Raising Good Kids in Tough Times

The Basic Three of Early Childhood

Dr. Roger McIntire

Instead, all three are troublesome territory because parents have limited control and limited information about the real moment-to-moment needs of the child. They also have a strong desire for everything to go well for their child's health.

Since almost all adults end up learning the basic three, we know the job is eventually accomplished. Why is it, then, that the basic three are often the basic troubles for parents? As all experienced parents know, emotions about the basics get in the way. Eating, sleeping, and elimination have special characteristics beyond just the essentials for health. Here are five aspects of the basic three to keep in mind.

1. The basic three are somewhat out of the control of parents. You can't directly force someone to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom.

2. The only direct information about the moment-to-moment need for food, sleep, or elimination comes from the child and is not directly observable by parents.

3. The behaviors are somewhat out of the control of the child as well. Other conditions, deprivations, and feelings enter in. A child cannot feel hungry on demand or sleep any time the request comes up.

4. The basic three are partly driven by even more obscure conditions, experiences and habits that may seem irrelevant. Even with us adults, our eating, sleeping, and bathroom activities are related, in a way not completely understood, to coffee, tea, excitement, boredom, depression, worries and fears, too little or too much exercise or the need to escape an unpleasant situation - just to name a few.

5. Being private activities, the basic three also comprise the last bastion of control and privacy of one's own life. They are the last places any one of us, child or adult, is likely to tolerate interference. For example, one theory of anorexia (refusal to eat) is that the person needs to protect some control over at least part of her life. As one daughter said to me, "They (parents, relatives, teachers, and nearly everyone else) tell me what to wear, when to wear it, when to get up, go to school, do homework, and go to bed. But they can't make me eat. At least I control that! And I'll prove it, I won't eat anything!"

Children can eat or not eat for fun, adventure, attention, "control" of the situation, or to "win" in a power struggle with Mom or Dad.

For the most common family situations, your best time for tough diet decisions, the time when you have the most control, is when you are shopping for food. Instead of bringing home a gallon of ice cream and then practically needing a lock for the refrigerator or a dog-leash to restrain the kids from it, you're better off buying only a small amount or not buying it at all. Take control where you have it, at the supermarket.

Left with the selection you provide and their own judgment, most children will select a good diet overall with a few mistakes. Outside the home they will also make plenty of mistakes, deviating from what is good for them along the way - the same pattern you find in us adults. To emphasize this area of behavior when no serious problem exists treads on dangerous territory and interferes with a meal-time the whole family should enjoy.

Meal-time is often the primary influence on how members of the family feel about each other. If it is a time of power struggles, competition, and argument, the feelings are likely to spill over to other family situations.

Look carefully at the importance of troublesome food rules which would never be imposed upon an adult. The price of admission to the "clean plate club" may be too high for the parent and the family as well as the child. The long-term goal is for the child to recognize and satisfy his or her own hunger with what's available. The short term goal may be just as important: to create a relaxed family atmosphere that everyone enjoys.

If parental demands and arguments insist on too much control, the child may ignore her own body cues of hunger while starting arguments and power struggles instead. Then the stage is set for trouble.

Next time: the second of the basic three - sleeping and bed-time problems.

Dr. McIntire is the author of Teenagers and Parents: 10 Steps to a Better Relationship and Raising Good Kids in Tough Times. For more information see Parentsuccess.com. For publication sales, visit the CCBS bookstore.

Dr. Roger McIntire taught child psychology and family counseling at the University of Maryland for 32 years, where he conducted research and did applied work with parents and teachers. He has published several books, for both professionals and parents, appears often on radio and television talk shows, and writes a weekly column, Raising Good Kids in Tough Times, for the Martinsburg (WV) Journal. He received the 2001 Award for Effective Presentation of Behavior Analysis in the Mass Media, from the Association for Behavior Analysis. He is a father and grandfather. You can find out more about his publications at parentsuccess.com.

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