Children and Parents Everyday Problems of Behavior

Children and Parents
Everyday Problems of Behavior

Hermann A. Peine, Ph.D. & Roy Howarth M.D.
Two Goat Publishing – Salt Lake City, Utah 84108
Original Copyright 1975 Hermann A. Peine and Roy Howarth – Penguin Publishers
Copyright © 1993 transferred to Two Goat Publishing: All rights reserved

Looking at Yourself as a Parent

• Parent Reinforcer Survey
• Joy Activity Survey
• Coping Strategies
• Escape
• Perceptual Changes
• Stress Management
• Stress Reduction Procedures

"A child’s ways will often reflect the ways of his parents." Arnold Lobel – Fables

This final chapter is especially for parents. Raising children is not, nor has ever been, easy. Rewards in parenting are offset by frustrations, stress, financial strain, self-doubt, and a lot of sacrifice and just plain hard work. In fact, it is probably the difficulty of raising a child which also makes it so rewarding. The difficult child, more often than not, becomes the parent’s teacher, offering instruction in patience, long-suffering, endurance, and charity. Parents who persevere even when parenting is most difficult, perform a great service for their children and for society.

Self Assessment

Periodic self-evaluation leads to a greater understanding of our basic selves. Priorities, values, likes, and dislikes are often submerged by day-to-day concerns. Any effective intervention in a child’s problem behavior must include an analysis of the parent’s behavior. The following self-assessments are designed to help parents gain insight into what they find rewarding and what things are aversive and avoided. Copies of the self-assessments are included in Appendix 3. A successful parent contributes to successful children.

How important are each of the following to you?

Evaluating the totals in Part 1 for "Important" and "Very Important" will give you an index of how many things you find rewarding. Depressed individuals will tend to find fewer things rewarding. A lot of Part 2 entries in "Important" and "Very Important" may indicate excessive fears or phobias. Ideally, a person will have an even distribution of scores across all levels. This indicates a balance between excessive fears and sufficient reinforcers in life.

Download Parent Reinforcer Form

The second self-assessment is to help you see more specifically how the activities you enjoy are currently integrated into your life.

List the ten activities you enjoy doing most. Be honest with yourself. List the things you really like to do rather than what you think you should like doing. Don’t forget primary needs activities such as eating, sex, sleeping, etc.

When you have finished listing your favorite activities, indicate the following:

Download Joy Activity Survey Form

In the book, The Disappearance of Childhood, Neil Postman argues that parents who insist that their children learn the discipline of delayed gratification, modesty in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and personal style, place themselves in opposition to the philosophy of a throw-away culture, where continuity and traditional moral values are often secondary. For parents to control their children’s access to television, videos, and movies is difficult and time-consuming.

Today’s parents love their children as much as parents of any earlier generation. The cultural climate, however, makes so many demands that parents often lack the time, skills, or energy for this level of parent/child involvement. Parents find themselves coping rather than directing, especially in single parent families. When one or more children are particularly challenging, the difficulties become even greater. Parents who are stressed at home tend to exhibit one or more of three broad classes of coping reactions: escaping the situation, changing their own perceptions, or learning and using stress-reduction procedures. These may include new interactive patterns with their children.

A review of some suggested coping strategies and common stress-reduction procedures shows a broad variety of options for parents.

1. Do not escape into fantasy; remain in the here and now. For example, if you are rejected by a friend, don’t think the world is coming to an end and put yourself down for all your weaknesses. Analyze the present situation and determine if it is your problem, your friend’s, the situation, or some other factor outside your control.
2. Do not separate your thought processes from your body reactions. Be aware where you are and what your body is doing. For example, when performing or speaking in public, don’t focus on your fears and worries. Focus instead on what is happening both in the situation and notice how your body is reacting to it. Recognize the situation as one of life’s many growth experiences.
3. Do not dwell on "What if." Keep your mind on the realistic or likely outcome of the situation. For example, you are about to take a test and start worrying about "What if I fail it?" You can dwell on the worst possible consequences to the point of causing yourself to do poorly on the test. Try thinking more realistically, "So what if I do badly on this test. Is it the end of the world? Will my family and friends disown me? Will I never have a chance to do better?" Such realistic considerations will help relax you and you will perform better.
4. Do not worry about being anxious. Realize your reaction may be natural and decide not to invite a second layer of unwanted anxiety caused by your worries. For example, it is late at night and you are home alone. Worrying about where the family is may be natural, but unrealistic fears about their safety or your own fear of being alone can greatly increase your stress and decrease your ability to cope.
5. Do not feel that anxiety will keep you from succeeding. Realize that you can accomplish what you want to, even if you are anxious. For example, you are about to meet new people and it is important that you made a good impression. You are nervous and worried that your nervousness shows. Tell yourself that it is normal to be anxious in this situation and then do your best. You will most likely do fine, even though you do have some stress and tension.
6. Do not be unrealistic about outcomes. Realize that the world is not a perfect place, and even though you may not like the outcome, it is not a tragedy and things are not really horrible. For example, you tried out for a part in the play, but didn’t get it. Place your loss in proper perspective. Will this be the only part ever available to you? Does it mean you are a failure forever? More realistic thinking helps a great deal.
7. Do not fight sweating, tension, or anxiety. Let these feelings or states flow through you and even try to increase them by concentrating on them. If you are going to have a panic attack, make it a good one. If your hands are going to sweat, then drench the people you will be shaking hands with. The outcome will be that you probably can’t be really anxious if you concentrate on trying to be. For example, you are going to a dentist appointment and you notice your anxiety increasing as you get closer to the office. Focus on your jittering and really try to shake. Notice the sweat and try to sweat more. Both symptoms should decrease as you focus on them, trying to make them worse.
8. Do not escape reality. Realize you are not going to die or go crazy. For example, stress and worry is a natural part of human behavior. Loss of a loved one can make you feel terrible, but time is a good healer. The intense pain you feel today will diminish as the days and weeks pass.

