Many of the boomer adults were raised with a lot of TV. It would appear things have gotten worse. We know a lot more about what TV does to children, but it doesn't appear to have had much effect. Simple logic will tell us that the experience of TV will decrease a child's ability to tolerate a delay in gratification of desires. Certainly, the TV ads are designed to create the desire for things we didn't know we needed, a certain frustration that we can't have it all, now. But it's much worse than that.

John M Grohol PsyD owner of PsychCentral.com is usually a man who politely understates things. But, he pulls no punches in a recent article.

Most child psychologists and child development experts recommend no TV whatsoever for a child before the age of 2 or 3. None. Yet a whopping 43 percent of parents plop their toddler down in front of the television set, apparently blind to the consequence of their actions.

[..]There are also the studies that show that teens who watch more sexual content on TV are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the next three years than their peers.

[From the Boston Globe]

Countless studies have documented the inverse link between devotion to the boob tube and achievement in school. Researchers at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons concluded in 2007, for example, that 14-year-olds who watched one or more hours of television daily "were at elevated risk for poor homework completion, negative attitudes toward school, poor grades, and long-term academic failure.'' Those who watched three or more hours a day were at even greater risk for "subsequent attention and learning difficulties,'' and were the least likely to go to college.

In 2005, a study published in the American Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that the harm caused by TV watching shows up even after correcting the data to account for students' intelligence, family conditions, and prior behavioral problems. The bottom line: "Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence was associated with a lower level of educational attainment by early adulthood.''

The baleful effects of TV aren't limited to education. The University of Michigan Health System notes on its extensive website that kids who watch TV are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to suffer from sleep difficulties, and to have high cholesterol.

From Research Digest Blog, here is an excerpt from an article commenting on the effects of TV on in the background while a young child plays.

Schmidt's team described the disruptive effects of the background TV as "real but small". While the current study doesn't say anything about the possible developmental consequences of TV-disrupted play, previous research has shown that shorter play episodes and less focused attention tend to be associated with poorer developmental outcomes. Moreover, a previous unpublished study by the present team of researchers showed that background TV reduces how often parents interact with their children. "Taken together," the researchers said, the new and previous findings lead us to "hypothesise that background television, as a chronic influence, is by itself an environmental risk factor in children's development."

According to these articles, Visual voodoo: the biological impact of watching TVandThe Psychologist, TV is a cause for attention deficits in children.

Sigman's review in fact only cites two published studies that show direct associations between TV viewing in this age group and negative consequences. The first, a 2004 longitudinal study by Dimitri Christakis and colleagues of 1200 children, found that for every extra hour of average daily TV viewing between birth and three years, the children were 10 per cent more likely to have attentional problems at age seven. The second, a cross-sectional study by Dimitri Christakis and Darcy Thomson, found that among 2068 infants aged between four months and three years, those who watched more television also tended to have less regular afternoon and nighttime sleeping schedules. The research base becomes more substantial when the focus is broadened to include TV viewing in older childhood and adolescence. For example, two studies by Robert Hancox and colleagues reported detrimental associations between TV viewing between the ages of five and 15, and educational attainment and several health measures at 26 years. Sigman's review, which also discusses harmful associations between adult TV viewing and mental and physical health, concludes these 'findings are set to re-cast the role of the television screen as the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of our time'. However, not all experts are sympathetic to Sigman's view. Dr Brian Young at the University of Exeter told us children are active in the way they use TV - they don't just sit on the receiving end of a stream of audiovisual input. 'There certainly are benefits for children interacting with TV,' he said. 'They learn stuff - it's as simple as that. But the best learning environment is where the mother or the family collectively consume television and discuss what's being seen. In that sense it's a 'window on the world'. However, he added: 'Any medium has a downside and unsupervised viewing by very young children - the "TV as a babysitter" - is not helpful.'

Now consider the effects of violence in TV and video games. Are we training our children to tolerate routine violence? I think so. It fact, it would appear that TV is an experiment on our children increasing obesity, tobacco and alcohol use, risky sexual behaviors, violence and social isolation.

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We've all heard about viruses and websites that steal our sensitive private information. Cyberstalking has also become a problem on social media sites. Blogs, Twitter, MySpace and Facebook, in particular, are prone to this sort of abuse.

But even cellphone texting can be a problem since you can forward others details where ever you want. Although there are mixed reviews of just how much of a risk there is, there is agreement there is a risk. Parents should certainly provide supervision for their kids with the youngest getting the most.

John Dvorak, a columnist at MarketWatch.com recently posted an interesting article.

If I were a professional thief, the first thing I would do is get a computer, find the folks out there who document everything they do on social-networking sites and go rob them.

There are a couple of risk that make this particular crime possible. If you tell the world what you are doing and where you are going, you are telling any criminal that might be listening when you've vacated your house. You may have already listed items in your house that might be particularly desirable by the thief, like the computer, PS3, perhaps even the type of car you have in the driveway.

