I called ‘shotgun’!

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Whenever possible, make external processes internal. In this example, instead of resolving a conflict between her sons, Ann acknowledged their perspectives and how they were feeling. Then she restated the problem to be solved and left them to figure it out for themselves. Whenever possible, conflict and its solution should remain with the child.

 

Leave the conflict (and its solution) where it belongs – in the kid.

 

“Owww! Stop!

“Get out!”, yelled Seth.

“No! I was here first,” whined his little brother, Timmy.

“I called ‘shotgun’.”

“After I was getting in the seat.”

“Doesn’t matter. I called it. Get out!”

“Owwww! You’re hurting me! Mommy!”

“Mommy, I called ‘shotgun’ and Timmy won’t get out.”

“Mommy, Seth is pulling my arm.”

Ann approached the car and said, “I hear a lot of yelling and screaming. Seth, you look very angry.” She turned to her younger son and said,  “And Timmy, you look very upset.”  To both of them she continued, “I want each of you to tell me what is going on. Seth.”

“Whoever calls ‘shotgun’ gets to sit there. I called ‘shotgun’ first and Timmy won’t get out.”

Ann observed, “Seth, you’re angry because you called ‘shotgun’ first. Because you called it, you believe you should get to sit in the front seat.”

“Yeah”

Then she turned to her younger son and said, “Timmy. Tell me what happened.”

“I was getting in the seat when Seth called ‘shotgun’. I didn’t even know he was there. It’s not fair. He always yells ‘shotgun’.”

Their mother said, “You sound upset and frustrated. You believe what happened wasn’t fair.”

“Yeah. Seth always yells ‘shotgun’ before I can even think about (doing) it.”

Ann put her hands on her sons’ shoulders and said, “Both of you think you are right. You are both good at figuring things out. I am going to go read my book while you two work out a solution that feels fair to both of you. Come find me when you are done.” ¹

(10 minutes later)

“Mom. We know how we are going to handle it.”

“Yeah. We have the perfect plan,” beamed Timmy.

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Ann responded, eager to hear what her little lawyers had fashioned.

Seth began, “We have a system worked out so we know whose day it is to get ‘shotgun’. No fighting.”

“Yeah. And today is my day,” announced Timmy.

“That’s right. Timmy gets to sit in the front on the even days of the month and I get to sit there on the odd days.”

“And on the even days, Seth also has to set the table,” added Timmy, pleased with the way the day was turning out.

“That is a brilliant plan. I never would have thought of that.”

“Yeah. Pretty cool, eh, Mom. We’re good at this stuff,” Timmy said as he hopped back in the front seat and closed the door.

Ann turned to her son and said, “Seth, does Timmy know that tomorrow is the 31st and you’ll get two days in a row?”

“I have a lot to teach my little brother, don’t I Mom.”

“I never doubted that,” Ann chuckled.

__________________________________

Here is the basic recipe that Ann followed with the boys:

Recognize how each of them is feeling
Have each give their side of what happened
Recognize each person’s perspective
State the problem that needs to be figured out
Acknowledge their capability of finding a solution together
Walk away and let them handle it

When parents resolve conflicts for their children, they offer external solutions to problems that rob their children of important internal work that needs to be done. These parent solutions often deliver messages that children are not capable and need to depend on others to resolve their problems. In the example above, development of competence in the areas of logical thinking, communication and relatedness were promoted. The mother also modeled empathy and served as a reminder that fairness and caring are essential to moral integrity.

____________________________

¹ Example after example of how to do this can be found in Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s classic book, Siblings Without Rivalry.

The Bedtime Ritual

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Establishing a bedtime ritual early in a child’s life is an essential piece of effective parenting. The Bedtime Ritual creates a process that fosters many of our goals for self development and healthy relatedness. For example, it becomes a valuable time for tuning into children’s thoughts and feelings and curiously questioning potential misperceptions. In some cases, it is a chance to hear about problems before the “cognitive” cement dries. This process that promotes self-reliance also has broader applications.

 

Promoting self-reliance and closeness

From his earliest age, Neal had a fixed bedtime. He was like any other kid, wanting to stay up as late as possible. Getting ready for bed was not at the top of his favorites list either, but unlike many other kids, he almost always did it willingly. “What is wrong with this kid”, you ask. “That’s just not normal”, you say.

