All posts by Daniel A Schmekel

Sharing Wisdom With Kids

Boundaries, Counseling, Fear, Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Positive Thinking, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

How emotionally invested should you be when they don’t follow your advice?

 

I spent a weekend in jail.  I was 18 years old and I was picked up for underage drinking.  Monday morning my mom picked me up outside the courthouse along with a friend who was unfortunate enough to have joined me for the weekend “rest”.  I won’t ever forget my experience of that weekend and the endless hours of playing spades with other jailbirds.  However, one memory stands above them all.  It was mom’s answer to a friend’s question.

The weekend in jail was spent feeling pretty miserable in my heart because I was exposed as being this partyer and that wasn’t the image I wanted to portray or adults to see.  When I got in mom’s car I was heavy with shame and guilt for what happened.  I felt stupid.  So what I expected was a long lecture from my mom about the error of my ways.  That is not at all what I got.  It was quiet in the car for a spell and then she started to laugh.  Not the reaction I expected.  I swear to you this has never happened before.  I think my friend was taken back to because he asked why she was laughing.  Specifically he asked “aren’t you worried about what people will think about you after what your kids did?”  Mom’s immediate response was “I’m not worried about how well I parented until my kids are 30”.  That one sentence was momentous for me.  It created a paradigm shift in my thinking about my parents and parenting.

Twice a month I work with parents of adopted children.  Parents who adopt children from dysfunctional homes often struggle with kids who do not take discipline well.  The oldest is a budding teenager whose developing brain is getting him in trouble with the opposite sex and adults.  Both of the boys display some variance of oppositional behavior.  An ongoing discussion between mom, dad and me is the parents’ reaction to the bad choices the kids make.   Between the two parents, mom is more reactive emotionally when her sons, currently the eldest, do something “stupid”.

The dad asks; “At what point do we recognize this behavior as normal and accept it?  I don’t remember exactly how I was at his age.  Who is to say I wasn’t the same way?  Of course, he’s doing things that are getting him negative attention by his peers at school, but isn’t that part of this teenage awkwardness?”

This point was brought up because mom gets upset when the boys continue to do dumb things even when she’s told them they were dumb. He brought this up because the mom spends a lot of time and energy giving the boys advice.  The sons still make those dumb decisions creating the very problems she warned them about.   She feels upset and exasperated, thinking they are rejecting her good advice to the point of saying they don’t care.  She believes she’s responsible for making them make good choices.  She must try harder, yell louder, become more visibly angry, and take things away; whatever it takes to get their attention to make a change.

Parents are always giving their kids advice and it takes a lot of effort; especially, when the child doesn’t appear to want it.  I know that a lot of parents want to help their kids avoid a bad situation or to educate them.  I remember when I first got into therapy I wanted to be able to tell kids what I knew.  I thought I was going to change the world with my wisdom.  What a surprise when they did not listen but just went ahead and did what they wanted and then bad things happened.  I was frustrated.  Imagine if it was my kid that I was trying to help and they ignored my advice and even openly rejected what I said?  I would be angry and upset.  The stakes are higher now because surely it’s a reflection of my skills as a parent.  I may even fear what will happen.  Will my child end up in prison?   Will they die?  Will they be scarred forever?  My hair is turning grey thinking about it!

What did my mom do to help her cope with her children?  Faith was an answer but, more so, it was knowledge in human behavior and knowing what is in the immature mind.  She had faith that all that she said and all that she taught and all of the rules and disciplines were going somewhere even if it may not have been evident at the time.  Sometimes there is just too much immature human nature in the way before the spirit inside can use the wisdom.  She continued to teach and she didn’t give up. It was a seed that was being planted and waiting to take root.  There are just some problems that require the right conditions before that seed can grow.   We aren’t God and we don’t truly know the condition of the human heart, soul and spirit to be able to predict when or how a person will choose to change their behavior.  What we can do is plant seeds every day.  We can create conditions where the seeds are being planted in soft ground and not hard ground.  Hard ground is developed when there is no water, or nutrients (nurturing).  Nurturing is relationship.  Relationship allows seeds to be planted for the day when the right conditions are available.  And when that day happens the child, regardless of age, has the seeds to draw from.  There are prisons full of people who were never given seeds and very well may want to change but have nothing to draw from.  I encourage parents to put aside frustration and continue to develop relationship even in the face of “stupid” behavior so you will have fertile ground to plant your seeds of wisdom.  Do not let fear or anger of rejection spoil your relationship and make your child’s ground hard.

