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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview with Dr. Michael Popkin
Aired May 12, 2002 - 08:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This Mother's Day some parenting tips for both moms and dads. As kids grow and assert their own independence, should parents use technology to keep track of them? Should they just start beating them? I don't know.
Dr. Michael Popkin will be able to help us with all of this. He has a new book, "Getting Through To Your Kids."
Dr. Popkin joins us live here in Atlanta.
He'll be taking some e-mails from you and we invite you now to call us, 404-221-1855. And Dr. Popkin has obliged us and will pay for the calls. No, we'll pay for the calls. Call us collect. We invite your opportunity to talk to us not about just that issue but also the issue of getting through to your kids, which is the subject of his new book. This is, what, book number 10? Who knows?
DR MICHAEL POPKIN, "GETTING THROUGH TO YOUR KIDS": At least. It's up there.
O'BRIEN: Good to have you with us.
POPKIN: Thanks. Good to be back, as always.
O'BRIEN: Nice to see you again. First of all, let's talk about this book.
POPKIN: OK.
O'BRIEN: I mean getting through to your kids, my kids are nine and seven. These are the issues which I'm sort of on the cusp of having to deal with, the sex questions, the birds and the bees, drugs, alcohol.
POPKIN: Right.
O'BRIEN: When is it, when is the right time to begin these sorts of discussions?
POPKIN: Well, sometimes when they're watching CNN and they look up there and they hear the story about the president and they ask you at dinner that night, mom, dad, what's oral sex mean? That was a big one three or four years ago.
O'BRIEN: Ouch. Ouch.
POPKIN: And parents were sitting there white-knuckled and -- we live in a world now that has a window to adulthood that kids never had before.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
POPKIN: So sometimes the kids will ask the question. But if they don't, you've got to find ways to get through to them at a level that builds the kind of judgment and values that helps them deal with all the temptations out there -- drugs, sexuality, violence. They're going to be drivers some day. Potential smokers. We want to be able to talk to them about those things that matter to us in ways that get through to them.
O'BRIEN: Well, now, one of the things which I believe in the book "Active Parenting," which I've read and have committed to memory pretty much, one of the things which I think that parents don't understand is that they sometimes offer more information than the child really needs at that moment.
POPKIN: That's right. Sure.
O'BRIEN: This is one of the things you address. How do you know how much is the right amount?
POPKIN: Well, in "Active Parenting" we talk about the idea of freedom within expanding limits. So as kids get older they need more freedom and we treat them differently as they get older. So you have to first take your cues from them. What are they interested in? If you start talking to them about sexuality and they're very young and they kind of blur over, come back a little bit later.
If you're talking about drugs or drinking and, again, that's not really registering, come back later. It's not the big talk anymore. It's not the birds and the bees or -- you want to have a lot of small talks, short talks along the way.
O'BRIEN: And just pray for that blur over so you can move on, right?
Let's take a phone call. Bruce is on the line. Bruce, where are you?
BRUCE: Canada.
O'BRIEN: How are you up there?
BRUCE: Great.
O'BRIEN: Good to hear your voice. Do you have a question for Dr. Popkin?
BRUCE: Yes. How do you get a 5-year-old who was breast fed to the age of three to lose his interest in the breasts?
O'BRIEN: Are you able to hear?
POPKIN: No.
O'BRIEN: Oh, we didn't lace up Dr. Popkin. That was excellent work on...
POPKIN: I'm going to use my...
O'BRIEN: ... our part.
POPKIN: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) this morning.
O'BRIEN: The question is how do get a 5-year-old who has been breast feeding for a long time to lose interest in that? A 5-year-old seems quite...
POPKIN: That's getting, yes, that's probably a couple years a little bit old, anyway. I think you start talking to him about it's in the context of you're getting to be older and you're getting to be more mature. We do things that big kids do, which is drinking out of a cup. It's not that breast feeding is bad now, but let's move on to drinking out a cup and find a cup with a -- now at five you may not even need a top to it.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
POPKIN: But to make the transition to something positive.
And then when you're teaching kids anything, it's always a lot of encouragement -- atta boys, good job, you can do it, way to go. Don't just give them the marching orders and never say anything again, but to keep after them after they get started a little in that direction.
O'BRIEN: So if you wait to the point where it's a transition to beer, that's way too late, right?
POPKIN: Five is a little late.
O'BRIEN: All right. All right, Michael Popkin, we are going to plug you in so you can hear further phone calls.
POPKIN: Great.
O'BRIEN: But to do that, we're going to take a quick break, pay some rent. We'll be back with more. Call us. 404-221-1855 and we promise Dr. Popkin will be able to hear you.
COMMERCIAL
O'BRIEN: All right, the e-mails and the calls are coming in and Dr. Popkin has one of these little plugs in his ears now. So let's get, take another call, shall we? Leo, is that right?
LEA: Oh, it's Lea.
O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. Lea, who is in California, good morning to you bright and early in California. Glad you're up. You obviously have children if you're up at this hour.
LEA: Actually, it's Lea in Alpharetta (ph). Lea in Alpharetta, Georgia.
O'BRIEN: OK.
POPKIN: That's close to California.
O'BRIEN: I...
