Have you ever offered up an idea in a committee? “Hey. You know what? What if…? “ Your new idea might generate some mild discussion, some grunts and dismissals, with a concluding “…not gonna happen. We’ve never done it that way before.” If your new idea generates an entirely way of thinking about the topic, then we call it a paradigm shift. In my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life (Amazon, 2024), I offer a paradigm shift in our thinking both about getting well and about the nature of diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues. Historically, probably since Aristotle’s times, we talk about people being sick, needing to get well. Our job, as their doctor, has been to help people get better and make them well. This is the medical model. While our reference book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th Edition, has made progress in expanding the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral descriptions to account for diagnoses, the overall attention is on people being sick and needing to get well. In her book, Mentalligence: A New Psychology of Thinking (HCI, 2017), Dr. Kristen Lee attaches brain functioning to the outcomes of downward spiraling or upward spiraling, using the brain’s neuroplastic capacity to create new neural pathways toward upward spiraling. I have taken these concepts and applied them to our work in counseling and psychotherapy, introducing a new treatment strategy, mentalligent psychotherapy. (MPT) In this paradigm shift of perspective and treatment, our patients are not sick, not mentally ill. Rather, they are stuck, emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally stuck. In their treatment, our goal is to help them identify their stuckness and guide them toward getting unstuck. Stuckness leads toward downward spiraling in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Helping them get unstuck frees our patients to chart their life’s path toward freedom to upwardly spiral and be the best they can be. In the medical model, doctors are healers. They have a plethora of gadgets and gizmos to help them find the broken part and either fix it or remove it. Their goal is symptom relief, mostly through medication management. This model has worked well for millennia when we treat physical ailments. Not so much in treating mental health issues. With this model, therapists are also healers. They can use psychological evaluation to pinpoint problem thoughts, feelings, or behaviors and then talk therapy to help their patients feel better. We focus on answering their “why” questions. We generate pearls of wisdom and aha moments where our patients feel better and get it. In mentalligent psychotherapy, we dabble in “why” questions, just to gain perspective on our patient’s thought processes. However, we focus on looking at “what” questions. What’s going on now? What are your thoughts and feelings about this? What’s within your control to change? With MPT, the focus is not on being your patient’s doctor, from whom you will be given answers for symptom relief. Rather, we are patient guides for a moment on their life journey. MPT is less outcome-oriented and more process-oriented. The great Greek philosopher, Socrates, was a teacher famous for never answering a question from his students. His response to their questions was to ask questions of his own, leading them to come up with their own perspectives on the issue at hand. Thus, MPT is less about the outcome of psychotherapy and more about the process. A bit of old Chinese wisdom captures the process. “Feed a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” Stressed out and overwhelmed? Get an idea about effective therapy with your purchase of The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Graduate students learning different intervention strategies of psychotherapy? Pick up my book as adjunctive reading for your coursework. Practicing clinicians? Add to your toolbox of intervention strategies by purchasing this cutting-edge paradigm shift describing mentalligent psychotherapy for effective treatment. Purchase your copy from amazonbooks.com today. Blessings, Dr. Jon
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I know. Getting started is the hardest part of therapy. You’ve been struggling, it seems like, forever. You keep bumping into the same obstacles day in and day out. Each day feels like a struggle just to finish, and even then, you toss and turn trying to get to sleep. Will this downward cycle ever end? Yes. With your dedication, hard work, and the right fit for a therapist, you can turn your downward cycle into an upward one. Also, while it feels like you are nuts, you are not. You are not even alone. In the United States, 20% of the adult population is walking around with diagnosable behavioral health issues. With the advent of the pandemic several years ago, that number went to 30%. For children and teens, that total exceeds 40%. What to do? What to do? Not surprisingly, the internet is a great place to start. You have options. A blessing