Category Archives: Writing

Personal Reflections, Politics, Writing

The Power of Words

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Long before Freud said “words were originally magic,” nearly everyone already knew that words, language, and gestures were emotionally powerful. Perhaps this is why someone eventually made up the famous (and not evidence-based) “Sticks and stones . . .” saying. Using words to deny or disempower other words is an age-old social and emotional strategy. But generally, if you have to use words to disempower other words, you’ve probably already felt the pain.

In Montana, some politicians are especially sensitive to words. We’ve seen efforts to eliminate particular words from the lexicon. Instead of—or in addition to—banning books, banning words is in vogue.  I’d give you a list, but I’d rather not waste my words on the efforts of others to limit my words.

Although efforts at prohibition have nearly always ended badly (no citations needed here), people who crave power still act on the idea that prohibiting others from using certain words or reading certain books or attending certain parties will achieve their ends.  

Words are also powerful in shaping identity. Identity labels are motivating, popular, and often limiting. When I worked as a mental health consultant at a Job Corps, most of the students had absorbed labels like bipolar, learning disabled, clinically depressed, suicidal, and attention-deficit for the better part of a decade. When I told them that we believed they were much more than any label, they would either look at me with confusion or elation. IMHO, when we free young people from limiting labels, we increase their chances of thriving. But letting go of negative labels can be difficult.

Another common label involves victimhood. Some people label others as victims—even though the so-called victims view being labelled as a victim as insulting and limiting. Ironically, other people like to play the victim, taking on the label for particular purposes. What seems especially puzzling about this is that some people who play the victim have plenty of justification for feeling like a victim, while others embrace victimhood, despite appearing more privileged than anything else.

The obvious and immediate example of a wealthy, white man playing victim is the former president, Donald Trump. He seems to see himself as a victim, and regularly complains about it. This is in contrast to many young adults with whom I’ve worked in counseling; they eschewed the victim label. In one way or another, they would tell me to stop feeling sorry for them. These young adults came from poverty, were members of underrepresented and generally oppressed groups, and had experienced suffering that Mr. Trump has likely never imagined.

The Trump phenomenon—we might call it “representational victimhood”—is the traditional enigma wrapped in a mystery. He brags about his accomplishments. He asserts that only he can save the country from its imminent demise. His fans idolize him as a sort of superhero. All the while, he whines and complains—and then hops into a golf cart to ride around golf courses—that he happens to own. That’s a pretty rough scene; it’s easy to see why he claims great oppression and victimhood (n.b., the preceding is complete sarcasm).

Trump’s song and dance was old and worn years ago. Rather than being cryptic, in this moment I hope you can feel my effort to use words to call Mr. Trump’s schtick boring and onerous. That he continues to be over-covered in the media is banal tedium (more words). This week on NPR they noted he was engaging in a media stunt—and then proceeded to thoroughly cover his media stunt, in depth, and repeatedly, all week (and it’s only Wednesday!). Jon Stewart described the Trump and media relationship back in 2015. Trump is like a train wreck in a dumpster fire; the media cannot look away.

Trump is unquestionably a sore loser, a liar, and willing to say anything to retain or regain power. He’s also probably a serial philanderer, sexual predator, Russian comrade, and card-carrying racist and sexist. To top it off, he’s become enchantingly boring. . . so much so that I can barely force myself to write 500 words about him. Although I hope he gets arrested, I’ve also stopped caring much. Mostly, I want him to slip quietly into the night. But since he’s completely unable to embrace his quieter self, I keep rooting for the press to start giving him the attention and number of words he deserves . . . which is none, zero, nada, zip, or nil. 

Parenting, Personal Reflections, Writing

Working Effectively with Parents: Powerpoints from the 1st Annual Missoula Education Summit

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I had an awesome day yesterday with many amazing Missoula educators. I always respect and admire educators for their willingness to enter classrooms with large groups of young people. I have many reasons upon which I base the belief–that educators deserve respect and admiration–not the least of which is my lived experience of having occasionally stepped into a classroom with young people. One of my memories is of hearing panic in my own voice, while asking the regular classroom teacher, “You’re not leaving me alone in here, are you?”

