STI: I'm not your Superdad

Dec 29, 2004
I'm not your Superdad
by Mathew Pereira

I ONCE rushed my youngest son Marcus to the hospital near my home after a fall left him with a gash at the back of his head.

It was close to midnight and there was no anaesthetist but the doctor said the stitching could not wait.

He went ahead without my son getting anything to numb his pain.

Slightly over three years old then, he was straightjacketed with a blanket so that he could not struggle while the doctor did his job.

Throughout, he screamed, yelled and looked pleadingly at me. The look in his eyes said: 'Help me, Daddy, I am in pain.'

Like any parent, I wanted to do something that would ease that, if not relieve him of the pain altogether. But with him screaming away, I could not even comfort him.

When he was being stitched up, I had already clocked six years of parenting. Clearly, I had not gotten over this urge to intervene to spare my child pain and heartache.

But this reflex is something which I have often kept in check right from kid No.1. I felt they needed to take tumbles and falls and pick themselves up.

Of course, I have friends who disagree with my approach.

An over-protective father and a good friend of mine used to follow his child around to make sure that he did not trip, lose his balance or slip.

He was prevented from doing many things and the two words he heard most were: 'Peter, don't.'

'Peter, don't step out of the house without your shoes, it would cut your feet.'

'Peter, don't step on the grass' - he would get bitten by insects.

'Peter, don't run, you will perspire and get a rash.'

He was not allowed to go to the playground because it was deemed not hygienic.

'Your child will think his name is Peter Don't,' I used to tease my friend.

Another parent I know tried to get his son in national service posted out from a demanding combat unit to one where he could do a 9 to 5 job. Needless to say, he failed.

This not wanting to be superdad who bails the kids out all the time has also meant that I grit my teeth and let them face the consequences of their actions.

This is something that can be extremely difficult to do.

Once, Marcus was caught with a sheet of paper going around his class. It had landed on his desk and he picked it up to read the note others had been giggling about earlier.

The teacher spotted him. In the piece of paper were some comments that were not exactly part of school curricula.

Summed up, the note said something like 'Teacher is pregnant but she is wearing a G-string. Ha ha.'

Marcus was terrified. He came home crying. This time, he insisted that he was innocent.

He wanted us to call the teacher and clear his name. We did not.

We told him: 'You checked what was in the paper so you face the music like your fellow voyeurs.'

I heard nothing more of that incident. I never found out if he was punished or if his teacher was pregnant or wore a G-string.

For me, it was important that my children experienced pain, tasted defeat and realised that not winning were part of life.

They know that whenever they are beaten in whatever, they are to go up to the victor and congratulate him, but at the same time resolve to try and beat the person the next time.

Sure, they still cry when they lose, they still feel depressed but they pull out of it without feeling that it is the end of the world.

They also learn about discipline - biding their time and not walking out of the team just because they are not in the first 11.

There were many times when I had felt that intervening would have made me, as well as my kids, feel better in the short term but I resisted it because I was convinced it would do them only damage in adulthood.

But I will also confess that there were times when I had not meant to intervene but capitulated at the last moment.

Doing the right thing is not easy or clear-cut.

When I was mulling over some matter concerning my son recently, a good friend told us: 'Would you be able to live with the fact that you did not do all you could have for your son regarding this critical matter?'

Sometimes, bailing out the kids is necessary. I just remind myself that it should not be the default mode.

The tricky part, of course, is knowing when and under what circumstances I should do it.

STI: Lots of EQ needed to make a happy family

Dec 20, 2004
Lots of EQ needed to make a happy family

THE term Emotional Quotient or EQ is usually used to cover everything about feelings, but when one refers specifically to Family EQ, it indicates the family's awareness of how each member feels, the ability to manage feelings and the commitment to resolve interpersonal conflicts.

An emotionally intelligent family is not one with no conflicts but one that can ride out any storm because of the strong relationships within it.

It is characterised by open communication and respect and empathy for each other.

