Category: ParentingAdequately

Deranged, Inhuman, Disgusting

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Deranged, Disgusting, or Inhuman

In other words, deserving of your contempt.

(If you haven’t read Crazy, Stupid, or Awful, you might want to read that one first. Crazy, Stupid, Awful means you probably are thinking of your partner as a “Them” instead of thinking about the two of you as a “We” or an “Us,” but some careful, attentive, open listening might suffice. Like in They Might Be An Alien)

But contempt is something a little different.

 

The Gottmans (e.g., Gottman, 1993) really brought the idea of contempt onto the couples’ therapy scene, a kind of relational filter that says “I’m better than you, and you don’t deserve my basic respect.” Sometimes, it looks like sarcasm or condescension (speaking as if your partner really is stupid, or worse). Sometimes, it’s withdrawal (because you believe that your partner really is disgusting and you can’t stand to be around them). Sometimes, it sounds like demeaning put-downs (because you think your partner is just a real piece of shit). It’s dehumanizing (e.g., Kteily et al., 2022). And that’s a much bigger problem than thinking they’re a decent human being who you just really don’t understand or agree with. 

 

The impacts of contempt are probably quite a bit broader than just in couples’ relationships, too. As therapists, we need to be on the lookout for contempt of partners, but also of kids and bosses, among others. And there are some pragmatic things we need to think about – when parents are using sarcasm, condescension, demeaning put downs, and/or withdrawal/neglect with their children… we need to intervene strongly and quickly to help them make changes. Eye-rolling, name-calling, and that pinched-face look of disgust need to be taken with plenty of seriousness. When it’s someone talking about a coworker, boss, friend, etc., the easiest solution might be to simply get out of that situation or relationship… contempt (like real burnout) is pretty damn hard to come back from.

 

But then, we also need to look at the underlying cognitive structures that support contempt… Contempt “implies sense of superiority over [other people], pessimistic feelings about their possibility of betterment, detachment from them, and avoidance driven by detachment (Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2018). So, I’m going to go ahead and say (maybe outrageously?!) that contempt is never rational. So, to be clear, I’m not saying that anyone should stay in contact with someone they feel contempt toward. Maybe the contempt goes along with other thoughts/feelings that are quite reasonable and dictate that the appropriate behavior is detachment (e.g., an actually abusive partner, an actually unfair and unpleasant working environment). But that sense of down-to-the-ground superiority of one (aggrieved) person over another? Mmmm… that’s a tough sell for me. Dehumanizing a human being doesn’t fit the logic I understand. 

And there are personality structures, too. It’s possible to have a contemptuous “personality” (or long term attributional style, maybe?). Sometimes, that goes along with narcissistic and antisocial stuff (esp when the dispositional contempt is typically outwards), but sometimes the contempt is directed inwardly at the self, as well! (see Schriber et al., 2017). 

 

I’m sure how you choose to work on this depends on your theoretical orientation… I just wanted to take a minute to bring it to the forefront and make sure we’re not letting some important signs pass us by! 

 

Comment below: What other markers of disgust do you see in clients? Do you ever find it easy to blow those off? How do you work with clients on these deep cognitive structures? 

 

Gottman, J. M. (1993). A theory of marital dissolution and stability. Journal of family psychology, 7(1), 57.

Kteily, N. S., & Landry, A. P. (2022). Dehumanization: Trends, insights, and challenges. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(3), 222–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.12.003

Miceli, M., & Castelfranchi, C. (2018). Contempt and disgust: The emotions of disrespect. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 48(2), 205-229. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12159 

Schriber, R. A., Chung, J. M., Sorensen, K. S., & Robins, R. W. (2017). Dispositional contempt: A first look at the contemptuous person. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 280-309. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000101. 

 

 

 

Untamed Brains (ADHD)

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Untamed Brains (ADHD) 

That’s a term I got from my cool, wise kids!! It just popped into our conversation, and I love it. I love it in all the ways – it speaks to me about creativity and dream work and many more things. In fact, I love it in so many ways, I’m going to start a new tag for it, because I see now that it’s going to come up a lot. Today, I specifically love it in the way that ADHD can be a GIFT, not a diagnosis. 