Sadly, now is a time in American society when teachers seem not to receive the respect and admiration I think they deserve. For multiple reasons (many of which strike me as misleading and political), it seems like there has been distrust sown between teachers and parents. Yesterday, I spent the day with over 400 teachers, counselors, psychologists, administrators, custodians, and other school personnel who attended sessions I offered. I was honored to be there. Being with them not only strengthened my trust in them, but also renewed my hope in the world.

Here are the powerpoints for my workshop on “Working Effectively with Parents”:

parenting-mcps-summit-jsf-2023Download

And here’s a one-page handout on de-escalation strategies:

de-escalation-handout-revDownload

FYI: My biggest takeaway from the Summit was that teachers and other school personnel who dedicate themselves to educating our future generations are simply amazing.

Pass it on.

Happiness, Love, Multicultural, Personal Reflections, Writing

Love One Another

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Last week I was dancing and singing in India at my nephew’s wedding. This week I’m jet-lagged in Missoula. But the afterglow continues.

Being at a wedding, it was hard not to think of my mother. She loved weddings and always wished for everyone to find love.

My sisters had similar thoughts. We reminisced and projected my mother into the scene of my nephew marrying an Asian Indian woman in a Hindu ceremony. We wished she could pop back into the world and join in.

Mostly, my mother was shy and insecure. She didn’t learn to drive until age 34. I often wished she had more confidence.

But there was one place where my mom found her voice, early and often. For mysterious and obvious reasons, she became anti-racist in the 1950s, before anti-racism was a thing. She delighted in visits from my father’s Japanese friend, Carl Tanaka. When a Black family moved onto our all-White dead-end suburban street, she was the first to greet them with welcome gifts. She then sat my sisters and I down, and told us with piercing clarity that we would ALWAYS treat every member of that family with nothing but respect and kindness. They quickly became our friends. I have great memories of hanging out with my friend Darrell, who was the closest to me in age and in school.

What I didn’t understand about my mom’s anti-racism—until last week—was that she also had a solution. My sisters told me that my mother’s favorite solution to all that ails the world was inter-racial, inter-cultural, and inter-religion marriage. Of course, I’m not naïve enough to think that any single strategy could solve racism, but last week, during a three-day Hindu marriage ceremony, I returned home transformed and preoccupied with the idea that we can and should love one another.

The internet tells me that love one another has Christian Biblical origins . . . and more. Here’s an excerpt from a site that discusses “love of neighbor” in Hinduism.

Love of the neighbor or the “other soul” is a fundamental requirement for a functioning Hindu who aspires for final liberation from this world. Any injury or insult inflicted upon the other soul is ultimately injury inflicted on oneself—or worse still, the higher being. Neighborly love is integral for one’s social existence in this world. The Anusana Parva (113:8) in Mahabharata encapsulates this wisdom and dictates that one should be unselfish and not behave toward others in a way that is disagreeable to oneself. [From: http://what-when-how.com/love-in-world-religions/love-of-neighbor-in-hinduism/]

The facts were that Stephen Klein married Sahana Kumar last week, in a beautiful coastal setting just south of Chennai, India.

In a marvelous stroke of luck, I happen to be Gayle Klein’s brother and Stephen’s Uncle John. Along with the dancing singing (which I may have overdone), I was completely taken by the intercultural love and acceptance. The Kumar family welcomed Stephen and all of us to be with them not only in the celebration, but in relationship. At the Sangeet, we were invited to dance a Bollywood and a Hollywood dance. We were terrible AND we were completely accepted. To be immersed in another culture, to learn about Hinduism, to experience glimpses of the Southern Indian cultural ways of being . . . was AMAZING.

