ControverSunday February 6th, 2011: Open Topic

Alright ControverSundian’s, here is my challenge to you. Right before the season of Love (AKA Hallmarks favourite holiday, AKA Valentines Day)…. lets really get into it, shall we?

(New to ControverSunday? Check out the details here. And join us in the conversation!)

Pick a topic. Any topic. The kind of topic that you are passionate about. But the kind of topic you also feel you can only talk about in hushed tones. That you have to avoid at the dinner table or the water cooler or the park. The one you feel you shouldn’t talk about, least you offend anyone’s delicate sensitivities or be the one to stir the pot. The one topic you wish everyone would just throw the veil of darkness off and face head on. Yeah. That topic. I know you have one.

Write about it. And schedule your post for Sunday, February 6th.

And then we will all get up on Sunday February 6th and put a good measure of Baileys or Rum or Kahlua or whatever strong liquor of choice in our coffee and take a deep breath. Try not to panic. And hopefully a really interesting discussion will appear. Or just a crap load of angry comments. Either way. It will be fun.

What do you say, are you in? (Please someone be in, I don’t want to do this alone.)

(This post sounds rather British, doesn’t it? With its ‘shall we’ and its ‘good measure’? Why is it when I think of being brave and really being a sh*t disturber (for lack of a better term) I tend to channel a strong, opinionated, tell it like it is, British women. I love those Brits.)

(Okay, I will stop being funny now. Best to leave that to the Queen’s of funny, @mmeperpetua and @torturedpotato .)

ControverSunday Topic: Protection versus Acceptable Risk

First off, I have news. So the wonderful Perpetua over at Our Lady of Perpetual Bread Crumbs has decided to take a blogging sabbatical. I am devastated. Perpetua was one of the first people who really welcomed me to the world of blogging and made me feel connected. More then that, she started ControverSunday (along with Accidents), which has been one of the best things to happen to my blog. As you all know, I am a big supporter of ControverSunday. It fits into my bigger blogging philosophy of engaging in converstation. The whole idea behind ControverSunday is to take a look at the different controversial topics in (mostly) parent focused blogging and to demonstrate that while we may not always agree, we can discuss without the drama.

This weekly meme has had some struggles over the summer to keep going, but I think now that fall has officially arrived we can bring it back to life. Perpetua has passed the torch (temporarily? It’s hers if/when she returns.) to me to be your official ControverSunday Leader in Chief. I am, of course, more then happy to have others host. Just send me a note and we can hook you up. But I am will be continuing in the strong ControverSunday tradition. Over the next couple weeks I will create a ControverSunday page here too, so we can see past topics and keep track of upcoming topic suggestions.

I hope our ControverSunday community can grow! If you haven’t participated, but always wanted too, please join us! We LOVE newbies!!

We have some great suggestions for topics still on deck, but I thought this week I would suggest a topic resulting from the comment thread on my most recent post about the Back to School Insanity. So, I submit for your approval this weeks ControverSunday’s topic:

Protection versus Acceptable Risk. To what extent should we work to protect our children from harms/challenges/failure ect and to what extent should we take a step back and let them learn on their own? Where is the balance between protection and letting children learn on their own? What kind of risk is age appropriate? What is a realistic expectation for a child in terms of teaching them to be aware of dangers? If you want some more ideas of where this conversation could go, check out the comments on my last post.

See ya all on Sunday (Monday/Tuesday..ect)!!

Dear Health Care System: How to regain my trust

Our ControverSunday topic last week was vaccines. There were some very interesting posts and perspectives about this. I encourage you to read them all.

Accidents will happen.

lililly

The Mothering Life

Ramble Ramble

A Letter to Xander

One of the most interesting things that twigged in my mind after reading posts and comments was the issue of ‘trust’ in our health care system. Kate from Lillily said:

“but I’m really not about to walk into my doctors office (who has over 30 years of experience treating kids) and say “you know what, I think you are wrong” because of something i read on the internets or heard from some celebrity’s lips.”

“and most importantly I think, I TRUST my health care system”

This got me thinking. I am less enthusiastic then Kate about vaccinations. To her first point about not going on the advice of the internet or a celebrity, I totally agree. Since when do we think we are the experts just because we read stuff on the web that may or may not be true?