Here are some rules for social media everyone should know about and practice regularly.

1. There is really only one reason to use your real name on the internet: to promote yourself or your business. Do a regular thorough search using Google of your full name, your address, and other identifying data and make sure all that you find is removed. Make sure your phone number and address are unlisted and there is no other way to find where you live. If you do promote yourself, use an email address as your contact point. To prevent misuse, change the @ sign to (at) or -at- to keep the robots from snapping up your email for spam lists. Or, better yet, use a virtual business card that has a contact form like card.ly. Then no one gets your email address until you decide.

2, Be careful about what you put on your site, like where you are, who is home, and when you go to work or go on vacation. Acquaintances who know your nick name on the internet might decide to break into your house while you are gone or share with others who you really are. Remember, personal information becomes permanently available to whomever wants it once you post it. Employers and college admission officers are regularly searching the internet for applicant's antics. Remember if you are protecting your identity in Twitter and refer to your Facebook site that identifies you, you've only delayed someone who might want to hurt you. If you post your picture on the internet, that could identify you to someone you don't want to know or could be used in a faked porn picture.

3. If you say something cruel to someone, remember that it's recorded forever for anyone who looks. Not only have you hurt another person, you have hurt yourself and your reputation forever. Your repeated insults on the internet could be turned against you and used as evidence to charge you with cyberstalking or cyberbullying and turned into civil or criminal charges.

4. Never give out personal information that could identify you. This includes:
* full name
* home address
* phone number
* Social Security number
* passwords
* names of family members
* credit card numbers

5. Keep online friendships in the virtual world. Meeting online friends carries more risks than other types of friendships because it's easy for people to pretend to be something they're not when you can't see them or talk in person. Even if you "feel" you know someone, you really can't know them as well as if you had known them face to face. Some people think they have fallen in "love" with an online friend. The only thing you can fall in love with online is your fantasy of who the other person might be. The non-verbal and contextual clues about another person is sometimes the only thing that can keep us safe in a face to face relationship. Our intuitions about trust are truly potential lifesavers. What we know about another persons history from our own and others experiences fill in the picture. These aids to judgment either don't exist online or are clouded by an 'unseen' or undocumented history. If you must meet someone you know from on line, do so as if you are meeting someone for the first time, because you are. Meet only in public preferably with someone else. And don't give out personal information like you would with someone you just met.

Let me know if I missed anything. I'll update as needed.

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I've always been very much aware of the power of praise. What I didn't know is that not all praise is helpful. To say the least, I was stunned by this article. This should be required reading by every parent, teacher, day care provider and anyone who works with children.

New York Magazine

For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.

But a growing body of research—and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system—strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

[...]Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles—puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained. “We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed.

In a subsequent round, none of the fifth-graders had a choice. The test was difficult, designed for kids two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But again, the two groups of children, divided at random at the study’s start, responded differently. Those praised for their effort on the first test assumed they simply hadn’t focused hard enough on this test. “They got very involved, willing to try every solution to the puzzles,” Dweck recalled. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’ ” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”

Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered to be as easy as the first round. Those who had been praised for their effort significantly improved on their first score—by about 30 percent. Those who’d been told they were smart did worse than they had at the very beginning—by about 20 percent.

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise. (MORE)

Mental illness is less understood than most people think. Common sense would have it that good parenting makes all the difference. It's just not that simple. The NY Times has a great series on "Troubled Children" that is well worth the read. The articles include some good background on the nature of mental illness and it's development.

Today six million American children have been diagnosed with a serious mental disorders, a number that has tripled since the early 1990's.

But that doesn't mean that the rates of illness have increased in the past few decades. Rather, it is the decease in stigma of seeking help and that more professionals and parents are willing to attribute problems with children to mental illness. ADHD and Bipolar illness is diagnosed with alarming frequency these days, clearly an indication of misdiagnosis in both the past and the present.

From the NY Times series:

Still, many psychiatrists believe that, although childhood bipolar disorder may be real in families like the Finns, it is being wildly over-diagnosed. One of the largest continuing surveys of mental illness in children, tracking 4,500 children ages 9 to 13, found no cases of full-blown bipolar disorder and only a few children with the mild flights of excessive energy that could be considered nascent bipolar disorder -- a small fraction of the 1 percent or so some psychiatrists say may suffer from the disease.

Moreover, the symptoms diagnosed as bipolar disorder in children often bear little resemblance to those in adults. Instead, the children's moods seem to flip on and off like a stoplight throughout the day, and their upswings often look to some psychiatrists more like extreme agitation than euphoria.

[...]The children in one group, a minority, have mood cycles similar to those of adults with bipolar disorder, complete with grandiose moods, and a high likelihood of having a family history of the illness. Those in the other group have severe problems regulating their moods and little family history, and may have some other psychiatric disorder instead.

