Whose Homework Is It Anyway?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

For ever so many years I have been telling any parent I could get to listen to me to leave their children’s schoolwork to the children.  When I made such a comment, many years ago during an interview with a national newspaper (and I would tell you which paper if I could remember but I cannot), I can well remember the journalist’s eyes nearly popping out of her head.  If I remember correctly the story was quite controversial for the usual nanosecond of controversy that contradicts conventional wisdom.  

So how chuffed was I to see the article in the New York Times by Keith Robinson and Angel L. Harris!  Vindicated!  Research substantiates the point that more involvement with your child’s school, school work, homework, and teachers is not only not productive, it is more often negative than positive! 

Here’s the link to the story:  http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/?h=CAQEeKxe5&enc=AZO2epYKRmpHbAAgEc5nttcXiWk7faH7xymQ2thfmYrDGbvm6If6g2mJZWoEbCNaXQ5d_u6rMymrdSPHrJ6q775wv5DR4snUbagAfJvugkKQar0cLFnyNzV3CAhY0sggm99Qat69JwEl-h

I would add just a few thoughts to what Robinson and Harris have demonstrated with their research.  When they write about talking to your children about the value of education, I think what they are also saying is that raising your expectations for your child is likely to be helpful. Letting kids know that what they are doing is useful, purposeful, important for their future and that you expect them to work hard…that’s what they need to hear from you--not all sorts of superlative-lane praise.  Clear, concise statements that education matters will serve you and your children well. 

Intruding into the minutiae of what they are doing every day is not going to be helpful—it’s is more likely to be detrimental.  Common sense tells you that—now it’s substantiated by research.  When kids have ownership (skin in the game) of their education, they are more likely to care about it.

Why?  Because when you are checking to see what the homework assignments are, if your child has completed them, completed them to your satisfaction, etc., etc., you are simultaneously taking away your child’s ownership of his or her education.  Education becomes another way of pleasing you, annoying you, fighting with you, controlling you.

When my daughter was in 6^th grade, I had quite the fight with the school because I refused to monitor her homework.  I refused to read her homework assignments. She always loved school, so there was certainly and definitely no purpose in my intrusion, but the teachers were offended that I wouldn’t…well, intrude in my daughter’s education.  I remember one of them (whom I later found out didn’t even have a Bachelor’s Degree….h’mmmm) saying to me, “But you seem like such a concerned and loving mother.”  My answer then as it would be now:  “Yes.  And that is why I am not intervening or interfering in my daughter’s education.  This is HER education.  I have had mine.”

I’ll add a plea to schools and teachers:  Stop giving homework to little kids because there isn’t a shred of evidence that demonstrates that kids who start homework earlier turn out to be smarter, better educated, or better students.  Give homework ONLY when it clearly serves an academic purpose.  And a plea to parents:  Ask your school to leave off the homework until it can benefit your child’s actual academic progress.  Homework is NOT for creating parent-child time together.

P.S.  There is no correlation between when kids learn to read and their intelligence or how they will do in school.  We’ll talk more about that in the next few days.

What Do You Need From Your Child?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Generally our children know us as well as we know them.  Their existence from infancy through toddler years and into the time when they become increasingly socialized has been based on learning to read every cue from you, verbal as well as non-verbal.  Children often try to provide their parents with what they deem their parents want and/or need.  Sometimes they are right; sometimes they are not.  

The great child psychiatrist, D. W. Winnicott, wrote about how the child who cries when sent to pre-school (day care) because he is worried his mother won’t manage without him.  Sometimes that child is right; sometime not.  His broader point is that children do try to meet their parent’s needs, such as they perceive those needs.  To that profound statement I will add a more banal thought:  The next step after that is that kids discover how to manipulate you by understanding (whether cognitively, emotionally, experientially, or just so) your needs…and what makes you happy, what makes you react in a certain way.

What do you need from your child?  Do you need to need anything?  Once upon a time, children were expected to provide for their parents in their old age.  Although there are aspects of that in our modern life, I think that few people nowadays think in terms of securing their golden years by means of having children.

