Reader Q: My Baby Thinks Throwing Toys on the Floor is Hilarious

How do I stop the vicious cycle of my baby throwing things on the ground and me picking them up times infinity because my baby thinks its hilarious? She cries when I don’t give it back.

 The answer to this one is pretty simple: Stop returning the items she throws on the ground. I understand that she cries when you don’t give it back, but so what? Have you ever done something that resulted in things not coming up in your favor and then felt sad or frustrated? What am I thinking? Of course you have—you are a parent. My point is that your baby crying isn’t a problem. It’s actually a completely normal and healthy reaction to frustration. Sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way. Eventually, your baby will learn that throwing things on the floor means they are on the floor, but I suspect you already know this and your real concern is the baby’s crying. As such, I’m going to spend my time talking about the baby’s crying. Perhaps you are concerned that by not giving the toy back you are being insensitive to your baby’s signals. As long as you are not mean about not giving the toy back and do so as kindly and empathically as possible, you are not being insensitive.

This brings me to a critically important component of this situation. Being sensitive does not mean giving in to your child. In fact, being a pushover can be just as bad as being a bully or being cold and unsympathetic. Being sensitive means kindly explaining to your child: (a) the toy is on the floor,  (b) you aren’t going to pick it up, and (c) you understand that she is upset. You could also explain kindly how to fix the situation. Insensitive responses would be coldly ignoring the baby’s crying, teasing the baby, and telling the baby to stop crying (e.g., “Get over it,” “Hush!” or “Stop it.”).  This recommendation is simply based on the general advice that you need to teach your child that feelings are okay to have, they are normal, and they are manageable. The insensitive approach teaches your baby that emotions are not okay and they are scary.

You didn’t mention how old your baby is, but given my knowledge of babies, I’m guessing you have a toddler. Toddlers are COMPLETELY capable of learning associations between events. They can learn that throwing things on the ground either: (a) results in a hilarious game or (b) results in not having access to that object. I know for a fact that your baby is capable of learning because she has invented a hilarious throwing game. Given that you seem frustrated by this game, the only way out is to stop returning the object with kindness.

Another possibility is that you want your kid to learn that throwing is not okay. If that’s your goal, you may have to add a very brief (roughly a minute) time-out for your toddler when she throws objects. Kindly inform your toddler that throwing is not allowed and will result in time-outs. Do not give time outs for emotions, but rather, give time outs for misbehaving. Again, your toddler is completely capable of learning this boundary.  I recently had a similar situation in which my knowledge of kids collided head on with having an actual toddler. Frankie kept playing in the dog bowl and he thought that the resultant “No, no, no!” and subsequent chase away from the dog bowl was hilarious. After four time-outs within 18 hours, he quit playing in the dog bowl. In fact, four months later, he sometimes slowly walks by the dog bowl and shakes his head no. We did the same thing with outlets with the same outcome. #Winning

I want to take a moment to talk about the possibility that baby’s cries make you anxious or uncomfortable. If your parents responded to your cries with harsh demands that your crying cease or they coldly ignored most of your cries, then there is a strong possibility that babies crying makes your heart rate increase and panic start to set in.  If this is true, your parents taught you that crying is not okay, that it is scary, and it is unmanageable, which makes you anxious when baby cries. To override your anxious response, when the baby starts to cry, recognize your feelings of anxiety and discomfort, take a deep breath from your tummy (It’s really important that you breathe correctly, so read this to be sure.). Keep taking deep belly breaths until you can kindly respond to the baby. If you give the baby the thrown object upon the baby's cries, you are reinforcing yourself for playing the throwing game because you giving the toy back makes the baby stop crying which makes your anxiety attenuate. This game that you have learned also needs to stop, and unfortunately, it’s the harder game to win because it took years for you to get like that. It’s critically important that you deal with these issues, and I recommend consulting a good therapist who has a solid understanding of attachment theory to help you work through how your childhood is shaping your responses to your baby.