In love and in relationship, we often fall short. It’s hard to love our politically different family members. It’s hard to love when we feel annoyed. Sometimes, as I heard the famous Julie and John Gottman say, it’s even hard to find the time and timing to love our romantic partners. But love is big and, thanks to my sisters and Stephen, Sahana, and the Kumars, I understand love a little better this week. The intent to love people who are different than us; the invitation to be in relationship across cultures and generations; the desire to be as loving as we can be . . . those are the ways of being my mom might be shouting from the heavens.   

Clinical Interviewing, Writing

Istanbul Tomorrow

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In 90-minutes, Rylee and I fly out of Seattle to Istanbul. Upon our arrival, the amazing Dr. Umit Arslan will pick us up from the airport, and then we’ll have three days of Umit, Turkish coffee, Turkish breakfasts, and tours of Istanbul with him (thank you, Umit!). As part of the trip, I’ll be offering a talk (translated live and in-person by Umit) at Yildiz Technical University (motto: “The ever-shining star”) in Istanbul. For those of you interested in such things, here are the ppts for the presentation, titled, Skills and Strategies for Conducting Excellent Clinical Interviews:

excellent-clinical-interviews-istanbul-no-vidsDownload

Peace, love, and virtual hugs,

John S-F

Clinical Interviewing, Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Writing

Neurogenesis and Ideas for Training Your Brain to Listen with Empathy

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To start, I should say that I generally dislike pop-psych articles and promotional efforts that include cute sayings like, you can “Train (or re-wire) your Brain.” Most of you know this about me, partly because I like to make pithy comments about how, in fact, our brains actually don’t have any wires.

Despite overuse of the “wiring” analogy, I’m all-in on the principle that our behavior influences our brain structure, function, including a vast array of neurochemicals, hormones, and yada, yada, yada. In the following excerpt from our forthcoming Clinical Interviewing text, we provide a brief scientific commentary and recommendations for what we might oversimplify as “empathy training.”

*****

Neurogenesis refers to the birth of neurons and is one of the biggest revelations in brain research. Although neurogenesis primarily occurs during prenatal brain development, humans and other mammals generate new neurons (brain cells) throughout the life span (Jenkins et al., 1990). When adult neurogenesis occurs, new neurons are integrated into existing neurocircuitry.

Over 30 years ago, researchers demonstrated that repeated tactile experiences produced functional reorganization in the primary somatosensory cortex of adult owl monkeys (Jenkins et al., 1990). This finding and subsequent research supporting neurogenesis underscore a commonsense principle: Whatever behavior you practice or repeat is likely to stimulate neural growth and strengthen skills in that area. This is our explanation and prescription for how you can become more like Carl Rogers.

Multiple brain regions are activated during an empathic experience. Kim and colleagues (2020) summarized the complexity of what’s happening in the brain during empathic or compassionate responding, “Our analysis of sixteen fMRI studies revealed activation across seven broad regions, with the largest peaks localized to the Periaqueductal Grey, Anterior Insula, Anterior Cingulate, and Inferior Frontal Gyrus” (p. 112). In a similar review, Sezer and colleagues (2022) wrote:

Mindfulness-mediated functional connectivity changes include (1) increased connectivity between posterior cingulate cortex (DMN) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (FPN), which may relate to attention control; (2) decreased connectivity between cuneus and SN, which may relate to self-awareness; (3) increased connectivity between rostral anterior cingulate cortex region and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMN) and decreased connectivity between rostral anterior cingulate cortex region and amygdala region, both of which may relate to emotion regulation; and lastly, (4) increased connectivity between dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (SN) and anterior insula (SN) which may relate to pain relief. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104583)

If we focus in (somewhat inappropriately) on a particular brain structure, the anterior insula or insular cortex, a small structure residing deep within the fissure that separates the temporal lobe from the frontal and parietal lobes, seems particularly linked to empathy experiences, self-regulation, and other compassionate counseling-type responses (Chen et al., 2022).

Compassion meditation (aka lovingkindness meditation) is also associated with neural activity and structural development (or thickening) of the insula. Individuals who engage in regular compassion meditation have thicker insula, and when they view or hear someone in distress, they show more insula-related neural activity than individuals without compassion meditation experience (Hölzel et al., 2011). Other researchers have conducted meta-analyses and written reviews indicating that several brain structures are activated during cognitive-emotional perception, regulation, and response, and the relationships among them are highly complex (Kim et al., 2020; Pernet et al., 2021).

