Tag: behavior

Feel like there are no options left? I am telling you that there are. Let’s discuss it right now.

What I am talking about is violence and abuse. Yes, that’s right, Violence and abuse, whether it be toward you, your kids, your relatives or whoever. It is everywhere and increasing every day. I am faced with an ever-increasing amount of patients who are facing this issue regularly.

So, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, someone could actually end up dead or permanently damaged in some way for one. Dead. Never coming back. Dead. Someone could end up permanently emotionally damaged and use that as an excuse to continue that style of behavior and life even into their next phase of life or worse, if they were an abused child or spouse, continue on to abuse their children or next spouse because that is the scenario they are familiar with or they are using that as their excuse. The things that I hear the most is ” I just don’t know what to do. or…That’s how I was brought up…or..That’s the same stuff I went through….or….It’s all I know.

These are the most heart breaking responses I ever here. I picture in my mind the terrified children or the terrified spouse or girlfriend. When there is abuse going on, everyone suffers, not just the person actually undergoing the abuse. It has wide ranging, awful ripple effects. Too often I am trying to work with someone that has already given up and just figures that there is nothing they can do and that is just the way that it is.

I am here to tell you that that is not true. Despite what you think, there are always possible options, if you chose to take them. They require fortitude, strategy, secrecy, and sometimes heartbreaking techniques, but they can be done. I refuse to believe that there is no option. Before I go any further, I need to tell you that I personally have had more than my fair share of abuse and violence in my past. I had to keep secrets that no one should have to keep. I had to live through things that no one should have to live through. So, I get it. There is no easy way out. Finally, as an adult I try my best to live a healthy life and be a good parent to my kids and be a good wife to my husband and break the former cycle. I am telling you there is a way to make it stop and move forward, even if there is no one that you currently know who can show you.

First, before you even get started you have to give yourself a moment of calm to begin planning. You need to have a relocation plan, even if it is to a safe house or local shelter. You need to set aside a separate source of funds. You need to get your papers in order. You need to be willing to stop and accept and sacrifice yourself or worse, your children as if you somehow deserve it. NO ONE deserves abuse. NO ONE! You need to value yourself and your kids enough to get the heck out of there before something irreparable happens. If it is safe to do so, you need to stand up to that partner or spouse and say look, my poor heart may love you for the rest of my life but my children and I cannot live with you another day if this crap keeps going on. If it is not safe to do that, then just get the heck away while you can and figure the rest out later. Nothing is worth risking your life, your childrens’ lives, or your mental health to stay.

I am telling you that it can be done. You can get away. You can begin to live a healthy life again. Please do not use your experiences as an excuse to re-enact the same poor behaviors to others or your kids. Please do not inadvertently teach your children that abuse is ok and that there is nothing you can do. I am living proof that it is possible. Here is the link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Please use it if you need it. They offer support in over 200 plus languages.

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Dr. Katz

I have been really struggling with how to be a good parent lately.

Parents tired of noisy children who are running and shouting Tired mother and father sitting on couch feels annoyed exhausted while noisy little daughter and son shouting run around sofa where parents resting. Too active hyperactive kids, need repose concept parenting stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

Wow! I have been really struggling in the parent department lately. There have been so many unforeseen and unpredictable changes in the last two and a half years that have really affected my relationship with my kids and none of them are in my control.

The ongoing pandemic has ripped us all away from our usual social environments and has taken away many traditional milestones and events. As adults, we have missed out in person interactions with work colleagues, family gatherings, and the ability to be at loved one’s side during illness or hospitalization. This has been difficult but our capacity to recover is greater because, for the most part, we have plentiful stored memories to fall back on. For our kids, they are missing once in a lifetime experiences like prom, last sports games, and in person graduations. It has been argued that they should “get over it” because these events are nothing compared to high schoolers of the past who had to leave school to go off to war, etc. Last time I checked, no one is comparing prom to Nam and they shouldn’t start now. Missing these key social interactions has caused some long-lasting psychological damage for these kids. They will never get these moments back. The level of depression that I have seen is tremendous and it affects everything.

On top of the pandemic, I got cancer and my husband had a heart attack, one right after the other. My kids almost lost both parents in one year. As much as they put up an outside facade, I know this affected them tremendously. How could it not? They don’t treat us the same way. I get the feeling that, even though we survived, a part of them didn’t. A part of them walks around every day waiting for the next shoe to drop and they can’t seem to stop. There is just a little air of underlying depression and doom almost every day. It kind of breaks my heart.

There has also been a sense of life is too short no matter what is going on for them. This sounds like it should be a healthy realization, encouraging them to live life to the fullest, but instead I worry that it has become an excuse for unhealthy choices and directions. I am just at a loss as to how to handle it.