Our Time is Sacred

Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Positive Thinking, Self-Control, , , , , , ,

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This is a temptation to tell your child, “I won’t do that unless you start to behave”.  We want to make a big impression on the child hoping to change the behavior or to get them to recognize how bad they are behaving.

I’ve heard parents say they feel like they are letting the child win, especially if the behavior is disrespectful.   It can be very difficult to engage in something that may be positive time with a child when the behavior doesn’t warrant it.

 

When a parent tries to threaten by taking away a positive activity it alters the relationship between parent and child.  The parent is removing an important building block of connection between the parent and the son or daughter.

 

Behavior change can be tied into respect.  Respect can be tied to into trust.  Trust can be tied into relationship.

Identify what your relationship moments are with your child that can be considered sacred time.  No matter what the behavior is these moments should not be affected.  It is good to have a list of those activities next to the list of appropriate consequences so when you’re angry you are reminded that this list is sacred.

Illustration on Negativity

Depression, Negativity, Positive Thinking, Self-Control, , ,

Imagine a boy with a backpack and as he is walking along he picks up a rock.  On the rock is written “you’re stupid”.  He puts the rock in his backpack.  He then picks up another rock that has “no one likes you” written on it and puts it in his backpack.  He keeps finding rocks that say negative things.   The rocks reflect the negative thoughts he thinks and so he begins collecting them, thinking to own them.  The backpack is getting quite full.  He becomes very tired and miserable carrying the backpack.  His shoulders are slumped and his head is down.  He sees more and more rocks and is compelled to pick them up and put them into his backpack.  Eventually, the weight is too great for him and he painfully lies down on the ground and tells himself he can’t go on.

As he lies on the rough ground feeling despair he is startled when a hand, holding a piece of fruit, appears in front of his eyes.  Bewildered, the boy accepts the offered fruit, eats it and then a strange thought occurs to him.  He believes that he may be able to stand up.  He gets onto his wobbly legs and the minute he stands he hears a thud!  The boy turns around and sees that one of the rocks dropped out of the bottom of his backpack.  The backpack feels a little lighter.  This makes the boy hopeful.  Another thud and he notices another rock has fallen.  He’s beginning to think that he can continue his walk as the backpack becomes even lighter yet.  Each positive thought he thinks has caused one of the negative rock thoughts to fall out.  Now the boy continues to walk and is thinking about the positive things he is experiencing.  He’s even beginning to feel a little bit happy!  Thud, thud, thud.

Every now and then he gets drawn to pick up another negative rock thought.  Oops.  However, the rocks are dropping out of the pack more quickly than the rocks he’s putting back in the pack.  As the pack lightens, he begins to stand straighter, with his head up instead of bowed down, and he sees that there are trees above him.  The branches are filled with fruit.  He hadn’t seen this before.  He reaches up to pick a fruit and eats it.  It tastes good…like the fruit that was offered him when he thought he was never going to be able to walk again.  The more fruit he eats, the more positive thoughts he has like, “I’m so thankful to be able to have fruit” and “life is really good” and as he thinks these things the sounds of thudding increase until he discovers that all of the rocks have fallen out and the pack is empty.

Now he is so captivated by the fruit and he is picking so much of it that he locates a bin to put it in.  He can’t carry all the good fruit he’s picked so he looks for someone to share it with.  He sees a boy with a heavy backpack sitting on the side of the road looking completely exhausted.

Do You Bend Or Do You Break?