It’s the second point that I found myself thinking about. Maybe the problem for me is that I don’t totally trust my health care system. I trust parts of it. But there are many aspects of health care that I am uncomfortable with. I don’t want to be. I know the people that work in health care are brilliant, kind and want to do best by their patients. I LOVE our family doctor and trust her to no end. But the system has some serious flaws and makes some serious mistakes. I think the result is negatively impacting their image to the public and may be the cause of this rise of parents questioning the systems wisdom.

So:

Dear Canadian Health Care System, the following is a list of how to regain my trust. I want to believe in you, I really do, but if you could just address a few things it would make it soooo much easier.

1) Over prescribing

I strongly recommend you look at your policies regarding prescription medication, as too many people are given too many drugs. I know you are trying to be cautious and don’t want to end up with someone sicker in a couple weeks. I get that. And it may work in the short term. However, in the long term it is not benefiting anyone. One clear example is antibiotics. As I child I remember I became quite attached to that banana flavoured elixir. I was one of those kids who got ear infections, bladder infections, tonsillitis, sinus infections. I am sure I got antibiotics at least 3 times a year. (Mom- feel free to confirm or deny). As an adult in university I had a 5 year bout with ongoing sinus infections. I strongly believe that the reason I kept getting sick is because they kept on giving me the antibiotics. (More later on how I ended the cycle.) Recently my daughter had an ear infection. Being cautious of antibiotics as I am, I asked the doc if we really needed to give her the drugs. He said because she is under 2 they typically do prescribe antibiotics for an ear infection. However, because she was not running a fever we could opt to wait for 3 days and then come back and decide then. We did. It cleared up. On its own. No drugs.

Health Care system: Please quit it. Give us drugs only when we really need drugs. Period.

2) Tendency towards interventions

Along the same lines, there is a tendency of doctors to step in and offer all kinds of interventions, rather then let things work themselves out. A great example of this is c-sections. A lot of women end up having c-sections they didn’t want. This is often caused by doctors being to quick to induce labour and then too quick to offer all kinds of labour related interventions, rather then letting the women go through the process in her own time. As someone wisely suggested- doctors seem to feel they have more ‘control’ over the risks in the operating room, rather then in the labour room. This trend needs to change. Our bodies are amazing and we need to give them a chance to work as they were intended. We are very lucky to have the range of medical interventions that we do and we should be so thankful that we do. They have saved many lives. But please use them sparingly rather then willy-nilly.

4) Symptoms rather then cause

You see, when the system is set up in a way that family doctors only have 10 minutes per appointment, it is understandable that they focus on just treating our symptoms and getting us out of the office. They just don’t have time to do anything else. The problem is then we just come back with more symptoms. This focus on symptom treatment in our health care system doesn’t make us healthier. It just covers up the symptoms of the problem, at least for a while. Sometimes that is all we can do, but I suspect often there is an other way to go if we start to investigate cause.

4) Treatment rather then prevention

Along the same lines…. What is up with the lack of preventative medicine? It is way more expensive to give someone knee surgery rather then physio. But our health care system focuses so much on treatment that prevention is largely ignored. Again, to my point above- they don’t have time for prevention. And I get that it is often not well received. Telling people that they need to change their lifestyles is usually a waste of time. We should strive to led healthier lives, but we don’t. We should be willing to accept some of the blame. That must be so frustrating to our doctors. But we need to find a way to look at our government services as a whole. To look at the big pictures and figure out how to really encourage healthy lifestyle. You can’t do this through the health care system alone. All of our health is impacted through all our social services, plus our policies surrounding the environment, food, and taxation(to name a few). Think of the money we could save our health care system if we really made an investment in people’s health throughout their lives? If we reduced the chemicals in our environment? Made sure food had proper labeling and forced restaurants to list nutritional information on the menu? If we provided better tax intensives for active living and looked at ways to lower costs of healthy food?

