How's my driving?

by Lanny Boutin
Canadian Living - Holiday 1999

Worried that when your teen is out of sight he puts the pedal to the metle? Consider a bumper sticker that asks other drivers on the road to comment on his driving by phoning a toll-free number. The operator then passes on the compliment or complaint to you.

Tom Deats, a police officer in Arlington, Texas, initiated the 4 My Teen program six years ago to help reduce teen driving accidents. There are close to 2,000 teens across Canada and the United States currently registered in the nonprofit program. When a driver phones the toll-free number with a comment on your child’s driving, you receive the comment by letter, e-mail or fax. The program receives more complements than complaints.

Kids are Fattening

by Lanny Boutin
Birth Issues - Winter 2000

Ok, so I didn't really read that in a distinguished medical journal. But as someone who's never had a weight problem, I say, kids make you fat.

Was it my fault there was no time to tone up between pregnancies? Sure my midwife mentioned that breastfeeding was a good pregnancy repellent. But when you haven't slept for seven months, who listens. And who was I to worry? Breastfeeding had left me underweight, the envy of all new moms.

But then they started, solid food. At first I was ok. No matter how Scottish I am, you couldn't get me to finish those green squishy mystery vegetables they left on their plates. And they loved strained peaches too much for them to be a problem.

But I soon found it impossible to sit, patiently feeding toddlers, without having a little something to take the edge off. A pick-me-up to keep me going on the three hours of sleep I'd gotten the night before. And with each child squandering four hours a day not eating solid food, it left a lot of time for snacking.

And instead of munching on sugar free caramel rice cakes, or reduced calorie imitation crackers, I was surrounded by sugar-glazed arrowroots, bear shaped grahams, and small honeyed animal cookies.

And how much strenuous exercise do they really expect from a woman who falls asleep in the dentist chair. After an hour of soothing yoga, I could hardly crawl to my car, let alone do the twenty laps I'd promised myself. 

So with no exercise, unless you call crawling around on your hands an knees, scrubbing unknown things off painted surfaces, or shimmying up the tall slide backwards to retrieve a child who is frozen with fear and clutching the sides with an iron man grip exercise, my haunches started to widen. 

And then they started to leave food on their plates. What is it about motherhood? I'd never contemplated finishing the leftovers on my husband's plate or spitting on a tissue to clean his face, but I automatically ate the little titbits my kids left behind, even after I unknowingly risked death, by sucking a piece of spaghetti through a straw, finishing my sons orange juice.

Then there was the million little container syndrome. My fridge always held fifty different leftovers, each too small to be useful. Now I hate to throw anything out, especially food, so it made sense to just eat it. It saved the stow, the store and the throw; and the guilt.

Now it would have been ok if we were talking a couple broccoli florets, or a few spoons of creamed corn. But no, my family likes vegetables. So I was left with meats, pastas and cream sauces. Which at fifty a week, quickly and silently accumulate around the middle. 

So you see food is not the problem. Fat storage is directly proportional to sleep deprivation, lack of adult stimulation, diminishing brain cells and the availability of child tested treats. 

So next time you wash down thirty elephant cookies with leftover formula, don't jump to the conclusion you’re lacking in willpower. Just look knowingly into those tiny eyes. Life is always better when there's someone to blame.

Time Out

Playing kids' sports is supposed to be fun, right? That's what Marie-Helene Goyetche thought when she volunteered to coach her son's baseball team. The teacher and early childhood educator in Fabreville, Que., envisioned a group of children learning new skills and having fun. She was totally unprepared for the parents. Ambitious moms and dads complained when they felt their children weren't getting enough field time or had to play the less glamorous positions. If a child's first sports experience is one of adversity, such as getting cut from a team, we've lost him. They argued with the teenage referee and once had an inter-parent pushing match in the stands.

"Certain parents saw their children in a better athletic light than was actually warranted," notes Goyetche. "One father pulled his son out because I wasn't giving my team a 'competitive edge.' The kids were 5 and 6 years old!"

The pressure that certain parents put on kids and coaches is truly excessive, notes parenting author Ann Douglas, a mother of four in Peterborough, Ont. "Two summers ago, at my 5-year-old son's soccer game, some moms complained that the coach wasn't giving all kids equal field time," she says. "The coach was trying her best, but, no, she hadn't pulled out a stopwatch to precisely time each child's 15-second spurt of play. I couldn't believe the mothers were getting so upset. The kids were all having fun. Why couldn't they just leave it at that?"