Neal’s parents appreciated the need for clear limits. They also appreciated the need for establishing dependable rituals. Neal understood that bedtime was at the same time every night. But bedtime, in Neal’s home, was a time frame involving a process, not just a discrete time of day. It began at a fixed time and ended at a fixed time. Within that span of time, he was expected to get ready for bed and then get his stories. And story time in this home was special time.

‘Getting ready for bed’ was a set of expectations that changed with developmental maturity. From putting on his own pj’s to picking up his clothes to brushing his own teeth to taking a shower and hanging up his towel, the expectations for self-reliance rose with capability. The incentive for their completion was simple. All the remaining time, before the end of bedtime, was available for story time.

The ritual of bedtime stories began for Neal even before he knew what a story was. Story time, begun in the earliest months of life, was associated with snuggling close with Mom or Dad and listening to their soothing voices. As he got older, he had his favorite stories to hear and a million questions to ask. Although his mother preferred books, his father enjoyed telling stories. Neal enjoyed diving in with his own version of how the stories should go, which led to some creative destinations neither of them could account for by the time they ended. And end they did, at the same time every night. Bargaining for staying up later and hearing more was met with a response of, “I enjoy this as much as you do. If you want more story time, then get ready for bed earlier”. The occasional tearful evening of “It’s not fair. I didn’t get enough story,” was usually followed the next evening with a kid ready to go as early as possible. Instead of nighttime battles over getting ready for bed, Neal was increasingly self-reliant in getting himself ready because story time was simply the best time of day.

Neal’s parents were good about getting on the right side of issues. Instead of ‘I want you to want what I want for you to want’ or something like that, they carefully created systems that took advantage of what children naturally wanted. In the case of bedtime, Neal wanted stories, time with Mom and Dad, and as much of it as he could get. Bounded by the limit of when bedtime ended, his parents offered support and encouragement, rather than control and punishment. They wanted him to succeed (via his self-reliance) and were eager to have satisfying (relatedness) time together. That was quite different than many other households where everything was a battle over compliance.

Expectations for self-reliance extended to other areas of Neal’s life. As he became old enough, his parents expected him to wash his own clothes. During the learning phase, he had one of them at his side to make sure that clothes were sorted, detergent was measured and washer settings were appropriate. But with increased capability that responsibility was turned over to him. The bedtime model of ‘the sooner you take care of business, the sooner we get to do the fun stuff’ held for tasks like laundry and clean-up. Even if he wasn’t always motivated to have clean clothes to wear and a clean room, he rarely wanted to miss out on the outing Dad was waiting to go on with the rest of their Saturday morning.

Eventually, the self-reliant bedtime process was a non-issue. On the occasional evening when he preferred to dawdle in the bathroom or he had something too interesting to stop, it was recognized that he was making that choice to limit his story time. Instead of it being an argument or something withheld, it was framed as a choice that Neal had made and it was respected. Over time, Neal recognized that the bedtime process and available time were under his control. And with few exceptions, he wanted that special time with Mom or Dad.

Who knows when story time ceased being passive entertainment? Neal had interests and opinions and they were honored in the process of story time. He enjoyed hearing some stories over and over. But eventually, he enjoyed taking over the telling of those well-learned stories. He enjoyed hearing his father’s made-up stories, especially when he was a character in them, but he eventually liked coauthoring them as well. That way, he got to be the hero he deserved to be, but sometimes had more than his share of Daddy-created-bad-guys to defeat.

As he became older and his interests changed, he moved beyond make believe stories to discussions of real life. He enjoyed answering his dad’s questions about how his day had gone. His mom especially liked keeping up with where things stood with friends, while his dad was particularly interested in what his next big project was going to be.

These bedtime discussions were not only enjoyable; they were also an important part of parental attunement. Neal often used this time to tell his story, such as those things at school that excited him or worried him. When a problem with a friend arose, this became his reliable time to talk about it with a parent. Sometimes those discussions arose after his mom or dad noticed he wasn’t quite his old self.