Now look, ADHD is not always a gift. It’s not mostly a gift. Not in this world. It can be a hot disaster, and I don’t want to diminish that experience AT ALL. It does require accommodation. It is exhausting. It’s not a “superpower,” despite some of the messaging that’s popular now, at least not all the time. (My kids also recently engaged me in an insanely well-thought-out discussion about how all superpowers seem to also be or have super-weaknesses, at least if they’re real. Like how if you can turn invisible, you should also be blind, because your retinal cells wouldn’t have the capacity to register the light because the light would be passing through them. Yes, My kids are 11 and 9.)

Ok, back on track! Once the “weakness” part ahs been managed – and YES, that’s necessary and it might also be an ongoing thing forever – and people have learned how to place themselves in environments where they can thrive and strategies to help them do so… 

Examples of some ADHD “traits” that can be a little magical (in general, or in the right light!) include (Sedgwick et al., 2019):

  • Cognitive dynamism (divergent thinking, hyperfocus, “flow,” inquisitiveness, creativity, curiosity, originality, ingenuity)
  • Courage (non-conforming, adventurousness, bravery, integrity, persistence, spontaneity, staying an indvidual)
  • Energy (“spirit,” psychological energy, physical energy, “drive”)
  • Humanity (social intelligence, humor, self acceptance, recognition of feelings)
  • Resilience (self regulation, flexibility, adaptability, sublimation/reframing of “weaknesses” into strengths)
  • Transcendence (appreciation of beauty and excellence, awe, wonder)

Personally, a supervisor once enlightened me… those “tangential thoughts” that come up in therapy sometimes – they might be tangents, and they might initially seem TOTALLY unrelated to what’s going on with the client at that moment, but give them a chance sometimes. Even if your brain is running a little faster or a little more “untamed” than the client’s, that doesn’t mean it’s actually random. You still have neurological networks, you know. So, see what comes up – it might surprise you with just how relevant it is.  (You know, and also don’t run amok with a session, please!) 

Side note, and this is not on the “untamed” side, but people who grow up with and have to learn to manage ADHD also wind up with a lot of awesome gifts from that process and struggle. Not everyone develops the same ones, but incredible perseverance, realistic self compassion, and whole host of organizational and self management skills are typical!

Comment below: Any therapists with ADHD out there? Has it ever been helpful?

 

 

 

Sedgwick, J. A., Merwood, A., & Asherson, P. (2019). The positive aspects of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a qualitative investigation of successful adults with ADHD. Atten Defic Hyperact Disord, 11(3), 241-253. doi: 10.1007/s12402-018-0277-6.

 

 

 

Behaviorism for Parents 3

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Behaviorism for Parents – Moving Up (Lesson 3)

(If you haven’t read the first two installments, find them here and here.) 

You don’t want to reward your kid for every little thing forever.

(1) First, how much does that behavior become intrinsically (or naturally) rewarding, meaning it will maintain itself over time after awhile? For example, exercise might be this way. We have to reward ourselves in the beginning to make it a habit, but once we start feeling better exercise is easier and more pleasant and our bodies feel good, so we don’t have to reward it anymore. Speaking more kindly results in nicer, easier relationships; sometimes even keeping one’s room clean ends up feeling good. If your kid starts doing a behavior with no reminders and no complaining, you can try just reducing the amount or frequency of the reward over time.

(2) You may be able to improve behavior through shaping, as described in the last post.

(3) You may want to use chaining. It’s similar to shaping, but chaining means stringing several desired behaviors together. You probably already did this at least once during potty training, because that’s a multi-behavior process (where each behavior was probably also shaped). When you first started potty training, you probably did all the work – getting to the bathroom, disrobing, setting the kid on the toilet, wiping or helping them wipe (wiping effectively is definitely one of those behaviors that needed shaping!), redressing, flushing, and washing hands. All your kid did was sit there and sometimes pee or poop. And at that time, they probably got praise or the potty song or an m&m, right? But eventually, you didn’t reward them just for peeing, they also had to flush. Then pee, flush, and pull pants up and down. All the way to being able to the whole chained process! (And, depending on how old your kids are, you probably don’t even give them m&m’s anymore -haha!)