To oversimplify a complex neurological process, it appears generally safe to conclude that compassion meditation and other human activities related to empathy may contribute in some way to the thickening of the insula and development of other brain processes that enhance empathic responsiveness.

Although our knowledge about what’s actually happening in the brain is limited, these findings imply that you should engage in rigorous training to strengthen and grow your insula—as well as some of its empathic and self-regulating buddies like the posterior cingulate cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex region, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Sezer et al., 2022). This “training regimen” might contribute to you becoming more empathic and therefore, more therapeutic. In addition to practicing mindfulness or lovingkindness meditation, such a regimen could include:

  1. Committing to the intention of becoming a person who listens to others in ways that are accepting, empathic, and respectful.
  2. Developing an empathic listening practice. This would involve regular interpersonal experiences where you devote time to using active listening skills described in this chapter. As you practice, it’s important to have listening with compassion as your primary goal.
  3. Engaging in the active listening, multicultural, and empathy development activities sprinkled throughout this text, offered in your classes, and obtained from additional outside readings.
  4. When watching videos/television/movies, reading literature, and obtaining information via technology, lingering on and experiencing emotions that these normal daily activities trigger.
  5. Reflecting on these experiences and then… repeating… repeating… and repeating them over time and across situations

Rogers wrote in personal ways about his core conditions for counseling and psychotherapy. Contemplating his perspective is part of our prescription for developing an empathic orientation toward the variety of individuals with whom you will work.

“I come now to a central learning which has had a great deal of significance for me. I can state this learning as follows: I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand another person. The way in which I have worded this statement may seem strange to you. Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think that it is. Our first reaction to most of the statements which we hear from other people is an immediate evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling or attitude or belief, our tendency is, almost immediately, to feel “That’s right”; or “That’s stupid”; “That’s abnormal”; “That’s unreasonable”; “That’s incorrect”; “That’s not nice.” Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of [the] statement is to him [or her or them]. I believe this is because understanding is risky. If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding.” (Rogers, 1961, p. 18; italics in original)

As always, send me your thoughts on this content, as well as any ideas for improvement. Thanks and happy Friday!

Clinical Interviewing, Personal Reflections, Research, Writing

The Delight of Scientific Discovery

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Art historians point to images like John Henry Fuseli’s 1754 painting “The Nightmare” as early depictions of sleep paralysis.

Consensus among my family and friends is that I’m weird. I’m good with that. Being weird may explain why, on the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, I was delighted to be searching PsycINFO for citations to fit into the revised Mental Status Examination chapter of our Clinical Interviewing textbook.

One thing: I found a fantastic article on Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). If you’ve never heard of FAS, you’re certainly not alone. Here’s the excerpt from our chapter:   

Many other distinctive deviations from normal speech are possible, including a rare condition referred to as “foreign accent syndrome.” Individuals with this syndrome speak with a nonnative accent. Both neurological and psychogenic factors have been implicated in the development of foreign accent syndrome (Romö et al., 2021).

Romö’s article, cited above, described research indicating that some forms of FAS have clear neurological or brain-based etiologies, while others appear psychological in origin. Turns out they may be able to discriminate between the two based on “Schwa insertion and /r/ production.” How cool is that? To answer my own question: Very cool!.

Not to be outdone, a research team from Oxford (Isham et al., 2021) reported on qualitative interviews with 15 patients who had grandiose delusions. They wrote: “All patients described the grandiose belief as highly meaningful: it provided a sense of purpose, belonging, or self-identity, or it made sense of unusual or difficult events.” Ever since I worked about 1.5 years in a psychiatric hospital back in 1980-81, I’ve had affection for people with psychotic disorders, and felt their grandiose delusions held meaning. Wow.  

One last delight, and then I’ll get back to my obsessive PsycINFO search-aholism.

