parenting

Rx when Parenting a Child with a Chronic Condition

August 16, 2019 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Heavy Doses of Compassion

A dear friend from ages past texted me that his son, who just graduated from high school, has cancer. My heart broke open in a millisecond. I was standing in a Sunday morning line for coffee. The news about his son stopped me cold. Life is so unfair. I couldn’t stop shaking my head in disbelief. The poor barista thought I was complaining about the service.

I met Tom when we were 17 on a school program to the United Nations. I like to joke that he was on the bus of smart Canadians and I somehow sneaked into the program. To apply to the program I wrote an essay about the former UN Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, with a quote I found in a library book. I’m fairly certain that I was the only one in my town who applied. Now I find it interesting that the chosen quote conjures up the timeless suffering of mothers (of which I still have written out in my neat teenage handwriting). For a whole week we visited New York City, the UN, and went to the top of the World Trade Center for a view of Lady Liberty. The towers no longer exist, of course, and yet they will always be tied in some small measure to that adolescent flirtation, the ideals of humanitarian efforts, and the fragility of life.

It is said that the tears of one mother are the tears of all and the glory of one man is the glory of all men…
Dag Hammarskjöld, 1953

We now are parents and professionals living full lives in different countries marked by the trials and triumphs of being mere humans—we share the main headlines that might fit in a text message or over an occasional phone call. He’s a school principal. I’m a psychologist. He has boys. I have girls. And I wholeheartedly share in his current optimism: his son has a highly curable form of cancer.

I don’t want to offer up a cliché but I will: Perhaps there are few comparable experiences that collect the kind of battle wounds like the scars you get from child rearing. At the same time, there is nothing like the joy and pride that arise in the smallest of moments in watching your children thrive. You never think your heart can crack open wider and then it just does. It’s that very vulnerability that exposes us to the abyss that is human suffering. Deep love. Deep pain.

A child’s cancer diagnosis is a shot to the heart.

I sat with my cup of my tea thinking about Tom and his son when I saw a family stroll in. They pushed a daughter, now a young adult, in a wheelchair. I wondered about her. A spinal injury? A congenital condition? Hard to say. Her hair was neatly brushed. She wore a shimmering cherry lipstick. It was carefully and lovingly applied. I was overcome with emotion.

I began to count.

In my mind I lined up a dozen random parents I know in my community. How many had a child with a chronic or serious illness or condition? I summoned up a list of their children’s conditions: anxiety, addiction, ADD, autism spectrum, clinical depression, cerebral palsy, a congenital heart condition, kidney disease, and post concussion syndrome, including two deaths due to chronic childhood illnesses. That our community has been spared a youth suicide or fatal car accident or death by gun violence seems—statistically—a stroke of luck. I included myself in the line up of parents. We have a daughter with potentially lethal food allergies. Sophie is now 21 and has not outgrown them. I’m only mildly relieved that her boyfriend is an EMT.

How many of these parents suffer quietly with the plight of their child’s condition, or keep to themselves for the sake of privacy, or simply are heads down with caregiving that others don’t even know to reach out? I also imagine parents in other communities who don’t have the privilege of a well-resourced school system or medical access or aren’t able to rally funds for research or costs of care. The bottom line is that more needs to be done for families to foster the kind of resilience that may be needed for a long haul. Two colleagues (Lorraine Hobbs and Kimberly Arthur) and I recently published a journal article about the need to support parents with children with chronic conditions: The Role of Compassion and Mindfulness in Building Parental Resilience When Caring for Children With Chronic Conditions: A Conceptual Model. (Please read and share it.)

…both mindfulness and compassion have significant potential to support this process of working through adversity and finding ways to develop inner resources to cultivate acceptance, find meaning in the context of complex parenting challenges, and respond to the child and oneself with kindness in the face of persistent stressors associated with children’s chronic conditions.
Cousineau, Hobbs & Arthur, 2019

A Silent Suffering

We couldn’t write about our personal experiences in this kind of academic platform yet our hearts were totally in it. We have children with various conditions requiring different levels of care and attention. So we try to walk the talk and wrote the article. Here’s why:

Parenting a child with an illness or disability is very common yet remains a silent plight for many.

Close to 20% of parents have a child with a chronic condition or disability, which is defined as any condition that has lasted or is expected to last for at least 12 months. Personally, I think this is an underestimate due to under reporting and stigma. But let’s just say that 1 in 5 parents/families has a child with some sort of chronic affliction. (There are 83M families in the US and 15M single mothers.) Assume for the sake of my argument that you are in a room full of parents. The next time you are in a meeting at work or a school PTA meeting, or at a place of worship, or on a commuter train imagine that for every 4 seats the 5th seat has a parent facing a difficult illness challenge with a child—no matter the age of a child. Imagine yourself in his or her shoes.

One memory that comes to mind is when my daughter Sophie was three years old and at preschool. She took a cracker out of a snack jar. Apparently another child with sticky peanut butter fingers had also done so. Her face blew up like a balloon immediately. The EMTs were called. She chugged some liquid Benadryl. She recovered. The school eventually became “peanut/nut free” to the chagrin of other parents. It was a common battle cry across American schools: “Why should my child give up his PB&J?” “That’s the only thing he eats and he has the right to have peanut butter.” “Why should my kid starve?” Parents of the afflicted child would counter, “This could be a life or death situation. Surely you can see that?” “You’d rather see a child risk her life than to find something else for your kid to eat?” “Try carrots instead.”