Regardless of age, we all make attributions about events and interactions. Many times we feel certain we know what happened and why, but in reality, we often “don’t know what we don’t know”. Children are especially vulnerable to reaching conclusions without knowing all the facts or making all the connections. For instance, a harsh interaction on the playground may need unraveling and reconstructing, like when Neal said, “James said the game was locked (and I couldn’t play). When I asked why, he said I wasn’t one of the ‘cool’ kids”.

Developmentally, or cognitively, children’s brains are not developed enough to do this bigger picture integration. They are reliant upon our questions to help them think of other possibilities and make unrecognized connections. In essence, parents serve as the missing cortex during childhood. Without this parent assisted analysis, kids go on thinking and feeling the way they do as a result of what someone did to them or what they believe was done to them. We all jump to conclusions, trying to make immediate sense of what has happened and why. But those conclusions are not always right and deserve careful analysis before they grow into firm beliefs.

A curious inquiry at bedtime can help a child go to sleep with a healthier take on the day’s events. Assumptions a child makes about himself and others can affect his future interactions and interpretations. Our brains do a great deal of work in terms of consolidating memories and filing things away while we sleep. Therefore, it only makes sense that we talk to our kids ‘before the cement dries’.

Wishing for Some Magic?

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The importance of exercise and its role in cognitive functioning, mental health, and preventing obesity is presented. Two examples of school systems that successfully encourage exercise are described. “Not exercising when you feel down is like not taking an aspirin when your head aches”.¹

 

The compelling benefits of regular exercise

Ever wish someone would invent a pill that would make you happier, more alert, calmer, and better able to concentrate? While we are at it, why not make it easier to sleep and lose weight. What the heck, throw in a little added libido while you are at it. Think a drug company could make some serious money on a pill like that? No, it’s not Welbutrin. It’s EXERCISE, as in one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of exercise.

All of the benefits of our wished for drug are derived from exercise and the evidence is very compelling, even in the elderly. Check out Art Kramer’s work at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. In this You Tube video, Dr. Kramer explains how exercise, even just walking, can reverse some of the effects of aging on the brain. (He has MRI evidence of new brain growth in elderly adults who participated in regular exercise.) So can you imagine what exercise does for kids? (Don’t tell the teenagers about the added libido effect.)

The obesity rates in the United States are alarming and have climbed dramatically in the last twenty years. One third of all adults in the United States are obese. Not overweight. Obese! As recently as 1986, only seven states had an adult obesity rate above 15%. Now all states are above 20%.

(Overweight is a Body Mass Index greater than 25. Obese is a BMI > 30. Check out the CDC data on obesity or CDC resources on interventions)

BMI = (Wt. in lbs.) x (703) / (Ht. in inches)

Seventeen percent of all children (ages 2-19) in the U.S. are obese.

Yet, if you have attended graduation ceremonies for the University of Illinois Laboratory High School, you will have seen no obese teenagers. Why is that? These graduating seniors could thank (or curse) Sally Walker for this. As Director of Physical Education at Uni High, Sally initiated a fitness program that includes every student, every day, for the entirety of their five years at the school. During the week, classes alternate between aerobic workouts and weight training. To get credit for the day’s class, a student must maintain his or her heart rate within their target zone for at least twenty minutes, now recorded by the monitors they wear. First semester of their (“Subbie”) first year, there is plenty of grumbling and feeble attempts to beat the system. But soon thereafter, everyone is on board, because it is a clear expectation for everyone and it has long been an accepted part of the school culture.

Fitness at this school comes in many forms and not just by decree. Beginning the second year, during the season in which they compete, members of the school’s athletic teams are exempt from Fitness Class. With a no-cut policy for all sports teams, Uni has a high percentage of student-athletes. Sally, who still launches the fitness program with the “Subbies”, told me that a number of alums have emailed her saying, “you may find this hard to believe, but I just finished my first 1/2 or full marathon”.

Here’s how Sally described the program to me recently in an email,

We started this program in 1986, my 3rd year at Uni. It was started when we observed the declining level of fitness of our incoming Subbies, and as a lab school we felt obligated to address it. Our program has evolved over the years, adapting to the current trends and needs of our students. The one constant has been the end of year requirement for each student to complete a 5K. Amazingly, our students always impress us with their accomplishments. For some just completing the race is a huge milestone, while for others, a PR (personal record), class record or school record is their goal. Whatever the case, we remain committed to this requirement, especially when we see the smiles of satisfaction on the faces of the subbies who just months ago were sure there was no way they could ever run that far! We also see growth from year to year as some students take time to buy in, but then when they do the change is sometimes dramatic. Weight loss, gain of self-esteem, whatever, it remains the best thing about teaching!

