Ask Dr. Rob: Raising Cain

October 12, 2008

When I asked for submissions back in August, I got a whole bunch of questions – good ones at that.  The strange thing is that there were several questions on one subject: raising children properly.  This is actually very fortunate since I am quite qualified to answer questions about children.  After all:

• I was once a very badly-behaved child myself
• I have four children of my own
• I work as a pediatrician, dealing with problems in many arenas of behavior
• I am of a Dutch heritage
• I play the guitar, but not the bagpipes
• I was born breech

Clearly these qualifications make my answers far more valid than most other parental advice columns.

So let’s get on with the questions.  The first question comes from Michelle:

Dear Dr. Rob:

I am the parent of a college student who refuses to clean his room, his bathroom, bathe on a regular basis or take out the trash. I take Aleve daily, but I’m wondering if there is anything I can put in his Orange Crush to make him conform to socially acceptable forms of cleanliness? He’s 19 and bit too old for me to drag him to the shower.

OK, I have a question for you: have you ever seen a men’s dorm in a college?  Scientists from the department of defense have researched the smells they emit for use as an offensive weapon.  The research had to be stopped, as the Geneva convention considers the use of such smells inhumane. 

You see, a teenage boy has high levels of the hormone exasperatisol.  High levels of this hormone leads to the following symptoms:

• Acne
• Mumbling
• The belief that all adults are idiots (even ones previously highly esteemed)
• Situational blunting of the senses

The last of these applies to your situation.  The exasperatisol causes your son to not hear your pleas, see the mess, smell the…uh…fumes, or feel all of the grease and grime.  Why situational?  Hearing is no problem when talking on the phone with girls, eyesight is fine when looking at girls, and smell is fine when dinner is ready.

So why doesn’t your son socially conform?  He does.  The boy with the clean room is the social outcast. The exasperatisol ensures that.

Oh yes…that’s not Orange Crush he is drinking; but that has to do with another hormone (Iwannakegarone).

The next question comes from Awesome Mom (who famously asked the Taco question):

Dear Dr. Rob:

How can I get my kids to quite whining all day long?  It seems like my eldest son has no other tone outside of high pitched whine.  The younger one is a tiny bit better but when he is tired he can whine with the best of them.  By the time the afternoon rolls around I find myself wanting to hide in my closet and drink.

First let me ask if the whining has to do with your husband putting ketchup on them.  I forgot to mention that genetic trait in my last post.  It is a sad thing when fathers fall to such behavior.

The science of whining is just being uncovered and is really fascinating.  The most recent studies show that children’s high-pitched whine is far more than it seems.  A whining child is emitting sounds at frequencies far above the normal range of adult hearing.  These high-frequency transmissions have several possible functions:

1. Subliminal messages sent to adults.  One theory contends that the whining child is actually performing a kind of mind-control on the adult.  Adults around whining are far more likely to give the child things they would never give outside of the whining influence.  Many speculate that the candy and cheap toy industries get at least 75% of their profits from the influence of whining.
2. Inaudible communication with other children.   This theory states that the annoying nature of the audible portion of the whine causes adults to leave the presence of the child.  Other children around, however, can hear the ultra-sonic message to await adult extraction so that the meeting to overthrow the adult overlords can commence.

When scientists have tried to study this, however, they have ended up buying candy and cheap toys for the kids and then mysteriously had their funding cut off.

I hate to say it, but there is no solution to the whining problem.  It is fortunate that this is only a phase they go through – although the subsequent eye-rolling phase of teens is arguably worse.  I just hope that, in your case, the whining doesn’t lead to too much wining.

Thanks for your questions!

Keep them coming – to dr.rob.questions(at)gmail(dot)com.

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Posted in Ask Dr. Rob, Humor