Tag Archives: parenting

Parenting, Therapy with Adolescents

Serious Advice for Parents of Teens

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When Parenting Teenagers — Age Matters

Most parents easily recognize that when it comes to parenting, age matters a great deal.  If you’re not convinced, try giving your teen a nice, cuddly hug, preferably in public.  Not surprisingly, what’s fun and rewarding for one age group, is stupid, incomprehensible, or embarrassing for another.

Teens can be especially challenging for parents. Forgive the blunt language, but the truth is:  Teens often think adults in general, and their parents in particular, don’t know squat.  When I recently shared this well-known fact with a teenager, she gently corrected me by saying, “I think what you mean to say is that adults only know squat.”  I just rolled my eyes and said, “Whatever.”

In contrast to some of my teenage friends, I happen to believe that adults usually do have their squat together.  Therefore, I’ve written a short guide (with attitude) for anyone who has the daunting task of communicating with teenagers.

Principle 1: Always remember, on average, adults are usually smarter and wiser than teenagers.  This fact comes with a certain responsibility.  It means we should strive to really act like we’re smarter and wiser than teenagers.  This means, unfortunately, we have to act mature.  Sometimes we have to go the extra mile when trying to understand today’s youth.  It also means quickly forgiving them when their brains seem to malfunction.

Think about what it means to be more mature – and maybe even wiser – than your teenager.  Think of how to demonstrate your adult maturity in a way that your teen will respect.  Be concrete and specific.  For example, don’t think: “I’ll show my wisdom and maturity by trying to be more patient when he talks on and on about skateboarding.”  Instead, think something like: “I’ll make a point of asking him about his skateboarding at least twice a week. Then, if he’s up for talking, I’ll pay attention to him for at least 5 minutes before I change the subject or get distracted with something else.”

Principle 2: Many teenagers have a special invisible antenna that sticks out from the top of their head. Don’t bother looking for this antenna because it’s invisible.  It’s a “Respect Antenna.”  It functions to instantly ascertain whether a given adult likes or respects a given teen.  Consequently, although teens may act like they’re not paying any attention to you, they’ll still be able to psychically determine whether or not you like and respect them.  And if their invisible antennae signals that you don’t like or respect them, they’ll treat you miserably. Oh yeah. One more thing about this: Like everyone else, the teenager invisible respect antenna regularly malfunctions.

Principle 3: Many teens have dysfunctional eye rolls that appear completely beyond their voluntary control.  For some unknown reason, these eye rolls are triggered when adult authority figures make serious comments.  If you notice teens having this eye roll problem try your best to treat them with the sympathy they deserve.  This means you should smile while looking deeply into their eyes with every ounce of kindness left in your heart. You may think your teen is being disrespectful, but really she or he really needs your sympathy for this problem.

Principle 4: Teenagers are insecure.  Often, they cover their insecurity with a thin veneer of self-confidence and bravado.  This veneer has the effect of making adults assume that young people are confident or overconfident. Such an assumption can cause adults to back off and not offer help, when sometimes, help is exactly what your teen needs.

Principle 5: Young people are very good at tuning out adults while following the sometimes incredibly bad advice of their peers.  The best weapon we have against this sad trend is to sit and listen to young people as they talk about their lives, while, at the same time, resisting the impulse to give them our sage advice.  After listening for a considerable length of time, it can be effective to dress up one of your good ideas as one of their bad ideas and pretend that they came up with it.  If this subtle technique for influencing young people gathers no moss, then you may be forced back into the Dr. Science approach.  The Dr. Science approach essentially involves informing the youth that you know more than they do and therefore they MUST abide by your wishes.  This approach is usually effective only if you have way more money and way more valuable property than the young person.

Principle 6: Scientific research has clearly shown that, down deep, young people really want positive relationships with adults. . . AND that they greatly profit from such relationships.  Try to ignore the fact that adults conceived and conducted this research.  Instead, just go right on doing your best to develop positive relationships with as many teenagers as possible and go right on assuming they want those relationships.

Principle 7: In the end, you’ll find that communicating with teenagers is a lot like baseball.  In professional baseball, if you get a base hit 3 out of 10 times you go to the plate, you have a great chance of getting voted onto the All Star team.  The same is true for communicating with teens.  If you’re a lifetime .300 hitter, your child will probably eventually vote for your induction into the parental Hall of Fame!

