Sunday Prep Check-in (for students and educators)

/0 Comments/in /by

Sunday Prep Check-in

Many of us start to feel anxious halfway through the day on Sunday, anticipating the beginning of another work or school week. This is a downloadable worksheet I created to help focus attention and plan for the week. Often, the simple act of writing down all the things we need to do has the effect of diminishing the looming sense of overwhelm we can feel.

Additionally, writing down reminders to play and relax every single day can help us develop the belief that these are things that are just as important as the “work” we have to do in any given week (whether that work is paid, graded, or simply devoured at the family dinner table). Simple reminders like this are powerful over time, and the questions at the bottom of the weekly table help us frame our response to the anxiety we might feel and plan for how to manage unexpected things that come up.

If you use this tool, I’d love to know if you find it helpful.

Introducing the Idea of Internal Monologue to Adolescents

/0 Comments/in /by

By Chris.rider81 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20601766

Generally, by the time kids hit middle school, they’re familiar with the idea of an internal monologue. They’ve probably got a short list of examples to share about the voice they hear in their head when they’re struggling or they’ve just messed up. But it can sometimes be hard to truly understand just how pervasive that voice is, how quiet, how subtle, and how much it drives our decisions every day – especially if it doesn’t seem critical. The more we become aware of the stories our brains tell us, the easier it gets over time to challenge those stories and make more informed choices.

One powerful way to illustrate this is with something most middle and high school kids have in their back pocket all day – a smart phone. If they are like my kids, they have notifications that come in almost incessantly – who has liked their latest Instagram post or responded to their Snap or tried to FaceTime them. These notifications stimulate the emotion centers in our brains and are designed to compel us to action, and if the phone isn’t on silent, the ‘ping’ makes our heart rate go up when we hear it.

I experienced this yesterday when I set my phone across the room and started a 30-minute yoga practice. I was fully engrossed as I followed the instructor on video but then I heard my phone ping from the table about 20 feet away and I was able to watch as my  mind set in to motion. Instantly, I was not paying attention to the video anymore, but wondering who was texting me. Was it my daughter who is away at college? Did she need something?

It pinged again. I wondered whether to check. Was it important? How would I feel if I interrupted my yoga practice to go check and it turned out to be SPAM? Would I have lost my momentum and give up on exercise for today?

It could also be my younger daughter. She was out for the day. What if she got in to a fender-bender or needed me to come get her?

Fortunately, I was able to divert my focus back to my yoga practice and reason that, if it were important, the next thing that would happen would be a phone call. I was amazed at how quickly my brain shifted gears and spun a story based on one little text tone and how, had I not been aware of what I was doing, I might have behaved very differently.

The consequences of either scenario were not huge, of course, but it is a terrific illustration of just how eager our brains are to respond to stimuli without many facts and conjure up a story that drives us to act immediately. If you’ve got teens in your home or your classroom consider setting up an exercise like this where you get them involved in some quiet activity such as reading or art or writing and have them keep their phone volume up. Ask them to notice what happens when they  get a notification – how do they feel in their bodies, what is the narrative that starts in their brains.

Without judgment of any kind, it is interesting for us to know how our brains work – do they default to fear like mine did, instantly assuming that one of my kids was in danger or needed me, or do they  anticipate that ping to be a notification that is positive? The more we  pay attention to the tangents our minds lead us on, the more we can give ourselves space to choose how we respond to stimuli in our environment. In the end, that text message was a friend responding to a funny anecdote I’d sent the night before, so while it was welcome, it wasn’t urgent in the least, and I’m really glad I resisted the urge to stop my yoga practice to check it out.

Tips for Parents: Helping Your Child Master Something New

/0 Comments/in /by

We’ve all heard the phrase, “I’m not good at ______________,” or “I don’t get it!” from our teens and sometimes, this is the beginning of an excuse to stop trying. While this frustration can come up when our kids are younger, they are generally more willing to keep trying until they learn that new skill (riding a bike without training wheels or making a full pass on the monkey bars), so what is it about adolescence that makes our kids prone to giving up?

