Now playing at websites near you, the CDC’s latest video: how to put on a respirator mask to protect yourself from any of your young progeny who might have the swine flu. Personally, I’m waiting for the soon-to-be released parody on U-tube–but here’s the preview: Don’t come within six feet of your sick child , but if you must (in case of infancy, get closer), then by all means put on your respirator mask correctly.Picture a child gazing up into her mother’s respirator mask. I think the child would jump the requisite six feet to get away. Yep, the Center for Disease Control has outdone itself in panicking the public. It almost makes me long for the yellow alert days following 9/11–time to get out your duct tape, plastic sheet and seal yourself off.
One mother who responded to the CDC queried, “Have any of these people who wrote this ever had children?” I wondered if any of them had ever been children, or if we had reached the singularity, and the CDC was now run by computers? Fortunately, the American Pediatric Association recognizes that there is a tipping point between good practice and the CDC’s overload, which can prompt people to enter the overwhelmed realm of helplessness, and do nothing. So three cheers for the APA, and here are a few of their tips:
- Wash your hands, often and before you eat.
- Your hands and face aren’t friends–keep them away from each other.
- When you sneeze, sneeze into your shirt sleeve.
- If you get sick stay home.
And remember–many of us grew up in the era before vaccines…when we developed natural immunity…by getting the measles, mumps, and chicken pox. We got served breakfast in bed, slurped milk toast, and got well. Fortunately with this widespread flu, that seems to be the common course now as well.
Yesterday evening as I was coming home, I caught the emerging news of the “horrific act,” and lethal rampage by an army psychiatrist at Fort Hood. This morning I listened to the news, read the news, and seemed unable to escape the talk of violence even in my local pastry shop, where I overheard the counter help chatting about, “And it was the girlfriend who killed the boyfriend.” The words fell with free-association from one horror to the next.
We all want to know why. Luby’s, Columbine, the D.C. sniper, Virginia Tech, Baghdad, Fort Hood. Maybe we’ll even get to find out, since the shooter survived. My first universally felt sympathies went to the families at Fort Hood: the dead, the wounded, and the survivors. But next, surprising myself, I found myself thinking of the parents of Major Hasan. Did the parents have an inkling? News reports say no. Should they have? Did army colleagues see signs? Some say yes.
No one raises a child to be a mass murderer. In my office this week, a thousand light years from lethal rampage, parents worried about the trajectory of their children. “I don’t want my child to be a spoiled brat.” “I don’t want to hit my child, but I get so frustrated when he doesn’t mind.” “I feel sick that my 28 year old hasn’t gotten a career choice down.” “I don’t know how long I should support my child;” “He burned through his inheritance from his grandmother—do you think he’s on drugs?” “My child has an affliction—it’s Asperger’s, but not like in the movies. There’s no happy ending.”
So I felt for the parents of Major Hasan, who will now endure a lifetime of grief, probable recrimination, and self-blame on an order of magnitude unimaginable to most of us. And they will still, like most of us who both disappoint and are disappointed by our children, try to find a way to accept and love their child.
One of my early lessons in the postmodern parent era arrived one Halloween past. At the time I was imperfectly bent on perfecting parenting–I wanted to sew their costumes. The problem was I didn’t have the patience, interest or talent to sew anything more than Count Dracula (a cape), Batman (a cape), Zorro (a cape). You get the idea. Meanwhile, other neighborhood parents were constructing amazing renditions of “the headless horseman,” the Transformer, Harry Potter, Ninjas, Wonder Woman, or G.W.Bush. My children, more focused on their haul of candy, were blessedly gracious about the finished costume. They accepted me for who I was: a very well meaning Mom that hadn’t quite accepted her limitations.
Prior to that, I had spent countless hours researching issues in child development, in addition to my formal training in the subject. Somehow I thought through sheer dent of will, that I could achieve the kid without limits. One that didn’t struggle, didn’t have problems, didn’t spend too much time on video games. Loved reading, shared my decidedly arcane and academic interests, loved the sports that I loved. I was wrong.
My kids navigated by their own lights, not by mine. Neither liked competitive sports, while I had spent my childhood competing. Neither liked the books I liked, nor particularly shared my interests. But they accepted how I was different from them, and I grew up and accepted how they were different from me. Now because of their interests, I know more about Zombie Wars than I would have, have added the sport of rock climbing to the list of amazing experiences, have souvenirs from their foreign travels where I’ve never been (and may never go), and get built-in IT help.
