Psychological News You Can Use - September 2008

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No one ever is prepared to say goodbye to summer. In summer we usually enjoy our happiest occasions. We party with friends, we spend time outside, and we enjoy the warm weather and time on vacation. No wonder we typically do not look forward to autumn or winter, beautiful as those seasons can be. Is there any way to extend our summertime joy and make endless summer a reality?

Without question, many of the joys of summer can continue by reflecting on how you have spent your time and trying your best to maintain these behaviors. Consider the following areas of your life:

1) Spending time outdoors: As most of us spend more time outdoors during the long days of summer, it is doubly important to make an effort to spend more time outside in autumn and winter. Exposure to the sun increases our levels of Vitamin D, a vital nutrient for health. So get out of the house as much as possible.
2) Socializing with friends: Summer is for backyard barbecues and picnics in the park with friends and family. In autumn and winter, resist the tendency to hibernate inside. Schedule dates to socialize with friends or they likely will not spontaneously occur. Socializing is a great antidote for loneliness and depression.
3) Vacationing: Sure the economy is down and most of us don’t have a lot of money to travel to exotic places, but it is important to have one or more vacations to anticipate during autumn and winter. If your budget is limited, plan daytrips near your home and consider many of the wonderful free museums, parks, and tourist destinations.
4) Exercising: We move our bodies more in summer. There are many opportunities to exercise: walking, maintaining the home, playing sports and pursuing hobbies. Find ways to maintain your activity level in winter. Walk the mall. Continue hiking. Learn dancing. Try skating, skiing, and other winter sports. Whatever you do, keep moving!
5) Eating lightly: During summer we automatically reduce our caloric intake, eat more fruits, and drink more liquids. Remain conscious of your food intake during the coming months and try to maintain your summer diet during the coming months. You will continue to feel more energetic and lighter!
6) Doing something you have never done before: The Dalai Lama has suggested that one way to maintain happiness is to travel at least once per year to a new destination. Perhaps autumn or winter can be your time to attempt a trip to a new place. If you cannot travel, try something you have never before attempted: pottery, music lessons, photography, writing, or some other creative enterprise.
7) Keeping up feelings of optimism and gratitude: In summer there are so many events and activities to anticipate that optimism is natural. Simply observing nature – the sky, the ocean, the flowers and the trees – engenders optimism. Psychologists have repeatedly found that optimism and gratitude limit feelings of emptiness and isolation. In addition, optimism has been associated with reduced coronary problems and greater ability to recover when faced with a serious illness or death of a loved one. Find ways to feel optimistic and grateful in the coming months. Take time to feel grateful for small aspects of each day and strive to feel enthusiastic about each new day of your life.

Consider summer a state of mind as much as a season. By carefully maintaining your “summer-y” style of living throughout the year you never have to say goodbye to summer!

Vincent Morello Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice in Wayne and Langhorne. He specializes in ADHD for adults and children.

Parenting is no easy job. If you have small children at home you already know this. While there is no manual for how to parent, research has found that some parenting practices produce more well adjusted children than others. For example, some parents are too “permissive,” allowing the children to run the home and not requiring them to pitch in and do chores. On the other hand, some parents are more “authoritarian:” children are expected to do what they are told “because I said so” and have no rights or say in what goes on.

Both of these extremes of parenting are at risk for producing children who are maladjusted. The children raised by permissive parents learn no sense of responsibility and are prone to be poor team players. Those raised by authoritarian parents, who treat their children harshly, are prone to be rebellious and alcohol and drug abusers.

Another type of parenting, called “authoritative,” includes parents who value their children, give them chores to do consistent with their age, and empower them by allowing them to participate in family decisions such as where to eat when going out (when young) and where to go on family vacations (when older). This type of parenting tends to produce the best adjusted children.

Discipline is perhaps the most challenging of all parenting tasks. This is true because what worked well with one child does not with another. Here are things to keep in mind related to discipline:

• The goal of discipline is to teach a child how to behave appropriately in society and to raise happy, well adjusted children.
• If discipline works well, children will later be able to regulate their behavior even when a parent is not there.
• To help a child internalize parent rules: 1) provide clear rules and expectations (for example, “Never hit”); 2) provide a reason for the rule and an explanation of the effects of the behavior (“Hitting hurts people”); and 3) provide the child with a reasonable alternative to the unwanted behavior (“Use words to tell Bobby you don’t want him to touch your truck”).
• Techniques based on the power you have over your child, such as yelling, threatening, and physical punishment, may be effective in the short run, as the unwanted behavior usually stops. However, spanking children or telling them “Don’t do this because I said so” doesn’t actually teach the child anything and therefore does not lead to long-term cooperation or taking the rule in as their own.
• Effective discipline takes both thoughtfulness and patience. These are both often in limited supply when we are tired, stressed or need immediate compliance as found in a public place.
• Be sure to reward children when their behavior is good, since reinforced behaviors are more likely to be repeated. On the other hand, we need to punish to let our children understand that there are consequences for negative behavior. “Time outs” are best used with younger children while removing privileges works best with older children. Be sure never to use objects as rewards for appropriate behavior because once you reward children with, for example, a new videogame, they will expect the same reward when they display similar behavior.
• It is also important for parents to role model those behaviors they want their children to display. If you tell your child to “never curse” but curse yourself whenever you are frustrated, your actions will trump your words.
• We also must always let our children know that we love and care for them, even when they disappoint us. It is much better to state “I am disappointed in what you did but love you anyway” than to say “What you did makes you a bad boy/girl”.
• As your child ages they should be trusted with more independence. However, this also requires that they behave more responsibly. It is not unlikely that as a child matures they begin to question the rules you have established and sometimes, compromise is in order.

In conclusion, please be patient with both yourself and your child. Try to inform yourself about best parenting practices by reading books or taking a class. Then combine this learning with the experiences you have with your child. By doing so, you will give your child the best chances for doing well in the future.

For more information on this topic, go to http://www.apa.org/topics/topicparenting.html.

Dr. Chuck LaJeunesse and Dr. Marnie Hiester are employed at Misercordia University in the Psychology Department.

With so many books, articles and classes on parenting, it can be confusing and nerve wracking to be a parent today. Childhood is filled with problems that range from adapting to a new classroom or a new sibling, to bullying by others, abuse at home, gang war, or a nation’s war. Is it really all up to parents to make things perfect for our children? How can we possibly expect our children to make it?

Resilience, or the ability not only to adapt, but to grow and learn in the face of challenge and adversity, is part of our human package. We are built to last. Much of resilience is already built in, the product of thousands of years of surviving much harsher conditions than we know today. Best of all, resilience can also be learned.

Here are a few things you can do to build resilience in your child:

1. Do less – Really. Help them learn to solve their own problems and develop a sense of control over what happens to them. This builds independence and confidence.

2. Teach the child how to make connections – To friends, to a larger community by volunteering their time: Let them learn what they have to give.

3. Trust your own judgment – You know a lot about what your child needs. Examine carefully and teach your children to analyze the messages they receive about what they must have or do regarding products, clothing, and special activities.

4. Maintain a routine – Daily or weekly, routines allow predictability in a child’s life.

5. Have expectations – Research shows that the image you have of your child’s abilities greatly affects your child’s image of herself.

6. Teach goal setting – Set goals for yourself and for your child and show how to reach them. Identify daily and longer term goals (What I want to get done tonight, what I’d like to do this summer). Show them how smaller goals lead to larger ones. Don’t forget your own life goals!

7. Teach flexibility – Keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook. Teach your children how to be flexible thinkers, to avoid reducing choices to all or nothing – “This is what I want, but I can be satisfied with that.” Teach children to challenge their negative assumptions and consider alternative methods of thinking and behaving when they are not comfortable or happy. Help them ‘reframe’ negative thoughts (“I can’t do this,” “I don’t like my teacher, she’s mean to me”) to more neutral ones (“This is harder for me than for my friend, but if I spend more time on it, I’ll eventually do it,” “I was embarrassed when my teacher told me to redo my work”).

8. Expect mistakes – Expect that they will make mistakes: these mistakes help a child adapt by developing new responses to a challenging situation. That’s how we ALL learn. We’re supposed to do that, remember?

9. Welcome challenges – Welcome challenges and dilemmas into your child’s life and into yours while your child is watching.

Remember, it’s not your job to protect your child from all negative experiences (whew!). Help (& let) your child learn to manage those experiences while in the safety of your care. You can raise confident, optimistic children by building competence and by conveying your own confidence in their ability to get through unpleasant or disappointing experiences.

• Resist the cultural and social pull to think that challenge and adversity are detrimental to growth.
• Understand that resilience is the natural mode of response for all living things.

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it. (Molière)

For more information about fostering resilience in children, see the following links: http://apahelpcenter.org/featuredtopics/feature.php?ch=2&id=39, or http://ohioline.osu.edu/b875/index.html. For information about resilience specifically in African American children, go to www.apa.org/pi/cyf/resilience.html.

Marolyn Morford Ph.D. is a psychologist at the Center for Child & Adult Development in State College, PA.