Take a Hike

Today is one of those rare days when it is a joy to walk outside in Chicago. The joke I heard somewhere about Chicago's weather is that there are two seasons, winter and construction. Today would be better categorized as Indian Summer. It is one of those days that make winter and hot and humid more acceptable.

Of course, I wasted most of the day playing with Blogger templates and trying to reload my counters. I got the map counter but not the other one. Sometimes this computer addiction just isn't worth it. At least now I know what HTML looks like. Too bad I cannot figure out where to put the widgets.

Well so as not to be a computer hypocrite, I'm going outside now. I'll take a few pictures to post. This will prove I am not powerless over my internet addiction and that the weather is as nice as I say.

Ta Ta for now.

Did you like your kid today?

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think sometimes I am doomed to think too much (hence the blog). But also I am the parent of a teen and work with a number of teens and their parents. These musings started a few weeks ago. I had had a major fight with my son and the next week I had a session with a teen-age boy who has an unhappy relationship with his parents. This is not revealing much private information since many teen-age boys have unhappy relationships with their parents. And this is not really about this boy. It is about me.
I left work that day worried that perhaps my son did not like me. Not because of the one fight but because of the daily accumulation of parenting mistakes. I understand that the parenting involves unpleasant obligations--enforcing chores, homework, setting limits and so forth. It is a dangerous mistake to give up on those obligations in the interest of making your kid like you. But what about those days when you are irritable, arbitrary, unpredictable and irrational? When you probably aren't particularly likeable to anyone? Do these moments do irreparable damage to your relationship with your child? Probably not, if the balance is in the positive direction. A little humility always helps too. Sorry, uh oh and oops do a fair bit to pave the way to mutual tolerance and respect. Kids do not need perfect parents; they need parents who are aware of their own imperfections.
I supressed the urge to ask my son if he likes me. Being insecure because of something that happened in my work day, does not constitute a good reason to launch a heavy discussion. A corollary is never use your child as your therapist. I do not need to impose a brief moment of self-doubt on my child and make him obligated to reassure me.
Well, I got over that moment of weakness. And I think that generally my son does like me. Of course, I am not as noble as I used to be, but in a few more years he will reconnect with the simple fact that I am not as stupid as I sound.
But this incident led my thoughts in another and more important direction. It is nice if your kids like you. It is essential that you like your kids. As a person and a therapist, it is hard to be in the room with a parent who does not appear to like his or her child. Note I say "like." At the moment I am not talking about love, which, of course, is important too. Parents dislike their children for many reasons. Some children are hard to like. They are defiant, explosive, aggressive, lazy, moody, irrational and so forth. But generally any parent should be able to take joy in some aspects of a child's talents, personality, empathy, humor, intellect or inner or outer beauty. I don't know if Jeffrey Dahmer or the Unabomber were likeable as kids, but it is hard to find a child who has nothing to offer. I'm not sure I've ever met one.
So no matter how awful your son or daughter is today, try to like him or her just a bit. Separate their actions from their character. When my older son was a toddler, we used to say to him "Sometimes you do bad things but we still love you." It always amused me that he turned that around and said "Sometimes I do bad things but I still love you." Freudian, huh? For an older child, the message also is "Sometimes you annoy and frustrate the heck out of me, but I still like and respect you for the person you are."
Just a thought. . . .

Storm Warning!!

Friday we had a gathering of family and friends at our house. This was proceeding as such things do, i.e. the food was running a bit late, when we heard sirens. My first reaction was to check my watch. Air raid sirens seem to go off at round number times. But the time was 6:34, not a round number in my book. Was I mistaking a lot of fire engines at once for an air raid siren? I looked outside but could see no suspicious activity.
Well for those of you who don't keep track Friday was the Jewish New Year. So the next thought to cross my mind and that of one of my guests was that there could of been some sort of terrorist action. Attacks on Jews have come on major holidays before.
Fortunately for my paranoid side, a more experienced mid-westerner observed that it was likely to be a tornado warning. Like all good geeks, I turned on the TV and the computer simultaneously and surfed both. And tornados it was.
In 23 years in Chicago, I have never heard a tornado siren; I also had no idea that there was such a thing. As a west coast kid in the 60's and 70's we had bomb drills (basically get under the desk and kiss your ass goodbye) and earthquake drills. In LA we even got out of school on smog alert days. But no tornados.
My first inkling that Chicago was closer to Kansas than LA was when I discovered that many of my anxious patients are afraid of tornados. In LA anxious people lost sleep about earthquakes. If a truck rattled the chandelier, they would look for a doorway to stand in. I always thought earthquakes were sort of exciting. Of course I never had a freeway fall on me. A number of years ago, my grandparents were forced to relocate after a big earthquake fatally damaged their apartment building. But that's the worst that anyone in my family ever experienced. This never stops people from being phobic. I sometimes think if Southern California fell into the ocean, the world's cultural IQ would rise but I couldn't condone the loss of life.
But I digress. What I didn't realize was that the two youngest children at my party would be so scared. Here I am jumping up and down and saying let's go outside and look and they all wanted to hide in the basement. Logical statements such as "The house is 120 years old and still standing. I doubt the risk is too high," and "Major cities tend to prevent tornado occurrence; it's something to do with the big buildings," did not help. Maybe it was unempathic of me to grab my camera and take some pictures.
To make a long blog short, they called off the alert less than 10 minutes after the sirens. The storm blew out over Lake Michigan and the excitement too blew over.
To my untutored eye it did look like tornado weather though. It reminded me of watching the Wizard of Oz as a kid. It starts out in black and white in Kansas, but Oz is in technicolor. In contrast, our many colored world went black and white for a few minutes. Eerie.
But no storm and no terrorists. Amen.

