Tag Archive for healthy development

The Key to Emotional Health in Adolescence

Adolescence is a time of challenge and opportunity, a time of growth for parent and child. At times you and your child may feel like pulling your hair out during their adolescent years. And, at other times, you may feel like pulling one another’s hair out. But there is a key that can help nurture health for parent and child during the adolescent years. It’s a key that the parent holds but both parent and teen benefit from it. Psychologists call this key “authoritative parenting.” Several studies have shown authoritative parenting beneficial for raising children. Among other things, studies suggest it promotes a positive self-concept and better self-control in children as well as better relationships between parents and their children. Why? Because it sets health, age-appropriate limits AND it offers warm relationships.

What makes a warm relationship between parent and child? In a warm relationship, parents show delight in their children. They are responsive to their children. Not only do they respond to their children on a consistent basis, but their responses match the children’s needs of the moment. Parents listen, observing their children’s behavior as well as hearing the message behind their words, and respond in a way that communicates understanding and affection. Warm parent-child relationships also involve sharing time together enjoying positive interactions.

In addition to warm relationships, authoritative parenting also involves healthy, age-appropriate limits. Children are not allowed to do whatever they want when they want. Instead, parents establish and enforce limits for their children’s safety and health. These limits help assure predictability and security for their children. Ironically, children more easily explore their world and their interests from the safety of well-established and lovingly enforced limits. Exploration helps them learn and grow. So, in effect, lovingly enforced, age-appropriate limits nurture our children’s ability to learn and grow.

Together, warm parenting combined with healthy, age-appropriate limits make up authoritative parenting, the type of parenting that promotes a healthy adolescence for both parent and adolescent. Know what I like about this? You can learn to practice authoritative parenting. You can practice warmth in your relationship and learn to lovingly enforce healthy limits. Here’s a few basics.

  • Listen intently to your children’s verbal and nonverbal communications. Even their behaviors are communicating something for you to “hear.”
  • Remain responsive to your children’s communications and needs.
  • Establish healthy, age-appropriate limits and lovingly enforce those limits.
  • Show consistency in your responsiveness to your children and in the enforcement of limits.
  • As our children mature, allow the limits to change. Let them become increasingly “in charge” of their own decisions and consequences.
  • Enjoy your maturing adolescent and your relationship with them.

Middle School & Mental Health…Like Riding a Bike

If you have a child in middle school or approaching middle school, you’ll want to know this information to help protect their mental health. You already know that middle school is a time of change and transition. Middle school age youth encounter transitions in their physical bodies, their social lives, and their sense of growing independence. With all this transition, it’s no surprise that the middle school years represent potential mental health challenges.

A study involving more than 1,200 students between 11-years-old and 14-years-old found that riding a bike at least three times a week for a minimum of 6 weeks experienced an increase sense of well-being. Each student learned about cycling safety and outdoor bike maneuvering skills. They had fun riding their bike—raising their heart rate and having fun. The benefits of this activity seemed to arise from two things.

  • One, the positive experience and physical activities of riding a bike.
  • Two, the social experience of riding with other people.

I told you that you’d want to know this information if you had a child in middle school or nearing middle school. You can help increase your child’s sense of well-being by helping them learn to ride a bike and start the habit of riding a bike. Maybe they’d enjoy a spin class or simply going out to enjoy a bike ride several times a week. Whatever way your child might enjoy, bike riding may increase your child’s sense of well-being.

Hope for an Imperfect Parent

Have you ever felt like an imperfect parent? Maybe even a failure? I know the feeling. I have. But I also have good news. Our children are wise, even from a young age. They don’t need perfect parents. They need parents with a sincere intent to love. To better understand this, imagine a scenario with me.

An adult sits down to show a 24-month-old toddler a toy car. The adult pushes the car until it bumps into a tiny block to the right of the toddler. Nothing happens. Then he pushes the toy car into a block on the toddler’s left. The toy car lights up. The toddler watches as the adult rolls the car back and forth, bumping into the block to the right where nothing happens and the block to the left, where the car lights up. Then he turns the car over to the toddler. The toddler plays with the car but only bumps it into the block on the left, causing the toy car to light up. The toddler only initiates the behavior with the interesting result.