The more a family deposits positive experiences and messages into its joint Emotional Bank, the higher its EQ and the stronger will be the bonds between the various members.

 

Aware of emotions

 

EMOTIONS speak louder than words, yet are often dismissed as troublesome or trivial.

This is especially so within the family, where we often take each other for granted and have high expectations and demands of one another.

If we dismiss feelings easily, we may miss clues to what goes on inside a person.

For example, children who say they are mentally or physically tired could be misunderstood as being lazy and given more work to do, when they could be heading for burnout or a breakdown.

Sometimes, expressions of frustration, worry and confusion are not easily accepted by parents, who may not be able to understand what their children have to worry about when everything they need is provided for.

 

Teach by example

 

PEOPLE tend to take out on their family what they would never do to friends or colleagues.

Parents also often discipline their children through punishment rather than showing them the right behaviour or offering positive ways to solve a problem.

For instance, caning a child who misbehaves does not teach him much other than what he is doing is wrong and that he has to suffer for it.

On the other hand, parents can manage their own anger and lead the child by example.

Teaching children by example is the most visual and influential way to bring them up to be what you want them to be.

 

Build family rituals

 

A GOOD way to maintain constant contact as a family is to establish family rituals.

Many are familiar with rituals associated with festivals, such as Chinese New Year, or with family traditions of celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and vacations.

Fewer practise family routines - activities established by the family as a way of life, such as a run in the park every Friday evening or a meal out every weekend.

Even fewer set aside time regularly to communicate feelings, opinions and dreams as a family.

Communication is especially important in a family with teenagers.

There is so much happening in their lives that if parents do not talk to them, they will soon lose touch with them.

A family can eat together or go cycling, but if it does so without communicating, little bonding takes place.

Take time to think about what family routines can be started that will not just encourage doing things together but enhance family communication.

 

Four ways to start

Tell tales:  Stories can educate, inspire and bond hearts and minds.

They help develop self-awareness and empathy, essentials to develop high EQ.

Parents can relate tales of their childhood, as well as those of failure and success.

Children can tell their own stories too, but they take time to open up to adults, and that includes parents.

They are also very sensitive to adults' feelings and attitudes.

Nothing can encourage a child to open up more than sincere interest and acceptance of him as a person.

Nothing closes a child up more than constant critical judgment of what he says.

Children tend to not talk rather than face parents' moralising.

Talk:  People talk all the time, but going beyond just exchanging facts requires a commitment of time and energy.

To really communicate, a family has to set aside time to talk about issues and to share thoughts and feelings.

Do not wait for things to happen before you see a need to talk.

One way to get everyone in the family to contribute to a conversation is to take turns to talk about what each person has been reading.

This habit builds up a lot of shared experiences, as does chatting about human relationships and behaviour.

A good place to start is at dinner.

Learning to talk as a way of life helps to strengthen a family's EQ, because doing so allows the various members to get to know each other really well.

Think: Stop and think when emotions are running high as things that should not be said may be uttered. It is better to wait until everyone has calmed down and can reflect on what has happened or been said.

In such situations, those involved are less likely to blame each other and more likely to consider the real reasons for a fracas.

When a child misbehaves, ask: 'Why is he feeling this way?', 'What difficulties is he facing?', 'Is he mature enough to do what I want him to do?', 'What can I do differently to get him to behave the way I want him to?'

Do things together: Do things together that the whole family enjoys, as such experiences help the bonding process.

The activities do not have to be complicated.

They can be as simple as playing a board game or watching a television show, or cooking a favourite dish. 

STI: Natural birth risk low after C-section

Dec 16, 2004
Natural birth risk low after C-section

BOSTON - Pregnant women who try a natural delivery after an earlier Caesarean section face greater risks - but still very low ones - compared with those who opt for a second C-section, a large study suggests.