Another Open Letter to Alma College

Dear Alma College:

 

Recently, I expressed my opinion on Carson’s visit to Alma College. I’ve received several responses on the issue. Most have been supportive and encouraging. A few have been the voice of opposition. With one exception, my detractors have been men my father’s age who have expressed in one way or another that I should be a good little girl and keep my mouth shut—that’s never going to happen. I will not sit silently as I receive hate mail meant to terrorize me. I’m not going to be silenced like Alma College silenced its LGBTQIA and feminist Scots when they allowed Dr. Benjamin Carson to speak.

I treasure free speech and open dialogue. The College’s handling of Carson’s visit did not, in any way, encourage free speech and open dialogue. In fact, the situation actively discouraged it. Specifically, we were all forbidden to talk about Carson’s politics, including Carson himself. By having Carson speak, yet forbidding open dialogue to comply with FEC rules, the College became a wet blanket on the First Amendment. In other words, by having Carson speak under such restrictions, the College censored it’s own students, faculty, and staff. Censorship is not something I stand for as a professor. Censorship only prevents our students and future leaders from becoming thoughtful, analytical, and critical thinkers capable of making their own decisions and articulating their positions.

It’s worth taking a quick detour here to note that neither Carson nor the College held up their ends of the bargain. Carson did not hold up his end of this deal when he rallied the crowd with the clearly political statement that marriage is between a man and a woman. In addition, Alma College also faulted by allowing political questions at the end of the talk. The situation gave neither side justice.  

The College further became an impediment to our First Amendment rights when students were required to go to Carson’s talk. Not only did this situation serve as a roadblock to students exercising their right to free speech by boycotting the talk, it also created a situation in which many Scots were made to feel less than human. By making Carson’s talk a course requirement, LGBTQIA and feminist students were, in effect, forced to sit in a room and listen to a man say that marriage is between a man and a woman, yet they were forbidden from speaking out or questioning such a position.  To add insult to injury, these students also had to witness an auditorium full of people give Carson a standing ovation in response to his dehumanizing statement. As a developmental psychologist, I will tell you in no uncertain terms that these types of situations directly contribute to feelings of alienation and thoughts of suicide. As such, it is this choice that the College made that saddens me most and it is this situation in particular that led me to write my first open letter to Alma College demanding an apology and reparation. My position has not changed. The College should apologize for the hurt that it caused its LGBTQIA and feminist Scots, and a genuine effort to repair the relationships that it damaged is in order.

In closing, I’ll speak directly to my new “fan club.” You can threaten me, degrade me, attack my qualifications, and tattle on me all you want, but you will not bully me into submission. You might even be successful in your attempts to get me fired, but you will not rob me of my right to speak up when LGBTQIA and feminist Scots have been dehumanized and censored.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brandi Stupica

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Alma College

An Open Letter to Alma College

Dear Alma College:

Dr. Benjamin Carson’s visit to the College is over, and I’ve survived, but not without some bumps and bruises. His visit at the invitation of the College has left me feeling violated and abused.  My colleagues and I asked you politely several times (here and here, for example) not to provide a platform for a man who makes daily headlines for his hateful comments about the LGBTQIA community and feminists. You ignored us. You proudly and publicly invited him to campus. Somehow, you managed to escalate the hurt even further by cordially inviting me to lunch with Dr. Carson, hosted by Alma College’s Diversity and Inclusion Office.

My invitation to Dr. Carson’s lunch is a funny story: At first I accepted the invitation because I thought the Diversity and Inclusion Office was hosting a lunch about Dr. Carson’s visit. I thought, surely, that there was no way that the office in charge of promoting equality on campus would host a lunch with Dr. Carson. I sincerely thought the lunch (if it were about Dr. Carson’s visit) was the College’s way of trying to make amends for the wave of hurt and insult that followed on the tide of Dr. Carson’s visit. The day of the lunch, however, and much to my horror, I realized that the lunch was with Dr. Carson. I quickly rescinded my acceptance of the invitation after I realized my mistake because I choose not socialize with or give my precious time and resources away to people who publicly and brazenly spew hate for the people and the causes I love.