Now imagine an 18-month-old watching a person whose arms are wrapped up in a blanket. The person whose arms are wrapped up is trying to make a box light up, but they can’t move their arms. So, they tap the box with their head and so succeed in lighting up the box. The 18-month-old toddler, whose hands are free, simply reaches out and touches the box with his hand to make it light up. The toddler looked beyond the mere action of the person who “used their head.” He assessed the goal of turning on the light, considered the person’s limitations (arms wrapped up), and then chose the most efficient way to achieve the same end. Our children are wise. (These studies are described in The Gardner and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnick, pages 97-101).

All in all, children are geniuses. They don’t just mimic another person’s behavior. They look beyond the outward appearance of a behavior to assess the intent of the behavior, the goal of the action. They recognize what the person is trying to accomplish and determine the most efficient way to achieve it.

What does this have to do with being an imperfect parent? Our children can look beyond our imperfections and shortcomings to see our deeper intent, our true goals. Our every action does not need to be perfect. Our words and our responses can fall short as long as our motives and intents are sincere and virtuous. Our children will look past our imperfections to see our love, our loving goal for them to become mature, responsible people.

So rather than asking if our every parental action is perfect (because they aren’t and never will be), we need to ask if the intent of our actions and the aim of our behavior are loving and virtuous. We need to ask ourselves:

  • Are we responding to our children from a place of sincere love? Can they see the delight that we have for them in our eyes?
  • Our children’s misbehavior often leads to frustration. Even when frustrated over misbehavior, do we strive to let our discipline flow from a place of grace and love, a desire to teach our children correct behavior versus punishing poor behavior?
  • Watching our children grow and take risks (even the risk of leaving for college) can arouse our fears. Do we let our fears control us or do we continue to act from a place of kindness, vulnerability, and truth? (It is vulnerable to express our fears in a healthy manner.)
  • When our children excitedly tell us about their passions, do we patiently listen from a place of genuine interest or a half-hearted effort to pacify?
  • Do we make it our goal to consistently treat our children with the respect we expect them to show toward us or do we disrespectfully “bark out orders” and ignore their concerns?

We will make mistakes. We are imperfect. But when we approach our children and interact from a place of respect, patience, kindness, and love, our children will look beyond our mistakes and act upon our true intent. They will respond, in the long run, to our love.

Protect Your Child from the Dangers of Achievement

Every parent wants their children to succeed. But is that a wise desire? A healthy desire? Don’t get me wrong. Our children need a certain level of achievement so they can make a meaningful contribution to the world around them. But an overemphasis on achievement becomes toxic. In fact, the pressure for academic and career success has become toxic in our society. One survey found that 70% of 28- to- 30-year-olds believed their parents “valued and appreciated” them more if they succeeded in school. A full 50% believed their parents loved them more if they were successful. Those statistics reveal achievement gone awry, an achievement toxic to our children’s health.

In fact, a report from the experts at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have added “excessive pressure to excel” and “youth in high-achieving schools” to the list of “at-risk youth.” They rank the overemphasis of achievement in our society to be as detrimental to a child’s healthy emotional and mental health as poverty, trauma, discrimination, and parental incarceration. (Learn more in Why Achievement Culture Has Become So Toxic.)

Why has achievement become so toxic? Probably a number of factors contribute, including parents’ legitimate concern for their child’s future. Let’s face it, we (parents) fear for our children’s future economic and reputational future. Society tells us that our children’s future security is based on success in academics, extracurricular activities, and careers. But all the academic, sport, or career achievement does not necessarily bring success in adulthood. And it definitely does not result in happiness or well-being in life. In fact, an overemphasis on achievement increases stress, anxiety, and depression, placing our children in the “at-risk group” for emotional challenges.