Boundaries, Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Self-Control, , , , ,

IMG_3549Boundaries, a limit set by the parent, are extremely important.  Clear and firm boundaries make for security and trust.

“What do I do if they keep breaking the boundaries?”

Being in a situation when your preset boundaries are being tested or even broken is very stressful.  I had a lot of practice with this in my 8 years of working in child residential facilities.  I had to be on my toes all the time and emotionally guarded.  The biggest challenge was to move the child from point A to point B without having to physically touch them.  I had training, but I had to develop my own tricks.

Now, in my practice as a therapist, I may have very few cases of children becoming extremely difficult to manage.  The challenge I face is I’m very limited in my choices to get them to follow my directions.  The stress is compounded by the “what if’s”.  I’m challenged with still maintaining a boundary while not having a lot of authority but even with this constraint, the techniques I’ve learned have worked every time .  Yes there were two times the meltdown lasted longer than the given hour of the session, but thankfully it was at the end of the day.  It’s very important to have a successful ending of a session to ensure repeated successes in the future.

So what helped me reach a manageable conclusion?

1.  I mentally put aside all of the things that could interfere and add to my stress:  time, other people, doubt, property damage.

2. I used the same tone; calm, quiet, with almost with no inflection.  (e.g. voice flat and no change in the auditory level.

3.  My body language is neutral as well as the expression on my face.  I don’t show anger or happiness.

4. I state the direction (instruction) and I don’t engage in any other conversation.  If the child continues to ignore me, I will repeat the direction.

5. All I ever use are time-outs no longer than 5 min and at least 2 min.  I expect them to sit in a certain spot and to be quiet during the time-out or I will start the time over.

6. At the end when they calmed down I always focus on how they were able to make a good choice.  I want them to remember they can control themselves even when it seems impossible.

Word of Wisdom

Your emotions are linked to your thoughts, so start your day with successful thinking.

From a Child’s Mouth

T- “I love your honesty”

C- “I hate it… being honest and nice is disgusting”

Warning, I explode!

Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Self-Control, , ,

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Stop doing that!  Sit still!  Put that down!

It’s pretty frustrating when children won’t listen the first time. If they would listen the second time we would all be happy with that!  I’ve seen parents sitting at airports, in restaurants, at public places all over America repeat themselves over and over and over.  It seems as if the child doesn’t even hear them, or that the parent’s words have become like background noise to them.  Meaningless tones not much different than the parents on a Charlie Brown T.V. Special.

Eventually, in some cases, the parent has had enough and yells at the child or physically directs the child or makes threats like “No more blah, blah, blah for the rest of the week (month or year)!!”.  Now the kid is upset.  They cry or have an angry episode.  From this point on it’s anybody’s ballgame.  I could go on with all of the possible scenarios and some of you will be very familiar with them.  Obviously, this is not teaching anything to your child.  Side note…pretty much anything you do around your child can be teaching them something new, maybe good or maybe not so good.  Save yourself and your youngster further grief and set you and your child up for success.

Understand in advance that things can get a little hairy before they get better.  If you’re consistent  these situations will improve.  Develop your plan ahead of time.  You of all people know your child and know how s/he will behave a certain way during a certain situation.  If they step outside of the boundaries you’ve set be prepared to stand by the line you’ve drawn.  If you’re not prepared then don’t make threats.  It loses its power the minute you don’t follow through.  Yes, I know it can get ugly and all of the possibilities can get worse.  But if you are calm and committed you will succeed.

The parent’s mind needs to be full of positive problem solving skills instead of self-defeating thoughts.  Preparation increases Success. Pick up a book or two with some direct parenting skills.  Their job is to teach you a way to parent.  I see my job as to help you have the mindset to be open to changing old parenting patterns to new ones that will help create a more pleasant relationship between you and your child.

Word of Wisdom

“In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.”   – Tony Robbins

From a Child’s Mouth

“My mom thinks she’s God, but won’t say it because she’s religious”

Round and Round

Boundaries, Counseling, Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Self-Control, Therapy, Uncategorized, , , ,

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Who has gone round and round with their child trying to explain, “why”.  Did they ever stop and say, “Ah, I get it.  Thanks, I will do what you say?”  Good for you if that has happened.  You don’t need to read any further.  For those that are not fortunate please let me help.

