Neal Flunks Out

IEBR Analysis and A MESS to the rescue

When we first encounter Neal in Childproofing for Adolescence, he is passed out drunk in his parents’ foyer on his first visit home from freshman year of college. By the end of first semester, he will be home for good, having failed every class except Phys. Ed.

Father: You never drank in high school.

Neal: You never saw me passed out drunk in high school.

Father: You did just fine in high school.

Neal: Well apparently not.

Father: What do you mean?

Neal: The first week of Calc and Chem were basic review for my classmates, but brand new material for me.

Father: Was there something we missed?

Neal: You? No. Me? Yes. Obviously a good high school education.

Let’s dig in with the “Was there something we missed?” question. In an IEBR assessment, we often examine behavior and responses to behavior. In Neal’s case, we need to search for missing behavior. The same goes for his parents.

If we look back at Neal’s time in high school, we see a kid who seems to be doing fine, getting A’s and B’s in most of his classes. If you had asked Neal about his grades at the time, he would have said, “A’s and B’s mean good to excellent”. In other words, why would someone have anything to complain about? And his parents did not complain, because he seemed to be doing well.

Behavior Neal was doing well enough to earn A’s and B’s in his classes.

Response His parents had no concerns about his school performance.

However, if we looked more closely, we would have seen that Neal practiced a “just in time” model of output. He completed homework either late the night before it was due, or on the same day in an earlier class. Papers were started and finished the night before, written without outlines or revisions. Neal did the minimum necessary to get his A’s and B’s. In a word, he “coasted” through high school. He avoided the potential humiliation of trying his hardest and still coming up short compared to his peers. Neal could rationalize some contentment with the grades he got given the effort he put in. And he could dismiss the whole competitive, peer comparison process as “just not his thing”. “Friends are more important,” is what he would explain.

His parents disliked confrontation and if Neal was getting “good” grades, there was no reason to rock the boat. However, it was no secret that Neal was doing all of his work at the last minute and therefore not giving school his best effort. Would his mother or father dismiss the need for revisions and rewrites in their jobs? So, in a sense, his parents were coasting as well, at least when it came to staying attuned to Neal’s school progress. As Neal bluntly found upon reaching college: It’s not the grades he got but the material he mastered that really mattered.

In retrospect, an IEBR for Neal in high school might have looked something like this after careful assessment:

Issue Neal has been praised for being smart (perhaps gifted). He did not want to risk loss of that status in his own eyes or the eyes of others. Competition and comparisons between peers was stressful and a process that often left him feeling inadequate.

Emotion His approach helped him avoid feelings of humiliation and frustration (for which he would be vulnerable if he tried his hardest and still did not do as well as his peers).

Behavior Neal’s “just in time” approach to school produced A’s and B’s

(A different)Response Ask Neal what he is learning in his courses. Tune into objective measures of mastery in subjects such as math and science. Recognize that if he is doing work at the last minute, he is capable of more and better effort. Inquire as to why he starts everything at the last minute. Help him understand his avoidance (coasting). Help Neal appreciate what needs to be mastered in courses such as math and science before starting college.

This set of possible responses looks a little bit like the beginnings of A MESS, doesn’t it? The attunement (A) part considers what Neal is capable of academically, what Neal needs to master (M) before starting college and what kind of progress he is making in those subjects. Rather than rely on high school grades, he and his parents need to work backwards from the areas of mastery needed to start college chemistry, calculus, or expository writing. Most high school textbooks have practice tests and websites such as KhanAcademy.org have pre and post tests for each new concept. These objective measures can give a truer picture of what has and has not yet been mastered. These assessments also define what needs to be focused on next, which is the hard part for Neal: how to engage (E) and stay engaged with a process that feels challenging, risky, frustrating, and not a whole lot of fun.

How will Neal be motivated to do that, given the easy path to A’s and B’s? If he had a crystal ball and could see his frustrating future in college, that might work. How else might he get a “dope slap” ahead of time? Inquiry on line with resources such as KhanAcademy, Advanced Placement exams in core subjects, or core standards from the college departments where he plans to enroll are all possible ways to define what needs to be mastered and potentially motivate him to prepare. Lastly, we saw from his IEBR that Neal’s coasting helps him avoid frustration and humiliation. Therefore, he needs a supportive, nonjudgmental environment in which to take on more challenging material. Absent time limits and between peer comparisons, Neal would feel less threatened. As he mastered material he would gain in confidence for taking on future challenges. Ultimately, facing challenges and potential frustrations requires learning to self-soothe (SS).

It is easier said than done, but an emphasis on mastery and a de-emphasis on grades or between child comparisons would have buffered Neal from the threats he sought to avoid: comparisons and humiliation. A kid who focuses on bettering his or her time in each race will stay with a sport longer than someone who focuses on who beat whom. Only one person can win a race. Everyone else looses. But beating your previous time is a worthy goal and feels great when it happens, regardless of who finished where.

