Alyson Schafer - Parent Expert

Adler Was A Gemini ? Give Me A Break!

The blog post below this one is about a on-line article to a great overview of Adler.  After posting my "find" ( thank you Google) I decided to go back to the article and find out more about the site. Maybe there was more on Adler I could read. Guess what ? There was!  Oh yeah, look, its his natal chart and an explanation of how this famous Gemini was influenced by the star patterns in developing his theory.   Okay, I find that just hilariously funny.  Is it just me?  THAT is truly "ironic".

I know that there are many people who believe in horoscopes and that I am going to let people down when I say this:  THEY ARE A LOAD OF BUNK.   I am not going to even entertain or humour this with an argument.   Science already provides that.

Boy, I am such a crabby cancer eh? Still, i do recommend you check out the original article, but ignore the astrology around it please.

Alfred Adler's Biography and Theory

I was doing some research for my upcoming book today when I came across a concise summary of Adler's life and theory that I had not seen before.  For those of you who love my parenting advice, it is all thanks to the great work of Alfred Adler who was so brilliant and whose name has been all but forgotten.  Read how he predicted this for himself and how much influence he has made in modern thinking. 

Alfie Kohn on Homework

Monday on The Parenting Show we talked about homework.  I cited Alfie Kohn's latest book a few times so I wanted to make sure you had the title if you wanted to pick it up.  But for those of you who would prefer a shorter synopsis, here is an article by Alfie that hits some of the high notes.

Talking To Kids About AIDS and Safe Sex

Many parents are nervous talking to their children about sex.   This documentary  ( 30 min) shows two sisters, age 6 and 4 interviewing the many participants of the 2006 International AIDS conference including Stephen Lewis, sex trade workers, cross dressers and making condom art.  I think watching this documentary will help parents see the candor and comfortableness that adults and children can have when you talk to them respectfully and clearly about sex and sexuality.  It may help you build the courage to talk to your own children!  ( Warning: some may find the viewing very uncomfortable....  remember, that is why they made this documentary!)

Alyson Discusses Permissive Parenting on TVO's Agenda

Tonight ( Monday Feb 25, 2008) Alyson joins a panel discussion on the perils of permissive parenting with host Steve Paikin on TVO's The Agenda.   Just one more reason to have the kids in bed by 8pm!

Today On The Parenting Show: Homework

Today's show topic is homework.  There has been a buzz about the latest research findings so we want to talk to you and answer your questions on how you are dealing with homework.  Call today!

Time:  2pm
Channel:  Rogers 10 & 63 ( check your area listings)
Number: 1-877-222-5310

Refuses to Walk to School

How many of you can relate to this email question I received? :

"Sam,  Owen and I were on our way to school this morning via toboggan.  I had to ask Sam to hop out because pulling a hundred pounds in the snow was proving to be too much of a challenge for me.   Sam finally dug his heals in and sat in a snow bank and refused to move.  He was upset that Owen was being pulled and he wasn’t.  I did explain I understood that it must be disappointing but he is a much better/faster walker then his brother ….and so on.  He still refused to move.

What should I have done?  Everyone was late for school and I felt resentful and frustrated.

Any ideas?"

This is a classic power struggle situation that many parents find themselves in.  A child learns that they can find power in NOT moving.  Their behaviour says "You might be big and able to kick me off this toboggan,  but I have weapons to fight with too. I may be small, but I can refuse to walk and then watcha gonna do mom?  Ha! I win!"

A power struggle is like being in a tug-of-war.  It is a fight or contest to see who has power over who.  Who will win, and who will loose?  Now that they are fighting, Sam feels if he walks like mom is urging, he will have lost.  We don't want our children feeling like losers.   Neither do we want to feel we lost a battle to our children.  That makes us feel like door mats and we lose our self-respect.  So long as there is a fight going on, each party is only interested in protecting their position and not losing.   

The solution is to end the battle that is based on a win/lose dichotomy of outcomes. Once the "truss" state is accomplished, both parties can work together to solve the problem and find a co-operative win-win outcome.   

Mother must "drop the rope" of the tug of war.   Here is how, using my 4 step D.R.O.P model.

D - determine if its a power struggle situation (feeling resentful and the escalation in this example)
R - revisit the roles and responsibilities of each. ( its mom's job to ensure they get to school safely escorted at this age, but its Sam and Owen's job to be punctual)
O - offer an olive branch ( a sign of peace,  a signal you are not willing to fight and then be an active listener.   
P - plough on with what YOU need to be doing and leave the child to make their own decisions, allowing them to experience the outcomes of their decisions.  Hold them accountable with out giving them attitude about their choices.


So,  I think "D" and "R" are spelled out clearly here, lets look at "0" which is a skill parents need training on.

How to Offer an Olive Branch:

Physically : get your  hands off your  hips, take the stitch out of your eyebrow, soften your eyes, move in closer to Sam, maybe squat when you talk and put your arm around him or touch him in a loving way.