The lead researcher said the chief risks - a torn uterus in the mother and brain damage in her newborn - are so unlikely that this study may boost the slumping rate of attempted natural births after C-sections. 'I think it will certainly open up the dialogue once again,' said Dr Mark Landon of Ohio State University.

The study was released on Tuesday before publication in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. It was carried out at 19 teaching hospitals nationwide, with collaboration and funding from the National Institutes of Health. It is the most elaborate effort yet to examine the safety of natural birth after Caesarean section, researchers say.

The medical community has long debated the merits and safety. Surgical C-section brings its own set of risks, like haemorrhaging and infection. Vaginal deliveries involve less hospital time and expense. In 1980, an NIH committee encouraged natural birth attempts in carefully selected women with a history of C-section. The rate of natural births after C-section peaked at 28 per cent in 1996.

Since then, reports of uterine ruptures have pushed down the rate. Many hospitals, nervous about the liability or need for surgical teams on standby, stopping doing such deliveries. By the end of last year, the rate had dropped to 11 per cent.

Doctors and patients often elect repeat surgery for fear that the uterus, weakened by scarring from the previous Caesarean, will rupture under the strain of natural labour and birth. That can seriously endanger both mother and child.

In this study, the researchers identified 33,699 women who had previously delivered by Caesarean section. Their subsequent pregnancies were monitored as they chose either to attempt vaginal deliveries or opted for another C-section. More than half of those chose to try natural delivery. Of that group, a quarter encountered problems and had to switch to Caesarean section.

In the end, 124 women who started with natural labour, including the C-section transfers, suffered uterine ruptures - less than 1 per cent of cases. There were no ruptures in the surgeries - only the cutting itself.

Seven babies suffered brain damage from uterine rupture, including two who died, according to the findings. Excluding pre-term deliveries where other factors come into play, one in 2,000 natural birth attempts ended with a brain-damaged or dead child as the result of a ruptured uterus.

There was no significant difference in the rate of maternal death between the natural-birth and surgical groups.

Researchers and doctors agreed that the findings can cut in favour of either kind of delivery, depending on the risk tolerance of particular patients.

Some doctors, however, cautioned that the study was conducted in leading hospitals, so the risks might be somewhat higher elsewhere.  --  AP

STI: Sorting out X from Y

Nov 29, 2004
Sorting out X from Y

In this age of increasing choices in many aspects of life, more couples are considering choosing the sex of their child too. Improved technology has added to this possibility.

Talk to your gynaecologist and consult with several fertility clinics before you go ahead with any procedure.

An increasing number of fertility specialists and reproductive endocrinologists perform procedures like sperm-spinning. This procedure is based on the principle that sperm determines the sex of the child. Sperm selection produces a sample of semen with a changed proportion of X or Y-bearing sperm.

In the technology called flow cytometry - used for farm animals and adapted to humans - sperm are tagged as bearing X chromosomes (that determine females) or Y chromosomes (that determine males) with different dyes and sorted in a machine into different batches used for artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilisation.

Another technique combines the parents' eggs and sperm in a petri dish and then tests the embryo to see its chromosome make-up, and implants the desired one in the woman's womb.

These are methods only done in fertility clinics under medical supervision.

Some sperm separation methods claim to affect the birth ratio. Some clinics using this procedure have claimed up to an eight in 10 chance of conceiving a desired child.

There are no guarantees, but some clinics are currently testing the effectiveness and safety of the process.

The procedures are also expensive.

Some experts say the odds of having a girl can be boosted by taking the fertility drug Clomid. But there are potential side effects to this and any drug.

Some calendar methods claim success, under the principle that having sex on certain days of the menstrual cycle matter, as the chemistry of the endometrium changes.

People have tried changing the chemical balance of the vagina. Some have tried using vinegar or baking-soda based douches. Scientists do not agree with these methods.

Using various positions in sex has also been tried, with various ideas including one that the Y chromosome is more delicate and therefore needs to be more firmly implanted in the vagina to enter the tubes, suggesting that the woman's hips be lifted in the air.

