Parenting

NOTE: This blog posting was originally published December 9, 2013 on my Reflections from Lulu Isle blog. On reviewing my blogs this year end (2019) I discovered it there and have removed it and posted it more appropriately here.  That blog is a potpourri of subjects, whereas this one arises more out of my professional life. Also, I had perhaps somewhat idealistically labeled it Parenting I, thinking it would begin a series. Well, II has never arrived and might never, so no I on this title. We'll see though... Here goes:

I have for some time wanted to write about parenting. Why? 

1.     1. Part of the answer to that would be because of the many parents and families that keep getting referred, perhaps even in increasing numbers, to our Mental Health Services for help in this area. Possible reasons for that will be dealt with in another paragraph below. 

2.     2. My own experience with parenting, which I cannot say was the most successful, would be another reason for wanting to explore this topic further. 

3.       3.  The 3rd reason would be that I have now a number of years behind me as both a parent and a mental health consultant, not to mention having been a child in a family. The last is not to be discounted either, and again, more will be said about that later. 

As for my experience, I certainly cannot say that I consider myself an expert, even though others might see me as such because of my position as a psychiatrist and mental health consultant. This whole business of experts is another matter that will be dealt with below.

  4. Finally, and this in a sense is part of the 3rd reason, I am nearing the end of my career and it has come to my realization that perhaps I owe it to others to share what my experience has been and perhaps what I have learned, that indeed this may be my responsibility, before I leave this life altogether. My experience has included once before organizing and conducting a series of sessions on parenting at my church some 20 years ago, based on a book about parenting, Parenting for the 90s by Philip Osborne. This was based on the Parent Effectiveness Training which was another school of thought. More recently, I have for some years been part of a weekly lunchtime Journal Club at my place of work where we have been learning a lot about what we as professionals in the area of child development and mental health have learned over the past 50 years. What amazes me about this is how long it takes for some of the science and theory in these areas to become and taught to and known by those who are even currently getting trained in this field, let alone become general knowledge We are now seeing much of this learning, which seemed to be fractured and coming from different directions over time coming together. I think one of my more recent colleagues to add his knowledge significantly and helpfully to this synthetic process is Dr. Bruce Perry, who I will refer to again.

The role of the child

There is an old phrase that goes, "the child is father to the man." What we learn as children definitely influences what we do as adults. I think one of the reasons that perhaps parents are running into more difficulty nowadays, if indeed they are, is that the whole experience of being a child has changed in many ways in our time. One of the chief differences is that in most families the number of children has dropped to 2 if not one. There are some significant implications of that for parenting. As a child in a multi-sibling family, one gets to see how one's parents practice their skills on a number of individuals and over many years. Also, particularly if one is one of the older children, one gradually gets to share more of that responsibility, as parents naturally tend to look for them for help with the younger ones. Both of these facts relate to significant potential for learning about what it means to be a parent. The reader may know from observing others or their own experience what some of the downsides to single-child families can be. To be sure, many singletons grow up to be fine individuals. However, particularly if the only child becomes the subject of too much attention and lavish outpouring of things and given too much power, significant problems can result. This is a common phenomenon amongst many recent immigrant families from China that I have had experience with because of their one-child policy.

The increasing proportion of single-parent families in our society sometimes presents another challenge. Again, as with parents who have one child, not all single-parent child situations turn out negatively. However, it goes without saying that there is an increased stress when there is only one parent to deal with the child/children. There are often increased psychosocial burdens that come with this too. Many single parents have not come to that station by choice and bring with them a lot of emotional baggage about the relationships that lead to their having children that naturally interferes with their effectiveness of being a parent. The isolation of the parental units in our mobile society (see below) only adds to the difficulties here. When a parent ends up being alone with the children, it is most often the result of divorce, which unfortunately too often brings its own set of struggles that interfere with effective parenting. The acrimony between divorced parents who cannot see past their own differences to the fact that they each have their own relationship with the child that can be positive and independent of the failed marriage or other relationship that led to the presence of the children is another barrier to effective parenting in a positive experience of growing up for the child. 

Of course, the increased prevalence of divorce in our society again simply adds to this whole situation. To begin with, when divorce laws were changed in the late 60s, our increased individualistic and generalizationally shortsighted focus wanted that divorces should be good and better than many of the situations that preceded them. In some cases such as where there was abuse this is certainly the case. However, as children of divorced families have been followed over longer periods of time, workers in the field who even wanted to support other opinions earlier on, have been forced to acknowledge that "the children are not all right."