Listen:  this is a very Stephen Covey thing:    "Seek first to understand and then be understood"  You need to SAY back to Sam what he is saying to you in his whole meta-communication ie. his words, actions, body language.  Example:

"It sounds to me like you are really disappointed eh?"  (the mom said this already, but keep going you are only on the surface)
"Does it maybe feel unfair that your brother gets fun and you don't just because your bigger - its not like you can help that eh? is that right ?"
"Are you maybe feeling like that happens a lot ?"
"Do you think I am unfairly siding with your brother?"
"Do you think there is a better way and I am not trying very hard to see it ?..."

You are trying to get into his head and his world and to prove to him that you see life from his vantage point by saying these things back to him for him to say " yes" to or else say " no - its not that ".  You make only guesses and hopefully he'll let you know when he feels you have understood him.

Once you really think you can grasp his issue, then you can share your perspective on the situation.  This needs to be stated as a co-joint PROBLEM that needs everyone help in finding a solution. It is not an exercise is trying to convince Sam that your solution is best or right.

"So you'd like to get a ride on the toboggan and I would like to be on time and not hurt my muscles.  What can we do to make that happen?"

Brain storm solutions together:

• take turns with only one on - understanding that you'll be able to pull him less far, but still some
• everyone walks,  no toboggan
• Owen rides there and mom and Sam  toboganning together on the weekend
• Etc
• Etc

Then try one of the ideas that everyone can live with....

How to Plough On :  Remember it is not your job to watch the clock.  Only focus on your job of safe escort.  If you need to sit in the snow bank and wait till people wanna move on, that is fine, you are doing your job,  but they will have to deal with the school on their late arrival as a result of the choices they have made for themselves.  If you sit in the snow bank secretly wishing Sam would just get moving - he will still perceive your desire for him to change and that alone is enough to keep him entrenched in the power struggle. 

NB: only when you are no longer invested in the choices your child makes will the power struggle be dissolved.   

If you say you don't have time for all this, I would argue that you don't have time not to.  You will spend more unhappy fighting hours on more trips to school if the walking battle continues.  However if you invest the time to resolved the conflict, you'll re-gain that time and more down the road with cheerful and punctual walks to school.  Well worth the upfront time investment I promise. 

If you have had success "dropping the rope" please share your stories in the comment area.

Good-bye ADD, Hello Bi-Polar Disorder

Canada often lags behind the US in some of their social trends and it seems that we are just getting on the latest fad of diagnosing children with bi-polar disorder. I predict it will become our next "ADHD". Many people suggest that this is because the drug companies have just released a new psychotropic drug to treat bi-polar so suddenly the incident rate will sky rocket. This happened with Ritalin and ADD /ADHD too.

Bi-polar is a diagnosis on the DSM-1V, which stands for the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It is a big book that is put out by the American Psychiatric Association and it contains a description of all the known psychological symptoms. The symptoms are grouped into syndromes and each is referred to as a "mental disorder".

Most of my Adlerian colleagues would agree that the the symptoms described are accurate, but the grouping together and calling them "mental disorders" are wrong. Instead, the Adlerian model takes a more holistic view and sees the expression of symptoms as being congruent with a persons lifestyle and the expression of symptoms something that reveals or reflects their beliefs or "private logic".

Adler wrote that behaviors serve the person by some way moving the individual from their own subjective feeling of being in a "felt negative" position to a perceived "felt positive" state. Their symptoms are "helpful or useful" in some way to them, and so therapists work to help people discover the errors in their private logic that are creating life difficulties for them. That means therapy instead of pharmacology, or in some cases, a combination of the two.

Let me use the example of blushing to make my point. If someone is in a situation where they interpret the events through the lens of their belief system to be "embarrassing" they blush. That means their cognitions trigger the release of body chemicals that cause vasodilatation and hence the blood vessels open and we see a "blush" appear on the cheeks. Body and mind work as a complex system that are interdependent. Our thoughts affect our biochemistry and vice versa.

I believe it is too simplistic a solution ( not to mention too toxic on the tissues of the body) to prescribe a vaso-constricting medication to eliminate blushing, when a more fruitful conversation could be had about why the person judged the situation to be embarrassing in the first place. Does this illustrate my point? Albeit with a silly unrealistic example. (If someone you know is taking drugs for blushing we need an intervention!)

To often we diagnose a child as having a "mental disorder" and do nothing other than drug their brains. People assume a "mental disorder" means there is nothing that you can do yourself to help yourself or other members of your family. For parents it may even come as a welcomed idea that their child is "disordered" and therefore it wasn't their faulty parenting. We owe our children more than this. We do live in a era that is very strongly oriented towards the medical model and psychopharmacological approach, but it is not the ONLY approach. Family therapists ( Adlerian as well as other counseling models) want the public to know this.

If you have a child who is in the process of being diagnosed. Please take the time to read Dr William Glasser's book "Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous To Your Mental Health" for a fuller discussion of this topic before you initiate a treatment plan.

Also, today (Feb 20, 2008) the Globe and Mail has an on-line discussion at noon with their medical correspondant who ran an article on children with bi-polar in the weekend edition if you want to check that out.