Some people have tried herbs. Others have turned to drastic diets to try to alter the chemistry of the vagina.

Medical associations are hesitant to endorse any as a tried and true method.

Dr Judy Kuriansky is a New York-based clinical psychologist, marital counsellor, certified sex therapist and professor at Columbia University Teachers College. Her books include The Complete Idiot's Guide To Dating, The Complete Idiot's Guide To A Healthy Relationship and The Complete Idiot's Guide To Tantric Sex.

STI: Grandparents are a treasure

Nov 20, 2004
Grandparents are a treasure
by Sharon Loh

WE HAVE just ended a very welcome but all-too-brief visit from the grandparents who live in America.

Though in their 70s, they got on a plane some weeks ago and travelled halfway around the world from their home in North Carolina to Singapore.

Because of the vast physical distance between us, the children have spent far less than a year of actual face time with Grannypam and Jan Jan since they were born.

Despite this, they adore their paternal grandparents and are as comfortable in their presence as they are with their beloved Mama and Gong Gong in Singapore.

What can one say about grandparents? In our experience, they have been a treasure, indispensable in the raising of our children, adding untold layers of love, care and security around them.

It's not the same for everyone, though.

Tell us about your Gong Gong and Mama, the girls clamoured recently, as we were talking for the umpteenth time about the anticipated visit from Pam and Jan.

Well, I said, my grandparents weren't quite like yours.

Why not, they wanted to know.

Somehow, my grandparents seemed older, more constrained in what they could do with us.

We saw our maternal grandmother a lot but she was something of an invalid. I remember her as a frail but somewhat stern woman who was tolerant rather than warm, but she would always indulge us by giving us money for candy or movies.

My paternal grandmother was kindly, as stout as my other grandma was thin. She sometimes came to watch my brother and me at our home in Tanglin Halt but not often, as she had other grandchildren in her care.

Both my grandmothers were 80 when they died within six months of each other. I was 17.

My maternal grandfather had died in my mother's childhood, so I never knew him. He was a prominent educationist in the Teochew community and my mother said she owed a great debt to him.

He exacted a promise before he died that his younger daughter, the fourth of five children, should be sent to school - and educated in English.

I knew my paternal grandfather, a tailor, but he was very much the patriarch who left the care of children to the women. He too died when I was a teenager.

I wasn't close to my grandparents. Language kept us apart. I spoke little Teochew and almost no Hakka, so our communication was functional only.

It is a different story for my girls.

Their grandparents are mobile, active, healthy - and they help with homework, thank God.

Grannypam and Jan Jan are nothing but patient and attentive, open to all sorts of childish requests. I have never heard Pam say no when a child asks for a game or story. Jan will amuse them with funny impersonations and put them to bed.

As for their grandparents here, Mama and Gong Gong might as well be the air that they breathe. There just isn't anybody else they are more at home with.

At least once a week they sleep over at their grandparents' house, all four of them in the same room. I may protest but my mother never says no when the kids ask to stay.

Without my parents I probably would have gone barmy as a new mother.

We decided there was no need to employ a maid since I would be home with the baby. But as anyone with a newborn knows, it's a 24/7 job. And when we had two within 13 1/2 months of each other, the workload simply multiplied.

My parents have always been willing to share the burden of child care. Even today they help pick up the kids from school, take them to activities, give them meals and have them for the weekend if we want the time off.

In America, my in-laws do the same whenever they can for their daughter, who lives with her family in another state, a four-hour drive away.

Where the dotage of a grandparent, any grandparent, can become a double-edged sword is when they try to intervene by coming between parent and child.

A friend who was thrashing her young son complained of how the grandfather threw himself between them to shield the child. 'I ended up caning my father-in-law,' she said, exasperated.

Kids soon learn who the good cops are.

Still, it's a small price to pay for the wealth that granddads and grandmums add to their lives.