One major reason why kids stop trying at this age is because they don’t want to look stupid in front of their peers. There is an almost existential need to appear competent at all times when you’re a teen, so admitting that you’re struggling with something is a really difficult thing to do.

Another reason is that, by the time most kids get in to middle and high school, the prevailing cultural wisdom is that they ought to be specializing their skills. Many athletic kids have narrowed their focus to one sport that they play year-round. Adults are starting to ask them if they are more artistic or academic and even (gulp!) what they think they might want to major in when they go to college. There is this push to have kids define themselves as “good at” certain particular skills so that they can begin to hone those skills and use them as a way to get in to a “good college.”

All of this despite the scientific evidence that shows that adolescents’ brains are continuing to develop in ALL areas very rapidly and more deeply until they are around the age of 25. What this means is that the more we can get adolescents to stretch themselves and keep taking risks in a wide range of areas, the more fully developed their brains will be.

Many of us parents have fallen in to the trap of thinking that we possess natural abilities in certain areas and limited abilities in other areas. How many of us have defined ourselves as Right-Brained or Left-Brained in order to explain our less-than-stellar performance in math and science or creative pursuits? The fact is, we trained ourselves to be that way over time by developing certain portions of our brains more than others. Sometimes because we preferred particular activities (say, art class instead of calculus), and sometimes because we were told we shouldn’t like certain things (boys shouldn’t take Home Ec or be good at cooking, for example). But giving our teens the opportunity to continue striving to learn about a lot of different things means that they will have more choices open to them in the future because they will have a certain basic level of proficiency in math and science and language and art and athletics.

So, how do you do that? Here are a few ways to encourage your adolescent to keep trying.

  1. Add the word “yet” to the end of those sentences at the beginning of this post. “I’m not good at _______ yet.” “I just don’t get it yet.” This is a reminder that nobody ever learned to speak French the first day or mastered their tennis serve at the first lesson.
  2. Frame it in terms of their values. Even if your student doesn’t see themselves as a math professor, it’s likely that they want to do well in school and value hard work. The fact is, we all have to do and learn things we don’t really enjoy all that much, but if we can remember that this is part of a larger goal, we can usually find the mojo to invest some time and effort in it.
  3. Remind them how good it feels to figure something out. Ask them to remember what it felt like the first time they successfully rode a bike without training wheels or had that angels-singing-in-my-ear moment when it suddenly became clear how to divide fractions. Those moments come about after hard work and, even if we later take those skills for granted because we have mastered them, it is worth taking a moment to recall that at some point, we struggled with them.
  4. Point out that it feels a lot easier to learn something that we are interested in. Ask your teen what their favorite things to do are and you won’t be surprised to learn that they don’t feel like those things are work. How can they infuse some joy in to learning those things they don’t really love to do? Can they change the venue or circumstances? Can they listen to their favorite music while they do it? Can they set up a system of small rewards – say a five-minute break after every milestone to indulge in something they enjoy doing?

I’d love to hear whether this is helpful and if you have other ideas to help teens persist when they’d rather give up.

Important Elements of Developmental Relationships with Teens

/0 Comments/in /by

I’ve combined information from three different sources for this post – The Search Institute , a study on developmental relationships, and a presentation by Education Northwest I was lucky enough to attend.

Last time, I wrote about the importance of parent/teen or teacher/teen relationships being evolutionary. Now that you know the why, here are some things to consider about what that kind of a relationship looks like.

According to The Search Institute, there are five types of relationships teens need in order to thrive. Many of these can be provided by the same people, and often these people are not the teen’s parents. These crucial elements are:

  1. Caring – who, in this teen’s life, is dependable, warm, offers encouragement, listens to the teen and helps build their confidence?
  2. Growth – who sees this teen’s potential, holds them accountable for their choices, and helps them reflect on their mistakes and define areas for improvement?
  3. Support – who guides them through systems they encounter, empowers them to find their own path, advocates for them and helps them stay on track?
  4. Shares Power – who respects this teen, includes them in important decisions, collaborates with them and gives them opportunities to lead?
  5. Expands Possibilities – who inspires this teen to dream, exposes them to new ideas, and connects them to other people who can inform and assist them?

