How do I keep my son anchored and close to family as he grows? I see this challenge everyday in my office. Parents view their growing sons as changing and losing touch with their family. But interestingly, their sons see it quite differently. They talk about their parents drifting from them – not the other way around. They talk about their parents becoming more and more serious about homework and grades. They tell me their parents are busy and stressed and worried about jobs. They tell me that the only times their moms and dads interact with them is when something is going wrong. They tend to only recall the critical and unhappy side of their parents. One boy recently broke down in the office telling me his parents don’t engage with him on the things they used to enjoy and talk about, like getting outside to play one-on-one basketball in the driveway or talk about a cool new video game. Many parents admit to me that they are revved up, are more serious, as their boys grow older. Mainly because teachers and coaches and other parents seem to be on a treadmill of pushing for higher results. So, remember… lower the stress. Also, remember that boys connect with us not through words or tasks, but typically though physical activities. One mom told me how she’d had an epiphany. One day she heard herself nagging and complaining about chores and homework, and told me she didn’t like being that kind of mom. Instead, she decided to take a walk with her son around the block. Get out of the house and leave the tension behind that was causing a rift between them. This grew into taking hikes with her son on free afternoons and weekends (without his young sibling tagging along) to explore cool wooded areas and trails near their home. They bonded without words, but with each step they took, each interesting rock they collected, the relationship solidified. Boys share experiences – often without words – and mainly when outdoors. They also don’t like to share our attention. They deserve this one-on-one time no matter how old they get. Boys love to give one-word answers. Is this normal? The answer may surprise you. As boys get older, and approach mid-elementary school years, most will pull back and express less emotion. It’s normal. They retreat from uncomfortable feelings. They talk less about problems. This seems a sudden shift for parents who recall their young son once telling them everything and displaying sadness and worries openly. This change isn’t abnormal, and in fact, their retreat from expressing strong emotion or worry directly is part of the developmental path most boys will take. Not all boys, but most. They are shoring up their new found sense of power, masculinity, and belief that they are capable and independent. This is both a true gender difference, some of it likely is wired in some way, and much of it is based on how we socialize young teenage men. Don’t be concerned that your son isn’t as verbal and emotional as he once was, and adjust your expectations for how he communicates with you. What are some of top myths we should know about boys? Myths about boys abound. Here are a few.
Truth is, boys are complex and don’t neatly fit into these simple stereotypes. Once you understand early boy development and appreciate the trends impacting boyhood, you gain what you need to see them in their true complexities. Once better understood, raising boys moves from frustrating to rewarding. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. If you’re locked in a power struggle with your son, you’re likely fueling it by giving him attention. Here’s a new way to think about power struggles: It’s natural, especially for young boys, to push the boundaries. They’re experimenting with ways to gain control to achieve what they want. So, don’t engage in a back-and-forth struggle. If the issue at hand isn’t important, let it go. Wear sneakers or shoes to school? Gloves or mittens? One more bite of broccoli? Don’t get caught up in these relatively tiny daily details. As soon as you see a power struggle starting up, step back and disengage. Don’t give it attention. Instead, seize the moment as a learning opportunity. Let natural consequences help your son learn that he’s making life tough for himself. Tell him, “It was your choice not to get into bed at the time we agreed. So there’s no time left for a story tonight. I’ll miss reading to you. But, tomorrow will be another day and I know you will do a better job not fighting so we have more time for a story.” At first, he will cry and protest if you don’t join in on his desire to struggle… but by using this approach you can start to reverse negative patterns. Remember to always stick to what you say. Always appear calm and collected. Use fewer words. These will bring about fewer struggles. A mother of young twin boys recently shared her frustrations with me about their school experience. Seems teachers are fast-tracking one of her sons to an ADHD diagnosis. This is busy season for diagnosing ADHD (between September and November). It starts in earnest in pre-k through 2nd/3rd grade when teachers suggest problems with “attention,” “impulsivity” and “motor activity.” Those are the three ADHD diagnostic symptom clusters. What’s this experience like for kids? Everyday in my office they tell me. Kids go from freer movement and longer days of summer, to suddenly sitting long hours, in narrow curricula that are geared to maximize their test scores. They have few opportunities to learn through natural ways, using visual-motor play, exploration, and creativity. Interestingly, many