If you want additional information about how to communicate more effectively with teens, we recommend parent education classes. You might discover several things: (a) there are other parents out there, besides you, who are struggling and want a better relationship with their teens; (b) many parents (and maybe even the class leaders) will have great ideas about how to improve your teen communication skills; and (c) by meeting with parents and talking opening about our challenges, we’re conspiring to prove that we’re indeed wiser than our teenagers.

[This blog is adapted from an old newspaper article in the Missoulian and from “The Last Best Divorce Workbook” (written by John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan and published by Families First Missoula, 2005)]

Divorce, Parenting

A Bill of Rights for Children of Divorce

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There are lots of different “Bills of Rights” for children and parents of divorce available online. I’m re-posting this one that Rita and I originally published in November, 2000, in Counseling Today, a publication of the American Counseling Association. It’s a slight revision and has been on this blog for a while, but here it is in honor of all the kiddos out there who end up with the challenge of transitioning between two homes. Feel free to share or use as you wish.

A Bill of Rights for Children of Divorce

By John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan

I am a child of divorce.  I hold these truths to be self-evident:

I have the right to be free from parent conflicts and hostilities.  When you badmouth each other in front of me, it tears me apart inside.  Don’t put me in the middle or try to play me against my other parent. And don’t burden me with your relationship problems, they’re yours, not mine.

I have the right to develop a relationship with both my parents.  I love you both.  I know you will sometimes be jealous about that, but you need to deal with it because you are the adult and I am the child.

I have a right to information about things that will affect my life.  If you’re planning on getting a divorce, I have a right to know, as soon as is reasonable.  Likewise, if you’re planning to move, get remarried, or any other major life change, I have a right to know about it.

Just as I have a right to basic information about my life, I also have a right to be protected from inappropriate information.  This means you shouldn’t tell me about sexual exploits or similar misbehavior by my other parent.  You also should not apologize to me – for my other parent – because this implies a derogatory judgment of my other parent.  If you apologize to me, apologize for yourself.

I have a right to my own personal space in each of my homes.  This doesn’t mean I can’t share a room with my brother or sister, but it does mean that I need space and time of my own.  I also need some special personal items in my own space . . . and this just might include a picture of my other parent . . . don’t freak out about it.

I have a right to physical safety and adequate supervision.  I know you may be very upset about your divorce, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect my needs for safety and supervision.  I don’t want to be home alone all the time while you’re out dating someone new.

I have a right to spend time with both parents, without interference.  My right to spend time with each of you shouldn’t be dependent upon how much money one of you has paid the other.  That makes me feel cheap, like something you might buy in a store.

I have a right to financial and emotional support from both my parents, regardless of how much time I spend with either of you.  This doesn’t mean I expect twice as much as other kids get, it just means that you should stop worrying about what I got from my other parent and focus on what you’re providing me.

I have a right to firm limits and boundaries and reasonable expectations.  Just because I’m a child of divorce doesn’t mean I can’t handle chores, homework, or other normal childhood responsibilities.  On the other hand, keep in mind that even though I may have a little sister or brother (or step-sister or step-brother), I’m not the designated babysitter.

I have a right to your patience.  I didn’t choose to go through a divorce; I didn’t choose to have my biological parents live in two different homes, move away, date different people, and in general, turn my world upside down.  Therefore, more than most children, my life has been beyond my control.  This means I will need your help and support to work through my control issues. You also need to give me time to get comfortable with your new romantic interests. You’re my parent and you should handle my discipline and not hand it over to some new person who I don’t even trust yet.

Finally, I have a right to be a child.  I shouldn’t have to be your spy, your special confidant, or your mother.  Just because you hate to talk to each other, I shouldn’t have to be your personal message courier.  I exist because you created me.  Therefore, I have a right to be more than a child of divorce.  I have a right to be a child whose parents love me more than they’ve come to hate each other.

