The Problem With Boys

By: Joe Newman

Our boys are in trouble. They are falling behind girls academically, socially, and psychologically. Consider the following:

• Boys are 30% more likely to drop out of school before graduation.
• Girls outperform boys at all levels of schooling, from elementary to graduate programs.
• Boys are 11% less likely to get a B.A. and 10% less likely to get a graduate degree than girls are.
• Boys make up 2/3 of special education programs.
• Boys are five times more likely to be diagnosed and medicated for ADHD.

There has been a confluence of cultural shifts responsible for this dangerous trend, a sort of perfect storm that is ravaging the psyches of our boys. The shifts fall into one of three categories:

Shifts in what our boys do with their free time, shifts in our schools, and shifts in the parenting. Understanding these three areas will point us in the direction of how we can take practical steps to save our boys.

First, boys are spending a lot of their free time playing video games and watching porn on the internet.
• By age 21 boys have spent an average of 10,000 hours gaming, 2/3rds of that in isolation.
• The average boy watches 50 porn clips per week.

The result of this is that boys are developing “arousal addictions” and they are developing minds that seek constant change, novelty, excitement, and arousal. This makes them unprepared for classrooms that are predominantly interactively passive, static, and analog in nature. It also makes it more difficult for them to develop real relationships which build gradually and subtly (from Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys? – http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/zimchallenge.html).

Next, the culture of our schools is increasingly alienating boys.
• Boys are expelled 3 times as often as girls.
• They are suspended 2.5 times as often.
• They are 2.75 times as likely to be diagnosed with a learning disability.
• They are 3.24 times as likely to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed.

Ali Carr-Chellman of Penn State attributes the above to three factors. First there is a “zero tolerance” policy toward weapons or violence. This is often translated into not only a ban on real and toy weapons but also writing about these things or about topics that seem destructive or violent in nature. Second, there is an appalling lack of male role models in our elementary schools. Ten years ago 14% of elementary school teachers were male. Today that number has dropped to 7%. And third, there has been a compressing of our children’s curriculum in essence making “kindergarten the new second grade”. The effect being that teachers are under pressure to move children quickly through the curriculum and there is much less tolerance for the child who is active and needs to move (predominantly boys).

Finally, in the last 30 years, our parenting culture has shifted from an emphasis on raising children who respect their parents to raising children who respect themselves. Consequently, our children are more confident, assertive, and willful. Add to this that the ways in which parents deal with conflict has shifted to using more and more communication and explaining instead of action consequences; the result is children who are stronger but more difficult to control. This lack of effective boundaries also stunts a child’s capacity for intimacy and promotes feelings of anger and isolation. (For more on this see my book Raising Lions or my blog ‘The Beautiful Tyrant’.)

Add these three factors together and we can see how boys are slowly being marginalized at our schools and consequently within our culture.

Here are some practical steps parents can take to bring back our boys:

• Move all computers into the public areas of the house. This will prevent a lot of your children’s ability/desire to watch porn. And use a porn filter to make it more difficult when you’re not home.

• Place a limit on video gaming time. Between 2 to 4 hours a week at most. Let your child choose how to divvy up the time.

• Encourage activities that aren’t virtual: Building projects, theater, Cub & Boy Scouts, sports and playing outside.

• Watch the TED talk by Gever Tulley “5 dangerous things you should let your kids do” then do these with your sons.

• Advocate for, and encourage, your sons to write about and express what they find interesting, even if it involves weapons, battles, and things being blown up.

• Learn to set action consequences instead of giving information in response to problem behavior.

• Create real jobs for your children to do that support the daily functioning of your home. This goes beyond traditional chores to include learning to make dinner, changing light bulbs, doing dishes or laundry, spending a day painting the kitchen with Mom and/or Dad. This can contribute greatly to your child feeling a sense of responsibility and connection to his immediate community.

Joe Newman is a behavior consultant who trains parents, teachers, administrators, and specialists. During the last twenty years he’s taught 2nd through 12th grade classes, designed curriculum, and founded a national mentoring program. His book Raising Lions is available at Amazon.com.

10 Parenting Principles

By: Joe Newman

Struggles, difficulties and deferred gratification are good for children.  These things used to be a much bigger part of growing up and there wasn’t any other option.  Today most parents have the option of giving their child almost everything they want (attention, toys, constant stimulation, choices about everything, lavish praise).  One of my clients called the sickness this creates in our children “affluenza”.  In today’s society it’s necessary for parents to create deferred gratification even when they have the resources to give immediate gratification.  Struggles, difficulties, and deferred gratification are essential to the development of emotional regulation, intimacy, self–discipline, and feelings of connection with the world around them.