Later the solution in the elementary school was to separate the food allergy kids from the others at lunch time, leaving Sophie at a table all by herself. She became a pariah, a social outcast. The social stigma was an unintended consequence, of course. And it was unacceptable.

Then guess what happened? God bless the children to find solutions that parents or administrators can’t see. Her friends began to sit with her. Over time they became little vigilantes monitoring who had what in their lunch boxes. The girls made sure their parents knew about Sophie’s food allergies for birthday parties and sports events. They educated themselves. They watched the Epi-pen injection video and practiced puncturing an orange with a plastic model pen. Although we were all in a state of anticipatory anxiety, organically we cultivated a “community watch.” Eventually, we all relaxed. When a local 15-year old girl died from anaphylaxis after a severe allergic reaction just days before her 16th birthday, despite the family’s careful precautions, the threat became all too real once again. (See Project Abbie at Harvard.)

Compassionate Action

My daughter’s situation may not compare to the plight of others. A food allergy is an episodic condition that is largely reliant on prevention and avoidance, yet can have a fatal outcome. Yet that’s not my point. Millions of parents are managing some sort of childhood condition every single day. Of course, the medical conditions and potential outcomes vary among children: Children may be hospitalized for depression or suicidal ideation, or suffer a physical illness or condition; or a child may be contending with developmental delays, mobility issues, aggressive outbursts, or chronic pain. There are IEPs and accommodations, specialists, and regular medical monitoring, and concerns about independent living in adulthood. It can be all consuming at times.

What is common is the persistent fear and distress felt by a mom, dad or caregiver. Whenever a child needs specialized care or attention, there is a slow wear-and-tear in the fabric of parenting. An unraveling may occur in parallel with a kind of constant mending, in attempts to emotionally or pragmatically hold it together. There is also the mental “code switching” between taking care of a child’s current needs and the anticipation or planning for the future “what ifs.” It’s hard to be present when the mind is in a ricochet of tending tasks. Let’s not forget that many parents inevitably put their personal needs and goals on hold and may also be economically impacted. Even the most optimistic or well-resourced parents will find themselves in moments of despair or panic. That’s the only natural response.

What I love about compassion-focused approaches to parenting is the recognition that biologically we are wired to protect and ward off threat. That basic understanding can begin to shift how we communicate and respond. I can’t blame the pro-PB&J parents. They want their children to have what they need to survive. They aren’t thinking about the other tribe of parents who also want their children to survive by avoiding PB&J at all costs. Our perspective narrows when we are threatened. The single focus is on survival. The emotions that drive defensive behavior include anger, anxiety, fear, or disgust. As I wrote in my last post, Lead with Love, when we notice which emotion regulation systems are activated (threat, thrive, care/connect), we can begin to respond to life’s experiences in more beneficial and grounded ways. We can respond in a more balanced way. This is where mindfulness and compassion comes in.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01602/full

The approach we proposed in the article emphasizes relational compassion and self-compassion. All too often the sole or primary focus is on child medical outcomes rather than parental resilience. This is understandable but to use another cliché—the one about the oxygen mask on a flight—we have to help the caregivers put on the oxygen mask first. The point in our article is we believe that cultivation of safety, connection, and caring is essential in any communication, intervention, or resource created to support parents when caring for a child with a chronic condition. This helps to get parents out of the constant threat/survival mode and offer relief from the exhaustion that can come from empathy fatigue, persistent uncertainty, constant caregiving, or social isolation. This means growing both inner strengths and outer strengths.

We consider the mindfulness and compassion skills as a way to “bounce forward” rather than “bounce back”—because life will never revert to a previous way of parenting. Resilience is inherently about caring, connection and community. It also requires a kind of deep knowing that we all belong to one another. In this way we are responsible for the welfare of the collective “we.” Parenting is hard under optimal circumstances. No family is immune from threat, loss, or disappointment. It can take some emotional courage to turn toward what is difficult and reach out to a family in helpful ways—especially when vulnerable children face challenges. The default is to respect privacy, or not impose, or keep a safe distance, or drop off casseroles. I get it. But we also have to stretch ourselves and connect with parents. We don’t know what we don’t know.

Take the risk: Ask them.

How may I be of help? Is there something specific I can do? What is important for us to know? Is it Ok if I check in every once in a while? We are here for you.

My colleague and friend Susan Pollak, EdD, just published a beautiful book called Self Compassion for Parents: Nurture Your Child By Caring for Yourself (The Guilford Press, 2019). What’s on the cover? Two slices of PB&J! That got me hooked. She wrote it for every parent, of course, who deals with the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of parenting. I particularly love the “Fierce Compassion” meditation and “Soothing Touch in the Heat of the Moment.” I highly recommend it.

Photo by Thais Morais on Unsplash

Would You Drive Your Kids to Drink?

January 9, 2015 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

“The woods is a dangerous place,” croons Prince Charming to the Baker’s Wife. Indeed, with the recent film release of Into the Woods, I can’t help but dwell on the timeless metaphor of a journey through the forest as approximating ordeals and temptations in the lives of intrepid teenagers.

My husband and I are raising our teenage daughters in a small New England town. We live at the foot of 7,000 acres of wooded reservation land with a chain of 22 hills of hiking trails. Here, “The Woods” is code for a teen hangout not far from the elementary school my girls attended. The spot has been around so long that many parents raised here reminisce about it, often over drinks.

Going into the woods is a coming-of-age right of passage for local teenagers. The “woods” could easily be replaced with any number of terms depending on where you live: the docks, speedway, quarry, fields or lake. To venture off into dark places away from the eyes of authority is like a spell cast over every 13-year-old born unto us. They are marking territory.