From them I’ve learned to be easier on myself, and I encourage the anxious parents I see for therapy to be easier on themselves as well. After all, kids don’t judge us for what we got wrong, but for how fair we’ve been, and how hard we’ve tried. And for those of you who can’t sew, there are a lot of costumes on the Internet. Happy Halloween.
Here’s the latest high bar in the “Bad Parent” press: No Shouting. It used to be that accomplishing the feat of “No Smacking” was the hallmark of the post-modern parent. But the latest guilt feed is “No Yelling.”
The comments to a recent article on this subject are enlightening. The hundreds of comments range from…”What’s a parent to do if you can’t spank, or yell—What’s left?” To “ My mother never yelled.” To: Being yelled at, even at the advanced age of 25 is worse than any spanking.” To my favorite psychobabble justification for yelling: “Parents who don’t yell are doing more damage because they aren’t modeling their true feelings and are suppressing their child’s ability to express anger.”
Aside from the court of public opinion, there actually are answers from the field of psychology research. Let’s start with something we can all relate to—couples’ arguments. Women tend to have a higher flashpoint, and men, sometimes accused of being passive aggressive, are actually trying to get out of the hot seat because they’re more easily flooded. Then there are mildly abusive partners (more often the guys), who use verbal threats to control their partner’s behavior. It’s not rocket science that if screaming or threats don’t feel good to an adult, they don’t feel good to a kid either. So now on to parenting.
No parent is perfect, nor can perfectly model a calm attitude. But let’s be honest. It helps kids, and it helps the parent-child relationship when parents hold the value of maintaining a calm, neutral response, rather than a heated, reactive one. Families low on negative expressed emotion have kids who are less depressed, anxious, angry or reactive. But how to stop yelling?
- Identify your trigger situations, and build in some slack.
- Give yourself more time in the morning if the morning rush creates more stress.
- Take a time out for yourself.
- When you’re on your last nerve, play tag team (if you can) with another parent or adult in the house.
- Recognize that yelling is habit forming…don’t start.
- Use a substitute phrase…”That was a surprise.” Rather than, “Why did you do that?”
FInally, don’t beat yourself up if you slip. Apologize, then help yourself and your child figure out what can work better for both of you.
Most of us won’t be spending our twilight years in a cell repenting for the sins of defrauding and manipulating a parent’s will, as Anthony Marshall, only child of Brooke Astor, seems likely to do. But this tawdry spectacle does offer lessons for parents and their adult children alike.
First, a parental legacy is not immune from the fall-out of an ill-thought through will simply because there aren’t millions to bequeath. You can successfully splinter the next generation and damage sibling relationships with far less money. Because it’s not all about the money–it’s about how money is used to convey care and love. I’ve seen parents do just about everything: Leave it all to one kid; skip a generation and leave it to the grandchildren, leave no instructions and have the siblings duke it out over who did the most, or was loved the most; and more reasonably, make an equitable distribution. Equitable can mean proportionate to the care or involvement of the child who has assumed the care-giver function. Equitable can mean based on special needs or circumstances. The pie doesn’t have to be divided absolutely evenly to feel fair. Here are some fairness tips for parents and their adult heirs alike:
- Any child who is or is likely to become the designated “care-giver” to an elderly parent, should make clear what they expect. This may feel unseemly, after all we’re supposed to care out of love, or at least obligation. But identifying what you expect beforehand gives everyone a chance to be considered, and avoid post-mortem lifelong resentments.
- If a parent’s will doesn’t reflect that one sibling did more, the sibling group needs to act ethically and fairly, by offering more to that sibling.
- Parents–leave something to everyone. Your will isn’t just about money or need, it’s your last chance to say “I love you.” It’s also your last chance to punish a child. But is that really how you want to be remembered?
- Siblings–If your parent’s will is unfair, it’s still up to the living to make it right. You aren’t absolved from this responsibility, because you’re “honoring” a parents’ final wishes.
Thank you Mrs. Astor, for focusing our minds on the legacy a will leaves. May you now rest in peace.
This week, a new rung on the ladder of absurdity took place when studio head, Harvey Weinstein declared that the true moral compass belonged to him and other Hollywood glitterati, who urged the release of Roman Polanski. Unless you’ve missed the last three decades, you’ll remember that Mr. Polanski first pled and was then found guilty for the drugging and rape of a 13-year old child. Then he skipped town and country, and was finally apprehended in Switzerland last week. Lending credibility to Mr. Weinstein’s moral compass was Woody Allen (whose name was first on the list of Polanski supporters). This seems a dubious honor and of questionable support to Mr. Polanski–can you say, consensual incest with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter? What are these people thinking?