[...]Last year in the United States, about 1.6 million children and teenagers -- 280,000 of them under age 10 -- were given at least two psychiatric drugs in combination, according to an analysis performed by Medco Health Solutions at the request of The New York Times. More than 500,000 were prescribed at least three psychiatric drugs. More than 160,000 got at least four medications together, the analysis found.

Many psychiatrists and parents believe that such drug combinations, often referred to as drug cocktails, help. But there is virtually no scientific evidence to justify this multiplication of pills, researchers say. A few studies have shown that a combination of two drugs can be helpful in adult patients, but the evidence in children is scant. And there is no evidence at all -- "zero," "zip," "nil," experts said -- that combining three or more drugs is appropriate or even effective in children or adults.

Diagnosis is very complicated, largely because the whole concept is a rather crude way to explain all the varieties of behavioral disorders into a linear and causal model of mental illness that will facilitate treatment planning. Unfortunately, diagnosis and treatment is more like shaping Jello without a mold.

The human body doesn't work in a linear way. There is no simple way to describe a step-by-step process of disease development and no simply way to ensure an accurate way to prescribe treatment. Instead, the body, while a whole in itself, it is too complex to be thought of as one interacting system. The best we can do is break it up into parts and posit hypotheses about how parts might function. Our model of brain function, mental illness and treatment has fallen behind our knowledge. Worse yet, economics has pushed medicine to embrace a simple solution for a very complex problem. Giving a patient a pill sometimes works. It's so simple and cheap to do, if one pill doesn't work, another pill is offered, sometimes replacing the first, sometimes adding to it.

Frankly the state of our science doesn't really support the first pill, much less the second. There is growing evidence that therapy is as effective as the primary treatment or at least in combination with medications.

Psychotherapy has had it's own problem with linear thinking. There is more research on Cognitive Behavior Therapy, showing it as effective or more so than all other treatments, so the assumption is made that since the practice of CBT is "evidence-based", that it must be the treatment of choice. CBT is a simple straight forward process that can often be encapsulated into a manual. But there is no consistent evidence that CBT is any better than any other treatment. There is a dearth of meaningful comparison studies.

The problem is that mental health treatment is not amenable to meaningful research. Mental illness often has life long process of ebbs and flow where only part of the time is it "clinically" treatable, but it's roots and symptoms are pervasive throughout the lifespan. Studies are necessarily time limited. Treatments are offered most often for no more than six months and then outcomes are measured. Not surprisingly, treatment is demonstrated as disappointingly little more effective than "placebo". A placebo is a an intervention, such as giving the patient some helpful attention, which might reasonably be seen as helpful by a patient but there no reason to believe it should be as effective as the studied treatment. But the placebo is pretty effective itself, much more so than sitting on a waiting list for treatment.

Lets take a fresh look at the model of mental health, illness and behavioral science. Lets simplify the model from the biological realities but not so much as a singular linear model of one sequence of events producing an outcome. Actually, I've found it useful to conceive of the mind as having two main parts. One part is largely made up by the cortex, or the evolutionary most recently developed brain function. It's this part of the brain that is largely responsible for manipulating symbols, interpreting and remembering patterns of perceptions, and self-awareness and self-monitoring.

The cortex overlies a phylogenetically older part of the brain that largely makes up the autonomic nervous system. In this part of the brain, the body functions largely "automatically" with little interaction with the cortex. Here the heart is stimulated to beat, breath is maintained, pain sensors are monitored and automatic behaviors like walking and steering a car is monitored, largely without conscious awareness. Here is also the roots of our emotions, the biochemical and hormonal precursors to the thoughts whose symbolic representations we create to understand our emotions.

The cortex is the thinking part of the brain. The autonomic nervous system is the emotional and functionally analogic part of the brain. That part of us we imagine as "rational" or "logical" largely resides in the cortex. Those parts of us that are instantly compelled to act out of sheer emotion reside in the autonomic brain. Virtually all of our behavior is in fact the result of BOTH parts of the brain. So it is equally inaccurate to call our behaviors as rational manifestations or solely emotionally based. Our behavior is largely the result of both parts of us.

So, given this, its not surprising that there are times we wonder why we behave certain ways, or why we know we need to make a change, but mysteriously find ourselves unable to do so. While our awareness directs most functions of the rational cortex, we have relatively little "rational" control over the autonomic brain.

Traditionally, culture has attempted to explain this as a mind/soul duality. Judeo/Christian tradition posits that the primitive nature of humanity must be overcome by suppression of our autonomic impulses. Freud developed that concept into his scientific systemic model of the id (autonomic), ego (awareness), and superego (conscience). His concepts led to the idea that suppressed impulses caused problems, internal conflicts, that were manifested in dysfunctional behavior.

I think it's much more useful to think of the body as a functional whole that emerged from millions of years of natural section into a amazingly effective organism. I'd rather assume that ALL parts of us are as necessary to survival as any one. On an experiential basis, this requires a leap of faith. Ambivalence is an uncomfortable condition. Our mind is known to do all sorts of convenient fictional explanations of motives and their behavioral manifestations in attempt to maintain an illusion of rationality. One such example is cognitive dissonance.

