This is an edited transcript of our live online chat with Dr Tanya Byron, a practicing consultant in child and adolescent mental health who has two children of her own. She is the author of three books, the most recent of which is Your Child Your Way. To download a podcast featuring an interview with Dr Tanya, click here.

Fimbo: But I don't want to ask her parenting questions - I want to ask about her clothes and make-up
Aitch: I love her hair, and her wrap dresses, and her eye make-up and her boots and her nail varnish. And what's more, I love that she never gets her (probably also lovely) knickers in a twist.

DrTanyaByron: hello everyone - it's Tanya Byron here. Thank you Mumsnet for inviting me to have this chat and thank you so much everyone for the kind and complimentary things you say about me. I've never done something like this before so forgive me if I mess it up at first - with your support I'm sure I'll get the hang of this eventually (let's hope before 2 pm when we finish!) I have read through most of your questions and want to try and tackle most subjects before 2pm so forgive me if I don't answer yours directly (they are so many!!) but I hope within my answers to others you'll get some useful stuff. (Stuff being a technical word us psychologists use of course!!) But firstly can I tell you how much I have laughed at the comments about clothes and makeup so as a warm up, do you want to hear something about that?

Ernest: ooh, yes please T (Am jealous of your clothes, looks, the whole kit & caboodle too, fawn fawn, lol)

 

DrTanyaByron: So. In the House of TT's I had a stylist (...) who bought clothes for me - some I loved, others I despised (a rather unpleasant beige polo neck/ cardi combo comes to mind...). I also had ( and still have) a make up artist, lovely Lisa M who would do my makeup when I arrived at the House at 6 am and refresh it through the day. As the week and series progressed and we would all be getting exhausted (our hours were approx 16 per day) Lisa and I would become hysterical and she would just layer on more and more until I ended on Fridays usually looking like a drag queen and unable to open my eyes from the weight of my lashes...most clothes from the high street and always excellent gripper knickers to keep the post 2 baby stomach in (this is for lady who commented on my pants earlier today!!)

DrTanyaByron: Anyway more serious now. My new book is out today (YOUR CHILD...YOUR WAY) - plug plug! I just want to explain a bit why I wrote it because it will help with our chat. I think now there are too many 'parenting experts' around (me being one of them) and an overload of info for parents which leaves many parents feeling confused and less expert in raising their child. I see this in the parents in my weekly clinic. I think we have to get back to a point where we feel the most empowered in raising our kids and don't feel we need to defer to an 'expert' or a book etc. So - I have read how many of you have offered advice to others in this thread - really good advice, I loved the how to get kids to share tip - and so I don't want to just do a Q & A she's the expert type thing here today but more think more broadly about why we often know what we want to do with our kids, what we know will be effective, but can't.

DrTanyaByron: Kids with challenging behaviour - many of you asked about. The general rule is that for the under threes' actions speak louder than words when they get older other strategies can also help. The general psychological principle is that the behaviour you give your child after theirs will determine whether or not that behaviour will occur again. So aim is to reinforce the great stuff (praise, cuddles and for the over 3/ 3.5's sticker charts) and don't reinforce the bad (ignore, Time Out in extreme cases). Time Out is a bit like being sent to your room (like my mum did when I was a kid) and is only for 1 min for each year of child’s life. I not a fan of naughty steps cos often there can be physical struggle to get the child to stay there and say a huge NO to smacking. But let's go beyond the 'techniques' and be more analytical first - why not monitor your child and your behaviour for a week or so - how far do you see a pattern in your responses that in some way are escalating the behaviour you don't want? In my new book there are self monitoring diaries so you can do this.

FlameBatfink :I've always been wary of time out in their room because it seems to enforce bedroom = bad place. I could be being a bit sensitive though... seeing as I know children who have a naughty stair and haven't grown up with huge stair issues

TortoiseShell: How do you stop a 16 month old shrieking? It is SO piercing, it is deafening.


DrTanyaByron: For any child behaviour to be managed the most important things are to be consistent and boundaried - set a boundary and follow through consistently with a consequence if it is crossed (eg Time Out for hitting your sister...) make sure all involved in the care of your child do the same or else they will get mixed messages. Be aware that yelling is attention and so that will increase the likelihood of the behaviour you don't want. Ignoring is so effective but difficult to do in the early days of trying to manage the behaviour - so tortoiseShell asked about a shrieking child - ignore them. Praise is hugely potent but must come from the heart and be both verbal and non verbal.

