Live chat with Dr Tanya Byron, Thursday 6 September between 1-2pm

[OliviaMumsnet]

Hi all
We're delighted to announce that Dr Tanya Byron will be here for an online chat with Mumsnetters this Thursday, 6 September.

Tanya is a practicing consultant in child and adolescent mental health and has two children of her own. Her new parenting book Your Child, Your Way encourages you to really think about the kind of parent you are and the kind you want to be, but mostly to understand your child.

Tanya will be joining us for an hour on Thursday at 1 o'clock, so grab your sarnies, get your questions ready and join us then.

For those of you who have unavoidable lunchtime commitments, we'll let you post your questions in advance here.

Thanks, MNHQ

For the rest of you, we'll see you on the 6th.

Please please answer about preparing my child for moving, i've got 3 weeks and am so scared it will scar her for life, she's thorowing one about it constantly!

Is a child's behaviour - always directly caused by the parent (as many of the more simplistic tv shows seem to show - or can it be that some kids are actually born with more, well, obtuse characters?

I just wonder about the role temperament plays, some adults are more challenging than others, so surely this starts in childhood?

Hello Dr T

Lovely to have you here, if you get a chance I would love to have some advice on persuading my 2.4 year old to use words rather than hitting when things get fraught! I try so hard but to no avail. He has also been a biter up untill very recently ( fingers crossed) which started at 9 months and seemed linked to excitement and general intense feelings as much as frustration - help - it rocks me to the core when he does these things to others.

Thanks

oh, x-posts i see....

er...im afraid I cant think past my 2 year old, and why he appears to not be swayed by any type of parenting....

hmmm. Still, my DD is gorgeous and lovely, considerate and generally well behaved. I must be doing something right.....

Fear of being judged, is that what you mean Dr T?

I dont think gripper pants would cut it for me..beyond redemptionp

I veer wildly between being scared to be too strict (memories of hating being shouted at etc) and then wondering how best to enforce boundaries. Its so hard to know whether you are being too soft or too harsh - that's why people seek advice or permission I suppose.

Hello Dr Tanya (Wow.. am quite overawed!!!

I have a burning question.. do you advise regarding special needs children? Have often wondered this when we have watched House of Tiny Tearaways etc which we have found v.helpful.

Briefly as poss, our SN child is 7, complex needs, devepmentally delayed but achieving well at his own level, quite a lot of speech now. Always been very sociable and loving.. (always his main strength) but in last two years he has started being aggressive. It has got progressively worse and now we are really struggling. Out of the blue, with no apparent trigger, he will, for instacne yank my head down to the ground by my hair, does the same to his 8 year old sister (he is actually stronger than her, upper body wise.. it's dreadful the way he hurts her!), pinches (my arms are always black and blue ) since he learned the new skill of "pincer grasp, hits us in the face, gouches bits of skin out of my husbands (bald!) head, kicks me hard in the chest when I'm dressing him on the floor (he can't walk/stand unaided yet but this will come)and is generally upredicable. He does it mainly at home; they don't get much of it at school, thank goodness.

He seems to literally feed off our shocked and pained reactions and I am so upset that our loving little boy can become this "monster"! We used to get such pleasure from him, not it's just damage limitation the whole time. He is very hyperactive (paeditraician added ADHD to his list of diagnoses although he had no proper diagnosis of his main condition, sometimes described as "dystonic cerebral plasy". He was tried on Ritalin, had a very adverse reaction. We are now wondering about food additives.

We think the start of the aggression co-incided with him going on Epilim two years ago (2 huge sizures in 2005, nothing since) but the paeditritian was non-commital about this.

We are at our wits end with him, couldn't wait for the new term to begin and in the evening, we count the minutes until bedtime (not that he sleeps properly but at least he can't hurt anyone!) His siblings seem to be starting to really dislike him which is very upsetting.

Any advice would be really appreciated. Thank you.

I have always supported any kind of parenting "expert" on TV simply because it brings the issues out there. But the professionals' opinion seems to be that there are liability issues (teachers, medics).

Given that your book is about trusting your instincts, don't you think that these lay-experts are actually quite helpful?

I should be ok, think my boobs will cover post baby belly before long! LOL

Step away from the pants Nemo...

My question to Dr T - maybe on a broader food topic, is if a child won't eat the food you give them, should you make them try some or just give them something different. What do you do?

(so sorry for the verbal diarrhoea .. understand completely if this is too specialised or you just don't get to it.. but had to post on offchance as we're desperate)

I'm sure someone has already asked - but any advice on toddlers who hit? Like VVQV's toddler, my 2 and a quarter year old has hit since he was less than one. Especially when hungry and tired, but other times too. Have tried as many strategies as there are parenting books (including Little Angels, fawn, fawn) but he just keeps doing it and has got into scrapes with older boys who don't mind thumping back. Again like VVQV's he knows it's wrong, but every time we say no, he just has to hit again

girls, let the woman talk....

Maybe we could side-step onto 24-hour girdles?

Hello, Dr T, very much respect for your shows, when dd's were wee it made all the difference seeing others overcome their dramas successfully, so ta

But you ARE the expert and we have so many questions..... but I think the gist of your book sounds admirable. It's a time and role model thing, often, isn't it, that makes us run for the books and the tv programmes and th experts. And an expectations and fear thing. And a style thing too maybe, a tribal thing. But I think many people just mix and match methods and use common sense and, if they have found it, MN.

methinks 1 - 2 won't be quite enough time

Do you think many of the parenting 'mistakes' we make are simply a re-enactment of the perhaps less-than-good parenting we received as children? Sometimes, in my less-effective moments (there are many!) I can hear my mother. In fact, I'm channelling her. What worries me, is that, yes, I'm overcoming this and parenting my way more and more, but the damage has been done now. I look back at my kids' younger years and cringe.

Kids with challenging behaviour - many of you asked about. The genral rule is that for the under thress' 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 chiild'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 nanltical 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.

ooh, you mentioned TimeOut

is there an age below which you wouldn't use it? (ds1 is 2.4)

Do you ever shout at your kids?

I think also there are many people who don't want to raise their children in the same way they were brought up and maybe

that creates a bit of a vacuum and it can be filled in part by t.v psychology (or mumsnet ).

In years gone by the whole community/family worked as one - there was this mass pool of information, help and ideas for solving the parenting problems. Now we have become more secluded within our own family units, we find ourselves struggling and at a loss - which is when parenting "experts" come in - by asking advice, buying the books, watching the shows etc we can piece together that knowledge which would have previously come from within the community.

I don't find it a bad thing, as long as you combine (in the same way that it is fine to listen to Mrs Pearson at No 42 who wears by controlled crying, but it is best to have a chat with Mrs Thomas who prefers pick up put down, and the co-sleeper at No 56) - doing exactly what one person says is where misery and madness lies.

tutter i use time out on my 10 month old (about 30 seconds) did it with dd from 9 months too, seemed to work with dd, ds not so sure yet!

Definitiely to do with not being confident in ability to make right decision in how to tackle a behaviour.
Possibly made worse somehow by parenting advice - including on TV - and possibly even HoTT - which holds individuals up as examples of How NOT To Do It and then shows them How To Do It but may not quite emphasise the fact that everyone is different.

Hi Dr T.

I only have one question, please please tell me how to stop my 3 year old twin daughters from screaming everytime they want my attention or something does'nt go thier way?

I think I am going deaf.