 

For more information on the Children’s perspective on separation and divorce, check out our book, Don’t Divorce Us!: Kids’ advice to divorcing parents. It sells from $0.81 on Amazon and is available in Turkish:)

 

 

 

Divorce, Parenting

A Short Divorce Education Story

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It’s a sunny Saturday morning. I was hoping for rain; six hour Saturday classes on divorce and shared parenting are much easier when it’s raining.

Parents begin to arrive. I offer food, but no one eats.  A few people slip into the kitchen and fill their cups with coffee or tea.

Soon, I’m sitting, knee to knee in a circle with ten other men and women.  No one really wants to be here, including me. About half the parents have been mandated by the Court to take this class on divorce and shared parenting. The other half felt compelled to come to deal with a difficult divorce situation.

On the far end of the circle, a big burly man in his mid-thirties stares into space.  He looks angry. We mutually avoid eye contact. Class is about to start and so I’m compulsively making small talk. My chatter includes the local men and women sports teams, the short and long-term weather forecast, and other conflict avoidant topics.  I make a point to NOT bring up religion, politics, or recent changes in child custody law.

We begin with ground rules and introductions. Everyone agrees to confidentiality, to mutual respect, cooperative participation, and to be open to new ideas. As introductions proceed around the circle we eventually come around to the burly man. I notice dread building up in me for what I suspect will be an outpouring of anger and resentment. Instead, when he begins speaking his face contorts. Then he puts his head in his hands and quietly starts to cry.

The room is still. He finally manages to talk. His speech is slow and his words like water. We’re submerged in the ache he feels from missing his son and daughter. Three other parents are wiping their eyes. Only fifteen minutes have passed and these parents are already deeply into their emotional pain. There are no more involuntary participants in this class now; everyone in the room is just a parent—a sad, frustrated, and angry parent missing their children and hating part-time parenting.

In the end, the class that wouldn’t eat, orders pizza together. The participants have bonded; they’ve discovered a common passion. They all love their children and want to be better parents.

Amazingly, the 10 parents agree to put their own pain and misery aside when communicating with their children’s other parent. They commit to keeping their children out of parent-to-parent conflicts. They express their willingness to try to accept and listen to their children’s anger, instead of stamping on it like a smoldering fire. They all realize that nothing will magically make their lives easier. But they resolve on a sunny Saturday afternoon to work as hard as they can to leave behind their dysfunctional anger and frustration. They resolve to become not only more loving parents, but also more skillful parents, parents who are ready to put their children’s best interests first and to treat their children’s other parent with the respect they wish for themselves.

Parenting

A Few Favorite Parenting Quotations

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I like these comments about parenting. They’re a little longish, but capture some challenges and insights about parenting (John S-F, 2011).

If I wouldn’t want to be slapped across the face, why would I slap my son? If I wouldn’t want to be screamed at when I made a mistake, why would I scream at my daughter when she dropped the cake I had decorated for my mother-in-law? If I wouldn’t want to be ridiculed when I attempted to learn to roller-blade at age 43, why would I ridicule my daughter as she jerked the car out of first gear into second after being shown ten times how to do it smoothly. If I wouldn’t want my gardening skills to be compared with my neighbor’s, why would I compare my son’s math performance with his older sisters’? (Coloroso, 1995, p. 14).

It is usually assumed in our society that people have to be trained for difficult roles; most business firms would not consider turning a sales clerk loose on the customers without some formal training; the armed forces would scarcely send a raw recruit into combat without extensive training; most states now require a course in driver’s education before high school students can acquire a driver’s license. Even dog owners go to school to learn how to treat their pets properly. This is not true of American parents. (E. E. LeMasters, 1977, p. 18)

. . . we have inherited a tradition of discounting children’s feelings simply because children are smaller, less rational, less experienced, and less powerful than the adults around them. Taking children’s emotions seriously requires empathy, keen listening skills, and a willingness to see things from their perspective (Gottman & DeClaire, 1997, p. 31)

. . . it’s not easy to ignore your parental agenda in the face of misbehavior—especially when you can feel the sermon on the tip of your tongue. But moralizing about a misdeed without addressing the feelings behind it is usually ineffective. It’s like putting a cold compress on your child’s fevered brow without treating the infection that’s causing the fever in the first place (Gottman & DeClaire, 1997, p. 115)

