The father of the 9-year-old who infamously sneaked onto a flight from Minneapolis to Las Vegas last month broke down in tears during a press conference, distressed over his child's behavior problems and his own efforts to correct them.
"I'm a parent, I'm not perfect,"
said the father, who wore a hooded sweatshirt and a ball cap to
shield his identity.
Sometime before his son's airline
escapade, the father said, the boy had stolen a delivery van and was brought
home by a police officer. The father asked the officer to come into his house to
watch him discipline his son.
"I said, 'Please, sir, can you go
up with me and watch me whip his butt?'" the
father told reporters. "The officer said, 'If I see you hit your son, we're
going to have to lock you up.'"
"What can I do?" the visibly
shaken father asked. "If I whip my son, I get locked up. If I let him keep doing
what he is doing, I get into trouble. Someone please, please help me."
In interviews with psychologists
and social workers who work with parents and children on many issues including
discipline, two things became clear: This dad is certainly not alone in feeling
at a loss about what to do, and he has many more options at his disposal than he
might realize.
Kids behaving badly need
a "good talking to"
"A lot of times, parents go
straight to the punishment and they bypass the most important step, which is
communication," said Carl
Pickhardt, a psychologist in Austin, Texas, and author of 15 parenting
books, including "Surviving Your Child's Adolescence."
"You've got to sit down and
you've got to have a good talking to with this kid to help, in this case, help
them hear about why (sneaking on a plane) wasn't safe, why it was against the
law and how other people were harmed, and then you take a look at the
consequences."
Devra Renner, a clinical social worker
for a large school district in Northern Virginia, said that even if a kid has
done something outrageous like the 18-year-old who
flipped off a judge or the 7-year-old who
went on a joy ride, parents should wait for a "cooling off period" if no
one's safety is at risk before talking with their kids about the bad
behavior.
It could be waiting five minutes
or five hours, depending on the circumstance, and if "emotions are running
high," said Renner, co-author of the book "Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most and
Raise Happier Kids."
"Try not to be in the power
struggle moment, because I've always said there's no rationalizing with
screaming heads," said the mother of two.
We tell our kids "Don't do this"
or "Don't do that" after they've done something wrong, said Renner. "But
'don't' doesn't tell them where to go. It doesn't move you
forward. It tells you stop. So tell them what you want them to do."
Communicate the consequences of
their bad behavior, psychologists say.
"The best consequence is not
deprivation, it's reparation," said Pickhardt, who writes a weekly column for "Psychology Today." "As a function of what
you did that you should not do, you are going to have to do some things around
the place to work this off."
For example, if an adolescent
steals money from a younger sibling, the reparation could be doing extra
housekeeping or yard work for the next couple of Saturday mornings, said
Pickhardt.
"While they're working it off,
they're thinking about why they're working it off," he said.
Pickhardt, whose other books
include "The Everything Parent's Guide to Positive Discipline," also believes in
having the child who behaved badly make amends. In the case of the adolescent
who stole money from a sibling, that might mean listening to how hurt the
sibling was, paying back what was stolen and spending quality time with the
sibling to make up for the damage that has been done to the relationship.
PHOTOS:
Teens trash former NFL player's home
Psychologist: "Out of
control is not a problem, that's a reality"
Like the father of the stowaway,
so many parents whose kids continue to misbehave in big ways feel out of
control.
"Out of control is not a
problem, that's a reality," said Pickhardt. "What adolescence does is it
disillusions parents," he added. Parents think they have control over their
child and then realize they do not. But they do have control over their own
conduct, he said.
Renner says sometimes
overwhelmed parents add to their burdens with an exhaustive search for the right
answer to deal with their child's behavior problems.
"One of the things we tend to do
is we either hop on the Internet and research everything we can, or we ask 5
million people what we should do, and it becomes paralysis by analysis," she
said. "Then we become inundated and we don't know where to turn. I tell parents
try one thing and be consistent with it. Be calm with it. Be caring with
it."
To spank or not to
spank?
If a parent's first course of
action to deal with their child's behavior is not working, they should try
something else, but probably not spanking, according to psychologists who say it
hasn't been shown to be good for kids.
A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that
5-year-olds who were spanked went on to have greater behavior problems in
elementary school than kids who did not get spanked.
Despite the reporting over the
years that spanking is for naught, many parents still seem to do it. More than
half of the mothers questioned in the Pediatrics study reported spanking their
kids at age 3 and at age 5.
"Spanking teaches hitting, it's
that simple," said Pickhardt. "So that if you don't get your way and you're
bigger than me, you can hit me to get your way. That's the lesson of
spanking."
"I'm not going to demonize any
parent who utilizes spanking," said Renner. "Do I feel that
that's the most effective way? No, I don't. ... I think there are other tools
that we can use."
When to bring in
experts
Sometimes correcting a child's
behavior takes outside intervention, but how do you know when to ask for
help?
First, if a child is a danger to
himself or herself, or to others, a parent must seek help immediately, said
Renner.
If there is no immediate danger
or threat, another way of determining whether it's time to seek outside support
is by looking at how much of your day-to-day life is being affected by what's
happening with your child, she added.
"Are you having to leave work
early? Go in late? Is your child missing school? ... If your child has had
discipline referrals, grades are tanking or his/her friends are no longer coming
over, those are all signs that your child's world is changing," said Renner.
"Big changes in their world can indicate a need for an objective third
party."
Pickhardt's advice for parents
is to get counseling when "significant caring or communication or cooperation or
compliance with their adolescent has been lost, and there is a need to get
everyone better connected and the relationship back on track."
Disciplining the
bully
In light of the recent
arrest of a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old in the Florida cyberbullying case
of a young girl who jumped to her death, I asked both Pickhardt and Renner how a
parent should discipline a child who is found to be bullying other kids.
"If you can get the victim to be
willing to do it, have the bully get with the bullied kid and have the bully ...
listen to what it was like to be on the receiving end of treatment," said
Pickhardt. "See if there is some kind of amends that the bully can make to alter
that relationship."
Renner says parents should hold
kids accountable, so if they are caught using the computer or the phone for
bullying behavior, she says, parents should "cut them off."
Modeling appropriate behavior is
also key, she said. "We keep saying we've got to teach kids ... but we also have
to be aware as grown-ups that kids are watching us all the time." (The mother
of the 14-year-old arrested in the cyberbullying case was arrested on charges in
a separate case after a video surfaced allegedly showing the mom punching
two boys with her fist.)
The goal for a parent of a child
who bullies or acts out in any major way -- such as sneaking onto a plane,
trashing a person's home or disrespecting a judge -- is understanding what
motivated the behavior in the first place.
"I don't think we need to
concentrate on punishing a child for bullying. We have to figure out why that
behavior is going on," said Renner. "Are they communicating they don't have a
voice? Are they communicating they want to be popular? Are they communicating
they feel powerless or overwhelmed, or are they just picking on somebody because
they can?"
"They're trying to tell you
something," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment