It’s that time of the year again where most kids are busy daydreaming about getting ready for another Halloween. Dressing up, decorating the house, and making things “spooky” is all in the October weeks prior to the “big day”. However, the spirit of Halloween can be both a fun or scary experience depending upon certain precautions that parents need to take. To begin with, costumes can be both amusing and fun but also quite frightening when considering the age of the child.

(more…)

Background: Procrastination, or putting off the completion of projects, schoolwork, and many other activities, is a common manifestation for children, adolescents, and adults alike.  The outcome can be devastating – poor grades, low self-esteem, and a lack of promotion are just to name a few, Breaking a procrastination habit or pattern is also not an easy task for the underlying causes are frequently hidden and not easily identifiable.  In fact, in certain cases, medication is prescribed with the determination that the cause must be traced to an Attention Deficit Disorder.  Interestingly, even in these cases, only sometimes does the effects of the medication help with the problem indicating that the etiology is often more complex than meets the eye.  Procrastination also seems to change and vary in appearance.  For example, many only procrastinate in certain circumstances and not in others.  For children, procrastination is higher when dealing with something that they either do not like, find difficult, or are related to some circumstance that they do not feel good about.  Procrastination is also at a peak just prior to and after vacations, such as the upcoming Spring Break.

Procrastination, like many other unfortunate occurrences,  such as Panic Attacks, is a symptom of something else going on inside of the person causing extreme conflict and anxiety.  These conflicts are typically unconscious and the person usually is not aware of the root of the issue.  This is especially true in children for they do not have the intellectual capacity to utilize insight to help themselves solve internal struggles.  Often times, when insight becomes available, the symptom disappears and the problem is solved.  In other cases, it may take time and may require professional assistance of it continues to cause extensive problems, like failing grades.

In most cases, the root of procrastination is either anger, fear, or a combination of the two and are not immediately aware to the person.  Instead, they avoid the condition that they dislike or fear, and then their feared condition comes true because they were not able to help themselves through the struggle.  10 year-old Sam was a solid A/B student without any difficulties getting his work done, except in Math, where he always seemed to put off doing his homework and often forgot to even turn in completed assignments leading to a failing grade.  It turned out that Sam had some very strong negative feelings about his math teacher that  he did not let himself know about and instead, his uncomfortable angry feelings came out on himself through his procrastination and forgetting.  Why was Sam so uncomfortable with these feelings and why take them out on himself?

13-year old Kim always falls apart academically just prior to vacations.  It seems that no matter what she does, her grades suffer just before a vacation and she struggles to remain focused on  her work.  The outcome  is her feeling ashamed and tends then to have a damper on her full enjoyment of her vacation.

Such examples have the same underlying cause – strong feelings that are both unaware and uncomfortable to the person.  For both Sam and Kim, they are both uncomfortable with their angry feelings – Sam towards his teacher, and Kim having to wait for her vacation to begin – because both are unaware and uncomfortable, their feelings play out in another way – procrastination.

So, how can a parent help their child both better understand their minds and not compromise themselves for strong “normal” feelings?  The answer is that the parent needs to be both insightful about feelings in their children and help them both understand the normality of them and how to best manage them.  This process then becomes taken into the child and self-applied.

In Sam’s case, telling him that it is “okay” to feel mad (not get mad) at his teacher but not to let his feelings compromise his work, would be helpful to him.  Being empathic to Kim’s feeling of frustration about having to be patient about her upcoming vacation might have been enough to help her stay on top of her work prior to the vacation.  The point here is that feelings need to be recognized, not avoided, and managed in a way to promote success, not limit it.  Most children do not have this “automatic” capacity until late in their adolescent years and therefore need their parents to help them better understand and manage themselves, especially during times of the strong pressing of feelings.

Key Points:

1.    procrastination is a symptom of “uncomfortable” feelings
2.    anger and fear are usually the cause
3.    parents need to help their children validate their internal feelings
4.    feelings, not actions, need to be “normalized”
5.    forward incentives are also helpful to motivate staying focused

Background: Many have stated that a general decline in social responsibility, increases in drug and alcohol usage in teenagers, greater incidences of mental and behavioral disturbances in both children and young adults, as well as an increasing interest in public exposure to inappropriate venues, are all due to a decline in the emphasis of family values taught at a very early age to children and continued throughout adolescence.    Financial needs for dual incomes; divorce rates still at around 45 percent, and a continual trend towards “individualism”, has evoked less parental involvement at home and left many children left to their own resources to understand the world and rely more heavily on their peers and non-parent adults than ever before.  Overcrowding in schools has also decreased the positive effects of teachers on their students as well, which in the past was a very influential source of stability for children and adolescents when away from their parents.  Only some children have religious affiliations and even far less are invested in after-school or extra-curricular programs where rules and values are emphasized.   The needs however for raising healthy children are the same today as they were 20 years ago, despite changes in society and greater exposure to negative influences which have grown tremendously due to television, literary, and internet resources.   The major issue however has been how to adapt to a changing world and keep the importance of family and social values as a top priority?  The answer seems to be to getting back to the basics of raising healthy children with family and social values being at the top of the list.  Here is my list:   1.  Provide a loving and nurturing environment for them in the first 2 years of life. During infancy, there is no such thing as over- spoiling a child.  The more a parent spends time with their infant providing love, food, attention, and protection, the faster and healthier they develop.  Infants are not yet capable of soothing themselves and need the parent to relieve stress for them by holding and soothing them from the outside.  This service relieves distress for the infant and assists them in both psychological and physical development.  In addition, this parental function becomes internalized inside of the child during the toddler years and helps with the establishment of emotional regulation and high self-esteem.   2.  Encourage social relationships. Socialization is essential for young children to develop adequate psychological functioning.  Friendships, play with others, and learning to negotiate social norms, helps children learn how to adapt to the world and develop as an individual as they slowly separate from their parents and work towards managing themselves on their own.  Friendships provide support and a platform for children to learn how to survive with others and provide a support system that often takes the place of the parents.   3.  Don’t be so overprotective that they can’t separate. Encouraging children to sleep in their own beds; using baby-sitters on occasion, dropping them off at school, are examples of helping children learn that they can manage situations without their parents.  Obviously, such situations need to be safe and when a child is left, it needs to be with trusted others or a in a safe environment.   4.  Set limits.  Do not indulge in regressive or strange behavior. Children need limits to help them regulate their emotions and are not fully capable of doing so independently until late adolescence.  Parents also need to stop their children from non-adaptive behavior by setting limits and offering suggestions of managing situations in more appropriate ways.   5.  Allow them to do societally normal things even if you do not like them. In order to assist them in feeling “normal” and to provide them social opportunities, parents need to allow certain activities understandably under supervision.  Such activities include:  a reasonable amount of television; popular and safe toys; popular and age-appropriate movies; and open political and religious education.  Children who do not have such opportunities are often teased, left out of social circles, and often viewed as strange or wierd.   6.  Encourage sports, particularly team ones. Childhood sports help with the appropriate regulation of aggression; the internalization of rules; and help fortify areas of sportsmanship and negotiation.  Team sports help children learn how to work with others and achieve common goals.   7.  Encourage enough comfort with aggression to stand up for themselves. It is optimal for children to be able to stand up for themselves, but we do not want to develop a bully.  Children however, who are comfortable with their aggression, tend to be very expressive and are usually not the ones who become teased and rejected from groups.  In fact, appropriately assertive children tend to be leaders.   8. Do not encourage just being an intellectual.  This can come in college if they truly want it.  Before this time, it may make them seem strange. Balance is the key.  Children who are encouraged to read and learn and are also encouraged to develop other hobbies and sports, become well-rounded and this leads to healthy development and social success.   9.  Role model healthy social relations that fit into the local culture – don’t role model disdain for it or valuing things at odds with social norms. Monkey see, monkey do.  Children look to their parents on “what is normal” and “how to be”.  Parents need to watch themselves and their behavior if they expect their own children to be healthy and appropriate.   10.  Encourage family time even during adolescence. Make time for family trips, excursions, etc.  Family values instill a sense of community and commitment.   Putting these elements together helps children develop well-rounded developmental needs and enhance future happiness and success.

Dr. Keith Kanner
Anchor/Host Your Family Matters
www.kanner.tv

HELP ME!  I’m a parent of a teenager these days and I’m worried sick!  Internet predators; violent and overly sexual video games; music that is as raw as it could be; modern-day television filled with more spice than reason;  “huffing”; sex-texting; and the list continues.  What effects can this all have on kids and teens?

A local boy in my town was killed tragically by his own best friend in a drunk driving accident last year.  They, and two other boys left a local party after a night of partying and getting high. Some say adults were present and condoned the party. As Clinicians, we see that the closer the person is to an experience,  they learn and feel the most from them.  I assumed that this would be the case in this particular situation.    I spoke to dozens of teenagers and parents alike who either knew these boys and their families and all of them were understandably both in shock and bewilderment at fist and then came the rage and the sadness.  All collectively shared in the empathy towards the family and wonder how a family can possibly recover from the loss of a child.  They can’t. Losing a child is considered the worst possible loss any parent could envision. It is nothing less than a part of yourself dying while you are still alive. So, these realities lead parents to worry more than ever about how to best protect their children from the harms of the world.

For years as educators, clinicians, and even in the media, we try to teach and share experiences in order to try to enrich both personal responsibility and hopefully save lives.  The very same movies that my generation watched in driver’s education are the same that are viewed today.  I still remember watching “Red Asphalt” when I was a Junior in high school and the effect it had on me.    But, over the years, we have expanded on trying to bring this “personal” experience home to our adolescents.  One student told me this past week that at her school, they actually placed the crashed car which killed one of her friends last year on the quad in the middle of the school to try to remind the students NOT to drink and drive.  The bad news is that she told me that the parties still continue and many teenagers at her school still get drunk and drive.  The demolished car still remains on the quad.

Nevertheless, such personal connections are what saves lives.  In fact, the closer one is to witnessing a horrible event, the less likely it will happen to them for they feel “closer” to the experience and can better relate to the consequence.  This is perhaps one of the most important , yet painful life lessons. The problem however is how can we get both adults and teenagers alike to better connect to these experiences on a personal level without having to go through a crisis?

Here is where we have to look at the differences between adolescents and adults and also take into consideration individual differences.  It is true that there are some teenagers who are mature-enough to demonstrate good judgment, are clear thinkers, and make good decisions at least most of the time. However, these folks are very mature for their age and usually have parents who have managed to balance being protective-enough with allowing some room for exploration but not in dangerous ways.  But, on the other hand, we need to understand that an adolescent is NOT an adult and should not be placed in situations that they may not be able to handle without the helpful hand of their parents. How many adolescents do you know who are really that mature?  I’m counting about 5 or 6 I can think of and the rest are still in the “normal” phase of developing and trying to figure out who they are and how to deal with typically strong emotions and situations which tend to alter judgment.

The bottom line is that we have to keep trying to find ways to teach our teenagers about the facts of life in hopes of making them “think” before they act, but we have to do more, because we are not doing enough.

Parenting needs to be a full time job, nothing less.  Despite children and adolescents striving towards being their own person, pushing us away, hating our guts when we say “ NO”, they need us to be the strong ones when they can’t.  In other words, we need to be the adults when they are still the kids.  We have to be the ones who look ahead when they do not have the capacity to do so.  We all want our children to be mature and relish in their accomplishments, but we need to remember, they are “not fully cooked” until they have reached adulthood.  If I was teaching Parenting 101, this would be my opening line.

But, even more than having such a personal investment in your child, we need to help each other out.  In other words, as parents of children and teenagers, we need to be on the same team – the “good” parenting team.  Imagine that if as collective parents, we had the best interests at heart for all children and teens, how much safer we would all feel?  Take the example of a group of teenagers all “hanging out” at someone’s house and as parents we all followed the same basic rules:  safety, protection, and an understanding that the teenagers will likely get carried away if they think we are not “on call” if something gets out of hand, whether it be drinking, smoking, or sexuality?  Sure, they will likely get angry at us when we “end the party” if it gets out of hand, but think about it, we may be saving their lives.  Albeit, they will accuse us of “ruining their lives”, but we know better, because we have the thinking capacity that they DO NOT yet grasp.  I always tell parents, adolescents do grow up into adults, usually around the Sophomore year of college and it’s funny how they then thank us for “stopping them” when they were that “daring, invincible, teenager”, and we then feel appreciated and loved, but we have to put off that experience until they can be on the same page as us, which takes some years of development and experience.

Being the “bad guy” is an essential element of parenting. Too many parents are worried that their children won’t like them if they are “protective”. Get over it.  We know better.  We parent out of love, not punishment.  We parent to help, not hurt.  We worry because they are part of us and we don’t ever want to lose them.  This is our job.  We are their parents AND their “best” friends and “friends don’t let their friends drive drunk” We have the capacity to think this way, but they do not as of yet.  So, we need to be the ones who can embrace the concept of loss and keep that in mind always and each day that we love and parent our children.  My heart goes out to the family in my town who lost their child on that awful night in October in the deepest way.  I cannot even imagine the pain and anguish they must be experiencing. But, I will use my empathy for them and their loss each and every day as I parent my and my friend’s children and adolescents.  I encourage you to do the same, please.

Key Points:

1. Personal experiences with crises are the most meaningful for change and attentiveness

2. Become aligned with other parents as co-parenting out of love and protection

3. Your job is to be the “Bad Guy”. Don’t fail at this, you may save a life

4. Don’t project adult-like capabilities onto your adolescent – they are still kids

5. They will thank you later.

Dr. Keith Kanner

Anchor/Host

Your Family Matters

WSRADIO

Fox5 TV- San Diego

www.kanner.tv

Family Garden

Please check back soon!