Many grown-ups hold memories of intrepid forays into the dark. When we look back, some of us (myself included) wonder how in the world did we ever survive.

Where I grew up in western Connecticut, we drove across to New York State line, where the drinking age remained at 18 and seat belt laws were yet to be passed. If we didn’t drive, we’d hop a ride. It was the upper classmen or friends with older brothers or sisters who used fake IDs to buy kegs of beer while other kids would bring firewood and flashlights to the end of a dirt road. We’d build a bonfire and stand round it in our fisherman sweaters and scarves all staring at the sparkles in the flames. I vividly remember one ride in the back of a station wagon reciting Hail Marys all the way home.

My mother had no clue where I was. My father had been long gone and likely would’ve cared less. But now I am a mother and I have two teenage girls. I know where my girls are most of the time and a network of parents seem to keep their eyes open and cell phones in hand. On the whole, parents do seem to hover more.

Even so, it came a shock to me one night driving home with another mother from a local event. I had received a text from my 16-year-old daughter explaining to me that she had decided to go to her boyfriend’s house. Her friends were going to The Woods, which were off limits to her. She proposed that the “better choice” was to hang out with her relatively new boyfriend at his house. Of course, this didn’t sit too well, as I did not yet have a good read on the boy or his family.

But at least I knew where my daughter was.

In the same moment, my friend was texting her daughter about a pick up time at The Woods. Buckling up, I asked: “What do you mean ‘pick her up from the woods?'” She explained that she had dropped her daughter off at The Woods before we had left.

At least she knew where her daughter was.

Two mothers driving home to collect their daughters: one from a new boyfriend’s house and the other from the edge of the woods. No doubt our vivid maternal imaginations left us uncomfortable. I remained quiet.

Parents, as it turned out, were regularly dropping off and picking up their teens at The Woods. When I asked about this “trend,” the storyline went like this: If we drop our teens off at The Woods we know where they are; the town police know where they and at least they are not driving. Some of these parents also subjected their kids to breathalyzer tests and marijuana kits. What a twist on helicopter parenting.

What a confusing message.

The truth is that accidents and unintentional injuries are the primary cause of death among teenagers, with alcohol-related car crashes as the main culprit. It’s no wonder that the parents I know don’t want their kids driving after hanging out at The Woods. It is a wonder that parents are willing to drive their kids at all. Over a decade of neuroscience research confirms that substance use negatively affects the developing teen brain, including memory, decision making and self-control. Alcohol and drugs put vulnerable teens at risk for addiction.

Let’s imagine our teens in a small group of friends as we consider some numbers. The annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2013) found that among the high school students surveyed about underage drinking in the past 30 days:

35% (1 in 3) drank some amount of alcohol
21% (1 in 5) binge drank
22% (1 in 5) rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol
10% (1 in 10) drove after drinking alcohol

If parents are chauffeuring their kids to the local drinking hole, the full awareness of substance use risks in teens just isn’t sticking. It’s not only about drunk driving. Driving kids to The Woods is a close cousin to hosting a teen party with alcohol. This is to say, it’s not a good idea. The Partnership for a Drug Free America states:

It’s NOT advisable to host teen parties where alcohol is available (and thus, condone underage drinking.) Also, contrary to popular belief, there is NO evidence that parents can “teach their children to drink responsibly.” Quite the opposite is true — the more exposure to drinking in adolescence and parental acceptance of substance use, the higher the risk of later problem with alcohol and other drugs.

My girls know that if they ever got caught going to The Woods that they would be grounded for at least a month, if not two. My girls lament, “Mom, don’t you trust us?” My answer: “I trust you wholeheartedly but I don’t trust teenagers in a crowd.” For many teens, the consequences of not fitting in has higher emotional stakes than breaking house rules. After all, parents are stuck with their teens, but friends can drop your teen in a split second.

My younger daughter, all but 14, went to The Woods, an annual tradition on the eve of high school. I found out two months later, of course, as the last to know. It was the final summer sleep over. I should have known. The host parent should have known. I was not pleased. It was not a great way to start 9^th grade. She had to earn our trust back.

Nothing good happens in the woods.

A news story a number of years ago broke my heart. A high school girl had been partying with her friends after a homecoming game out at a marshy area. She drank too much. Her friends assumed that she had gone home early. But no. The girl froze to death where she fell.

The girl could have been anyone’s child.

Admittedly, it’s difficult to stop teens from experimenting. It’s almost impossible keep them from potentially being at the wrong place at the wrong time. As parents we can wish, hope and pray for our child’s safety. We can try to control their experiences, track them with GPS apps, and make them pee in a cup.

But there is another way. We can also be present with them in everyday ordinary moments. We can try out conversations no matter how awkward or serious — over and over again. Above all, we can be clear on our expectations, consistent in the implementation of consequences and loving in our acceptance of our children’s growing pains. Most certainly we can role model for them the very attitudes and behaviors we want to see in them.

Maybe it’s time to come out of the dark.

A shorter version of this post is on Huffington Post Parent, published Jan 5, 2015. I welcome comments!

Even Deadbeat Dads Deserve a Tribute

June 15, 2014 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

It goes without saying how important fathers are. Social science research is chock full of studies proving that involved dads positively impact the emotional and behavioral wellbeing of their little boys and girls. Protective factors for girls involve delay of sexual risk taking; and for boys, decreases in behavioral problems and criminal activity. Overall, a dad’s presence, especially during adolescence, is associated with an increased likelihood of graduation from high school and college. Go dads.