For any of these to feel authentic, the teen must feel as though the adult truly cares for them and they must care for that adult as well. Over time, there must also be a gradual increase in the amount of responsibility, challenge, and power the teen is allowed as their confidence builds.

So, where do you begin? Ask teens if they feel as though they have relationships with people in each of these five categories. Are there areas where they simply can’t identify anyone? Can you, as their parent or teacher, help them find someone who might fill that niche?

*It is important as a parent to make sure you aren’t offended if your child doesn’t choose you as their go-to person for some of these areas. It is a vital part of their development to be able to form attachments to people other than you as they grow up and become more interdependent.

Here is a pdf of a questionnaire you can give your teen that will help them think about where they might want to shore up some of their adult relationships. developmental-relationship-questionnaire

 

Parent/Teacher Teen Relationships: Widening the Web

/1 Comment/in /by
photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

They look like little adults.

They act like little adults (sometimes).

They demand to be treated like adults.

They aren’t little adults. They are teens, and it can be really confusing to decide how to interact with them from an adult perspective. We don’t want to coddle them because it’s important for them to begin solving their own problems and taking responsibility for themselves. But the truth is, they don’t have the benefit of life experience or the neurodevelopmental maturity to handle complicated situations yet, so what’s a parent or teacher to do?

There is a lot of talk about independence when it comes to teens, but I’d like to challenge that concept, if I may. None of us is truly independent. Can you replace your home’s water heater on your own if it fails? Can you purchase a car without a loan from the bank or credit union? If someone close to you is struggling with a difficult life event, do you reach out in support or let them deal with it alone? I’d like to think that what we really want for ourselves and our teens is to become interdependent instead – to know that over time we have built a web of trusted people and systems that we can rely on when we need help and to whom we can offer our unique talents as well.

So what does that have to do with adult-teen relationships? It requires us, as adults, to become very strategic with regard to how we interact with teens. It means that we take the view that our relationship is a dynamic and evolving one that allows for gradual changes in the balance of power. Over time, as our students and children show us that they are more competent and confident, we can allow them to have more say in how we interact with them and how they interact with others. We can ratchet down the tangible supports and help them determine when they need to ask for help.

It also requires us to acknowledge that a healthy web of relationships includes a variety of people who support, challenge, network and care for our kids. If teens don’t have a group of adults – be they teachers, parents, mentors, extended family, a boss at work – who provide these important pieces of the web, they will look to their peers to fill the gaps.  While peers play a vital role in our teens’ lives, they don’t have the life experience or emotional stability that most adults do, so it is incumbent upon us to check in from time to time and see where our students may need shoring up.

It can be incredibly difficult to engage in this kind of relationship with teens, since they are driven to push away from adults who have historically acted as parents or were in a position of power, but it is important that we stay connected and help them determine which of the other people around them can be trusted to help them become the people they strive to be. There is a great deal of research that demonstrates the significance of teen-adult relationships with regard to healthy social-emotional development and if parents and educators can find ways to have evolutionary, progressive relationships with teens, we can have an incredible impact on their ability to navigate the world with confidence and support.

Next Time: Tips on how to build a developmental relationship with a teen

Teaching Teens to Breathe

/0 Comments/in /by

calm

This is so true. In fact, in my house, telling someone to calm down almost always has the opposite effect.

So what works?

Breathing. To be certain, I would never substitute a suggestion to breathe for a suggestion to ‘calm down.’ The message is the same – that the other person’s stress is making me uncomfortable and I need them to stop. What I’m saying is that if, in calm times, we can teach our kids to use their breath to calm themselves, they may remember that technique in the heat of emotion and choose to use it themselves.

There are numerous studies that show that breathing in specific ways calms both our physiological response to stress and the racing of our minds. Just type “breathing relaxation” into your computer’s search engine and you will find citations galore.