We keep in touch with the folks on the other side of the world through that most enabling of technologies, the Internet. Once or twice a week, Alexis and Isabel talk to their grandparents on video through iChat.

It was their father who got everyone wired up, first at our house, then, through a constant stream of persuasion and instruction, at his parents' house too.

Finally when the two households were connected, they roped in his sister, who then set up a system in her house which could talk to the other two.

Now the three Drake households, though thousands of kilometres apart, are connected, so we can talk to each other, face to face in real time - when the time difference permits.

That, in a world that's constantly expanding outwards, is as good as it gets.

STI: For crying out loud, give baby a rub

Nov 8, 2004
For crying out loud, give baby a rub
by Teo Cheng Wee

HANDS up, those parents not getting enough sleep because of wailing babies.

Now, bring down those hands and massage your baby.

This can reduce the number of times the baby wakes up at night by 33 per cent, according to a recent study conducted at Brown University in the United States.

Each massage takes about 15 minutes and is done all over the body.

The babies in the study were massaged before being put to bed, but the rubdown can also be done at other times with the same benefits.

Mrs Jacqueline Tan, 31, found out the hard way after enduring a few difficult weeks when her daughter Odelia was two weeks old.

'Odelia kept crying and nothing we did would make her stop. It was depressing,' says Mrs Tan, an information systems executive and first-time mother.

She sought help at Thomson Medical Centre, where Odelia was born, and was advised to sign up for a $30, hour-long infant massage class.

Since she started giving her child daily massages, Mrs Tan says the four-month-old now sleeps through the night and is less irritable during the day.

Says Dr Judy Owens who handled the study at Brown: 'Massage reduces stress hormones and relaxes the body, making it easier for the babies to sleep well.'

The study, conducted on 45 babies, was initiated this year and is still ongoing.

'Massage can start at any age and be done up to the age of eight,' adds Dr Owens, who is also an associate professor of paediatrics at Brown Medical School.

She was in town the last few days for the Regional Sleep Alliance, a discussion with fellow paediatricians on topics like baby massage and sleep problems in Asian babies.

Babies spend more than half the day sleeping and sleep trouble has been linked to developmental and behavioural problems.

By the age of four months, they should be able to fall asleep without assistance (such as rocking or sucking on a pacifier) and sleep continuously through the night.

While there is no one pioneer of massage, Dr Tiffany Field from the US was the first to drive research related to its clinical benefits.

The Touch Research Institute was set up under her guidance at the University of Miami in 1992.

It was the first centre in the world devoted to the study of touch and massage and its application to the well-being of babies or children.

Still, Dr Owens doesn't think that many parents practise it regularly in the US.

Here, baby massage is taught in all nine maternity hospitals.

Exact figures are unavailable but Associate Professor Daniel Goh, a senior consultant at the Children's Medical Institute of National University Hospital, does not think it is commonly practised.

But as the doctors are now working towards a set of Asian Sleep Guidelines to promote good practices for Asian babies, young parents can look forward to kissing sleepless nights rock-a-bye-bye.

Hands-on training

Step 1: Legs

Rub your hands till they are warm

'Pull' from the thighs down to the feet, like you're milking them

Rub the soles

Gently pull the toes one by one

Step 2: Arms

'Pull' from the shoulders down to the hands

Rub the palms

Gently pull the fingers one by one

Step 3: Stomach

Using your palms, gently rub the stomach in circular motions

Step 4: Back

Using your palms, stroke from the top to the bottom

Cup your palms slightly and tap the baby's back

Step 5: Face

Using your thumbs, stroke the eyebrows from the inside to the outside

Move on to stroke the cheeklines around the nose

Continue to the jaw, stroking from the chin to the ears

STI: When the tooth fairy disappears

Nov 8, 2004
When the tooth fairy disappears
by Sharon Loh

ALEXIS came scurrying out of the bathroom in a state of high excitement one morning.

'My tooth has fallen out!' she yelled. In her cupped palm was a tiny piece of enamel that had only recently sat among her lower teeth.

