From one Dr. Mom to another Dr. Mom: How do I balance work and family? Here's how

Dear Dr. Meg,

I just saw you on Life on the Rock. I am a 29 year old Roman Catholic, a wife, a mother of 4 and expecting #5, and a 3rd year resident physician in family medicine in Louisiana. I am overwhelmed. We practice NFP and find it very difficult. I feel as though we have good reason to avoid pregnancy, but God has abundantly blessed us with 5 children, nevertheless. I feel as though I do not have enough time for my family and our home life is suffering. I will graduate residency in June or July and plan to practice full-time afterwards, otherwise I will be unable to pay off my loans. My husband does odd jobs here and there- it is too difficult for him to work regular hours when my hours are so terrible. How did/do you balance family and work? I look forward to your reply.

Dear MOM,

You are indeed living an exhausting life. When I was a pediatric resident, I was pregnant as well and I fully understand the hardships that you are facing.

First, look at your career over a 30-40 year period and your child-rearing years over a 20 year period. Yes, you have loans weighing on you but take your time paying them off. Losing your health while doing this doesn't help anyone. If you can take more than 6 weeks off when your baby is born, do it. I took three months in the middle of my second year residency. My program wasnt' happy, but they accepted it. I'm sure that if you are firm with your program they will do the same. You need to slow down just a bit because you have years and years of work ahead of you. At your age, you have 30 plus years of medicine ahead of you to practice so pace yourself. After you are done with your training, you may need to work part time or take time off. It's up to you, but if you don't pace yourself, you will burn out and be no good to anyone.

you are done, then your husband needs to be home with the kids. If he doesn't want to, then he must be able to help you repay your loans and you be home with the kids. My husband stayed home for 4 years while I did residency, then when I was done, I stayed home and he finished his residency in Med/Peds. We didn't see each other much but now, our kids are grown and gone and we spend all sorts of wonderful time together. Perhaps you could work out a plan for each of you to work part-time? Be creative, but make sure that for the bulk of the time during the week, one of you can be with your kids and keep things steady at home. You will never, ever regret it.

Second, you need to have a heart to heart with your husband. I'd love to tell you that you both can work full tilt (50-70 hrs per week) and raise a great family, but I can't. Your children need a parent with them. Women who tell you that you can "have it all" have never had it all- they are stressed, exhausted, have difficult home lives but haven't made it. So, if you are able to financially support your family when 

Third, I understand about your desire to practice NFP and this is wonderful. I do believe, however, that God is gracious and doesn't want us to kill ourselves when it comes to childbearing. He gives us many gifts other than motherhood that we can use for His glory and your practicing medicine is one of them. You can't do that and run a home with ten kids. He knows that. So if you need to limit the number of children you have, do it. Let's be honest, we limit the number of kids we birth by practicing NFP, so if you choose to limit the number to five, I believe that it is morally, religiously and ethically fine.

That's my religious opinion, not everyone's.

Finally, you're almost there. In June or July, the worst of your work will be behind you. If you get into the right private practice where you're not on call every third night, you will find that life will be much calmer. So hold on! As I said, I strongly encourage you to take a break and pay off your loans more slowly. You need rest and most physicians aren't good at giving it to themselves. But do it. You are more exhausted than you realize. Then, once you catch your breath, work out a work plan with your husband. Once you figure out who will work what hours, then you both need to make a list of responsibilities for the parent at home. This needs to include non-parenting duties as well- cooking, cleaning, etc. Laying the ground rules will help both of you understand one another's expectaions. Many mothers feel that dads staying home with children "babysit" while mothers at home care for children and do all of the other household duties. If you are working 60-70 hrs per week outside the home there is no way you can take on household chores.

I have watched friends and patients parent many different ways. Some fathers have stayed home full time while mom has worked to support the family financially. Many fathers are wonderful with their kids (sometimes better than their wives) at being nurturing, patient and caring. I have also seen many couples tag-team and work alternate schedules so that one can be with the children at all times. This is hard when the children are small, but gets better as children grow.

One final word of encouragement- most parents believe that they need a lot more money to have a good life than they really do. Don't fall into this trap. You don't need a big house, nice clothes and you don't need to make sure that you pay for every sport your child wants to play. Keep it simple and I promise, your kids will handle having less material things better than you think.