What can a parent do to counteract society’s push for overachievement? First, make sure your children know they matter to you and others. As many as one third of adolescents in the U.S. believe (dare I say, “fear”) they do not matter to the people in their communities. They don’t feel heard, celebrated, or delighted in. They fear no one cares enough about them to check in on them when they are sick or simply missing from an activity. Make sure your children know they matter. Check in on them. Learn about their friends, their interests, their fears, their struggles. Celebrate their progress. Acknowledge and celebrate their efforts. Remain actively engaged in their lives.

Second, provide opportunities for them to engage in activities that add meaning to other people’s lives. Such activities can be as simple as mowing the lawn for a shut-in or doing a significant task to maintain the household. Or it may be as complex as volunteering at a homeless shelter, sharing a mission, or becoming active in a social cause. Such activities help our children find their sense of purpose. They help our children discover that they add meaning to other people’s lives through service and seeking the greater good of others.

Third, support their hobbies. Research has discovered that those who engaged in a hobby of interest to them experienced a boost in well-being and a drop in stress and anxiety. Of course, a child’s hobby may also tie in with their purpose. At times, it may even overlap with an “activity that adds meaning to other people’s lives.” Either way, pursuing a hobby boosted well-being and decreased stress and anxiety.

In the long run, what do you really desire for your children? A wall of plaques noting their achievements…or happiness, healthy relationships, and a sense of well-being? Don’t let a goal of achievement become toxic and poison your children, robbing them of happiness, well-being, and healthy relationships. Instead, help them build a life in which they know they matter.

Satisfy the Hunger and Thirst for Play

We are born with 100 billion neurons in our brain… and they are hungry to learn. In fact, they thirst for knowledge from the moment we’re born until we pass away. Surprising to some, one of the most powerful ways to feed our brain, to give it the nourishment it needs to grow in knowledge and wisdom, is through play. I’m not talking about adult managed and structured play. No. We’re talking about sensory-experienced play—playing in the mud, splashing water, banging the Tupperware, climbing the tree. This play fills the brain with hands-on, sensory information through touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and “propriocepting” (Sorry, I made that word up). We’re also talking about imaginary play (which, by the way, often encompasses these senses). Children’s brains not only hunger and thirst for play, but they also thrive on play. They are wired for play. Literally, they need play in order to grow in a healthy way (see Scientist Reveals Essential Activity That Boosts Child’s Brain Development (newsweek.com)). When immersed in sensory, exploratory play and imaginative play, a child’s “brain starts to… light up with joy as connections between neurons make impressive progress,” according to Dr. Jacqueline Harding (Playful Brains: Early Years Play Shapes Children’s Futures – Neuroscience News). They develop neural pathways that can influence them throughout their lives, even into adulthood.

When we minimize our children’s opportunities to play, we hinder their development. Also, when we “forget to play” or stop playing as adults, we hinder our own continued development and brain health. We become like the adult Peter Pan in “Hook,” joylessly bound to the worries and stresses of adult life. The only way to reignite our joy and to express the full depth of our love for our children and spouse is to regain our sense of play (or, as Toodles learned, our happy thoughts and purpose). Our children need the opportunity to play in order to develop in a healthy manner. Our children also need us to play so we can develop our “happy thoughts” of our lives with them. They need us to play so we can continue to develop in a healthy manner with them. Don’t just let the children play. You play as well. In fact, let the children play. Let yourself play. Let the whole family play… and satisfy your brain’s hunger and thirst for play.

Leaving the Home of Helicopter Parents

“Helicopter parenting” is characterized by over-involvement, over-protection, and over-control. It contributes to negative results for children, but does that negative impact linger after they leave home for college? One group of researchers decided to find out. They collected demographic data from 505 college students as well as information about the parenting they received growing up and the level of interpersonal conflict they experience in college. In a second round of surveys, they measured the students’ sense of entitlement and their fear of missing out.