Yet another phrase to add to the lexicon of worst interests of the child standards, “consensual incest,” made headliners this week on OPRAH, in her interview with MacKenzie Phillips. MacKenzie initially seemed to think that incest could truly be consensual. Regardless of whether she had a needle stuck up her arm at the time (on OPRAH to promote her book, High on Arrival), children are truly the first political prisoners, and therefore subject to the “Stockholm syndrome.” We were reminded of this a few weeks ago by the tragic child kidnapping case of Jaycee Lee Dugard. Upon her initial discovery and release, Jaycee reported that she loved her abductor and rapist, also father of her two children. That’s not a poor moral compass, but survival by identification with the aggressor.
A special award goes to those in Hollywood who haven’t lost touch with reality or justice for that matter. Kevin Smith (director of Clerks), columnists Kate Harding, Katha Pollitt and Eugene Robinson, and Terry Teachout, were among others who turned the tide. Neither Mr. Polanski’s own tragic past (pregnant mother who died in a Nazi concentration camp), 1969 Manson’s murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, nor his artistic genius can alter the true moral compass here. What’s fair is fair.
If you’ve been tuned in to even the occasionally indecent glimpse of the slow-moving train wreck of the reality show, Jon & Kate plus 8, you know that:
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- Jon left Kate.
- Kate’s a shrew.
- Jon’s been sleeping around.
- Jon’s contract was terminated September 29th.
- Kate bravely goes on without Jon at $22,000 an episode.
- The kids stand alone.
- The PA Dept of Labor investigates the formerly loving couple on violations of child labor laws, as their media contract did not cover the kids.
- Jon has an epiphany that the show isn’t good for the kids.
- DUH.
I often think (for instance regarding the affair of Bill Clinton, the debacle of George W. Bush), why didn’t they ask a psychologist (okay—me)? I could’ve told them that Bill Clinton was ripe for acting out after his mother died, that “W” was a dry drunk, with unfinished business with his father that would end disastrously, and that Jon & Kate plus 8 was in the Worst Interests of the Child, way before the parents went wacko on nationwide TV.
Did media execs really think people would relate to a couple that had made the questionable judgment of having sextuplets? Okay, we can all relate to feeling overwhelmed with young children, but that’s about where it ends. Does anyone now think that it’s really in the kids’ best interests for the voyeuristic eye of television to be tuned in to parental divorce? My kids (albeit much older) would declare a fatwa on me if I so much as appeared on their Facebook pages, much less paraded them around nationally. In the former days, Jon & Kate, said they were saving the $22k an episode for college. Right. And a gazillion dollar house, cars, notoriety, etc. Very credible, and all at the expense of their children. So what can we, the innocent by-stander do? AVERT YOUR EYES…STOP WATCHING!
This week I did a presentation on the topic of fairness in love and marriage. In the Q/A period, a woman asked, “Can you apply this to your kids?” I answered, “Sure, kids learn fairness from their parents.” In the interim dream space of a night’s sleep, her question became illuminated by my childhood memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis, muddled with the front-page news: Iran’s secret nuclear facility. I guess there’s always something new to fear, but how to help children know when it’s time to panic? Is now a good time? Was the Cuban Missile Crisis a good time? What’s a parent to do?
I remember the early 60’s as a time when bomb shelters were a given, yet fearfully, my parents didn’t have one. Luckily, the school instructed us that we’d be safe hiding under our desks in the event of an A-bomb attack. Now, we were young, but we weren’t stupid. Then there were the A-bomb drills. Upon school dismissal, we’d run home as quickly as we could, rehearsing for the bomb. Kind of like a fire drill, but with the threat of world destruction. Though I was only about 9 at the time, I recall wondering how fast you had to run not to be burned by the ashes, and not feeling particularly reassured. Then there was the 2-week period when I was glued to the nightly news on our black and white TV, giving moment-by-moment updates on the Cuban Missile Crisis and our possible annihilation. I didn’t yet know what existentialism was, but certainly grasped the concept. Later (40 years), my Mom told me that she and my Dad were scared, but didn’t know what to tell us. They had lived through World War II, with no reassurances, and no child experts to tell them how to handle that one.