We must realize the futility of trying to impose our will upon our children. No amount of punishment will bring about lasting submission. Today’s children are willing to take any amount of punishment in order to assert their “rights.” Confused and bewildered parents mistakenly hope that punishment will eventually bring results, without realizing that they are actually getting nowhere with their methods. . . . The use of punishment only helps the child to develop greater power of resistance and defiance (Dreikurs & Soltz, 1964; pp. 69-70)

I secretly believed that sibling rivalry was something that happened to other people’s children

Somewhere in my brain lay the smug thought that I could outsmart the green monster by never doing any of the obvious things that all the other parents did to make their kids jealous of each other. I’d never compare, never take sides, never play favorites. If both boys knew they were loved equally, there might be a little squabble now and then, but what would they really have to fight about?

Whatever it was they found it. (Faber & Mazlish, 2004, p. 1)

To most people, the premise that the first mental structures created by experience are preserved indefinitely, like a scratch on a table, seems reasonable. But, in fact many early ideas and habits either vanish or undergo such serious transformation that they cannot be retrieved in later life, any more than the first strokes of a seascape can be discerned from the larger scene, once a painting is complete (Kagan, 1998,  p. 3).

. . . never lose sight of the homely – and scientifically supported – truth that a good, warm, mutually respectful relationship with your child makes all the difference (Kazdin, 2008, p. 146)

When Mrs. McCormick held Tim in her lap at the playground, she sat alone on a bench across from the other mothers as if she were ashamed of Tim’s clinging. She knew that if she sat by other mothers, they would all give her advice: “Just put him down and let him cry—he’ll get over it.” “MY little girl was just like that before she finally got used to other kids.” “Get him a play date. He can learn about other children that way.” (Brazelton & Sparrow, 2001, p 8).

Even before I had children, I knew that being a parent was going to be challenging as well as rewarding. But I didn’t really know.

I didn’t know how exhausted it was possible to become, or how clueless it was possible to feel, or how, each time I reached the end of my rope, I would somehow have to find more rope.

I didn’t understand that sometimes when your kids scream so loudly that the neighbors are ready to call the Department of Child Services, it’s because you’ve served the wrong shape of pasta for dinner.

I didn’t realize that those deep-breathing exercises mothers are taught in natural-childbirth class don’t really start to pay off until long after the child is out. (Kohn, 2005, p. 1).

No one is more susceptible to an expert’s fear mongering than a parent. Fear is in fact a major component of the act of parenting. A parent, after all, is the steward of another creature’s life, a creature who in the beginning is more helpless than the newborn of nearly any other species. This leads a lot of parents to spend a lot of their parenting energy simply being scared (Levitt & Dubner, 2005, p. 149)

Before my children were born, I was convinced that I would be patient, kind, and nurturing—the quintessential earth mother. But I failed to live up to the ideal mother image that I had pictured for myself. I was daunted by the enormous gulf between the perfect parent that I wanted to be and the flawed parent that I actually was. Since then, I have learned that such feelings are quite common. Scratch any parent, and you’ll find guilt. It’s lurking just beneath the surface, ready to spring out when we lose patience with our children, fail to make them happy, feel resentful of their demands, or believe that when they misbehave its’ all our fault. (Samalin, 2003, p. 265).

A well-educated, cultured man and his wife beat their own child with a birch rod, a girl of seven. I have an account of it. The father was glad that the birch was covered with twigs. ‘It stings more,’ said he, and so he began stinging his daughter. . . . They beat for a minute, for five minutes, for ten minutes, more often and more savagely. The child screams. At last the child cannot scream, it gasps, ‘Daddy! daddy!’ (Dostoyevksy, Fyodor; The Brothers Karamozov, 1881/1957,  p. 234)

“Have Phillip come down after school and I’ll give him a bottle of Show-off Powder. For the next few days sprinkle a little on him before meals, especially when you are having company, and just before he leaves for school in the morning. I’m sure you won’t have any more trouble.”

“But what is this show-off powder? Will it hurt Phillip? Asked Mrs. Carmody fearfully.

“Show-off powder is guaranteed to be harmless,” said Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. “But it will stop showing off. You see it makes the showing-off invisible>”

“Invisible!” wailed Phillip’s mother. “You mean I won’t be able to see my own little boy?”