The results of this study indicate that students who were raised under “helicopter parents” had more interpersonal conflict with peers. This seemed to stem from an increased sense of entitlement and fear of missing out, which also increased under the tutelage of “helicopter parents.” In other words, “helicopter parenting” contributed to a child feeling entitled. It also contributes to them developing an overestimation of their abilities, an excessive focus on self, and a potential lack of autonomy. Those qualities contribute to greater interpersonal conflict even after they left the nest of the “helicopter parents.” 

So, what can a parent do to avoid the impact of being a “helicopter parent”? Balance the job of parenting to avoid becoming over-protective and over-involved. Strive for balance in your parenting style. For instance,

  • Strive for a balance between involvement with your child and encouraging autonomy in your child. It can prove difficult to “let go,” but the benefits of letting our children and teens practice age-appropriate autonomy are tremendous and lifelong. Provide your children the opportunities to behave in autonomous ways.  
  • Strive for a balance between assisting your child (i.e., making sure they get all their school projects done and are prepared for tests, choosing their clothing or activities) and letting them experience the consequences of their choices. Children learn from the lived consequences of their choices and behaviors. Trust them to manage and learn from those consequences.
  • Strive for a balance between jumping in to save your child from struggling relationships and letting them resolve their own conflicts. Step back and trust your child. Ask if they want help and help if they ask. Let them know you’re “in their corner,” but you trust them to be “in the ring” managing the interactions. They will learn so much when you stay “in their corner” and out of the ring, trusting them to manage their relationships. You might even be surprised at how effectively they do so.
  • Strive for a balance between praising your child for their achievements and acknowledging their effort and choices. Our children learn best when we acknowledge their efforts. This helps them develop a growth mindset which will benefit them throughout their life. Focus on effort, not end product achievement.

There are many other areas in which a parent strives for balance. In fact, parenting often feels like one big balancing act. But the benefits of striving for that balance far outweigh the consequences of over-involvement and over-protection in our children’s lives.

Boost Your Teen’s Brain Power…But Start Early

If you want to boost your teen’s brain power, start when they are children, before the time of the teen push for independence. Really, this way of boosting teen brain power is quite simple. Encourage them to read as children. A study of over 10,243 teens found reading for pleasure during childhood contributed to improved verbal learning, memory, speech development, and school academic achievement in the teen years.

Even more, reading for pleasure as a child was associated with fewer signs of stress and depression, improved attention, and fewer incidents of aggression and rule-breaking in teen.

But wait, there’s more. Children who read for pleasure also engaged in less screen time as a teen and slept longer.

The best results were found in those teens who read up to 12 hours a week as a child. That’s about one hour and 43 minutes a day. So, if you want to boost your teens brain power, awaken the joy of reading in them while they are still children. Here’s how to begin.

  • Let your children see you reading for pleasure. Children follow our example. So, let them see you read for pleasure, not just for work. Talk about the fun things you’ve read about or the stories you read. Let them hear you talk about the adventures you enjoy while reading.
  • Read to your children. When they are very young, read simple picture books. As they get older you can read children’s chapter books. Make it a fun time together by engaging them while reading rather than simply reading the page in a monotone voice. Take on the voice of each character. Ask questions about what your child thinks might happen next. React to surprising twists in the plot. Engage the story and your child as you read.
  • As your children begin to read independently, read the same book they are reading. Talk about the book with them. Enjoy sharing your reactions and surprises to the book.
  • Visit the library together. Walk through the stacks of books with your children and discover the joys of what you can learn and read. If your library has reading times, take your child to them.
  • Depending on the kind of book your children enjoy, you can visit the places described in the book. For instance, if your child reads a book about the American revolution and you live near Philadelphia, take a road trip and visit the Liberty Bell. Reading about Walt Disney may lead up to a trip to Disneyland or reading about Martin Luther King may lead up to a trip to Atlanta. You get the idea. Let the books come alive by visiting a place associated with that book.