It sounds silly to ‘teach’ our kids how to breathe, but there are particular methods that work best for stress reduction. Here are a few:

  1. Abdominal Breathing – Many of us don’t realize that we tend to breathe with our lungs. Poor posture can keep us from breathing as deeply as we can and you can easily demonstrate this by slouching in a chair and paying attention to your breath. Your stomach might move a little bit, but when you straighten your spine, you can see how much more your abdomen and lungs expand. You can literally take a deeper breath when standing, lying down on your back, or sitting up straight.
  2. Slow, Deep Breaths – We all know that when we’re stressed, our heart rate increases and we take quicker breaths. But many people don’t know that if we consciously take slower, deeper breaths, we can actually decrease our heart rate and help calm ourselves. You can teach your teen to count to three or five slowly (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two…) as they inhale and expand their abdomen and then hold that breath for a beat or two with their lungs full. Then count to three or five slowly as they exhale and wait a beat or two before inhaling again. During the pauses between breaths, they can hear and feel their heartbeat and after a few cycles, it should slow down significantly.
  3. Visualizing a clear mind with the breath cycles – As I exhale slowly, I like to imagine my mind’s thoughts draining out slowly. Generally, when I’m anxious or stressed, my thoughts race and spiral out of control. When I start breathing to relax myself, I pretend that my mind is a bathtub full of water (thoughts). Exhaling slowly has the effect of pulling the plug and letting all of the thoughts drain out and empty my mind for a moment or two. Often, I find that when I do this, the muscles in my face and neck relax and I almost instantly feel better.

These techniques can be taught to younger children as well. In fact, the earlier our kids learn how to calm themselves when they are feeling angry or upset, the more practiced they will be at it when they hit the turbulent adolescent years.

Adolescents: The Discipline Dilemma

/1 Comment/in /by

Whether you’re a parent or an educator, the question of how to effectively discipline an adolescent can be tricky. Because these students are becoming more independent and our ultimate goal for them is to be able to make good decisions for themselves, it is important to set up a system of discipline that enables them to learn from their mistakes.

That is much easier said than done. Many of our traditional methods of discipline  weigh more on the side of punishment than on they do on learning. As a parent, I have felt that sting of fear and anger that leads me to lay down a consequence that has a lot less to do with compassionate connection and gaining insight and than with retribution. While that is natural, it is also incredibly counterproductive.

The reason this kind of discipline is doomed to disaster  has to do with the way the adolescent brain works under the influence of all those hormones.  Once kids hit the t(w)een years, they experience:

  • increased emotional responses (both number and intensity)
  • less dopamine (feel-good hormone) secretion
  • more feelings of isolation and separation from others

The more isolated and less happy we feel, the less we are willing to engage with others, which leads us to feel  more isolated and more unhappy. It is a vicious cycle. And research shows that a brain saturated in emotion is less able to engage in the thought processes that lead to meaningful learning.

What this means is that if we catch our kids making a poor choice and immediately respond with strong emotion, we are only adding to the storm of fear or anger that they are feeling, and we are almost ensuring that they won’t be able to listen to us or learn from this mistake. Lashing out with shame, fear tactics, controlling behavior or even emotional withdrawal feels natural but can often turn a situation from a learning opportunity into what feels like a personal attack.

Now what? 

You can’t talk your t(w)een out of feeling whatever they’re feeling (angry, scared, frustrated, sad), but you can acknowledge your emotions and let them subside in order to access your rational thought processes. (This is hard, no doubt about it – especially if there is yelling and door-slamming or words designed to hurt you. It’s important not to take your adolescent’s words or actions personally, even if they are aimed squarely at you.) Often, talking about how you feel is a way to help your student access their emotional vocabulary, too, and it creates connection between you.

You can ask lots of questions. Curiosity is the basis for learning, after all, and it may be that you both have something to learn from this situation. (Don’t be surprised if you ask why they made the choice they did and the answer you get is, ‘I don’t know.’ Often they don’t know. Move on. Ask about what they’re feeling. What they thought or hoped would happen when they made that choice.)  If it’s not possible to have a thoughtful conversation in the moment, agree to separate for a bit and try later when emotions aren’t so high.

Do your best to separate the act from the person. This kid lied. This kid is not a liar. Labelling people by their behavior doesn’t offer room for learning or redemption. It puts them in a box that is really hard to emerge from.