The role of the expert

Why experts? I think part of the reason again has to do with a change in our society. At one time, and that is still the case in some parts of the world and in some family systems and subcultures in ours, the child was brought up in an environment that spanned several generations. There might be everybody from the great grandparent down to the sibling, including uncles, aunts and cousins, who could play a role in parenting. This gave opportunity for a lot more help in a direct sense as well as learning by example. This all has largely come to naught in our Western society in part because of our shrinking families as mentioned above. That just reduces the pool of experience and teaching. Another significant development has been the mobility of our society. Children move away from their parents with the result that the grandparents with their experience and increasing wisdom of age - one hopes - are simply not available to be of support and help. I think the increasing individualism that our society currently seems to treasure is also at play here. Children in their teen years are already encouraged to become independent. Part of this means that they do not look to their parents for support and advice, including about parenting. Everybody seems to have to learn to do things from scratch on their own, which, when you think about it, is really rather foolish. Indeed, there is a Middle Eastern proverb that actually expresses that idea.

So, we turn to experts. It is really only within the last century that our society has accepted this concept of there being experts in every field. Parenting is no exception. I think Dr. Benjamin Spock, back in the 1950s, was one of the first of these in terms of widespread acceptance of what he wrote and attempts to put that into practice. As time went on, and probably even from the beginning, there were those who felt his approach was either not right or still lacking. Thus, we have had a series of experts giving talks, holding workshops, writing books and getting interviewed on talk shows about parenting. The mere fact that there is this plethora of specialists suggests that there is no magic answer in this field, Thomas Phelan's One-to-3 Magic notwithstanding. Besides his writings, which can be well-utilized in some families, there are books like Stanley Turecki’s The Difficult Child, Ross Greene's The Explosive Child and the whole Love-and-Logic approach that colleague of mine has made me aware of. One of the latest models is the Neuro-sequential Model of Therapeutics by Dr. Bruce Perry, which he has now expanded to the Neuro-sequential Model of Education.

I believe Dr. Perry is really onto something because he relates our assessment of where a child is at to where he is at neuro-developmentally. I am sure we all know of teenagers who sometimes act like 2-year-olds. What Dr. Perry has pointed out is that when that is the case, at that point in time, we literally need to see them as and treat them as, deal with them, as 2-year-olds. That is where their brain is at. He also, I believe quite helpfully, then points out that we cannot expect them in that state, and he teaches a lot about the state's effect on behavior and learning, to act like a latency age child or older who is reasonably well-adjusted and more mature. What this means is that we cannot really effectively use some of our cherished behavioral modification, also known as operant conditioning, methods of training to achieve desired behaviors with such children, let alone when they are in some of these more excited or dissociated states of mind. At the end of one of his recent webinar sessions he really brings us back to the point that this is all about relationship, which is something I really like. This is something again that we can say a lot about.

The role of the relationship

Even here, and perhaps it is because of the absence of the wisdom of previous generations, and the idea of Western society that the younger know better, based simply on the level of education and increased available information, that we, I believe, are making errors.

I think one of the responsible factors here is somewhat of an over-reaction to the harsh disciplinary methods of the past. Indeed, we know that good and effective parents can raise children without exerting too physical measures and corporal punishment. However, in our efforts to avoid that, I think we sometimes forget that we are parents and think we can achieve our goals and desires for our children by becoming their friends. After all, would you not want to please your friend?

However, growing-up children are not meant to be our friends. Hopefully, at the end of the process, they will become our friends, but not before that. Children are dependent on us to teach them, to model desired behaviors, to show them the way. Again, in our desires to present positively and not alienate ourselves from our children, disciplines and restrictions, we sometimes try to make up for that and end up being too easy on our children and giving them too many choices. We give them freedoms that they are not yet ready to handle. We shy away from words such as doing wrong, not wanting to make judgments, with all of our emphasis on being non-judgmental. Again, I think we misunderstand that went it comes to parenting. If we don't show that we can use judgment, where will our children learn the capacity from?  And I can't remember the last time I've seen the word disobedient in parenting literature.

Often parents are not on the same wavelength as one another to begin with because of the different backgrounds they come from. Again, there is less extended family help to help them sort this out. The result is increasing frustration, which sometimes leads to over-reacting towards one another and the child. Some of this leads to downright abuse, which may not have happened in the past when there was more support. Voices are raised and tempers flare. Depending on the ongoing nature of the situation the family, the child may react in fear, fleeing/hiding or freezing, dissociating, sometimes becoming depressed. This is sometimes referred to as internalizing behavior. Other children may become more defiant and stubborn, or acting out as we say. This is referred to as externalizing behavior. 

So, we have come to a situation in our society where many parents are getting lost and needing help. What have we got to say to them? I hope to begin to answer that question in subsequent writing, when I get around to it. I want our readers to know that all of this is very much a work in progress, which may have no further conclusions than that you partake in the discussion and we collaborate on the results. No one of us has all the answers.