from the pandemic has been health professionals opening up to work with patient by telephone, on-line, and by zoom, in addition to coming to their office. And yet, research shows that 75% of the healing process comes from the doctor/patient relationship. Only 25% comes from any particular treatment strategies or interventions your therapist might bring to the table. Of course you can google behavioral health practitioners located in your area. Size up their pitch and pick one. However, that does sound a bit radical. More folks open up, begrudgingly, to a friend, family, or confidante. Some don’t open up at all, but rather, are gently (or not so gently) confronted by a loved one to “get help or else!” When starting therapy, remember. You’ve hired a health professional to care for you. If you are feeling unhelped, not getting what you want, you can fire your therapist. Goodness of fit, a sense of feeling heard, working with someone the “gets me,” are essential for healing. In my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, my goals are to help you get a good start, understand the context of effective therapy, and embrace the healing process. Toward those goals, I identify a new treatment strategy, mentalligent psychotherapy. My colleague, Dr. Kristen Lee, LICSW, coined the term, mentelligence™, to identify the mental and intelligence functions of the brain in creating lasting change and healing. Where intelligence is the hardware of the brain, mental is the software. Both interact consistently to generate neuroplasticity, which creates new neural pathways that secure behavioral change. I share with my readers the four stages of healing in therapy. First, all patients begin therapy with Unconscious Ignorance. That is, you don’t know that there is a problem, and you don’t know that you don’t know. In this case, ignorance is not bliss. It’s just how you are used to being. In the second stage of healing, you become aware of issues, either by epiphany or by someone busting your chops. With this awareness, you enter the stage of Conscious Ignorance. Here, you are informed, you want to change your thinking, feeling, and circumstances, but you don’t know how to do it. It is your therapist’s job in this stage to give you options, help you understand the impact of your words and actions on yourself and others, and equip you to make wanted changes and to heal. The bulk of your therapy involves a dance between the stage of conscious ignorance and the next stage, that of Conscious Awareness. Your therapist gives you tools for healing and you practice using them. Your appointments become your safe place to try out new words and actions, appreciating their positive impact on your mood and circumstances. You also risk sharing your new self with your significant others and friend group to experience benefits in your real world. It may feel awkward and foreign at first, but you begin to get the hang of it. Toward the end of your therapy, you will notice a significant uptick in your use of healing tools in your day-to-day lifestyle. This marks your transition from the stage of conscious awareness to the last stage of the healing process, that of Unconscious Awareness. Here, you appreciate that your hard work in therapy has transformed your life and your relationships. You embrace the new you. Your new neural pathways are secured and your old, unhelpful neural pathways have withered. As adversity happens, in any kind, you overcome it, find the blessing in it, and continue on your path to the good life, with good stress management and strong resilience. If I’ve piqued your interest and you want to find out more about mentalligent psychotherapy and the four stages of healing, go to amazonbooks.com. Put my name, Jonathan C. Robinson, Ph.D., or my book title, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, in the search box, and order your copy today. Blessings, Dr. Jon I’m 15 years old, having competed for and made my high school baseball team as a 9th grader. I’ve had a good year playing center field and leading off in the batting order. We’re playing our arch rival and there’s no score, 2 out, in the last inning. The outfield is playing somewhat shallow, as I’m known as a singles hitter. I then hit the pitcher’s fastball straight over the middle. It goes over the centerfielder’s head and just keeps on rolling. We have no outfield fence on our high school field. I circle the bases to a wild celebration with my teammates as I touch home base and we win the game, 1-0. This is how I define my success. What??? Maggie and I have been married now for 54 years. I retired 8 years ago from a very accomplished career treating patients as a licensed clinical psychologist. In our retirement, I’ve authored 2 books, with the hope of their being helpful to others, passing on to others what wisdom I’ve gathered in life. We are travelling and enjoying our retirement. My now adult children have carved for themselves very positive, fulfilling lives. We now have 7 grandchildren, and another on the way. So how does a single moment