Before I start talking about my mistakes, however, let me first discuss the College’s mistakes. The College hosted Dr. Carson under the guise that we value tolerating opinions that are diverse from our own. In doing so, you stood on the throat of inclusion. You’ve left many of us feeling dismissed and disenfranchised. Your cowardly “fix” to the situation (i.e., demoting Dr. Carson from Honor’s Day speaker to a mere guest speaker and facilitating a Diversity Dialogue) was simply a dressed up way of “negotiating with terrorists” who adore a man threatening, with his run for political office, the livelihood and well-being of the LBGTQIA community and people who strive for the end of sexism and gender inequality. The College should have been brave and refused to dedicate time socializing with a person who hates homosexuality and feminism. You should have rescinded your invitation and taught our students a valuable lesson: The First Amendment does, indeed, guarantee everyone freedom of speech, but this freedom does not guarantee free speech without consequences. Sometimes the consequences of being a public bully are that people don’t want to hang out with you and they don’t invite you to come over and play (or in this case pay you to speak to their students). Instead, you punted and it landed on the noses of your LGBTQIA and feminist Scots.

Somehow, you made the situation infinitely worse, yet again, when some students were required to attend his talk as part of a course requirement. I understand that “Due to FEC rules Dr. Carson will be unable to discuss any political matters during his time here on Alma's campus, but will be happy to chat about his rich legacy as an accomplished neurosurgeon, author, and philanthropist” (Direct quote from my invitation to lunch with Carson). Your “compromise” didn’t make the situation any better. In fact, it merely added to the cowardice of the College’s reaction. Perhaps you need to read what you did in black and white: You invited someone with an apparent agenda to marginalize gay and feminist Scots and decided it would be okay as long as everyone promised not to bring up the pink elephant in the room. Shame on you.

Now, let me talk about my role in this disaster. I should have been more persistent and vocal. I should have organized a day without women. I should have rallied people to boycott the talk. Instead, I was passive. I was complicit. I’ve let my students down, especially those who may see me as a role model. Students, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I realize that many of you were hurt by Carson’s visit and I feel responsible because I should have done more. I should have protected you. I’ve learned my lesson about being complicit and quiet. I’ll never again stand on the sidelines while the College invites a bully to campus.

The damage is done, and I’m in my office licking my wounds. So, what’s to be done now? First, a public apology is in order. You’ve hurt many Scots with your actions. You should say you are sorry. Next, you should make it right. I suggest one way to make amends is to state publicly and in no uncertain terms that Alma College is an ally to the LGBTQIA community, that we support marriage equality, and that we’re feminist (Yes, you have to use the f-word.). Don’t use euphemisms in your statement like you’ve done in the past. Although I believe that you never intended to hurt anyone, good intentions and doing the right thing are different. It’s not too late to do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Dr. Brandi Stupica

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Alma College

Fellow Professors: I’m Sick and It’s Your Fault

I’m writing this post through watery eyes while I sit sniffling on a bus with 28 of my colleagues heading to a meeting with the Board of Trustees. I’m mad, and I’m mad at you. I’m mad at you because you’re the reason I’m sick. I’m not mad at the dozens of sick students I’ve had in class this past week who got me sick. I’m not mad at the students, because it’s not the students’ fault. It’s your fault I’m sick, because you’ve created and perpetuated a culture that makes students feel like they have to come to class when they are sick.

You got me sick, because you get annoyed with your students when they’re sick. You whine when they miss your exams due to illness and you have to schedule a make-up exam. You’re put out by your students’ petty sniffles and sneezes. You have restrictive attendance policies that make students nervous about missing class. Some of your attendance policies make it clear that you think your students will take any opportunity to lie to you about their health and skip every class possible. Even if you don’t say it out-right, your students know you are vexed by their illnesses, so the students bend to the point of breaking in response to your annoyance and come to class sick. I’ve seen students sneeze and violently cough all over stacks of exams before they continue passing the stack to the end of the row—for this I blame you. These policies, both explicit and implicit, and the resultant student behavior are sick and need to change.

