Yesterday, I confessed that I may have made a parenting mistake that many of you (I hope. Hey, misery loves company!) make every day. Essentially, I was late to pick up my 2 year old son from day care and he was very upset; I comforted him, of course and then proceeded to take him to McDonald's for french fries (something we NEVER do). Was my decision to cure my son's sadness with little golden sticks of salty goodness a poor one? Am I helping to create an unhealthy relationship between food and feelings? 

I turned to Parents Ask expert Dr. Bonnie Zucker, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist with a background and expertise in psychotherapy with children, adolescents and adults. Dr. Zucker, who specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders in children and adult, graciously shared her thoughts on the french frie incident that rocked the (MY) nation:

First, one event like this is not going to teach your son to have an emotional relationship with food. For an association to be strongly linked (food and coping with distress), it would need to be repetitive and consistent; so if every time your child is sad/upset/disappointed, etc, you give him food to help him feel better, then you are teaching him to cope with negative affect (emotions) through eating. This is not the case for you- this was a first time/one time incident and because you are smart and competent as a parent, you won't let it become a pattern.

The "growth opportunity" for you as a parent may be more about how you can learn to better tolerate distress and disappointment in your child. As his mom, you are teaching him the ways of the world, and one of the things you need to do to be an effective parent is teach your child how to cope with disappointment- and this can only happen if he experiences disappointment!  Parents who work too hard at sheltering their child from disappoinment and challenges are actually doing a disservice to their child. By "sitting with" (figurately AND literally) your son's discomfort and pain, you then teach him how to cope with it- not run away from it, not find a "quick fix" (fwench fwies)- but just sit with it, and learn how to handle it and when you do this, the negative emotion is attended to and eventually dissolves. Then, you can calmly explain to him that (1) things like this happen from time to time, and (2) it is normal and okay for him to have felt scared, hurt, upset; our feelings are okay- no matter what they are; and (3) he might learn from this experience that next time, it will be okay and that he can try to comfort himself but assuring himself that you or someone else he trusts will come to get him. This latter point may be a little ahead of his developmental level, but there's not disadvantage to plant the seed now for him to later develop self-soothing self-talk.

Finally, Winnecott described the term "good-enough mothering" as not only all you need to be to be a great parent, but what you should aim to be. If you are a perfect parent and do everything right, you are not effective and not preparing your child for adulthood- you are not teaching them the lessons they need to manage in life. Anxiety will not result if these events happen from time to time; however, if there is a regular lack of predictiability and reliability on part of the caretakers, children can develop anxiety, depression, and disruptions in attachment. Similarly, once in a while rewarding your child with food or giving your child a treat when they are sad will not lead to a problem with food. Again, for a pattern to be learned it needs to occur frequently.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE YOUR CHILDREN'S ANXIETY? WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!