Stand in one spot and just spin.  Don’t hold me liable if you hurt yourself…actually don’t try it.  Just imagine what you may feel like if you did.  You get dizzy and if you’re like me you get a little sick in your stomach (I blame Six Flags for the weak stomach).  I will loosely compare that physical reaction to spinning to what it is like going in circles with a child who doesn’t want to listen and will do anything to keep you from that goal.

“Why”

“Other kids don’t have to”

“You’re the only parent who does that”

“You don’t love me”

“(insert one yourself)”

Most people feel they need to answer.  It doesn’t work.  I wonder if this is where the classic comment of, “Because I said so” came from.  Rarely does the child want to know the answer or care what you have to say.  The main purpose is to distract and avoid until you’re flustered and even discouraged.  Does it cause you to doubt if you’re a good parent or maybe even frustrate you to the point of feeling angry and losing your temper?

How do you get them to follow your instruction and to stop wasting your time with questions when they don’t like the answers?  What are the parenting books saying?  There are some good ideas out there.

Until you’re able to do your own research, I want to give you a simple thought.  What would happen if you just stayed calm, ignored the question and repeated the direction?

Don’t get into the dialogue just stay with the direction

What if your focus stayed on the direction you are giving your child and you choose to not answer their question until later?  Maybe it’s not so bad to wait till the evening or next day before you discuss with them the reasons behind your instruction.

I’m curious how many kids would still be interested in having the answer?

 

Words of Wisdom

“Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses.”
― Brian Tracy

 From a Child’s Mouth

“I don’t have to lose well, because I always win”

Labels

ADHD, Counseling, Fear, Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Therapy, , , , , ,

 

IMG_3103I spoke with a man outside of my office while at a local place of business.  He asked what I did for work.  After telling him, he was very interested on my take about a personal situation.  This is not uncommon for people in my field.

This man shared with me the issues he’s been facing with his young son who has a lot of energy.  He said a lot of people have labeled his son ADHD.  So naturally, he was very interested in my take on ADHD.  He commented, “It’s kind of a fad isn’t it”.  I don’t really have a lot to say to that statement.  Is it a fad?  I do remember a time when it seemed like it was the go to diagnosis for kids who had a difficult time with focus, but I was just getting into the field at that time.

Heck, I had to ward off people who would haphazardly diagnose me with ADHD… (Admittedly, it’s taken a long time to write this post).

He told me that his kid’s teachers have told him he’s got ADHD and friends have done internet ADHD checklists on his behalf.  In all honesty, with what he was sharing it seemed his son was a strong candidate for a psychiatric visit.  “What?”  “Meds??” “People are always going to medication as the answer?”  HA! There’s a can of worms I don’t want to open.  Listen, I could tell he was not open to hearing that and I bet he had heard it enough times before.  So this brings us to the point of my post today.

Taking the Lame out of the Name

I got a sense from this man that he was suspicious of the label, ADHD.  It appeared to me his suspicions was keeping him from seeking professional help.  How many of you are/or have been guarded yourselves with a diagnosis label?  Labels in itself have good and bad effects on people.  Any diagnosis given to a child has a risk of being “type cast”.   Ask kids in Special Ed classes.  However, what if you did find out there was a problem and it had a name?  Would it matter all the same if this label had a solution that decreased the severity of the problem?

This is what is important, getting the best possible assistance for your family.

PS- If it will help, stop calling diagnosis’ a problem and call it a challenge.

 

Weekly Wisdom

Pride is deaf to wisdom

From a Child’s mouth

“I haven’t lied because there hasn’t been anything to lie about”

Bless the Child

Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, Self-Control, , , , , ,

 

IMG_0139-1580x11851.jpgI had a discussion with a parent about comments a parent makes about their child.  The comments could be out of frustration, a statement of opinion, or thought to be an innocent tease.  I put it into two easy categories: Positive and Negative.