Of course, the media continues to portray dads as the goofy, loveable bystander in the raising of children. Who doesn’t love Phil in Modern Family? But the laughs are at the expense of our dads and our family is certainly culpable for buying in.

A recent survey on the portrayal of dads in the media by DOVE showed that while 75% of dads say they are responsible for their child’s emotional well-being, only 20% of dads see this role reflected in media. Three out of five dads (61%) say the media portrays them negatively and only 13% of dads believe the media portrays fathers as responsible for childcare. Dove’s response was to create a short film celebrating fathers; it’s endearing and heartfelt. It espouses an ideal fatherhood; one that some dads and children may only dream of.

Every year, I go through an emotional exercise when it comes to picking out a Father’s Day card. My father certainly wasn’t a “#1 Dad!” or “The Best Dad Ever;” nor could I ever say, “Of all the dads around the world, I couldn’t have asked for a better one.” I usually settle on a tepid “Have a Great Father’s Day!” card.

I have found compassion for my dad; now frail, infirm and sentimental. I relish the positive qualities I inherited from him: a spirit of adventure, risk taking and a love of nature. His absence and disregard forced me to be industrious, innovative and self-reliant. I have grit.

But perhaps the best gift of having a deadbeat dad was the commitment and determination to find a life partner who is loving, loyal and totally committed to raising children. I can say with all my heart that my daughters do have the best dad ever.

I was also moved this week when my youngest daughter showed me a Def Jam Poetry video of Daniel Beaty reciting Knock Knock. It was part of a lesson in her English class to inspire the students to explore poetry. “Mom, you have to see this. It is amazing!”

My daughter knows what will trigger my heartstrings: first, that she shared something that inspired her and second, that she knew I would be touched. Yet, she can’t truly know the gift she gave me. Knock Knock is a tribute to all parents and all children no matter the life circumstances. The passionate performance made me reflect once again on how my father, for all his ineptness, failings and troubles in his own childhood, did the best he could do. There’s no code book for being a parent, but forgiveness and compassion always win out.

Every time.

A Gift of Self-Compassion: Parenting Your Inner Child

December 7, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

This is one of those way way back stories. It takes place in a small family room set up for my sister and me. It was a nook of sorts and had a black and white TV. Family lore has it that my first words were “I Love Lucy!” learned in that very space. There is no doubt in my mind that this could have been true. After all it was once a place where our family of four gathered to watch the Ricardo’s antics with reverence. It was the last place we could be found together before my parents finally divorced.

It was also the “playroom” where we played with dolls, built blanket forts, and colored. One day I was there with my best friend, Heidi. My first true friend. I met her at kindergarten orientation with Ms. Francin. We were paired together and it turned out we both lived along winding Old West Mountian Road. Later it was her dear family who showed me a different kind of home life.

This one day Heidi and I had gleefully discovered a new painting technique. We dipped our brushes in the murky watercolor set and whipped them. Back and forth, back and forth. We splattered tiny rainbow polka dots over the white sheets of paper in front of us. It was thrilling.

I didn’t learn of Jackson Pollock until I was grown up and every time I see a painting of his I think back to that fateful day. It resulted in one of my first clear memories of shame. My mother came in with a look of horror, followed by a litany of screams and German cuss words. She pulled me aside and spanked me in front of my new friend. I was confused. I was red hot. Heidi froze in place. When I looked at the wall behind me I discovered that we had indeed “ruined” the walls. I instantly felt like I was a terrible little girl for having spoiled something of value belonging to someone I loved. And I had an unwitting accomplice.

The artist in me shut down.

Toward the end of the 6^th grade, when I was about 11, we had to try out for the junior high chorus. I had loved singing as a young child. Apparently, I could blurt out the German lyrics of many a childhood lullaby. But I had become a shy girl in public. There were too many problems at home. Heidi had moved far away the year before. And while the school day was a reprieve, I held my breath for most of it. I barely spoke in school and when I was asked to sing a song in the concrete corridors of Barlow Mountain Elementary School – just in front of the gym doors where others could hear me – I became mute. The next year I ended up in music appreciation class with 20 obnoxious boys.

The singer in me shut down.

When I was in my first college English class I wrote a personal essay of what I thought was the triumph of overcoming the hardship of my postwar upbringing and of being the first child in my extended family to go to college. The classic story of a first generation American. The teacher gave me a C+ and told me visit the counseling and writing centers. It was the C+ that crushed me.

The writer in me shut down.

My childhood experiences are not uncommon. So many of us know intimately the empathic failures of the adults in our world. (Forgive them for they no know what they do). My mother was not a mean person. She was overwhelmed. The chorus judges were not bad people. The English teacher was green and didn’t know what to do once he got piles of personal stories. But who has that perspective as a kid?

Every one of us has closed off part of our selves because we learn in many small ways over a long time that who we are is never good enough. We have learned the language of comparison, judgment and perfectionism.

Yet I know that the little artist in me had some sense that I had self-worth for I grew up to love art and fashion. I know the singer in me has not died for my crooning in church moves me to tears – even if I get choked up and can only finish a hymn in a whisper. I know the writer in me lives in some small and big ways for I would not have been able to dabble with this blog or write a dissertation.

