Small Town Therapist on Raising Responsible Teens

It is good and important for our kids to take on mature tasks as little ones and as teens. Susan Grout

The amount of satisfaction you get from life depends largely on your own ingenuity, self-sufficiency and resourcefulness.  People who wait around for life to supply their satisfaction usually find boredom instead.                          Dr. William Menninger 

On a suggestion from Anna Quindlen's newspaper column I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This was a hole in my education that needed to be filled. The book depicts the harsh times of one poor family around the turn of the last century. We follow one young lady, Francie from ages 11 to 17. It is labeled as fiction but so much of the book is autobiographical that the truth flies off the pages. This young woman, Betty Smith led a hard scrabble life and redeemed her difficult situation through education, and when she had to quit school to help support the family, by reading and hard work. Her diligence was impressive, and it paid off. 

Take a mental, quick walk with me through the centuries. You'll find most children and especially teenagers had very difficult lives, especially by today's standards. In fact, until recently in this country many children had to leave school to work and help support the family. This was true of the protagonist, Francie mentioned above, and this was also true of my own grandfather, Webster McHenry. Then when and where they did work, the children were working in deplorable conditions. There were no child labor laws, they worked 60 to 80 hours a week and were paid poorly. It wasn't until FDR's first term in the White House in the 1930's that child labor laws were enacted. In this century things have gotten better, certainly not because of the charity of the bosses, but due to legislation that big business fought against tooth and nail.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.                                                 Fredrick Douglass 

Stating the obvious, the ease that most of our teens today are being raised is in stark contrast to the children of a century ago. Yes, this is indeed a blessing yet sometimes their character suffers for these cushier circumstances. I keep asking myself, "what are we promoting in these children?" Since the burdens for most children have lightened up considerably this should be heralded as good news but sometimes the burdens are lightened to an absurd degree. That's what I'm concerned about. 

There are misguided parents who go completely overboard pushing and basically overdoing everything for their child. It's been called 'helicopter parenting'. Please remember, this isn't for the benefit of the child, this is all about the star-shine for the parent. I remember reading years ago in a book, The Road Less Traveled, in which Scott Peck described a mother who drove her son to school each day because she was afraid for him to take the bus. She described her actions as loving. This was a boy in high school. That's not love, it's teaching him to be fearful and dependent.

If parents really cared primarily for their teen's maturity, they would be concerned about enriching them. This would emphasize encouraging the teen to be capable of doing rudimentary tasks for themselves. Examples abound: doing the family's laundry; help cooking meals; procuring and working at a summer job; finding joy in volunteering; learning to file a tax return; filling out college applications; cleaning their room; cleaning the bathroom; being responsible for a checkbook; know what a debit card actually means; how to earn and manage money; taking care of younger children; knowing how to study; learning how to do research; how to navigate in a city; how to read a map; learning what it means to be a good citizen and the value of loving kindness in everyday life. All of this is what I would hope that the average American teen would be capable of. Instead...

These days it is not unusual for parents to never require their teen to help around the house or be responsible for a pet or even a younger sibling. These parents even go so far as to write their kid's college essays. That's not all. I have been told by teachers that the parents call the schools for special exemptions and privileges for their child then they yell at the teachers if the kids aren't getting a grade A on their work. I have witnessed them giving their kids expensive cars to drive to high school. These teens are never required to have summer jobs, and this is particularly sad because a job would be an excellent way to start them on the road to being self-sufficient. 

I ask you, what is all of this over protectiveness/overcompensation teaching the child? One answer is: "you can't possibly do this for yourself, I must step in assist" and that folks, is infantilization, treating a perfectly capable person like an infant. No wonder we have a rash of prolonged adolescence. These parents need to stop defining themselves by their children's achievements and to be less anxious about the way their teen chooses to achieve. As I see it this is not helping either of them to mature. My hope and requests are for the parents to be less indulgent and expect the teen to be more diligent, respectful and caring. This is the hallmark of maturity: taking responsibility for one's self for the sake of their own [and our] future. Lazy indulged teens are the last thing we need to keep our country strong. An excellent goal is to aim to raise good citizens and caring adults.

 

If you will call your troubles experiences and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.                                     John R. Miller

For of those to whom much is given, much is required.                                     John F. Kennedy 

While I'm trying to understand this overindulgence on the part of the parents I do realize the world is a more difficult place than it was when I was a teen. For one thing there is easy access to a wild variety of drugs that just wasn't part of my experience. Violence, guns, were not so omni-present and things moved at a much slower pace. Also, the world for my generation was more affordable. With summer jobs and only a bit of assistance financially from my parents I was able to pay for much of my college education. Gone are those days. Then there is global warming, climate change, oy vey!

When I was a kid my parents moved around a lot---but I always found them.                                                    Rodney Dangerfield

I grew up in a mostly happy home, one of six kids. Although mostly happy our parents did have trials and tribulations. Being one of the oldest much more was expected of me and now I appreciate that, and even the benign neglect of my parents. I had to do a lot for myself and for my family. Looking back, even the rotten experiences I had as a teen have been useful in my life--- as life lessons. 

susansmagicfeather 2023 Susan R. Grout

Small Town Therapist on Phobias

"A lot of people are afraid of heights, not me, I'm afraid of widths."
Stephen Wright

Many years ago I became very interested in therapy methods designed to shorten my client’s suffering. I read everything I could get my hands on which I presumed would be a refresher of the Brief Therapy model that I studied in graduate school. But no, it seemed that the new methods were using the body as well as the mind to enhance recovery from a host of problems. I was hoping that this would be a quicker therapy than laboriously searching through their past history and walking through the broken glass of horrible experiences to change trauma. So, I decided to go to a workshop that promised these shortcuts. One eyebrow raised and a "prove it" attitude went along with me.

