How To Help Your Child Understand Media-Marketing, Advertising And Body Image

Have you ever wondered how to help your child navigate the media minefield of advertising and body image? Do you find it difficult to teach your daughter about self-acceptance when society appears to preach a different message? How do you teach your kids to critically appraise the marketing messages promised to them?

Children of all ages are presented with advertisements on a daily basis, produced by a billion dollar industry that is highly skilled at influencing the way we think and behave. It is impossible to raise our children in a protective ad-free bubble and, with the exception of the very young, perhaps we shouldn’t try - some of our kids may yet grow up to be top marketing executives! Rather, I think it is helpful to understand some of the strategies behind advertising and to teach our children to do the same. 

I’ve always found it interesting that there are so many different parenting ‘styles’. What I hadn’t anticipated before joining the ranks of parenthood myself several years ago was that many parents are not only advocates for their preferred ‘style’ but staunch defenders of what they perceive to be the ‘only right way’. Drawn to Child Psychiatry in my professional life, I have always been naturally curious and open-minded about others’ opinions and choices, so I was completely thrown by how defensive and at times judgemental parents could be towards one another. Surely we were all striving towards the same goal of raising decent human beings?

And yet somewhere in another part of my new-parent-brain, (a part that was sharper, non-track-pants-wearing and untouched by baby vomit), I was able to recall what I suspect to be the underlying reason for the so-called ‘Mummy wars’.

Children’s Personality: Understanding Your Child’s Temperament and its Role in Determining Your Child’s Personality

“We do not MAKE our children who they are. Instead we DISCOVER who they are.”

The nature versus nurture argument about personality has always seemed a little futile to me. It's a bit like debating whether a cake is the result of its ingredients or the baking process. Both are critically important steps which influence the outcome, much like nature and nurture do for personality.

Researchers such as Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess have divided personality up into two components - temperament and character. A child’s temperament describes those features which are already predetermined at birth (the pre-prepared ingredients). Character develops later and depends on a child’s environment, their experiences and the way in which they have been parented (or ‘baked’ to use the cake analogy). But back to temperament...

I once heard that young children are hardwired to dream about frightening, child-eating creatures. Apparently it’s an evolutionary advantage to have had a few practise runs before being chased by a real sabre-tooth tiger. These nightmares affect 50% of children and occur most often in the 3-6 year age group. Children’s brains have adapted to modern times though so instead of sabre-tooth tigers it is now monsters which haunt our young children at night since these are the threatening figures that our little ones are exposed to in books and television shows.

The ways in which your child might express their night-time fears will depend on how often they’re frightened and on their age and language skills. Perhaps your child has become an expert in delaying tactics as bedtime approaches. Or does your little one start to panic as you tuck them in under the covers? Maybe you have a regular night-time visitor clambering up into your bed? My oldest child who was aged two at the time would wake screaming in the middle of every night. It was only after many months of this that we realised that her fear of sleep was a result of the monsters who visited her in her dreams, threatening to devour her.

If, as I was, you are battling your child’s bedtime fears, here are ten helpful tips that I have learnt from my dual roles as a Child Psychiatrist and as an experienced monster-battling Mum:

1.    Be aware of what your toddler is exposed to. Children learn so much from books and television yet don’t have the experience to know what is real and what themes are made up. To make matters worse, children’s movies and stories are often filled with monsters, child-eating wolves and murderous (and horribly misrepresented) step-mothers.

Siblings are such an incredible gift for young children yet strangely toddlers don’t always seem to appreciate these gifts as much as we think they should. In fact I'm sure many toddlers sometimes wish they could 're-gift' their new baby siblings. Sometimes it's difficult to have empathy for how massive this life change is, especially when we're the ones who have been up all night. And at those times (if we're not too sleep-deprived for imaginings), it can be useful to picture OUR lives and relationships being suddenly and dramatically changed...

Something a little like this perhaps...

You and your husband are completely in love.

Then, one day, quite unexpectedly, he sits down and excitedly announces that he will soon be bringing home another woman; To live with the two of you permanently; Whether you like it or not.

Sure enough, a few months later, a new woman arrives in your home. She is young and so gorgeous that random strangers in the shopping centre come over to ogle her. They seem not to notice you. When you’re back at home, she wants to spend much of her time physically attached to your husband. It seems that since she arrived, not only are you expected to share your husband, but everything else that used to be just yours too. She’s made no effort to be friendly or to contribute to the household since she arrived and yet, oddly, everyone assumes that you’re thrilled with this new arrangement!

Worst of all, your husband seems to be up all night, every night with his new love and is too tired to spend quality time with you during the day.

Forgive me for asking but at what point did this seem like a good idea??!

Look at the sky and please don’t cry!

'Quick! Look at the plane! In the sky!! LOOK UP THERE!! QUICK!!!'