teachers I speak with secretly share their frustration. But they’re stuck and stressed. They tell me they went into teaching to bring their creativity and personal touch to the classroom. Many tell me they appreciate differences in how kids learn, but are forced to stick to an educational script. Here’s good news. These younger grades are like a tunnel for many boys. Parents just have to get their kids through, acknowledge that school isn’t much fun right now. Hone in on the 1-2 things that are enjoyable (e.g., seeing your friends, recess, lunch, anything they identify as upbeat and positive). Hearing their complaints in my office (which have grown considerably since I started practicing mid 1980’s), I’m often reminded of what bad employment is like for adults. Many of us can relate to that. Here’s what you do. Stay steady and lead. Be positive. Let your boys know things are ok, even if things right now aren’t great in their grade. Tell them (sternly) they have to go through it. They will learn and have to adjust. Better teachers are coming. More interesting ways to learn too. They won’t ever stop wanting to learn cool things because it’s part of how they are designed. Supplement with great things at your fingertips. Libraries. After-school programs. Lego play groups. Robot building teams. Theatre groups. Singing groups. The world is a big place, start exploring beyond the limited school experience. I received a question from mom who sadly was recently widowed. Her third grade son gets so frustrated when he can’t do something like fold a paper airplane just right. He goes into a crying fit for about ten to fifteen minutes, then seems magically fine. What should she do? Hug him? Try to talk to him? Should she be more worried that something bigger is going on? I told her it’s best not to intervene in these outbursts when they are happening. Walk off and ignore whenever possible – and while it sounds mean – don’t try to hug or console at that moment. Wait until the crying spell has passed. The brain is undergoing an intense emotional release. The frustrations are layered in this case. There’s the immediate reason (paper airplane folded wrong) that sets her son off, but having lost a parent, particularly a dad, there are deeper and more complicated feelings that rise to the surface. Crying becomes an opportunity to release everything else. In my experience, it’s quite natural – healthy in fact – for boys to briefly “lose it/overreact” when they don’t accomplish typical “guy stuff” well (e.g., airplane folding or learning to skateboard, etc.). Not to worry, despite the seriousness of their crying, it’s a normal and healthy release. Boys who have lost a parent will likely show more over-the-top reactions to simple frustrations. Again, it’s their way of letting out the emotional steam building under the surface. We all can appreciate that. And consider this… there will come a day very soon when most young boys stop crying altogether – or very rarely shed a tear. As boys grow they tend to express sad feelings and frustrations mostly through anger. So what can you do now? Better to teach them early on that channeling that anger into more productive positive ways is the better route – like getting outdoors for a run or shooting hoops. Talking about it alone won’t do much but frustrate them further. Telling them to move in some way and identifying it as “too much adrenaline” helps. For boys who aren’t around a dad regularly, get trusted guys to show your son the emotional ropes. A tutor, coach, boy baby-sitter, uncles. When good male role models show boys how to handle strong emotions, boys listen. They watch and learn, they imitate, wanting to please – and be like – these older, stronger men they will soon become. A mom contacted me wondering why her two very young sons – only about a year and a half apart – are suddenly showing intense sibling rivalry. Prior, they wanted to be together all the time and played without friction. Turns out, the older one is starting kindergarten. He’s developmentally pulling ahead of his younger brother. I suspect their sibling rivalry will wax and wane over the years as they grow and move forward at different rates. The older boy will want to establish himself as older, biggest, smartest, and best at everything… while the younger will be right there on his brother’s heels competing. It’s all quite normal and healthy. But whenever sibling rivalry goes too far, do what this mom did. As soon as she saw negative behavior in either son that had been designated as unacceptable, a swift time-away was given. Those time-aways would be lengthened or made more frequent if the behaviors didn’t stop. That’s the best way to handle these type normal sibling issues. As a parent, you’re making a clear statement that in our family we don’t disrespect parents or tease siblings (beyond playful teasing), and hitting is never acceptable. By separating from the family, a child gets to first calm himself down and work through whatever anger or conflicted feelings they have (and do it on their own). They also think about how to improve their behavior so they can rejoin the family, It’s important that upon leaving a time-away, children always promise parents that their behavior will improve and specifically reference what got them in trouble to begin with. That increases accountability. A mom on the west coast recently told me her 2.5 year old son was “informally” assessed for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) at a prestigious medical center. The boy was asked to do a puzzle, and showed