European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 19, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse A Cru Kos fear of water him get Over the problem Ever since Hal Day i have a tried Abou Tho child. I frightened him More than he was when he arrived and i was nol Given a Chance to help him work through Tho problem i would appreciate your comments. Or dear . It s easy to inadvertently reinforce a fear although Iho Isle Lions arc Quile the opposite. You pull a wary child away from a dog while saying the Nice Doggie won t Hurt he action belies the message. Ii while shampooing a child s hair you go to inordinate a a Rimes to prevent a drop of water from reaching a toddler s eyes then the child May assume water is potentially harmful and something to . Swimming is a skill most parents want choir children to learn i not Lor the Lun of it. Then Tor safely. Some children Lake to the water Lika they were born with ins but quite a Lew shed Loans in the process still others Are so frightened Hal going to a Pool is an ordeal to avoid. Once the fear is established overcoming in requires a process of gradually exposing the child Twaler first by introducing him to water play and then by slowly helping him become acclimated to the Waler. One helps the child become less no Nenod. As you suggest the problem with interrupting the Desen Sili Alion process is that the tear can become More firmly entrenched and the child traumatized. There arc adults who. Having never worked through this fear refuse to enter a Pool and avoid spraying water on their laces in the Shower. It unlikely the child you worked with last summer will overcome his fear by himself. It will probably require pacing him through a series no Small experiences proceeding to the a sol one Only when to is comfortable. The Parent May begin with water play in tha tub using cups and contain cars. Before moving to experiences in a wading Pool and then ultimately to format swimming instruction group swimming instruction can work to a child s Benefit when he sees his Peers overling happily in the water. A Parent should become familiar with an instructor s approach before enrolling a child in a class because swimming instruction requires a Parent s till support. With that approval a Parent should be Able to encourage and Praise a child s Success in the water without being Overly sympathetic to tears and Picas. Parents can help prevent fear of water by providing youngsters with Early experiences Hal naturally accustom them to water Sinco Iho swimming season is almost Here these suggestions May provide some timely advice. Don t overreact. Always supervise infants and toddlers at Bath time. If your child should slip or get Waler in her face Don t panic. To be a competent swimmer a child must eventually got some water up his nose and into his eyes. Your infant or toddler does t understand whal has happened but your reaction can cause him to become Overly concerned. Make Bath Lime Lun k can be a very pleasant Lime for Parent and child. Avoid cold hands Cool air and soaps that sting talk and sing to make your Little one font secure and encourage him to splash and play bring appropriate toys in the tub and make getting water in his face and pouring ii Over his head part of the action play Wilh your child in the Pool. Begin Early dipping your baby s toes in Iho water Cooling him on hot summer Days and playing Wilh plastic containers in the wading area. Ii you re uncomfortable in Iho Pool yourself your child will know it. There Are classes designed to Leach you How to work with your baby or child in the water. Of course in you Don t know How to swim now is a great Lima to learn. Parental Power whether you want it or not by Anna Quindley new York Almasa t 2 o clock in the morning i am awakened by the appearance of a person no taller than a fire hydrant Only his Blac n eyes visible Over the horizon of the mattress. Wha do you want i whisper. Nothing he whispers Back. Whal can have wakened my younger son and brought him Down from the third floor to stand there in his Blue Pite or. Demons it usually boils Down to some Small thing a Glass of water a night Light a Token rearrangement of the Blanket. But i always suspect thai if he could put it into words the explanation would a something else entirely reassurance that to is not Abne in a dark world that nothing horrible is going to happen before Day Breaks that someday he wi8 sleep the sure steady deep sleep that his elder brother sloops in the win Bod next to his 1 hut search Lor reassurance leads him to our bad whore two terribly fallible people toss and turn the closest thing no knows to god. This is whal no one warns you about when you decide la have children. There i is so much written soul the Cost and the changes in your Way of life. But no one Ever tells you thai whal they Are going to hand you in the Hospital is Power whether you want it or not. I suppose everyone thinks parents know hrs having been on tha receiving end All their lives but somehow it had slipped to the Back of my mind. Tha eldest in a Large family i was prepared lot much of what having a baby required. I knew How overwhelming were the feeding the changing the constancy. I should also have known however that parents become effortlessly the most golems in the lives of their children. We have Only to look Al ourselves our friends and the would of Amateur and professional Psychol giving in which we All live to know that parents someday will be cited As the cause of their children s choose As Many As you like a inability to open up b Alfi Nily for people who belittle and Hurt them c vulnerability d inferiority and e occasionally very occasionally of their accomplishments and their strength we children need to find our weaknesses outside ourselves our strength within. I know that. I read Portnoy s complaint. D. H. Lawrence and Eugene o nedl. And yet i had managed to de personalize tha message until nights like this one when i Wake up with the Moon shining through the window and stare Back Al a person who staring Al me socks to be saying you Are therefore i i am not comfortable with this which is a Little like saying i Don l like having Green eyes. Remember that you Are Iho world to your child one pamphlet i was Given says. Of great. Aher a lifetime of yearning for egalitarian relationships of trying to eschew Power plays with other human beings i find Mysell in a relationship thai by its very nature can never really to equal or free from a skewed balance of Power we dwell so olten on the harm that can to done by exercising that Power male violently by people who Hil their children or have so with them or Tell them Day alter Day that they Are worthless and bad. Free of those things. I am More troubled by the sub Lolies. Raising children is a Spur Mohe moment Scal Mohe pants son of Deal As any Parent knows particularly alter an adult child has said that his most searing memory consists of an Akhand comm Cal in the car on tha Way to second Grade Hal the Parent cannot dimly recall Espilo what the books suggest you usually do not have several Days to Puzzle out How to separate battling siblings or whal to say about death. Soil is inevitable that after a hard Day. I occasionally sit Back and think about whether i made any crucial mistakes Between the chocolate pudding and the. Hide Anc Vic seek. The answer is probably no. But still i consider the question of passive Power of the Power of suggestion imitation reaction. Perhaps i have been preoccupied with All this lately because despite the difference in their Ages my sons have dovetailed in a developmental stage and have both fallen in love Wilh me. I can sen it in their eyes. For the elder one this is lha grand passion before he lets go. Flies Oft into the male world switches his Denlin Calion to his father. For the younger this is the absolute cleaving to me thai anticipates that process. It is All in the books. Ss3 Chi Lawai Lisa Evaro Spock says it s Fine As Long a the child does no become Loo close to the Parent of the opposite sex. In thai Case it s Wise to gel the help of a child guidance clinic he adds. There s not much to cure what ails me i am aghast to find Mysell in such it position of Pover Over two other people their father and i have them in Thrall simply by having produced them Wal have the Power to make them feel Good or bad about themselves which is the greatest Power in the world. Ours will nol be the Only influence but it is the earliest the most ubiquitous and potentially the most pernicious. Lovers and friends will make them Blossom and bleed bul they May move on to other lovers and friends. We Are Iho Only parents they will have. Sometimes one of them will put Silky arms around my neck and share deep into my eyes like an elfin Svengali and say Wilh full Force of the heart. I love the Vowel in thai Middle word dips and lengthens like a phrase in a Brenda Lee song. My first reaction is to to drowned in happiness. My second is to Funk Don t i mean it so much Don l Leol in so deeply Don t let me have so much my Lucca Over you. Of course i Liao no Choice. Neither do they. -.rim9.196b the stars and stripes Page 15