As a developmental psychologist, I question what we’re teaching our students and future workers about the importance of their own health. We should be teaching them that their well-being is their first priority—or at least more important than showing up on quiz day. Instead, we are teaching our students how to navigate the Protestant work ethic that so many of us eschewed by going into academia. We pride ourselves as inspiring change and progress, yet we act like The Establishment with our arcane attendance policies. We’re teaching them to prioritize someone else’s agenda over their own. We’re teaching them to go to work sick and save their sick days for vacation rather than demanding more annual leave from their employers. We’re teaching them to suffer. We’re punishing them for taking time to be well. Our inflexibility with our students’ illnesses is subjecting them to unnecessary stress, which is probably making them sicker.

Almost all of the major diseases that millions of Americans suffer from have been linked to stress. In other words, stress is killing us. The culture that we are creating in our colleges and universities is one that teaches students to be stressed out and sick. We’re setting them up for increased rates of depression, anxiety, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, insomnia, diabetes, obesity, asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, and Alzheimer’s disease. We’re accelerating their rate of aging and sending them to early graves all because we implicitly expect them never to get sick and never inconvenience us by asking to take a make-up exam.

Please join me in my crusade to reduce our dependence on tissues and cold medicine by letting our students be sick in the comfort of their messy dorm rooms. Let’s start seeing them as innately motivated to learn like Piaget and Vygotsky before me and believing them when they say they’re ill. Together we can change our attendance policies to reflect our true values rather than reflecting how easily annoyed we are when our students ask for accommodations.

First Time Mom Google Searches

Being a first time mom is hard and confusing. I have a PhD in developmental psychology and I'm often baffled. Thankfully, Google facilitates, without judgement, my research attempts aimed at filling the voids of knowledge on child development left unfulfilled by my graduate training. Below, you'll see the highlights of my Google searches during my first 10 months of motherhood.

-Newborn breathing sounds like a pig

-Number of poops breastfed newborn

-Baby scrotum bright red

-Baby boy yeast infection

-How long until milk comes in

-Newborn won’t nap

-Free white noise

-Free vacuum sound

-How to get newborn to sleep

-Why breast milk poop smells like vinegar

-Why breast milk poop is green

-What are the chunks in breast milk poop

-Baby hates tummy time

-Teething ages

-Teething baby won’t sleep

-How long teething lasts

-Age to start sleep training

-Baby’s butthole smells like cheese

-Baby breath doesn’t stink

-When kids breath starts to stink

-Can you die of sleep deprivation?

-Sleep training

-Cry it out

-Cry it out okay

-Cry it out bad

-No tears sleep training method

-How much coffee when breastfeeding

-Post partum depression

-Antidepressant breastfeeding

-Teething diarrhea

-Teething diaper rash

-Teething slight fever

-Whole raisins in poop

My Revisions to Buzzfeed's "28 Genius Hacks Every Lazy Parent Needs To Know"

There’s a Buzzfeed article on “28 Genius Hacks Every Lazy Parent Needs To Know” that’s taking its course through social media right now. I know because my husband asked me if I had seen it. Even though nobody asked me what I thought about the article, I’m going to let you know anyway (You’re welcome!). Why? Well, for some of these hacks, I can give you even lazier hacks. Most importantly, however, one of the hacks is a terrible fucking idea that could result in your child dying, and some others are bad ideas for the long-term development of your kids. In fact, the real reason I’m writing this blog is to make sure you NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO THE FOLLOWING…

1. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS, PEOPLE.

The caption reads, “You can also MacGyver your own outlet covers with Band-Aids.”

Buzzfeed's #4 “hack” made me 100% positive that the person who wrote this has never been in charge of keeping an infant alive. The first thing the kid is going to do is pick those fucking Band-Aids off the outlet. Then, the kid is going to play with the outlet. If the kid is my son, he will try to lick the outlet. Also, do not “hack” around getting actual outlet covers by putting any other tape-like material over the outlet. Kids will just keep picking until it comes off. There is no hack for outlets. Go to the goddamn store and buy outlet covers or replace all of your outlets with tamper-proof outlets. Never take a lazy hack approach to your child’s access to electrical outlets.