Over the past two decades, Phil Lawler, a physical education instructor in Naperville, Illinois, has developed a fitness program that now encompasses all 19,000 students in the school district. His work is well documented in John Ratley’s book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise And The Brain. Naperville students rank among the best in the world in areas such as math and science. There are many who would argue that the fitness program is a major contributor to the high levels of (math and science) achievement shown by Naperville students relative to comparable socio-economic status (SES) school districts.

The Uni High and Naperville programs share several important factors. Both focus on effort (or growth), rather than meeting normative standards. In other words, their goal is for constant growth in each child; (as Sally’s words suggest) a mindset they take with them even after graduating. These programs are thus minimizing the discouraging effects of between-child comparisons and emphasizing (where kids strive to make improvements in what they have previously accomplished). An appropriate level of effort for each child is objectively established by measuring their heart rate.

______________________

Just like Sally was able to make exercise a universally accepted part of the routine at Uni High, parents can do the same at home. The younger the child, the easier it is, because they want to be just like Mom and Dad. If you exercise regularly, they will want to join you. One of the best gifts we can give our kids, as well as ourselves, is the habit of daily exercise, beginning at a young age. Parental modeling is the most powerful form of influencing children’s behavior.

________________________

Although apathy and low energy often characterize people suffering from mild depression, those who can find a way to begin exercising invariably find some immediate improvement in their depressive symptoms.

________________________

See Tomporowski, Davis, Miller and Naglieri, Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition and Academic Achievement, for a thorough literature review of the research on the benefits of exercise.

For a simple but compelling summary of the cognitive benefits of exercise, see the first chapter of John Medina’s Brain Rules .

Robert Brooks’ article, Physical Exercise in School: Fitness for Both Body and Mind is just one of a series of excellent essays he has written every month over the past decade about raising healthy children. These essays can be accessed at http://www.drrobertbrooks.com/writings/index.html.

Dr. Brooks is also the author of 14 books on children, including two of my favorites: Raising Resilient Children and Raising a Self-Disciplined Child.

Grade school children who participate in daily aerobic activities have fewer disciplinary problems

¹ From American Psychologist article on exercise.

It’s the relationship, …!

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Children who enter school with attachment problems are less likely to engage in school. They cannot trust adults to care or be dependable, are less likely to value or respect their relationships with teachers, and eventually become detached and cease to care. Which means they are less responsive to teacher influences and more likely to harm others. Consequently, they fail to value or pursue the achievement goals or the character traits schools seek to promote. Therefore, an early focus on creating and maintaining secure attachments must be the school’s highest priority.

The essential role of attachment in school success.

I will bet you $10 that I can walk into any 3rd grade class in Chicago, Baltimore, or Washington DC and pick four boys, three of whom will serve time in prison before age 30.

Easy bet to cover, you say, given the rates of crime in the inner city? Of all kids who start school in Baltimore, 50% don’t graduate and 60% of dropouts do prison time. Ok, that means a blind man will be right 30% of the time picking boys at random. But I am guaranteeing to be 75% correct. Where am I going to get the other 45% when I know nothing about family history of drug use or criminal involvement? That would certainly aid in my selection, but I don’t even need to know those facts to pick my four leading candidates.

Witnessing delinquent behavior would be a good predictor? If I saw one of the kids in the act of stealing while the teacher’s back was turned, that would certainly get my attention and likely my vote. But I am not assuming there are any thefts while I am watching. So how will I spot them?

Let’s pick a normal class activity. The teacher is reading a story to the class. The boys who are paying close attention and raising their hands to volunteer ideas about what will happen next in the story are clearly ruled out. They seem interested, curious, and engaged and that does not bode well for dropping out of school and becoming involved in crime. Now there’s a possible candidate. He’s got a couple of straws that he’s linked together and he’s getting the kid next to him to swat at the imagined bug in his hair. Now that’s a little delinquent for you.