Parent like an adult, not like your inner-child.  There is a natural, but unhealthy, tendency to parent our children in terms of what we needed and never got as children.  Although doing this feels like being considerate of what your child needs, it’s not.  It’s self-involved.   Try not to parent in reaction to the way you were parented.  Make a concerted effort to listen to feedback from others about your parenting and be extra reflective about recognizing the difference between what you needed as a child and what your child needs right now.   Remember, no parent thinks they’re permissive.

Match the will of your child, but don’t shame it.  We are raising children who are strong, confident, and tenacious.  Parents must be prepared to be at least as tenacious about enforcing boundaries as children are about pushing them.  It’s natural that our children push boundaries more fiercely than we did.  Don’t expect them to respond to the same things that worked with us as children; they’re stronger so we also need to be stronger.  At the same time we shouldn’t resent it when they question and test so often.

Recognize and acknowledge your child’s power.  In both times of cooperation and of conflict do your best to point out and respect your child’s ability to make their own choices.  Rather than telling them what they “should”, “must”, or “have” to do, point out that they are free to make their own choices even when you disagree with them.  It’s a good way to teach them what they control and what they don’t control.  “You can decide to _______, but _______ leads to this.  If you’re okay with that then that’s your choice.”  They control their choices.  You administer the outcomes.

Don’t explain to a child what they can figure out themselves.  Too much explaining makes feeble, passive children.  Never tell a child something they could realize themselves with a bit of coaching or consequence.  Ask questions about whether the choices they made served them well.  And never tell a child something you are sure they already know.  Never address problem behavior with explanations and information they already know.

Let consequences teach. Children make their choices based on what works.  If rude and inconsiderate behavior gets them what they want, don’t expect them to change because this violates your moral reasoning.  Don’t blame your children for their bad behavior.  If you don’t like their behavior change the consequences of those behaviors.

Take the anger, judgment, disappointment, and moralizing out of your parenting.  All of these things can be forms of manipulation and eventually they will backfire on you.  While it’s natural to have an emotional reaction to some of the things your child does, never use emotion to manipulate or shame.

The parent is in charge and this is the natural order of things.  Children who have too much control over their parents become anxious, angry, and lonely.  Children are comforted by parents who assert control without negating their needs or feelings.  These children are better equipped to internalize the boundaries the parent holds.

Have your own needs,and make sure your child learns to consider them.  Teaching your child to consider your needs is as important as considering theirs.  It’s important that parents maintain an independent sense of what they like, want, and enjoy and not allow their identity to be dominated by their sense of themselves as an excellent parent.

Embrace conflict.  The less you shy away from conflict the less of it you’ll have.  Learn to deal straightforwardly with aggression and dependence.

Joe Newman is a behavior consultant who trains parents, teachers, administrators, and specialists.  During the last twenty years he’s taught 2^nd through 12^th grade classes, designed curriculum, and founded a national mentoring program.  His book Raising Lions is available at Amazon.com. 

The Real Problem with American Schools

By: Joe Newman

I recently saw a 20/20 program entitled Stupid in America with the tag line – “Kids failed to make the grade because their schools failed them” in which they looked critically at grade schools in America as compared to schools in other countries.  The program showed how schools in America were producing much less capable children and implied this was because of the incompetence and lack of effort put forth by American teachers.  They did this without offering any explanation as to why our teachers had apparently lost their efficacy and ability to care.

As I watched how European students far outpaced their American counterparts of the same age, I thought, “Of course Europeans are outperforming us!  Their teachers don’t spend half their time trying to overcome the culture of entitlement.  American teachers spend an inordinate amount of time on classroom management and attempting to deal with children who believe their opinions are just as important as the teacher’s.  Hours of classroom learning are lost each day and by the time our children are graduating high school their European counterparts have had many more years of real education.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that the reporters at 20/20 used the same kind of thinking to examine the problem as was used to create it – “Our parenting, our culture, and our children are perfect; blame the teachers.”

The unspoken assumption I see in most children at school is that they are perfect and correct until proven otherwise and that it is the responsibility of the teacher to prove himself or herself knowledgeable, entertaining, and engaging.  Every teacher must constantly battle this assumption in order to get to moments of real teaching and learning.

While not all children come to school with this assumption, this is the current classroom zeitgeist and it pervades our classrooms.

Deference and appreciation is a rare commodity in most of the children I see in schools today.  And these attributes are fundamental to creating an atmosphere that is conducive to learning.

Here are a few of the myths that are instilled in our children at home that create this culture of entitlement and undermine our children’s capacity to learn.

Education is something they’re entitled to, not something they are fortunate to get. Children feeling a sense of appreciation toward their teacher and their school is the first step toward a child coming to school with a seeking mind and willingness to work hard.