Now that I have my own girls I am mindful of my words and actions on their vulnerable hearts – I know I have failed them and will fail them. I also know something else. It is my instinct to nurture them the best way I know how. But it is a gift to also care for the child within myself even as I age. How can I not see my younger selves when I see my girls at their tender ages? It’s inevitable. For all the hurts I may have endured, something far greater and more beautiful persists. That is the courage to create, the willing to sing out of tune, and the commitment to speak my truth – on paper, in person, in prayer. I practice compassion for that shy, yet feisty girl.

A brave girl.

I bring her with me and let her know that all is well. I love her. She has been a great teacher. I carry her on my shoulders in triumph and together we go forth with whole hearts.

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It is a privilege and a gift to be a candidate in Brené Brown’s The Daring Way™ method, a training and certification program for helping professionals who want to facilitate Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability, courage, shame, and worthiness. We are a community of wholehearted practitioners who believe in the power of owning our stories, and who recognize that vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage.

Additional Resource:

Download Dr. Brown’s Parenting Manifesto. Read it (1) for yourself as a parent and (2) in parenting your inner child.

http://brenebrown.com/downloads-badges/

Brain Farts and Tween Tarts

October 30, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

That’s what I call my teenagers’ relentless flakiness. It’s not just the spaced out moments that you expect. It’s when it seems like I’m talking to a walking zombie or a headless teenager living in a sleepy hollow. Since the start of school year both my daughters have:

Forgotten homework on the kitchen table at least 6 times each
Left the gym bag at home even though she pasted sticky note reminders everywhere
Didn’t put her wet laundry into the dryer overnight before a soccer game for the only and only team jersey
Needed $20 dollars for a coaches gift immediately (and we have no cash on hand)
Didn’t realize the art portfolio assignment required work over an entire summer
Had a meltdown over “lost” or “stolen” clothing items
Had to have a name brand item or else she’ll die
Thought she told me about the bar mitzvah, sweet 16 or school social and that I was the other carpool mom for six girls. Gee thanks.

And then blamed me for all the heartache their ditziness caused.

I chalk it up to the tween brain, still porous and a work in progress. Then there are the times when the girls are left to their own devices.

When the cat’s away the mice will….

On a recent Sunday morning my 13-year-old (delightfully portrayed to the left) and a friend had the house to themselves. Dad was stealing another “last” golf outing of the season and mom was in another state. To her credit my younger daughter, Josie, did not give up on the ritual Sunday morning pancake breakfast just because the family was scattered. Indeed, she and her BFF whipped up a storm, literally. Several bowls were in the sink and batter dripping was crusted on the counters; flour footprints were left on the floor; the milk was left out for hours; syrup hardened like shellac on the table. This was topped off by total abandonment of the house. The friend gets picked up and Josie decides to ride her sister’s bike across town to another girlfriend’s house — without telling anyone. Like she could be thrown off her bike on a winding New England road and no one would know for days. (This is how a mother’s brain works, as I’m sure you are well aware.)

Of course trying to bring up the “issues” with her resulted in righteous self-defense. Judgment is all she heard.

I finished my homework. I had nothing else to do. We were planning our Halloween outfits. I did clean up. Ok, sorry about the milk. Well, Dad left his phone at home so I couldn’t reach him.

The last part was true, but there is such a thing as leaving a note, texting mom, and telling (as in talking) to an older sister at home. Options.

But tween brains don’t consider the options or how beloved family members can’t magically know what their plans are. I commend her industry of concocting a Sunday brunch and her problem solving ability (no chauffeur, got me a bike).

“Well, they are their self-absorbed selves,” my husband said to me later in the day when I asked how the weekend went. He discovered the pancake mess. I discovered the bike getaway when I happened to ask Josie who brought her across town.

So where do you draw the line? Which battle do you choose? I was a latchkey kid and pretty self-sufficient by age 12. Rural street smarts. I rode my bike everywhere and baked TV dinners. But I have to say: I knew to tidy up the house and leave no evidence.

Dealing with tweens IS about making choices and it is about communication, which means repeating things over and over and over… because you never know what kernel of information actually takes root in their sprouting neural networks. It also means doing so with love—since this too shall pass.

Resource List for Parents

KISS & Tell with Tweens and Teens

October 24, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Kids under the moon, dreamstime_s_25428709

Parents are freaked out. Freaked out. Maybe it’s part of the season, the time changing, darker days, a new moon, lunar eclipse, or the upcoming All Souls day. But there is no mistaking it. The news has been full of upsetting stories involving 12 year olds (which I will save for last).

Kids are stressed out. Parents are stressed out. The world is bearing down unprecedented pressures, many of which play out in kids’ emotional and social worlds and are hidden from adult view.

Recently, I presented at several middle schools on the subject of raising confident teens. I call the seminar “Tweens in Balance.” The gist of the talk comes back to this: teenagers are like toddlers, just not as cute.

Or aliens.

Tweens and teens are strange indeed. There are good reasons for it. A massive transformation is taking place inside them and this contributes to lots of fits and starts, misunderstandings and impulsive actions.

Tweens are often irrational while parents try to be rational with them. It doesn’t work well. They might just tell you to kiss off… more or less.

I spend a good amount of time on teaching some basics: what’s going on in tweens’ brains at this stage of development and how parents can make heads or tails out of their moods and behaviors. I discuss how parents can feel empowered rather than confused – by understanding what’s going in their tweens’ cognitive and emotional life. I try to help them approach the teen years with a new perspective, a sense of humor, and some basic guidelines on how to communicate with them. There are plenty of funny stories to share.

