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I grew up on twenty acres and there was usually a loaded shotgun in the corner for crows and coyotes. My dad kept a handgun in his desk. My seventy-year-old grandmother kept a loaded handgun under her car seat—as I discovered once by braking sharply while driving her around. Even as a young adult, I thought this “protection” seemed dangerous. As an adult, I found the statistics on the risk of guns to the people who owned them fairly convincing and I have never wanted one.

The family I grew up in was lucky not to have suffered a firearm accident.. I know countless stories of friends and patients who were not as lucky. When I visited my parents’ home with my children, I would gather up the guns and put them high in the closet.

My position on guns is that the second amendment does grant people the right to bear arms but this right is not unlimited. Most people will agree that a person does not have the right to keep grenades or missiles. There are limits to the weapons a person can own. Then the question is what are those limits and when does safety for society as a whole take precedence over personal rights.

At this point in America, gun violence is a definite public health risk and as a society we need to improve our current limits. I hate that I feared for my daughter’s safety as she became a teacher. I hate that going to high school or a high school sporting event makes me nervous in terms of a possible shooting. All the metal detectors in the world aren’t going to make a football game or school parking lot or an open air concert safe.

When I was growing up our school drill was to duck under our desks in case of a nuclear attack. Of course this seemed ridiculous even then as means of preventing injury. Now children from preschool up know that danger can easily be outside their classroom door or around the corner.  My children got nightmares from fire drills. I can’t imagine the nights after “Active Shooter” drills.

I stand with #NeverAgain for sensible gun laws.

We have all heard that phrase. But what does it mean? New medical information tells us that there is constant communication between our guts and our brains. We have all felt “butterflies” in our stomachs when we are nervous. How our gut feels often influences how we feel or perceive situations. How anxious we feel often effects how our stomach feels.

Many children, especially between the ages of 4 and 10 years, have recurrent abdominal pain. This pain rarely has a serious source or cause. But the children’s stomachs hurt and the pain makes them anxious. Also their anxiety makes their stomach hurt. As pediatricians we often do some preliminary screening tests to rule out disease but if those tests are normal and the child is growing well with normal stools then the next step is to try to decrease the anxiety in our patients. We can reassure the family and child that there is no serious illness going on. Which when you stop and think about it, is really good news. Most children will have the stomachaches off and on and the treatment will be to stay in school, use a benign medicine such as Tums and know that the pain will pass.

Making sure that your child is not constipated can help limit their pain. They should have a bowel movement at least every other day if not daily. Miralax or mineral oil and stool softeners can help achieve this stooling pattern. The family can pay attention to any foods that trigger a stomachache. Many children become lactose intolerant at these ages and will do better with cheese and yogurt, foods in which most of the lactose is broken down, than with milk. Many high fructose foods and candies can trigger stomachaches. These are chewy candies or fruit roll ups. In my house licorice was often the trigger.

While it is important to understand that we should take care of our gut it is also important not to obsess about everything we eat. There is new information that extreme diets or even restrictions of normal foods, i.e. gluten when the child does not have celiac, can harm our health.

Probiotics and meditation and other relaxation techniques can be helpful. Sometimes just practicing taking a few slow deep breaths can be soothing.

If there are many stressors in a child’s life or if the abdominal pain worsens, professional counseling can be helpful.

The main point is to listen to our guts, respect our guts, but do not worry too much about pain in an otherwise healthy person. A great 15 min TED talk about the gut can be found at the following link:

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela

Last weekend my eight-year-old grandson stayed with me—our first weekend without mom in a long time. I sat next to him while he fell asleep. Adults know that there is really nothing more peaceful than watching a child sleeping. I think of the times I watched my son sleep like this. And I think of the different lives these two people will have. How different the world will see these two young men. My grandson is a person of “color”. But really so are all of us—my color is just fairer. And with that lighter color the world grants me more privileges. I’m not assumed to be wrong or causing trouble or dangerous. My son was given the benefit of the doubt. My grandson will not start with that assumption.

Police and security people often question famous black men. Just ask Trevor Noah or James Blake, a tennis star who was tackled and arrested in a hotel. All people aren’t given the same presumption of innocence.

One day when my grandson first started living with us he turned to his aunt and said, “I use to be black.” At that time he was still trying to figure out who was white and who was black. He didn’t see the world divided up. I wonder how I will help my grandson carefully navigate this world. At 5 he couldn’t really see the difference in our colors. Now at 8, he is sometimes painfully aware that he is black first, an adorable child second.

As fall approaches, whether we have kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews we all think of this time as “back to school”. It is in our advertisements. It is on the news. It shapes our sports viewing. This seasonal change has become insinuated into our bones.

Parents are bustling around getting young children situated in their classroom and outfitted with the all the their supplies. There is the parenting angst of getting older children through postsecondary stages—college, first jobs, vocational schools.

At this time we are often reliving both our successes and failures in our own transitions. I think it is important to remember that this is not our chance to relive our lives. These stages do belong to our children. In his “Parenting with Dignity” Max Bledsoe states that at age 2, we are making 80% of the choices for our child (not 100% as some people feel). By age 16 that is ratio is reversed and we are making only 20% of the choices. By age 18, we are not really in charge. This independence is tough for parents and for children. They often come into my office at age 18 not knowing what medicines they take or key points of their health history. This transition happens over time but also happens abruptly. After age18, we can’t share information with parents without written consent from our patient. Colleges cannot share grades with parents without permission.

As your child goes from 2 to 18, stop and think about preparing them for their independence. Give them appropriate choices and let them live with the consequences of their actions. Congratulate their successes. Commiserate with their failures. Their success and happiness is wrapped tightly around our hearts but don’t burden them with our angst or confuse ourselves on whose life is it anyway.