The child’s opinion is just as important as the opinion of the teacher. Children who are given choices about everything learn to question anything they don’t prefer. This might seem fine for a tolerant parent at home, but by the time these children enter school it becomes extremely difficult to deal with their belief that their opinions are just as valuable, or more valuable, than the opinion of their teacher.

Children should be treated with the same deference that teachers are.    Wrong!  Teachers, and for that matter most adults, are entitled to more deference than children because they have more experience, know more, and have gone through difficulties the child has not yet faced.  And more to the point – if children come into school with this belief, the implication is they should have as much of a say in running the classroom as their teacher does.  The teacher who has a classroom full of these kinds of children will spend an inordinate amount of class time dealing with behaviors and negotiating boundaries.

The following are some concrete steps you can take to prepare your children to learn at school.

• Give children choices about some things and not others.

• There should be times when “no discussion” is the rule.

• Teach your children that having choices is a privilege that can be taken away if they don’t respect the rules that govern them.
• Tell them the rule once, or not at all.  Repeating rules over and over is condescending and tells them it’s the adult’s responsibility to remember the rules and not the child’s responsibility to proactively consider others.
• Choose what deserves praise. When everything a child does is praised, your praise becomes meaningless.
• Be authentic. Don’t be afraid of telling a child you think they could do better when it’s clear they haven’t given their best effort.

Transforming the state of education in this country will start with transforming the culture of parenting.

Jimmy’s One Friend

By: Joe Newman

One afternoon, I was watching a first-grader named Jimmy playing Legos with two other boys when I heard him say to his friend Ryan, “That’s a stupid way to build it. The wings are gonna fall off. Give me the ship.  You’re stupid!”

Ryan looked hurt, put the half-built spaceship down, crossed his arms and turned his back to Jimmy.

Jimmy was very impulsive and often said the first thing that popped into his mind without thinking. He was trying his best to make friends but most of the children still didn’t like him very much. He and Ryan had become friends about two months earlier and had even had a few play dates together after school.

I winced when I heard him call Ryan stupid, not only because he clearly hurt Ryan’s feelings, but also because I was afraid he might lose one of his precious few friends. So I called Jimmy over and said to him, “Jimmy, let me ask you a question. Do you want to have more friends?”

Jimmy looked at me suspiciously and gave a tentative “Yes.”

“Okay, and are you happy about how many play dates you have or do you want to have more?”

“I want to have more.” Jimmy said.

“So right now, after what you just said to him, do you think Ryan wants to be your friend?”

“But Ryan was being stupid. If you put the wings on like that they’ll never stay. You need to ….”

I broke in and said, “Hold on, hold on. I didn’t ask you if Ryan was being stupid, maybe he was. I’m just asking you if you think he wants to be your friend when you call him stupid.”

“I don’t know. Probably not,” he said.

“Well I just wanted to ask you because I know you want to have more friends and play dates, so I couldn’t figure out why you called Ryan stupid.”

Then after a pause I said, “Do you want to go back and play?”

“Yeah.” Jimmy said.

“Go on then.”

Jimmy had always been resistant to anyone telling him that something he did was wrong or a bad idea. I’d learned that if I asked him questions, and didn’t force him to admit he was wrong, he was more likely to talk with me honestly and change his behavior.

Guidance Without Manipulation

There are all kinds of subtle manipulations in the language we use when we talk with children. This new generation of children, children with more highly developed communication skills and a stronger sense of themselves, are highly sensitive to manipulation and they will resist it.  The use of manipulation is an attempt to shape and change them based in a fear that the child will not come to the correct conclusions on their own. The child’s resistance will start an antagonistic and oppositional dynamic. The most effective way to speak to these children is to speak to them in terms that acknowledge their independent will.

Recognize that children ultimately make the decisions in each circumstance and that we cannot make decisions for them. Also, the language that we use with children should communicate to them a belief that they are capable of making logical, healthy decisions that are respectful of themselves and others. The language commonly used to speak with children is filled with manipulation, moralizing, and innuendo about what they should and shouldn’t do. This kind of language communicates to them our lack of faith in both their ability to make decisions, and in their capacity as moral and ethical persons.

Learning or Realization?

There are two different ways to teach a child –through a process of learning or a process of realization. When trying to teach a child after a moment of conflict or difficulty it is much more effective to use a process of realization.

Learning happens when you take information, or the conclusion about something, from someone else. The adult gives the information or conclusion and the child takes it.

Realization happens when you gather your own information and come to the conclusion on your own. The adult can lead a child to realizations by asking questions rather than giving answers.