of high school baseball hold the top spot in my experiencing success? My “moment” in high school baseball was both very special and unique for me. My only home run in 46 years of playing baseball. I was immediately acknowledged by my teammates, as we all celebrated our win. My other accomplishments in life all happened over time, all with greater impact on me and the world than my successful high school baseball game. But, in the end, I soaked it up as “my moment.” One of my heroes in general success stories is Thomas Edison. Of course, you know that it was he who invented the electric lightbulb. What you may not know is that he failed 999 times in his experiments to find a metal that would burn strong enough to emit light for long periods of time. In his 1000th experiment, Edison succeeded with tungsten, and our electric lightbulb was invented. A wise man once said that there is no such thing as failure. When someone fails, it is because what he tried didn’t work. Rather, failure is merely the arbitrary limitations of options. That is, as long as you keep going, expanding your options, you are never failing. Success happens with commitment to the task and practice, practice, practice. Success comes from endurance, resilience, and never-ending curiosity. Success involves creatively trying things in different ways until one way works for you. Success doesn’t always generate public acclaim, celebration, or fame. That may happen, but your quiet acknowledgement of a job well done matters more. Many parents fall into the trap of believing they have all the answers for their children. You don’t. In fact, believing so may define your failures more than your successes in parenting. “I hate algebra,” Toby slammed his textbook closed and threw his pencil across the room. “Who puts letters in math problems?” Toby’s dad heard his 15-year-old son grousing in his bedroom. He made his way to Toby’s bedroom door, knocked, and asked, “Are you okay, son?” “No. I’m not okay,” Toby spit out. “And I’m never gonna be okay again, as long as I have to do this stupid algebra.” At that point, Dad had some options. He could scold Toby for his attitude. He could make a joke about not getting algebra. He could simply do the algebra homework for Toby, so he would stop being so upset. All of these options, although well-intentioned, would actually make matters worse for Toby. Instead, Dad chose a path to success. He started by comforting his son. Maybe a side hug or pat on the shoulder. Putting the algebra aside for the moment, he active listened Toby’s feelings, soothing the emotional fever Toby generated by his frustration. Once his son had settled down, maybe taking a break to get a snack and drink, he asked Toby’s permission to help by saying, “You know, son, I have some ideas on how you could get this homework behind you. Do you want to hear them? This permission question keeps his son involved in the solution process. It helps him own his problem, thereby making him more open to possibilities. If there is a formula or algebraic principle that Toby is missing, Dad could reinforce that piece and then redirect Toby’s working out the problems. Toby’s success is not just getting the homework completed. It is moreso helping him change his attitude toward the task in the first place. With Dad’s help, Toby learns he can do hard things. Positive attitude and endurance help. He is not alone on task. He’s better on task than he thought he was. These are the lessons of successful parenting. Each of our successes are personal, regardless of broader impact. Define your success by expanding your options until one works to reach your goal. Parental success always starts with being there fully for your child. Blessings, Dr. Jon What happens in our families when trouble comes our way? How are we there for our kids? What role do rewards and consequences play in righting the ship? Your answers to these questions indicate whether you are succeeding or failing as a parent. Little 8-year-old Abby comes home from school, puts her backpack down on the floor inside the kitchen door, and then turns to go back outside to play with her awaiting friends. “Hi, Sweetheart. How was your d…wait, what?” puzzles her mom. She follows her daughter with her gaze, as Abby meets up with her friends. She goes to the door and calls after her. “Abby. Stop. What’s your hurry? Come here.” Abby sighs and frowns. “Moooom,” she draws out with frustration, “Can’t I just go and play?” “After we talk,” mom decides as she holds the door open for her daughter to come back inside. Abby then plops down on a chair at the kitchen table. “Jeeez!” She huffs, as she sees her mom reaching for her backpack. “So,” as she rummages through her daughter’s backpack, “anything in here that I need to know about?” Abby huffs loudly, “Okay, I failed a spelling test and my teacher wants you to sign that you saw it.” “Failed spelling? Well, that’s a big deal.” At this juncture, Abby’s mom steers a parenting path toward success or failure by her reaction. Parenting success comes if she starts