good joint attention towards his parents, and toward the Intern who was observing, but not towards the neuropsychologist conducting the assessment. The boy then said he wanted to go home. The examiner told the parents that their son has social delays because he is supposed to show joint attention and interaction towards her, not only toward parents. When the examiner next tried to have the boy build a tower of five blocks, he refused, and tried to steal her tower. Seems to me his joint attention was fine. He just didn’t like this stranger. The good news is that this 2.5 year old doesn’t have any glaring cognitive or language delays. Still, the examiner told the parents that she couldn’t rule out ASD, and that he might have a mild case – saying her gut feeling was that the worst outcome would be that he’s an “engineer” in Silicon Valley. That’s a lot to pick up (and predict) from a puzzle or block tower in a few minutes. Not being there, I can’t speak for the quality of this informal clinical evaluation, but my general impression about “informal evaluations” is that they aren’t very accurate or highly predictive. I assume informal means “screening”… and to my way of thinking, quick screenings (whether for anxiety, depression, ADHD, ASD, etc), have little value other than trying to educate folks about potential mental health risks. Think of cholesterol screening or blood pressure screenings… you don’t have heart disease based on one time elevated findings. And these are objective, real medical tests measuring real body changes. We have nothing like that in psychiatry. Most screenings are subjective and are generally designed to cast a very large net. That generates lots of false positives. They generate lots of parental anxiety too. I told this mom to take this informal screening with a grain of diagnostic salt. I told her that what’s more important is not building a tower of blocks with a stranger one time, but how he relates to other kids in his real life day in and day out – over weeks and months – on the playground – in the sandbox – at day care, etc. Early behavior of boys is often not very “social” or too “hyper”, but with more and more experience playing and interacting with other kids, they start to build their social toolbox. I also told this mom – as I tell all parents – don’t coach your son too much when he struggles socializing. Let him make mistakes and learn from the real-life consequences. The presence of well-intentioned adults often delays development, instead of facilitating it. She’s going to investigate things further for her son, but wants to meet a professional who won’t rush to a label in ten minutes. She’ll keep an eye on his social development, and will follow through with lots of play time and opportunities to be social. A reader recently asked: How much do genes matter in ADHD? She’s getting conflicting opinions, and there’s a reason why… there’s no simple answer to that complex question. Different techniques are used by experts to estimate genetic contributions to all sorts of human traits and problems. Also, it’s hard to determine genes of something that’s not easily or accurately measured, like ADHD – there is no blood test or x-ray or true biological markers. It’s a “clinical” diagnosis, which means, lots of guess work and weighing in and watching over time to see if a diagnosis fits or doesn’t, and ruling out lots of other reasons a child has trouble sitting still or focusing or behaving impulsively. I reached out to a Harvard Medical School geneticist I know and asked him. He said, “The actual risk to a first degree relative has variously been reported in the 15-60% risk range, with boys, purportedly, at higher risk than girls.” What I take from this is the following. (1) No one really knows exactly how much genes play a role, hence the wide range of 15-60%, and (2) genes are only a piece, perhaps a small piece, of the ADHD puzzle. My advice is not to think about genetics, but focus on the many environmental factors in our control that are tied to making an ADHD diagnoses:
The list goes on and on… So let’s think of all the environmental changes and improvements we can make that will help ADHD not become a problem in the first place. A fan asked a question after the recent post on Sibling Rivalry and using Time-Aways as a tool: What do you suggest when you march a child to their room when they are not clearly upset (ie, name-calling, being overly rude, hurting a sibling for no clear reason other than to be annoying), and they tell you they “won’t do it again” as you put them in their room? How long do they take time-away in a situation such as this, when there is no clear “waiting for the storm to calm”? Time-aways should be as long as needed. They help lower the negative behaviors you’re trying to change. If a child says “sorry”, over and over, but keeps doing basically same negative behaviors, it means you have to lengthen the time-away. Before letting them out of their room make certain they tell you why they went in and what they will do differently. Some kids need a lengthier time-away (like a mini-grounding that can last a half hour or more). Try that, and keep calm. No lectures. Tell them they’ve made choices that got them in their rooms. Tell them you know they are smart and will figure out a way to hold back those urges. If this doesn’t work, add a consequence too. Perhaps they’ve lost a special treat that night for dessert or can’t join watching a favorite TV show or they have to go to bed 15 minutes earlier that night. |
Archives
October 2018
Categories
All
|