Randomness and Skepticism

Random 1: Blogger beta really needs to let us link to Blogger sites and so forth. I cannot even comment on a site I like anymore or use the link function.
Random 2: I don't have much time to write before work this morning but I have a new project. My random surfing brought me to some skeptic blogs. And by fate or coincidence, last night I was at a professional meeting and suggested that members of my profession should put more educational information about quack medicine out into the ether (or on paper). So now I am thinking of submitting to Skeptics Circle about one of my pet peeves. I have many so I won't commit to which one at present. I have some serious family obligations this weekend so don't hold your breath. Stand by for a little controversy.
Random 3: I'm not sure what photo co-ordinates well with this theme but doesn't this cow look skeptical?

Playing Pharmacist

I just ran into an article that I printed off the New York Times entitled "Young, Assured and Playing Pharmacist to Friends." It was published in November of last year but is still highly relevant. In a nutshell, people are trading in prescription medications. However, of late, this is not simply selling addictive drugs to those who use them. Instead of Oxycontin, these folks are sharing their psychiatric medications, often for what are thought to be more noble motives. Say your friend is depressed. You have some old Paxil lying around and you think it would be helpful to your friend. Why not save her some time and money and give her yours? No "middle men" involved. No insurance co-pays, no psychiatrists involved.
I find that there is a certain irony involved given that a newspaper for psychiatrists (Psychiatric News) recently ran a lead article entitled "Follow-Up Care often Lacking in Depression Treatment." The article is critical of doctors who prescribe antidepressants but do not see their patients for follow up in a timely fashion. Current FDA guidelines suggest patients be seen seven times during the first 12 weeks of taking an antidepressant due to risks of dangerous side effects. Yet some members of the public perceive taking an antidepressant as a "do-it-yourself" activity. Next will there be the publication of a book, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Prescribing Psychotropic Medications?" Publishers please write to me care of this blog. The book could be a best seller, and I'd be happy to write it for you.
Incidentally for a good teen/young adult read (fictional) on this topic try RX by Tracy Lynn.

Photo Friday-Bright

This was taken at an evening concert in Pisa, Italy, this June, in honor of Galileo.

My bad

I've been riding around with out-of-date license plates tags since April. I didn't even notice the tags were expired until I got a ticket (sigh) in June. I missed the notice to renew the tabs in the first place (long story) and who looks at their back license plate closely? I spent so much of the summer traveling that I didn't get around to the renewal until July. By this point it was too late to get a new tab on-line or via a currency exchange. Renewing the tabs requires a long trip to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles. Not my idea of a fun way to spend my spare time. But the tickets accumulate. To avoid being further fined for my non-compliance with the local car tax, I cannot park on city streets and especially not at meters. I cannot be pulled over for a moving violation (a good idea to avoid anyway). And it turns out that the parking lot at work is not safe either (that was a $20 ticket--the fine in my home city is $50). Generally my garage at home is safe but you never know.
So here's the list of today's chores (shared with spouse). Pick up child 2 40 minutes away from home to take to 11 AM soccer game. Pick up child 2 from soccer game 15 minutes early to take to 12 noon dance class. Go downtown to buy child 2 new dance shoes (time permitting). Postpone weekly grocery shopping to Sunday. Enroll child 1 in soccer and ceramics class. Consider going to buy soccer shoes for child 1. See if child 2 needs new soccer shoes. Help child 2 with homework. Drill vocabulary words for foreign language class. Go to DMV. Follow up on work issues I procrastinated on. Etc.
See why I don't get my tabs on time?
Maybe I'll spend all day playing on the internet instead.