It had started to come loose very gradually, months before - an event full of endless fascination and promise for her, a real milestone.

A few classmates already had gap-toothed grins and she was dying to be among them. There are, after all, few more definitive signs of growing up.

So she worried it with her tongue and wiggled it with her finger for us to see. We admired it and started talking about tooth fairies and going rates for first teeth.

Privately I wondered how much pain and blood there would be, having forgotten what it was like, and how traumatised it would make my pain-averse child.

In the end, it was the innocuous action of brushing that dislodged the tooth and the pain, if any, was fleeting.

Describing it for us, she said she felt something fall into her mouth. Spitting it out, she saw her tooth in the sink - with a little blood, swiftly forgotten in the joy of having it finally come out.

The tooth fairy duly visited that night.

That was a few months ago.

Last Tuesday morning, it was the turn of Isabel, eager as always to follow in her sister's footsteps, being one year younger.

I wasn't there when it happened. Her father was at his computer when she walked into the room at one in the morning, bleary-eyed but thrilled. Again there was a cupped hand with a bit of enamel in it.

'My tooth fell out, Daddy,' said Isabel. It must have happened in her sleep.

The next morning, there was $2 under her pillow.

'The tooth fairy came, Mummy!' she cried.

Alexis, who is six and worldly-wise, clucked her tongue. 'Tsk. It was Daddy who put the money there.'

'Nooo-ooooo,' protested the younger one. 'It was the tooth fairy. I SAW her.'

Then, like her sister before her, she bore the tooth to school in a ziploc bag so that her classmates could bear witness to her rite of passage. (It wasn't the right day for show-and-tell but her teachers made an exception.)

I was left behind to sigh at the memories of when they cut those teeth, and their beautiful toothless grins which are gone forever.

Alexis was about nine months old when she cut her first tooth and Isabel was four months old. Even then she was in a rush to catch up with her sister.

The girls are at an age when they are in a real hurry to grow up. For them, it doesn't have the bittersweet taste that it does for us. Or the panic.

A few weeks ago, while I was at work, I got a message from their father, saying: 'The kids are out of control.'

Oh no, I thought. What now?

The next message read: 'They are wearing flashy outfits and make-up and dancing to music.'

We had a good laugh about that, but since then he's been putting away small pots of cosmetics that they've filched from my drawer and saying that they are not to wear make-up between the ages of 12 and 16.

Dream on.

But seriously, now their milk teeth have started falling out, I suppose questions about sex will soon follow (don't ask me what the connection is; mothers and logic don't have to go together).

Come to think about it, Alexis did ask me what sex was a couple of weeks ago.

I thought about it and said in my most matter-of-fact voice: 'Sex is what people do to get babies.'

I looked at her for the follow-up question. She was watching the television and seemed not to have heard me.

Phew. Bought myself some time.

It's going to come up again, I'm sure. That is, if I am lucky, and she doesn't feel she can't talk to me about it.

This business of raising a child has come to the point when it's no longer enough to feed, clothe and entertain them.

And as I juggle my various duties of worker, mother, wife, and daughter, I can't help feeling that my children will soon overtake me and run through the little wisdom that I have.

I can see it. They'll be streaking on ahead while I stall, saying: 'Wait, wait, a little longer, please.'

We've given them a few defensive skills so far: Do they know how to cross the road? Do they know not to go with strangers? Do they know the right phone numbers to call?

But there are spaces enlarging in their lives that don't include us, whether by choice or not. You realise that you can't always be there, not even when the first tooth falls out.

And now we are starting to have to face the bigger questions, like how to manage the dynamics of relationships, how to respect others and believe in yourself - issues which one still grapples with in middle age.

But some things remain universal whether you are four or 40.

For example, it's better to listen than to talk.

Whether or not you feel confident of your parenting skills, you will want to know that you've given them a few tools to help them navigate the world unsupervised.

After all, one day, the tooth fairy will disappear, for good.