Ooops, he just got busted. The teacher just gave him the briefest look and … he flunked my preliminary assessment. The boy obviously cares what his teacher thinks and the fact that he was doing something that disappointed her. And, to seal the deal, he stopped doing it after she gave him her attention.

So who are my candidates? They are the four disengaged boys. Disengaged from the story, but more importantly, from the teacher. She is reading a book about a lion cub who is lost and is going from one animal to the next asking, “Are you my mother?”. This reading to the class is not only for enjoyment, but to let them hear the story before they read the book themselves.

Some of the kids are worried about the cub not finding his mother. Others laugh at the cub for asking an obviously different looking animal if she is his mother. The teacher asks the students questions, such as, “How do you know that this animal is not his mother?” or “Where do you think he should look next?”.

The four boys show no interest in the story nor are they intrigued by her questions. Many inner city kids lack the background knowledge to appreciate hearing stories or being able to comprehend what they are trying to read. These boys have probably never been to the zoo and probably could not tell you what distinguished an elephant or a zebra. But lack of background knowledge is one of the reasons the teacher is reading this particular book and stopping to explain and explore along the way. She has the attention of most of the other kids, many of whom have not been to a zoo either.

My four targeted boys are not only disengaged, they are detached. Second and third grade kids care about their relationships with their teacher. A few may worry that their teacher doesn’t like them or that she is too strict, but they care what she thinks and most importantly, what she thinks of them. These four boys do not care. One has his head down, looking tired. Another is scratching an ever increasing slit in the floor with a paper clip. The other two are about to come to blows’, fighting over who was entitled to sit on the rug instead of the cold floor. The teacher looks don’t even catch their attention. Her warning of punishment if they continue also fails to stop the jabs and arm-twisting. These boys will not stop unless they are physically restrained, obviously undeterred by verbal warnings. None of these boys seems to care. Most likely they could tell us the rules for behavior in the classroom, but they do not care. A number of the kids needed prompts about their behavior but they were responsive to her limit setting.

The central characteristic that distinguishes these four boys from their classmates is their detachment from the teacher. They no longer care about having a relationship with this adult. They do not care about school or the people who run it because they have no reason to invest in relationships with these adults. Their experience has taught them not to trust in relationships. These boys arrived at school with a much greater deficit than lack of educational enrichment. They arrived with a deficit in their ability to attach. Unless this problem with attachment is addressed, their detachment from school will increase to the point they drop out or are thrown out or simply ignored, as two of the boys already seem to be in this classroom.

The ability to relate to others and the desire to relate to others, these are fundamental building blocks that must precede all else. Many of us take a mother’s love and reliability for granted, so the experience of these four boys is completely foreign to us. A child will not value what his teacher values, if he does not value the relationship first.

Not feeling cared for and eventually not caring about others is a recipe for someone who commits crimes without caring about his victims, who only stops when he is physically forced to stop.

Until the issue of attachment is addressed, engagement with school will be a losing battle. Disinterest in school and what teachers have to offer; and disrespect and defiance will increasingly characterize their behavior. In the process, these children will become even less likeable and “manageable”. Their interactions with teachers will only reinforce previously held perceptions of what the other (teacher or student) is like.

Having to start fresh with a new teacher every year. Having to take a three-month break in his relationships with school and the people who do care. This is the structure that only reinforces their problems with attachment and assures that relationships will be lost or undermined.

If a child comes to school with an attachment history characterized by loss, abandonment or neglect, then a focus on creating and maintaining a healthy attachment between teacher and child should be the top priority. That means matching the child with a teacher with whom he can stay connected for years, not months. Within the context of a successful attachment, investment in school and learning can take place. With children like these, assigning teachers according to subject matter or grade level specialization needs to take a back seat to a focus on creating and maintaining a healthy attachment between teacher and child.**

Attachment 101

Everything begins and ends with Attachment. A secure attachment to a parent sets the stage for forming satisfying relationships in life. It allows the child to explore and learn, knowing he has a safe base to return to when needed. This child enters school capable of loving his teacher, wanting to please her, and learning what she has to teach. At the other extreme is the child who cannot trust that an adult loves him and will dependably be there for him. No one has fanned the flame of his genuine interests. By third grade, that child will not care about what his teacher wants him to learn, because he has detached. He has no desire to please his teacher. And his behavior makes it hard for his teacher to truly care about him.

