Inclusive Parenting: Harnessing Aggression to Strengthen Your Relationship

Posted on February 27, 2016 by tcadmin

“I’m finished! I’ve been asking you to clean your room for weeks. Hand me your phone.”

“But I won’t be able to text or call anyone all weekend!! I took out the dirty laundry, I’ll do the rest next week!”

(It should be noted here that the room in question belongs to a 13 year old boy and the ‘straightening’ being requested is not military corners and white glove dust inspection. And this is the third ‘next week’ the task has been delayed.)

“The phone will be returned when the room is clean. The rest is up to you.”

“I want you to know I am going to have a very hard time forgiving you.”

“I’m willing to deal with that.”

It’s been another typical Friday night at my house. In fact, since he started showing the first signs of puberty, arguments in the house have occurred almost daily. Many include more ‘descriptive’ language. These are the years my mother warned me about.

Talk about the teen years long enough and you’re bound to use the word aggression, generally as a complaint about the way teens display their anger. As a therapist, I’m often asked by parents to teach their teens to stop being aggressive. However, Philip Lichtenberg, gestalt therapist, argues that there cannot be human relationships without aggression. To aggress, he argues, is simply to assert one’s will or move forward towards a goal or need. Aggression can be inclusive or exclusive, that is, aggression can be energy directed at deepening relationships or at limiting them.

Exclusive aggression is characterized by one person diminishing or negating the other. The exclusive aggressor asserts him/herself as right and the other as wrong. In order for the relationship to continue, one person must accept being ‘less than’ the other. Inclusive aggression involves actively promoting both parties in the relationship. The inclusive aggressor clearly defines their position at the same time urging the other to do the same. When both parties feel they have been heard and have listened to one another, the relationsh Capture ip deepens.

The negative connotation of the term aggression means that we seldom consider it as a tool in parenting. But when we think of aggression as the means for children to develop their unique identities and sense of self, it can be something we model for them and support as a part of their development.

Perhaps we can consider parenting styles to be inclusive or exclusive. Exclusive authoritarian parenting exists when the desires and needs of the parents supersede those of the child. Relationships between parent and child in these situations are strained and the child learns that the only way to assert them self is to exert power over another.

Inclusive parenting supports the independence of both the child and the parent and brings the two closer. Inclusive parents set clear boundaries while at the same time recognizing the importance of the child’s will. They model independence and respect.

The boy in question at the beginning of this article did not get his phone back Friday night. In protest, he watched movies on his loft bed surveying his mess. The mother poured herself a glass of wine and read her book. Eventually his need to text will call him down to finish the job. And when I return his phone, I will thank him. I suspect he may even forgive me.

Are You “Matronizing” Your Students?

Posted on January 16, 2016 by tcadmin

My son was complaining about his teacher the other day and said “She’s always patronizing me!” I guess those vocabulary study sheets really do work. When I pressed my child further to describe his experience with his teacher, he confirmed that she often speaks to him as though he doesn’t know anything, she doesn’t give him time to figure a thing out before providing an answer and generally has a lot of advice for him about how he should be doing things. Mind you, I was a bit glad to let the teacher take this heat for a while as these are often complaints lodged at me as well.

My first instinct was to come to the teacher’s defense while still somehow making my child feel better. “Oh honey, she probably just wants to make sure you understand so you’ll do well in the class. I’ll talk to her tomorrow and let her know you were upset.”

By this time my child was long gone. He had tuned me out completely and I might as well have been talking to the fish tank. In trying to smooth over his experience of frustration had I, in fact, “matronized” him?

The teacher and I had both missed the chance to related to my child through his own experiences, instead we were driven by our own desires to advise (in her case) or comfort (in mine). And in these efforts, we unwittingly created distance between ourselves and my child. Research suggests that we learn best when we feel validated and supported enough to take risks and engage in challenging activities. We are best able to feel that support through relating to others, through feeling heard and seen.

Imagine a long pole. At one end is patronizing behavior – behavior that puts the student down, establishes teacher as expert, student as less than. At the other might be ‘matronizing’, behavior that enables helplessness, that coddles and prevents the child from learning to tolerate difficult feelings. This behavior can result in the child feeling helpless or can diminish the child’s ability to take personal responsibility for his thoughts, feelings and actions. Somewhere in the middle is behavior that acknowledges the child’s experience without solving, that says “I hear you. That’s tough. What might you want to do about that?”