In order to make use of our incredibly effective brain, we must be aware of as many of it's manifestations as is possible. We must recognize and be able to put into words emotions as complex and varied as our thoughts. We must also accept the fact that our thoughts and emotions OFTEN contradict each other, but in a real and very personal sense, both are right. Both parts of the brain learn their reactions. They also are born with reactions characteristic of the genes they inherit. Environmental insults, such as neuro-toxins and brain trauma can alter both parts of the brain structurally and functionally.

My assumption is that we function best when we make the most of everything we have. Marsha Linehan in developing Dialectical Behavior Therapy, took a similar view. The "Wise Mind" was conceived of as a combination of "Emotion Mind" and "Rational Mind". This all may seem simplistic and convenient thinking, but from a clinical stand point, the concepts work quite well.

Cognitive learning is the most available for change. We think, therefore we do. If we change how we think, we change what we do. However, everyone knows from their last New Year's resolution that it's not that simple for the many behaviors we want to change.

Our culture has developed the concept of "character" to explain how some people can change and others cannot. Character is largely thought to be genetically determined. That makes the non-thinking part of us to be very difficult and unlikely to change. Indeed, that has been the bias of psychiatry for many years. Diagnostically, Personality Disorders are roughly equivalent to the common concept of character. Though, psychological developmental models have demonstrated that nurture has quite a bit of influence over nature, it is still largely assumed personality is unchangeable. Medicare and many other insurance companies won't pay for treatment based on a diagnosis of a Personality Disorder.

But we do know from Behavior Theory that even reflexive behavior like salivating, heart rate and emotions can be learned and unlearned. Personality Disorders are assumed to be so pervasive and embedded in lifestyle and biochemistry to be largely untreatable. However, those of us who have worked a lot with persons with personality disorders know that they can change with knowledge and sustained effort and lifestyle change.

Personality Disorders seem to emerge from unfortunate childhood events, child abuse, neglect, or trauma, especially repeated trauma and chaotic lifestyles in the parents or caregivers. Parents with personality disorders beget children who grow up similarly impaired. While the actual behavioral style and sensitivity to the environment may well be genetically determined, the behavior is largely learned by emotional conditioning.

In Behavior Theory, a strong emotion creates a unique learning sequence. Elicit a strong emotion, with say a loud noise, the person will be strongly motivated to do something. They may jump in a startle response. But the person will also learn approach or avoidance behavior, based on the valence of the emotion, rewarding or punishing. Then, when you pair a neutral environmental stimulus with the intense emotion, eventually, just the neutral stimulus acquires the emotion eliciting effects of the original.

When a child grows up in a chaotic environment, she experiences strong emotions all the time. She is likely to also learn approach and avoidance behaviors in a way that is often random associated with unrelated environmental events. She is said to have learned "superstitious" behavior. Unlearning this behavior is a major challenge. That is because emotional learning is in a way "hardwired" in the autonomic brain. Representations of the environment are paired with an emotional responses outside of her cognitive awareness. She develops persistent bad habits that over time pile up into patterns of dysfunctional behaviors and can become a Personality Disorder.

Treatment of a Personality Disorder must address the behavior, often manifested in a characteristic lifestyle, the thoughts and attitudes of the individual, and the emotional responses that together drive the behavior. The basic paradigm of therapy becomes conditioned emotional responses described above and must be repeated over and over again, with the cooperation of the individual during periods of withering emotions. Not surprisingly, few volunteer for this sort of treatment until things become intolerable. The other problem, is that few clinicians offer this sort of treatment. Despite it's grounding in Behavior Therapy, this is not mainstream CBT. DBT covers some of the same ground, but the experiential notion of making changes in the context of strong emotions seems to be absent.

Traditional psychoanalytic therapy has used "abreaction" for many years. Crisis intervention theory also had a similar concept. But neither of these models claim that the method is effective with long standing chronic psychopathology. Marsha Linehan's DBT is the one of the few treatments that claim to be effective with personality disorders, especially borderline personality disorder. Although Linehan's model continues the tradition of encouraging suppression of excessive emotion by teaching incompatible behaviors, it does encourage patients to be "mindful" of their emotions and to combine them with rational thought for wisdom.

Why aren't more people doing this? There is several reasons. There is little recent theoretical formulations beyond Linehan's that support this approach. Current concepts of crisis intervention emphasize stabilization as the goal. In fact, virtually all the insurance company criteria for termination of mental health treatment call for stabilization of symptoms, rather than permanent behavior change! This is the same reasoning that got psychiatry stuck on handing out pills first.

Medication is often a helpful option. But given the recent highlight on suicidality with anti-depressants, side-effects of all medications, especially anti-psychotics, psychotherapy seems a prudent course to start and use medication adjunctively, rather than the other way around.

