be good parents, and they have very high standards. I don't remember this in my growing up," the doctor said.
Many parents today perceive having and caring for their children as a career, she said.
Parents often already have one career and are used to approaching life in terms of a career, which is OK. But when a parent begins to regard a child as his or her "production," the parent gets into trouble, Nathanson said.
A parent doesn't have much control over how a child turns out in a lot of ways, such as their sports abilities, interests and intelligence, she said. However, a parent can have a great deal of influence over a child's character development and sense of comfort. Part of exercising that control is knowing how to function.
Here are some tips from the doctor:
*Don't expect a child to substitute for a missing spouse. It's tempting for a lot of parents who are single permanently, by choice, death, or preference, to turn the child into a pseudo adult, Nathanson said. Also, the way the American culture tends to "adultize" kids as sexual objects, consumers, even computer experts, blurs the boundary between child and parent, but it is a "crucial boundary," she said.
*As much as parents try not to repeat what they remember and didn't like about their own childhood, "all the forces of nature push you toward repeating it," the doctor said. Learn the right way to discipline and restore good behavior and use it, even if it's one the parent didn't like.
*A two-parent family works better than a one-parent family. No matter who the other "parent" is, a parent needs another adult for a second opinion.
*This is a highly sexualized society, and your child is getting sex education every day of week, on the playground, TV, billboards and in music. The parent that doesn't give a child sex education becomes the "unheard voice." Puberty starts earlier than you think it would, as early as 10 for girls. It's important that parents prepare kids for that. Preparation - discussion - should begin before any girl in the class gets her first menstrual period.
*Don't hesitate to ask a pediatrician an embarrassing question, such as "Could my child be homosexual?" Nathanson said. And if you aren't comfortable asking your child's pediatrician such a question, change doctors.
Flu shots
Area health departments begin flu-shot clinics in October. The cost is $10 a shot. Medicaid and Medicare patients can have the fee billed if they bring their insurance cards for identification. Roanoke city will offer shots from 12:30 to 1:30 on Tuesdays; Roanoke County has scheduled clinics on Mondays from 1-3 p.m. and Fridays from 7-10 a.m. Each health department has a schedule for the shots, though, so patients should check with the closest health department office for the dates and times.
You can reach Sandra Brown Kelly at 1-800-346-1234, extension 393, or at 981-3393 or through electronic mail at biznews@roanoke.infi.net
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines KEYWORDS: 2DA HEALTH NOTESby CNB