To use classroom experiences, direct instruction might be at the patronizing end of the continuum. Teacher and students are handed down information which is not to be questioned or altered. The script, the worksheet, and therefore, the teacher are ‘right’, and by default, any student not meeting the expectations is wrong. At the other end of the spectrum one might argue that invented spelling and participation trophies send the message that the student is always ‘right’, that there is little need for self-evaluation and improvement. Neither end empowers the student to become more aware of his own strengths and areas for growth.

So do you ‘matronize’ your students? If you say yes to 3 or more of these questions, you might be compromising a closer relationship with your students and providing them less of a chance to become independent, capable learners.

I never let a student know if I am displeased with their work.
I make certain every student gets a sticker or a star every day. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel left out.
I am quick to redirect a student’s frustration or anger.
I am uncomfortable if a student expresses sadness during class.
When a student says “I’m stupid”, I’m quick to say ‘No you’re not!’.

Key to quiz answers:

Children can learn to make changes to study habits and behavior when a teacher is clear about what is acceptable and what is not, especially when the criticism is not directed at the student’s character or sense of self.
Universal approval may make students feel better in the short run, but can make it difficult for the student to understand where they need to improve. Approval appears to be subjective and based on the teacher’s grace, perhaps outside of the student’s ability to obtain.
Frustration and anger are often indicators that a student has reached an area for growth. When taught to tolerate frustration, a student can learn to push through difficulties and master new skills.
Sadness is another emotion that students must learn to tolerate. If they are too quickly soothed or redirected, each new disappointment can feel just as difficult to bear.
Honoring a child’s experience can help them to gain more perspective. When a child says “I’m stupid”, offering “Something feels difficult to you right now and you’re feeling bad about yourself for struggling with it” allows the student to notice their thought patterns and consider alternatives.

Resistance or Defiance?

Posted on October 31, 2015 by tcadmin

The recent treatment of a black teenage girl in South Carolina by former white school resource officer Ben Fields has educators, parents and activists debating whether police force is an appropriate behavior management strategy for schools or contributes to the school to prison pipeline.

When we reflexively label student opposition as defiant, we diminish our opportunity to recognize their resistance, a natural adaptation we can tap into to promote learning. Defiance is perceived as an “open disregard or contempt; a challenge to meet in combat”. It’s no wonder when we look at student behavior through the lens of defiance that we feel threatened and respond in kind. Resistance, however, is a creative and healthy way we regulate ourselves, set boundaries to keep ourselves safe from real and perceived threats.

Children resist for many reasons, we may not have time or insight enough to understand. When this resistance takes on a less constructive form, such as disrupting a classroom, our ability to look for underlying motives becomes thwarted. As adults we may find less assertive or aggressive ways to resist – we call out sick, we procrastinate, we use our power to avoid or devalue what we find threatening. Children and teens, however, often resort to opposition to limit their contact with people and environments. When trust is then lost through our poorly managed navigation of resistance, children may become defiant.

Defiance may be born out of mistrust, loss of volition, chronic feelings of unfairness and even trauma. Imagine a child who has been emotionally, physically or sexually abused for years, trying to stand up for herself because the world is seen as a threat. How do we distinguish between that and defiance generated by a sense of entitlement, a child who has been handed everything and doesn’t respect authority?

Defiance is an unconstructive form of managing conflict, but often used a desperate tool for children who aren’t taught constructive differencing. If we only respond to this child with consequences (different from punishment which engenders shame and increase resistance such as the force used by the SRO), we increase the likelihood of strengthening resistance. Shaming a child through taking away their already limited power will worsen the problem.

The key is to deal with resistance before it evolves into defiance. So what can we do when met with the inevitable eye-rolling, teeth-sucking, arm-crossing opposition of students expressing their rebellion and how do we differentiate natural development from a deeper well of psychological pain? Successful teachers know that the most effective way to reach students is to meet them where they are, which means being naturally curious opposed to seeing this as a threat or annoyance.

The student in South Carolina lives in foster care. There are varying reports of the whereabouts of her biological parents, but evidently bad enough that she had been placed in the care of the state. It is likely that the world and a microcosm of it being her classroom did not feel safe. It’s possible that every adult was tested to see how fairly/ kindly they will treat her. It’s even possible she has learned to provoke people to bring out their worst, but doing so in a way that keeps her feeling in control of the situation.