with, “Gosh, honey. This isn’t like you. What else was going on here?” This is a subliminal compliment. Mom’s really saying that she knows her daughter usually gives her best effort and does well on tests at school. However, if mom chose to belittle, diminish, chastise, or go straight to punishment, she could be adding to Abby’s pain and embarrassment, blocking any future trust or emotional intimacy. Dad receives a phone call from the police department in their hometown. He accepts the collect call from the jail. “Hey, Dad. I’m in trouble.” This is every parent’s worst nightmare. What to do? Your choices impact your success or failure as a parent. You could moan and groan about where you and his mom went wrong, that your son turned out this way, and how could he do this to you? You could blame the group of kids he hangs with. You could blame each other, as to who coddled him and who was too strict on him. You could refuse to bail him out and just let him sit with the consequences of his actions. All of these options add to the emotional distance between you and your son, shut down communication, and set up a power differential, where winning the moment is more important than loving your child. Parents who succeed at parenting have a mindset of loving their children through any adversity that comes their way and never giving up on them. When trouble knocks at your family door, invite it in to talk about what happened, and in a nonjudgmental way. Get all the details. Use your active listening skills to hear how the trouble affects your child. Only when he’s talked out and all of his feelings are heard can you ask permission to share your thoughts and ideas. Parents who succeed at parenting embrace their child’s trouble as a “we problem.” Your child needs to know he is not alone, that you’ve got his back, that we’ll get through this together. With all of these things, transparency, accountability, boundaries, and consequences all apply. Being there for your child doesn’t mean he gets off scott-free. Ultimately, as a parent, you are successful when your child makes positive changes that keeps the trouble from happening again. This happens when you help him turn the trouble into a blessing in disguise. How we all handle trouble defines our character. Trouble will happen, coming both in small and big ways. It’s not what happens, but how we handle what happens that promotes healthy stress management and resilience. Here’s to your being a success in your parenting. Blessings, Dr. Jon If you’ve ever been in your car with your children, ages less than ten, then you’ve been asked this question, maybe multiple times. Sometimes it’s repeated multiple times, just to annoy you. Other times it’s recurring occasionally, as you make your way to your destination. While your child wants a reasonable time estimate, there’s always an underlying situation. If your destination is a fun place or activity, “are we there yet?” is code for feeling eager, anxious, or frustrated with anticipation. Going on a fun vacation, to a recreation theme park, to the zoo or aquarium would be spots where getting there would be a chore that they would want to get over quickly. If your destination is more for you than for your kids, perhaps a trip to visit distant relatives, “are we there yet?” is code for being bored, feeling antsy, wanting any kind of interaction to make the time go more quickly. In either case, the question suggests that your child may have an emotional fever. That is, physically all is well, but emotionally they are out of sorts. When my kids were young and these circumstances came up, I would ask, tongue-in-cheek, if they needed me to go to the “sorts store” to get them back in sorts. LOL. With that ice breaker, take some time to help your kids figure out what they are feeling. This is the heart of active listening. Mindy was being fidgety in the back seat. Restless, changing position, sighing loudly. I picked up on these cues of her emotional fever. “Hey, Baby. What’s going on?” I caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. “I’m bored. Are we there yet?” “Getting there can feel like forever, huh?” “Why do we have to go? Can’t we go somewhere closer to home?” “Ah, but when we get there, think of all the fun we will have.” “That’s stupid. It’s no fun getting there.” “You’re really stuck, huh?” His daughter got quiet. “I have some thoughts about how we can pass the time. Wanna hear them?” After your child gets her feelings out and pauses is the time to ask permission to offer solutions. If you offer them to soon, she might not feel heard. She may take your solutions as dismissing her feelings. So, as you move forward, get her permission. Nowadays, with the ever-present IPad and personal phone, kids frequently find ways to occupy themselves on long car trips. However, if these electronics lead to commotion, or if you have a family rule of electronic-free time together, then car trip games can fill the bill. Even young children can follow and participate in the “I spy something” game. Each person in the car