“Not when he’s showing off,” said Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle matter-of-factly. “Nobody will be able to see him. But when he stops showing off and is normal he’ll come back into focus.” (MacDonald, 1957, p. 16).

Parenting

Having the Sex Talk with your Kids

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This is an old newspaper column from about 11 years ago when I was writing about parenting for the Missoulian.

                                                  Everything You Already Knew About Sex

(But were afraid to talk about)

                                                             By John Sommers-Flanagan

I’ll never forget the night my older sisters saved my life. I was 12 years old. My sisters were babysitting me while my parents went out. They said, “Sit down, we’ve got something serious to talk about.”

I was a compliant little brother and because my sisters enjoyed dressing me up like a girl as I sat down, I was silently hoping that I wouldn’t have to do the girls clothing thing again. To my surprise, their serious topic had nothing to do with girls’ clothing and everything to do with what’s underneath girls’ clothing.

They pulled out a gigantic book. In our family, it was called the DOCTOR book and we only got it out when someone was sick. I started to worry . . . mostly because I wasn’t feeling sick.

They opened the book and showed me anatomically correct pictures of naked men and women. Then I started feeling sick. While looking at various body parts they explained the relationship between male and female sexual organs. I remember thinking “There’s no way this is true.” My sisters, one 16 and the other 14 suddenly looked like the wisest people in the world and I eventually realized they had more knowledge in their little toes than I had in my entire brain. They explained: “Mom says it’s Dad’s job to tell you about this sex stuff. But Dad’s too shy to talk about it. So tonight, we’re telling you everything.” And they did.

At some point in their explanation that night, I understood several school jokes that everyone had been laughing about the week before. But more than anything else, I remember them saying: “Sexual intercourse is very special. You only have sex with someone you really love!”

Sex education in America is like a crapshoot. I got lucky. I learned a big lesson about sexuality from two people who deeply cared about me and whom I respected. Not everyone gets so lucky.

If you’ve got children, you should directly discuss sex and sexuality with them on an ongoing basis. If you don’t, you can bet they’ll learn about sex anyway, indirectly and from other people. Given this choice, most parents decide, despite their discomfort, to talk about sex with their children.

Direct discussions about sex are easy to avoid. So, before you drop this essay and rush off to talk to your children about sex, take a moment to mentally reflect on your answers to the following questions.

1.         What did you learn about sex from your parents and family?

2.         What did you learn about sex through school sex education?

3.         What did you learn about sex from friends and peers?

4.         What did you learn about sex from television, magazines, and the movies?

Now. . . if any of you are still with me, you’re probably realizing you didn’t learn the same sex lessons from your parents as you did from your friends or from television. Many people learned (from parents) not to talk about sex. In contrast, many people are learning today (from television) that they should constantly think and talk about sex. Hardly anyone learns consistent and reasonable lessons about sex. Most people learn about sex in extremes. . . either you avoid it or you’re bombarded with it.

Sex is exciting and confusing. One way that many soap operas and sitcoms keep us tuned in is by keeping us wondering who will be sleeping together. When, on “That 70s Show,” Kelso tries to grab Donna’s breasts even though her boyfriend is one of Kelso’s best friends, young viewers undoubtedly feel twinges of both excitement and confusion. Sex makes for great comedy. Unfortunately, great comedy is usually poor sex education.

Teaching children about sex should begin early. There are many natural opportunities for discussing sex with your children – including television, magazines you see at the grocery store, and occasionally, our local and national politicians. Other opportunities occur around ages four or five, when young children begin talking, sometimes excessively and inappropriately, about poop, pee, penises, and vaginas. Although addressing such topics with your children can be uncomfortable, you should begin this process while your child still respects you. About 10 years later, when your child returns to thinking about these topics with rapt interest, he or she may be less inclined to listen to a wrinkly old adult.

Of course if you’d rather not deal with the issue, you can always use the approach my parents used. Give me a call. I’ll put you in touch with my sisters.

Parenting

A Parenting Homework Assignment on Natural and Logical Consequences

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In anticipation of the benefit workshop on “Working Effectively with Parents” coming up this Friday, below you’ll find a sample Parent Homework Assignment adapted from the book: “How to Listen so Parents will Talk and Talk so Parents will Listen” (John Wiley & Sons, 2011) by John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan. If you want to attend the workshop, call Families First at 406-721-7690 to register.

