What will this website do for you?
Help you think differently about parenting.
Are you worried about the approaching storm of adolescence? Or are you already experiencing a downpour of surliness and defiance? Adolescence need not be stormy. Let me convince you I’m not all wet.
Childhood may seem like the calm before the storm of adolescence, but you need to think of it differently. Childhood is a race, pitting developmental time against biological/social time. Children, who reach adolescence on biological/social time because their bodies have morphed and peers and the media say it’s time, struggle with how to fit in and feel adequate. They often reach for solutions that seem functional to them, but alarm us. But children, who reach adolescence on developmental time, have made progress in areas such as internal discipline, communication, resilience, genuine self-esteem and moral integrity. They are less vulnerable to external pressures and less dependent upon external solutions to problems.
Easier said than done? Not if you think backwards and make a mess of your child. How’s that for a parenting prescription?
What do you wish for your children? That they grow into happy adults, living satisfying lives, in loving relationships? I thought so. Will they just get there eventually? Let’s ask Alice.
From: Alice in Wonderland
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where.
The Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter, which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
(As found in Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.)
Like I said, we need to plan backwards. We start with what a healthy adulthood looks like so we can figure out where we are headed.
Here is a list of 23 characteristics of healthy adults, drawn from clinical research (or as my mother would say, “common sense”).
Characteristics of Healthy Adults
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- 1. Is able to use his/her talents, abilities, and energy effectively and productively.
- 2. Enjoys challenges; takes pleasure in accomplishing things.
- 3. Is capable of sustaining a meaningful love relationship characterized by genuine intimacy and caring.
- 4. Finds meaning in belonging and contributing to a larger community (e.g., organization, church, neighborhood, etc.)
- 5. Is able to find meaning and fulfillment in guiding, mentoring, or nurturing others.
- 6. Is empathic; is sensitive and responsive to other people’s needs and feelings.
- 7. Is able to assert him/herself effectively and appropriately when necessary.
- 8. Appreciates and responds to humor.
- 9. Is capable of hearing information that is emotionally threatening (i.e., that challenges cherished beliefs, perceptions, and self-perceptions) and can use and benefit from it.
- 10. Appears to have come to terms with painful experiences from the past; has found meaning in, and grown from such experiences.
- 11. Is articulate; can express self well in words.
- 12. Has an active and satisfying sex life.
- 13. Appears comfortable and at ease in social situations.
- 14. Generally finds contentment and happiness in life’s activities.
- 15. Tends to express affect appropriate in quality and intensity to the situation at hand.
- 16. Has the capacity to recognize alternative viewpoints, even in matters that stir up strong feelings.
- 17. Has moral and ethical standards and strives to live up to them.
- 18. Is creative; is able to see things or approach problems in novel ways.
- 19. Tends to be conscientious and responsible.
- 20. Tends to be energetic and outgoing.
- 21. Is psychologically insightful; is able to understand self and others in subtle and sophisticated ways.
- 22. Is able to find meaning and satisfaction in the pursuit of long-term goals and ambitions.
- 23. Is able to form close and lasting friendships characterized by mutual support and sharing of experiences.
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List was drawn from the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP-200)
Can you think of anything not included? Aside from a bias against introverts, it seems like a good starting place. If these are the end goals, what are the pathways that deliver our children and adolescents to these ends? Funny you should ask. Stanley Greenspan, M.D., along with other child development experts, listed ten areas of competence that characterize Great Kids. I added an eleventh path, just to make it even.
The ten eleven competencies are:
1. Relatedness
2. Curiosity
3. Empathy
4. Communication
5. Emotional Competence
6. Genuine Self-Esteem
7. Logical Thinking
8. Creativity & Vision
9. Internal Discipline
10. Moral Integrity
11. Responsibility
Can you see how development in each of these eleven areas leads to the characteristics of healthy adulthood? But when many of these characteristics are lacking in adulthood, it is often the result of a bind of having to choose between self and relationships (as in “All you care about is ________”). That Self vs Relatedness Bind raises its head early in adolescence, when kids are expected to do whatever it takes to fit in.
So how do we help launch our kids early on these necessary developmental paths?
Why, we make a mess of them of course. Before you move on to another website, let me explain what A MESS is.
“A” stands for parental attunement, as in knowing the course of child development, what your child’s interests, strengths, and temperament are, and what developmental progress they are making.
“M” is for mastery. Developmental growth comes from hard earned skills that build competence in each of these eleven domains. It doesn’t come by the mere passage of time.
“E” is for engagement. For a child to master hard earned skills, they must stayed engaged with tasks that are challenging and at times frustrating.
“SS” is for self-soothing. In order to stay engaged, a child must learn to self-soothe. Otherwise they will avoid potential failures and come to rely solely on external solutions.
Now aren’t you glad you didn’t switch to a less messy site? Genuine self-esteem comes from mastery and competence, not platitudes. Resilience comes from taking on challenges and finding ways to stay engaged and figure things out. Healthy relationships come from knowing what you are entitled to and what others need from you.