I recommend you to record yourself talking about your kid/s to people over a period of time.  What do you hear?  I admit there is no way we could always be on our best behavior when we feel frustrated by some of the baffling choices kids make (even the adult children).  How many parents’ necks are sore from shaking their head at these hair-brained children?

I know I challenged my parents, and even as an adult I’ve behaved childishly.  They should be wondering how was I able to make any type of success.  Guess what, they’re not and if they have I certainly hadn’t heard it from them.  That’s very important! The words my parents spoke to me were affirming no matter what I was doing.  Yes, I was disciplined.  My rear tasted the leather and wood of corporal punishment, but never did I hear a disparaging word from them.  The sting of a belt or paddle subsides pretty fast but a critical word can echo for years in a child’s brain.

I’m going to give you two more words: Blessings and Curses.

Do you want to curse your child?  Wish the worst on them?  I seriously doubt you do, but negative talk to your child has repercussions that are very close to cursing them.  In ancient times and in some cases present time its tradition for the father to pass on his blessings to his child.  What is the significance of this?  You do the research. However, I will pass this on to you.  There is energy in a blessing that can propel a young person into great prosperity.  As I understand it, there is a research done regularly at the Harvard University on success.  I will paraphrase the study; those who were successful were asked a series of questions.  One of the common denominators was the graduates who were successful wrote their goals down.  Now what does this have to do with parenting?

Pretty simple, positive outlook creates a positive checkbook.

PS:  It also matters what you say even when your child is not around because of the mindset you maintain regularly is what you present when they are around.

 

Words of Wisdom

Positive Outlook creates a Positive Checkbook

Out of Child’s Mouth

Me: “Do you play with American Girl dolls?”

C: “No, my mom says they’re too expensive… and they’re creepy!”

Me: “Creepy?”

C: “They stare at you all night”

Fearful Parenting

Counseling, Mindful Parenting, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Parenting Skills, , , , ,

 

 

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Anxious mom, “something is gonna happen that he will not come back from. “  I’ve listened to variations of this statement often in my office.  These parents are worried about the future of their child, and it’s not a career or who they will marry.  No, I’m hearing the fear that they will be in jail or do something terrible.  It’s not difficult to imagine in this day and age what that “something terrible” could mean. This fear has an effect on the actions of the parent.  They make choices motivated by this fear.  They want to see the behavior stopped, NOW.  Can you imagine what mom and dad feels after everything they’ve tried and problem still persists?  Not only it still persists, but now the child seems to be getting worse.

I had this new client, a young girl.  Her dad said to me, “she has explosive anger”.  Looking at this child you would never be able to tell.  During the intake interview she was cordial, well spoken, and showed intelligence.  I did see that she didn’t mince words when she described how people had treated her.  She was very opinionated about what a teacher or a former counselor said to her, “they were mean to me”.   I could tell in very little time that she had a critical eye to how people may think about her.  It was a strong possibility that she believed people were a threat to her self-confidence.  This is fear.

The mom in the first paragraph and the young girl has a common problem with fear.  It is the motivating factor behind their actions.  You see fear has a singular action, “WARNING, DANGER!”  From that point on we have two choices, fight or flight.  This is not the place you want to be making decisions from.  I get a few adults and children, who have the flight response to fear.  These are not ones I want to talk about this week.

Fight

Does anybody know what happens in our brains when we experience fear?  If you said, “fight or flight”, you cheated cause I already told you that.  Yes, that is what happens but what happens before that? I don’t like to get technical, because I don’t know how to, so I will lay it straight.  We get dumber.  Yep, our brains dumb down when he feel fear.  It’s instinct.  Why is it there?  Well, you can Google it if you want to learn more about that.  The fact of the matter is that it is there and we need to recognize the importance of it.  You see instinct is faster than thought.  Seriously, can you name a few instances where thinking, “Is this a bad situation?” would make it a bad day for you?  So let’s be thankful for this instinct.  Yet, not so great if it’s got no experience.  Left to its own devices it could make matters worse instead of better.  Can I give you an example?

