Warning: Reading this could cause
you to disagree with Dr. Joe Wyatt

John Rosemond

Wyatt says I “romanticize child-rearing practices of the past.” I am apparently not aware, he opines, that some pre-modern parents were good parents, while some were downright awful. Here Wyatt sets up what is known as a straw man - a specious charge set up by the accuser to give the accuser something to easily knock down. Wyatt knows that no reasonably intelligent person, which he recognizes that I am, would think that parenting was ever a perfect enterprise. The issue is whether the traditional parenting paradigm was better for American children and American culture than the post-modern psychological paradigm. I absolutely do not romanticize parents of past years, en masse. I simply state what is fact: all of the available evidence indicates the American child of forty-plus years ago was more well behaved, did better in school, and was more psychologically healthy than has been the case since. In “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,” William Bennett documents the decline in the American child's moral, behavioral, emotional, and academic health since 1965 - since American parents began embracing a self-esteem-based parenting paradigm fashioned out of whole cloth by “progressive” mental health professionals. This nouveau paradigm was accompanied by concocted fantasies to the effect that traditional parenting was psychologically damaging. I think it no coincidence that this paradigm shift and the beginning of the long decline in child mental/behavioral health occurred simultaneously.

Wyatt then gives an example of my tendency to romanticize old-fashioned (traditional) parenting. Unfortunately for those who would appreciate a good debate, his example - my advice to the parents of a 12-year-old who is underachieving in school - fails to prove his point. In fact, he begins by trying to prove one point, shifts to trying to prove another, and winds up proving nothing. Wyatt has difficulty with the fact that I do not suggest the parents employ positive reinforcement techniques, such as offering the boy “points toward a desired item ... by doing good schoolwork.” He's absolutely right! I did not suggest a reward-based motivational plan. Why? Because there is no good evidence that such strategies work with underachievers or children with behavior problems. What works with children who are capable of doing better in school but don't feel like it, as well as children who are capable of self-control but don't exercise it, is punishment. That's been documented over and over again. For more than a generation, psychologists have been chanting the “punishment is bad for self-esteem” mantra. Yet the best research (see Diana Baumrind's excellent studies of parenting style outcomes, for example, which even demonstrate - heaven forbid! - the efficacy of spanking) indicates that loving parents who punish misbehavior raise the most well adjusted children. In a classroom setting, research has confirmed that punishment of misbehavior works better than reward (of proper behavior) alone or even (get this!) reward and punishment combined.

Wyatt then accuses me of being “prone to glaring inconsistencies,” but again his example does not fit his contention. I once wrote that “...personal testimonies neither validate nor invalidate [a given child rearing practice]. They are personal.” That's true, of course. My supposed “glaring” inconsistency is that in a later column, I suggested to a mom who was frustrated over her 5-year-old's refusal to eat vegetables that she do what my wife and I did - and what worked - with our veggiephobic daughter Amy when she was five. Indeed, this is personal testimony. And indeed, the fact that it worked with my daughter does not mean it will work with all children. Unfortunately, no one has ever done research on how to get children to eat vegetables. In the absence of such lofty, federally-funded undertakings, I dispensed advice based on personal experience. It would have been inconsistent (as well as narcissistic) of me to claim that my parenting experience is the be-all, end-all of child rearing. Since I've never made any such claim, Wyatt's accusation falls flat on it's highbrow face. To mix my metaphors, Wyatt is grasping at straws, perhaps the straws falling from his straw men.

Next, Wyatt says I am “prone to wild goose chases when it comes to tracking down the causes of problems in child behavior.” To “prove” his point, he takes me completely out of context - yet another disingenuous rhetorical device. He claims I have said television's “flicker” is the cause of attention deficit disorder. Wrong again. What I've actually said is that there is no good scientific evidence for the completely unsubstantiated explanation pushed by psychologists who specialize in diseasing America's children: to wit, that ADD is caused by an aberrant gene or faulty biochemistry. I'm convinced, in fact, that television watching during the formative years puts a child's attention span at risk by compromising the development of brain structures which are essential to attentiveness (i.e., left temporal lobe). Wyatt points out that not all children who watch television are later diagnosed with ADD. No, and not all people exposed to anthrax bacterium develop the disease. Likewise, not being the recipient of a diagnosis of ADD is not the point. The point is that significant television watching during the formative years is bad for brain development. Psychology professor Jane Healy, author of “The Endangered Mind,” has said exactly the same thing and backs it up with research and anecdote (If I chase geese, I am in good company). As example of the latter, teachers who have taught long enough to be believed on the subject all tell me that today's kids, as a rule, have significantly shorter attention spans than children who went to school in the 1960s. Retired teachers who began teaching in the '40s (I still occasionally find one!) tell me that they began seeing the deterioration in attention span in the mid-'50s, shortly after a certain electronic technology became a fixture in the life of the American child. These anecdotes do not prove cause, but they certainly cast great suspicion on the “idiot box,” a suspicion Healy's research elevates to cause.