Be clear about your needs and values. Do you need to know that this kid is safe? Do you need to know that other kids in your classroom/household are safe? Do you need to feel safe? Do you need to be able to trust this child? Is one of your highest values honesty? Compassion? Health?

Listen. When your student is ready to talk, let them. Talking can often help them diffuse strong emotions, understand irrational thinking, and create a feeling of bonding. Problem-solving together means they are availing themselves of your adult wisdom and it gives you insight into how you can best help your child begin to make better choices.

The more we can engage our adolescents in discipline, the better chance they have of learning from their mistakes, and the more connected they feel to us. Punishment creates separation and many t(w)tens already feel misunderstood and vilified. Talking to them about how they feel when they’ve messed up shows them that we are willing to be part of the solution, and that we expect them to be part of it, too.

Setting the Stage for a New School Year

/1 Comment/in /by

For many kids and parents, it can be an enormous challenge to head back to school in the fall. (If you missed it, check out this post about the emotional transition back to the school routine). If you’re the parent of a middle or high school student, this transition can be more overwhelming given the increased independence your student is expected to develop (or have). The move from parental involvement to letting kids manage their own time and homework load can be hard for students and parents alike. Knowing when to back off and let kids learn from their own mistakes and when to step in and set strict guidelines for phone and tablet use is tricky, to say the least.

One way to help your student develop some self-awareness around how distractions may or may not be affecting their academic performance is to have them track their time.  I think that starting this exercise with a definition of their own personal goals and values is important, so you could encourage them to either jot down some answers to this on their own or, if they are willing, sit with them and talk about their answers.

  1. What are my goals for this school year? They can be anything from getting a certain GPA to becoming more proficient in a foreign language to really mastering algebra. These can also include athletic or other extracurricular goals, but it is important to ensure that there are some academic goals on this list.
  2. What are my longer-term goals? These can vary from getting into a good high school to finishing high school with a few college acceptance letters. They may also include graduate school plans or ideas about what kind of career your student wants, although it is vital to remember that 5 or 10 year goals need to be flexible because there is no way to anticipate what might happen.
  3. What are my most closely held values? Often, once we get started listing our values, it can be hard to stop. If that is the case here, let your student write as many down as they want to and then choose the top three for purposes of this exercise. Examples might be persistence, courage, excellence, family, hard work, community.
  4. How am I spending my time? Does it reflect my values and goals? This is where the rubber meets the road. Over the first two to three weeks of school, have your student simply track how they spend their time. Certainly, as they do this, it will be extremely difficult for them (and maybe you, too) to not judge or criticize, but do your best to resist the temptation to do so. Simply looking at how much time they spend playing video games, texting friends, watching TV, practicing piano, doing homework, speaking French, etc. offers them a window into whether or not they are actively choosing to engage in pursuits that further their goals. If they are spending far more time in recreational activities than they are working on their goals, have them spend some time reflecting on what that means. Does it mean the goals aren’t all that important, after all? Or are they simply doing these things out of habit? Where can they shore up their efforts to really live their values and move toward their goals? Or do they need to change the goals? 

This exercise is good for all of us to do once or twice a year. We can so easily get sidetracked by unexpected events or transitions or simply fall back into old habits that it benefits us all to check in with ourselves every once in a while and make sure that we are living our values. And maybe if our adolescents see us doing this, they will come to understand its importance.

Why the “Social” Part of Social Media is So Important for Adolescents

/0 Comments/in /by

Smartphones_back

As parents and educators, we often hear (and engage in) complaints about teens and social media. What we don’t often talk about is what drives their behavior, but if we are to have meaningful conversations with students about social media use, it helps to understand it.

One key point to remember is that, as human beings, we are neurobiologically wired for connection. Our brains are designed to reward us for being part of a social network and alert us that something is wrong if we are feeling isolated. Without connection to others, we suffer. This phenomenon is especially pronounced during our adolescent years which accounts for the extraordinary drive to find others with whom we belong.

