Why I Chose to Leave Teaching

I ran into a friend on Facebook that I haven't seen since high school. We were catching up and he wanted to know why I left teaching in 1999 to become a counselor. I've had a number of people ask me this question so it seems like it might be worth posting this brief version of why on the blog:

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Though I enjoyed most aspects of teaching, bits of it I'm glad to be away from, the couple parents you get every year that can eat up large amounts of your time with things that aren't important, and working beneath bureaucratic policies that miss the big picture and that grind through talent and man hours without good enough results.

What led to the change was my chomping at the bit to go back to school, and wanting to do something that has a better ratio of pointless paperwork and jumping through someone else's hoops to work that is more intellectually and personally engaging. I was frustrated with not being able to get to the kernel of what was preventing some students from learning nearly as much as they could. I began to realize that working with the families directly was accessing the heart of where things happen in kids' lives. I also hated being accountable for those aspects of teaching that are actually beyond your control as a teacher.

The intellectual challenges of the crafts of therapy and coaching have turned out as I expected and even better. Being in private practice now allows me a lot more flexibility to be with my family. I love the concepts involved in the work enough that much of my free time is taken up by reading and discussion of all manner of things related to how the brain functions how it interacts with the environment, as well as to what makes human beings tick individually and in the context of their relationships. It is a really nice overlap that augments my work, and that also satisfies outside of work. I'm now accountable for variables that are much more within my control and within my areas of influence, which I find much less stressful. Or put differently, the stress is related to the challenges of the work itself rather than to being accountable for variables outside my control.

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That's the gist. I still have great respect for the craft of teaching and think that we should be paying better wages and working to attract the very best out there to be with our kids. We're slipping further behind all the time compared to other industrialized countries. We need to rethink what we're doing in education and where it lies as a priority. If we don't our lack of courage and foresight to do so is going to be a huge encumbrance that drags on our economy and every bit as importantly, the quality of our democracy.

When Your Child Lies and Digs In, Part 2: Why They Do It

So why do kids sometimes lie and then proceed to dig in, even when it seems obvious to everyone else that they lied. Sometimes it is fear of punishment, often they are trying to save face, and occasionally it is because they initially lied for one of those reasons, and once they've repeated it a few times one of a couple things can happen. One is just an extension of saving face. They know that they lied and repeated the lie even when called on it, and if they 'fess up now, they have to admit that they have been lying repeatedly—not a spot any of us likes to find themselves in. Sometimes a child repeats the lie often enough that they genuinely come to believe in their own lie. I've worked with a few kids where I had a hunch this is what happened. It is what makes the suggestions on handling childhood lying to come in future posts so important. This process has a way of snowballing if you don't have experience or some insider tips on handling it.  

When an adult who is good at it wants to avoid lie detection they can do so is by repeating their lie often enough that they become much more comfortable with it. They can literally rehearse their response. If we hooked up wires to measure the skin conductance of one of these adults attempting to deceive, we'd find that when they first lied, they showed more physiological arousal. As they continue to practice their lie, the biological signs of stress begin to decrease. As an aside, adults that are sociopaths, by definition, are able to lie without their conscience getting the best of them, because for all practical purposes they don't have a conscience. 

Parenting is all about keeping, losing and regaining perspective. Here is one tip for gaining the big picture view you need when your child lies. When we catch our children lying it can feel like a punch to the gut. To recover enough to handle this difficult situation, it is helpful helpful to tap into our empathy skills to remember a time during our childhood when we'd cornered ourselves in a lie. Many of us learned not to lie and dig in in one of the central ways that humans often need to learn, by doing it and experiencing the consequences. We had an experience lying to someone we cared about in the moment, and then saw how it hurt our relationship with them when the lie was found out. Often as adults, it is easy to look at our kids through the lens of the wisdom that we've accumulated throughout the years, and forget that we once had to make poor decisions and learn from them before we gained the wisdom we now have. We wish they could learn through our past errors rather than make them on their own, but just as our own parents likely hoped for the same and winced as they watched us make that very mistake they hoped they could get us to avoid. 

