I am going to tell you something no one else will. This is medical information and not advice, as I am a pediatrician (an old, old one) and cannot give out advice.

Do the one thing I tried to get every patient's mom to do. GET A PLAYPEN FOR EACH CHILD. Put the child in the playpen. Leave them in there. They may cry in the beginning, but they will learn to love their own little home. I swear, after a while, they will cry when you take them out ! !

For the mom's who did this on my recommendation, I actually had them crying because they hadn't listened to me, but instead, to all the touchy-feeling magazines/women's daytime TV shows/the mother-in-law and finally, really much too young other doctors who said kids "environments shouldn't be limited". Pooh! Mine is. Why should they start life "owning the whole house"? 

Kids will play all day in discarded, cardboard boxes. They love it.

All childcare, like fashion, comes in waves. You just have to be around long enough to see it happen. Ex. We put babies on their tummies in the nursery when I started medicine. Provable low incidence of SIDS. Then, along came the on-the-back theory and I had every RN in the nursery following me around and turning my patients onto their backs. Upsurge in SIDS. It took 20 yrs to get back to the place where I started, and putting babies on their tummies. Drop in SIDS.

Do one real step at a time. Even a small one. Find a source for playpens on the internet. Mark it. Later, cruise it. Later, pick one. Find a credit card and put in beside the computer. Next day, order the playpen. Baby steps.

Never go anywhere in the open public spaces you talk about without a harness on each kid and the end of that harness around your waist or snapped to your jeans.

People have been known to criticize parents for this ("that is a child, not a dog").

I tell my mom's to answer, "yes, and why would I treat my dog more diligently than my child?). Now, to make it more palatable, put a little fanny pack or tiny backpack on the kid with the harness underneath, and voila, camouflage.

Think about your drop in anxiety from this alone. When those babysitters, strangers, teachers, friends possibly criticize you for dropping back to the 1950's in childcare, remember, they aren't paying for your medical care. They aren't suffering your pain. When they can do that, they can pass on the disapproval. Until then, just tell them you

have consulted a child psychologist who will be published in an important medical journal soon, and won't they be jealous not getting in on this sooner. Then close your

mouth.

The urge to explain instead of just "do", holds us all back. And hey. You need some

pain killers like slow release morphine (Kadian)--which you cannot even feel in your body--not like oxycontin, and something for anxiety. Sleeping on the floor and taking herbs in not going to cut it. Do aromatherapy after you admit you are in pain and what you are doing isn't working and then triage your problems with the first being pain relief, minimizing your kids' environments outside and in, (without all that tense running around and defending your anxiety about your kids free-range roaming you might improve tense muscles and fatigue immediately).

It took me 8 months to fill a practice to the brim, by word of mouth and absolutely no

advertising. The first question I ask (never about insurance--I don't want to hear about it), is "Do you want to hear the truth or a lie". Once a parent gets over this, 100 % of them told me "the truth". Along with that comes my promise to answer any question they ask and refer them to any specialist they want. As many appointments as is takes.

Like in an airplane that depressurizes, "Put on your mask first or you'll never be able to help out your kids". 

Well, "spanking". That is like an I.E.D. in the pediatric world. My views may make sense and may not. This is medical education and not advice, as I explained.

You've heard that spanking a kid just teaches them violence. Actually, I think it teaches everyone, all ages, to NOT go to the next step in preventing the behavior they are supposedly trying to alter or prevent. The next step requires more mental energy and self-discipline than we are willing to give, or maybe we just don't know if not hitting the kid will work. Will a namby-pamby, new-age, coddle-the-kid technique work, when we can be sure the tried-and-true method of physical harm will train an ameba, much less a human?