But it’s no laughing matter. While tween brains are undergoing a massive remodeling, many of the connections are just forming. Tweens have a hard time:

1) making rational and sound decisions

2) regulating emotions

3) understanding consequences

4) seeing a bigger picture

So keep things simple. Super simple.

KISS dreamstime

Yes, the KISS principle or (whatever version of the phrase that suits you.)

The bottom line is that parents need to be clear and consistent and connected. That’s means making expectations really clear, not changing up rules on the fly, and staying involved and engaged with your child. Tweens are old enough to be included in decision-making and setting up new rules. The ideal times are transitions such as starting middle school, high school, college, summer months, camp, etc.

Another thing is for parents to chill a bit: Avoid making demands, constructing lists of things for them to do, and above all, thinking you are a step ahead of them. Better to take a humble but methodical approach verses a controlling and erratic one.

Part of the reason that parents of teens are freaked out is that early adolescence is clearly a vulnerable time. There are so many distractions; tweens see their problems as HUGE and irresolvable; and most of all they care about fitting in and being accepted. Any slight or misunderstanding can seem like the end of the world to them, literally.

Also, it seems that younger tweens are suffering silently or simply don’t have coping skills to manage today’s pressure-cooker world. It’s as if no one is taking the time to teach our children:

EMPATHY – COMPASSION – EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Lets take for example, the cyberbullying case in Florida regarding the suicide of the 12-year old of Rebecca Ann Sedwick in September. It is nothing less than horrifying. Here is an example of how bullying and violence prevention protocols and parent education could have made the difference between a girl’s life and death in the year leading up to the tragic event. Many adults, including parents and educators, failed these girls. The alleged bullies,12- and 14-year-old girls, are being charged with a felony. It’s very controversial given their age. Then just last week a 12 year old boy in Reno, Nevada, shot a teacher at his middle school, wounded two other students, and then killed himself. Two teen girls in a near by town outside of Boston, just miles from where my family lives, took their lives last month. It kind of seems like an epidemic of childhood violence – against oneself or another.

Can’t we do more?

It helps to understand what’s going on with this age group in modern times. A young adolescent’s cognitive and emotional development is still in development. It’s a sensitive period. Social media and the current glamorization of power and violence create extremely limited views on how to handle conflict. Our culture, parenting, and educational systems simply do not take into account the “perfect storms” that can occur during this vulnerable stage of growing up. Stern consequences are in order, but jail or juvenile detention (as is being considered in the case of poor Rebecca Ann’s bullies)?

When it comes to kids who do really bad things, remedial programs, treatment, and community service need to be in place to foster empathy and compassion, problem solving, conflict resolution and thoughtful decision-making. This may take years in the making for some children. For other young people, helping them understand that problems can be solved and that asking for help is a first step. But teens don’t know this or the information isn’t sinking in. It’s not sinking in!

Let’s be real: this means consistent prevention initiatives during middle and high school — and appropriate consequences for children and teens that become tormentors. We have to do more. The question for parents is: What can you do in your own home life to create the conditions to raise emotionally connected and compassionate children?

Consider this: Parents are the greatest influence in their children’s lives. Parents can help children navigate the challenges of growing up, build resilience in the face of a culture that reduce feelings to emoticons, rating and likes. You – yes, you – can teach them the value and gifts of every person’s life and let the know that no matter what, they are not alone when they are struggling.

Keep It Simple. Keep It Kind. Keep It Real.

So as with toddlers, we have to repeat things over and over with tweens and teens – patiently, respectfully and without judgment. Every day. Right now.

Go.

Who’s eavesdropping on our kids’ social networks?

September 10, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

How would you feel if you found out your child’s school district is paying for “social listening” of students’ social networking? That trolling their tweets, Instagrams and Facebook post is in the name of preventing cyber-bullying, harm, hate, despair, substance abuse, vandalism and truancy?

Would you feel a sigh of relief, “Thank god somebody is doing something about these kids and their mobile devices at school?”

Or would you feel horrified at the potential violation of your child’s privacy? Just maybe you feel like it’s too big brother for your taste?

Now if your child’s school had experienced a crisis involving inappropriate or malicious use of social networks by one child or group of children to disparage to harm another child, how would you feel then? Or, as has happened on too many occasions in recent years, what if a student committed suicide because of relentless cyberbullying and reputation damage done by malicious peers?

It’s all relative, right?

Recently, the Glendale school system in California contracted with a company called Geo Listening to monitor their middle and high schooers use of public postings on social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. No small change either. The cost to outsource this monitoring is $40K. The reality is that such software applications may become a trend for schools that are trying to be a step ahead of any potential problems that could arise via the social media conversations taking place during or after school.

Admittedly, I fall in the middle. I had both reactions both relief and horror. Here’s a school trying to be proactive about a modern issue in childhood: the new reality of digital playgrounds. On the other hand, such efforts may not enlist trust among students (who will immediately change all their accounts to “private” or create alias accounts), and worse, in my opinion, give a false sense of security to parents that the schools have “got this one covered.”

Parents I know either:

Feel completely inept at managing their kids’ use of mobile devices, texting frequency, and social network apps. Many don’t’ even know the apps on their kids’ devices. Twitter, Vine, Oovoo, Kik… The apps just keep on coming. Or,
Believe not only that their child has a good head on his or her shoulders and would never be disrespectful, but also think that the parental controls or rules they may have set at home are actually effective.

In either scenario, kids are always a step ahead of us. We just have to accept this and know how to respond.