5) Alternative medicine

Seriously, you guys need to get on the ball with the Natural health crowd. I am not suggesting doing away with all western style medicine and all becoming reiki practitioners. What I am saying is that you need to recognize the value that natural health can provide. It’s approach is low cost and effective. Especially in certain circumstances. Take my discussion on antibiotics above. Remember how I told you that from childhood to my university days I struggled with many many infections of one kind or an other. I haven’t had an infection in at least 7 years. Why? Probiotics. That’s right, the stuff in yogurt. Except I take it in pill form because you get a much higher concentration that way. And how hard would it be to teach every doctor in Canada to recommend, heck even prescribe, probiotics following a round of antibiotics? I can tell you right now it would save millions in prescription medication costs. And I am sure there are a hundred other ‘common sense’ recommendations that our doctors could learn from the natural health crowd. Simple, easy and safe ideas.

Not to mention the fact that natural health is currently often self-administered via the knowledge gained from the web. Do you really want your patients self diagnosing and administering herbal remedies? As you often warn us, this is not without risk, especially of interactions with our traditional medicines. Wouldn’t it be better to bring the natural health stuff into the health care system fold and make sure it was being used properly and safely? Instead of just sitting back in your offices and warning us all about the dangers of taking all sorts of vitamins without any professional advice- why don’t you suggest them? Admit that natural health supplements can be effective when used properly and get on the bandwagon. Help us learn to use them effectively.

6) Fear

Here the thing that really gets me. The fear mongering. H1N1 was a prime example. Alberta heath services went on and on warning us of  how deadly H1N1 was. Then, they start up the vaccination program and recommend that babies and pregnant women come first. But they don’t turn anyone away. The result: 8 hour line ups that no baby or pregnant women can bear to wait in. Not to mention those who flocked to their doctors and emergency rooms the minute they started coughing, likely spreading H1N1 to more people. Are you surprised? You scared the daylights out of us. Then you do an about face, change your vaccination program and put out an ad campaign about washing your hands, staying home when you are sick and how ‘not all bugs need drugs’ in a desperate attempt to calm the fears. Consistency people, consistency.

Don’t scare us. Explain clearly and calmly what the risks are. Take a serious, but measured approach. Please.

6) Don’t placate us.

Like it or not, we parents do a lot of research. On the internet. Which I agree is not a reliable source for medical knowledge. But it means that instead of just agreeing with what is suggested to us, we are going to have some questions. So don’t just pat our heads and tell us something is safe. Don’t just repeat it like a mantra. Tell us clearly and calmly how you know it is safe. Take the time to explain it to us. I am sure you get tired of explaining what it took you years and years to understand to parents who think they are experts after an evening’s binge on the internet. But just humor us. Nothing frustrates me more then hearing over and over again “It’s proven safe” to every intelligent, well thought out question I have. Sure, it may certainly be “proven safe,” but give me at least a qualifying statement. Something like:  “There were four twenty year studies conducted by independent, non-pharmaceutical organizations into the long term impacts of this medication and all three studies showed that there were no detectable long term impacts.” Or, “This particularly treatment has been used, in it current form, for over 10 years. I have used it in my practice regularly and have yet to see any adverse reaction in my patients. I have no doubts to its safety.” Would that be so hard?

Obviously, most of these suggestions are aimed at the Health Care System, rather then individual health care providers. Honestly, I am not trying to shoot the messenger. I know how hard doctors, nurses and practitioners work. Over work, in fact. They are some of the most hard working and caring people out there in our society. But the system needs to sit up and take note of the growing lack of trust. And we, as citizens, need to push our government to start moving on some real, meaningful health care reforms. We are lucky enough to have a public health care system, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t want it to function more effectively and in a way that gains the trust of its patients.

ControverSundays: TV

Perpetua from the blog “Our Lady of Perpetual Bread Crumbs” has suggested starting a blog ‘thing’ (still loosely defined) discussing controversial topics in parenting and beyond. Here are the introductory posts to get your caught up:

ControverSundays: Introduction

ControverSundays: Circumcision

ControverSundays: Roundup

ControverSundays: Four Votes Spells Unanimous

ControverSundays: Sunday Sunday Sunday

So, while I don’t enjoy the way controversy sometimes results in name calling, judgment and guilt– I do think there is value in having a vigorous but civil debate about it all. Hence my participation in this ‘loosely defined blog thing.’ This week’s topic is TV. So here is my take:

A couple months ago I read “Under Pressure; Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting” by Carl Honore. He also wrote “In Praise of Slow” which I have also read. I enjoyed them both and they have informed my opinion on the matter of TV and kids. Here is the basics of his book(s): He argues that kids today are over-managed, over-stimulated and over-scheduled. We, as parents, feel so much pressure to help our kids grow up smarter, faster, stronger that we may not being doing the best thing for them.