(4) You may want to use a token economy. A token economy is especially helpful (and more convenient) when kids get older and so rewards are a little more substantial or when they can handle a little delay in their reward. (Remember, really little kids can’t make the connection even with a few minutes’ delay (this is why you brought the m&ms to the bathroom with you!), but older kids’ and teens can wait till the end of the day, week, or even more.

A token economy means that you use something symbolic (a “token”) to keep track of the rewardable behaviors, and then give the reward once they’ve added up. This could be stickers on a chart, or paper tickets that can be turned in, etc. One way to do this is just for any extra helpful chores, behaviors, etc. – for example, when a kid does a task that helps the family that’s not part of their regular responsibilities, they get a sticker. Once they get 20 stickers, they get $20. (This is more convenient than giving $1 each time.)

But if you’re using the token economy to keep track of regular chores, behaviors, responsibilities, you need to make sure that the child is regularly earning between about 60-80% of their available tokens per day. If they are earning 100% every day, it actually reduces their motivation. You can increase the difficulty of the tasks. If they are earning under 60%, they’ll also lose motivation. That means you need to reduce the difficulty of the behaviors to keep them invested in the program.

 

 

Comment below: What other behaviorism techniques might be useful for parents? 

 

Behaviorism for Parents 2

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Behaviorism for Parents – New Behaviors (Lesson 2)

If you haven’t read Behaviorism for Parents – The Basics, start there! 

You want behaviors done differently, or you want more complex behaviors.

(1) First, assume your kids want to behave and troubleshoot with them before assuming they are oppositional.

If your kids aren’t doing what you want them to do, make sure they CAN do it and KNOW that they are supposed to. So many instances of what parents think is “defiance” is actually a child not being capable for one reason or another, because we didn’t train them how (we just assumed they should know), or not knowing or remembering what they’re supposed to do when. Sometimes, they really didn’t hear you because they were focused on Minecraft they same way you don’t always hear your partner when you’re focused on a work email.

Kids are not shorter adults! They don’t have the same capacity for memory, sustained attention, fine motor skills, frustration tolerance, etc. as we do! Asking your kid to do the dishes is not equivalent to you doing the dishes. Kendra doesn’t wipe down the counters because she hates the feeling of crumbs in her hand and doesn’t have great coordination when she has to reach up so high. Marcus finds your “highly efficient” system for managing his multiple homework subjects too difficult to grasp and he’s already overwhelmed from struggling in Algebra 2.

Teach Kendra to hold a plate under the lip of the counter to catch the crumbs instead. Just give Marcus one big folder for homework and let him search through it at the beginning of class.

Be willing to train your kids (remember, that’s one of the main jobs of parents!) – that involves choosing behaviors they are capable of and then modeling, giving explicit instruction, doing it with them, helping while they practice, and then supervising their practice with feedback before they can do a behavior on their own!

Be willing to negotiate, or choose your battles. Is this behavior totally necessary for the family to function or for your kid to be a functioning adult? If they don’t make their bed, is it going to damage anything or just bother you? (Just bothering you isn’t a good enough reason to cause discord and stress in the family system!) If they eventually have a bed partner who wants it made, they can learn it then, can’t they?

(2) Second, you can build new or more complex behaviors through shaping.   

Shaping means starting with where your kid is (or where you are) and the making doable baby-steps toward the thing you ultimately want (successive approximations toward the goal). Sometimes this is pretty easy. If you want Jillian to make her bed, first show her how and then go through the training process (but don’t expect military corners if she’s only 6, please!), including showing, teaching, helping, and supervising. The first time she does it on her own, and it’s hot mess, just comforter pulled up and pillows askew, reward it anyway, however it is. That’s your starting point. The next day, or next week, up the ante a little. Remind her to pull up the inside sheet first – show, teach, help, supervise. Then, only reward a bed making that includes the inside sheet being pulled up. Don’t reward a bed-making if the underneath sheet is down. Just give a gentle reminder. Do the training again if need be. After another week or so, up the ante again. Remind her that all of her pillows and stuffed animals should be on the bed, at the top, facing front. Show, teach, help, supervise. Then, when she does it on her own, only reward a bed that is made with the comforter pulled up, the inner sheet pulled up, and the pillow and animals correct. Voila!  