Having experienced sleep paralysis when I was a frosh/soph attending Mount Hood Community College in 1975-1976, I’ve always been super-delighted to discover old and new information about multi-sensory (and bizarre) experiences linked to sleep paralysis episodes. Today I found two articles stunningly relevant to my 1970s SP experiences. One looked at over 300 people and their sleep paralysis/out-of-body experiences. They found that having out-of-body experiences during sleep paralysis reduced the usual distress linked to sleep paralysis. The other study surveyed 185 people with sleep paralysis and found that most of them, as I did in the 1970s, experienced hallucinations of people in the room and many believed the “others” in the room to be supernatural. I find these results oddly confirming of my long-passed sleep insomnia experiences.

All this delight at scientific discovery leads me to conclude that (a) knowledge exists, (b) we should seek out that knowledge, and (c) gaining knowledge can help us better understand our own experiences, as well as the experiences of others.

And another conclusion: We should all offer a BIG THANKS to all the scientists out there grinding out research and contributing to society . . . one study at a time.

For more: Here’ a link to a cool NPR story on sleep paralysis: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/21/781724874/seeing-monsters-it-could-be-the-nightmare-of-sleep-paralysis

References

Isham, L., Griffith, L., Boylan, A., Hicks, A., Wilson, N., Byrne, R., . . . Freeman, D. (2021). Understanding, treating, and renaming grandiose delusions: A qualitative study. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 94(1), 119-140. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12260

Herrero, N. L., Gallo, F. T., Gasca‐Rolín, M., Gleiser, P. M., & Forcato, C. (2022). Spontaneous and induced out‐of‐body experiences during sleep paralysis: Emotions, “aura” recognition, and clinical implications. Journal of Sleep Research, 9. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13703

Romö, N., Miller, N., & Cardoso, A. (2021). Segmental diagnostics of neurogenic and functional foreign accent syndrome. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 58, 15. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100983

Sharpless, B. A., & Kliková, M. (2019). Clinical features of isolated sleep paralysis. Sleep Medicine, 58, 102-106. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2019.03.007

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Politics, Writing

To Tweet or Not to Tweet: The Question of Quitting Twitter

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Photo, courtesy of @rksf2/twitter

Last week, I tweeted that I was quitting Twitter, “For obvious reasons.” In response, several of my Twitter friends (you know who you are AND I appreciate YOU) noted that staying on Twitter and having a positive voice might be a better option than retreating to a location under Zuckerman’s umbrella. Hmm. Point taken. And so instead of completely quitting Twitter, this past week I put myself in Twitter time-out.

Over the past couple years, I’ve come to mostly like Twitter. There’s lots of aversive stuff, but following selected news outlets, researchers, a few Twitter-friends, and various renowned individuals helps with cutting edge news and perspective; it also contributes to me feeling “in the loop.”

Problems with Twitter, however, are legion. There’s an odd plethora of so-called mindfulness practitioners engaging in self-promotion. That’s ironic, but my understanding (and experience) is that Twitter is very much about self-promotion. That’s probably why the former guy (TFG) used it so prolifically. But only so many voices can fit into a Twitter feed, which leads to INTERMITTENT YELLING IN HOPE THAT SOMEONE WILL HEAR YOUR TWITTER-VOICE. Even TFG did lots of ALL CAPS. There may be no better means for getting your perspective “out there.” Whether the perspective is worthy of public viewing, that’s harder to discern.

Part of my current conundrum stems from the fact that I have a small sense of a small “Twitter community.” I enjoy liking and being liked by them. I can find cutting edge suicide-related research straight from several academics. But, along with the benefits, two days prior to the Musk takeover, my Twitter feed became suspiciously littered with so-called republican politicians. I saw despicable Unamerican, divisive posts from Marsha Blackburn, Marco Rubio, Kevin McCarthy, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and others whose names I’m conveniently suppressing. It was a line-up of political partisan trash the likes of which couldn’t have been better designed to push my buttons.