takes a turn identifying something in or outside the car by a feature, like color or shape or position. The others, then also in turn, make guesses as to what/where the object is. Time passes quickly and everyone is involved having fun. For older, school-aged kids, “Ghost” passes the time quickly and also helps kids with their spelling. One family member starts with a letter and others add a letter in turn until one person completes spelling a word. If I spell the first word on my turn, then I get a “G.” Whoever spells out “GHOST” loses the game. More of a thinking game that’s also fun on car rides. Finally, sequential story-telling can be fun, with unexpected twists and turns in the plot development. Here, one of you starts a story with, “Once upon a time…” Each of you takes the storyline as it unfolds and adds only one sentence at a time. The story can be as long as your trip and keeps all involved, since no one knows just how it turns out and how it gets there. Long ago, when my oldest grandchild was only age 7, she and her dad and I undertook a 6-mile hike up Mount LaConte in Gatlinburg, TN. It was a rigorous, 4-hour journey, where each of us had a backpack. We started a sequential story at the outset and little Katie was so involved in the plot development that she kept pace and didn’t ask once to be picked up and carried. “Are we there yet?” can be the bane of every family’s car trips. Use a variety of road games to help your child pass the time around naps and other trip activities. They will help you connect with your children and add to the fun of getting there. Blessings, Dr. Jon Most families have defined, unique rituals. Some are part of the family’s daily life together. Others occur at different times of the year. They may similar among families, but each family has its own take. So, what defines a family ritual? It’s an event or circumstance involving all family members. Family members all value the ritual, at varying degrees. They tend to count on it. Tell time or season by it. It becomes very important to each member in their own way. Top of the list are family meals, notably dinner. Some families pray a blessing for the food. My daughter and her family pray out loud in unison before eating. That gets a little eye-popping when they go out to eat. LOL Also, many families have bedtime rituals, especially when the kids are young. When my first-born grandchild was born and living with us, I would help her get her bath, play in her room together, read a story (one more, Papa, pleeeease!), and gently rub her back while singing her a lullaby. As she got older, our bedtime ritual became a checking in time of, “So, how was your day, dear?” Families who have the time and money often make a ritual of family vacations together. Our little slice of heaven was Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, the last two weeks of July. During a preparatory family meeting, I would ask each of our kids and their mama what they wanted to do at the beach this year, within time and resource constraints. We’d gather and compare “do lists,” making sure to incorporate as much as possible into the time at the beach. These kinds of rituals help give family identity. We look forward to them. They give us value as a whole, in addition to what each of us brings to the family unit. They are part of what makes us family. A few cautionary notes. Family meals become more meaningful when they occur around a common table. TV trays together in front of the boob tube is not a meaningful family ritual. Squirreling food into each one’s bedroom doesn’t count at all. Also, to encourage conversation at the table, many families agree for all to put away their electronic devices for the duration of the meal. Oftentimes, because kids always want to stay up longer, bedtime rituals need time limits. How many drinks of water does a child need, anyway. Delay tactics abound. When I was being played, I invoked a countdown to quiet and still. Even the most hyper kids will fall asleep in minutes when quiet and perfectly still. Finally, planning family vacations is crucial, best done within a family meeting prior to vacation. Recognizing that circumstances change and things come up, try to stick to the list and schedule as much as possible. Winging it on vacation tends to generate as much anxiety as it might be fun. Creating a plan limits the development of factions within the family and lobbying for certain events. So, what are your family rituals? Identifying them and looking forward to them enhance your family-ness. Blessings, Dr. Jon Do we live in a world of bubbles? I remember blowing bubbles with my pre-school children to their great delight and laughter. Playful bubbles, like these, can be really fun and good. Lifestyle bubbles? Not so much. Lifestyle bubbles tend to be exclusive, rigid, inflexible. They define the either/or polarity of our current, political landscape. But they tend to expand beyond political landscape. My granddaughter, Kaitlyn, was about 4 years old long ago and entering a pre-K program full of then