I just passed my three month old pup over the fence to my neighbor for an impromptu play date. I don’t even know my neighbor, in fact, this was the first time we met. The woman came up to me through the white fence that separates us to complain about Charlie’s incessant barking. “I work from home,” she explained, “and I can’t focus on my work because I hear barking every day.” I was swamped with an overwhelming wave of guilt and shame, and proceeded to apologize profusely to the woman, explaining that Charlie had apparently had a bad reaction to his twelve-week shots, or perhaps his system is rebelling against the peanut butter that he had. I put him frantically. Kong teething him yesterday in a desperate attempt to distract him from his sudden/acute onset of separation anxiety. “I just can’t seem to calm him down today,” she explained. “I tried running him around the block several times to burn off his excess energy, but that didn’t work either, and I was forced to take him into my office during a session with one of my patients. He won’t let me out. His side.”

My neighbor’s eyes softened as she looked at Charlie’s compelling puppy face; then joined the ranks of all the other passers by commenting on how she looks exactly like Marley from the movie Marley and Me. Pets show,” I replied proudly. She nodded empathetically as I talked about the challenges of crate training and teething, and I soon noticed two older Labs, one chocolate and one yellow, like Charlie, crossing her yard. “Oh, they’re not mine,” he exclaimed, just as a young man approached the fence and claimed the dogs as his own, suggesting that he take Charlie over the fence to join the pup. Relief coursed through me as Charlie had been glued to my side all day and had long needed a much needed reprieve. Right now, Charlie is happily playing in the neighbors backyard with the older Labradors while I attend to the laundry. , dinner and e I write this column. Thank heavens for the kindness of strangers; sometimes it really does take a town to raise a child (or a puppy).

Owning a puppy has deepened my ability to understand the challenges parents face on a daily basis. I have no children of my own, but I am well versed in child behavior research and empirically validated behavior management techniques. I get to share this information with my clients along with healthy doses of clinical expertise and good old fashioned empathy. While this is certainly enough to effect positive change, nothing beats insight gained from personal experience. Pets and children certainly fall into very different categories in terms of the degree of emotional, physical, and financial commitment required to care for them successfully, although certain experiences seem to overlap. Any dog ​​owner can probably attest to the fact that puppies are a full-time commitment, and just like children, they’re happy to throw curveballs at their loving human parents any chance they get.

In any new parenting situation, one must learn to accept the inevitability of sleep deprivation, schedule changes, and loss of control over the minute details of daily life. As a physician who works primarily with parents, I believe that the most essential component of effective parenting is learning to be aware of one’s own emotional experiences and how they affect one’s perspectives, attitudes, and beliefs. How parents handle and express their own emotional experiences is directly related to how they respond to the same types of emotions in their children. Also, many parents tend to find it more difficult when guiding their children through the same stages of development that they struggled with the most during their own childhood. In his book Giving the Love That Heals: A Guide for Parents, Harville Hendrix eloquently explains how the way people raise their children reveals much about how they were raised. This book has been invaluable to my clinical practice and I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn, grow, and thrive in the practice of effective parenting.

The mother of one of my child patients broke down in tears in the session as she talked about her eight-year-old daughter’s social difficulties at school. It wasn’t so much challenges related to her daughter’s peers that brought the tears to her eyes, but a particular question she asked during the session. The woman admitted that her daughter tends to pick on other children by demanding her attention and she becomes easily agitated when she feels left out or ignored. Listening to my patient admit this truth, she wondered to what extent her daughter’s behaviors reflected similar dynamics at home in her relationship with her primary caregivers. I recall that during the initial interview when both parents were present in my office, the father commented on his daughter’s defiant and stubborn behavior. He admitted that he and the boy tend to get involved in frequent power struggles at home. So, on this day, I asked the mother the following question: “Do you think your daughter’s sensitivity to her peers is similar to how she responds to your husband at home?” This is where she began to cry and I knew that she had tapped into an important truth. “A lot,” she replied, “in fact, I’ve mentioned it to my husband on more than one occasion.” She later further admitted that when she witnesses these conflict-laden exchanges between her husband and her daughter, she tends to tune out and walk away rather than recognize the challenge as a golden moment for a teaching opportunity.

According to Hendrix, this mother would fall on the “minimizing” or “underinvolved” end of the parenting spectrum, as opposed to the “maximizing” or “overinvolved” end of the spectrum. Hendrix argues that the emotional wounds we sustain during our own childhoods are often caused by the parenting experience. Where a particular parent falls on this spectrum depends largely on the parent’s own childhood experiences learning to identify, verbalize, and manage difficult emotions. While some parents avoid emotional exchanges at all costs, others accept or even seek out and enjoy them. Also, some people are quite comfortable when faced with difficult or challenging emotions in themselves and their children, while others avoid or even fear such experiences. If you’re inspired to read Hendrix, you can learn more about these parenting styles and find out where you fall on the spectrum. The knowledge gained can be of great help as he strives to expand his repertoire of skills and techniques as a parent.

In working with parents, I am often amazed at the surprising degree to which the parents’ marital problems and temperament are reflected in their children’s behavior patterns. Rarely is it the marital relationship or the internal emotional struggle of the parents that is presented in my office as the main goal of treatment; rather, it is the child’s behavior that I am asked to explore. This appears to be the case regardless of whether the primary problem present is related to internalized (anxiety/depression/withdrawal behaviors) or externalized (temper tantrums/defiant behavior) symptom types. The common thread seems to be the emotional dynamics of the parents as reflected in the child’s struggle. Furthermore, there appears to be an inverse correlation between the patient’s age and the level of parental distress/inner turbulence. In other words, the younger the child, the more likely I am to find myself in the role of parent educator.

I recently gave a talk for parents at a local private school called Conscious Parenting: Skills and Techniques for Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child where I shared with the audience some helpful tips for guiding children through the treacherous waters of anger, frustration , fear and sadness and emphasized to the audience a cardinal rule for effective parenting: never teach your children that their emotions are invalid, shameful or inappropriate. Emotions are adaptive and necessary for survival; they act as a barometer to measure what is going on around us and we should feel safe accessing them at crucial moments where decision making, problem solving and boundary/boundary setting are warranted. Parents who tell their children “you shouldn’t feel this way” or “your feelings don’t make sense” send a very damaging message; in effect, they are teaching the child that her emotions cannot be trusted and are potentially deceitful or embarrassing. A child who comes to believe this message will eventually learn to look outward at others, rather than inward, for permission to feel a certain way. A person’s feelings can never be wrong. It is the way people deal with and express those feelings that can be dysfunctional and problematic.

Charlie returned from his play date and returned to his strange state of agitation and clingy demeanor. Later that night, exhaustion got the best of us and my husband and I decided to let him sleep in bed with us, just this once, to avoid a sleepless night filled with Charlie’s incessant whining. The 12-week-old, 30-pound pup perched at the foot of our bed and snored happily all night while I tossed and turned and prayed that sleep would catch up with me. The next morning, Charlie seemed well-rested and back to his usual happy-go-lucky self, while I felt tired, disheveled, and cranky. Maybe today will be better, I thought as I sipped my morning coffee and flipped through the paper, grateful my husband had a day off and willing to spend some time with Charlie. As all parents and pet owners will soon discover, every day is full of new surprises and unforeseen adventures. Charlie suddenly appeared at my feet and looked at me with his chocolate eyes, and the frustrations of the previous day quickly melted away.