Waiting impatiently for his exotic entrée at a tony Long Island steakhouse, 4-year-old Austen Eisenberg wriggles in his seat and wails: “Why can’t I just have pasta?”
His tiger mother, Marisa Silver-Eisenberg, a Type A chiropractor based in Jericho, who doesn’t believe in kids’ menus, tells him to shush.
“It’s important for you to try new things in life,” she snaps.
All too predictably, when Austen’s broiled lobster finally arrives, the mop-haired preschooler takes one bite, gets a pained expression like he’s about to die and refuses to eat another morsel.
It’s a typical occurrence in the everyday life of the Eisenberg family, one of nine eccentric households that agreed to parade their off-the-wall child-rearing techniques in front of the cameras for Bravo’s upcoming docu-series, “Extreme Guide to Parenting,” which premieres Aug. 7.
Other wacky subjects include Jewish earth mother Shira Adler of Westchester; overbearing Los Angeles gay dads Scout and Bill Masterson-Horn, who won’t leave their toddler’s side for a second; and anti-vaccine proponent Christian Axness of Sarasota, Fla.
Whether they’re subscribers to the “attachment,” “helicopter” or “push-parent” trains of thought, all insist that their techniques are the best — and that everyone else has got it wrong.
Trouble is, a lot of the children seem downright miserable. Says New York-based psychologist Dr. Gilda Carle: “When a parent explores alternatives, that’s a good thing — but when it’s carried too far, not so much. These parents are too controlling, and you can’t help wondering: ‘Is this parenting style about them or the kids?’”
Undeterred by the critics, Axness, currently six months pregnant with her second child, advocates extended breast-feeding, placenta pills and so-called “elimination communication,” a controversial (and messy) potty-training technique for babies which dispenses with diapers.
“Parents need to totally change their lives to accommodate the child. We believe in being everything for the child,” Axness, 28, tells The Post.
A similar crunchy outlook is shared by Adler, who confidently defines her approach to parenting as “eco-kosher, shamanistic, organic, natural and for the highest and best good.”
Adler, a four-times-divorced mother of two living in Katonah, shuns modern medicine and treats her special-needs son, Yonah, 10, with aromatherapy “synergy sprays” that tap into his “aura.”
Adler’s live-in boyfriend, Andy, suggests the boy’s ADHD might be better managed by psychiatrists, but Adler prefers to deal with his outbursts of anger — at one point, Yonah screams at his mom: “I f–king hate you!” — with a combination of Reiki, crystal-healing and meditation.
Silver-Eisenberg’s son, Austen, meanwhile, might well be longing for the kind of mollycoddling offered by the so-called “conscious attachment parents” on the show.
His mother’s “tough-love” technique to groom a “future leader” would have most kids dialing Social Services.
Forced to play five different sports, learn chess and perfect his penmanship skills or else skip breakfast, the adorable tot reveals that his favorite activity at summer camp is “smelling the flowers.”
Carle argues that such egocentric parenting styles are destined to fail. “If you are parenting for yourself rather than your kids, your child is going to want to take control eventually on his or her own. Whether it evolves into getting sex, acting out or doing things that are against the law, they’ll eventually declare their independence.”
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