strangers. I spent time teaching her to approach another child with, “Hi. I’m Kaitlyn. What’s your name?” She was reluctant at first, so we practiced with her teddy bears. When I picked her up from her first day of pre-K, Katie was so excited. She rattled off the names of four other girls she had met and played with in her class that day. That was her first lesson in being proactive, rather than reactive. Another parent told me her story some time ago. Similar circumstances. When she was dropping off her daughter at pre-school, another child came up to them to greet them. The mom pulled her daughter back from meeting the other girl, explaining, “Hold on a second, honey. We don’t know this girl yet. Let’s find the mommy or her teacher.” This family might be living in a bubble. Such bubbles can be protective, but maybe also defensive, limiting possible positive experiences. Bubble families believe such things as “that’s not how we do things.” “That’s not our belief system.” “We stick to our own.” “Having more information will just be more confusing.” “Stick to what we know to be right for us.” Such beliefs limit experience, facts, and resources. When families pop that proverbial bubble, children are given the freedom to explore their environments, better understand the variety of cultures, races, and circumstances in their worlds, and find comfort levels that work for them. They have more information from which to make informed decisions. Developmentally, there are four stages of parenting, based on your child’s age. From birth to age 5, parents make all the decisions for their children. This is hands-on parenting. This keeps their children safe, healthy, and thriving. From ages 5-10, parents hear their children out, qualify circumstances, and give their children direction. This is directed parenting, borne from their parents’ wisdom and experience. Children engage in and explore their worlds and friendships, but with keen parental oversight. From ages 10-18, children are developing the capacity for abstract thinking, being able to form their own opinions about what’s important to them. Parents can buck their child’s growing sense of self and risk alienating them. Or, they can hear them out, understand their thoughts and feelings, ask if they want their help, and if asked for, give them advice. This is advice-based parenting. Tweens and teens benefit from their relationship and emotional intimacy with their parents. Parents nurture the quality of children thinking for themselves. Beyond age 18, our young adults are living their own lives, making their own decisions, and finding their way through a mistake-ridden landscape. Having successfully launched our children into their independent, healthy relationships, socially conscious adulthood, we help them when asked by providing expert consultation. This is consultative parenting. In business and industry, an expert consultant is first called in to give the consultation. Before his presentation, he gathers observations, policies, and practice to collect his thoughts on the matter. He then makes his presentation and recommendations, thereafter leaving whether his wise counsel is implemented, or not. If I offer my opinion before being asked for it, I’m butting in. If I disregard my child’s perspective and feelings, I’m dismissing him. He might conclude that I think he’s too dumb or misinformed to get it right, so I’ll just do it for him. Even if the path he chooses is the opposite of your choice and full of risk and regret, the decision is his to make. Your expert consultation and wise counsel provide a foundation for on-going and growing emotional intimacy and healthy relationship with your now adult child. Lifestyle bubbles are created within your parenting style. Since 75% of your child’s personality is formed in the first 5 years of life, your parenting decisions will likely stay with your child for their lifetime. No pressure. LOL Help your child be proactive, explore their expanding world in safe ways, and find their own path to the good life. Blessings, Jon Okay. So, what are ordinal issues? Think of the root word “order.” Ordinal issues have to do with the birth order of your children. There are typical personality characteristics that are affected by birth order. Usually, the first-born child is the most responsible of your children. Also, since that one is your first, and you’ve never parented before, the first-born is the experimental one. Most new parents use what they know or have experienced. When you’ve been blessed with good parents, you want to parent your own children just like you experienced being parented. If you were victimized as a child by bad parents, you imagine parenting just the opposite of how you were parented. However, if you’ve been severely traumatized by your parent(s), to get through it, some kids deal with that by concluding that it’s just how parenting is. Without proper guidance, these kids often become as troubled as their parents. First-borns are rule conscious because they don’t want to upset their parents and