I admitted it to myself decades ago when rearing my kids. I was either tired, not paying close enough attention just before the bad behavior ( when the kid was giving all kinds of signals he was up to something), or I was mad at someone/something else. You name "our" excuses. And by the way, admit like I did, that after hitting that kid, you actually exaggerated in your mind "why" you actually hit him. Oh, sure. I castigated myself, but said to myself that the kid was headstrong, had his daddy's hard head, was going thru a phase, etc. But I never, ever got that sick feeling out of the pit of my stomach that the minute I struck my kid, I had lost that battle. It eats at you and diminishes your self-worth, sub-consciously, and what we are here to do it raise your self-worth. Mine needed at the time and still does.

NOW, here is when all I said above goes out the window. It's called extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.

My adult daughter asked me if I had spanked her. She never remembered it.

I said, INDEED, I had. "Under what circumstances?" she asked. This was emotional for me, so I'll tell it in full.

I told her that when it came down to her life or her body parts vs. physical punishment, I decided to chose the former. I explained that there was an occasion when she was about to use a regular toy to reach up and pull down a pan of boiling water onto herself. (hard to explain due to my guilt). I jumped over and got the burn instead. I immediately realized she would have died, whether from my fault or her lack of understanding. I spanked on the butt and screamed (on purpose, at the top of

my lungs) to her to invoke an "avoidance" response for that stove, as much as I 

psychologically could. (Even if she hated stoves all her life, which is more important?)

I used as many senses she had to try to carve a pathway in her brain that said "stay away from the stove". Like Maria Montessori's techniques, the more senses you use, the more likely the conditioning/learning will stick. You could add immediately taking two pans together and banging them as hard as possible. Whatever scares her and you enough for both of you to pee your pants, do it. And I didn't care if she hated me then or later. Would you care if you scared her this bad if you had to drag her away from a pedophile? No.

Remember, this was before the words "child-proofing" the home had been invented. So what. I could be the first of all our friends. I put up a gate to the kitchen. No kids allowed in. Period. They were in playpens right outside the gate and could watch me and me them. It wasn't punishment. It became a fun routine. And next to candy, kids love routines. (Same book at bedtime, same blanky, same TV show)

No. No run of any part of the house except the room I was in, and watching them, not TV, and I mean a small room. All other doors, especially bathroom were closed. 

They are small people. They need only small environments. They just get sensory overload with too much to see and do in an environment that are too much. Like me in IKEA or Harrod's of London and they'll make fools of themselves like me. 

Get your physical limitations set up for them. Stick to your guns. They will adapt. The strong look on your face tells them to give up. A mewling, "poor baby" voice from you will tell them to just keep on going until they reach your breaking point.

If you do the physically restrictive things, there will be less chance of them doing the

things that would call for punishment. My daughter tried to crawl over the seat in the shopping cart and tipped the whole thing over. I immediately went over to the pet section, bought a harness, strapped her to the seat, and the danger was gone. Later, she was mad when I forgot to bring it along.

Sad note. We would always let the kids sit in the TV section at Sears on a Saturday AM while we were in the aisles nearby. Adam Walsh was abducted in the same store on the same day, while John Walsh was doing the same. That was when we adopted the harness and leash rule. If we forgot that, I always tied a string or my belt or the cord from my windbreaker to the kid's hand and mine.

Am I mean? I don't think so. Parents who do these things are resisting a lot of modern/pop psychology. But they see that as the kid feels safe in the smaller environment, both parent and child have a better relationship for teaching the right way to behave (both of them) because their is just more time for it. They become teacher and student rather than jailer and inmate.

"Keep 'em alive til 25 ! !"  That's what I tell parents. The kid can hate you later. But they never do. And if they did yell at you later, smile, because it means they're able to draw a breath to do so. 

PS Never had to ground a kid a single time. One explained that the worst punishment they could have had was in disappointing parents and teachers. 

The fewer variables in your life (where is that kid now?) and the more constants (I know for a fact he's in the playpen in front of me), the more likely you are to have time to give some attention to the perceived impossibilities in your life. Those things which take thought, baby-step actions, and small but additive accomplishments.

Sorry to be so long, but really, how much time have we all wasted doing a whole bunch of less productive things than read one person's attempt to help a stranger in need?