Social media is the perfect channel for kids to swear, act tough, be inappropriate, be silly, creative, and experimental, with little oversight by parents or teachers. On the other hand, the current generation of digital natives tends to be rather pragmatic when it comes to their use of social media, unlike their millennial predecessors who sort of went hog wild. We need to have a bit of faith. My 15-year keeps reminding me of this, in fact.

What the Glendale scenario highlights for me is that no matter what the schools attempt to experiment with when it comes to the safety of their students, the teaching and role modeling of digital communication needs to come from home no matter what. And it comes down to a few things families need to think about as early as possible:

Connection and interest in your child’s life even as they start to naturally pull away in adolescence and resist your authority
Clear core family values
Practice of the golden rule as a baseline behavior
Clear expectations and family rules (age appropriate) about the care and use of technology devices and communications

Believe me the opportunities for all of these arise all the time. When my daughter impulsively announced to her twitter following that she hated me (I made her go on a planned youth retreat), that was pause for reflection and reconnection. We can only do the best we can, when we really are doing the best we can by staying in tune with our kids.

Resources:

CommonSenseMedia.org

Confessions of a Digital Mom: Emoji Sweet Nothin’s

June 20, 2013 by Tara Cousineau Leave a Comment

Hey Moms. Are you trying to play catch up with your daughters? I am. We have two dynamic duos under our roof. I’ve never experienced anything like the sheer fluency my girls have with their smartphones and apps. They pick up the latest things with such ease, it’s crazy. Snapchat, Vine. I’m convinced my 13 year old will be an animator or movie director. She’s producing shorts (like 6 second short movies) in no time.

My older one has already posted over 6000 tweets on god knows what girlie girl nonsense… oh and by the way tweeted that she hated me one day when I made her go on a youth retreat that had been planned all year.

Anyway. SOML.

I’ve come to the stark realization, that our girls are engaged – and spending so much time – in their digital playgrounds, that the lines are getting blurred between the real and the virtual world. And that parents, including me, tend to go merrily along thinking are our girls are smart, kind, and respectful, that they should know better about how to behave in all social arenas.

If you think back just 20 or 30 years to our own teenage years we were passing notes in hallways, saving them in shoe boxes, or making paper collages from cutouts of Teen Beat and Seventeen magazine… and plastering them on our bedroom walls. This took a lot of time and reflection. We had no money to develop photos and rarely owned a camera for that matter.

Also, there were only one or two phones in a house, and our parents had rules about the phone since it was a shared among many.

But mostly we spent a lot of time playing, hanging out, and talking with each other – like in person. Today’s teens spend up to 40 hours a week using technology, looking at screens, which is of course, the equivalent to a full time job.

Times have changed, haven’t they?

Here’s the first reality that is ever so evident (and you don’t need a PHD to know this): Girls’ social networks have become a primary way for girls to relate to each other. They are immensely connected to this new way of communicating. It’s mesmerizing.

In fact, of all the demographic groups teen girls are the most prolific texters, with numbers of text upwards of 4000 per month and over 100 a day. If I added up my 15 year old’s tweets, texts and posts per month, it’s like around 10K. Maybe not. I should really take the time to count. But I can’t. It’s a guestimate. I bet she’d qualify for a 10K club of digital divas. I could be a proud mama, right?

Actually, if she wasn’t also a decent student and super busy on several athletic teams, I might be concerned about her social media excess and my parenting. Plus, she’s doing her own laundry now. Bonus for me. (I resigned as laundress when she entered high school. It’s a good strategy.)

But here’s my take on what happens with tween girls and technology:

Texting, social networks and chat apps amplify girls’ biological drive to share, compare, and care.

Those behaviors that we mothers did as girls are now digitized: sharing secrets, taking photos, collecting images of favorite things like celebrities, fashion, cute guys, funny or inspiring quotes … it’s all online and doesn’t cost much money, although it consumes way more time and attention in girls’ lives.

And that’s the sad truth of the matter.

In fact, girls relating in this way find it so beguiling that technology is the perfect trigger for compulsive behavior. They crave it. The get anxious when they aren’t connected to their devices.

In fact, many of you moms are doing this, too. Admit it.

But tweens and teens don’t filter what they do in these digital realms – they don’t take the time to reflect before they post; they don’t yet have the cognitive skills to do this with ease. They don’t have the brakes to slow down.

Their brains just aren’t there yet.

As far as I can tell the books and resources on online safety and digital culture don’t adequately take into account how girls an boys are biologically wired for certain behaviors in adolescence. You know, the behaviors to ensure survival and passing on of genes, like sex?

It’s a perfect storm. Maturational changes, biological drives to procreate, desperate need to be with friends, competing for social status, and sensation seeking – all being played out on the modern digital stage. Social technologies feed right into certain neurological mechanisms that reinforce behavior and learning patterns.

Girls in particular are primed to behave in a number of ways based on the female biological blueprint that plays out in interesting ways in digital playgrounds. Here’s my take on three primary ways modern girls connect:

BEAUTY: Girls’ begin to focus on their appearance and engage in ways to be more attractive for mating. This, by the way would occur regardless of our overly sexualized media. Media magnifies girls’ attention to appearance but biologically girls are driven to make themselves appealing. So posting photos and pruning their digital profiles is the current method for posturing. They don’t even realize it. (See post on my daughter’s first high heels.)