Of course, as someone close to me accurately observed (I’m paraphrasing now), perhaps rather than living in my own partisan echo-chamber, I should be more open to hearing messages from the “other side.” Not surprisingly, my buttons were pushed, yet again.

Maybe it’s already obvious to everyone else, but MY biggest problem with Twitter (and mainstream media and other social media and political debates and any opinion other than my own) is more about me than anything else. My inability to self-regulate and manage my own emotional buttons make the best case for exiting Twitter. If I can’t read antivaxxer Twitter posts without feeling the need to slap them upside the head with a rolled-up copy of the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine or bash them in the face with David Quammen’s “Breathless,” then maybe it’s time to stop tweeting. On the other hand, if I can recognize that all Twitter disagreements end the same way—with elevated animosity and mutual disgust—and instead, focus on being the most positive voice I can be, then maybe Musk won’t dysregulate me into quitting something I enjoy.

This past week without Twitter has been fine. I found plenty of alternative ways to agitate myself (haha). But I didn’t feel any Tweet-generated-angst. I also was out of the news loop. My wife had to tell me Lula won the Brazilian election. Woot-woot! If I’d been Twittering, I’d have known right away. I also missed following my daughter’s non-profit, social justice Upper Seven Law firm. Her tweets are awesome and she—along with other people in the habit of consciousness-raising and justice give me hope.

Here’s my new plan. I’m returning to Twitter this week, with adjusted expectations, and will closely monitor myself. Can I be a positive voice? Can I accept the reality that some people (and Bots and Trolls) are purposely spreading misinformation (without feeling agitated and unhappy)? Can I accept that I’m mostly powerlessness and irrelevant in the fight against racist, sexist, ableist, and classist forces seeking to inhibit growth in the lower and middle class, while sowing fear and hate? Can I add my voice (and Tweets) to the social media soup and stay mostly positive, while managing my expectations and NOT FEELING THE URGE TO YELL?

We shall see.  

Boys and Men, Parenting, Personal Reflections, Writing

Eight Secrets About How to Talk with Parents Who Spank Their Children

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IMHO, usually parents spank their children for one (or more) of several reasons.

  • They have come to believe that spanking “works.”
  • They have been told or educated about reasons for spanking, such as the old “spare the rod, spoil the child” message.
  • They experienced spanking themselves and have concluded, “I got spanked and I turned out okay.”
  • They are unaware of other discipline strategies they can use to get positive results, without hitting their children.

Each of these reasons are myths or the results of misinformation. If I wanted to get into a debate with parents who spank their children, I could easily win the argument based on logical and scientific reasoning. But, ironically, in winning the argument, I would lose the debate . . . principally because most parents who spank aren’t open to logical argument about whether or not spanking is a good thing. Instead of winning the debate, I’d be rupturing my relationship with the parents.

Over the years, I’ve learned to avoid rational argument and scientific evidence, and tell parents about these 7 “secrets” instead:

  1. Acknowledge that parents and child development researchers agree on one point: Spanking is usually effective at stopping or suppressing misbehavior in the moment.
  2. If you have spanked your child in the past, you are not a bad person; you’re just a parent who’s trying to make a positive difference.
  3. Most parents who spank their children have mixed feelings about hitting their child before, during, and after the spanking.
  4. I’ve never met a parent who wants to spank their children more; nearly all parents are looking for ways to spank their children less
  5. Even though it’s hard for some parents to believe, from the scientific perspective, spanking is linked to far too many negative outcomes to justify its use. In particular, spanking has adverse effects on mental health, emotional well-being, and child, adolescent and adult behaviors. The science on this is very one-sided in that there’s lots of science indicating spanking has negative long-term effects and very little evidence linking spanking to anything positive in the long run.
  6. If you want to spank less, you’ll need to identify, practice, and implement alternative discipline strategies. . . and that will be hard; it will take time, energy, and patience.
  7. It might help to think about learning to spank less as a sacrifice you make because you love your children. No doubt, learning and practicing alternatives to spanking won’t be the first or last sacrifice you make to be a parent. But, using alternatives to spanking might be the most long-lasting contribution you can make to your child’s future well-being and success.
  8. Medical and scientific organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and nearly every professional group on the planet, advise against using corporal punishment (including no spanking). However—and this is incredibly important—the recommendations are NOT anti-discipline. In fact, mainstream scientific views are consistent with parents as leaders, authority figures who set limits and deliver natural and logical consequences to help children learn what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. Children need their parents to set limits, because children (including teenagers) are not very good at setting healthy limits for themselves.