because all of parental attention, of course, is on them. Their parents are experimental in their parenting because they’ve never done this before and don’t have a good grasp on effective parenting. So, they wing it and continue what works. When the second child comes along, depending on age difference, first-borns either have a new playmate, or their responsibility gene kicks in and they become their sibling’s surrogate parent. Both options are typically reinforced by their parents. “Look at you, playing so nicely with your brother.” “You are such a mama’s little helper. Thank you for looking out for your brother.” Research on ordinal relationships suggest that, if your children are closer than three years apart in age, parents get a 2 for 1 special and the kids benefit from basically growing up together. If the siblings are greater than three years apart, the first-born is more likely to embrace the responsible surrogate role with their sibling. The greater birth difference also brings into the picture their differing developmental issues. Your second child, as the younger, is more likely to be spoiled, testing limits, questioning your authority or parenting decisions. This, of course, requires more of your parental attention to rein this child in and encourage him to conform to your expectations. Having begun the parenting journey with your first-born, parents are less likely to be experimental with their second-born. You’ve figured out what works best. If/when a youngest child is born, your second child becomes the middle child. Middle children have a mixed blessing. On the one hand, middle children are usually more social, more inquisitive, more curious. On the other hand, middle children are often considered “lost” in the family. Parents tend to unconsciously gravitate toward the oldest and youngest children, as they seem more needy. Middle kids can get “lost” in the shuffle of the family. Accordingly, they often are attention-seeking and can be at greater risk for acting out. After all, negative attention is better than no attention. The youngest child in you family most frequently tests the limits. They can be more demanding of your attention, often playing the “cute” factor. They want to be included in all things older or adult. Parents want to set healthy boundaries with them and stick to them. They often learn things faster, because the middle and first-born siblings have already been there-done that. Youngest children have the benefit of their sibling’s experiences If your family has expanded beyond three children, then there are more kids vying for your attention. First-born and youngest roles tend to continue, while middle-child roles are shared among the middle children. Jealously becomes a factor, as new children are added to the mix. All the children look for their “place” in the mix. Regardless of ordinal issues depending on the size of your family, be sure to carve out one-on-one time daily with each of your children, according to their needs and wants. Also, keep sacred certain whole family time and activities. These become touch tones that everybody learns to count on and define you as a thriving unit, despite of individual nuances. Such sacred family time and activity can include having dinner as a family around the dinner table each night. This becomes check-in and catch-up time to keep all on the same page. Additional whole family events include annual vacations and holiday traditions. Hope these comments are helpful. Blessings, Dr. Jon Ya know? There’s an art to cuddling. I’m not just talking about pinching the cheek of an infant, giving them a big hug. That’s part of it, but not nearly all of it. Cuddling takes many forms, depending on the age of the cuddlee and your relationship to that person. Mastering the art of cuddling magnifies the quality of any of your relationships. A cuddle is a physical interaction between cuddler and cuddlee, where the intent is to draw the cuddle emotionally closer to you. With your children, cuddling is in the category of playful parenting. Daddy is coming in the front door and little Joey, age 5, sees him from the playroom. He bolts from his toys, runs full speed toward his father, and launches himself into daddy’s arms. Daddy grabs his gleeful son and spins him around, while laughing and telling how glad he is to see him. Cuddling. Jim has put aside Saturday morning to start the process of crafting a treehouse with his 10-year-old son, Adam. The raw materials were delivered yesterday. Adam’s eyes widened as his dad asked him if he would be his helper on putting the treehouse together. After breakfast, they got to work. Cuddling. Three-year-old Kaitlyn was ready to settle down and go to sleep. Her Papa read one of her favorite picture books to her as part of their bedtime routine. When it was time to settle down, Papa rubbed her back lightly as he sang a lullaby to her. She was asleep before he finished. Cuddling. Mason was showing off his new learner’s permit he and his dad had just picked up from the DMV. His friends were jealous, as they