One of the more interesting discussions in his “Under Pressure” book was about those ‘Baby Enstein’ DVD’s and other attempts to ‘feed’ a babies brain with stimulation. He concluded that putting your kid in front of a DVD is not going to make them smarter. While babies need stimulation, the best kind is that which is interactive and between caregiver and child, like talking to baby, making faces and playing peek-a-boo. A lot of recently in the news studies have suggested the same thing; babies and young kids learn best by interacting with their environment and watching TV, being a passive activity, isn’t the most effective way to learn.

After reading his book I am less inclined to fall for the marketing for ‘stuff’ to make my kid smarter. I am more likely to talk to her, play with her and take her for a walk outside then I am to use mobiles, flashcards or DVD’s to try and stimulate her little mind.

I guess that would put me on the little-to-no TV side of the argument. That being said, I don’t yet have a toddler or young kid asking to watch TV. I haven’t yet had to say no. She still has no idea that TV even exists.

Since she was 6 months old we have lived in a house where the TV is in the basement. We don’t take her to the basement because it is not baby-proof, hence shes doesn’t watch TV. But, before 6 months we lived in an apartment where the only living space we had was where the TV lived. So I didn’t follow that rule of ‘tv shouldn’t be on while baby under 2 is in the room.’ As she got older the TV was on less, but in the first three months- since I was spending 95% of my time trying nurse the child/pump-post-nursing- I needed the TV for distraction and comfort. I just did.

So while I am not a big fan of kids (especially babies) watching lots of TV, I don’t judge anyone who does sit their kid in front of a video to try and get a moment of peace. The lady who runs the Dayhome our daughter will soon be going to told me that she sometimes puts a video on for the kids while she is making lunch. This doesn’t bother me, because I couldn’t keep 6 kids occupied and make lunch at the same time either. But she also has a big backyard they spend most of the spring/summer/fall playing in. It balances out.

Truth be told, when our baby was about 4 months old and driving me nuts with the need for 24/7 attention and stimulation, I did put one of those ‘Baby Einstein’ DVD’s on for her a couple times. It failed. She hated it. Also, I don’t know about the toddler ones, but the baby ones are kinda weird, in my opinion. It is pretty much classical music, a blank white background and toys being paraded across the screen. I don’t get it.

While I don’t buy that any TV show or DVD is the ultimate path to a genius baby- I do think there is educational value in some shows. When kids watch them at the right age and for a limited amount of time in the day. I know I learned a lot from Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers when I was a kid. And there do seem to be some good shows now that encourage interaction- like singing along or getting up and dancing. I won’t hesitate to let her watch a bit of these when she is older and more interested in such things.

Also, I should note, TV is not the be-all and end-all to Honore’s argument. His thesis is built on the combination of  many factors from a lack of unstructured play for toddlers to homework overload for kids and teens. In my opinion, a kid may watch a bit too much TV, but maybe their parents advocate for more unstructured play at their preschool and it balances out. While Honore does fall into the “your damaging your kid” trap I don’t like, I still feel his book is worth reading as a parent because he is not claiming your are a bad parent if you do ‘x.’ He is looking at a much broader picture of the combination of many parenting and schooling choices and their impact on most kids and therefore our society as a whole, rather then passing judgment on any one parent. To me that makes it different. But I digress.

To wrap it up, TV (and the internet) will come with limits in our house, but they won’t be banned. My husband and I will try and make informed decisions about the appropriate shows and appropriate amount of time spent watching them for our daughter and any other kids we have. But it will be flexible and balanced. We will be looking at the big picture of her experiences at home, at the dayhome/school and elsewhere to try to avoid her being over-scheduled, over-managed and over-stimulated.