DANCESwithTheMorningOff: Can you tell us about food....PLEASE! What do you do when I child will NOT eat what you have given them?

 

DrTanyaByron: For the many food questions it is not a good idea to give different meals to a food fussy child. remember toddlers can go through a stage of neophobia and so this means show aversion to things (including foods) previously loved). Don't show your anxiety to your child and lock away the wet wipes. For those of you who do these things get a friend to feed you a meal with a big spoon while looking at you intently and wiping your mouth with a disgusting fragranced wipe every 5 mins - will you continue eating? Watch snacks as some kids lose an eating pattern because they graze throughout the day. If a child refuses a meal then stop the meal and nothing til next (obviously water). Sometimes being paradoxical with a kid helps i.e. I bet you can't eat that faster than your brother...or stickers for older kids. No treats or dessert if meal not finished.

Bandofmothers: My 1 yo recently actually started sleeping thru the night (mostly) for which I am ever grateful. However, not wanting to sound like it's never good enough, I can't get her to sleep past about 5-5:30am. She still wakes then and wants milk (breast feed morning and bedtime still) and rarely goes back to sleep afterwards.
My question is how can I get her to push it back til about 6. 6 I can handle, 5 feels like the middle of the night. She and my 3.9 yo go to bed around 6:30 - 7pm. I have started keeping her up til about 11 for her nap so she sleeps til about 1pm, so I can consistently put her to bed at 7, though she is knackered by then. Is this the right thing to do? Or should I try something else?

Or should I resign myself to being awake at 5 ish every day?
Please answer my question, pretty, with sugar on top 

PS, she is still in my bedroom as she wasn't sleeping thru, and now cos she is up so early. I want to put her in with her sister and get my room back, should I just do it?? Would she sleep better if not in with me?? Sometimes if I even roll over, or god forbid try to get out of bed for a wee it can wake her up. I really don't want her waking her sister at 5 too.

DrTanyaByron: Sleep problems are usually two fold - problems settling to sleep and night waking. From 6 months most kids should be able to settle themselves to sleep in a dark or dim room. Some children require some help in learning this. The key issues are settling calm routine before bed and positive sleep associations, which means things like their cot or bed, a teddy next to them. If you rock your child asleep or they suck on a bottle or dummy to sleep or fall asleep in front of the TV - when they wake in the night (and we all do briefly as we go through our sleep cycles) they will require those things (and thus also you) to get back to sleep. You can do controlled crying but I not a fan of long spells left crying so only a few mins then in and a brief SSh and then out. Or if they come out of the room just be outside and return them with no response at all (even if they kicking and shouting) and leave. Or for kids that appear anxious you can sit by them until the ALMOST asleep and then slowly move further away each night. For all these you must be calm and not talk and thus don't reinforce their behaviour or make it a game. BTW as you can see there is no way I can get to individual questions so I will look through and give broader answers. Hope that's OK.

chankins: Any advice on dealing with a three and a hlf yr old who wets herself constantly and does not mind being wet and smelly? Have tried sticker charts, reward incentives, taking away pudding/treats etc, telling her off, and ignoring it. Its not that I mind too much the accidents as her older sis was slow to toilet train too, it s the not telling us she's wet that annoys me! What am I doing wrong ?

DrTanyaByron: Toilet training must only start when a child shows they are ready. In this world of competitive parenting I am amazed at how many parents push their kids before they are ready because their friend's kid is same aged and using the potty. Ridiculous - let kids be kids and develop at their own pace not at our agenda. Besides being potty trained early is no marker of being an Oxford undergraduate later on. I've had kids in my clinic who are faecally impacted and need it removed and then laxatives to help them poo because they so anxious about soiling / wetting. It's trial and error and mistakes must be allowed. Any smearing ignored. Anxious kids could be helped by slowly desensitizing them to what they anxious about - the toilet - by letting them do their business in their nappy but in the bathroom and over time then sitting on the loo/ potty and then eventually loosening the nappy over time.

Tigana: As a new mum, 1st of my friends to have a baby and with a very small family support network, plus fact that my mum died several years ago...I didn't really have any one to give me parenting advice. Felt like I must be doing it "wrong" as I wasn't following any particular 'method'. Nonsense, obviously!

Also, I think we are all SO painfully aware of the potential consequences of what we simplistically see as being Too Strict or Too Soft that we blither about fearing that our reprimand is Damaging The Child and Turning Them into a Serial Killer/ASBO-teen/Alcoholic/Person who can't form healthy relationships with others as their Mum told them they HAD to eat dinner BEFORE pudding.