I remember as a high school senior realizing that my parents wanted me to succeed largely so they could brag about my successes to their friends.  I rejected that concept, so I kept whatever successes I had to myself.  I don’t think my parents were unique or even extraordinary wanting to “use” me in that way.  Still, I reject the notion that kids need to or should provide parents with reasons to self-congratulate.  (Remember that if you are the one responsible for what a wonderful child yours is or what wonderful things they do, so must you then, I suppose, be responsible for the bad and wrong things they may do…it gets very sticky if you go down this road…)

I suppose the question posed here is one of the most fundamental.  It is a question that most of us don’t pose to ourselves and our partners as we enter into the parent state.  Still, and very much in tune with the tagline of this blog, “Think about it”…well, let’s think about it. Should you need something from your child” and if so, what.

There is no single or simple answer to this first and most fundamental question. 

This isn't a Job!

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I hear people talking about mothering or fathering—parenting—as a “job” all the time. A

job has a start time and end time. Not so with being a parent. A job pays you. Not so with being a parent. You can retire from a job or look for a new one. Not the way it is for parents. You can get fired from a job—and even if there are times you feel you might like to be fired from being a parent, it just doesn’t work that way. You can get promoted in a job. No promotions in the parent world.

Being a parent isn’t a job. It’s a duty. A sacred duty. Once you become a parent, it lasts your lifetime. That’s part of what makes it so wonderful, so daunting, so joyous, so frightening. And, as you know, no one and nothing can bring you joy or pain like your child.

So why am I saying all this? Because I think in the midst of the day-long, day-to-day routine and all the advice that comes your way, it is easy lose track of the lifelong duty side of being a parent.

When my daughter had her first child and felt a bit overwhelmed with all there was to do (as do most mothers and fathers), I told her that I had learned from experience that one grows into being a mother or father. As the child grows, so do you as the parent. Recently she referenced that conversation to tell me how true was my statement. As a parent you grow and grow and mature, just as your child does.

Part of my goal for this blog is to help you to think, rethink, consider, reconsider, to be thoughtful and questioning while yet wise and decisive. Seldom will I give you specific advice, “Do this” or “Do that.” There’s too much of that out there already, and you and I both know it doesn’t work. Instead I’ll work to try to help you to be a wiser mom or dad.

I hope that most days you’ll spend about five minutes with me, then think about what you’ve read in those few spare moments you have.

A few years ago a client told me about a sermon her pastor had given in which he said to welcome the red lights you wait for in traffic because it is the only time in your day when you really can’t do anything but wait, so you might as well treasure the time, use it to think, to reconsider, to muse. I hope you’ll have and enjoy one red light today.

The So What Question

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Today’s Answer to the “So What?” Question: Gladness and Gratitude

I didn’t see it happen. I only saw what happened afterwards.

The morning was Hawaii paradise picture perfect (and if you’ve ever been here, you know what that means). I was overtly gladdened by the clarity of the blue sky, the low tide, the soft breeze, the warming sun. I start to say I was ‘grateful’ for the day, but that isn’t accurate because there is no one to whom to be grateful. It just is. Glad not grateful. Clarity is vital.

I don’t know if he had noticed the morning, but I suppose he did because he was at the beach, surfing I suppose, but do not know. I don’t know where he came from or his name or anything about him except that he was tall and thin. I shan’t forget him. He does not know I was there—it’s not important.

I didn’t see the accident happen. I saw the rescue. It was beautiful.

Two lifeguards making a chair with their arms and a third holding the man’s head gently—ever so gently—and firmly. Stepping through the shallow water in perfect unison towards the shore, reaching the shore, up onto the beach. The two who had made the chair for him set him down, calmly, gently.

One of them went just behind him and dug a small hole so that he could lie comfortably in the sand. They laid him back, stretched out his legs for him.

Never yet did the third lifeguard cease holding the man’s head.

They moved quickly but it didn’t seem so, for they were calm and competent. They were so quiet I was the only one on the beach who watched. No one else noticed.