Using a series of questions to lead someone to certain realizations is commonly called the Socratic method. Wikipedia defines Socratic method as “a form of philosophical inquiry in which the questioner explores the implications of others’ positions, to stimulate rational thinking and illuminate ideas.”

Did That Work for You?

The key to having a Socratic dialogue with children is to base your discussion around asking them, in as many ways as possible, “Did the choices you made get you what you wanted?”

When you lead a child to examine the facts and ideas based on better understanding of what’s in her own self-interest, rather than telling her your conclusions about what she should and shouldn’t do, she will more easily embrace the realizations and conclusions she’s come to because she feels respected and not manipulated.

Joe Newman is a behavior consultant who trains parents, teachers, administrators and specialists. During the last twenty years he’s taught 2^nd through 12^th grade classes, designed curriculum, and founded a national mentoring program. His book Raising Lions is available at Amazon.com..

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[Photo Credit: ianus]

How Not To Be a Cause and Effect Parent

By: Joe Newman

Imagine a young mother who tells her three-year-old son Nathan, “If you behave and listen to Mommy, then you can go to the movies with Daddy tonight.” But the boy keeps acting out, throwing things and not listening to his mother. Each time he misbehaves his mother tells him, “Nathan, unless you start behaving you’re not going to the movies with Daddy.” After the fifteenth time telling him she finally says, “That’s it, I’ve had enough. You are not going to the movies with Daddy tonight.” A three-year-old experiences a verbal warning as no real consequence so the series of events looks, to him, like this:

Action = no effect, …action = no effect, …action = no effect

…Until the 15^th time = No going to the movies with Daddy!

The conclusion that three-year-old Nathan reaches is, “Most of the time there is no consequence for not listening to Mommy.” And, “Sometimes (one time in fifteen) Mommy gets mad and takes away something I like.”

Make Consequences Short and Immediate

Children are observing what’s happening around them and trying to draw conclusions about how things work and the meanings of words. If fourteen out of every fifteen times a parent says “No throwing your toys,” or “Hitting your brother is not okay,” there is no consequence paired with the rule. The child learns that most of the time the rule isn’t true. If your two-year-old drops the toy and goes away crying every time your four-year-old hits him and you give no other consequence than telling him that hitting his brother is “not okay,” what he’s learning is that your words are not true. Hitting his brother is okay because when he does it, his brother drops the toy and goes away which is what he wants.

Most parents like to give children the benefit of the doubt each time they have a problem behavior.  While this can be fine for behaviors that are sporadic, this well-intentioned approach can cause a breakdown in motivation and communication when done in response to problem behaviors that occur regularly.

Typically, a parent gives many chances before giving a consequence.  But each time an adult gives another chance instead of a consequence the adult’s feelings of goodwill slowly fade and resentment and disappointment start to take their place.  By the time the adult actually gives a consequence, it’s usually paired with all the negative emotions that come with feeling disregarded and taken advantage of.

In order to do this effectively parents and teachers need to become more comfortable with conflict.  Rather than avoiding conflict until the problem becomes so big they’re upset and likely to give a big consequence, parents would do better to step into conflict early when their heads are cool and the consequence can be small and reasonable.

For older children start thinking about giving consequences that are very short and easy for them to do instead of waiting and giving consequences that are big and will be more difficult to enforce.

For instance:

-       Instead of taking away the cell phone for an indefinite time, take the cell phone for 1, 2, 5 or 24 hours.

-       Instead of no more video/TV time today how about no video/TV for 10 minutes.

-       Instead of no going out with your friends after school, try letting them go out after they’ve finished an hour or two of homework or chores.

-       Ask them what they are willing to do in exchange for getting special privileges or resources.

The idea is to create consequences that allow your children to get a fresh start as often as possible.  This allows your children to feel more in control over the causes and effects instead of consequences that feel punitive and judgmental.

For younger children the most effective immediate consequence is the short time out. A short time out is a simple means of assuring that problem behaviors are not reinforced or rewarded. A short time out can be given in a classroom, the home, on a hike, or while out shopping.

When you stop a child and give her a short time out you’re assuring her that the most immediate effect the child experiences as a result of her behavior is boredom. You effectively stop any reward or stimulation that the child is getting from the inappropriate behavior and replace it with a short period of nothing to do.

Short, immediate consequences also make it easier for your child to begin to manage his own behaviors. It’s easier for children to control themselves when dealing with a one or two-minute time out than it is for them to deal with a long time out or a big consequence. Additionally, it gives your child a better opportunity to exercise control over those actions that are leading to larger consequences.

