The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter One for free at DrKenner.com.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

My son, Mikey, is almost six years old. My wife and I are very clean with our house and kitchen. In the last two weeks, my son has been obsessed with germs and asks "Is this good for me?" type questions while eating any meal. We are not Howard Hughes, but we like to stay clean. Howard Hughes had a germ phobia at the end of his life regarding dirt. We wash before meals. We take baths every other day. We don't touch doggy poop, and we don't eat food that has touched the floor.

This has become a huge issue with him and with us as a family. I also have twin two-year-olds, and his statements encourage the girls' outlook. Is this just a phase, or should I be concerned? His daycare has asked if we are germ-phobic, and I feel we're not, but this stops him from eating and participating in any event the daycare has to offer. So this is pretty serious. If he's not involved in daycare, I'm worried. Any thoughts on this or what to advise?

Now, your son Mikey is probably looking for good standards, and if you've told him, "Clean yourself, wash your hands before every meal," he may do what most kids do: they mimic their parents' behavior. I know kids also rebel against their parents, but in this case, he's mimicking it, and he may believe what you tell him. "There are germs here. There are germs on your hand. You've been outside," and he may take that seriously, not knowing what the heck germs are, because germs aren't something like dirt that you can see. Germs are invisible.

He also may have heard something on TV or from other sources. If he heard, "If you don't wash your hands, you might get sick, like your aunt did. She's been throwing up all night," and little Mikey has thrown up before, he doesn't want to throw up, and he starts to develop a germ phobia. Or it may be something innocent like, "I know your hand slipped when you ate your piece of chocolate—the very last one—and say it fell on a clean kitchen floor, but the floor is teeming with germs that could make you very sick or could kill you. Do you know what is on that floor?" Now, obviously that's way overstated. A parent should never do that. They may say the cats and dogs have been walking on it, and they bring in germs from the outside, and your shoes track in the mud, and so he may have developed a germ phobia from that.

When you mentioned this, I ran and got one of my books that I had for my kids from the story of Louis Pasteur. This is a kids' book. In this book, Louis Pasteur is looking for these ugly little—they look like upside-down black raisins with mean teeth, mean eyes in them—creatures called germs. And then you get this darling little boy, Joey—it's all cartoon characters—and Joey gets bitten by a dog that's frothing at the mouth. And the dog has these little mean creatures in them called germs. Joey gets so very sick that he almost, almost, almost dies. But then he gets a needle, and in the needle, there are little army men about to be shot into little Joey.

On the most visually graphic page—my husband is looking at it now—you have all of these horrible little eyes peering out of a black background. These are all the germs. Then you turn on the light, and all of those little raisin creatures, but with red faces and ominous eyes and sharp teeth, are staring at you. Those are germs. Those are called the terrible germs, and they don't want the magical soldiers, what Louis Pasteur developed, to kill them.

Now, if a kid reads this book and he's really young, like six years old, he doesn't have the context of what a germ is and that there are good germs. We need to have bacteria in our gut and in our mouth. So if you could help educate him, show him that there are good germs, and give him reasonable standards. It's okay to eat an occasional thing off the floor. You won't die. Even if you get a cold, you recover. You have an immune system that's phenomenal. So you can teach him good standards while still being reasonable. If he's at a picnic and he drops a piece of chocolate, let him eat it. Like I told you earlier, the piece of lobster that fell on the ground, I rinsed it off and ate it again.

So hopefully that helps with him. You want to give him facts. Also, listen carefully to him. Say to him, "Honey, tell me what you know about germs." And he may say, "Well, I saw that the germs killed the monster on TV," or "Grandma died, and I heard it was from germs she had." He may have some thought content that's out of context, and you can help him with that. You can educate him. You may have a budding doctor on your hands. He may become a doctor as he grows up if he's got an interest in germs.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Here's the case I talked about earlier.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

I'm a 50-year-old woman, single, with one dog, two cats, and an iguana—all salvaged from various places—and a house mortgage willed to me by my dad, an alcoholic who died last summer.

Okay, so we know she's going through some grief. Her father died—or maybe not, maybe it was good riddance, you know, if he was an alcoholic and did a lot of damage in her life and left her with a mortgage. She's salvaging animals.

She continues:

My grandson is one of the few things I have. My daughter's going through that stage where she wants to be independent, so we're not spending social time together, but when she needs me, we get along great. I've been trying to get used to the idea of living alone. I had a six-year futile relationship with a guy who was a drinker and alcoholic. Then I ran into my former boyfriend, Frank, also an alcoholic. I had a relationship with him three times before and lost him three times before.

We started dating again, and I thought it wouldn't work because he's still drinking, but then he went into detox, and he's had 80 clean days. He says he's going to move 400 miles to live with me, but he never acts on it. I've had a lot of trouble finding work too. I've had a lot of work experience, so what I decided to do is pick up a part-time job at a restaurant, and I employ myself as a painter. Times are tough, and I'm trying to keep afloat. I'm trying to find things to look forward to.

Now, that's what I underlined here—I'm not happy, not able to please myself. So the iguana doesn't cut it, nor do these alcoholic boyfriends, and I'm not able to find peace within myself. I'm an artist, and I've wanted to write a book for a long time. I think the lack of close friends is a big problem. I've got no one to talk to. I'm on Wellbutrin, which is a pill, and I'm trying to quit smoking. I don't drink any alcohol, and I'm in somewhat good health.

So what do you do in that case? This is from Cindy.

Well, I would try to focus on what you love in life, Cindy. If this guy is stringing you along, you don't want to continue a romance like that. You want to be able to branch out, but you need an action plan. You can't just wait for things to happen.