Tele-Conference Class for Parent Educators

I know that there are both parents and professionals who visit my site. If you are a parent educator, this message is for you! If you would like to learn more about self-promotion and how to market your parenting classes and workshops, then have I got some great professional development news for you!

Dina Emser, ( who is fabulous, might I say) is teaching a 5 week tele-conference series for parent educators on each of the 5 Monday evenings in March. You can get the details and register ( $125 US) with Dina at dina@dinaemser.com

Cry It Out Method Leads To Vomiting

Several people who have heard me preach about the "cry it out" ( CIO) method of sleep training have emailed me to share that they have one glitch: their tots cry so hard they vomit. Not so nice eh?

Remember that the sphincter muscles at the top of the stomach are weak initially and only grow strong in tone with age. It is very easy for a good wail to cause the stomach to contract sufficiently to push its contents passed the sphincter muscle and that means "vomit", but its really a glorified large volume spit up. Its not like when we feel green, dizzy and spinning from the flu or food poisoning or too many drinks during "frosh week".

The stomach contents are acidic and it can cause tissue burning if it happens a lot so please consult your physician. However, for the majority, these crying up-chucks do not pose a medical concern.

My advice for what to do when your child vomits from crying during the CIO ( cry it out ) training is this:

I suggest you deal with the vomit in the most minimal way you feel comfortable with. If there is not much spit up and it has not landed on their sleeper and if only in a small portion of the crib sheet is wet - leave it be for the morning.

If the sleepers are soaked or the bed sheets are wet everywhere , then swiftly make the smallest and fastest motion to get the sleepers and bedding in acceptable order for continuing sleep.

Do NOT turn this time into social time with lots of cooing and chatting. We are trying to show them that evening is NOT when people are social. We do that in the day! So don't turn on lights and burst into conversation and start singing songs.

Don't been cold and distant either, as that will feel harsh and rejecting. Just go about your job in a neutral way and then leave the room without a big elaborate second tuck in. A quick kiss and outcha go!

If you have comments on or a favorite puke story ( and I know that you do!!!) - please use the comment area to share your story with others.

Ontario's First Family Day

Today is Ontario's first ever "Family Day". This new provincial holiday creates a long weekend in February when we are all in the depth of winter's doldrums. Premier McGinty says:

"There is nothing more valuable to families than time together. And yet it seems tougher than ever to find, with so many of us living such busy lives,"

There has been controversy over this holiday and how it will actual "pay out" with people's employment contracts. Some self-employed people are aggravated their children are underfoot when they can't afford to take an extra day off themselves.

Here is my two cents on the matter. We need a long weekend in February. We need a long weekend every month! As a society, we do work too many hours and we do not relax and recreate enough, alone or without families. We are a stressed society of exhausted workers and that is NOT good for our children.

However - to call this holiday "Family Day" seems like some failed PR tactic. Lets' face it, if the government really wants to make an effort to fortify the lives of families in Ontario it should tackle the bigger issues like affordable housing, accessible quality daycare and child poverty... just as a start.

CHFI Radio Airs Ads for The Parenting Show

Last week Jennifer Anderson and I went to CHFI to tape a radio ad for The Parenting Show. The 30 second spot will air on CHFI the week of February 18th. 

( I am not even going to tell you how long that nice man in the chair had to wait to get Jenn and I to record 30 seconds of tape.  I should stick with live TV.)   

Still Spaces In February 23 & 24 Parenting BootCamp

Just a quick reminder that the early bird special is almost over so if you are registering for my Parenting Bootcamp weekend in Richmond Hill at the Sheraton Parkway next weekend, now is the time!  I am offering a discount for my Facebook friends too. 

Still debating? Well listen to what one grad emailed me just this week:

I want to tell you that my husband and I went to your bootcamp back in November. We went primarily because we were having many power struggles with our six year old son and we were basically at our wits end. Since that time there have been noticeable changes. We rarely have power struggles, and he is much more enjoyable to deal with. We are addressing sibling fighting etc. in ways you suggested, and both our kids (the other is 3) are getting along better. Thanks so much!

 

That could be your family too in a few months.  Why delay happiness? 

 

Growth Mind Set and Encouragement

Encouragement is a key concept in Adlerian psychology and parenting theory.  Too often we substitute praise which has been proven to be detrimental. Sure, parents don't mind being encouraging when it comes to learning to make a bed or tie shoes, but when little Junior hits school, parents are riddled with fear about how to be encouraging while secretly yearning and pressuring a child to bring home a report card that is straight A's. 

Well, a lovely job of summarizing the research appears in a recent issue of Scientific American. Notice their language as they talk about effort over achievement and teaching children that mistakes are just wonderful opportunities to learn more.  Its all there!  I hope this helps parents see the value of being encouraging.  I promise a child who is into "mastery" with a "growth mind set" rather than "ego" will go far. 

No Parenting Show Today ( Monday Feb 4 2008)

Today The Parenting Show on Roger's TV will not be aired due to their coverage of a curling event.  We'll be back next week to talk about newborns and new moms.  If you want to watch last weeks show which was an "open forum" call in, it will air in our regular time slots. Remember,  you can always go to the web and watch the archived episodes any time you want!