Love Is Never Asking Them To Say “I’m Sorry”

By: Joe Newman

Most parents and teachers regularly ask children to apologize for things they’ve done.  When one child hits another I’ll commonly hear, “Apologize to your brother!  There’s no hitting allowed.  Now say you’re sorry.”  Then the one will sheepishly say to the other “I’m sorry.”  Children quickly learn that apologies are a cheap currency with which they can pay for their inappropriate, impulsive, or bad behavior.

I was in a third grade classroom the other day and saw six girls in two groups playing a math game when suddenly I heard a girl say to another, “You are so stupid!  Why did you join my team?”  The teacher overheard the exchange and said, “Abi, we do not allow that kind of talk in here!  Do you want to sit on the bench for recess again?”  Abi shakes her head ‘no’ and the teacher continues, “How would you feel if someone called you stupid?  You owe Sophie and me an apology.  I don’t allow those words in my class.”  Abi then says, “I’m sorry Mrs. Johnston.  Sorry Sophie.”  When the teacher walks away Abi turns to the other girls in the group, gives them a little smirk, then resumes playing the game.

In the above interaction it’s as if the teacher had said to Abi, “Because you behaved in a way I find inappropriate you’ll need to do two things.  First, lie to me.  Second, lie to the girl you’ve insulted.  Okay, now continue playing.”

We need to understand that children operate from a perspective that is based on cause and effect.  What children find most important is social power –not right or wrong, or good and bad.  When Abi insulted Sophie she was throwing around her social power, not acting out of some misunderstanding of the rules of the class.  Abi knew the rules of the class better than the teacher.

See, Mrs. Johnston did “allow those words”; she just required a small payment in the form of the lie “I’m sorry”.

Model sincere apology but never solicit it or force it.

We feel compelled to get apologies, yell, prove the child wrong and us right because we suffer from the delusion that the world operates by the laws of right and wrong rather than the laws of cause and effect.

We see our children as a projection of ourselves.  When we see them do something bad it is a personal reflection on us.

Don’t Require an Apology

Asking a child to apologize as a consequence is another form of moralizing and manipulation. Action consequences should not include requiring the student apologize or say they won’t do it again. Whether a child is actually sorry has to do with whether they were motivated to do the behavior and if they will be motivated to do the same behavior again in the future. Children take actions based on self-interest. It is up to the adults to ensure that problem behaviors do not serve the interests of the child. When the adult has done their job of making sure inappropriate behaviors have no reward, then the child will naturally stop doing them.

Our Silent Holocaust

By: Joe Newman

According to IMS Health (one of the leading consultants for pharmaceutical companies), 24 million U.S. children were taking ADHD medications in 2009.  Additionally, 10 million children were taking anti-depressants, and 6 million were taking anti-psychotics.  The total number of children in the U.S. is approximately 75 million.

The only thing I find more shocking than these statistics is the fact that there is very little public outrage or substantive discussion about this.  Why isn’t this the number one topic of conversation among parents, educators and professionals?

In 1970 when I was diagnosed as “Hyperactive” and put on Ritalin I was one of only 50,000 children in the U.S. being medicated for behavior or attention problems.  Twenty years ago when I started working with behavior problem and special needs children there were approximately 4 – 5 million children taking ADD/ADHD medications and prescribing antidepressants or antipsychotics for children was extremely rare.

Do we as a culture really believe that between a third and a half * of all children suffer from psychological disorders severe enough to warrant being medicated?   And if we do, is anyone asking why?  Or do we lack the time and attention span to consider what is happening to our children?  Are we a country of frogs in a pot of water that is gradually getting hotter without our noticing?

What percentage of our children needs to be diagnosed as disordered before we’re willing to turn the microscope onto ourselves, our culture, and our medical paradigm?  Do we wait until viewing children as disordered is the norm and psychiatric medication is just part of what is required to grow up?  Perhaps we should call a spade a spade and admit that in this country – childhood is a disorder.

Unless we believe this epidemic is the result of some great conspiracy to drug our children and line the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies (which I do not believe) then one or more of the following three facts must be true:  First, our children have changed.  If this were true then the next step would be to ask “why?”.  Second, we as parents and teachers have changed.  Perhaps we are less tolerant, too tolerant, or our schools are more demanding and rigid.  Or third, our children have always had these problems and it is only because of recent advances in psychiatry and psychopharmacology that we are now able to recognize, diagnose, and medicate them properly.

Experts in Adolescent Psychopharmacology will tell you it’s this third option.  But they’ll also admit that doctors without any psychiatric training are making the majority of diagnoses and prescriptions.  The journalPediatrics recently revealed that 8% of pediatricians felt they had adequate training in prescribing antidepressants, 16% felt comfortable prescribing them, but 72% actually did.  And a recent study by the AAP predicts that treatment of mental illness and mood disorders will soon makeup 30-40% of a pediatrician’s office practice.