As my former doctoral students would attest, I’m passionate about teaching parents not to spank their children. I’m also passionate about teaching parents how to use constructive and educational approaches to discipline.

For more on this topic, check out my recent article for The Good Men Project: https://goodmenproject.com/families/how-to-discipline-children-better-without-spanking-kpkn/

Boys and Men, Parenting, Writing

Spanking and Mental Health

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Visual from the Good Men Project. . .

Several years ago, doc students in our Counseling and Supervision program started teasing me for being preoccupied with corporal punishment in general and spanking in particular. Somehow they found my concerns about adverse mental health outcomes linked to spanking as entertaining. They were very funny about it, and so although I was somewhat puzzled, mostly I was entertained by their response, and so it was, as they say . . . all good.

Despite their occasional heckling about spanking and despite my BIG concerns about the adverse outcomes of corporal punishment, I haven’t really done any direct research on the effects of spanking. Maybe one reason I haven’t done any spanking research is because Elizabeth Gershoff of UT-Austin has already done so much amazing work. In an effort to help make her work more mainstream, today I published an article with the Good Men Project titled, “How to Discipline Children Better Without Spanking.” The article begins . . .

“As children across the country headed back to school, some students in Missouri returned to find corporal punishment, with parental approval, reinstated in their district. They joined students in 19 other states where corporal punishment is still legal in schools. At home, most American parents—an estimated 52%—agree or strongly agree that “it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking” Parents hold this opinion despite overwhelming scientific evidence that spanking is linked to mental, emotional, and behavioral problems. In a well-known and highly regarded study of over 1,000 twins, Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Texas at Austin found that spanking was linked to lying, stealing, fighting, vandalism, and other delinquent behaviors. Gershoff’s findings are not new.”

You can check out the full article here: https://goodmenproject.com/families/how-to-discipline-children-better-without-spanking-kpkn/

Also, a big thanks to Kristine Maloney of TVP Communications for her edits and for helping get this piece published.

Happy Tuesday!

John SF

Happiness, Writing

Redundancy, Again

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One of my long-time friends from graduate school in the 1980s had lots of corny, pithy, and funny commentary on life. He was adept at noticing when professors repeated themselves, often snarking that particular professors had graduated from the “Department of Redundancy Department.” I enjoyed his commentary so much that I forgot to snarkily notice the redundancy of his jokes.

Somewhat later, another colleague told me of his educational motto: “Redundancy works!” After years of counseling and doing presentations, he decided that most people aren’t listening very well and so saying things over and over gives teachers and counselors a better chance of being heard and remembered.

Back when we lived in Great Britain for several fortnights, we learned that the Brits used the term redundant to refer to employee layoffs. For example, when employers cut staff, they referred to staff as having become redundant (or unneeded), and consequently, unemployed.

I bring up redundancy today because I’m posting two things here that are almost exactly the same as what I posted earlier this week. Yesterday and today, I had and have the honor of presenting to STEM graduate students from Montana Tech (yesterday) and the University of Montana (today) on how to integrate a few happiness skills into their lives. The handouts (below) are virtually identical to those I provided on Monday (for the Belgrade Teacher presentation) . . . and so you should bear in mind that I’m clearly a graduate of the Department of Redundancy Department because I’ve learned that Redundancy Works! . . . and I’m hoping I’ve not quite become redundant myself.

To summarize (again). . .

The HOPES Powerpoints are here:

happiness-for-hopes-2022Download

The HOPES Handout is here:

hopes-happiness-handout-2022Download

Have a great weekend!

John SF