And what became of the Neal who just flunked out of college?

What will happen to Neal, now that he flunked out of college? Let’s return to the IEBR from above. He avoided threats of comparison or disappointment. That pattern of “coasting” left him unprepared for college. So, we need to ask, “How motivated is he for college?” and “What does he have to do to be prepared?”

Father: What are you really good at and how did you make that happen?

Neal: What kind of question is that?

Father: I’m very good at table tennis and I know exactly why.

Neal: And photography.

Father: Thank you. That too. So how about you?

Neal: I’m really good at video games.

Father: So I hear. And how did you get so good?

Neal: By playing hundreds of games. Watching players better than me. Replaying games I lost.

Father: Isn’t it frustrating to lose so much?

Neal: Nobody knows your real name. And nobody cares. How did you get good at ping-pong?

Father: Played people better than I was. It’s a great way to learn.

Neal: Why are you asking me this?

Father: I figure if someone is really good at something, then that approach probably works other places.

Neal: Ah. You want me to figure out what approach will help with school.

Father: Well. Does any of it transfer?

His parents gave him the choice of getting a job or properly preparing for college. After delivering pizzas for two weeks, he ‘pivoted’ to college prep. With a well-defined set of skills to master, at his own pace, and in the privacy of his own room, Neal was able to engage and stay engaged as he mastered the math and science he neglected in high school. Just like rebooting and starting over makes facing challenges in video games easier, the self-paced, private approach to mastery worked well for Neal. Success and mastery also gave him the confidence to take on challenges and tolerate initial failures as he learned from those failures. As you can see, Neal was learning to make A MESS (of himself).

What developmental competencies were advanced? Internal discipline, emotional competence, and genuine self-esteem were the obvious areas of gain. Can you think of any others? I would hope that curiosity would be rekindled now that he was less avoidant and more willing to try new challenges.

With the help of his father, Neal constructed an IEBR for himself. He recognized that his last minute efforts in high school were not really laziness, but rather a coasting style that kept him from adult criticism and peer comparisons and humiliation. Somewhere along the way, he had made the decision not to try his hardest, because it felt like a competition he was just going to lose. Lost in that was a drive to achieve for his own sake – to learn new concepts and feel good about what he was discovering. His father asked him why he was willing to compete and risk defeat in the video gaming world. Neal felt that anonymity made losing tolerable. He also acknowledged that practicing in the privacy of his room made losing less of a threat. Just reboot the game and try again. Together they decided that some of those same principles could be used when studying on his own at his own pace. When asked how he would motivate himself, Neal responded that he enjoyed learning; he just didn’t like losing (in front of other people).

Issue Lack of self-esteem from internal sources rather than external sources.

Emotion Fear of humiliation when judged and compared to others.

Behavior A history of avoidance and coasting. A lack of ambition and drive to learn (and compete).

A New Response to old behavior Neal plans to minimize sources of judgment and comparison by studying in private and progressing at his own pace. Neal trusts that the more competent he is in subject areas, the more willing he will be to engage in public settings such as classrooms and peer study groups.

This approach will address his lack of internal discipline, curiosity, and logical thinking, especially in his academic life.

A good IEBR assessment can often serve as the basis for making A MESS. We can see from the assessment above where greater mastery was needed.

Attunement His father’s inquiries helped him tune into areas of development that had been neglected: internal discipline, curiosity, and logical thinking.

Mastery With the aid of his high school and college textbooks, Neal had a clear picture of the math and science concepts he needed to master before he could consider returning to the university. He found online courses and study guides to help him approach these goals systematically.

Engagement His parents agreed that he needed to get a job for eight hours-a-day, or he needed to make academic preparation his job. Neal preferred studying to the job. Plus, he really wanted to get back to college. Staying at home, when most of his friends were college, felt a little embarrassing.

Self-soothing Neal quickly found that studying could be frustrating and at times discouraging. He could no longer coast on “good enough” effort, because mastery meant just that – proof that he had mastered concepts and could apply them. The trial and error methods that helped him with video gaming were not quite good enough for learning new and difficult material. His parents agreed to hiring a tutor when Neal asked. The support of the tutor helped with engagement and self-soothing until Neal’s pride in his progress provided that internal support.

Neal’s coasting approach was designed to preserve self-esteem by avoiding judgment and comparisons. These are external sources of evaluation. Genuine self-esteem needs to be measured more internally. In the example of school, Neal’s self-esteem needs to come from feeling good about what he has mastered in math and science. He needs to feel good about developing the skills and resilience needed to sustain his efforts to stay engaged despite challenges, frustrations and failures. The earlier version of Neal had traded ambition for safety. The reworked version of Neal is resilient enough to rekindle his ambition.