Explanations

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I know that lots of experts tell you to explain to your child what you are doing to prove that it makes sense, is better, smarter, more efficient...  I know that there is a belief that if kids only understand, they’ll be okay with what you say.  Sadly that is just plain wrong. 

This does make adult sense.  Kids don’t think like adults.  Kids need and actually want for you to know what is right and good and helpful and just teach it to them.  Guide, direct, teach. Explaining and explaining, clarifying, saying in other words has many downsides.

Firstly, kids turn off quite rapidly when you are doing it (often because they just get lost in the rational explanation) and secondly (this is really important for the future!), you teach your kids that if you use a lot of words and explain and explain, whatever it is becomes okay (because that is the kid understanding of your long explanation).   

You may be thinking how much you would have appreciated explanations when you were a kid.  If only my parents had told me why I should do this or not do that…But again, you are thinking this as an adult and like an adult.    

Kids need and want direction.  Really.  They are kids.  They don’t know stuff.  They depend on YOU to tell them what to do, when to do, how to do.  You are the parent.  It’s what is expected.

Here’s a little anecdote:  On a cold March day in New York city, a very intelligent and educated mother asked her daughter of 2.5 if she would like to put on her coat.  The little girl said no.  So the mom explained and explained articulately, thoughtfully, explaining the advantages of wearing a coat in the cold weather, the disadvantages of not wearing a coat in cold weather… and the girl kept on saying NO.  This was going nowhere.  I must admit to having intervened to tell the little girl she was wearing a coat, it was put on, and off we went.  Later I talked with the mother who told me that he daughter was two and a half and had opinions.  I told her that her daughter needed her to know things, to guide, direct, teach.  I explained that the burden to the child of expecting her know and decide that which she cannot know or decide is unfair and creates anxiety.  The mom understood.  I hope she has changed her way of dealing with her daughter.

Long, detailed, thoughtful, cogent explanations confuse little kids…and bigger kids.  

Say 50% of what you were planning to say, and you will have said twice as much.

What I Learned From the Keynote Speaker

By: Robert Schmidt, M.A.

I was at a mental health agency event in Massachusetts last week where I heard a wonderful keynote speaker who really got my mind thinking about how therapy is supposed to work. This guy shared a really heartfelt story about his difficult childhood in Chicago and his process of change through treatment. 

He’s now working in the mental health field and making a pretty significant impact on his community. He’s is also starting on his doctoral work in the fall. He provided a great example of how therapy can make all the difference for people. When he was done sharing the story someone asked him to describe his therapist, and his reaction was funny: he kind of froze. All he could say about her was that she was very short. He made a joke about it and it seemed to satisfy the person who asked the question but I thought that was really amazing. Here’s this guy who is without question a different/better person because of treatment experience he had when he was young, and yet it was almost impossible for him to talk about the person who helped him make that change or what they did with him to make that change happen.

I think this is a fairly common phenomenon. People don’t always know what it is that their therapists do for them even though they want to give the therapists credit for the positive changes they experience. I think in the case of this keynote speaker, his inability to put a finger on his therapist’s approach was because his treatment process was fairly extensive and he could not have given a sincere answer to a question like “what was the one thing your therapist did that made you?... 

Those sorts of questions are built on false premises. To think that recovery comes from a single moment or a single relationship or a single critical realization is in most cases an oversimplification. We hear all kinds of stories like that on tv or in books but I don’t think they’re genuine. 

I don’t think many people have their minds changed forever by a single moment. Instead, I think that mental health/recovery/change comes from when major realizations get piled on top of one another and tested out in lived experience over time. I think that’s why 28 day rehabs rarely help people, they just don’t allow enough time for recovery to take root.

I like to think of my own recovery as the sum total of the contributions made by many people over a long period of time, and I enjoy thinking about the contributions that each of them made.  I have a file cabinet in my mind of people who were instrumental in my early recovery. It seems to me like each of them just showed up at different times and added different ingredients to the stew that I am now. I’m so glad that I met all of them and that I was given enough time in treatment for each of them to pass through it with me. 

I would encourage anybody who has a loved one in treatment to have as much patience as possible and to encourage their loved one to commit some time to the process, because it doesn’t really get better all at once, that’s not realistic. 

Defining Recovery

By: Robert Schmidt, M.A.

What do we mean when we use the word “recovery” in regards to substance abuse rehabilitation? Generally speaking, this word suggests something different than words like “sobriety” or “abstinence” do. Saying that an individual is in recovery usually implies that he or she is actively working some solution based program to help them heal. This underscores an important distinction between those who abstain and create new lives as a result and those who abstain and become “dry drunks.”

There are dry drunks in AA. These are people who quit using alcohol, yet continue to behave as if they are still actively drinking. Alcoholic behavior includes more than just drinking alcohol. It includes: lying, stealing, cheating, moodiness, laziness and various sundry other forms of overall nastiness. 

My tennis coach in college always used to shout “recover back to the middle” after I or a teammate would be forced by an opponent to chase a ball out wide.  I think this use of the word really gets at the heart of what is meant by “recovery” in substance abuse parlance. To recover back to the center of the court is to regain a previously held position of strength: and for our purposes, recovery from addiction is the same. An individual who is recovering from addiction is working to regain the things that have been lost or sacrificed in their selfish (hopeless) pursuit of satiation during their time as an active addict.   

So, what is it that addicts must recover? Relationships come to mind immediately. As do economic and legal viability, but that only covers the external features of addiction and recovery. What about the internal cost of addiction? What is it that needs to be recovered intrapersonally? 

As the cycles of addictive behavior become repetitive and automatic, individuals caught up inside these cycles’ losses a portion of their ability to exercise free will. In response to this they develop justifications for the behaviors, attempting to soften the impact of demoralization that comes from loss of control. Two things happen at the same time: there is a loss of governance over both behavior and thinking. 

I don’t know what an individual is beyond their thoughts and behaviors. To lose those things is to become something else; to lose your humanity. 

It is devastating for family members to look at their loved ones and see someone other than who they know and care about. This is what happens with addiction: it becomes like a shell that covers over the person. There is an individual encased inside, and that is what needs to be recovered.