So we clearly have some serious problems with the way our medical system is diagnosing and prescribing psychiatric medications to children.  But even if we didn’t, are we ready to believe that this many children are neurologically disordered?  Or do we need to question some of the underlying assumptions and paradigms on which psychiatry and psychopharmacology are based?

Here’s a broken paradigm we can start with.  Our current medical model treats the connection between one’s neurology and one’s behavior as a one-way street when we have a wealth of evidence that it is at least a two-way street.  The one-way street model goes like this: bad behavior is caused by bad brain chemistry. Make a diagnosis (a theory about what kind of chemical dysfunction is present), and then prescribe chemicals to correct or counter the effects of the bad chemistry. Bad chemistry plus corrective chemistry equals good chemistry and good behavior.

This seems reasonable enough—until you consider that, while brain chemistry causes behavior, it is also the case that behavior causes brain chemistry (two-way street). We know that if we send a soldier to the war zone in Iraq for a year, that when he comes back he may have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Exposure to a set of behaviors and experiences altered his brain chemistry. If this can happen to an adult’s brain, how much more sensitive to behaviors and experiences is the very malleable brain of a child?

This leads us back to the first and second facts we must consider.  Yes, our children have changed; just ask your mother or a teacher who’s been around for twenty or thirty years.  Today’s children are more willful, more comfortable challenging authority, and less able –or willing –to focus on classroom activities.  And more children exhibit behaviors that parents and teachers aren’t equipped to effectively handle without the use of medications.

Parenting and teaching have changed as well.  The question we must now ask is how have they changed and is this change in some way responsible for the changes we’re seeing in our children?  Whatever we’re doing, we must first admit that we’re not getting a very good result.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

This is a call to arms, a call to sanity.  It’s time to demand that any conversation about parenting or teaching begin with an honest look at, and discussion about, the diagnosing and medicating of the children in our country.

Diagnosing and medicating this many children is unacceptable.  We need to begin by moving the responsibility off the shoulders of our children and placing it squarely on our own.

“If you try to treat someone’s illness without knowing its cause you will only make the person sicker than before.” - Nichiren Daishonin

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[Photo Credit: arenamontanus]

Gavin’s Posse

By: Joe Newman

One afternoon I was at the recreation field of a large middle school (3,000 students) visiting one of the behaviorists I was training, when I saw a student bullying other students. He walked into the middle of a group playing basketball, followed by his two friends, and grabbed the ball and kicked it away. When someone said something, he pushed his chest out and got in the face of the kid who’d spoken up. Then he gave the kid a threatening push and walked on to another group where he smacked an unsuspecting kid in the back of the head. When the kid turned around he challenged him to a fight, at which point the kid threw up his hands and walked away.  As he continued his rounds in this way I asked the behaviorist if he knew this kid. He told me the boy’s name was Gavin and explained that all the kids were afraid of him and he was constantly bullying them.

So I walked up to Gavin and said, “You need to have a seat over there for five minutes.”  He looked at me dismissively and said, “S**t, I don’t know you.” And he started to walk away.

I said to him, “Right now you’ve only got a five-minute problem. But if you don’t have a seat you’re going to have a much bigger problem.”

He turned and started walking slowly toward the bench I’d indicated and said, “What did I do! Man! At least tell me what I did.”

So I told him, “OK, I’ll tell you what you did, but it’ll cost you another fifteen minutes because I don’t like wasting my time. So I can tell you what you did and you can sit for twenty minutes or you can sit for five minutes then you tell me what you did.”

He said, “Fine, I’ll sit for five minutes,” and walked over and sat on the bench.

“I’ll come let you know when you can get up.” I told him.

Five minutes later I went up to him and said, “So tell me why I asked you to sit down.”

He looked at me and said, “Because I hit that kid in the back of the head.”

“What else?” I asked.

He thought for a moment and said, “I kicked that basketball.”

“What else?” I said.

“Um… I don’t know… I can’t think of anything else.”

“I guess that’s enough. You can go.”

When he got up, Gavin and his friends went to the opposite side of the recreation fields.

The point of the five-minute time out was not punitive but rather a deterrent. I wasn’t interested in punishing him for what he did. I was interested in him not doing it again. If I’d seen it happen again I would have had him sit for considerably longer. If the behavior had not stopped completely I would have continued to increase the consequence until it was sufficient to stop his behavior. If Gavin hadn’t sat down or had walked away from me I would have gone to the dean and arranged a one-hour detention. That way, the next time I asked him to sit for five minutes he’d do it.