Our Answer to One Question Determines Our Future

My wife and I were visiting Charleston, North Carolina when we saw this plaque. It reads: “I want people to see children as human beings and not think of the money it costs nor to think of the amount of time it will take, but to think of the lives that can be developed into Americans who will redeem the soul of America and will really make America a great country.” –Septima Clark

Septima Clark did not just make the statement, she walked the talk. She became known as the “Grandmother” of the Civil Rights Movement. She started “Citizenship schools” that taught adult literacy and “citizenship rights.” These schools instilled self-pride, cultural-pride, literacy, and a sense of one’s citizenship rights.

Why do I mention this quote? Because Ms. Clark states truth. Our children thrive when we see them as human beings rather than simply children. We need not think of our children as financial burdens or “little time-suckers.” They are a blessing, a blessing upon which our present and our future rest. They are the ones who will carry our values and priorities into the future. They will redeem our communities and our country.

I remember learning a similar idea in my early college years. I don’t remember the exact quote, but the “gist of the idea” stated that a culture can be redeemed or destroyed in a single generation. The way in which we treat our children, the manner in which we raise them, will have a great determining factor on the course of our future…similar to what Septima Clark implied. Consider:

  • If we treat our children with kindness, they will take kindness into the future. If we treat them harshly, they will take harshness into the future.
  • If we treat our children with respect, they will take respect into the future. If we treat them with disrespect, disrespect will grow more rampant.
  • If we hold our children accountable in an appropriate manner, they will take accountability into the future. If we become overly permissive, they will also become permissive.
  • If we hold our children to age-appropriate expectations for contributing to the family and home, they will continue to see the joy of contributing to a happy home and family. If we become overbearing, harsh, or hold inappropriate expectations of our children, they will carry the same forward…and who wants to live in a community filled with those who are overbearing, harsh, and carry unreasonable expectations.

You get the idea. How we treat our children will determine our future. Let’s begin to think of our children as blessings—lives that can be nurtured to bless others, “lives that can be developed into Americans who will redeem the soul of America and will really make America a great country.”  How will we treat our children? Consider carefully for it’s a question with enormous implications. Our future depends on our answer.

Parental Protection & Your Child’s Resilience

We are experiencing a mental health crisis in our children that began before the pandemic and escalated through the pandemic. Some of this crisis was precipitated by an overemphasis on children’s safety and overprotectiveness on the part of parents. I find it interesting that children enjoyed more freedom in the 1960’s through the 1980’s even though crime was on the rise at that time. In fact, crime seemed to peak in the 1990’s and has since shown a decrease. Of course, there are still crimes but, overall, crime rates have decreased (See the Crime Statistics compiled by Let Grow.)

Still, news continues to catastrophize our awareness of what crimes do exist, contributing to continued and increased fear in parents. This has often led to parental overprotection and less time spent for children to engage in activities unsupervised by parents. This seems to have contributed to unhealthy coping mechanisms in children—less motivation, less ability to deal with problems in healthy ways, less independence, less confidence. The result of these unhealthy coping mechanisms? Anxiety, depression, substance abuse, defiance. I’m not trying to cast blame. We live in a scary world. It’s scary to let our children “go out into the world alone.” However, we also need to communicate confidence in our children’s ability to navigate the world in an age expected manner while teaching them to navigate it in a growing independent manner as they mature. Doing so will implicitly communicate confidence in their ability and will enhance their resilience and health. How can a parent do this?

  • Begin by identifying your own fears. We all have fears. Parenting is a scary business. As you identify your fears, beware of negative filters. Do a little research. Learn about the true crime statistics. Learn about the benefit of unsupervised play for our children’s ability to problem-solve, take healthy risks, and grow more resilient.  As you learn about your filters, you can escape from the extreme thinking that the world is either terribly unsafe or “pollyannishly” safe. You can wisely discern levels of safety and allow your children to engage in activities appropriate for their level of maturity and self-care while teaching them to grow more independent along the way.
  • Allow your children to experience the frustration of difficult situations like going to a new place (one you have researched and determined as safe) on their own. Let them go to the local recreation center without you. Let them walk to the park alone. Let them take a bus to their friend’s house independently. Let them walk to the local grocery store to pick up a few grocery items for you. It’s scary to let them go out alone. But by letting them go independently (after you have taught them how) they grow rightfully and wisely confident in their own abilities and strengths.
  • Encourage your children’s curiosity. Encourage them to explore places and thoughts. Let them learn about ideas and locations.
  • Listen to what your children want to do and negotiate the parameters. Teach them to think through an activity or outing before embarking on that outing. Teach them to consider the possibilities and prepare.