When a child has difficulty with a particular subject or learning objective, we work to understand where the blockage is and how best to get through. Resistance offers the same opportunity for growth, hindered however by our own feelings of being challenged or having our learning environment seemingly threatened.

The next time you find yourself at your wit’s end with a child’s disrespectful behavior, consider that before we can address them, we need to understand the etiology of their behavior. Did they have a bad morning at home, a poor encounter with a fellow student, an embarrassing moment in their previous class? Curiosity about them and what gets stirred up inside you in the face of disrespect can help prevent escalation of conflicts. Students will see you as an ally once you past the test of “will this adult treat me like all the other adults in my life?”.

If you are feeling afraid, uncertain, devalued or belittled, chances are good you have the potential to be empathic. Children help us feel what they are feeling in their lives, so use this opportunity as a window to understand them. There is no greater gift to a student then helping them work through resistance that will interfere with their learning.

Parenting is Not For the Faint of Heart

Posted on September 21, 2015 by tcadmin

This kind of thing happens in my house at least once a week. It’s the price I pay for encouraging independence in my 7^th grader. The list of damages is long, a burnt chair, broken mugs, lamps, pictures…arms….but the inventions are equally exciting. On his own he’s taught himself to play the guitar, design and sew a replica of a medieval knight’s costume, and make very lifelike scars and wounds out of latex and make up. At 5 he was making one meal a week for the family. Sometimes we ate peanut butter and candy bar sandwiches but we’ve also enjoyed chilled cucumber soup and grilled pineapple over saffron rice.

I believe that if he’s going to be ready for challenges in his future, he’s going to have to, quite literally, break a few eggs. Children and teens need to be given the chance to struggle and sometimes fail so they can gain the skills for coping with and recovering from challenges. This is how they develop resilience, the ability to weather setbacks and the belief that they are capable of surviving the hardships that will inevitably come.

Children become resilient through opportunities to connect with their abilities, sense of self and to the world at large. As parents and teachers, the more we can help foster these connections, the more resilient our children can become.

Connecting with abilities: Children learn what they are capable of through decision making and problem solving. “I’m not sure, what do you think needs to happen?” and “How are you going to solve this?” not only take the pressure off of adults to have and provide the ‘right’ answer, but send the message that children are competent and can find solutions.

Connecting to sense of self: “Trophies for everyone” is a common attempt at boosting children’s self-esteem but without specific and authentic praise children don’t learn what it is that they do well and where their areas for improvement are.

Connection to family and friends: Children who know that they are safe and accepted in their families and communities know they can take risks and try new things. Open communication and the encouragement to express all emotions (even frustration!) lets children know that they don’t need to be perfect, especially the first time.

Connection to the larger world: A key component of resiliency is the knowledge that you make a difference, that you have a place in the world. Volunteer activities connect children to the adult world and provide them with a sense that they are not alone and that they have the power to make a difference in someone else’s life.

As parents it is our nature to want to protect children from harm, from disappointment and from failure. Watching them struggle can bring up our own feelings of shame and fear. But it is through engaging in struggle that we become aware of the impact of our own actions and choices and we learn exactly what we are capable of achieving.

Get more support for the challenges of parenthood through our online classes here.

At the Intersection of Shame and Guidance: An argument against the stoplight

Posted on September 5, 2015 by tcadmin

It’s the start of another school year, a time full of expectation and hope for teachers, students and their families. Take a moment now and picture the faces of the children in your class. Really see them in front of you. Of course you hope to inspire them with a love of the subjects you will teach them and to build their skills and confidence in learning. But as you picture their faces, imagine them moving through the other parts of their lives, maybe with peers, family, maybe as adults in the world. What else do you hope for these young people?

A recent letter from a former teacher and psychologist Jennifer Bradley to teachers everywhere (www.beyondthestoplight.com) is making its way around the internet. In it, Dr. Bradley asks us to reconsider the ubiquitous stoplight behavior posters that fill classrooms across the country. For the uninitiated, this is a three color stoplight with names of the students attached by clothespins or paper clips. Throughout the day, the teacher slides children’s names from green, where they presumably start each morning, to yellow and possibly to red, creating a visual cue for who is ‘on task’ or using appropriate classroom behavior and who is not.

The thinking behind this method is that the stoplight can serve as a reminder for children to consider their behaviors and the fear of being ‘on red’ will keep them focused on the acceptable ones. But the research on shame doesn’t support this theory.

