Dodging Pitfalls of Parenting : Tarzana pediatrician and author Bud Zukow warns that many suburban mothers and fathers are being enslaved by their children.

Dr. Bud Zukow, a Tarzana pediatrician, claims that at least 25% of the parents in his practice are off the mark when it comes to parenting.

It’s not just that they’re worried about breast-feeding versus bottle-feeding, or that they’re wondering what color mobile to hang over the crib, or struggling to pick the perfect preschool. Zukow says the problem is that more and more suburban parents are overparenting.

In the ‘50s, it was called spoiling, but it is no longer politically correct for a pediatrician to tell parents that they have created a terror, Zukow says. So Zukow has written a book, “Parent Power” (The Bramble Co., 1992, $12.95), to help parents understand whether they are providing adequate structure, consistency and discipline for their children.

The parent trap, according to Zukow, can go one of two ways. Some parents end up being consumed by their kids, he says, and are constantly dragged into involvement with their children. These children tell their parents what they can and can’t do, interrupt adult conversations and need bribing with snacks and little toys just for the parents to get through the day’s activities.

There are also parents who consume their children, he says, by constantly lavishing attention on them. They let the child decide if today is the right day to get an immunization, if now is a good time for dinner, if it’s bedtime yet or if they are going to wear their party shoes to the park. Both types of parenting lead parents into enslavement, he says.

Some parents get so wrapped up in the art of parenting that they lose the ability to do things in their own best interest, Zukow says. For example, if at the end of a day a 2-year-old keeps getting up and refuses to sleep, Zukow says it’s appropriate for a parent to tell the child he or she cannot leave the bedroom and must stay there until morning.

“Kids don’t always understand that the day is over. But the parent deserves the time at the end of the day to be with their spouse, to relax, to catch up,” Zukow says. “It’s important to allow the parents to have their part of the day and to teach the child to follow some rules.”

When parents don’t learn soon enough to create structure in their parenting lifestyle, they get exhausted by their intense efforts and can wind up in a tense and frustrating relationship with the child--and with each other, Zukow says.

This was the kind of advice that Encino parent Mary Fitzgerald, 34, says she appreciated when her now 3-year-old son, Hunter, was an infant prone to a combination of colic and crying.

“Hunter would cry and cry, and I would pick him up, pat him, hold him, and he would still cry. I was exhausted. Zukow suggested that maybe Hunter just needed to cry it out. I tried it once; Hunter cried for 3 1/2 minutes, and he was sound asleep,” Fitzgerald says.

She appreciates that the parenting style Zukow recommends allows the parents to look after their own interests as well as the child’s. “You don’t have to feel you’re being selfish if you have a life for yourself,” she says. Fitzgerald is using the same approach to discipline with her 2-year-old daughter, Sloane, and she says it works.

Zukow thinks parents end up overparenting because well-meaning pediatricians and psychologists have been suggesting in child-care books, videos and doctor’s offices for at least a decade that children may develop low self-esteem or may feel unwanted if their needs aren’t completely met. “People have been so overexposed to the emotional part of kids growing up, it’s been overdone,” Zukow says.

As an example, he said a parent in his practice wanted to take her 3-year-old to a psychiatrist because he didn’t seem to be making many friends. What children need, he says, is consistency, firmness and fairness--from the beginning. “Without that approach, parents end up fatigued, bored and controlled by their children.”

“I see parents in my office who say they have lost total control of their kids,” Zukow says, “and they end up resenting their children. They’re tense, they get upset at the very slightest things--and it doesn’t have to end up like that.”

Zukow isn’t alone in perceiving the trend toward parenting overkill. Dr. Norman Lavin, a Tarzana-based pediatrician and clinical professor of pediatrics at UCLA, says overindulgence is increasingly common. “People forget who’s who in the parenting role--that kids need definitive guidelines,” he says, “and people are more permissive today than they used to be.”

The good news for those who think they may be part of that 25% of parents who are either consuming or are consumed, is that it is never too late to change. Zukow suggests that parents list things they’re doing wrong and attack those they think are most critical. “Once kids understand they can’t twist and manipulate you, they will change.”

A Quick Guide for Parents

Dr. Bud Zukow offers these questions in his new book “Parent Power” as a quick guide to help parents identify whether they might be losing their parenting power:

Are you being consumed? * Does your child tell you what to do, when to do it and how to do it? * Do you have to bribe your child throughout the day to accomplish your tasks? * Do you find yourself intimidated by your 4-year-old’s bad- mouthing? * Do you frequently go to bed at night feeling that the household is out of control? Are you consuming? * Do you believe you are the only really competent caretaker for your child? * Are you constantly comparing your child to your friends’ children? * Does every moment of your day revolve around the needs of the child, without a thought to yourself? * When you are with an adult, do you find that your conversation is monopolized by the subject of your baby? * Can you periodically let your 4-year-old dress herself or himself and not change the clothes afterward?