How We (Lovingly) Shoot Our Kids in the Foot
I will never forget the words of a doctor from Columbia Medical School who specializes in children’s cancer. She said, “I seldom worry about a child’s prognosis when I see her parents fighting with each other. Cancer is a crisis, and all that stress has to go somewhere. It’s the kid whose parents are distant and reserved that I worry about.”
Why do so many of today’s children suffer from emotional and health problems? The Mother-Infant Bond has been overrun by anxiety, and there is an emerging medical consensus that anxious overparenting contributes to a child’s poor health, which takes the concept of the mind-body connection to a whole new level of psycho-somatic illness. The public often perceives asthma, allergies, ADHD, or obesity as genetic, but top pediatricians privately acknowledge that anxious overparenting contributes to the severity of symptoms a kid develops. But we can pre-empt children’s ailments by reducing the drama we attach to our child’s health.
We must become aware of what we worry about in our children because the mind is a powerful thing. Every day there are a million subtle ways that we (inadvertently) make our worries a reality. It seems loving to focus on your child’s problem, but you may be turning a molehill into a mountain. So when your child gets sick or seriously acts out, it could be a red flag that something needs attention in your marriage. If you want to raise great kids, focus on your marriage. Regardless of the cause of the problem, this approach will reduce the drama associated with the problem.
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David Code is an Episcopal minister, family coach, writer, and founder of The Center for Staying Married & Raising Great Kids. Read more about his work at http://DavidArthurCode.com.
