yesterday's Rocky Mountain News featured a piece about dr. stephen berman,
who will be the new head of the AAP as of october 2000. he was interviewed
about what he thinks is the most important thing (or things) that need to be
done to promote children's health. I was really disappointed with his
answers.

"question:If you could achieve only one things as president what would it be?

answer: health insurance for every child.

he goes on to include mental health services (and ties his answer to
columbine), advanced medical techniques and improved vaccines, and points to
the increased resistance of bacteria due to overuse of antibiotics.

question: what's your favorite advice to parents of newborns?

answer: first, teach your child to love your voice. you cannot talk to your
child enough. read to your child every day. the evidence found in recent
brain research is very strong. the more words your child hears, the smarter
your child will be. for children, language power really is brain power.

my second piece of advice is that the best way to provide discipline and
structure for your child is to provide them with encouragement when they are
doing things that are good. praise them when they're behaving. parents
sometimes forget how important words of encouragement are. That's the most
effective way to model good behaviour. a 1 year old really responds to
encouragement.

but it's more than that. when you start out by encouraging your child, you
set a way of interacting with your kids that goes on for the rest of their
lives. the relationship between parents and children becomes supportive and
nurturing and caring."

i included the last part verbatim because i was SO disappointed by this
answer. first of all, it moved quickly away from newborns. what kind of words
of encouragement would you use with a newborn? "okay, come on junior, push
that meconium out, you can do it!" and no mention of breastfeeding.

now remember what our listmothers said and don't send hate mail. i think it
might be best to send it via the aap website or something, anyway. i don't
have an email address for him, don't know if he has one.

the article is called "valuing children." sigh.

carol brussel IBCLC
laura nevada lactation
denver, sadly, colorado

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