Have you ever seen someone try to distract a child when they’re hurt or upset? Or tried the same technique yourself in an act of desperation? Often people think that distraction is the quickest way to calm a distressed child but in fact, research reveals just the opposite. It seems that by not acknowledging our children’s hurts or providing comfort we can inadvertently make their distress last much longer.

Not convinced? Then imagine this scenario:

Child Psychiatrist Advice for Tics in Children

Does your child incessantly sniff? Have a cough with no cause? Blink or twitch for no reason? It might be that your child has a tic. But before you go checking his hairline for a small burrowing insect, read on for all you need to know about childhood tics.

Childhood tics are quick, repetitive movements or sounds that your child feels like they have no control over. Tics often appear suddenly, most often in young, school-aged boys. They are common, affecting up to 25% of children at some stage, although some kids appear to be unaware of them. Tics also seem to run in families along with ADHD and OCD, suggesting a genetic link between these conditions.

Tics in children are divided into four categories:

How to Help Your Screaming Child - a Parent’s Guide to Emotional Regulation

Most of us have witnessed a screaming child who has felt completely out of control. Some of us have seen this in our own kids, while others have spectated from the side-lines as an unknown child has had a ‘meltdown’ in the grocery store. (Worse still of course is when it IS our screaming child melting down in the grocery store). It’s like watching an internal tornado gain intensity and wreak havoc within our child leaving them hysterical. Sometimes there’s a build up, at other times the emotional storm seems to blow in without warning, rendering the child suddenly unresponsive to logic or reasoning. I describe it like this, not just because this is how it appears, but because it’s useful to imagine what it would feel like to be affected by a mini-tornado-for-one - completely terrifying. And just as we would never expect a child caught up in a powerful tornado to be able to ‘calm themselves down’, a child with overwhelming emotions finds it distressingly impossible too.

The step-ladder approach for the treatment of anxiety is medically known as graded or hierarchical exposure. It’s one of the ‘behavioural’ components of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and it’s useful to know about when encouraging your child to address their fears.

This treatment approach can be applied to many common childhood anxieties such as the fear of separation (see the last blog entry), fear of social situations or fear of sleeping alone. It can be used to help anxiety in children (and adults) of all ages.

To make a start, picture a simple step-ladder with several rungs. Decide on the final goal (this task becomes the top of the ladder), then determine what an easy starting point might be (this becomes your first step). Next, work out what tasks might serve as intermediate steps with each situation a little bit more challenging than the last as you get closer to the top of the ladder.

When planning your child’s step-ladder, it’s important that the leap between steps isn’t too daunting. If the jump from one step to the next seems too great, consider how you might break it up into a few smaller steps by creating variations based on what it is your child does, how long for, where they try it or who they’re with.

This step-by-step approach allows your child to practise coping with their anxiety in manageable doses. In this way, your child also experiences successes along the way which builds up their confidence and sense of mastery.

Here are a few hints to improve your chances of success:

In the last month, I’ve received many topic requests relating to your children’s fears of kidnappers, their need to endlessly follow you around the house and their fearful refusal to sleep in their own beds. To those of you who’ve written in (and to those of you reading now), I hope you find this topic helpful....

Separation Anxiety in Children

It’s normal for little children to not want to stray too far from us. We are animals after all and survival instincts tell our young that too much distance or time between them and us is a risky thing. For this reason, the developmentally normal ‘stranger anxiety’ and ‘separation anxiety’ that infants and young children experience is thought to be ‘hard-wired’. That said, the intensity of this ‘normal anxiety’ differs depending on the child’s temperament and on how responsive their caregivers have been to their need for comfort and closeness.

What is Pica?

The word ‘pica’ comes from the latin word for ‘magpie’ since these birds are known to eat just about anything. Very young children, under the age of 18 months, will put a range of things (other than food) in their mouths but repeatedly eating items which are considered ‘non-nutritive’ (ie not food) after that age is generally considered abnormal. These non-foods can include dirt, clothing, paper, toothpaste, hair, glass, paint, string, stones...the list goes on. It seems to depend largely on how mobile the child is as to what they can access.

Let’s start with an issue which commonly affects our young children and is often confused with nightmares. 

What are night terrors in children?

Those of you who have witnessed a night terror will know how they came to be named! I witnessed a relative of mine have several of these when he and I were both young and still remember them vividly. 

When a night terror starts, your child wakes abruptly from sleep in a terrified, confused state. The child will show physical signs of panic including a fast heart rate, sweating and rapid breathing. Often the child will thrash around, scream, appear very distressed and seem unaware of their surroundings or of your efforts to comfort them. They may not even recognise you and this is because, even though their eyes are open, your child is actually still in a deep sleep state. These night terror episodes can last up to 40 minutes (but usually less) before the child returns to a restful sleep with no memory of the event the next day. Night terrors appear so frightening however that you as a parent are often left shocked and wide-eyed for considerably longer. It’s important to reassure yourself that night terrors are common and are not at all harmful for your child.