God Bless,

Dr. Meg

Winning Over Sibling Wars

Dear Dr. Meg,

Can you address the back talking and sibling fighting constantly.

- Carol

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Dear Carol-

One of the toughest things for a parent to hear is her children fighting. (Imagine how hard it is for children to hear their parents fighting.) I feel strongly that God wants us to speak respectfully and kindly to one another in our families. This is how we communicate love and respect. Unfortunately, because our kids hear so much vile language around them at school, on television, etc, most kids don’t learn to speak well to one another.

Here’s what I would do. Sit all the kids in the family down (as long as they are older than two) and have a chat. Tell them the rules of the house. Inform them how they are (and are not) allowed to talk to one another. Also describe the tone they are allowed to use toward one another. Tell them that this is how you and their father speak to them (and to one another) and this is the way it will be in your home, regardless what they hear elsewhere. Then, say that they will all be practicing a new way of talking for the next 2 weeks (or month.) When someone is caught being mean or fighting, they will be sent to their room. If two are fighting, regardless who started the fight, both go to their rooms.

Then, do what you say. You (and their father) must be disciplined about how you talk to them and to one another. Additionally, once you have set the rules, you must be ready to be on top of their speech and fighting. For the time being, don’t worry about disciplining them for other things. You need to win this war now. If someone breaks the rules, they go to their room (or whatever other penalty you feel works - taking away television, going to bed early, whatever.)

Second, at dinner time, tell each child to talk about something they like about the person to their right or left. Have each family member practice saying positive things about another and this will begin to change the way they think about one another.

This can actually be a fun way to intervene when kids are fighting. If you hear an argument, walk into the room and demand that the ones arguing say one nice thing about the other. I had a friend do this when her four kids were in the back of the car fighting. She pulled the car over, and refused to drive again until they each said something nice about the other. Her young son told his sister that he liked the way egg salad got caught in her braces when she ate. He was serious and they all laughed. This can be a great way to diffuse fighting.

Dr. Meg

Parenting the Strong-Willed Child

Dear Dr. Meg,

Do you have any helps and tips of having an strong-willed only child. - Beth

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Dear Beth-

Dr Dobson wrote an excellent book on parenting the strong-willed child and I highly recommend that you read it. Also, Ryan and I did a show on parenting the strong-willed child recently so watch the radio schedule for when it will air. In the meantime, here are a few suggestions.

First, when disciplining your child, make sure that you discern the difference between willfully defiant behavior and normal childish behavior. If a child directly defies you order not to do something or looks at you with ‘I dare you to reprimand me’ written all over his face, then you are dealing with willful defiance. If, on the other hand, he constantly knocks things over, spills food on the floor or wets his pants, he’s just being a kids and you shouldn’t reprimand him for these things. Most parents drive themselves crazy reprimanding children for many things which are just childish behaviors.

Second, choose one or two of your child’s behaviors that really are important for you to curb. Work on only those two for several weeks and then move on to others. This way you won’t spend your entire day saying ‘no’ over and over. For instance, if your child constantly back talks you, sit down one morning when he’s in a good mood and say this. “Timmy, in our house, the way we talk to one another is very important. You have a habit of talking badly to me and this needs to stop. I will help you change this because no one in our family can speak this way. So, every time you say mean things like ( give him an example)… to me, then you will go to your room (or whatever punishment you choose.) Do you understand? We will start working on this today.”

Keep it simple and clean. Most importantly, when you set the rules down, you have declared that war ensues if he talks back. I guarantee, winning will be much harder for you than for him because each and every time he back talks, he’s challenged you and you MUST win. If you are at a friend’s house and he back talks, you must leave and put him in his room. If you are in the middle of dinner, he leaves the table. You get my point. When he disobeys a direct order, you stop everything you are doing and implement the consequence so that he knows you really mean business. This will upset your days but you must do it because if you don’t, he will never take anything you say seriously.

Here’s the payoff. Once you get through a few really hard weeks, he’ll realize that challenging your authority doesn’t get him anywhere and once he realizes this, life at home will be much more enjoyable. The hard thing about strong-willed children is that they love to see who the boss is. Once they accept that you are, even the toughest of kids will back off. And when they do- they will be much happier.