As a parent, I feel like I should be jumping on or punishing these poor choices or at least trying to redirect them. I worry that I am not doing my job if I don’t. I am concerned that it will seem like I don’t care if I don’t react. But really, it’s not true. I talked to my therapist about this. She explained to me that punishments don’t really work in this situation. Most punishments that I could think of would really only punish me and the other people relying on my kids in the long run. Taking away phones, jobs, privileges, and cars just mean that I will have to do a lot more driving, spending, and won’t be able to communicate remotely with my kids. She assured me that I am not being a bad parent by not reacting to every single thing and leaving some things up to my kids to figure out. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care. It doesn’t erase my validity as a parent. Ultimately, the consequences of their actions need to be theirs. Making myself overly upset about it does not help anything and is counterproductive. She advised me to take a step back and I think she is right. Overly obsessing and punishing and trying to address every little thing only increases my stress, increases the negative attention impact on my relationship with my kids and gets me no where. It can only end badly. I need to put a stop to the distracting inner struggle and keep growing and moving forward. I need to refocus. I need to no longer punish myself for not being there when I was sick or my husband was sick. I need to be patient. I can help them more by living my best life by example than fighting every day. I am not saying that I plan to let them run me over. There are limits. I am just saying that I need to pace myself and realize what is really important. Everything I have been through, my kids have been going through too and it’s not over yet. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Dr. Katz

Does Punishment Really Work with Teens?

girl in dunce cap - student punishment stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

What is the first strategy that comes to mind when your teenager is making you crazy and does something that really wrong and pisses you off? Punish them! Take things away! Ground them for life! Take their phone! Take their car! Am I right? You are really ticked off. You want them to “get it.” You want whatever behavior it is to stop…like yesterday. You want to yell. You want to scream. There is a part of you that wants to evoke some kind of reaction from them that gives an indication that it matters to them that you even object in the first place to whatever they did.

C’mon. Be honest. We have all been guilty of it at one time or another. Well, guess what? I hate to break it to you but the American Academy of Pediatrics says that punishments don’t actually work in the long run. They may stop the immediate behavior at the moment, but really don’t have any long term positive effect. Not to mention the fact that a lot of those punitive actions actually punish you more than they punish the offending teenager. Taking the car potentially means a lot more driving for you. Taking the phone means that you cannot reach them wither when you need them. Etc. Etc. You get what I mean. I am not by any means suggesting that there should never be consequences for poor actions. I am just saying that, as tempting as it is to punish first, it is not as helpful as we think.

Well, if we are not supposed to punish them, what are we supposed to do? What recourse do we have? Do we let our teens walk all over us? The simple answer is no. We just need to consider an alternative strategy that has greater long term benefits. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests discipline strategies instead of verbal or physical punishments to discourage unwanted behaviors.

So, what is the difference between discipline and punishment? Punishments, both physical and verbal, are quick, often knee jerk actions fueled by anger that may stop bad behavior quickly, but do not work over time. Discipline, on the other hand, teaches our teens how to recognize and control their own behavior. Teaching them in this way helps them to learn how to avoid harm later. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends four healthy discipline methods for teens. They are as follows:1) Be a role model for good behavior, 2) Ignore bad behavior or redirect your child away from bad behavior, 3) Set limits and expectations, and 4) Praise good behavior.

I have to say that, while I understand the American Academy of Pediatrics’ concept and the logic behind it, I find it difficult to adhere to 100% of the time. I find that nowadays the underlying intent of the Academy has been somewhat twisted and translated into overly permissive parenting with absolutely no behavioral consequences for children. I think that truly effective parenting must involve some kind of middle ground combination of discipline and punishment, maybe a 80%/20% ratio. At least that is what I am trying at the present.

Dr. Katz

Happy, Independent, and Legal

Remember how you were when your first born arrived on this planet. You peered into their amazing newborn blue eyes and you adored and stared at them, musing over your endless dreams and expectations. You just knew that they were going to be an astronaut, a doctor, a professional musician, and a pro-athlete. They were going to go to the most prestigious Ivy-League universities in the world. They were going to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. They were going to be President some day. They were going to be perfect. The sky was the limit and nothing less would do! They were going to be the best at everything and entitle you to infinite bragging rights. A little often unacknowledged voice inside of you also pointed out that there were opportunities to live vicariously through them and that they would be able to accomplish all the things that you couldn’t. Anything seemed possible. Ah how times change!