2. Buzzfeed’s #6 hack is to cut your kid’s pancake with a pizza cutter. My lazier hack is to just give your kid the fecking pancake. If your kid is old enough to eat pancakes, your kid can eat the pancake in a way that is developmentally appropriate. Specifically, if you give your infant a pancake, the babe can use his or her hands. If you want your toddler or preschooler to practice using utensils, give the kid a plastic knife and fork. If your pancakes are too chewy to eat without using a real knife, stop making your family eat your gross pancakes. Most importantly, this pizza cutter hack could result in your child refusing to eat pancakes unless you cut it up like pizza. You do not want this “quirk” to develop; you want to foster your child’s independence and adaptability. Cutting up your kids’ pancakes with a pizza cutter does not accomplish this task.

3. Buzzfeed’s #12 hack is to leave your kids at home while you shoe shop for them with an outline of their feet. #SorryNotSorry: I can’t support “hacks” that leave your child side-lined from daily life. You’re also probably going to buy the wrong-sized shoes. I totally empathize that taking kids out in public is a lot like taking animals in public, but if you do not take the animals kids in public, you are not socializing them, which is crucial for making sure your kids eventually stop acting like wild animals and start acting like modern humans. My unsolicited advice is to take your kids with you to as many things as your mental health can accommodate. If shoe-shopping is where you draw the line, fine, but maybe you should see a therapist and get your family into counseling because that’s a weird line to draw, which screams to me that there are other deeper issues that need to be addressed.

4.  Buzzfeed’s #14 hack is to use a lint roller to pick up glitter. My hack is to immediately impose a ban on all glitter products in the house. Let them play with glitter at the sitter’s or daycare or school. Tell them you’re allergic to glitter. Wait, what….lie to my kids? Yes. Have you ever tried to clean up glitter? Lie to them. You start to tear up anytime there’s glitter introduced into the house anyway—you may as well pretend it’s because you’re allergic.

5. Buzzfeed’s #15 hack is to use a straw to remove a strawberry’s stem. My hack: leave the stem on your strawberries. Let your kids learn to eat around the stem if they think they’re gross.

6. Buzzfeed hack #19 suggests that you can punish your kids without having to listen to them whine by taking away their chargers instead of taking away their electronics. This hack leaves me absolutely confused. Your kids are still going to bitch and moan that you took their chargers. They aren’t going to have a look of growing fear in their eyes as their charger dies—they’re going to figure out how to get another charger, thus hacking around your “hack.” I get that disciplining your children sucks really hard, but there is no hack around it. Set a firm limit, state the consequences for crossing the line, follow through. The hack seems to be about preventing your kids from acting like assholes when you follow through with your established consequences. There is no hack for this. In fact, your kids’ emotional reactions to punishment are healthy and normal. There is nothing you need to do about that. If you’re feeling kind, you can recognize and empathize with your child’s feelings. Otherwise, their emotions are their own so let them have them. Nobody ever said that your kids are going to take punishments with a smile. They’re going to be upset, which is fine. They’ll get over it.

7. Buzzfeed hack # 24 suggests you clean toys by putting them in the dishwasher. My hack: stop washing your kids’ toys unless there is puke, blood, or poop on the toys. Washing your kids toys robs them of the opportunity to build their immune systems and prevent allergies.

My New Friend, Paxil: A Story of Postpartum Depression

The day before my baby turned 9 months old I told my husband that I was going to text my midwife and ask her to prescribe me an antidepressant because I had postpartum depression (PPD). He was immensely understanding and empathic. He didn’t take the opportunity to say, “I knew it.” He was simply with me in my moment of realization and pain. He’s the main reason that the months of increasing PPD symptoms leading up to that moment hadn’t been allowed to affect our baby to any discernible degree. He had always been there to take over when I became overwhelmed and needed to regroup. He always knew when to step in.

I’m not a clinician or a psychotherapist, but I am a developmental psychologist with more knowledge on psychological disorders than your average bear, so I found myself wondering how I could have gone nearly five months without realizing that I had PPD. I was disappointed in myself for not realizing I had PPD given that I had struggled with depression since adolescence. I should have seen the symptoms. I knew I was at a greater risk for developing PPD because of my history of depression.