The goal with strong-willed children is to help reroute their will. These are spirited children who have a lot to offer the world because they are spunky. So, as Dr. Dobson says, “break his will without breaking his spirit” and you will have a delightful and very successful child on your hands one day.

Dr. Meg

Dealing with an Antagonist Stepmother to your Kids

Dear Dr. Meg,

I have a situation I need advice on. My sons' step mother (with my Ex's help I'm sure) is trying everything she can to put a wedge between me and my teenage sons. He has custody because of my depression that was mostly caused by his abuse during our marriage. This woman can't have children of her own I'm told. She is constantly over stepping her bounds as a SM. I'm always trashed in public and to the boys friends' parents. She even went as far as hounding the youngest to find out the last name of my bf so she could find him on fb and msg his mother and ex-wife with lies and utter bs. Thank goodness he knew the kind of person she is and didn't believe her crap. Last night was the boys winter concert at school. My parenting time is from 5p-9p on Wednesdays. After the concert was over I tried to talk to the boys to tell them how proud I was of them both. She wouldn't let me. She litterly stepped between my youngest and I to prevent me from talking to him. She kept saying, "it's after 9". I'm not allowed to be around my sons unless it's during my parenting time but this same "rule" doesn't apply to them when the kids are with me. How can I get her to realize she is the SM not mother and she's way out of line. - Jackie

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Dear Jackie-

You are in a tough parenting situation, as many parents are these days. Having another woman spend more time with your children is very painful and I can understand your frustration.

Here are a few suggestions for you. As I tell any parent in a difficult situation, change begins when you take your focus off of what your ex-husband and his wife are doing and ask yourself, what can you do? Constantly focusing on how angry you are at them won’t help you or your children because you can’t change what they say or do with your kids. The only thing that you can do is change your own behavior..

For starters, think of Romans 12:20. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." This is a tough scripture to swallow but it’s very important. What Paul is saying is, turn things 180 degrees by doing the opposite of what everyone expects of you. Rather than feed into the war between you and your ex and his wife, work as hard as you can at being kind. This is painful but you need to do it. Don’t be nasty, don’t focus on their bad behavior and don’t be critical of them to your kids. Instead, stay positive, upbeat and kind whenever you interact with them- especially when they are with you kids. Over time, they will see that you have changed and they may be willing to work with you better.

The other important thing that doing this does, is that it allows your children to see your maturity and positive attitude (rather than seeing your depression.) This is extremely important because when your kids are older, they will have choice about spending more time with you and if they see you as upbeat and positive, they will want to be with you. If they see you and their dad at odds, they will side with him because they spend more time with him now. So, take the high road- it’s the best way that you can win your kids in the end. Remember, in a few short years, they can decide to spend as much or as little time as they want with you and you need to prepare for this. Once they are twenty, thirty and forty, you have decades when you can be with them. Focus on making those years better because that is something that you really can control.

Dr. Meg

Are You a Sugar Addict? Here's Help

Dr. Meeker,

Have you been able to permanently kick your sugar addiction? I am trying this week to kick sugar, and it's awful! Any tips for us grown-ups? My kids are not addicted like I am.

Sincerely,
Sugar Addict

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Dear Sugar Addict-

Weaning off of sugar is very hard and I do have some suggestions. First of all, in order not to set yourself up for failure, decide on a 2 week period that you plan on doing this. If you simply wake up one morning and decide to start weaning or to go "cold turkey" you won't have the mental preparation to weather through the tough days. So take your weaning seriously and set aside a specific time to do it.

Second, when you begin, eat a lot of protein. This really helped me when I weaned. The last thing you want is to feel hungry on top of craving sugar. I'm a firm believer in making one change at a time so when you ditch the sugar, you need to make sure to have enough good calories through other foods. Protein in particular can help stave off some of the cravings.

Third, if you are a diet soda drinker, stop drinking it a week before you wean from sugar. Diet sodas can actually increase your sugar cravings and they work against what you are trying to do.

Fourth, when you stop sugar, you can either go "cold turkey" or you can wean. I find weaning easier because when I stop all sugar at once, withdrawal can be hard and cravings intense for several days. So it really depends on your personality but either choice is fine. If you choose to wean, buy small packages of bite sized candy and allow yourself several a day. If, for instance, you always eat sugar for dessert, then let yourself have three or four pieces after dinner for the first few days then two for a few days and then one for a few days. If you crave chocolate, do the same with it. Stick to small peices that come already wrapped.