Some blame this sort of behaviour on the very notion of competition in sports, says David Carmichael, a Toronto physical activity consultant. "But competition is not necessarily the problem; it's the overemphasis placed on winning that undermines the true value of competing."

Adds Marjorie Snyder, associate executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) in East Meadow, N.Y.: "We reinforce the pressure to win with our usual post-game question, 'Did you win?' That sets the wrong tone for recreational athletics." In her view, we should set more appropriate expectations with such questions as: How many times did you touch the ball? Did you meet new people? How was the team's defence? Did your skills improve? Did you try your hardest?

Making victory the predominant aim also cheats some kids of their rightful time on the field because it tempts coaches to shorten the bench and play only the stars, usually the early-maturing children. "At chronological age 12, the biological variance between individual children can be as much as five years," notes Carmichael. "Advanced biological development can temporarily produce bigger and stronger kids, but the late-maturing ones-the kids usually picked last-are often capable of becoming better athletes. Their growth spurts start later and usually last longer."

A case in point is basketball legend Michael Jordan, a late bloomer who was dropped from the team in his second year of high school. Luckily for basketball, he didn't quit, but many children do. A study conducted at Michigan State University in the early 1990s found that 73% of kids dropped out of sports by age 13. Reasons cited included an overemphasis on winning, abusive coaching and a reduction in the fun factor.

"If a child's first sports experience is one of adversity, such as getting cut from a team, we've lost him; " notes Carmichael. Often that initial experience will change his attitude toward all physical activity. It's the job of parents to ensure that a child's first exposure to organized sports is as positive as possible (see box, below)

In his own daughter's case, an insensitive figure-skating coach forced her to sit on the ice while the other children skated around her. Her crime? Her new skates were hurting her feet too much for her to take part. "He could at least have let her sit on the bench," says Carmichael. "She was 3!" The girl never returned to formal skating lessons.

BEFORE YOU SIGN YOUR CHILD ON TO A TEAM, GET ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS: Is your child physically and psychologically ready to play this sport? Does your youngster understand the sport? Would a less organized league or less complex sport be better? Is the environment set up so the child can strive for clearly set and   achievable goals? Are team members involved in making decisions? Does the coach/program encourage all kids to play equally? Does the program support your beliefs about fair play and reasonable competitiveness.) Does it screen coaches for a history of abusiveness or a criminal record? How much training do coaches get in first aid, child behavior and the rules of the sport? Do children get enough practice to develop age-appropriate skills? What are the coach's expectations, and how does the coach perform on the field? Does the environment mimic the cut-throat competition of professional sports? Does the league have a code of conduct for parents?

A bad experience like that can cut short a young beginner's involvement in sports before she really gets started, but even older children of proven athletic prowess can be strained by the continuous stress placed on winning by ruthless coaches. Yet some parents actually come to believe that their gifted kids will be short-changed without aggressive coaching. That belief, however, was seriously challenged by Ed Arnold in his book Whose Puck Is It, Anyway? (McClelland & Stewart, 2002). With former NHL players Steve Larmer and Greg Millen, Arnold undertook a fascinating experiment in fair coaching. During the 2000/O1 season, they trained the Peterborough Petes, a novice division hockey team, stressing fair play, fun and teamwork.

All the 7- and 8-year-old players played equal time in every position. There was no yelling from the bench and no coaching from the sidelines; the players were left to do their own thinking. "It's this creative thinking that is usually missing from the game," notes Arnold. "These kids can skate and shoot, but when they get to age 16 or 17, they can't think for themselves - they haven't been allowed to." The Petes finished the season tied for second in the Eastern Ontario Triple A league. "Every player improved tenfold," Arnold says. They learned to think as a team, and as individuals they all had fun.

Fun is an important component of athletics, and fun is the result when players experience a balance between skills and challenge. "When skill exceeds challenge, children become bored, and when challenge exceeds skill, they become frustrated," Carnuchael says. Athletics should be about play, agrees Dr. Billy Strean, an associate professor in the faculty of physical education and recreation at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, but often it's anything but playful. "Yet children in sports must feel safe, both physically and emotionally. Being excluded, humiliated or put down can make kids dread sports."

Strean's on-going research confirms that the repercussions of bad sports experiences-often involving a verbally abusive coach or teacher-can last a lifetime. He's found that the best athletic experiences often result from less organized activities, like playing catch with friends. "The local outdoor rink is where my son really learned the game of hockey," agrees Bill Nimmo, a grandfather from Gibbons, Alta. "There were big kids and little kids. They organized themselves and acquired skills as they played."

