Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260156
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE SEE WHITE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Let's be honest now, raise your hands: Ever locked yourself in the bathroom to get a breather from a raging 2-year-old, or 8-year-old, or 14-year-old? Ever pulled to the side of the road and burst out of the car to escape the mayhem the kids are wreaking inside?
Before you start feeling sorry for yourself, it would be well to remember that parents often make kids just as crazy as they make us.
And, unfortunately, turnabout isn't always fair play, since some of the errors of our ways can have lifelong consequences for the small souls we're trying to shepherd safely into adulthood.
To sort these out, we talked with area therapists and parenting specialists. We also consulted with a panel of nine experts, aged 14 to 16, at Cave Spring Junior High (whom we promised anonymity, for obvious reasons).
Here's what we learned many parents are doing to drive their kids bananas.
\ Breaking promises
\ "My parents change their minds at the last minute," said one Cave Spring student. "They'll say I can do something and then when it's time, they'll say I can't because they have other plans."
Another example from another girl: "My Mom says, `If someone else can drive this time, I'll drive the next three times.' But when those times come, she can't do it."
"Breaking promises really drives kids crazy, no matter what age they are," said Lyn Day, a Roanoke psychologist in private practice. "And it bothers them whether the promises are to do good stuff or to punish them.
"Parents really undermine themselves if they say, `If you don't do this I'm going to ground you for eight months,' and then don't follow through."
Kids want parents to follow through - even on discipline, said Michael Chiglinsky, psychologist and director of child and adolescent services at the Roanoke Valley Psychiatric Center.
"Typically, I find that parents ground their kids and then go on with their lives. They need to be there with the child, monitoring, but they're not," Chiglinsky said.
"What happens then is the kids realize their parents don't mean what they say, and they end up doing whatever they please."
\ Lecturing, not listening\ "This is one of the things that drives children craziest," said Kenneth West, a professor at Lynchburg College and founder of a parenting program there. "In a crisis, when a child is misbehaving, the parent will launch the same speech he gives over and over: `I've told you a thousand times . . .' "
Kids don't listen during a crisis, West noted, so hush up until the heat cools.
And do encourage a two-way discussion about the problem, added Susan McDonald, a Roanoke licensed counselor who hears lots of complaints about parental lecturing from her adolescent patients. "After about two minutes their eyes glaze over and they stop hearing you. You need to involve them in the discussion."
The flip side of the lecture is parents' failure to listen. One Cave Spring student noted that "some parents don't listen to their kids. They say, `I don't have time.' "
"This is a very common complaint from kids, especially when they're trying to present their side of a story," said Lyn Day, a Roanoke psychologist. "Most honest parents admit that they don't listen a fair amount of the time. Parents are busy and in the middle of things like cooking and laundry - and kids don't always pick great times to talk."
Parents who do try to listen may blow it by guiding the discussion "too quickly to solutions," said McDonald. "They fail to validate the child's feelings, to just listen and say, `I know how that must make you feel.' " \
Being arbitrary
\ "I hate it when you're getting ready to do something you really want to do and they bring up something you haven't done like cleaning your room, and they say you can't do what you want because you've haven't done this," one boy said at Cave Spring. "But they haven't even asked you to clean your room yet."
A lot of patients complain about this, said McDonald. "Parents impose punishments that are either too harsh or too longlasting. To the kids, they seem to make arbitrary decisions and they're not consistent."
"Inconsistent management is a big problem," said Dan Porter, a licensed counselor at Behavioral Science Associates in Roanoke. "Sometimes Mom lets a child do this and sometimes she doesn't, so he thinks, `Let's just find out.' "
Many parents, Porter said, aren't clear about what they expect. Then when a child disobeys, they "fail to follow through immediately with a consequence and do it the same way every time, so that the child learns, `When Mom says please don't, I can expect a punishment if I do.' "
\ Being overcritical\ The Cave Spring crowd got into quite an exchange on this:
"I know a lot of people's parents only look at the bad things. They can't see anything good," one girl said.
A second girl chimed in, "If I make a 95, my mom says, `You could have gotten five more points.' "
"Some people, their parents expect them to do better than they ever did," another girl said.
"My parents compare me to my brothers all the time," said the girl with the 95. "But that's not fair. Guys and girls are different. And my brother got straight As."
William G. Gray, a Roanoke psychiatrist who treats children and adolescents, said he sees this problem a lot.
"Most kids do try to please their parents and they get very frustrated or depressed if they can't," Gray said. "Some parents think they have to prepare their kids for the real world by criticizing everything, encouraging them to do better and better.
"But you demoralize a child if you're always critical. And a demoralized kid tends to give up. What kids need is praise and reinforcement, not parents who are always critical."
There are a couple of variations on this theme: The parent who offers a `pretend choice,' and the parent who means well but conveys the message that the child is not competent.
"The pretend choice is when a parent says, `Well, you decide how to handle this.' Then, when the child decides, the parent proceeds to explain why it won't work," McDonald said.
As for second variation, one of the Cave Spring boys cited it.
"Sometimes they'll treat you like a baby," he said of his parents. "I mean, you're about to try to do something yourself and they say, `Here, let me show you how.' "
by CNB