As I waited for my midwife to text back, I thought back to my previous bouts of depression and realized it was these previous depressive episodes that had thrown me off the trail for sniffing out my PPD. The set of symptoms I had with previous bouts were different than my current struggle with PPD. My previous depressive episodes left me in bed all day. I would sleep up to 20 hours per day waking only to eat and use the bathroom. I ate a little less than I probably should have. When I was out of bed, I spent my time crying and watching depressing television. I socially isolated myself.

My PPD symptoms were nearly entirely different from these pre-baby depressive episodes. I had raging insomnia. I was ravenously eating 4,000 to 6,000 calories per day (Thanks to the miracles of breastfeeding, however, I was slowly loosing about a pound of the baby weight each week.). I was irritable. I felt constantly overwhelmed. I couldn’t manage to help around the house. I had a low-grade, chronic, generalized feeling of anxiety. When I was alone, I found myself ruminating on frustrating and depressing things that had happened in my life. I couldn’t focus. I found myself unable to enjoy just about everything that I loved. I couldn’t talk to my husband like I used to. I didn’t want to go to work. I couldn’t muster the energy to exercise. I couldn’t read more than a few pages of a book. The only thing I enjoyed was my baby, but as the symptoms grew, it was more and more of a struggle to delight in him. This was my breaking moment. My PPD was starting to threaten my relationship with my baby, so I reached out for help.

Another reason it took me so long to see PPD coming was that the symptoms didn’t come all at once and they started off as mild, growing over time. My insomnia started out in August as not being able to go back to sleep after the 4am feeding. By December, I was getting only 2-4 hours of broken sleep per day. My anxiety started off mildly too but had grown to the point that I had a few panic attacks by Thanksgiving. I had lots of good days without symptoms, but the good days became fewer and fewer, and the bad days became more frequent. The day I realized I had PPD I was starting what I knew was going to be my third bad day in a row. Bad days never lasted more than a day and a half prior to that. When my midwife called to talk to me, she said the anxiety is the most common symptom she sees in moms with PPD.

I also found it difficult to distinguish first-time momma struggles from PPD. It was easy for me to brush off a bad day by attributing my symptoms to fluctuating hormones. Babies are stressful, so it seemed plausible that I would be more stressed out and overwhelmed. My baby is a terrible sleeper so clearly I wasn’t going to get much sleep. Transitioning back to work is hard according to the Internet. Teething can be a nightmare said the baby books. I was making 24-48 ounces of milk every day, so of course I was going to be hungrier than normal. The morning I realized I had PPD, I looked at my husband holding our baby while I took my vitamins and asked myself why I didn’t feel as joyful as my two favorite guys seemed. Then, it all added up: changes in appetite, changes in sleep, inability to concentrate, rumination, irritability, no energy, anhedonia, feeling withdrawn. If someone else would have told me that’s how they felt, I would have told them to see a doctor for depression. It only took one look at this page to confirm my suspicion. I have PPD.  

The day that I took my first Paxil, I stopped binge eating. I ate three normal sized meals and a small snack. I no longer craved carbs and sugar. Two days later, my anxiety was replaced by a feeling of peace. That day I also emptied the dishwasher and did two loads of laundry for the first time in five months. Five days later, my insomnia subsided. Now, I’m just the sleepy momma of a baby who wakes multiple times a night to nurse. A week after taking my first Paxil, I've exercised three times and lost as many pounds of baby weight. The most important transformation, however, has been my relationships. I don’t snap at my husband. I don’t freak out over stupid stuff. I’m calm and peaceful. My relationship with my baby has gone from good to amazing. I no longer find it a struggle to be present. It’s so much easier for me to delight in him. He also seems to delight in me more. He’s never smiled and giggled so much. Before I started Paxil, I sometimes had to fake it. Now, it’s natural. I’m looking forward to going back to work after Christmas break.

I’m not going to beat myself up over having PPD or for not recognizing I had it sooner. I’m going to forgive myself for the times I couldn’t be present for my baby. He seems to have already forgiven me anyway. I’m going to be thankful that I realized I have PPD when I did, rather than later. I’m going to be proud that I was strong enough to ask for help as soon as I realized I needed it. I’m going to celebrate my new start.