The Beauty and Power of Natural and Logical Consequences

            Life is not easy and children (and adults) learn through struggles, failures, and disappointments. Your goal, as a parent, is to create a reasonable, consistent, and loving home and then let your child struggle with the demands of life. These demands include very basic things like:

  • Not getting to watch television after a certain time
  • Participating in housecleaning
  • Not getting attention 100% of the day
  • Having to get ready and get to school on time
  • Having to wait your turn to get served dessert or to play with an especially-fun toy
  • Not getting to eat your favorite food for every meal
  • Having to tie your own shoes

As you might gather from the preceding list, even little things in life can be hard for a growing child. . . but to learn, children need to directly experience frustration and disappointment.

Natural or logical consequences are a necessary part of learning. They help your child get better at surviving disappointments in the world and in your family home. Natural and logical consequences are always related in some way to the misbehavior and are not given out with anger or as “punishment.”

Here are some examples:

  1. Your children leave toys in a public area of the house, even though they’ve been told to put toys away when done playing. Logical consequence: Use a “Saturday box” or put the toys in time-out. This involves picking up the toys and putting them in a box and storing them away until the next Saturday (or whatever day) when they’re given back. This logical consequence avoids the over-reaction (“If you don’t put your toys away, then I’ll give them away to someone else”) and the attention-giving lecture (“Let me tell you about when I was a child and what would happen if I left my toys out . . .”) and instead provides children with a clear, consistent, and reasonable consequence.
  2. Your children argue with you about a consequence or about you being unfair. Logical consequence: You let your children know, “I don’t feel like arguing about this” and leave the area. You may want to go to the bathroom to take time away to further develop your planned response. While remaining friendly, another important message to give is, “I know you’d like things your way, but we have rules and consequences for everyone in our family.” Of course this may trigger another argument and you can walk away again and tell your children, “I know you can figure this out and not have this consequence next time.”
  3. You cook dinner, but your children don’t show up on time. Reasonable rules and logical consequences: If you cook dinner, everyone needs to show up on time and be respectful about the dinner-eating process. That doesn’t mean everyone has to eat every bite or provide you with lavish praise for your most excellent meal, but respectful attendance is a reasonable expectation. If your child is late for dinner, one reminder is enough. No drama or excess attention is needed. Just sit down and start eating and enjoying the mealtime process. Possible logical and natural consequences include: (a) your child prepares the next meal; (b) you put away foods after you dish yourself up and so the child has to get them out and serve him/herself; (c) you got there early and prepared the food and so your child gets to stay after and clean up; (d) no special rewards (e.g., eating dinner in front of the television); instead, your child eats alone at the table.

To do logical and natural consequences, it’s helpful to work on the following:

  1. Take the “punishing” quality out of your voice and the interactions. This is not about punishment; it’s about what’s logical, reasonable, and natural. You can even be friendly and positive.
  2. Prepare in advance. Because you’ll be emotional when your children are noncompliant, it’s critical that you have a list of logical and reasonable and natural consequence ideas in your head. Otherwise, you will over-react. Going to parenting classes or talking with other parents can help you identify a wider range of reasonable consequences.
  3. Use small consequences. Your purpose is to teach your child. Your purpose is not to hurt or humiliate. Learning occurs best if children are not emotionally overwhelmed by large consequences. Small consequences provide plenty of feedback.
  4. Use mirroring and encouragement. Reflect back to your children what they’re feeling (“It’s very upsetting that you can’t play with your toys for the rest of the week”). Let your child know that you think things will go better the next time around (“I know, if you want to, you’ll be able to remember to put your toys away next time”).
  5. Don’t lecture or shame. Let the small consequence do its work.
Parenting

The MEA Conference in Missoula

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Today Rita and I got to provide a 3 hour workshop on Working Effectively with Parents to Montana school counselors and educators. It was great to see former students and to experience the dedication and talents of Montana school personnel. Our main message: Welcome even the most challenging parent comments, thank parents for their openness, reflect their core values back to them, and then once a collaborative relationship is established, use a radical acceptance frame to help them become the best parents they can become.