Thanks to PsychCentral.com, I found facinating article from the Los Angeles Times. A recent study has found that depression is related more to misperceptions of peer interactions, especially during puberty.

Truth sometimes hurts. But for children closing in on adolescence, a firm grasp on the truth about one's standing with classmates and peers can be healthy, even when it does hurt a bit.

A new study has found that children who can accurately assess how much — or little — their peers like them are less likely to develop symptoms of depression, including sadness and difficulties concentrating or sleeping. By comparison, children with unrealistically rosy or unfoundedly gloomy views of their standing appear more likely to be headed toward depression.

Many psychologists have speculated that the smiling child who believes she is the glowing sun in her classmates' universe will be protected from depression by that belief. They also surmised that the child who holds a negative view of his status among peers is more prone to maladjustment and depression.

That picture, says Florida State University psychologist Janet Kistner, may be a bit too simple. She and fellow researchers found that the child who is not regarded well by peers — and knows it — is actually less likely to grow more depressed over time than the child who believes that classmates like him when, in fact, they don't. The kid who can see that he is not so well-liked may be better able to change his behavior to make friends, Kistner says. The kid who's clueless about her effect on classmates may grow frustrated and sad as she misses social cues and fumbles gestures of friendship.

[...]Researchers and clinicians, meanwhile, say they are far from having developed accurate predictors of a child developing depression. The younger the child, the murkier the crystal ball.

Dr. Daniel Pine, chief of child and adolescent research at the National Institute of Mental Health's Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, says that the strongest signs that a child may develop depression are a personal history of anxiety in early life; a parent with past or current depression; and a childhood pattern of low-level depressive symptoms (sadness, difficulties with eating, sleeping or concentrating, loss of energy or interest in once-enjoyed activities).

Beyond those signals, Pine says, disruptions in peer and social relationships often come with depression. But whether those ruptures are the cause of a depressive episode or the result — or a little of both — is not known.

Among children younger than 8, Kistner cautions, inflated views of classmates' affection are commonplace, and should not be misread by parents as unhealthy. But as children enter the "'tween years" of puberty, they normally become more acute in their self-assessments.[...]Acuity in reading social signals varies widely among adults, and psychologists have observed that some never get much better than they were as pre-adolescents.

[...]"That's a really fascinating time [puberty]," Kistner says — and potentially a moment when the course of a child's future mental health could be swayed. Both a child with an inflated sense of popularity and one with an overly dark view are probably sending and receiving faulty social signals, she says, and becoming frustrated that the world is not responding as the child expects."They may not be timing it right, they may be missing cues," she says — and some simple social skills counseling might help.

Will Meek has an interesting companion theory about self-esteem.

This is related to my pet theory of self-esteem, the sociometer theory. It states that the amount of perceived social acceptance or rejection predicts one’s self-esteem level. People that can accurately read the social environment know where they stand and can make adjustments to gain more social acceptance. However, those who inaccurately perceive more social acceptance and less rejection than is actually present may be prone to narcissism, where those who inaccurately perceive less acceptance and more rejection may be prone to chronic low self-esteem and depression. The key for all of this is an accurate perception of the environment, which can be an elusive skill that scientists are also trying to unravel, and misperception can be an ongoing source of psychological distress. MORE

What's remarkable about this article is that it places the critical time for emotion regulation and interpersonal relationships to puberty. That means, kids need all the tools to make sense out of this critical time BEFORE puberty. Emotion and Character education is important in the 4th and 5th grades of primary education. By 6th and 7th grade, hormones are raging and the critical period for peer based learning has begun. Intuitively, teachers have known for a long time that Junior High is a very difficult and emotional time for kids. Now we have another good reason why.

Have you talked to your child about drugs and alcohol? How about tobacco? How about inhalants? More and more parents are talking to their children about drugs and alcohol, but unfortunately, inhalants have not made the hit list. Sadly, they are making a come back in abuse patterns of the young. The better informed you are about drugs, the more your children will listen.

DrugFree.org

• One in five teenagers (20 percent), or 4.7 million teenagers nationally, report abusing inhalants in their lifetime.
• 64 percent of teenagers in 2005 agree strongly that inhalants can kill you, down 19 percent from 2001.
• 77 percent of teenagers in 2005 agree strongly that inhalants can cause brain damage, down nine percent from 2001.
MORE

[...]Research shows an alarming number of teenagers are intentionally abusing a variety of Rx and OTC medications to get high. Approximately one in five teenagers has already abused a prescription painkiller to get high, and one in 11 has abused OTC products, like cough medicine. These medications have become increasingly more accessible to teens, in some cases directly via the internet, and generally are more prevalent in their teen’s lives than parents realize.

Hat tip to Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments.

Here is a great post for parents from Dr. Deborah Serani.