In upcoming posts in this series we'll at what happens when in our anger and frustration we use language that labels our child a liar. We'll also take a look at ways that you can avoid this mistake and handle the challenge in a way that will increase the odds that our response will help our children to use the experience to grow an even stronger sense of conscience rather than becoming more hardened to the relationship injuring aspects of lying.

 

When Your Child Lies and Digs In Part 1

It is going to happen if it hasn't already. One of these days your child is going to not just lie to you, but even though you are darn close to certain that they've lied, they are going to dig in and deny it. Maybe even to the point that they'll begin to believe themselves that they didn't do or say whatever they are lying about.

This is a little bit heart breaking when this happens, but it is inevitable. And fortunately like most childhood misbehavior there is learning opportunity hidden within. 

In handling lying there are a couple of things to avoid. One is letting your child think that she got by with lying without you knowing (or caring). On the other end of the continuum is making sure, even though it is important to let them know that you're pretty certain that they did lie, that you don't end up labeling your child as a "liar". Even if you have a child that lies fairly frequently that label is certain to work against you. After all what do liars do. If that label sticks, I can predict a lot of what is likely to happen in your relationship. And it isn't pretty. In upcoming posts I will take you through a middle path that winds its way between both of those errors.

Nothing Works for All Kids, Except the Stuff that Does

It's not going to suit everyone's taste, but Despair.com does spoofs on motivational posters that are seen in offices and cube farms the world over. One of their posters I enjoy is one that quips "You're unique...just like everyone else in the world." I enjoy it just for the sarcasm, but I also appreciate a truth that it gets at.

Sometimes when parents are considering learning some strategies for making parenting easier, they are concerned that there really aren't any approaches that are effective, because "Nothing works for all kids." Well they're right. Every child is unique. And there is no strategy or technique that is going to play out precisely the same way with all kids. And some will play out very differently with different kids. This, in fact, is one of the reasons why I think counseling and parent coaching can be so helpful. "Off the rack" parenting approaches found in books though often helpful, can frequently frustrate parents as their kids respond very differently than the book predicts. And that's not to mention that you can find books that recommend just about anything you can imagine, so there's little consistency from book to book. I work with lots of parents who have often read a at least a half dozen parenting books, and are well informed yet confused because none of the advice seems to mesh together.

So, yes, kids are all unique. And no particular strategy or technique is going to be helpful with all kids. But in my experience, there are principles that have proven to be helpful from classrooms to home and with kids of widely varying temperaments. It is in the particulars of the application that the principles need to vary from child to child.

Examples of Principles You Count On:

When limit setting and consequences become the focus of the relationship, and opportunities for connection aren't there or are too few, things tend to go down hill. 

Control is a basic human need. When it is shared with children in appropriate ways, kids are much more apt to be cooperative. 

Attention to approximations of behaviors you're wanting from your child tends to bring about more of those wanted behaviors.

Attention on what is going poorly will lead to more poor behavior, and will also lead to the desired behaviors decreasing as well. 

Kids who are given both verbal and "action messages" that they are capable, responsible people tend to behave more capably and responsibly.

So you can feel good that there are some proven principles that are helpful with kids across the board. And it is true that kids do vary in the particulars. For some parents, especially those with kids who have easier temperaments, figuring out their kids and how principles  like these might apply is pretty straight forward. For those parents who have kids with more difficult temperaments, or who find it more challenging to figure out how the principles might best be applied with their kids, then coaching and/or counseling can be helpful.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Part IV: The Art of the Delayed Consequence

The concept of saving the words for the happy times is about making sure we aren't inadvertently pouring on negative attention when things aren't going well. When we lecture, yell or explain too much in the moment when things are bumpy, we inadvertently make it more likely that the problem behavior is going to increase over time.

In the first three posts in this series, we discussed what can be done in the moment when we encounte the misbehavior, how to circle back afterward, and how to do a collaborative problem solving session. In part IV we'll now look in some detail at how to use a delayed consequence, and why delaying a consequence, contrary to what many still think, is in fact more effective in most cases than an immediate consequence.

Why We Crank Up
As parents we often ramp up in the moment, when it is least effective, for a lot of good reasons. Let's look at a couple. One of them is simply impulse. As human beings we are wired to more readily notice negative stimuli. When our child is acting up that is what most readily grabs our attention. Annoyance, irritation and even feeling ashamed that our child is acting in such a way can all play into our jumping into the fray.