Once he was safely laid in the sand, head still held firmly and gently by the third lifeguard, they began to place him on a stretcher. Red. Honolulu Ocean Safety it read.

Carefully they rolled him onto his right side, slipped the stretcher next to him, rolled him softly onto the stretcher. One other person noticed. A woman stopped to look, ask me what happened, moved on before I could answer that I did not know. Scores of kids, parents, lovers, seniors, honeymooners frolicked on the beach, began or finished sand castles, dozed, dreamed in the early morning sunshine.

Still the third lifeguard did not relax his hold on the man’s head.

As they settled him onto the stretcher, one of the lifeguards brushed some sand off the stretcher. It was one of the finest gestures I have ever seen.

Three gorgeous, tanned, fit young men, trained, competent, apparently caring, ever so gentle—if you just saw them on the beach you’d think, “Wow! What a hunk!” Unlikely you would think “He’s kind and gentle.” Ah! preconceptions, prejudices! How they can trip you up.

Pet Peeves

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

One of the really fun parts of writing a blog is that you get to rail on about your pet peeves and then find out if anyone else agrees. So, here goes!

How people say what they want to say—or don’t really say—is an underappreciated issue, I think. Do you notice how seldom people speak clearly? I do. Frankly it annoys me. How often do you hear (especially from your teen), ‘ya know what I mean?’? It is an interesting concept, really: Instead of the teen being responsible for saying what she/he means, I am supposed to understand and/or interpret. That also implies that I will do the thinking, the focusing, the clarifying of the thought, question, feeling. Further (and very manipulatively), the teen gets to hear what I think and can then react, change, agree, disagree, argue, etc.—all without ever having to state clearly and concisely what he/she means. An interesting lack of responsibility and accountability. And, if my guess of what he/she means is wrong, well, then, I don’t understand and the blame can go to me. Convenient. Icky. Non-productive.

Even more annoying, however, is the terrible word like which has come to pervade our language. No one ‘says’ or ‘said’ or ‘thought’ or ‘wondering’ or ‘surmised’ etc., rather one was just ‘like’—not actually was this or that, just ‘like’ it. I was just standing waiting to board the plane from which I am writing this. Two 20-ish employees were discussing their lives (because one discusses one’s life all the time, everywhere, with one’s job being the secondary function of being at work). Every other word was ‘like’.

“So, like, ya know what I mean?” “Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah.” That’s a direct quote. Really. And somehow that passes for communication.

Then there is my ultimate favorite. “So, I’m like…” followed by a grunt or a facial expression. A variation on that theme is, “So, I’m like ohmygod” which is also supposed to communicate something. The beauty of all these statements is that they can be interpreted to mean or imply almost anything. Again, the responsibility for saying what one means is eliminated.

My grandson used to do the “I’m like” thing at me. I told him to use his words, to say something with some meaning. He argued with me, telling me that kids always communicate that way. I stood my ground.

He was in the midst of reading Harry Potter, so I suggested to him that J.K. Rawlings should probably have written the book in this fashion: “So, like, Harry, was like…” never bothering to describe, explain, narrate. Just say that one thing was ‘like’ and another character said, ‘like, like…’ Truly, that was the end of the “So I’m like” statements from my grandson. He had seen the value of words.

If we don’t require kids to speak clearly, succinctly, concisely, thoughtfully, then how can we expect them to learn to do so—and to take responsibility for communication with content? If we as adults (and therapists, in their effort to demonstrate empathy, are so guilty of not holding this line with clear communication) do not hold kids to higher standards of self-expression, how can we expect them to learn to know what they mean, to communicate with meaning, and to become accountable and responsible for their words, thoughts, feelings, and actions?

Whaaat?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I just watched the local news. I had not expected to blog about it. However, nothing on the news was nearly as amazing, provocative, and in need of commentary as the “public service” advertisement suggesting that “one in four people has a mental health issue.” Okay, think about that. Stand in a public place and count: one, two, three, mental health issue, five, six, seven, another one. Go to a restaurant tonight and wonder which of your fellow diners (or maybe your waitperson, even worse the chef or sous chef!) has mental health issues. Look around your office, the grocery store. Imagine one in four drivers with mental health issues there in the traffic jam with you. Standing in a security line at the airport? One, two, three, mental health issue, five, six, seven, yet another one.