This drive to be wanted and accepted is also why tweens rigidly conform to the current fashion trends – it’s out of sheer fear. God forbid a girl stands out from the crowd as being too different. Where my girls go to public school, I call it the middle school Abercrombie Uniform. Thankfully, girls grow out of it in high school and tend to adopt more fashion diversity as they develop their identities. Nevertheless, they spend hours posting outfits and dresses in prep for the school socials or proms – getting endless tips and feedback from friends. Then there is posting once the event has actually occurred. At that point the number of “likes” becomes the ultimate personal affirmation.

FRIENDSHIPS: Girls’ drive to bond and socialize intensifies in adolescence. So there is, what seems to parents, a ridiculous need to be with girlfriends. Cliques begin to form, which again, has a basis in human survival. Whereas boys and men tend to be primed to fight or flee in face of danger, girls and women do what some social scientists call “tend and befriend.” They gather in groups as a way to have strength in numbers and naturally nurture each other in the face of stress.

OMG, girls are chatty, too, and have more developed language skills than boys do in early adolescence. This is also related to the oxytocin spike that occurs in the middle of the menstrual cycle – the bonding hormone. Don’t you ever wonder why your daughter might be ignoring you, not listening, grunting her way through a minimalist conversation and then all of the sudden she’s talking up a storm and you wonder what the heck happened? Maybe you feel she stills love you after all and cares what you have to say? Alas, credit can be given in part to her hormonal cycle. (BTW: It’s worth it to track both your and her menstrual cycle. This helps to predict the good and the bad days and when to ask her to clean her room. Let Dad in on the secret so he may be better prepared to deal with the female drama.)

The sheer volume of girls texting also begins to make sense. They spew out everything to thier freinds. It’s the uncut version. Girls announce every thought and feeling on their social networks.

The bottom line is that girls are built to socialize. Texting is simply the new channel.

STRESS: Girls, for some reason also begin to have higher levels of stress hormone cortisol. They are more sensitive to social cues. They are very good at emotional recognition – and therefore they tend to “read” into many situations. They look for meaning even when it may not be there. This vigilance may have been necessary in hunt and gather days when protecting the young was a primary drive. But today? They are expending energy trying to interpret the meaning of texts from their BFFs.

Of course, the opportunity for misinterpretation with social media and texting is HUGE without the face-to-face interpersonal cues. Girls expend a ton of energy reading between the lines and can easily get it wrong. This was just played out recently in my younger daughter’s little social circle and it was something one friend said in the lunch line about another friend – an anorexia jibe (which can be perceived as a compliment or a critique depending on the context). Of course, the comment got misconstrued and then texted among friends, causing unnecessary rifts and shifting alliances. There was anger, shame, tears, and confusion. That the smallest slight can be amplified and go viral in an instant set girls more on edge and they “track” it more. We’ve heard about some tragic consequences when these things get out of hand when the “viral” humiliation – the sharing of a photo, slur and personal attacks – is too much and too painful for some teens to handle. Most teens have fragile hearts and fragile brains. They are still forming their identities, skills, and ability to cope. It’s a stressful time in life.

Which girls might be more at risk socially?

It is really hard to know or predict how girls will navigate their social circles and who might be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects or experiences with social media activity. Why? Because being a teen comes with a lot of volatility given all the changes in body, brain and social life.

So let’s look at some research on this.

Roy Pea and Clifford Nass, communication researchers at Stanford (2010) surveyed over 3,400 girls, ages 8 to 12, all subscribers to Discovery Girls magazine, about their electronic diversions and their social and emotional lives. The results were unsettling.

The girls took the survey online, which asked about the time they spent watching video (television, YouTube, movies) listening to music, reading, doing homework, emailing, posting to Facebook, texting, instant messaging, talking on the phone and video chatting. Basically, what every girl does outside of school hours. They also asked how often the girls were doing two or more of these activities at the same time.

The girls’ answers showed that multitasking is a major drag. The results indicated that girls who spent many hours watching videos and using online communication reported negative personal experiences:

feeling less social success,
not feeling normal,
having more friends whom parents perceived as bad influences,
and sleeping less (no surprise there).

Of course, a definite cause-and-effect can’t be proved with a survey but the results are cautionary.

But the survey also asked the girls a different, and very important, question: How much time do you spend participating in face-to-face conversations with other people?

The researchers found the opposite effects: Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences. Ok, like this is key, right? Here’s the message that modern families need to get: Our kids learn the complicated task of interpreting emotions by watching the faces of other people and interacting with them. You want emotional intelligent empathic kids, right? Monitor their media diets! Especially in adolescence, a highly sensitive period of brain development.

Good Night Emoji © TCousineau 2013 — Good Night, Little Emoji

I confess that I love texting with my daughters. Just at a time when they are pulling away, a short text seems like a token of love. Sending an Emoji infused text when I’m out of town – a smiley face blowing a kiss – or my favorite, a crescent moon – approximates a sentiment of caring. It’s virtual parenting. These digital doodads also fill a gap when, god forbid, you actually try to give your a teen a goodnight kiss in person. Emojis are like an emotional mom-aide. This techno-luv is all well and good but can’t ever truly compensate for the real thing. So in my home, we are trying to make a concerted effort in balancing things out when it comes to media. In the end, the work is less about stopping the floodgates of technology and more about spending time together in meaningful ways. It’s good for the heart and it’s good for the brain. We have to do this now because when they grow up, we really want them to be able to look someone in the eye, shake a hand, speak with purpose and be emotionally connected.

* * *

For more on girls and social media, check out my teleclass: Keeping Your Daughter Safe: What You Need To Know About What Girls are Doing Online.

Good Reads:

The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine

Grown Up Digital: How the New Generation is Changing your World. By Don Tapscott