Balancing Love and Limits with your Ever-Changing Middle Schooler

1. Balancing Love and Limits with your Ever-Changing Middle Schooler Susan Jackson-Walker, Ph.D. John Walker, Ph.D. Hockessin Center for Change

2. They Grow Up Fast!

3. Getting in touch with our “Inner Middle Schooler” • Can lose touch with who we were and what it was like (often we want to forget!) • Helps us to empathize if we can remember • What years did you attend middle school/junior high school? • What do you remember about being 12 or 13? • What is your most salient memory of that time?

4. Development in early adolescence • Wide range of developmental tasks, including cognitive, physical, and psychosocial development • Most important characteristic is “uneven development” • Inconsistent growth patterns within each child and across children • Behavior may swing from childlike to adult-like • Physical characteristics may be adult-like while behavior is childlike • Lack of fit between adults’ expectations of preteens, preteens’ expectations of themselves, and preteens’ capabilities • Makes it confusing to them and frustrating to adults

5. Cognitive Development • Begin developing formal operations or abstract thinking • Can deal with hypothetical situations • Can consider many possibilities systematically as well as their implications • Can think about thinking • Generally occurs between 12 and 14 but not firmly established until 15; wide individual variation, with some adults never reaching this stage • Many early adolescents still in concrete operations; thinking is unsystematic and there is difficulty organizing complex material

6. Adolescent “egocentrism” (David Elkind) • Can take others’ perspectives • Can now think about what others think of them • But, ability to infer others’ perspectives is not fully developed and they are not always accurate • Assume others are thinking about them all the time • Imaginary audience – very sensitive to others’ opinions; imaginary peer group is far more critical than actual peers (who are preoccupied with own selves)

7. Adolescent “egocentrism” (David Elkind) • Can think about abstract ideals, but lack actual experience and are often unable to accept failure of school, family, and society to live up to ideals • Don’t fully understand cause-effect structure of world due to lack of experience; often feel it doesn’t apply to themselves • Personal fable – belief in own uniqueness; feeling of invincibility

8. Physical Development • Wide variation in timing of puberty • Early adolescents may appear mature physically, but lag in cognitive development, or the other way around • Differences between early maturers and late maturers • What they are undergoing physically and hormonally strongly affects day-to-day functioning

9. Psychosocial Development • Exploring identity, defining selves • Moving towards peers and greater peer acceptance • Desiring more autonomy (yet still rely on parents most)

10. What is different in the world of today’s early adolescents? • Things are more stressful now • Perfection Trap • Overscheduling; parents busy as “agents” rather than forming true connection • More parent friends • Multi-task with technology • Fast tracked sexuality • Cyber-bullying • Violent media • Accessibility of drugs and alcohol

11. The Internet:What should we worry about? • Exposure to sexual and violent content • Harassment and bullying • Internet addiction • False self • Social skills • Privacy/financial dangers • Physical danger/exploitation

12. The “Real” World – Effects on relationships and communication • As internet use increases, interaction with friends and family decreases • May feel more lonely and depressed – lack of face to face contact • Youth with poor social skills or social anxiety may be most vulnerable (those who have difficulty with real relationships) • Because of physical distance and lack of face to face contact, youth feel freer to explore selves or alternate selves • Less inhibition, fewer boundaries, less pressure from the conscience

13. What can we do to support them through these dev’tal changes? • Slow down the race to maturity • Relieve the pressure to be perfect • Help them enhance cognitive dev’t and develop critical thinking skills • Opportunities to achieve competence and success • Possess tolerance, flexibility, energy, sense of humor • Make connections • Provide balance between Love and Limits

14. Button Pushing: Starts Early • Children... the masters of process • Who is controlling the mood and direction? • How does the parent’s age drop? • Who is bringing out the worst in whom?

15. Top 10 Child Button-Pushing Tactics (Sells, 2001) 1) “You never let me do anything” 2) Lying 3) “You don't care about me.” 4) “You're not my real mother/father.” 5) A disgusted look or improper gesture 6) Finding your most vulnerable area and preying on it 7) “ You play favorites.” 8) “ I hateyou! ” 9) “I’ll do itlater …... ” 10) Chronic, unbearable whining

16. Top 10 Parent Button-Pushing Tactics (Sells, 2001; Walker 2004) 1) Preaching or Using Clichés 2) Talking in Chapters 3) Labeling 4) Futurizing 5) Instant Problem-Solving 6) “You’re so moody!” 7) Not tolerating experimental behavior (e.g. clothes, hair,etc) 8) “When I was your age…….” • Collecting criticisms • Hovering

17. The Limits

18. Button Busters: Managing the Mood (Sells, 2001) “Discipline problems decrease as the overall climate of the family improves” 1) Don’t take it personally 2) Exit and wait 3) Short and to the point 4) Deflectors • Nevertheless; regardless; the rule still stands 5) Secret Signals

19. STEP 2 Parents & child negotiate • Top 10 things teens care about • Negotiate Rewards and Consequences • Troubleshoot Family Agreements STEP 1 . Parents Unite • Rank order the problems • Check your gas gauge • Convert problem into a rule • (Family Agreement sheet)

20. Can You Tell They Didn’t Troubleshoot?

21. The Good Things About Consequences • In-home accountability training • Encourage maturity with child input • Involve choices • Focus on behavior, not person • Are easier to accept than punishments • Minimal and progress to max. • Helps teens build internal locus of control

22. The Love

23. Involvement Assessment (Steinberg, 2004) • Can you name all of your child’s teachers? • Do you know who your child’s best friends are? • Do you know what he/she likes to study in school? • Do you know what book he/she is reading? • Can you name your child’s favorite athletes, celebrities, movies,music, TV shows? • Do you know how she/he spends time after school, in the evenings, & on weekends? • How does he/she spend his/her money? • What are the your child’s signs of unhappiness, stress, guilt, depression, sadness, anxiety? • Who would your child go to if they needed some one to talk to?

24. Strategies to Nurture • Listen! (Don’t problem-solve) • Hugs • Nurturing notes • Acceptance of feelings versus behavior • Constructive criticism • Find a mutual interest • Special, unconditional outings • Event tickets for one on one time • Be All You Can Be reports • Positive reports • Praise publicly and criticize in private

25. Strategies to Nurture • Positive Reports

26. Discussion Susan Jackson-Walker, Ph.D. and John P. Walker, Ph.D. www.hockessincenterforchange.com (302) 239-5255