About twenty years ago, the American Psychiatric Association estimated that one in five Americans had mental health issues. (Interesting side note: Also according to the American Psychiatric Association, only 17% of the prison population had mental health issues.) About twenty years ago the brilliant psychologist, James Hillman published a book he called We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy, and the World Is Getting Worse. It appears he was really on to something.

So, as more and more people take psychotropic medications and go to therapy, it appears that the US population has more mental health issues??? Whaaat? Doesn’t seem like the treatment is working…or???

Now let’s look at this with a bit of distance and logic. Firstly the dramatic ad provides no criteria for the term ‘mental health issues’—just one in four of us has them. So, noticing that the percentage of Americans with mental health issues has increased by 25%, either we’re all a lot nuttier than I think, our culture is completely in the gutter, therapy and medication don’t work very well, or someone is trying to sell something.

If one quarter of the US population really and truly had actual mental health issues, what would that mean for the country at large? It would imply to me that a rather frightening number of your child’s teachers have mental health issues. And what about Congress? Shall we assume that more than 100 members of Congress have mental health issues (well, you might think that anyway!)?

Why am I making such a point of this obviously fallacious, frankly silly claim? Firstly, we’ve kind of been trained to believe information if it has numbers attached, never mind from whence the numbers are derived (or made up??). Secondly, the belief that so many people have mental health issues feeds the mill of psychotropic medication prescriptions and may help to provide work for the burgeoning population of undereducated therapists. Thirdly, what does it say about us as a society if we are, or believe we are, one quarter nuts.

As a professional and as a person with many decades of life experience, let me just weigh in to remind you that true mental illness is, in fact, extremely rare. Kids and adults have varying degrees of difficulty managing their world—that is a long way from having mental health issues.

I’ll be posting on this topic more and more in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Heroin

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Heroin Addiction Isn’t Anything New or Cool—no matter who is the addict

I am sorry about the death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I am sorry he didn’t manage to kick his heroin addiction. I am more sorry for all the other people who died yesterday and today and will die tomorrow because of heroin addiction. One article I read also talked about another actor, Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental overdose of heroin and alcohol. I am sorry for the media treating this as somehow different from another death of another addict. I am sorry for the families of the addicts who do not choose treatment and recovery instead of addiction.

Whether the individual be famous or rich or connected or “just” someone’s son or wife or sister or friend, addiction is ugly. Addiction is death at some point. Death from addiction is not changed because someone was famous. I rather think Hoffman, in a lucid moment, probably would have agreed. Let us be clear, death from overdose is death from overdose. Let us not choose to be seduced into thinking there is anything romantic or more tragic because the dead addict was a famous actor. Please let us not do that!

Addiction is mainly accidental. Can’t think of anyone who sets out to get addicted.

Addiction happens, mainly when the person is sure he/she can’t/won’t get addicted. It’s the arrogance of addiction, the grandiosity of addiction, the lies of addiction. Addiction is always tragic. Always. Addiction is never pretty or cool. Never.

Let us mourn for Hoffman. Let us mourn for all those whose addictions got started on prescription pain killers. Prescription pain killers that were prescribed when Tylenol would have sufficed, that were prescribed in quantity instead of in twos or fours, prescriptions that were refilled when they should not have been, for the callousness of those who choose to profit from getting people addicted because they will make money.

I remember going to the ER with a friend a few years ago. She was very sick, but NOT in pain. And yet, the first thing she was asked when she arrived was if she was in pain and if she wanted pain medication. Painkillers, narcotic, addictive painkillers were really pushed on her. You know, it’s easier to get addictive prescription pain killers than it is to get antibiotics (because we have lots of people addicted to Z-paks?).

Let us take this death to think about all the hundreds and thousands of deaths from addiction. Let us not romanticize this death. There is nothing romantic about heroin addiction or death from “bad” heroin or an overdose. It’s not a pretty way to die. It leaves so many people grieving, wondering if they could have done something.