Fifth, embrace your cravings. I do believe that one of the reasons that we fail breaking addictions to sugar (or food) is fear. When the craving comes we feel an emotional as well as a physiologic need to give in. If you embrace the cravings when they come, tell yourself that they are good. They tell you that you are getting healthy. Tell yourself that they will pass. Sometimes we fear not indulging because we are afraid that the feelings of hunger or craving will overcome us. They won't. They will pass. So stare them in the face and don't fear them.

Finally, give yourself grace. If you indulge in half a pan of brownies, pick yourself up, don't call yourself names and begin again- determined next time to eat only one quarter of the pan. You CAN do this. It takes time and patience. So be kind to yourself but firm. Don't let yourself believe that you are a failure. You aren't and you won't be. You might bumble along the way but you can get there.

Helping a Bully Not Be A Bully

Dear Dr. Meg,

That is good, I need to know how to help those who are the bullies. What steps can I take to get the bullies to stop being aggressive. I am a scout leader that has some boys that when given small amounts of free time, find them constantly putting their hands on the boys that are younger and has kept the cycle going for yrs and I see it affecting my own den of boys. I want to break the circle.

Anne

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Dear Anne-

Thank you for being a scout leader. We need more men and women sacrificing their time to help boys learn the importance of hard work, integrity and service. When dealing with bullies, you basically have two choices: reprimand the bullies or encourage the non-bullies to counteract bullying behavior. That's what counselor Beth Maday at St. Francis Highschool did and it worked.

I would recommend that you try a combination of the two. First, make sure to talk to the boys about un-Scout like behavior when they are in a group. Tell them that great Scouts don't put their hands all over each other, etc. If you find a scout acting like this, single him out and make him leave the troop for a bit.

Then, I would find some service activities that the whole group can do together. There's nothing like asking a group of boys to find ways to bless others to build cooperation and cohesiveness. Have them brainstorm about things they could do for others. Could they go to an elderly person's home and clean the garage, snow-blow the driveway or bring a meal? Having boys work as a unit to benefit others is a great way to get the focus off of themselves and encourage empathy and selflessness to counter the selfishness of bullying.

Reprimanding bad behavior combined with training them in compassion and cooperation can be a powerful way to comabat bullying. As Christmas approaches, you have ample opportunities to find ways to have the boys serve to others. I believe that you will find that they will really enjoy it.

Dr. Meg

New Baby and an Older Sibling - Diffusing jealousy

Dear Dr. Meg

I have a four year old daughter and I am expecting baby #2 in February. What are some ways that my husband and I can make this change easier on our daughter? - April

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Dear April-

Most older siblings feel jealous at the arrival of a new baby and this is normal but there are a few tricks you can use to help ease the transition. I recommend having the baby “give” a gift to your daughter when she comes to see the baby for the first time in the hospital. Also, at four, your daughter is old enough to help hold the baby and comfort her with your help. If you breast feed the baby, you might also think about getting a baby doll (one that looks like an infant not a toddler) and have your daughter take care of her baby doll as you care for her little sister or brother. She may feel a bit old to do this, but give it a try.

Once you are back on your feet, ask a family member or get a sitter to stay with the baby once a week for a couple of hours and take your daughter out for some alone time. This doesn’t have to be more than going to the grocery store, but if you tack on a trip for hot chocolate afterwards, it can make the time very special. When you are out, tell her how fun it is to do things with you that her younger sibling can’t do with you. A little alone time goes a long way for little ones.

Some jealousy is very normal, as is a bit of regressive behavior. For instance, some older siblings want to start sleeping with their parents and may act younger than their age. This usually lasts for a couple of months and then the older child begins acting his/her age. So, if your daughter does begin acting more like a three year old, don’t be disturbed, it will pass.

Children are always a blessing. I encourage you to act excited about the baby and not worry too much about your daughter. If you expect her to handle the transition well, she is far more likely to. If you show your enthusiasm and tell her that the baby will be a blessing to the whole family, she is more likely to see the baby this way too. Remember, that at four, your daughter reads every move you make and word you say. That means, if you are worried about her, she’ll pick up on it. So try to relax and enjoy the rest of your pregnancy.

Dr. Meg