Every child longs for a connection to someone. But for some kids it is hard to trust that someone cares or will stay. Curiosity and learning take a back seat to finding and holding on to a relationship. The anxious clinging child is unwilling to venture out and explore. The detached child who has given up on connections will care little about what his teacher wants him to learn.

Ideally a child’s motivation to learn in school arises from his natural curiosity. But much of that desire also comes from his wish to please his teacher or imitate his teacher.

Grade school begins when the child is five. He spends nine months with a teacher, takes three months off, and then starts another school year with another new teacher. A securely attached child will adjust to these changes in relationships, tolerating the mismatches and cherishing the best ones. But the child who lacks that secure base will struggle to settle in and trust and then will face a series of losses that will make it hard for him to trust and commit – let alone learn.

It’s the relationship, ________! No learning is going to get done if the child does not feel cared for and secure. Attachment is a precondition for learning. A school that ignores that will have children who are either behavior problems or absent, because they will not care. They don’t trust that anyone cares about them.

When a child, even an adolescent, believes that a teacher genuinely cares about him, he will listen.

Investment in learning depends upon wanting a goal and believing it is attainable.

** Before you pay me the $10, you might want to ask, “Aren’t some students of color inappropriately labeled because their (often white) teachers do not know how to communicate well outside their culture?”. If you are really reluctant to part with your money, then you might follow on with, “A bad teacher can make well adjusted students seem detached.”

Since I will not want to leave without your money, I would respond with, “You are right. We should not make a judgment about a child based on one classroom, one teacher, or one assessment. These boys deserve to be observed in a different setting with a different teacher and assessed by different means (that are tested and valid). We should employ a multi-modal, multi-method approach to determine whether there is convergent validity for my classroom hypothesis.”

Have I left you feeling hopeless about the plight of these kids? These third grade boys may be reluctant to trust, but they are not unreachable. They still care what adults think of them – at least somewhere in their lives. Those who work with them will need to keep the development of trust and Attachment as the center pieces of all their efforts, however.

Key words: grade school education; attachment; motivation to learn; curiosity; engagement; relationship; relatedness

Save it for a rainy day.

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A fun activity for all ages is described that promotes curiosity, logical thinking, and emotional self-control.

 

Solving The Black Box Puzzle

Do you have a little scientist-to-be living under your roof? Does your little scientist have an unquenchable thirst for new toys, projects, and equipment? There will never be enough money or space, will there? And how many “why?” questions can your kid ask before you say, “enough”? Supporting a child’s curiosity should not break the bank, nor should s/he depend on you as the sole source of knowledge. A good little scientist is not only curious, but also self-directed and resilient. Curiosity and persistence is an unbeatable combination in life. However, these characteristics can use some nurturing.

Here is a simple project that costs very little and promotes developmental goals important to a young scientist.

Find an old shoebox, a roll of duct tape, some cardboard, and a knife. Use pieces of cardboard and tape to create a new interior for the box. (Anything goes: ramps, mazes, etc.) Then include some expendable object (a Sammy Sosa autographed baseball, an out-of-date iPhone, …) that will navigate this interior. Close the box and seal it with duct tape.

Present it to your young scientist with this challenge:

“Figure out what object is in the box and what the interior of the box looks like. You can do anything you want to the box, except open it. Take as long as you want.”

A true scientist will need to keep a record of hypotheses and tests performed. A young child may need a scribe, but after that, consider affixing paper to the box or finding a little (lab) notebook. If your spouse wants in on the fun, then the lab notebook can stay with the box, for anyone to annotate. How the experimenting is recorded can take any form. Just don’t open the box.

What are we accomplishing?

Keeping the mess inside a single box (a noble goal in itself)?

Promoting curiosity and inquiry.

Encouraging logical thinking in the form of hypothesis generation & testing.

Encouraging persistence (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Also promoting tolerance and resilience (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Promoting debate and discussion (because you are NOT going to open the box).

Promoting emotional self-control, as in dealing with frustration and impatience (because you are NOT going to open the box).

 Do you think you can resist opening the box? I’ll leave that decision to you. However, scientists have developed useful theories, such as Evolution, The Big Bang, and Relativity without complete access to the inside of the box. At our house, I never did open the boxes, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to find them anywhere.