Like many doctors, I dread the moment I give my own child the vaccine jab. It's not hard to see why: we are supposed to safeguard our kids but there won't be pain-free needles.
The task of giving Jasmine a quick stab wasn't that difficult. When my daughter learned about the seasonal flu jab, she didn't run away. My wife held Jasmine and I picked the right spot - and voilà - a peaceful indentation of her thigh. After that my wife asked me if I wished to give her the hepatitis A vaccine as well. We purchased the vaccine few months ago and waited. And waited. And waited. And it has remained in our fridge. I hemmed and hawed for a while, before I decided to postpone the second injection. Of course I didn't have a whiff of evidence to support my claim to separate the two injections.
If the idea of separating two injections seems humane at first, it doesn't once you know the psychological principle known as "Weber's law," named after the nineteenth-century German physiologist Ernst Heinrich Weber. Although most medical students should be familiar with his Weber test (a screening test for hearing), we might have overlooked the Weber's law. Weber's law states that the impact of a change in the intensity of a stimulus is proportional to the absolute level of the original stimulus. Loosely speaking, you must shout to be heard in a noisy environment whereas a whisper works in a courtroom.
It also means that the change in any stimulus matters less and less with every increase in the absolute level of that stimulus. The idea behind Weber's law is that if you have a number of dental cavities to be filled, get them all taken care of in one trip to the dentist. Unsettling as it is, the pain of two moderately bad experiences will typically exceed the pain of experiencing both at one time.
Which means, come to think of it, that I should have given my daughter two shots at one go.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Count to 10 Before You Yell
I was looking at the school photos with my daughter in front of our laptop computer. When Jasmine was so excited, she pushed the computer screen and hit the vase next to it. "WATCH OUT!" I screamed before calming my nerves to catch the vase.
When Jasmine found her father turning into shrieking grand mal, she stopped. Before she could find her words, she put her hand above the eyebrow, whispering the word sooooorry.
Immediately I realised I'd made a mountain out of a molehill. This was a a terrible situation, thoroughly embarrassing, and it really was my fault. I ground to a halt, mortified and abashed. I smiled. No one joined me. My eyes met hers. I saw tears welling up.
"No, baby. Not your mistake. Write this across your heart: daddy isn't angry with you." I gave her a big kiss on the forehead. Jasmine tried to pull herself together but seemed poleaxed. "Flower broken?"
And her mother came to my rescue. "Flowers," we chorused. Within two minutes we were dancing with the flowers in hand, with smiles as effervescent as root beer.
Researchers coined the term attachment to describe the reciprocating relationship between a baby and the parent. Babies come into this world preloaded with lots of emotional abilities. My response (such as shouting) acts like Post-it notes to tag different things, telling my baby's brain, "Pay attention to this." When I sat down and talked to my wife, she tried to reassure me that nothing was wrong, that I was tagging the wrong Post-it note to the vase, and that I could count to ten before yelling. "Come to think about it, you just screamed at the vase out of the blue, but the two-year-old would look at you with a tag that you're screaming at her. You did the same to me quite often, too."
Ugh. Jasmine gave me another lesson after my going wrong for at least 10 years.
When Jasmine found her father turning into shrieking grand mal, she stopped. Before she could find her words, she put her hand above the eyebrow, whispering the word sooooorry.
Immediately I realised I'd made a mountain out of a molehill. This was a a terrible situation, thoroughly embarrassing, and it really was my fault. I ground to a halt, mortified and abashed. I smiled. No one joined me. My eyes met hers. I saw tears welling up.
"No, baby. Not your mistake. Write this across your heart: daddy isn't angry with you." I gave her a big kiss on the forehead. Jasmine tried to pull herself together but seemed poleaxed. "Flower broken?"
And her mother came to my rescue. "Flowers," we chorused. Within two minutes we were dancing with the flowers in hand, with smiles as effervescent as root beer.
Researchers coined the term attachment to describe the reciprocating relationship between a baby and the parent. Babies come into this world preloaded with lots of emotional abilities. My response (such as shouting) acts like Post-it notes to tag different things, telling my baby's brain, "Pay attention to this." When I sat down and talked to my wife, she tried to reassure me that nothing was wrong, that I was tagging the wrong Post-it note to the vase, and that I could count to ten before yelling. "Come to think about it, you just screamed at the vase out of the blue, but the two-year-old would look at you with a tag that you're screaming at her. You did the same to me quite often, too."
Ugh. Jasmine gave me another lesson after my going wrong for at least 10 years.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Reflection
Don't you find that you learn more about yourself when you learn to weather the changes with your baby? That happened with my recent reading of What to Expect: the Toddler Years.
Heidi Murkoff tells the story of a toddler who gets upset whenever the cracker has a piece broken off. Even a crack in the cracker can set off tirades. By listening to the quizzical compulsiveness about an intact cracker or biscuit, I thought I'm lucky to have my easygoing daughter. But wait a minute: isn't that desire for perfection (or at least, the perception of it) the same as mine? Though I have tried not to delete any less-than-perfect photograph from my digital camera after pressing the shutter, I cannot.
The next story is about a toddler who resists to any change - a new car seat, a new order in the bedtime routine, a new glasses on the mother. Whilst some toddlers just can't tolerate any changes, most kids as I know it, my daughter included, are at least less rigid. Before I congratulated myself for having a daughter who doesn't insist on the status quo, I felt an uneasy idea welling up inside me. No, that story isn't about my daughter; it's talking about me. I'm the one who craves ritual. While having ritualistic behaviour is age-appropriate for a toddler, I wonder if having precisely the same kind of muffin for lunch, during my whole year of overseas training, for instance, is a bit too inflexible. Just a bit.
Heidi Murkoff tells the story of a toddler who gets upset whenever the cracker has a piece broken off. Even a crack in the cracker can set off tirades. By listening to the quizzical compulsiveness about an intact cracker or biscuit, I thought I'm lucky to have my easygoing daughter. But wait a minute: isn't that desire for perfection (or at least, the perception of it) the same as mine? Though I have tried not to delete any less-than-perfect photograph from my digital camera after pressing the shutter, I cannot.
The next story is about a toddler who resists to any change - a new car seat, a new order in the bedtime routine, a new glasses on the mother. Whilst some toddlers just can't tolerate any changes, most kids as I know it, my daughter included, are at least less rigid. Before I congratulated myself for having a daughter who doesn't insist on the status quo, I felt an uneasy idea welling up inside me. No, that story isn't about my daughter; it's talking about me. I'm the one who craves ritual. While having ritualistic behaviour is age-appropriate for a toddler, I wonder if having precisely the same kind of muffin for lunch, during my whole year of overseas training, for instance, is a bit too inflexible. Just a bit.
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