Does all this sound like the makings of a helicopter parent’s flight plan? Far from it. Helicopter parenting or Tiger Mom behavior is based in fear that if the parent does not control things, something will go wrong. What I propose is, the better you understand your child and the course of development, the less hands on control that is needed. Ultimately, I want you to do a better job of analyzing before acting. But to get there, you will probably need to do a fair amount of analyzing after acting. Let me explain.
Our kids will do things that alarm us, and at times scare us. That behavior often leads us to respond immediately; sometimes to punish or to just retake control. But our fast thinking brains that drive those responses may not have the whole picture. And it is certainly not the picture your child intended. Why? Because you did not analyze before acting? Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein have a simple but powerful example of this in their book Raising a Resilient Child. Every night at bedtime, a child had temper tantrums that no amount of punishment would curtail. Upon interviewing the child, the therapist discovered that the child acted out because he was afraid of the dark. A bedside nightlight and a picture of mom and dad resulted in an instant cure. So this “unacceptable” behavior was the child’s attempt to manage an overwhelming emotion (fear) that arose from an issue (no control against imagined harm).
So, how do we get to the point where we analyze before acting? We start with analyzing after the fact. That’s how therapy works. The better the understanding, the more we can make use of that reasoning in the moment, instead of just relying on our fast thinking, caveman brains.
Below is a simple template I encourage clinicians to use and it is useful for parents as well. Before responding to behavior, do an assessment of what emotion the behavior was trying to manage and what issue was giving rise to that emotion.
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Issue |
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Emotion |
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Behavior |
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Response |
Kids “misbehave”, but upon inquiry, we usually come to understand that there was a reason for their behavior. It was functional in the moment. By asking, we find what they were trying to manage and in the process we can ask them to figure out a better way of handling it in the future. For most kids, the interview and your disappointment are punishment enough. If you go straight to punishment, you fail to understand what drove the behavior and the child focuses on avoiding punishment rather than finding more effective ways of solving their original problem.
How to use the website
The website is designed for parents and teachers of preadolescents and adolescents, but with an eye to different interests and needs. This website is like a culinary institute. If you want to browse the bookstore for a cookbook or pick up something in the snack bar, then start with the Parent Toolkit. If you want to stay for dinner, then pick one of the adolescents to read about. You’ll see how they are struggling with adolescence and then what helped turn things around (see Power of Passion and Purpose) or what could have prevented those problems to begin with (see Fresh Start). But if you wish to immerse yourself in the art of cooking, then stay for the weekend (see Workshop) or just move in (see Best of Intentions). There are a number of interesting and entertaining featured posts that serve as entrées to the various sections of the website, kind of like a sampler plate.
For those of you who wish to use the website as a workshop, you can learn to make A MESS and do an IEBR analysis, using various problems posed by one of the five kids. You have the opportunity to assess what developmental competencies were lacking and how they contributed to the problems these kids were having. Then, you can see how those problems were addressed and that lack of development was addressed. There is enough variety in kids and problems that you will emerge with a good working knowledge of the A MESS and IEBR approaches, as well as greater awareness of how developmental competencies are promoted.
The primary goal of the website is to prompt you to think more deeply about the process of parenting. You will be able to work backwards from healthy adult outcomes to identify developmental pathways that begin in childhood. You will also come to appreciate that the struggles of adolescence relate to lack of progress in these developmental areas and are avoidable. If you are the parent of a preteen, you will become more attuned to the developmental competencies needed and how those can be fostered within your child’s world of interests. If you are the parent of an adolescent, you will emerge with much more understanding and compassion in how you view their behavior. You will become better at analyzing before acting and in the process will help your child do the same. Even if you just stop by for the Tapas Bar, I hope you will be intrigued enough to eventually want to come back for more.
Basic Structure of the website
Although there is plenty of didactic material, my apologies, the majority of content consists of vignettes – most often involving dialogues between adult and child/adolescent. I think you will find this format more engaging. But I must warn you. Following many of these dialogues there is an analysis. Having read the dialogue and formed an opinion about what took place, I assume the analysis will be more engaging. If not, then turn to the Parent Toolkit section and find articles from two different realms. The first one is labeled: Big Ideas. Concepts from developmental and cognitive psychology, such as Motivation, Growth Mindset, and Fast and Slow Thinking Brains are explained in simple and sometimes humorous fashion. The second is labeled: Practical Ideas. Useful parenting strategies such as Bedtime Ritual, Clothing Allowance, and Keep the Conflict in the Kid are presented in usable, right out of the box form.
The Kids
Five (fictitious) teenagers, each one struggling in their own way, offer us opportunities for learning how to make A MESS and analyze before acting. As you dig into each of their situations, you will come to recognize what developmental competencies could have made things easier for them in adolescence. You will see how careful assessment can lead to effective changes and how the lack of a good assessment can make things worse. (Menu: Meet the Kids)
The Family
I have also created a (fictitious) family with three young children. Through a series of vignettes, I offer parent-child interactions that are well intentioned, but sometimes miss the mark when it comes to attunement and the promotion of the eleven competencies. Although they were written in chronological order, reading them out of order will not spoil any endings. (Menu: Best of Intentions)
Got A Minute
If you are the, “I’d rather wait and watch the movie” type of person, then coming soon to the website is a section called Got A Minute. Many of the concepts from the Parent Toolkit are condensed into one-or-two minute videos.