1. Yelling: May be an effective way to vent frustration, but children of parents who yell often learn to tune it out. Results: The behavior does not change, and children learn to be hostile. Better: Stop. Ask what it would feel like to be yelled at. Most children respond better to calm, reasonable commands. Leave yelling for emergencies like “Look out for that car !”. . .“Don’t touch the barbecue!”

2. Demanding Immediate Compliance. Children and adults usually do not respond well to immediate demands. Such commands do not take into account how the person hearing the request may feel…what they are doing at that moment. Results: Commands that are demanded immediately are often tuned out, or blatantly refused. Better: Make a respectful but firm request. “At the next commercial, please hang up your jacket.”...... “When I come back from the bedroom, it’ll be time for us to go to get into pajamas”.

3. Nagging. Parents who nag are generally individuals who are not aware of how they communicate their demands. They also tend to be too lenient. “Did you clean your room yet ?”. This is not a command, this is a question. Results: children respond “no” to such a question. You then get more and more frustrated when the task is not complete. Better: Get you child’s full attention, and assert your request.

4. Lecturing And Advice Giving. Lecturing is fruitless. People have limited attention spans for monologues that have little interaction. A child’s ability to sustain attention during a lecture is even less. Children experience the least learning from lecturing and advice giving. Results: You child learns to tune you out the minute you get on the soapbox. Example: Lecturing a child about homework that is late, and what happens, how the teacher may feel, how you feel does not change behavior. Better: Ask a question that will illicit consequential thinking… “ What do you think happens if you keep bringing your homework in unfinished ?”. ...“ How does it feel to have to miss recess because you were fighting with a classmate?”. .... “ What do you think Daddy will say if he sees you’ve not taken care of your new toy?”.

5. Taking Anger Out On Kids. Over-reaction and outbursts of rage are all too commonplace in our stressful society. When you take your anger out on your child, you may say something that will stay with him for a long time. Results: Your child feels hurt, you feel hurt, everyone’s self esteem suffers. Better: Offer your child a heartfelt apology if you’ve lost your control and over-reacted. Children learn that talking about angry feelings is okay, and that Moms and Dads make mistakes. Even Better: If you find that you are over-reacting a good deal of the time, you may not be tending to your own needs. Go to the gym, take walks, take quiet time, find a supportive network.

6. Shaming And Belittling. Parents do not often realize that they may make remarks that leave their child feeling small, inadequate and less intelligent. “ Why are you acting like such a baby ?”… “ That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard .”… “ I’m so sick and tired of you behaving like this.” Results: Loss of self-esteem, feelings of trust are effected. Better: Monitor your language and see how often you say positive things vs. negative things. Make sure that you are dealing adequately with your own needs. Make sure that your expectations are realistic for the kind of behavior you are looking for in your child.

7. Setting Up Traps. Parents who tend to be punitive and authoritative try to catch their children in a lie to prove a point. Example: “ You overhear a phone conversation that your child is having regarding smoking cigarettes. A trap -setter says, “ Do you or your friends smoke ?”. The child says, “ No.”. The parent insinuates, “Then what was that conversation?”. “Did you put your toys away?” “Then what is this mess here?!”. Result: You have a defensive child who learns to lie and conceal, and mistrust others. Better: Straight forward inquiry. “ I overheard you talking on the phone about something that concerns me. Let’s find some time to talk about .”.... “ I see you’ve not put your toys away, let’s clean up together”. Not everything children say or write is true. You need to explore all concerns in an up-front manner.

8. Imposing Excessive Guilt. Parents who come from dysfunctional homes may make the mistake of implying that their children are responsible for circumstances in their life. Example, “ Why do you always upset your father?”… “I devote my life to you, and now you do this !”. “If you loved me, you would do this.” Results: A child comes to feel responsible for the problems in the house. Better: Learn other ways to express your feelings constructively, and without guilt . Parents who experience this may need to examine their co-dependent tendencies.

9. Physical Punishment. The purpose of discipline - from the word disciple - is to teach. This is never accomplished with physical force according to research. Results: Children who are hit as a means of punishment learn hostility and resentment instead of respect. The behavior that was inappropriate is not prevented from re-occurring, and damage is done to the parent-child relationship. Physical punishment tends to run in families. If you routinely hit your children as a method of discipline, you may need to examine your own childhood. Better: Alternative skills are needed so that enhancement of parent-child bond can occur, and so discipline instills respect and learning.

10. Coercion. This is the use of physical force to get your child to do what you want. Example: Pushing your child into the doctor’s office… or dragging a frightened child to school. With coercion, the parent is generally asserting a need to control, rather than responding to the child’s feelings. Results: Children often resist this kind of intervention. Self esteem suffers. Better: Help your child express his/her feelings. “ Is something scary about going to the doctor?”. “Is there something at school that bothers you?”. Recommended: Give your child a choice such circumstances. “ Do you want me to hold your hand when we go into the doctor’s office?”. “Do you want me to talk to your teacher at school?”. Choices give the child a sense of control over the situation, but leaves no question that he/she is going to the doctor, or to school.