LEA: My question is this, how do you explain situations to your kids -- I have two 6-year-old twins -- how do you explain situations to them that other parents are possibly explaining to their children who are the same age but that you don't really feel is appropriate, age appropriate at this point?
POPKIN: I'm sorry, how do you explain things that other parents are explaining to their kids?
LEA: Right. Like 9/11.
POPKIN: Ah, OK. Yes, good example. Again, that's something that all kids were aware of because they watch TV today and you can't miss that. We've asked parents to start by asking questions of their kids. Don't start with a big lecture. But if you ask good questions like what have you heard about, you know, 9/11, what have you heard from your friends, what are they hearing from their parents. And try to get a dialogue going and develop a little empathy. It's not a time to be judgmental and critical, but you want to hear what they're thinking and how they're feeling. Then you can gently correct the values that go contrary to your values or the misinformation, if it's actually misinformation.
But you want to do it through a dialogue and not a lecture. And when you get to the step where you're starting to talk to them about what you believe in, again, you've got to make good sense to them. Even at six, you can't go back to the because I'm your mom, that's why it's true. You've got to be able to give them your reasons...
O'BRIEN: Because I said so.
POPKIN: ... and make it -- that's right. That just doesn't fly anymore.
O'BRIEN: That's not, that doesn't work so well.
POPKIN: We've got to do our homework as parents and really develop some information and some facts.
O'BRIEN: All right, Trevor in Toronto has this. "Has the doctor seen 'The Osbornes?' What does he think of their parenting skills?"
POPKIN: All we know in our family is -- and I've got a 15-year- old and an 11-year-old... when "The Osbornes" come on TV, we all hit for the remote control to turn it off.
O'BRIEN: Oh, really?
POPKIN: That's right. Yes.
O'BRIEN: All right. Well, that tells you a little something right there, doesn't it?
POPKIN: Yes. I've seen one partial episode and anything that has to beep the language 40 times a half hour is probably not what we want influence our kids.
O'BRIEN: All right, here's another e-mail for you. "What initial advice can you give to men who are considering a long-term relationship/marriage with a woman who has children? I have no clue about raising children, but know that my partner could be easily torn between her feelings for me and for her children if this is not handled the right way."
Robert, you're very insightful. Robert's in Chicago.
POPKIN: It sure it. And I'm not sure if that's a leading question, but you know what I do. We develop parenting education programs. We've been doing that for 20 years, video-based courses that are offered through schools and religious organizations and social service places. You need to take a parenting course. If you've got no background and no real skills in it, that's what parenting education is all about.
The second thing to recognize is your wife has a prior commitment to those kids and you can never get in the situation where you feel like she's showing too much attention or making that too much a priority. You need to support that and let her also be the disciplinarian at first. Don't go in there and try to make the rules and set down the law. You've got to win a relationship with your kids and support her at first.
O'BRIEN: All right, one more phone call. Debra, where are you?
DEBRA: Nashville, Tennessee.
O'BRIEN: All right, Debra, a quick question for Dr. Popkin, please.
DEBRA: I've been the stepmother of two girls since they were two and four, and now they're 17 and 19.
O'BRIEN: Great.
DEBRA: And I'm wondering if it's been a mistake to refer to myself as one of their parents, because it doesn't seem to be appreciated by anybody.
POPKIN: How about the girls? How do they respond to it?
DEBRA: Until they reached adolescence, they responded well to it. In adolescence it seems like I have the same conflict as mom only it's interpreted differently than the conflict with mom. It's somehow worse because they have conflicts with me than their mom. But they're over the same traditional issues of cleaning their room and being grounded if your grades are not good.
POPKIN: Yes, at this point you've really transitioned into being their primary mother, obviously. I've got a stepmother and have for 30 years. I started calling her mom pretty soon and it's been great and she's been a wonderful stepmother. And it sounds like you're taking the job very seriously also and doing a good job with it. I'd sit down with the girls, though, and talk about...
DEBRA: And their mom is alive and two miles from us. It's shared custody. So I don't want to imply that she's not actively participating, too.
POPKIN: Right. In my case my mother had died so it's a little different situation. I would talk to the girls about what they're comfortable with, you know, what would you like to call me, what's going to feel best to you, and go with what they're comfortable with and then continued to be an involved parent, as you are.
O'BRIEN: All right, I've got to leave you with one testimonial here. "Dr. Popkin, you have almost single-handedly changed the way that Miles" -- yes, O'Brien -- "and I raise our children. In the beginning, we each parented the way that we were raised and we immediately butted heads on many issues. This is true. "But after taking an active parenting class based on your book at our children's preschool, we sat down and worked it out the right way to parent together. I can honestly say that I'm a better mother because of your enlightened approach to parenting of our two little angels."
That's from Sandy O'Brien. There's your testimonial.
POPKIN: Thank you very much, Sandy.
O'BRIEN: And Happy Mother's Day, Sandy O'Brien.
Michael Popkin, thanks for coming in.
POPKIN: You're welcome.
O'BRIEN: Come back again, will you?
POPKIN: I'd love it.
O'BRIEN: Good to see you.
POPKIN: Nice to see you. Thank you much.
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