It’s one of the biggest parenting challenges we face: letting our children grow independent. The first walk to school without a parent, the first walk to the park alone, their first independent trip to the grocery store, their first time driving alone…it all arouses a parent’s anxiety (at least it did for me). But we have to teach them the skills they need to “go at it alone” and trust that they have learned. We have to trust we have taught them well. Trust they have learned. Trust they will implement that knowledge. And let them go. Each time they do, our trust will grow, and their confidence and resilience will grow as well.

Children Need the Sound of Silence

Children’s brains are on a developmental fast track. Their brains are evolving, pruning, and shaping…at an amazing rate. You can see it in their changing abilities and growing knowledge every day. Interestingly, sounds have meaning to our brain and our brain seeks to understand that meaning.  For instance, the sound of a speeding car when I’m at an intersection means be cautious. The sound of gunshots means beware. The sound of a baby crying arouses empathy and causes me to look around. Other sounds provide information we deem unnecessary for the moment, so we move them to the background—the ongoing buzz of traffic in the distance, the sound of birds chirping in the yard. As I write, the sound of construction “down the street” causes me to take note. I need to go a different way when I go to the store. Now move the bang and hum of construction into the background of my awareness and continue with my work.

Whatever the sound, our brains take notice. In fact, the “brain has to work overtime to ignore sounds.” The energy invested in ignoring sounds means less energy available for learning. This is especially true for young brains. Studies have shown that excessive noise can interfere with children’s ability to understand speech and comprehend what someone else is saying. It interferes with the ability to recall information from a visually presented list, and it interferes with reading. These studies also reveal that chronic noise contributes to children’s lower performance in verbal tasks and reading. In other words, noise interferes with our children’s ability to learn.

One study in the 1970’s (described in How a Little Silence in Children’s Lives Helps Them Grow) actually found that soundproofing a classroom near noisy train tracks actually led to improved test scores.

Why do I tell you this? Because we live in a noisy world and our children will benefit from a little more silence in their lives. They will learn more easily with a little more silence in the world. More importantly, you can provide a safe haven of quiet for your children in your home. You can develop a quiet environment in your home by:

  • Reducing loud arguments. Learn to talk about problems rather than yell and scream. Keep your tone respectful and loving, even in the midst of disagreement.
  • Discipline respectfully and politely. Don’t yell. Train your children to respond to a firm voice, not a loud voice. (I know. There will be times with loud arguing and even loud discipline in our homes; but keep them to a minimum. Make it a goal to disagree and discipline in respectful tones rather than loud tones more often than not.)
  • Turn off the TV and enjoy undistracted interactions with your children. Also, turn off the TV during homework time. Limit the noise distractions while your children complete their homework.
  • Turn the TV down. Even when you watch TV, turn the volume down rather than leave it loud enough to “hear in the other room.”  
  • Consider the timing of various activities. You don’t want one child practicing the drums while the other child is trying to complete their reading assignment. Coordinate activities.
  • Go for a walk in the woods with your family. Enjoy the sounds of nature. Nature has a healing effect in and of itself, especially the sounds of nature.
  • Go to the library to read.
  • Make bedtime a quiet time—no televisions, radios, or cellphones playing in the room.

Of course, we will encounter noise. We live in a noisy society. But do your best to make your home environment a place of peace with moments of quiet and even silence. Let your children hear the sounds of silence and learn without the distraction of noise. Their brains will appreciate the chance to invest energy in learning and growing without having to invest energy in combatting the noise. And your whole family will enjoy the calm of enjoying silence together.

« Older Entries