And when the behavior is either pretty bad, or it's been going on for a long time, we often get that gut sense that something needs to be done right at that moment. Fortunately, this is actually almost never actually the case. Additionally, we often feel compelled to act because we've been taught that the behavior needs to be "nipped in the bud" or even that consequences are only effective when given right in the moment. This was actually the prevailing wisdom of the day for a while, and it turned out, as we'll see, to be just wrong.

The Delayed Consequence
It turns out for kids five and older delayed consequences can actually be more effective than coming up with a consequence right at the time of the misbehavior. Before looking at why that is, let's look at an example of how a delayed consequence actually plays out. Jon came home after being at a friend's house after school. He grabbed some chips and planted it in front of the TV. Mom was cooking dinner and the garbage that Jon had agreed would be taken out by last night was full enough that Mom could barely get carrot peeling in there without them rolling off the heap at the top. She asks, "Jon, would you please take care of this garbage?"
"I'll do it after the show, Mom"
She sighs to herself and pauses,"Jon, you agreed you'd have it done last night"
"I know. I'll do it, Mom. I just gonna finish my show first."
Having recently learned about the idea of Saving the Words for the Happy Times, she took nice slow deep breath. She inhibited her impulse to yell and remind him of what his responsibilities are and how little he contributes to the family. Instead she said, "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."
"Okay Mom," said Jon distractedly, already absorbed back in his show.

On Saturday, two days later, Jon picked up the envelope containing his allowance, as he was accustomed to doing weekly. Jon's mom had set this allowance ritual up after she'd heard about it in the parenting class she recently attended. The suggestion had been to keep chores and allowance are kept separate—allowance to teach about having money and being broke; and chores so that he would have a sense of contribution in the household. Jon opened his envelope. There were two dollars bills inside. He was used to seeing five dollars. In with the two dollar bills was a note that stated "$5.00 - $3.00 (for non-pre-arranged garbage removal) Balance: $2.00."
"What happened to my allowance?" he yelled. "That's my money!"
"I'm happy to talk about it when you're calm Jon"
"This is stupid!" He strode off to his room and slammed the door.
Mom again resisted the impulse follow and start in on his attitude. After a while he cooled off. He later came out and was able to talk about why she did the chore rather than pleading or cajoling him to do it after the time he'd agreed he would have it done. He wasn't happy about it, but after this interaction, Jon started taking more responsibility for getting his chores done when he'd agreed to.

Another approach rather than saying "Don't worry, I'll take care of it," is to say "Would you prefer to take care of that now or hire me to do it?" The key with this whole approach to chores that Jon's mother had already taken care of was 1) to set up chores ahead of time in a collaborative manner where Jon had a say in what he selected for chores out of the available possibilities, and 2) he had a time line on when to get the chores done rather than being told spur of the moment to do them, which none of us usually appreciate. Both of these details on setting up chores raise the odds that the child will be willing to contribute around the house, and make it so the child (at least at some level) realizes that it is fair for the parent to take some action when they aren't choosing to live up to an agreement they had a hand in crafting. And in line with the theme of this series, you can guess that the recommendation on when to do that collaborative setting up of chores is...that's right, at the happy times, not in the moment when things aren't going smoothly, such as when you're upset that they haven't done a chore.

When to Use a Delayed Consequence
Fortunately not all delayed consequences need to be set up like my example with chores above. Often it is much simpler. So how do you know then when a delayed consequence might be appropriate? Well first I recommend that you never need to come up with a consequence right in the moment for any child above five. This can be one of the single biggest gifts you can give to yourself as a parent. Let's look at this from the other end. You know that you don't need or want a delayed consequence under the following circumstances:

1. You've already told the your child what the consequence would be if they did X, and they just did X.
2. Collaborative problem solving feels like it would be more appropriate or helpful.
3. This is the sort of behavior you can simply redirect, just have the child take a break for, or a timeout seems like it is adequate.
4. Your child is four years old or younger (four is approximately the age when children begin to have enough long term memory for a delayed consequence to be effective).