References ~ The Bottom Line Magazine ~ Windell, James. A Sourcebook for 50 Fail-safe Techniques for Parents. Collier Books, New York.

I ran across this article today and just had to share it. This is a story every parent of teenagers should read. The Internet offers the kind of access to information I never dreamed of as a child. Internet research has become 4th and 5th grade requirement in my local schools.

But there is another side of the Internet that parents need to know about. Learn how to monitor your children's activities on the Internet. Software packages will limit their access and will save their activities for you to review at your leisure. Get involved. Make sure your child is safe.

NY Times

Weeks before, Justin had hooked up a Web camera to his computer, hoping to use it to meet other teenagers online. Instead, he heard only from men who chatted with him by instant message as they watched his image on the Internet. To Justin, they seemed just like friends, ready with compliments and always offering gifts.

Now, on an afternoon in 2000, one member of his audience sent a proposal: he would pay Justin $50 to sit bare-chested in front of his Webcam for three minutes. The man explained that Justin could receive the money instantly and helped him open an account on PayPal.com, an online payment system.

"I figured, I took off my shirt at the pool for nothing," he said recently. "So, I was kind of like, what's the difference?" Justin removed his T-shirt. The men watching him oozed compliments.

So began the secret life of a teenager who was lured into selling images of his body on the Internet over the course of five years. From the seduction that began that day, this soccer-playing honor roll student was drawn into performing in front of the Webcam - undressing, showering, masturbating and even having sex - for an audience of more than 1,500 people who paid him, over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Families all over the Gulf Coast are experience the trauma of a natural disaster. Families all over America are watching the events unfold on the nightly news. Certainly the trauma of being present in the event is potentially the most damaging. But watching such catastrophic events unfold even on TV can have some effects, especially on children and adolescents.

Talking about traumatic stress among family members have the effect of rallying the primary circle of support for its members. Sometimes the comfort of the support of your immediate family is enough, sometimes it is not. Here is some guidelines from the American Psychological Association about when to seek help.

Individuals with prolonged reactions that disrupt their daily functioning should consult with a trained and experienced mental health professional. Psychologists and other appropriate mental health providers help educate people about normal responses to extreme stress. These professionals work with individuals affected by trauma to help them find constructive ways of dealing with the emotional impact.

With children, continual and aggressive emotional outbursts, serious problems at school, preoccupation with the traumatic event, continued and extreme withdrawal, and other signs of intense anxiety or emotional difficulties all point to the need for professional assistance. A qualified mental health professional can help such children and their parents understand and deal with thoughts, feelings and behaviors that result from trauma.

Here are some suggestions to help you cope with trauma. Many of these approaches will be helpful for the more quiet effects of vicarious trauma experienced through the television.

- Give yourself time to heal. Anticipate that this will be a difficult time in your life. Allow yourself to mourn the losses you have experienced. Try to be patient with changes in your emotional state.
- Ask for support from people who care about you and who will listen and empathize with your situation. But keep in mind that your typical support system may be weakened if those who are close to you also have experienced or witnessed the trauma.
- Communicate your experience in whatever ways feel comfortable to you - such as by talking with family or close friends, or keeping a diary.
- Find out about local support groups that often are available such as for those who have suffered from natural disasters, or for women who are victims of rape. These can be especially helpful for people with limited personal support systems.
- Try to find groups led by appropriately trained and experienced professionals. Group discussion can help people realize that other individuals in the same circumstances often have similar reactions and emotions.
- Engage in healthy behaviors to enhance your ability to cope with excessive stress. Eat well-balanced meals and get plenty of rest. If you experience ongoing difficulties with sleep, you may be able to find some relief through relaxation techniques. Avoid alcohol and drugs.
- Establish or reestablish routines such as eating meals at regular times and following an exercise program. Take some time off from the demands of daily life by pursuing hobbies or other enjoyable activities.
- Avoid major life decisions such as switching careers or jobs if possible because these activities tend to be highly stressful.

Here are some suggestions about how to care for your children.

The intense anxiety and fear that often follow a disaster or other traumatic event can be especially troubling for children. Some may regress and demonstrate younger behaviors such as thumb sucking or bed wetting. Children may be more prone to nightmares and fear of sleeping alone. Performance in school may suffer. Other changes in behavior patterns may include throwing tantrums more frequently, or withdrawing and becoming more solitary.

There are several things parents and others who care for children can do to help alleviate the emotional consequences of trauma, including the following:

- Spend more time with children and let them be more dependent on you during the months following the trauma - for example, allowing your child to cling to you more often than usual. Physical affection is very comforting to children who have experienced trauma.
- Provide play experiences to help relieve tension. Younger children in particular may find it easier to share their ideas and feelings about the event through non-verbal activities such as drawing.
- Encourage older children to speak with you, and with one another, about their thoughts and feelings. This helps reduce their confusion and anxiety related to the trauma. Respond to questions in terms they can comprehend. Reassure them repeatedly that you care about them and that you understand their fears and concerns.
- Keep regular schedules for activities such as eating, playing and going to bed to help restore a sense of security and normalcy.