A boy like Gavin is an expert at manipulating the adults around him.  Typically adults would react to him with either too much communication or with consequences that were paired with a lot of anger and judgment.  Those who tried reasoning with him and explaining to him the reasons it’s not okay to do what he’s doing are ultimately condescending and permissive.  Gavin would meet this approach with excuses and bargaining.  When adults confronted him with anger and judgment or a long lecture Gavin could become the victim and feel justified in his anger and isolation.  In the first approach he effectively negates the adult in the second he feels negated.  In both cases the adults are condescending in that they assume he lacks understanding or virtue.

Ironically, the anger that drives Gavin to bully others is in part the result of the isolation he feels at not having his will firmly met by the will of another.  He needed someone who would set a reasonable boundary, firmly, and without any condescending or insulting interaction.

I like to set up a dynamic where children have to be on their toes. Where they understand that they’re expected to figure out what the rules are. If sometimes this frustrates them, it’s an opportunity for me to calmly and kindly coach them through difficulty, to let them know I have faith in them and it’s okay to struggle and to fail. In a world where children are constantly condescended to, students quickly adjust and find my interactions with them mature and respectful.

Make Virtue Easy

By: Joe Newman

My stepdaughter was 13 when I moved in to live with her and her mom.  She was very smart but doing poorly at school.  She’d developed a whole set of ways to avoid studying and doing homework and keep all the adults in the dark.  She had now dug herself a hole she didn’t know how to get out of.  After a few months of watching her run circles around her mom, her uncle, and even her tutor we all agreed that I would take over managing her homework/schoolwork.

One Saturday afternoon, a few weeks after I’d started to manage things, I caught her lying to me about the work she’d just showed me.  She’d forgotten her Latin textbook and rather than tell me and go through the difficulty of finding a classmate who she could borrow a book from, she thought it would be easier to make up a translation and pawn that off as the translation from the book she was supposed to do.

When I went into her room to talk to her about it she looked embarrassed and uncomfortable.  She admitted she’d lied and promptly launched into a new set of white lies to cover her tracks.

I wasn’t looking to humiliate or embarrass her, I wanted her to come to a realization.  So I waited until she was done explaining and said, “Look I’m not mad at you for lying about your homework.  To be honest I’m kind of impressed.  I mean you’ve been enormously creative and tenacious about coming up with ways to avoid doing your schoolwork.  You’ve clearly put a lot of effort into this and to some extent I guess that’s worked for you.”

“But, what you need to know is, I’m going to be tenacious about understanding exactly what schoolwork is due and looking at your work to make sure it’s what it’s supposed to be.  And I’m good at spotting the tricks because I used to do many of the same things.  So if you need to keep putting your creative energies into avoiding your homework that’s okay, however, it’s just going to mean you end up doing more work.”

“In terms of your Latin homework, you lied about it, you got caught, and now you’ll need to do the original work you had to in order to go out tonight.  So call your friends and find someone who has a book you can borrow.”

Then she said, “What if no one’s home and I can’t find a book?”

“That’s not my problem.  In order to go out tonight you’ll need to find a book and finish the translation.  I don’t mind driving you to pick one up if necessary.”

My instinct was to take all emotional judgment and moralizing out of our relationship.  Cause and effect are strict enough teachers in the world and I need only create a similar environment at home in order to compassionately prepare her for it.  Any added ill feeling or judgment would only create unnecessary shame, guilt, or anger between us.

Unfortunately, too often when I hear adults upbraiding children for this or that problem behavior it is done with the implication, or direct statement, of their having done said behavior because they did what was easy and bad rather than the difficult and good; or they didn’t make enough effort toward the good or enough effort resisting the bad; or that they chose the pleasurable and bad over the difficult and good.

But this kind of talk reveals the adults’ lack of understanding about the real nature of virtue.

In his essay On educating children the 16^th century Renaissance thinker Michel De Montaigne said,

“What makes true virtue highly valued is the ease, usefulness, and pleasure we find in being virtuous: so far from it being difficult, children can be virtuous as well as adults; the simple as well as the clever.  The means virtue uses is control, not effort.” (underlining is mine)

Any deeper understanding of virtue leads us to the conclusion that we choose virtuous behavior and actions because they are in our best interest.  Yet we talk to our children as if they must behave in a virtuous manner because it is “good” or “right” or “compassionate” just at that time in their lives when they are trying to come into an understanding of the real meaning of what these words mean to them.

Now here’s the tricky part.  As parents and educators we are often the ones who create and administer the effects to our children’s causes.  If the effects in our home or classroom are modeled after the world then virtue will become effortless.  When children behave in ways that aren’t virtuous it’s not because they are bad or haven’t made enough effort, it’s because the environment in some way rewards those behaviors.