Imagine if there were a stoplight in the teacher’s lounge. Mr. Trieshard and Ms. Duzwell’s names are posted in the green ball for the third week in a row but your name has been slid up into the yellow for all your colleagues to see. Would you be encouraged to seek support from your peers to move back to green or would you avoid the lounge and stress over your job?

Children who are shamed become afraid, and this fear does not go away as they get older. Often these children grow into adults who are filled with self-doubt, depression and anxiety. In the short term, children who are shamed in the classroom develop a belief that they are incapable of the behavior their teachers expect and often continue to behave in ways that continue to reinforce their shame creating an inescapable spiral for them and an ever-challenging classroom for you.

Dr. Bradley’s letter encourages us to move away from shame-based discipline and look for methods that support every child, not just the ones on green. Turning away from methods we were taught in training and that are encouraged throughout the school can be anxiety provoking and frightening. Consider joining with other teachers who are looking for alternatives so you can feel supported.

See the faces of your students once again. Imagine yourself or your children among the faces and believe yourself able to create the classroom you or they once needed.

Coaching and courses offered through Teacher Coach can support you in exploring and trying new ideas in your work and family life. www.teachercoach.com

Helping Children Take Responsibility

Posted on June 26, 2015 by tcadmin

“It’s not my fault! You MADE me do it!!!”

Arguments like these are likely no stranger to parents of children who seem to find it impossible to take responsibility for their own actions. To be fair, in some ways, they truly can’t. The ability to reflect on one’s actions and manage emotions is governed by the pre-frontal cortex, a part of the brain that is still developing in young people. Fortunately, activating the functions of this part of the brain helps it develop – meaning the more you help them through the process of reflecting, the more easily it will come to them in the future.

Young children learn rapidly and effectively through observation. And guess who they’re observing most? Helping children move past blaming others takes modeling and support. Just like us, children blame others to avoid disapproval, negative consequences and the discomfort of feeling ‘wrong’. When children hear us make comments that blame our cranky neighbor or the selfish lady in the checkout line for our bad behavior, they are taking notes.

How easy is it for your child to tell you if she’s done something wrong? Will she be met with anger or understanding? Will he be punished immediately or helped to recognize the consequences of his actions? Children are more likely to confide in adults who remain calm and approachable and help them understand what they could do differently next time.

One way to help children practice reflection is to help them understand cause and effect. Playing games, using stories and finding teachable moments to demonstrate ‘what happens if..” can make it seem less threatening when it comes time to looking at their own behavior and helps them set up an inner dialogue to evaluate on their own.

Here are a few examples to get you started:

“Oh, I was talking on the phone when I put those keys down and now I can’t find them”

“I got up late this morning and then was so rushed I forgot to thaw the chicken.”

You may just find your own stress level going down when you do this and realize you have more control over what happens to you than you thought.

Breaking Down Gender and Sex Paradigms

Posted on June 6, 2015 by tcadmin

June is LGBT Pride Month. June was chosen for Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 in New York City. Today, LGBT students are bullied at a rate of nearly four times that of other students and there are far too many stories of children and youth who take their lives after having been targeted because of their real or presumed sexual orientation or gender expression.

Despite these harrowing statistics, gender awareness seems to be at an all-time high and a recent poll of millenials showed that young people are increasingly more likely to think of gender existing along a flexible and fluctuating continuum. School districts are developing policies to support transgender and gender variant youth. This can be challenging and confusing to those of us who grew up believing that gender and sex had to be either/or.

The following explanation is offered as a way of rethinking the either/or paradigm. It will be helpful to first recognize that the following four elements of sexuality and gender exist independently of each other and on a continuum. This will make more sense in a moment. Let’s start by taking a closer look at each element:

Gender Identity: This refers to how we think about ourselves. On one end of the spectrum is ‘woman’ and the other ‘man’. The space in-between represents self-identities that may fall outside of societal definitions of either.

Gender Expression: This refers to how we express our identities. “Feminine” and “Masculine” make up the poles of this axis. Gender expression changes daily for most of us and encompasses the clothing, hairstyles, make up, way we walk or sit, etc. that we put on in the moment.

Biological Sex: The objectively measured hormones, organs and chromosomes that make up your body are referred to as your biological sex and yes, these exist on a continuum of male to female as well. “Intersex” refers to any combination of these things and is much more common than typically portrayed. According to the Intersex Society of North America, 1 in 100 people differ from standard male or female bodies at birth.

