Ashley H. Beitel, Ph.D.
Let’s get the credentials out of the way. I have degrees from Denison University (BA), Dartmouth College (MALS), and University of Illinois (Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology). I am currently an adjunct faculty member in the Carle/University of Illinois Psychiatry Residency.
This website represents much of what I have learned over the past forty years as a therapist, clinical supervisor, teacher and parent. After graduating from a small liberal arts college where it was harder fail than succeed, I began a year as a VISTA volunteer on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation where failure was assured if you presumed to know what someone else wanted or needed. As a high school teacher working with kids who were failing due to truancy or conflicts with teachers, I found that when given responsibility for another student as their tutor, these kids were responsible and motivated.
As a teacher and group therapist in a long term adolescent psychiatric unit, I again found that giving kids responsibilities (such as tutor for a younger child, chief gardener for their own vegetable plot or caretaker for vulnerable group therapy member) brought out the best in kids who were previously angry, oppositional, unmotivated, or all of the above.
As a therapist or conductor of psychological assessments, I found that even the angriest or most oppositional adolescents respond well when I begin with empathy, understanding, and genuine interest. In other words, I need to join them in their world before expecting them to join mine.
My adult clients have taught me what they needed but did not get as children and adolescents. They have helped me appreciate the pain that has caused them, as well as how they managed to cope. I now know that behavior, no matter how dysfunctional it may seem, exists for some good reason. It is my job to understand why it has been functional. My assessments begin with the question of what emotions are so intolerable that these behaviors are needed and then, what issues give rise to those emotions. Invariably I find that a lack of developmental growth has limited their options for dealing with life’s challenges.
These hours spent with clients or conducting evaluations have led me to the conclusion that kids who reach adolescence lacking essential developmental competencies are forced to handle the challenges of fitting in or feeling adequate with whatever works. Often, those strategies are the behaviors that alarm us or bring out the worst in us as parents in the form of controls and punishments. Kids who begin this essential developmental work during childhood reach adolescence much better equipped to handle the challenges of peer pressure, identity formation, intimacy, and the multitudinous ways in which humiliation can be served up.
I assume that all parents want what is best for their kids. We all want our kids to grow up to live satisfying lives within loving relationships. With that goal in mind, we can identify the developmental paths, beginning in childhood that will lead to these outcomes. Kids who have begun the developmental work in areas such as self-discipline, genuine self-esteem, and resilience reach adolescence better equipped to know what is important to them, can trust their own thoughts and feelings, and can speak up when something is not right. They also have fewer conflicts with their parents because they know that privileges are earned, not bestowed.
I have also come to realize that parents who are attuned to their children’s interests, abilities and temperaments, who understand the course of child development and can assess their child’s progress, are able to honor their child’s uniqueness while fostering their development. Parents who lack that kind of attunement assume they know what is best for their children and how it should be attained, and rely heavily upon control and punishment.
I have concluded that more often than not, dysfunctional behaviors are external solutions for internal problems. Often they are done impulsively. In therapy, we seek to know why. The potential benefit is learning to analyze before acting. Parents who are quick to control and punish lose the opportunity to help their kids analyze their behavior and develop greater self-awareness and self-control before acting.
Parenting and therapy have much in common. I think much of what I have figured out about how to listen, analyze, and foster growth can help parents be more curious, attuned, and supportive with their kids as well as more self-aware. And yes, I believe the early lessons from the reservation still hold.
My wife, Joyce, and I have been married forty-two years. She is a retired physician, turned gardener. We have two adult children and one “it’s time to play, Dad” puppy.