What we say to people stays in their heads. When I was a little girl my older brother constantly teased me and said that I was fat. I was convinced I was fat. When I looked at my childhood pictures as an adult, I was surprised to find I was always lean. When I asked my mother why she didn’t stop my brother, she was surprised to learn that I thought I was fat and was mad that she hadn’t told me that I wasn’t. To her, it was such an obvious untruth that there was no way I thought I was fat. But I believed my older brother…

Words are very powerful. The way we talk to our children or about our children influences what they think about themselves. When parents tell me their child is stubborn, I say, “Let’s call them persistent.” Let’s encourage them to use their strengths to succeed—even if they can’t change our minds this time.

Stop and think about the last time someone criticized you or hurt your feelings. Did you later learn that they were right or wrong?

The hardest job as a parent is to focus on when our children are succeeding; to use encouraging words for their struggles; and to listen to their fears or misconceptions and to help them see things more clearly.

I’ve become fascinated by how much dog training has changed in the last 40 years. That is the last time that I did serious dog training—including taking my miniature poodles up to Championship status in Obedience Competitions.

Fifteen years ago I trained my standard poodles—and after 14 years, finally got them to walk without pulling me off my feet by using a constant treat technique of giving them a treat more or less every 10 feet—I call it the Pez technique. This latter technique of almost persistent rewards and positive interaction is the new way of training dogs.

This year, I was given a crash course in positive interaction when I took my Labra doodles to class. The most notable changes in the class were not the dogs, but the approach to training. No longer was “jerk (on their collar) and release (the negative tension)” considered the best training method.

We used praise and treats to motivate our dogs to learn and man, did it motivate them.

When I started pediatrics 30 year ago the new approach to child rearing was logical and natural consequences with lots of “time-in”. Positive parenting concentrated on what your child was doing right and redirected them when they needed to substitute a bad behavior for a good one. This system was in contrast to the old approach of “spoil the rod and spare the child”. The acceptance of an approach to positive discipline for children has been much slower than that of dog trainers. We still hear the concept of what is wrong with children is that they are never told “no” or given a spanking.

We are told that we need to scare juvenile delinquents “straight”. But research has repeatedly shown the children who misbehave the most have been treated poorly—spanked or yelled out. Most juvenile delinquents have been subjected to abuse and neglect not coddling–not taught the logical consequences of their actions, nor shown a more positive approach to living.

Both children and dogs need discipline—but effective discipline is consistent and loving and involves teaching better behaviors. Limit setting such as time-outs or loss of privileges works if those disciplines make sense. When a child is being aggressive or destructive they need to sit by themselves and calm down. When a child can’t remember to wear their bike helmet, they need to loose the use of their bike for a defined period of time-a few days or so until they again get the opportunity to make a better choice.

Modeling good decisions and behaviors is the best way to teach your child or “be the person you want your child to be.”

Any study on childhood behavior starts with having parents fill out a checklist that reveals their child’s temperament. Basically, your child comes with a “blue print” that is hard wired at birth. This is the “nature” part of a person, which will be molded by the “nurture” part that is their life experiences. People tend to have one of 3 main personality types:

Fifty-five percent of people are compliant and easy. About 15% of these can be slow to warm up and cautious. These people are interested in pleasing others and getting along.

Strong willed or persistent people—sometimes called “aggressive researchers” are about 10 % of the population. These people are always pushing the limit before deciding what they want to do. They will repeatedly test a rule to see if it still stands.

About 35% of people are Fence sitters or observers: These people will sometimes side with the strong-willed or the compliant people. They are “skillful researchers”. They’re deciding which is the smartest path for them.

Most human beings are on a spectrum or combination of these personality types. Understanding your child’s temperament as well as your own is key to parenting your child successfully.

Think about where you and your child are on these spectrums and next we will talk about successful parenting approaches.

*For more detailed information, check out Robert MacKenzie’s “Setting Limits with Your Strong-Willed Child”.

Oh…routines. We drink the same cup of coffee, park in the same place at work, and sit at the same desk. Churchgoers frequently sit in the same pew each week. My dogs know which one goes first for the walk. Children use routines to navigate their world. When our routines get changed due to moves or job changes or illnesses, our children’s lives get completely out of whack. If your child is having trouble with mood or behavior, see if their routine has been disrupted. Something may have changed in their lives that you are not aware of: a substitute teacher or a friend shifting alliances or a new seat on the bus.

Vacations are one way of practicing changes and variations in routines.  They generally make us appreciate going back to the familiar.

Prepare your child for changes in routines: expect some difficulties. Remember that routines calm us. Offer your child other tools to calm down when routines change—try to find a few things that can remain the same.

Embrace the new and hug the old.

This is a topic that has more answers than successes. I often tell parents that “go clean your bedroom” is a really daunting task and to look around their bedroom and think how they would feel if someone told them to clean it.

Children (and maybe all of us) do better with specific tasks—put your dirty clothes in the hamper, make your bed, etc. Much of the time “too much” is the biggest problem. Too many toys or shoes or clothes. Just thinning stuff down will help a lot.

Try to model the behavior you want. Hang up your clothes and coat.

Have simple places to put everyday items. Walk your child through their chores rather than just keep yelling at them about their chores. Concentrate on every time they do what you want them to do.

Comment on how peaceful a clean house is and how nice it is to find stuff where you know it is suppose to be.

Most experts agree that tying allowance to chores is not helpful. We do chores because that is part of living and part of being in a family. Allowance is a chance to learn how to manage money and is most appropriate starting around 8-10 years. This age is late to start with basic self-care that is the primary reason for chores.