had not yet turned 15. Mason’s eyes lit up when his dad asked if he wanted to take the car for a spin. He then spent a half hour each day after work for two weeks giving him practice driving. Cuddling. Jason and Elise were watching television one night when he got up and went to sit on his footrest close to her footrest. He reached over and began massaging her feet slowly and gently while they continued watching tv. Cuddling. Make time with each of your children each day to be playful and to cuddle them. To do so, enter their world. Let them initiate. Be open and willing to try most anything. You might find yourself sitting in a living room fort made of pillows and blankets reading spooky stories. You might find yourself made up by your little girl who wanted to try mommy’s cosmetics. Whatever is harmless and engaging is on the table. It includes fun family activities, but also split up the kids so that each of you has some one-on-one time with each kid at some point each week. Cuddle time and playful parenting is what your kids will remember for a lifetime. Blessings, Dr. Jon Coming to Terms with Your Teen Dear Dr. Robinson, My daughter, Carla, just turned 13 years old, and she thinks she’s all that. Making fun of her younger sister. Wanting to hang all over the friends of her 17-year-old brother, whenever they come over. I try to correct her, but it seems as though my words fall on deaf ears. If she gives me another “what…ever,” and eyeroll, I think I’ll scream. Suggestions? Signed, Overwrought Mom Dear O.M., Yep. You’ve got your hands full. Your three kids are at three different developmental stages. Your younger daughter just wants big sis’s attention and is resisting that sis is growing up. Your oldest son is just trying to live his life, have fun with his buds, and not be otherwise bothered. Middle daughter? She’s wanting to bust out on her own, be accepted by older boys, and emotionally distance herself from you, to find ways to define herself in her world. Hang in there with her. She won’t tell you, but this is a time where she needs you to be there for her the most. Only correcting her, as you’ve found out, only pushes her further away. While she needs boundaries and discipline, work it into your time with her, without putting her in her place. Her worst fear at her age is being embarrassed. Her greatest desire is being accepted. So, what to do. First, find time with her alone, outside of your home. She will refuse to help you with the laundry or do other chores without requisite fussing. But, if you make your alone time with her about her, she’ll be more receptive. Increasing the positive interactions with her will reduce the negative ones. Helping her buy and then apply make-up for special occasions is one such option. Asking her opinion about decisions you are making is another. However, in this case, be sure to give her options, either of which are acceptable to you. For example, is you ask, “How about pork chops for dinner?” she will blow you off. If you ask, “Would you rather have pork chops or spaghetti for dinner?” she will give you her opinion. Second, catcher her being good. If she gives her younger sister the time of day, or even does something fun with her, thank her and tell you how much you appreciate her taking the time. Ask her if she wants to invite several girlfriends over for a popcorn and movie night and give them space to have fun together. When she’s nice and in a good, receptive mood, compliment her. When she demonstrates an emotional fever, attitude, or is out of sorts, start with active listening. Something like, “Honey, this isn’t like you. What else is going on?” is a good conversation starter, even if what’s going on is so like her. Active listening helps you focus on her feelings, let’s her know you are with her, and gives her opportunity to sort things out for herself. When she needs boundaries and correction, use “I-messages.” Something like, “Carla, when you yell at your sister to get out of your room and you slam the door behind her, I really worry that you want her out of your life. I’m also fearful that you will tear the door off its hinges. Is there another way we can resolve this?” An I-message has three parts: an observable behavior, your concrete and specific feelings about that behavior, and a tangible outcome to the event. After you’ve set boundaries and made corrections, switch to active listening to continue calming her down and getting to the “real” issues. Coming to terms with your teen will test your mettle. It may be the hardest part of parenting, shy of the pain of childbirth. Based on events and interactions, our children decide early on that they either want to be just like us, in personality and behavior, or just opposite of us. Forming an individual identity is the heart of adolescence. Helping your kids through the storms of their lives will give them opportunity to form that which is truly their personal identity, with the good parts from both of their parents. Blessings, Dr. Jon |
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