"Expert" Advice I Can Get Behind

When I was pregnant with my first child, I read one parenting book, What to Expect When You Are Expecting. That’s not even a real parenting book, it’s a manual on pregnancy and it offers no substantial advice for parenting. During my pregnancy, I was so distracted by the horrifying "miracle" that was my incredible expanding body, that I hardly even considered reading-up on what to do with my child once she was extracted from the wasteland that once was my body. After my daughter was born, I was much too busy with or too exhausted by the task of actually keeping my child alive and minimally cared for to read any parenting books. Nine years later, I still tend to frown on parenting advice and the very notion of "parenting experts." The arguments against claims to parenting expertise are obvious: there is no standard requisite for being a parenting expert other than being a parent, and that’s hardly even a requisite any more; children are so vastly different in their personalities that any tips for managing their behavior must be reduced to generalizations; and similarly, the situations described in parenting advice books don’t usually match, or even echo, those I encounter (they do not involve bathing suits in 23 degree weather, or the mini shopping carts at Whole Foods, or 10 am birthday parties at Chuck-E-Cheese with a mother-child combination of hangover and sugar high).

And then there’s the other reason I don’t pay much heed to parenting experts (ok, the real reason), parenting experts make me feel guilty and inadequate. All their wisdom, their tips and tricks for successful childrearing only serve to remind me that I’m not much good at this and I’m not really trying that hard either. For an overachiever acutely aware of the fact that she’s underachieving, that feeling I get when reading what I should be doing with my kids is pretty icky.

Imagine my surprise then, when I came across this article "No, You Shut Up! What to do when your kid provokes you into an inhuman rage" on Slate. Although the author, Alan Kazdin, is billed as a parenting expert, the title alone was enough to make me think that just maybe this expert actually knows a little something about parenting. Not 20 minutes before reading the article, I had been provoked into an inhuman rage by my very own toddler! Kazdin gets me.

As its title implies, the article discusses that oh-so-common predicament we have as parents - the total loss of self-control (quickly followed by self-loathing, confusion, and an overwhelming sense of failure) that is so easily unleashed by our very own flesh and blood. Kazdin walks readers through the most common reactions to those times when your child does something that makes you so angry that you want to… well, you want to destroy them. As a psychologist Kazdin is equipped to analyze these responses - considering their immediate, long-term, and side effects - and recommend the most useful responses for parents who are experiencing an immediate need to manage (kill) their misbehaving child. He gets most of the response choices right. From "Shock and Awe" (full scale rage) to "The Mona Lisa" (approach your child’s behavior with the same disinterested skepticism that Daria would use) Kazdin accurately covers the gamut of reactions to bad behavior.

For my purposes, Kazdin’s reasons why most of those responses don’t work isn’t really important. What’s crucial is that he includes and acknowledges the total inefficacy of one response in particular - "The Rational Saint." According to Kazdin, "exhibiting inhuman restraint, go[ing] to the child and in a gentle voice explain[ing] why she’s misbehaving so terribly" is just as ineffective as screaming at your child until your throat is soar (which actually doesn’t take that long). This is the best news I have ever heard from a parenting expert. It confirms everything I have always suspected, but never quite been able to explain, about the mystifyingly calm and sweet mother we all know - she’s doing an equally shitty job raising her children and she has to smile about it the whole time!

I should thank Kazdin for the article (we all should), I’m a better parent already! The next time one of my children provokes me into an inhuman rage, which is likely to be any time after 3:15 p.m. today, I won’t waste any time gently explaining with fake smile and clenched teeth how "not nice" their behavior is or "what bad choices" they’re making. That way I’ll save my children from the complete disorientation that comes from seeing their mother channel June Cleaver - saccharine doesn’t go over well in my house. Likewise, I probably won’t employ any of the other responses Kazdin discusses. While the longterm effects may be better, a cost-benefit analysis of these techniques shows that they won’t really get me what I’ll need to navigate the immediate situation - if I give my kid a relevant consequence in response to their behavior, I’ll have listen while they whine about the injustices of that consequence which will likely catapult me into an even deeper rage. Instead I’ll probably yell like I always do (I just have to remember to close the windows first).