So what might be helpful and even fair to tell kids today? For starters, as we learned from the 9/11 coverage—if the news is really bad (blood leads, terror reigns)–turn it off when your younger kids are watching because images can traumatize. Sure your kids may play Zombie video games, but kids above the age of 4 know the difference between fantasy and reality. With older kids, watch together if you watch the news, or if you’re an online news consumer, assume they are too, and discuss their questions. Balance the truth with reassurance. Don’t avoid questions about national safety issues, but tailor your answers to a child’s age. When my young kids were scared after 9/11, I let stand my 10-year old’s belief: “Well, we’re far from New York, and even if they tried to hit Philadelphia, we live pretty far from (the target of) the Liberty Bell.” Kids understand the final reality of death from about age 5 on, but why burden them with the possibility of mutually assured destruction? So parents of boomers and boomers–what do you recall? And Gen-X’ers, Gen Y’ers how will it affect what you tell your kids today?
Recently I helped a couple navigate a relationship impasse, in which each was convinced of the “rightness” of his (and her) own position. In my many years of personal and professional experience, when two people disagree, it’s rare that one person has the complete hold on the truth. More often, there’s your side, my side, and then a truer perspective that takes both sides into account. A couple is bound to have ongoing arguments when they’re mired in the battle to prove who’s Right and who’s Wrong. Here are some tips for what it takes to move past this unwinnable struggle and resolve your differences:
First, partners need to relinquish the certainty that they’re right, which prolongs the point-counterpoint, my-side-against-your-side stalemate. Too often, a couple’s emotional energy is expended on winning at the cost of being able to understand a central issue in the relationship: what’s truly fair. The quest to be right typically leads to defensiveness and a crossfire of mischaracterizations and accusations. Even if you “win,” it’s a Pyrrhic victory–won at the cost of closeness and trust.
Next, I remind couples that to get a fair hearing, you have to give one. This isn’t a whitewash: “Okay, we both did damage; we’re even.” Nor can you can sweep things under the rug with a sham apology (“I’m sorry you felt that way”), which is tantamount to telling your partner, “Too bad you’re too sensitive, neurotic, or easily offended.”
Instead, make yourself vulnerable and own up to your particular share of the problem. It’s tempting to simply explain your side, as if the repetition will finally win your partner over, rather than garnering resentment. While you deserve to have your side acknowledged, you also need to specifically validate your partner’s perspective. Go first, and then ask for your turn. Again—remember, to get a fair hearing, be prepared to give one.
Finally, replace blame with claims. Identify what changes, large or small, you’re asking for in order to feel cared about and considered. Don’t assume that if your partner loved you, he or she would “know” what you need. Hold up the cue card—you have a better chance of getting what you want if you ask for it. Read more …
The health care reform debate this summer, in town halls across the country, was largely hi-jacked by fear. When you think about it logically, even if you are currently insured, you may be just a job loss, a divorce, an illness, or a pre-existing condition away from not being able to get future health care coverage. Failing to reform these scary possibilities is truly more frightening than the grossly distorted, non-existent specter of “death panels.” Yet fear, long recognized as a politically exploitable commodity, is an interesting emotion to examine—from a safe, objective distance.
I see the manifestations of fear daily in my psychotherapy practice. Freud thought love and work were the primary motivators for behavior. I’d put justice-seeking and fear right up there too. Fear at its best promotes survival, but fear also motivates us to make mistakes—in the name of self-protection. Our brains are wired to over-learn injury, and over-learn fear, as an ancient survival mechanism. It’s why we won’t buy stocks when they’re down (because we fear more loss), it’s why couples fail to take risks to grow closer, because once hurt (and face it who among us hasn’t been hurt?), we fear being vulnerable again. The old joke about fear is: “What’s the difference between lab mice and humans? Mice learn.” Shock a mouse on its way down a maze to get cheese, and it will initially avoid that maze, but then try again. However, people once fearful, will avoid re-testing an experience, a relationship, or with health care, a needed reform. Not that anyone has a perfect answer, or a crystal ball, but avoiding change at all costs seems a poor justification based in fear.
So it seemed fitting, shortly before the annual 9/11 observance, a date synonymous with terror, that President Obama addressed the nation on health care reform, and faced down fear and scare tactics. Obama, with the help of the late Ted Kennedy, framed the debate on its logical terms, encompassing the morality of social justice. Reform will benefit us all—after all, who doesn’t know or even love someone who is uninsured or uninsurable? Know that if you let fear eat your soul, there’s no need to ask for whom the bell tolls.