When I was in my last year of college I was visiting the on-campus house my girlfriend at that time was living in.  A few of us were in the kitchen making dinner.  She was standing by the microwave melting some butter, still wrapped in aluminum.  At that time, microwaves were very sensitive to metal.  I was on the other side of the kitchen when the microwave started to complain about the tin wrapper and started to pop and blue flashes came from where the butter used to be.  There was some real similarities to a well know 80’s horror flick, so her initial reaction was very understandable.  She, standing literally next to the microwave ran away.  I, on the other side of the room passed her on the way to the microwave to shut it down.  Here is the point.  That was not the first time I had seen a microwave do the electric blue and knew what to do.  That was not the case for her.  Her instinct was not experienced with the situation and did what it thought best.

Train

How do we train it?  Take a note from the military.  Do you know what many of the soldiers say when they report back about why they took a course of action;  Soldiers, whose job is to put themselves into harms way;  Soldiers, who all feel fear and would be worried if you did not?    They will say they followed their training.  That is why countries spend large amounts of money and time training their soldiers.  When the fear hits and the instinct kicks in it knows what to do because it recognizes the situation and acts on it.

Parents, you have to realize the situation.  You and your child are in a need of training.  This takes time and energy because consistency and repetition will lead you to success.  It doesn’t matter how smart you are and how experienced you may be with other parents’ children.  You will still need a coach.  A person who can keep your head straight when it’s spinning.  Who will keep pointing you to the desired goal.  All of this is because you’re the teacher of your child.  The coach who keeps them moving even when they don’t think they can do it.  Yes, I’m a therapist and I work with kids.  I help them share their feelings and I talk about their angers and how unfair their parents are.  Heck, that’s why you send your kids to me, “to fix them”.  Guess what, I have them for 1 hr a week,   possibly 2 hrs if you can convince me.  I’m not very good with math but it’s fair to say, you see your child more than I do.  So your influence is greater than mine.

There are plenty of great books out there with usable techniques.  Do your research find out what you think fits your situation.  However, as much as I like to read military non-fiction novels it doesn’t make me a soldier.  So you still need to get a professional who can teach you the application of those skills and to help you stay focused when you don’t think it is working.

Weekly Wisdom

Intelligence: Knowing a tomato is a fruit.  Wisdom: Knowing not to put it in a fruit salad

From a Child’s mouth

“Teenagers know how to raise teenagers”

My First Blog

Counseling, Mindfull Parenting, Parenting, Therapy, , , ,

Daniel Bolg 1

Like all of my sessions I will begin with personalities.  It is fundamentally important to know who you are involved with.  The function of the personality isn’t to label a person or disable a person.  It is used to help recognize the viewpoint they hold.  A person’s personality can be described like a well of which a person draws water.  Its water, but it may have a different taste.   At this point I will have to disclose that I tend to use a lot of word pictures to describe what I’m saying and not all of them will be an accurate use of the analogy.  As I was saying, I typically use the first 2 to 3 sessions teaching on personality.  There have been some cases when doing this made the difference that corrected the problem.  However, that is not always the case.  I recommend doing your own research on personalities.  The most accepted one is Myers Briggs Type Indicator.  There is the oldest one called “The Four Temperaments”: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic. 

The one I use, which was developed by Dr. Gary Smalley and Dr. John Trent using animal characteristics: Lion, Otter, Beaver, Golden Retriever.  I have created a template that takes all four into account.

Weekly Wisdom

Accept your past, Accept your present, Dream your Future.

Analogy

Progress can be like a pinball, you have to be pulled back before you can be launched.

From a child’s mouth

Me: “I love your honesty”

K: “I hate it…being honest and nice is disgusting”

This blog will be a weekly installment of my work in my sessions without breaking confidentiality, exploiting my clients, or knowingly using another person’s intellectual property.