Ok now let’s fast forward into the toddler years(3-4) when you get the brilliant idea to enroll them in some kind of activity for self-enrichment. Then you realize that what you really signed up for is struggling to get them into a uniform or costume, trying to observe what they are doing without disrupting the whole activity or class as they press their nose against the window to look at you instead or run off the field because they wanted a snack…..or just sit down on the field and pick their nose. That is a personal favorite. Of course NONE of my kids did ANY of those things…lol. Ok they did, my now amazing tapper actually got kicked out of her first dance class at 3 for being “disruptive.” I remember at first being upset at the time that she was going to miss out on something great. I thought her dance career was over for sure. Then I also wondered how the hell the instructors expected 3 year olds to pay attention for 45 minutes when the average attention span of a 3 year old is more like 10 minutes? And by the way, her “disruptive” behavior consisted of occasionally running to the window to look at my husband. It’s not like she was inciting a revolution or anything. I felt a little gypped to tell you the truth. I was ready for her to be a star and they just “didn’t get it.”

But, life churned ahead to the elementary school years. Now sports started to get a little more interesting for my one daughter and soccer games became something to cheer about. Dance found its way back into my other daughter’s life and there were actual performances to attend! Whoo! I had them at exclusive private schools and they were getting the best education. Now we were really getting somewhere! Those Harvard and high profile job dreams could once again lift off and take flight. At that age, both girls were still somewhat receptive to guidance. This is when I first began to struggle against my inner “stage mom” nature. I was determined not to over push and make sure that whatever they were involved in was something for them and not for me. I was by no means perfect in that regard, but I think i did a reasonably good job. I tried to be involved but not control everything that they did. While my friends were forcing their kids to continue playing an instrument or never letting them see their friends in lieu of studying, I was trying to let my kids be kids. Did they sometimes bring home less than desirable grades? Yes. Were there consequences? Yes. I also still objected when activities ended or they lost interest in something. We had minimum participation requirements( finish out the season at least, etc), but I did not force them to continue any particular activity just for me. I allowed them to own the consequences and regrets of their actions, within reason. I mean, I wasn’t allowing them to commit crimes, run the streets at all hours and swear at adults or anything, but i did allow them their own mistakes.

Then, we took a turn in the middle and high school years. By the time both my girls were in their teen years, they had transferred to large, public schools with a whole different universe of social groups and influences. There were a lot of potentially unsavory elements in their daily lives, but i felt that it was necessary to break them out of their small private school bubble in order to give them a social education as well. I felt that they needed to be able to handle themselves in a more realistic environment. There were sporting events and dance competitions and increasingly intense pressures on all sides. There were exciting things to cheer for and just as many things to be disappointed about. It’s a weird double edged sword scenario the older your kids get isn’t it? They have more opportunities for competition in a variety of areas, but then you also have more opportunities to potentially behave badly and get out of focus when they don’t perform like you hoped. They didn’t always get the grades that I was hoping for or win the scholarships that I thought that they should. But sometimes they did. I finally had to ask myself the big question: How much did that really matter? They were trying to adjust to their new environment while adjusting to fluctuating hormones and evaluating just what they expected of themselves, much less what i expected.

This was a difficult time. Their moods changed and they became intermittently sullen and argumentative. Their confidence wavered, social anxiety soared and I had to adjust my expectations about performance to what was actually going on around me. Both of my girls went on very different journeys toward their own happiness and health. Their paths were not what I thought they would be. They both went through significant traumatic experiences that affected how they dealt with the world around them. I had to decide if it was worth it to battle it out about grades and scholarships and contests and risk the communication going to zero, or embrace them for who they are and support them as they went forward into their own future. I decided that, as fun as it was banging my head against the wall and being frustrated over what I thought my kids should be doing, I needed to put it all back into perspective. I did have plenty of stuff to brag about, even if it wasn’t the stuff I thought it would be. But, was that the whole point? Wasn’t their life supposed to be about them?

I kept using the argument that grades and scholarships were the key to a bright future, and that is true, but it all depends on which future you have in mind. Also, who is to say that the future they are choosing for themselves is better or worse than the one i would chose? I had to realize that, believe it or not, the world wasn’t going to end if my daughter did not head off to an Ivy League school on a full scholarship if she wasn’t ready or that wasn’t her path? In fact, I am fortunate enough that she has decided to work full time at our office, pays her own bills, and manages all of our large animals at the barn. She is productive, happy and using parts of her brain that I think she forgot existed when she was in high school. That is downright fantastic! I have seen her take tremendous strides just in these last 6 months, figuring out who she is and what she wants to do. This is a much better option than me trying to decide for her and forcing her to go to college. That would have been a disaster. I mean, I am all for flushing money down the proverbial toilet but why? I guess what I am really saying is that I have had to take a step back and alter my expectations over the years with regard to my kids. I have let go of all the crazy expectations that potentially set both myself and my kids up for a failed social relationship. Don’t let me fool you, my stage mom side has not been completely exorcised from my body or anything. I am still me. I just finally realize that the ultimate future goal for my kid is for them to be happy. They also need to be independent, because they can’t live in my house forever! Oh yes, and I would prefer that they do not do anything illegal. Beyond that, it’s all gravy. Have a fantastic day folks!

Dr. Katz