Interestingly, the workshop was sponsored by a very enlightened group of people I worked with who were in the behavioral health section of an insurance company. They encouraged us to study new techniques to expand our competency and in their best interest enable us to hasten people's recovery. Win/win: quicker time in counseling [good for the client] and less out flow of cash for the insurance company. The only problem was I was inherently skeptical of "quick fixes", nonetheless I ventured forth.

At the workshop the leader presented the process of this kind of therapy and how it was based on acupuncture points which corresponded to the Chinese meridian points discovered thousands of years ago. Hum mm, I thought, let's see if this is just talk with no substantiation. First off, he asked for volunteers, asking for someone who had something that they were afraid of, something they wanted to change. Ha, I thought, I don't have anything like that. The first volunteer was a young woman who bravely stood up before all of us and said, "I have a terrible fear of heights." O, my, that’s my familiar fear, and I inwardly cringed.

A couple of years prior I was at my younger son's graduation from college. My husband and two sons and I wanted to see some sights and my son suggested we go see a particularly lovely gorge near his college.  With great enthusiasm all of us walked around the entrance to the gorge which was cordoned off with a fence for safety's sake. My two boys walked right up to the fence, my husband right behind them, glancing down at the incredible view below.  I did follow and looked down, down, down, then thought I was going to throw up. I was a mess, cautioning them to "step away from that fence!" They laughed and started to dangle parts of themselves over the fence until I was almost in tears. Seems as if I had hidden my fear of heights rather well, they thought I was kidding. The point - I was terrified.

The workshop leader first attended to the young therapist, having her explain her fear of heights and asking how many years it had been present in her life and how it had adversely affected her. She candidly described how she couldn't even climb a ladder. Then he instructed her to do a series of taps on herself, all the while thinking of what she was afraid of. This took possibly ten minutes, repetitively checking on her, asking her to rate her experience. Next, he brought a step stool and asked her if she would consider standing on it. "Sure!" she said and proceeded to do just that. Wow, I thought ever the skeptic, I wonder if she was planted to con us.

We were then given the manual which instructed us in the very simple technique. We then paired off with another therapist, having one person act as the client and the other as the therapist trying the new technique we just witnessed.

I went first and as the client, I had to describe my fear in detail. Mine was easy to root out, it happened when I was 12 years old. My mother had always taken all six of us kids to the same dentist, Dr. Leishmer. He was kind and good and we liked him. Well, sadly he’d developed cancer of the jaw. This was sixty years ago and the treatments at that time for cancer were Draconian, somewhat like today's treatments, but far less effective. So, Dr. Leishmer came in to greet us and wearing a surgical mask over his lower face. That was bad enough but, bless his heart, he smelled like rotting fish. My mother then Sally, as oldest went first. I took the time to walk out into the hallway, then down the hallway to a door that led out to the fire escape. This office was on the 12th floor of the building, and it was a beautiful spring day. Since it was 1958, no safety measures were in place, nothing to stop me and I blithely waltzed out on the fire escape and looked all around Chicago and then looked down. Whoosh. 12 stories down. I fell to my knees and had to crawl back inside the building, shaking and nauseous. My turn was next, and I had to go in there with poor Dr. Leishmer who, despite his cancer was working.

Years later I asked my mom, "why did you takes us to him, that was an awful experience." She said, "I felt incredibly sorry for him. As soon as most people heard that he had cancer they canceled their appointments, and I just couldn't do that to him. He had a family to feed." How I wish she had prepared us for this experience. I’m still impressed with the kindness of my mother and for her generosity in being loyal to him. Now I realize, this was just not her way to give any preparation or explanation in advance to us. Anyway, the dilemma for me was an internal one: I was sickened by this man, but I didn't want to cause a scene and refuse to go in. Hence the perfect set up for a phobia: an internal conflict and horrible fear.

After my therapist partner lead me through the series of taps, humming, and counting I was to rate my discomfort level. I went from a '9' [ uncomfortable] to a '2' [comfortable], zero being the most comfortable. I still had some skepticism. Really, was this bizarre treatment going to work in the real world? I’ll cut to the chase here, I tried it out in many forms and was successful. My biggest triumph was going to the Empire State building many years ago, really enjoying the view, heading back to the down the elevator and saying to my husband, "remember when I used to be afraid of heights?" He answered, "I almost forgot about that", and I said, "Yeah, so did I".

"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth." H.L.Menken

many people fear preforming

What I want to leave you with is this: if you have an irrational fear and you want it gone, there are fast and effective methods out there to chase them away. I am not going to advocate for any brand name but do go banish the fear. Find someone [psychotherapist, hypnotherapist] who is recommended. What we are after, and it is marvelous, is the cure. It is so worth it: you can see all over Chicago, New York, any gorge and you can look and see what is way, way down below because you feel safe. You will enjoy the experience and be proud of yourself. Myself and many clients conquered their phobias. 

susansmagicfeather 2023 Susan R. Grout