Can you do something when you know someone is addicted—whether to heroin, prescription medications, cocaine, alcohol, prescription stimulants or other forms of methamphetamines? Yes. Yes. Yes. Confront. Get help. Do an intervention. Intervene. Don’t give up on the addict who has given up on himself/herself.

Bloviating---I think I'm not

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/philip-seymour-hoffman-cast-as-a-victim-of-disease/

Although I know you’ve already seen two blogs here about the subject, I simply can’t let the media hype about Phillip Seymour Hoffman continue without another few words.

As you know, drugs are a big problem in the US and Canada…well and everywhere else. Talking about drugs and treatment and relapse generally degenerates into bloviating. I really don’t want to do that.

Let’s start by trying agreeing that just about everyone agrees that drugs are bad and that addiction is really bad. Life destroying. Hurtful to all those who care about the addict. Sometimes drugs seem cool or fun for a while. Later, not so much.

Think about this: What if the US had taken every single dollar spent on the failed war on drugs and put it into education? How different might things be! Ah, well.

Think about this: Trying to stop the supply of drugs cannot be accomplished. If anything has been proved, that’s has been proved. Sadly, supply and demand take over, so drugs become increasingly expensive. Not helpful because it doesn’t make people stop using. I’ve never known an addict who decided to get clean because he or she got priced out of the market..

Think about this: “Educating” kids about drugs has had about zero positive effect; in some cases it appears to have had a negative effect. Sorry. It isn’t about substance abuse education. It might have been about education, but I fear that train may have left the station.

So to return to the issue of Hoffman what, then, is the net effect of the media hype about an actor who overdosed? What then is the value of turning an addict into a victim? How was this addict different from all the other addicts who overdosed on the same day Hoffman overdosed?

I might have hoped that Hoffman’s sorry death would have persuaded the media to talk about addiction and how many addicts—someone’s ather/mother/sister/brother/husband /father/son/daughter died that day and every day. I would have hoped the media would have used the opportunity to lead a profound discussion about addiction. About heroin, prescription meds.

Addiction isn’t a new phenomenon in the US. I mean why did the Women’s Temperance League gain the power it did? Obviously alcohol had become such a problem in the country, that families were being impoverished, destroyed because of alcohol. Women had had enough. Mothers and wives had had enough.

I am neither supporting legalizing all drugs or reverting to a failed experiment such as Prohibition. Addition is a problem that can be solved, just not in the haphazard way we’ve tried.

So what about the disease model? The disease model asserts that alcoholism and addiction are diseases. I have never seen convincing evidence of this assertion, but I know that it helps some addicts and alcoholics get into and maintain Recovery. Okay. If it works, that’s cool. If the disease model provides excuses for NOT getting into Recovery, then it isn’t helpful.

Do you know why drug rehab is 28-days? Because during the Vietnam War, as more and more soldiers began abusing drugs, the military had some regulations about being able to be in rehab for 28 days and it not coming onto your record. Hence the model. Hardly anyone gets into Recovery in 28 (or fewer) days.

Recovery is hard. Okay. So are a lot of things. Well, most things in life. There are no shortcuts and no easy ways. Whatever you may have read about easier ways, Recovery is hard. Staying in Recovery requires a decision every day…some days that decisions needs to be made many, many times. Relapse is easy. It isn’t a part of Recovery; it is the antithesis of Recovery.

For those of you who are not alcoholics or addicts: Please realize that you will never, never, never think like an alcoholic or addict. That’s one of the reasons the “educating” kids piece doesn’t work. It was thought up and propagated by people who aren’t alcoholics or addicts. It makes rational sense…to someone who isn’t an alcoholic or an addict.

Hardly anyone, when thinking about using, says to himself, “H’mmm. I remember what I learned in DARE. I think I’ll make a different decision.”

It really is time to get real about drugs, addiction, treatment. Yes, it’s a huge source of revenue to a lot of people and institutions. Including prisons.