You’ll also want to use this as your kids age, as an easy way to update their behaviors. For example, when kids are very little, they’ll need the whole training sequence to learn how to put their toys in their toybox. As they get a little older, they won’t need much training to put away toys and books, but they won’t be able to do things like “clean their room.” If you keep on top of how their capacities are increasing, you can increase the scope and complexity of their rule-following behaviors with relative ease.

Sometimes this is very hard, especially if you and your kid have gotten into a deep behavioral hole. If the behavior you have during a conflict is screaming+cursing+storming off, and the behavior you want is listening-quietly-with-a-calm-attitude-and-joining-you-pleasantly-for-dinner… there’s more work to do there than your kid will be able to do in one try, no matter how big the punishment or reward. So, even though you won’t want to do it, you will still need to reward the baby steps. That means that if your kid screams and curses, but doesn’t storm off – that behavior gets rewarded. That’s right. You heard me. After they are reliably not storming off, then you work on the cursing, then on the volume. I know it seems counterintuitive, but let me guess… you’ve already been trying it “your way” and it hasn’t gotten better, right? So, be willing to give it a try!

Note: There’s a Behaviorism for Parents Vol 3 here.

 

 

Comment: What other issues have your parent-clients had with implementing behavioral strategies at home? 

 

Behaviorism for Parents 1

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Behaviorism for Parents – The Basics (Lesson 1)

I often have to teach parents about basic principles of operant conditioning and such, so I finally just wrote it up. Thought I’d share it with you. 

Thorndike’s Law: If you do something, and something good follows, you’re more likely to do that thing again. If you do something, and something bad follows, you’re less likely to do that thing again. (If this also sounds like we’re training a puppy… yes, very much yes.)

Important note: This is only for increasing or decreasing the occurrence of a behavior that already happens. We will talk about adding new behaviors (or more complex behaviors) later. Go ahead and get clients to identify a single behavior they like and one they don’t like for a single kid to use as examples for this teaching.

There are TWO WAYS for something good to follow a behavior. The first is if something pleasant is given (positive reinforcement, but you might just want to call this “reward”). So, if Jackson makes his bed in the morning, he might receive a dollar, or a sticker, or a gum drop, or extra screen time, or a curfew extension, or praise. Important note: rewards only work if they are valued by the recipient. It is a very common mistake to try to reward kids with things that we think they should care about but they really don’t.

The second way for something good to follow a behavior is for something unpleasant that already exists is taken away (negative reinforcement, but maybe you want to call it something like “reprieve.”) So, if Jackson makes his bed in the morning, he might get out of doing an unpleasant chore like washing the dishes. Same caveat – it has to matter to the kid.

Note that is has to be an overall pleasant experience, so if rewards are given grudgingly, or only after lots of nagging, etc., the overall takeaway won’t be pleasant.

SO: If Jackson likes desserts and hates folding laundry, and he makes his bed each day, and each day he gets ice cream after dinner and at the end of the week Mom hangs up his clothes instead of him, he’s much more likely to make his bed in the future.  

These two strategies – reward and reprieve – are the foundation of behavior change. Rewarding behavior you want is much, much, much more effective than trying to punish behavior you don’t want. (More on this in a moment.)