Furthermore, after many years of coaching youth hockey, Nimmo has come to believe that kids' sports would be better if parents got out of it. For one thing, parental involvement lessens the spontaneity and creativity that happen when kids work things out for themselves with their peers. On a darker note, it is often fathers and mothers who promote altercations between players by hollering at their child to "nail him, smoke him, hit him back," in the manner of the big-league hockey players, notes Dr. Michael Robidoux, assistant professor of human kinetics at the University of Ottawa and author of Men at Play (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001). Robidoux's research into aggressive verbal behaviour at youth hockey games reveals that players who can hit and physically dominate opponents are rewarded with cheers from the crowd, hockey scholarships and positions on more senior teams. "Canadian hockey is so constructed that certain behaviours not tolerated in any other context are actually celebrated in this game," Robidoux says. "One hit leads to a cheer, a bigger hit to a bigger cheer."

Aggressive parental behaviour bubbles to the surface in other sports as well. "When I was around 15, living in Ontario, I volunteered to referee tykes' lacrosse," recalls Brad Heath, now of Prelude Lake, N.W.T. "These 4- and 5-year-olds could barely lift lacrosse sticks, yet their parents screamed bloody death at me for every perceived infraction of the rules on the part of kids other than their own. I was afraid for my personal safety and quit after two or three games."

Like Heath, the volunteer officials in Dartmouth, N.S.'s minor hockey league were so frustrated by aggressive parents that they were dropping out at the rate of 30% a year. But after the league instituted its Fair Play program in 1994, things began to change for the better; and in recent years an average of 30-35 people have been trying out for fewer than 10 coach and referee positions. If Dartmouth's former turnover in officials tells us anything, it's that parents must maintain realistic expectations of children's sports. They must also base anticipated performance on a young player's age and skills. "You can't put a dozen 5- and 6-year-olds on a field and expect them to play positions successfully," says the WSF's Snyder. They don't have the physical or cognitive ability to execute complex manoeuvres according to complex rules, she adds. What they can succeed at, however, is having a great time and working on acquiring skills for later use.

Kids, do not try this at home

Most cats I have lived with were happy to give up the active life by age 3; were content to eat the same food every day; and had no problems using the bathroom without having five books, two stuffed friends, and constant adult companionship.

I knew kids would be more of a challenge, but in hindsight, I wish they were born with whiskers.

Cats use their whiskers as measuring sticks to ensure they don't get stuck in tight spaces. If the whiskers touch the sides, the cat retreats. For a cat, it's simple. For a kid - nothing's simple.

Like the young man who spent an hour roasting in the summer sun, his head jammed between the rails of a black metal church fence, his backside pointed out toward the busy street. The rails were finally pried apart to free him.

Or my cousin, who wedged his head between hand-carved wooden rails at the Alberta Legislature building. Fortunately, because the caretaker insisted he would not cut the bars, his head slipped out.

Or my son and the potty seat.

There are times when the hardest part about being a parent is not laughing. But one look into his terrified blue eyes wiped the smile off my face.

It seemed simple that what goes on, must come off. Right?

Cutting it was not a ready option, as all our tools were still packed in one of the 100 poorly marked boxes in the garage. And although my son wasn't in any pain or physical danger, I could see that, if left on, the seat would make dressing him a bit of a challenge.

My options were few. The nurse at the hospital suggested a hacksaw. Ours was (thankfully) still packed. This was a good thing. My son wouldn't want a woman who had once sawed into her big toe while cutting a shelf, at his neck with such a weapon.

The man at the ambulance company took a few minutes to stifle his laughter, then gave me the non-emergency number for the fire department. They assured me they weren't busy and would be happy to pop over and have a look. They were only a few blocks away.

As I set down the phone, I heard the sirens. As they got closer, the lights of the approaching trucks lit up the early evening, and the two large fire trucks screeched to a haft in front of my house. My son and my 2-year-old daughter watched in awe as eight fully outfitted firefighters thundered up our stairs and into our living room. Both kids grabbed my leg and started to cry.

It took five minutes to persuade my son to show them the seat. And a detailed tour of all their equipment before he'd let them touch it. But it took less than three seconds for a large pair of tin snips to slice though the plastic.

He was free.

We stood on the sidewalk and watched as they loaded their trucks. I smiled pleasantly at all our new neighbours milling around, taking in the excitement. For a long time afterward, each time we heard sirens my son wondered aloud if another little boy's head was stuck in a toilet seat.

I had dearly hoped that the episode would teach him a lesson, but as I sit bandaging his pinkie finger, the one that was cut as I pried his hand from the small hole in the side of the library counter, I wonder.

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