This is a parenting page, about parenting Page. I am a child psychologist and a mother. So I specialize in children, yet I am human, thus I am full of knowledge and yet as full of emotions as any other parent. So I decided to write this Parenting Page since it might be informative and funny for others to take an insider look at a child specialist raising her child. I also wanted to create a way to show Page when she grows up, if she chooses to have children, a real-life view of the experience. I hope you enjoy these stories and musings.
Brainwashing

I’m a fan of brainwashing children. We really only get these few years where they’ll (perhaps) believe anything we tell them. People like to call these attempts at influence by kinder gentler names, but I like to call a spade a spade, and it seems to me trying to put ideas in another human being’s head so they think like you (i.e., hold your values, beliefs, choices, etc.) is brainwashing. Which I totally support. 🙂

I was happy to see at age eight that some of my brainwashing appeared to be effective!! Page loves to play games over meals, and we were playing 20 questions. I was trying to guess a person she had chosen. When we narrowed it down to a boy in her grade, I asked if it was a boy she had ever had a crush on, and she replied emphatically there was no way she could have possibly had a crush on him. Later after the game was over I asked why it was impossible for her to have had a crush on him. She explained, “Mom, I just met him like six months ago when he moved here! I mean, I haven’t even known him a year yet. I don’t know what he thinks about things, what he likes to do, what he wants to be… So obviously I couldn’t have a crush on him yet!”

Isn’t that wonderful?! Perfectly in line with my brainwashing! (If only my adult friends would listen when I try to explain I don’t believe in love at first sight because you have to know someone to know what you love.)
Page didn’t stop there. She then added, “Plus I’m not a teenager. I mean, they’re crazy! The girls are all like – ‘he’s so hot’ – and they have a crush before they even know anything about the boy!” Hmmm… first of all, how does she know the phrase, “He’s so hot” at her age?! That aside, there is clear foreshadowing here to her teenage years, when hormones will stampede my brainwashing. Alas, my excitement about my brainwashing having worked so well was short-lived by Page’s nod to future ages. During those years I think my husband’s threats of banishing her to the Greek village and the fear he will instill in her dates will be more effective at helping her make good decisions than my brainwashing.

Dr. Tina Lepage is the owner of Lepage Associates Solution-Based Psychological & Psychiatric Services, a group practice in S. Durham/RTP. She lives in Chapel Hill with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. www.lepageassociates.com. You can find her on Twitter at @LepageAssoc or at Facebook.com/LepageAssociates.

Related Stories
‹
Talk Derby To Me
My favorite spring sporting event has to be the Kentucky Derby.  What stands out most during this historic horse race is difficult to decide…the sleek and athletic thoroughbreds, the diminutive yet wiry jockeys in their colorful silks, the thrill of the race itself or the chance for a long-shot filly to come from behind and […]
Parenting Page: It Takes a Village - Of Perspectives
This is a parenting page, about parenting Page. I am a child psychologist and a mother. So I specialize in children, yet I am human, thus I am full of knowledge and yet as full of emotions as any other parent. So I decided to write this Parenting Page since it might be informative and […]
Cabaret at PlayMakers
The crowd laughs, but […]
Political Power Grabs in 1875 and 2013
Republican Party. We need more moderate voices.” One of my longtime friends was tempting me, noting that his political party was in charge now. If I wanted to participate in the new regime in North Carolina, I should change my registration. “And,” he said, “we could use some […]
TABLE Celebrates its 5th Birthday
TABLE celebrated its 5th birthday with children of the South Estes Family Resource Center with a delicious and healthy carrot cake — made with carrots, whole grain flower, white flour and cream cheese icing. TABLE is a nonprofit providing hunger relief to at-risk kids in the Chapel Hill Carrboro area. They will be celebrating their […]
Sleep On It
Some mornings I wake up, check Twitter, and see the following: “The struggle is live today” or “I’m captain of the struggle bus this morning.” Did you ever think about what is the cause of the struggle? I’ll tell you: insufficient sleep. College students are probably the worst offenders when it comes to not getting […]
A Dangerous Eight Seed
Anyone who was channel surfing last Sunday had to stop and marvel at the Carolina-Miami game and how great that first half was. Even if they didn’t know the teams. That’s how good, and at such a high level, the ACC championship game was played. Both teams scored better than a point per possession, shooting […]
Light Sensitive at Nasher
Immediately upon entering the exhibit, one is greeted by images at once recognizable and disorienting. The photographs in “Light Sensitive” are not merely beautifully captured or distilled moments in time. Rather, they are hyper-consciously manufactured artistic works. In this exhibit the idea of photography as an unbiased portal into reality interacts powerfully with the more […]
The Luck of the Draw
Roy Williams wasn’t thrilled with the ACC's NCAA Tournament draw on Sunday night.
ACCT 2013: This Matters.
Who would say this tournament doesn’t matter? Try finding someone in the Greensboro Coliseum on Saturday afternoon who would tell you this is all just a big “cocktail party.” Not only was Saturday’s content potentially Maryland’s last ACC game ever, but every member of this particular UNC team was fighting to win their first tournament—of […]
›