 There are TWO WAYS for something bad to follow a behavior. The first is if something unpleasant occurs (positive punishment, but you might just call it “punishment”). So, if Cinthia hits her younger sister, she gets spanked, or yelled at, or an additional chore. Important note: Punishments only work under very certain circumstances – they have to matter to the child, they have to be consistent across all settings, they have to be unemotionally delivered, and they have to be of moderate intensity. This is tremendously hard to do, especially with things like spankings. A “moderate intensity” spanking varies widely between kids and changes rapidly as they age. Also, the more often you spank, the more of a tolerance builds, and you will rapidly find yourself in a position where the hardest you are willing to spank them doesn’t matter to them anymore. And because they didn’t want to be spanked, and will resent your tyrannical exercise of control, they will begin to take much more pleasure from defying you than displeasure from being spanked and it simply won’t work anymore. Punishment (of all kinds, but certainly physical) also doesn’t get you anywhere in terms of teaching appropriate behavior. So, you don’t get better trained kids. Occasionally, you get cowed kids who seem to behave but are just waiting until they’re big enough to get away or hit back. You also teach them that aggression is the way to exercise control over other people they are bigger than. The much better choice is to choose an incompatible behavior (like listening quietly rather than shouting, telling a parent rather than hitting a sibling, etc.) and reward that behavior instead.

They second way for something bad to follow a behavior is for something pleasant to be taken away (negative reinforcement, or you may want to call it something like “payment”). If you feel you must have “negative consequences for misbehavior,” this is a much better option than punishment. So, if Cinthia hits her little sister, she has to “pay” in terms of losing allowance, an earlier curfew, losing her car or phone or screen time for a certain amount of time. There are still risks associated with this kind of use of your power – specifically that as your kids get older, they’ll just turn to friends to get the things they want – rides, borrowing phones, sneaking out, etc. – so that they aren’t dependent on you to give them the things they want.

 

Overall, the best solution is to create just a few rules for things that your kids are capable of doing that have good reasons behind them that your kids know, then rewarding those valuable behaviors with things your kids value as well.

 

Behaviorism for Parents Volume 2 and Volume 3 are now available!

 

Comment below: Where do your clients get stuck with understanding behavioral principles? 

 

 

 

Parenting is Like Holding Water

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Parenting is like holding water…

This past year I’ve seen a number of families with grown children, or parents with teens or young adults. And one thing that most of them seem to have in common is the challenge of changing the relationship (and themselves!) as their kids develop. 

Of course, as infants, kids are completely dependent, and parents construct all of their experiences. As they get older, they begin to watch TV or read books that we haven’t read, to have conversations with friends and teachers that we aren’t a part of… they begin to differentiate from parents. Parents no longer know all the information, stories, experiences, memories, ideas, feelings, etc. in their kids’ heads. But often they continue to act as if they are constructing their kids’ realities, and don’t think to begin to add mutual self-disclosure to the relationship. Kids are becoming new people, and parents now need to learn who they are. As preteens and teens, of course the divide widens. Peer influences get stronger and this is sometimes when parents suddenly notice that they “don’t recognize this kid!” That’s not the kid’s fault… they’re just developing. It’s the parents (in most cases) who have not updated their maps of their kids as they have grown and changed. 

Many of the parents of teens and young adults I’ve been seeing are trying desperately to hold onto their kids, to continue to construct their realities. They’re trying to hold water. 

Imagine holding your hand under a a tiny stream of water drops. (Better yet, go do this!) When there are just a few drops, you can hold them all in your palm. When the pool of water gets bigger, if you focus on balance and negotiating the tiny changes, you can hold quite a bit for quite a while. At some point, though, the water becomes more than we can hold. At this moment, if we panic, and try to squeeze the water tightly to keep it from running over, it all squeezes out and we lose it all. This is what a lot of these parents are trying to do – hold their kids tightly because they’re afraid of losing them. 

Note that I didn’t title this “Parenting is like TRYING to hold water” …if parents can “hold them lightly,” they can’t hold onto all of their kids, but they can hold some of them, and certainly more than they can if they squeeze. 

By holding kids lightly, I don’t mean necessarily being overly permissive or just being friends. Parents still need structure – a loose, dangling hand can’t hold any water either! I mean everyday inviting your kid into a real, mutual relationship with you – that means a relationship that changes as they change! (and as you change!) And it means accepting their invitations into a real relationship, even when it’s not completely on yours terms (e.g., play time when you’d rather read, listening to music that sounds like noise, caring about “teen drama,” supporting their interests and choices even when they’re not what you would choose).

 

Comment below: What thoughts do you have about this holding water metaphor? Did you try it experientially? What metaphors do you sometimes use with parents?