Author: suburbandaddy

Stressed Out Parents Make Kids Sick

Interesting research is out that found that children who had anxious or depressed parents were more likely to get sick. The study was led by Dr. Mary Caserta from the University of Rochester.

Caserta teamed up with Peter Wyman, associate professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, who designed surveys aimed at evaluating levels of stress in the parents. After six months, the parents were asked to take the test to measure their amount of anxiety and depression. What they found was that the children who were sick more often were those of parents with the highest levels of stress.

Here’s a possible explanation. Maybe the parents were more stressed because their kids were sick?

Seriously, what is a parent to do with this information?? Stop getting stressed, it’s making your kids sick.? Oh, OK, I’ll just turn the stress off.? I mean, we all know stress is bad in so many ways.? But it’s not exactly something that’s easy to control or turn off.? Especially, like in this case, when the source of the stress (kids), is also the recipient of the consequences.

Se habla espa?ol

I’ve been trying to improve my Spanish, so I figured what better way to practice than to translate my writings on potty training and travel horror stories.

So, I’m excited to announce the Spanish language version of SuburbanDaddy is ready.

In case you were wondering, potty in Spanish is “orinal”.??? SuburbanDaddy is “Daddy Suburbano”.

And, interestingly enough, the most popular word in Thing 2’s vocabulary, “NO”, is the same in English and Spanish.? Go figure.

Results Of Big Weekend

The big weekend didn’t go as well as we had hoped. The rest of the weekend went pretty much like the early update. We had some mild, bribery induced successes.? But there were also many, many accidents. To the point where Thing 2 actually asked to wear a diaper on Sunday. I was proud of his effort, he was trying very hard, but I could see his frustration.

We gave the teachers at daycare the green light to continue today, too. He normally does much better there when he goes along with his friends as a group.

I’m about to leave work, on my way to pickup at daycare. I’m not very cautiously optimistic.

Homeschooling Is A Hot Topic

When I was starting out as a bartender while in college, I was given a valuable piece of advice. I was told to always avoid religion and politics as topics, because bar clients, especially after a few drinks, will become very heated and at least half will disagree with my point of view and leave a lousy tip.

Now there is a third topic I know to avoid: homeschooling. I received some very spirited comments to last week’s parenting poll.

The question was whether homeschooling makes sense. As of now, the results stand at 50-50. That’s a true sign of a hot topic, two evenly divided sides.

I still can’t say I understand it, but at least I have a better take on why. Here are some of the comments:

Homeschooling has less to do with gaining a better education…and more to do with curbing the influence the rest of the world has on their children – Chuck

If your child is bullied, molested, poorly educated, has self-esteem damaged????then what – Sade

So it isn’t about the quality of the education, though that is a factor in some cases. Rather, it is an attempt to shield your kids from outside influences or different moral values. I get it.

My response would be that they will be exposed to the evils of the world eventually. Kids need to learn how survive in today’s society. Better to have them learn from the start.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments everyone.

And, as I would have done at the bar, we’ll agree to disagree. Can I top you off? And how ’bout them Giants! (sports is always a safe topic)

Weekend Update

First update on the big weekend. Thing 2 was very excited to be wearing big boy underwear. He picked Thomas The Train. He was even more excited when he saw the bag of Oreos. He gets one every time he goes potty.

The Oreos were an instant success. He went pee pee in the potty! Everyone is happy.

Thirty minutes later, a setback. Thomas The Train is full of poop. I clean Thing 2 up and next up is Elmo. I think Thing 2 thinks there is an endless supply of underwear, like diapers, and after an accident he gets to pick a new pair.

Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink the strategy. We’ll stick with it for the rest of the day.