Sexual Orientation: Who you are physically, spiritually and emotionally attracted to. At one end of the continuum is heterosexual, or, attracted to someone of the opposite biological sex and at the other end, homosexuality or same sex attraction. Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s research in the mid 20^th century found that most people are not absolutely at one end or the other of this continuum and created a 7 point scale that encompassed fantasies, dreams, thoughts and emotional investments as well as physical attraction.

These four elements interact with one another but are not interdependent – meaning that one’s identity doesn’t determine one’s orientation any more than one’s sex determines one’s expression.

Understanding the evolving definitions of gender and sex can help us create and support a climate that is welcoming to all students and families and hopefully help us address youth depression and suicide.

It’s as Easy as Falling Off a Bike

Posted on May 15, 2015 by tcadmin

A father was describing to me how he recently taught his daughter to ride her bike. The kickstand was off and she was exploring her balance as she tentatively placed her foot on the pedal and inched forward. Without the speed needed to keep the bike upright she tipped over and hopped around a bit to stabilize herself, frustrated and fearful. Her father knew that if she could just apply a little more pressure to the pedal she would get the bike moving and would soon see what it felt like to glide smoothly down the road.

The temptation in moments like this, when we can see the answer that the person in front of us hasn’t yet had the experience to understand, is to push them forward. Likely, if he had lost his patience and told her to ‘just pedal’, she would have become more upset herself, might have given up, certainly the experience would be less pleasant for both of them. Instead, this father recognized his daughter’s fear and asked her about it, met her where she was. She described her fear of falling off, of not being able to stop, of going too fast. And he listened. And he remembered when he first learned, and when he had been afraid. He agreed that, yes, learning to ride a bike is scary and that he would be there to do what he could to help her until it wasn’t scary any longer.

My own son was not happy with my announcement that this was the day he would learn to ride. “Will I fall?” he asked. “Most certainly.” I replied. “Will I bleed?” he asked. “It is very possible that you will,” I said and showed him the BandAids I had packed in his pack. “I’ll be right back,” he announced and ran back up to his room. He emerged a few minutes later with three pairs of pants on to protect his knees and off we went to the park.

When we let go of our urge to protect and instruct children at our pace and instead, pay attention to their processes for learning, we can teach them self-confidence and the ability to tolerate their fears long enough to risk mistakes and failure. I am happy to report that both of these children are happy riders now and both parents may have learned a little something along the way.

For more tips on navigating parenthood, visit the parent classes at Teacher Coach here

The Grades are In

Posted on March 14, 2015 by tcadmin

“You are FAILING the sixth grade!!!” It wasn’t just hyperbole, my son’s progress report this week does show four Fs and getting him to complete and turn in work has been a struggle since the fall. I was angry. I was frustrated. I expected more from him. But the truth is, I was afraid. I was afraid he’d be tracked as a poor student, I even worried that his sixth grade transcript would keep him from college. And as he cried and told me about class changes, block schedules, losing things in his locker and work getting lost in his backpack, I thought about the family not far from us who would never again get to be exasperated with their son or reprimand him about his work. Their 13 year old boy took his life after receiving an email from his school about a failing grade.

Suicide is currently the leading cause of death among kids my son’s age, killing more young people than cancer. This frightens me. Stress, anger, frustration and depression are all common in children who consider suicide. They are also necessary and normal feelings of teens as they figure out who they are, what their goals are and how they decide they measure up. A 2011 (Hansen, B., & Lang, M) study of suicide rates in students found that suicides increase during the school year but dramatically decrease during the summer and school holidays. The researchers controlled for seasons and weather and differences in ethnicity, race, gender and income. In all groups, the trend remained; suicide rates increase when school is in session. Let that sink in for a moment. Suicide rates go up when our kids go back to school.

We are creating environments where our children feel unvalued, uncared for, and incapable of managing stress and disappointment. We are narrowing the definition of success to discrete, measurable outputs, and forgetting to consider all that is gained through building relationships with peers and teachers and through trial and error.

My lovely boy is funny, creative and kind. He is a talented singer and artist, he stands up for others when they are being treated unfairly. He can cook. He can design costumes and build machines out of paper and cardboard. He makes me laugh daily and for a little while, I forgot that those are grades I care about most and that is the curriculum I’ve been using to raise him.

TeacherCoach

The Psychology of Teachers

Tag Archives: child development