So when something happens that doesn't fall under those categories above, and you sense that a logical consequence (tied to the time and place of the misbehavior as well as possible so as to be meaningful) is in order, then do yourself and your child a favor, and as Charles Fay of the Love and Logic Institute puts it, "Delaaaaaaaaaaay the consequence". Simply mark the event in time by saying something along the lines of "Oh we're going to need to do something about that. I want to make sure it's fair, so I'm going to give it some thought. I'll get back to you." As we've talked about before, this will be most effective if your tone is warm and friendly, which communicates, "I'm very much in control of myself, and I can handle your misbehavior without breaking a sweat," which help kids to feel safe, and as we psychological types like to say "contained".

If it is a big event, like your child just broke your front window by hitting a baseball through it, and you've previously discussed saving the baseball playing for the park, then you might want to have your child cool her heels in her room for a bit, which might sound like this, "Wow Megan, I'm guessing that window was expensive. Why don't you take a bit of time in your room to give this some thought about how you're going to handle this." Again this would be stated with empathy (keeping in mind we all made analogous mistakes when younger) and in a warm tone. When we keep it to this sort of tone, the child can't distract herself with our anger and frustration. When she can't do that the odds go way up that she's going to be able to think about her poor decision and how she plans to handle the problem in a responsible way.

Why Delayed Consequences Rather Than Immediate Ones
Delayed consequences are more effective for several reasons. First, we are much less apt as parents to come up with an unfair or overblown consequence that we later might feel compelled to retract. When we do that we lose credibility (though I do have a trick I'll share at a later time for how to minimize the credibility loss). On the other hand, when we enforce an overblown consequence we are being arbitrary, and we lose our kids' respect. Their seeing us as arbitrary breeds resentment. When they resent us, that is sad in and of itself, but beyond this fact, it also makes them want to get us back. So it is far better to steer clear of putting ourselves in a position where these are the options we're left with.

Another reason they are powerful is that the child has time to sit with their poor decision. When we deal out a consequence in the moment even if it is fair the child adjusts to it much more quickly, and they are more apt to have the "I don't care" response to the consequence. When they have time to give it thought for a while before you let them know what the consequence is they are much more apt to see it as fair, and to be able to explore what they might do differently in the future.

When we delay a consequence, kids also have a bit of time to wonder what the logical consequence might be for their behavior. In some sense they end up living through a few different possibilities as they wait. As I see it, this gets you more effect per dosage. In other words, your consequences won't need to be harsh to be effective. On the other hand with punishment or even immediate consequences often the adult has to increasingly dial up the harshness to "get the kid's attention".

It wasn't all that long ago when teachers were taught they had to deal out consequence immediately for it to work. The crucial mistake that had been made was taking findings about how lower animals (often rats and pigeons) learn, and assuming that learning worked precisely the same way with kids. The huge variable that they left out between the stimulus and response was cognition, thinking. And that piece makes all the difference, and accounts for why they were wrong about consequences needing to be immediate. It is important to let the child know in the moment that you notice the misbehavior, and that something will need to be done. But for all the reasons above, they don't need to have a consequence spelled out until everyone is a bit calmer.

Well this has been a long post, and so I'll wrap up the series here. I'll be sharing some of the ideas I mentioned previously about having the child do a written / drawn plan or using practice as a consequence in future posts.

Hopefully, we've all gotten something about the value of talking less when things aren't going smoothly. We know that isn't natural, and that it is learned skill, but it is one that is certainly worth learning. I'm still learning along with all of you how to do this more often.

What did you most helpful or thought provoking in this series?

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Mother Looking Back on Doing Her Best to Help Her 5-Year-Old Cope with September 11th.

This is a beautifully written piece by Kathy Sena over at Parent Talk Today about her struggles and uncertainty surrounding helping her then five-year-old boy sift through some difficult facts about the world. She shares the way she responded to her son's questions about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Why do some people want to hurt others? Are there a lot more "good people" in the world than "bad people"? And of course the underlying question of Are we gonna be safe, Mom? Clients occasionally ask me how to go about talking with children about difficult world events like these, so when I come across a response like Kathy's I want to pass it along.

5 Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing at Squidoo

I have my second page up over at Squidoo on some Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing. Take a look and please sign into the guest book so I know you were there. Share your thoughts on the topic. Weigh in on the poll too.