An expert from Purdue offers additional suggestions courtesy of AScribe Newswire

If parents have had a conversation with their children about the tragedies surrounding Hurricane Katrina, they need to remember once is not enough, says a child development specialist at Purdue University. "Parents have expressed difficulty in explaining what happened in this and other large-scale public tragedies to their children, but it's important that they realize parents don't need to have all the answers," said Judith Myers-Walls, associate professor of child development and family studies. "This is a great opportunity to teach kids coping mechanisms. By being honest, parents can show their kids how to cope with being afraid."

Myers-Walls recommends the following actions for parents, teachers and other caring adults when children have questions about the hurricane's effects:

- Don't assume that the kids don't know about it.
- Be available and "askable."
- Share your own feelings.
- Help children use creative outlets, such as art and music, to express their feelings.
- Reassure young people, and help them feel safe.
- Support children's concern for people they don't know.
- Look for feelings beyond fear.
- Help children and youth find a way to think about the event and move forward.
- Take action and get involved in positive action to help alleviate others' suffering.

Don't underestimate the effects of trauma. In my experience, trauma is one of the leading contributers to mental health disabilities. Repeated trauma is one of the most common causes. Even once the effects of trauma have led to the long-term effects of post-traumatic Stress Disorder, while a significant life disruptor, successful treatment is possible when the person commits to placing a high priority on treatment.

Lightening the Load for Mentally Ill Parents

The depression had lasted long enough that Loran Kundra thought she should explain her "crying sickness" to her 3-year-old daughter. Kundra had spent days in bed, staring for hours at the same spot. Little Megan had seen her cry too often. Kundra feared the child would blame herself. So Kundra sat Megan down at the top of their stairs at home in Wayne. "Sometimes Mommy cries and gets upset just the way that you cry and get upset," said Kundra, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder soon after the birth of Megan's little sister. "But sometimes Mommy cries and there really isn't a good reason for why I cry."

It wasn't a conversation the average parenting book prepares you for. Or, for that matter, the average book on mental illness. Kundra, a lawyer who now helps with psychiatric research at the University of Pennsylvania, discovered after her diagnosis that parents with mental illness have few resources to turn to. "There is a huge gap in addressing the needs of parents with mental illness and their children," says Nadia Allen, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Orange County, N.Y. It runs the Invisible Children's Project, a program for mentally ill parents that serves about 18 families.

In a 2000 national survey, Joanne Nicholson, a University of Massachusetts Medical School psychologist, found fewer than two dozen programs specifically targeted at parents with mental illness, though many cities try to piece help together. Many caseworkers, she says, don't even ask mentally ill clients whether they have children. "There's a lot of things we didn't anticipate with the deinstitutionalization movement, and this is one of them," says Edie Mannion, program manager of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania's training and education center. Regarding people with mental illness, she said, "We forgot that they might go out and have relationships and have children."

Its a sad story about Kundra and her daughter Megan. Talking to children about a parent's mental illness is a necessary but difficult task. The approach Kundra used seems perfectly appropriate for a three year old. The older the child is, the more information they need. But they need no more information than what they need to know to avoid the pitfalls of children of parents with mental illness:

• Children of all ages are likely to blame themselves for their parents problems of any kind, including mental illness.
• Children will take responsibility for mood changes of their parents.
• Children will see miss-treatment as something they deserved to keep the parent in high esteem.
• Children see their parents feelings are more important than their own.
• Children will do more than they should to help their parent's burdens. Often, this means they neglect their own learning and social development to take care of the parent.
• The cost of caring for a parent is MUCH more than just falling behind. They often suffer from depression, chemical abuse, poor judgment, have destructive relationships as adults.

Look for updates on this one. I'll add new thoughts when they come to me.

It has been popular to denigrate motherhood for a long time. Our culture has been quite creative lately on TV. When was the last time you say a TV show with a mother in a role beyond a pitiful victim or ditzy sit-com character?

Here is an article with a refreshing point.

Enlightenment Bulletin Board :: This Is Your Brain on Motherhood

It's common these days to hear people say they don't have time to maintain friendships. Real relationships take a lot of time and work - it's much more convenient to keep in touch by e-mail. But children insist on face time. They fail to thrive unless we anticipate their needs, work our empathy muscles, adjust our schedules and endure their relentless testing. In the process, if we're lucky, we may realize that just this kind of grueling work - with our children, or even with others who could simply use some help - is precisely what makes us grow, acquire wisdom and become more fully human. Perhaps then we can start to re-imagine a mother's brain as less a handicap than a keen asset in the lifelong task of getting smart.

Check out some of the recent studies on Alzheimers. They consistently find creative activity prevents on-set of Alzheimers symptoms. It's not surprising motherhood is healthy, it just makes sense.