As for what is behind the ADD epidemic: I happen to think ADD is nothing more than one aspect of epidemic toddlerhood-in-perpetuity (TIP), caused by early exposure to electronic media and epidemic dysfunctional parenting (EDP) which is the logical outcome of the psychological parenting paradigm. It is interesting indeed that the diagnostic symptoms for ADD describe a toddler. So do the symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). Toddler behavior is also reflected in the diagnostic criteria being proposed for childhood bipolar disorder. This is not wild goose chase. This is intelligent speculation based on evidence. Unorthodox, heretical, threatening to certain professional and parental parties, but not wild goose chase. In the case of ADD, ODD, and childhood bipolar disorder, the only out of control geese are mental health professionals who profiteer off these diagnoses. It is, I submit, a wild goose chase that has resulted in the absurd notion, advanced by many ignorant mental health professionals, that misbehavior can be caused by genes.

Wyatt says I advised the parents of a 13-month-old child who shook the dining room chairs to put them out of reach. Here, Wyatt knows he has taken me completely out of context. Again, knowing he has no good argument going, he grasps at straws. In the column in question, I advised a firm reprimand and time out. After bringing up the option of putting the chairs out of the child's reach, I dismissed it, telling the parents that leaving them where they were and having one topple over on the little shaker (known as a logical consequence) would probably have more of a deterrent effect than any parental discipline.

Wyatt says I don't believe in paying children for chores which are part of their daily family job description. That's right. I believe children should contribute work to the family for no wages. The Chore Fairy never showed up when I was a kid. Nor, when I do housework as an adult, do I get a check in the mail from the Department of What's Fair is Fair. Children enjoy 18 or more years of welfare. Expecting them to do chores for no compensation turns welfare into workfare, which is proven to have a positive impact on responsibility. Furthermore, the parent who pays for chores is shooting herself in the foot. I've said, and I'll stand by it, “When a parent pays a child for chores, the parent is likely to have difficulty getting the child to do his chores if the child does not need the money that day or that week.” Chores are service to the family. They teach the service ethic, unless, that is, parents pay for them, in which case they give the child opportunity to manipulate the parents. Wyatt equates adults getting paid for going to jobs with children being paid for doing chores. That would only be an apt comparison if children were responsible for paying their share of the mortgage and the grocery bills.

I don't have any use for positive reinforcement, Wyatt says. Wrong again. I have use for it, but not as a means of dealing with misbehavior. Research has proven that positive reinforcement (“Nice job, Billy!”), conservatively dispensed, strengthens existing good behavior, but research has failed miserably at proving that positive reinforcement is a efficacious way of dealing with bad behavior. Wyatt has a problem with me recommending what does work - punishment or, in psychological lingo, response-cost programs. He doesn't like it, but he fails to tell the reader how punishment is bad. It just is. Never mind the research (i.e., Baumrind, Larzelere, et. al.), Wyatt says so.

Now, Wyatt's slam dunk: “And he [yours truly] could be unwittingly reinforcing the actions of child abusers.” Really? Note the clever (Wyatt's penchant) use of innuendo. I “could be” reinforcing.... Needless to say (we know him by now), Wyatt offers no evidence to support this outrageous suggestion (which borders on unethical). I simply might be playing into the hands and belts and baseball bats of child abusers. I've been writing my newspaper column for 25 years now. To my knowledge - and I think I would have been informed of any such instance (perhaps even named in a lawsuit) - no accused child abuser has ever pointed to a book or column of mine and said, in his defense, “John Rosemond says it's all right!”

Badly misinformed? Counterproductive? Downright dangerous? I've written more than 1500 newspaper and magazine articles and ten books, some of which have been parenting best-sellers. Not once has anyone ever written me saying that my advice ruined their life or even created a problem where one did not already exist. People have written saying they don't like my advice, and people have reported that some advice of mine did not work for them, but no one has reported to me that my advice has caused them harm or hardship. In short, despite Wyatt's semi-hysterical accusation to the contrary, I am confident I've done no harm (except to the cash flow of opportunistic mental health professionals).

Wyatt ends his screed by saying “it's time parents stopped listening to John Rosemond.” I assume he means “...and listen to people like me.” The problem - as American parents are fast becoming acutely aware - is that listening to the likes of Dr. Wyatt has caused them great grief over the last forty years. Why? Because, like Wyatt's botched attempt to discredit me, there is no beef in the parenting psych-burger.

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