Set up and follow through with reasonable consequences and boundaries, administer them strictly, compassionately and without judgment and children will discover the natural path to virtue.

Epilogue

Five years later, when my stepdaughter, Joan, was a senior in high school, she came to me because she wanted my opinion about whether to cheat on a math exam.  Apparently, a lot of the students in her class had gotten hold of the actual exam and were offering it to their classmates.  What followed was an involved discussion about the hidden costs of cheating, the value in getting a good grade you didn’t deserve vs. a bad grade you did, the risks and anxiety of getting caught and the mental burden of lying vs. the freedom of telling the truth (and not having to remember the lie).  After which she decided it wasn’t in her best interest to cheat.

Today Joan is finishing her sophomore year at St. John’s College in Santa Fe where she studies the western classics.  It was only at her repeated urgings that I finally began reading Michel De Montaigne.

Joe Newman is the author of Raising Lions, which is available at Amazon.com

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[Photo Credit: Flickr image Lenifuzhead]

Raising Charlie Sheen

By: Joe Newman

 

Charlie Sheen is the perfect icon for a culture that encourages, even idolizes, unconditional rather than transactional relationships.  We laud those who become so powerful/wealthy that they don’t have to answer to anyone.  We promote self-esteem as the primary virtue and value speaking your mind over responsibility to others.  While most people see Charlie Sheen as having gone too far, he’s only taken our culture’s delusions to their logical conclusion.

Internet pornography is the ultimate unconditional relationship.  Bill Maher recently made headlines when he said, “Now psychologists are telling us that for a sizable percentage of men in America, masturbating to porn is Plan A, and doing it with your wife or girlfriend is more like a fallback option for when the power goes out.”

So what do Charlie Sheen, our national porn addiction, and parenting have in common?

Raising children where the emphasis is placed on the many and elaborate ways in which the parents should recognize the child’s needs while sacrificing the assertion of their own needs creates children who are self-absorbed, narcissistic, and filled with feelings of their own omnipotence.  This creates adults who understand the world as unconditional and not transactional and is the number one contributor to our growing national porn addiction.

Boys with mothers who don’t assert their own needs and desires grow up to become men who want women without needs and desires.  And since empowering children through martyrdom parenting is so in vogue, they will be hard-pressed to find adult women who will suppress their own needs and focus primarily on them like dear old mom.

These boys are being groomed to seek the non-transactional, virtual sex lives found in Internet porn.  Why bother with a real woman with wants and needs of her own when they can have all the selfless, unconditional, virtual women they want who’ll demand nothing of them, just like mom.

Alternately, these boys might become men with powerful feelings of their own omnipotence (think Adonis DNA and tiger’s blood) that propel them to successful, take-no-prisoners careers and money.  In this case they can run through strings of women who each eventually become tiresome due to the assertion of desires, needs, aging, and real life.  Perhaps becoming as successful as Charlie Sheen who exchanges his brides every few years in between having porn stars come to him.

As a culture we have gradually shifted our childrearing away from transactional to unconditional.  Transactional childrearing requires a give and take, respect, appreciation, and courtesy.  Entitlement is its nemesis.

Unconditional Parenting prepares children for an unconditional world. A world where friends don’t leave you no matter how abusive or obnoxious you’ve become, where everyone gets an “A” whether they made efforts or not, where employers won’t fire you when you refuse to show up, and where wives stay with husbands who continually beat them. The world is not unconditional (unless you’re Charlie Sheen?). The world is transactional. Love is transactional.

This worship of children –this idea that we should be kind and respectful to children even when they are rude and inconsiderate –is inane, and ironically, self-serving; self-serving because it is born of the narcissistic desire to see in our children our own unfulfilled perfection and to create for them a perfect world free from disillusionment.  It is the popular conceit in a society where we strive to inflate our self-identity based on our selfless acts toward our children.  But when adults make themselves selfless children are left all alone.  How about giving our children a break and finding our self-identity without them?  Children need real people with real needs, not parents who will service them unconditionally.

 

Tips for Transactional Parenting

Insist your children treat you with respect. Set consequences that make their lives very difficult when they choose not to.

Require your children participate in the upkeep and maintenance of the home.  The things parents provide shouldn’t be taken for granted and your children will appreciate your efforts more when they are required to chip in regularly.  Making dinner, cleaning up, walking the dog, etc.

Assert your needs and desires. Parents provide all of the resources for a family to function and should make the lion’s share of decisions.  When parents continually make decisions with the priorities placed on the children’s preferences, the children learn they are entitled to this everywhere.

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[Photo Credit: Dr. Von Krakenstein]

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