There are many ways to escape or to run away from stressful family obligations. One is divorce. Many adults have also abandoned their families without ever physically leaving home. Emotional and physical abandonment of parental roles takes place when parents withdraw into excessive daydreaming, overeating, abusing alcohol, watching TV, especially soap operas and talk shows, and behavioral excesses such as reading or exercising. Such coping, however inappropriate, may lead to an eventual increase in depression, self-doubt, and a general inability to deal with life, especially family life, without increased use of the escape pattern. Even various forms of recreation, shopping, dining out, sports, movies, work, or other activities may be irresponsible if done to excess and at the expense of others, especially children.

Sometimes the pressure of family responsibilities demand short-term parental withdrawal­sort of R&R. The question becomes one of withdrawing responsibly rather than irresponsibly. Daycare for many parents is an economic necessity; for some it is a questionable escape. Since some parents find caring for children so lacking in joy and their only perceived relief is in escape, respite from child care is needed. It may also be that all parents should get away from child care responsibilities from time to time, not only for their own health, but also for the development of healthy children. Responsible, short separations from children is a good coping strategy in healthy families.

I couple with five children I was recently counseling with said they had been out together alone only once in the past two months. This had involved eating lunch together at a fast food restaurant. They had spent $11.00, or 20¢ a day on their relationship during the past eight weeks. Their personal time together, as with many couples, was measured in minutes per day. Their resources, both time and money, went to their children. They were good parents in many ways, but hurting as sweethearts, lovers, and companions. We determined that their relationship needed more attention, and that they would be doing a disservice to their children if they didn’t place greater focus on their own relationship. It is important that their children need them to not only be good parental role models, which they were, but to also model a responsible and satisfactory husband/wife relationship. If such a model is not available, their children, when they become adults, will find it difficult to be successful in anything other than a parental role. Children need, preferably from their parents, the model of a responsible, working, adult relationship.

Moderate daydreaming seems to be responsible. Short-duration excesses may be required occasionally. Play can revitalize a marriage or even rejuvenate the parental role. It is very American to both work and play hard, both are excesses, and the effort may involve sports, vacations, recreational activities, intellectual or academic pursuits, hobbies, and any of these are irresponsible if they meet the adult’s needs at the expense of those around them, especially their children, not being able to meet their own needs of security, love, joy, and freedom.

A person’s perception of reality may be distorted and thus lead to unwarranted worry, anxiety, or distress. Reorienting one’s perceptions of reality has been found useful and often necessary for a health emotional life. Most people have heard of the "power of positive thinking" but not everyone has the skill to do this in daily life. Negative thoughts and feelings can be overwhelming. The "what if’s" in life can be crippling. The "what if’s" are endless. "What if my kids fail?" "What if I’m not a good parent?" "What if I can’t pay the bills?" "What if my partner leaves me?" "What if I have to change?"

In the book, "If you Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him," Sheldon Kopp, psychotherapist, observed that most individuals seeking help don’t want to change; they just want to feel better. People want to feel better without risking change, either in attitudes, values, or behavior. People prefer the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity. change is stressful, and who, these days, needs more stress? change comes into such lives only after the pain of life becomes too great. People even resist changes in perceptions and thought processes.

Parents wanting to change their perceptions of child-rearing should attempt to look objectively at how they act towards their children, then determine whether they are behaving and coping rationally in their parental obligations. Parents must recognize the positive aspects of their role and practice placing a "So" in front of all the "What if’s" in life. Individuals may not like the outcomes they visualize, but such outcomes will seldom be devastating.

Attending to all the good things children do and grasping the transience of the moment in relation to the total context of a child’s life may help change a parent’s interactive style with the child. Chasing away negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones will require practice, but, as has been discussed earlier, reinforcing success will reinforce the positive and weaken the negative. Now is the time to take all the things learned about changing your children’s behavior and use the same principles in a program to change any of your negative attitudes and ways of thinking.

Some children, such as those who have some form of handicap, requires limitless patience and endurance. In such cases, and in cases where change is especially difficult, stress management becomes a necessity. Literature and clinical experience has shown a variety of stress-management strategies. Go through the list of stress-management strategies and see what might work for you. We recommend a slow transition because new behavior patterns can bring their own associated stresses.

Stress Reduction Procedures

PHYSICAL

ENVIRONMENT

COMMUNICATION

THOUGHT

LIFESTYLE

PROFESSIONAL TREATMENT

Download Stress Reduction Procedure Form

If you are still having difficulty being specific about the when of where of stress in your life, monitor yourself with the weekly log sheets for stress, depression and worry for a few weeks. Then analyze when and where, and in what situations your stress comes on and use the reduction procedures previously described.

This short walk through self-assessment and coping strategies for parents has hopefully given you, as a parent, greater possibilities for coping with the sometimes extreme demands of a difficult child. Slow, but consistent, implementation of procedures reviewed in these chapters will give parents increased skills in developing feasible child-management strategies and help parents deal or cope with the difficult circumstances that are bound to arise. Our hope is that parents take courage in even the most difficult circumstances and recognize the noble effort you have undertaken.