DrTanyaByron: BTW my condolences to the new mum who lost her mum and is the first of her friends to have a baby - that's really tough - but I like what you said earlier about us all and our kids being different and we should respect that and that possible programmes including mine push out a notion that it all techniques in a one size fits all way. I agree and think you will be a good mum despite having less support than many new mums do. I also agree that TV can simplify and while I always tried to be diverse in my work and look at what was underlying the problems the parents were having not focus on labelling the kid as the problem, I have stopped TV shows because I also think there's too much now and getting too simplistic. PS my fingers are falling off...

unicorn: hurrah for DR T she agrees with moi (and Tigana)!
I will now use that fact to any smartarse mum who thinks always a right way/wrong way to do things...

One size does not fit all (my new mantra).

mountainhigh Hi Tanya, My son is 6 and has Selective Mutism.
Was very interested watching The House of Tiny Tearaways when you had the little boy on who had SM.

I know it is quite a rare condition and in my experience a very misunderstood condition.
It is especially difficult in school were the teachers seem to have no knowledge of SM at all.
From what I can gather in the US and Canada they have much more knowledge on SM and more support groups etc.

Apart from SMIRA ,which have helped me a lot in the past, why do you think here in the UK we are sadly lacking more support groups and more information and knowledge for the parents and schools on SM?

Thanks in advance.

DrTanyaByron on Thu 06-Sep-07 13:50:20
Selective Mutism is a rare condition but a real one and not attention seeking in a child. Often these kids will talk to those they are safe with (mum dad gran) but no one else and often they will only speak in safe space eg. the home. For the SM parent I agree your earlier comment that there is little info and your support seems all that I know there is but I would recommend thinking psychologically and look at using a technique called sliding in - this is similar to the desensitization toilet one earlier - get your child used to talking in front of others in a gradual and systematically pre planned way by starting with them whispering to you when someone else (maybe classroom assist) in room looking away and build form there in stages (the reverse of the gradual withdrawal night tech I mentioned before) until other person sitting near you and child whispers to them through you (ie. they ask you to ask the child a question) and build. In general for any anxious child the process should be a slow, calm steady exposure to what they afraid of - so lick a small bit of fruit will build to bite chew and swallow over time etc. To plan this with your kids draw a ladder on a piece of paper and at the top put where you want your child to be in terms of their behaviour and then at each rung plot your small steps to getting their. Telling kids to blow out imaginary birthday cake candles or have a red orange green system of pointing to a colour to indicate when they Ok, a bit anxious or very helps as well. And do you know what? My DH (took me AGES to work out your codes!) has just brought me cup of tea!! Bless him!!

Tutter :ooh I’ve got a really good one...
is there such a thing as Too Young for Time Out?


DrTanyaByron:
You are all terrifying me... Time out for over 2's only but please can we be less hooked up on techniques and think this - why do I have x problem with my child? What does it say about me? Why when our children are behaving like...children...do we lose our nerve, fall apart and wonder whether they will be banged up by 9?
Why when our child has a tantrum do we have one back? (They are the CHILD we're not).  I promise you all if you could try and be less hooked into – “Oh Dr t you're the expert, tell me what to do” - and calmed a bit, looked at the behaviour, analysed when and how it happens and how you may inadvertently be reinforcing it. Think about whether your child is getting mixed messages from other adults that care for them. Think perhaps whether your child's behaviour is less about them being 'naughty' and more about them reflecting some bigger emotional issues in their life/ the family etc. Get back to a sense that you are instinctively the right expert of your child. Pick a management solution and stick to it calmly and consistently ... and BTW for SN parents I advise same behavioural messages and boundaries for your child and lots of support for you. Finally in this post remember the notion of the self fulfilling prophecy - you and others think and label your kid a problem, you and others will behave in a manner that will signal that to your and child and bingo...they will be.

DrTanyaByron Here's the thing I have to go as have a meeting before picking my DD and DS from school! I am sorry and feel guilty that you all probably very frustrated by my lack of being specific and probably too general advice. I hope some was useful and it's been fun although I have severe hand cramps! Do Mumsnet do speaker events Q & A sessions where we can do this face to face and raise money for charity at the same time? I do these things sometimes so let me know and if we can set something up let's have more time together. Anyway, goodbye lovely mums and dads (and all other carers out there). Thanks for this slot and please remember that a problem only becomes one when we label it as one and most of what we are describing as problems are in fact behaviours that are normal for the developmental stage of your child. XXXX Tanya xxxx