You Just Don't Duct Tape a Baby!

This is a really interesting book of "true tales and sensible suggestions from a veteran pediatrician." I wanted this doctor for my own! He was always trying to improve his practice. For instance, when he finally got his dream office, he had a separate waiting area for adolescents, sick children and well children. Doesn't that make sense? Have you ever taken your kid in for their yearly check and there's another kid coughing all over the place--and you fear you're going to take home that other kid's malady? He also had a consultation room just for talking about issues going on in the families. And he apparently talked to the families a lot--not like my (very nice) pediatrician who always seems in a bit of a hurry. Dr. Weinberger (the pediatrician from the book) almost seemed too good to be true.

Anyway, the book is basically just entertaining stories of how families deal with the struggles of raising children. It really affirmed for me my conviction that my time is best spent at home with my children. Some of its philosophies are things like how important family dinner time is, how children shouldn't have so many structured activities that they aren't allowed to be kids, how you can't have it all (dual long-hour careers) and expect your children to thrive, how children may need counseling during times of stress like divorce and death, etc. (made me want to go to counseling too, it sounded so good), how parents need to view their children objectively in order to cope with learning disabilities and serious illness and just get the children every care they need.

There were two parts that resonated most with me. The first is where it talked about sibling rivalry. I realized I need to be paying more attention to what goes on when O bullies A and A retreats in tears. I need to give A the tools to deal with those situations, and I need to make sure that her self-esteem is healthy. The second part is about discipline, and it's where I received confirmation that I'm a really great mom, from this quote, "A mother of one of my patients was telling me she doesn't think she's doing a good job as a mother unless her eleven-year-old daughter tells her she hates her at least once a week." Check. Except it's almost daily from O. Maybe that's a little excessive?