I remember my parents’ frustration at the endless hours I spent on the phone every evening, the 10-foot cord stretched down the hallway so I could tuck myself away in my room with the door shut and talk to friends. Like most teens, I craved connection. The 8 hours a day I spent with friends at school wasn’t enough. Today’s teens are the same, but they have different technologies available to them than we did.

There are so many examples in the media of the ways adolescents use social media to harass each other, but we don’t often look at the ways they use it to make each others’ lives better. FaceTime has become a great way for students to help each other with homework or work on group projects. Individual Instagram accounts have allowed teens to see a different side of their peers – learning about other interests they have outside of school. Social media as a whole enables students who live in geographically distant areas to connect around common passions or struggles and can lead to some pretty amazing activism.

Overall, it seems that adolescents haven’t changed that much over the years, but the tools they use to engage socially have. The key as parents and educators is for us to acknowledge that teens will always find ways to create and maintain strong social networks and use our wisdom and influence to help them understand how to use those tools in a way that builds them up and flexes their social-emotional muscles. Asking lots of open-ended questions about how and why they use certain social media platforms can help adults learn what kind of connection is most important to an individual student, and it can give them some insight and self-awareness. It isn’t uncommon for teens to start doing something because their peers are doing it, but if we can encourage them to reflect on whether it is filling a need, they are more likely to make good choices about how and when to repeat that behavior.

Removing an adolescent’s ability to engage with their peers by taking their phone away or blocking Internet access doesn’t eliminate the drive to connect, and it can harm your relationship. Helping teens find ways to maintain productive, healthy social connections, both in person and virtually, by acknowledging their need to bond with others and enabling it whenever possible will go a long way toward building trust.

Important Gender Differences in Values and How We Can Help Teens Break Them Down

/1 Comment/in /by

 

“If you change the way you look at things, you will change the things you see.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

Dr. Wayne Dyer was an educator and author of dozens of books on individual development and spirituality. He was well-known for his research regarding what motivates us and how we can live our most closely held values. Whether or not you ascribe to his spiritual beliefs, one portion of his research strikes me as something that educators and parents can use to understand their adolescents better and perhaps spur conversations with them.

He looked at what drives young men and women in our culture and discovered what I think are some incredible differences that might explain some common communication issues and give us a window in to just how much we are influenced by the underlying values our society tells us we should have.

The table below illustrates the top five motivating factors broken down by gender*.

Boys/Men                                              Girls/Women

Wealth                                                     Family

Adventure                                               Independence

Achievement                                          Career

Pleasure                                                   Fitting In

Respect                                                     Physical Attractiveness

What I find most interesting about these responses is that, for boys and men, all but one of the things on their list is determined by external factors. With the exception of pleasure, everything on that list depends on how other people see them. Looking at it this way, it’s no wonder that adolescent boys feel pressured to perform and appear capable and competent and wear that mask nearly all the time.

For girls and women, the first three items are naturally in conflict with each other. In our world, having a family and a career and finding independence are nearly incompatible, and while those factors are associated with internal motivation, the last two definitely show that women and girls have a keen eye on cultural expectations as well.

Armed with this information (and knowing that every person is different, so not all of these will apply to the teenager you might have in mind), we can begin to think about the kind of pressure our kids are under to live up to their ideas of what is or should be most important to them. Seeing kids through the lens of the cultural messages they are sent every day can offer us ways to talk to them about why certain things are important and whether there is a way to reframe their values to express their individual desires and interests.

One way to begin is to have them think about the times when they are so caught up in an activity that they forget about the outside world. What are the things that they bend over backward to make time for? What can they not imagine doing without – their guitar or sketchpad or the local library? What is it about those things that are so compelling – is it the time alone, the opportunity to be creative, the feeling of accomplishment, the challenge? After a while, we can encourage our kids to begin looking at the ways they spend their time and energy and slowly shift them to become more in alignment with their own personal values rather than being in service to some external idea of who they should be.

 

*I don’t generally deal in stereotypes, but I do think it’s important to look at trends and use them as a springboard for further exploration in to the things that influence us without us really recognizing it. I believe that these responses reflect some pretty powerful cultural mores and by acknowledging them, we can begin to change them.