What AP is NOT submitted by Kelly Coyle DiNorcia

In anticipation of next week's open house, I sent out about a million (give or take) press releases and brochures to local papers, radio stations, magazines, and practitioners. One of them was my own pediatrician. Imagine my surprise when I went in for a visit today and there was my letter and brochure, clipped to my son's chart. I should have known that she would never post anything in her office about an organization that she didn't thoroughly research and support.

Tell me what this is all about, she said.

I was totally caught off guard and not having my best day in general, so I definitely wasn't in PR mode. I blathered something incoherent about co-sleeping, or maybe breastfeeding, and mentioned positive discipline.

No, I mean give me an example of something a child might do and how you might handle it, she said, cutting to the chase.

I couldn't really think of anything, so she began to talk about how kids today "don't know how to act". From what I could gather, she shares one of the most common misconceptions about AP, which is that AP equals letting kids do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.

On the API website there is a blog post by Dr. Lawrence Cohen, author of one of my all-time favorite parenting books, Playful Parenting. He discusses some of the most common difficulties that attached parents run into, such as aggressiveness, defiance and oversensitivity between the ages of 2 and 4. He assures parents that this does not mean that they are doing it wrong, or that AP is wrong, but that every approach has its drawbacks and these are the common "itches" (his word) associated with AP.

So, back to Dr. B - she said that as much as she loves kids (and she does, she's a wonderful woman and amazingly compassionate physician) she asks not to be seated near them when she goes out to eat, because kids don't know how to act in restaurants. Now, most of the advice she's given me has been in line with the principles of AP, so I'd find it difficult to believe that she expects young kids to sit quietly for an hour or two in a restaurant listening to adult conversation, but for the sake of argument, let's say she does. Clearly, it is more pleasant to dine with a three-year-old who acts that way than it is to dine with, say, MY three-year-old. If I were out for a rare adults-only dinner, I wouldn't want to sit by a three-year-old either. I've been out to eat where the child at the table next to us was literally throwing glasses and plates off the table, smashing them on the floor, and the parents did nothing to stop the behavior. True story. I would argue that it isn't the child who doesn't know how to behave in that case, but the adult, but that's besides the point.

The question remains, is it that my three-year-old doesn't know how to act in restaurants, or is it that we, as a culture, have unreasonable expectations of three-year-olds in restaurants? Is it realistic to expect her to sit quietly in a chair for an hour or so? Or should we choose our dining establishments more carefully, or plan more thoroughly, or maybe forgo public eateries for a few years?

To get back to the point - AP is not permissive parenting. Kids need limits. Hitting: not okay. Biting: not okay. Running in the street: definitely not okay. Smashing plates on the floor: we're leaving, after we pay the manager for the broken dinnerware. What I tried, with very minimal success, to explain to Dr. B is that it's not about anything goes parenting, because we all (or we all should) have rules. It's about how we get our kids to comply with rules. Do they comply because they're afraid of what we'll do to them if they don't? If so, that's not AP. Do they comply because they are aware of natural consequences? Maybe AP. Do they comply because they have a respectful relationship with you, the parent, and as such wish to maintain the give-and-take that such a relationship entails? BINGO!