Parent's Corner: What if I think he lied?

What if he lied about what he did?

I have been asked twice in the last three weeks about what to do when your 8-11 year old does something wrong (breaks a rule or an object) and then either refuses to “fess up” or lies.

Here’s the thing. As a parent its always best to simply deal with the infraction when you can and not get caught in the ‘he’s lying’ trap. If you know or are pretty sure that your child has done something wrong—they are simply busted—they don’t need to confess, parenting isn’t a democracy and there’s no need for the confession. If you find that eventually you are wrong about the charges you can simply apologize and model being wrong graciously.

Here’s why not to get caught or worry about the whole lying thing. Children and even young teens don’t have brains that are that well set up to deal with big stress. They have limited options compared with adult brains. Adult brains can manage stress a number of ways. If you as grown up mess up something big you can laugh at yourself, you can remember times when you actually did the right thing, you can imagine making up for your mistake, you can rationalize why you made the mistake, you can plan for ways that you can do it differently. Children mostly have two options: they can choose denial that it happened or they can say the thing they wish happened, or they can go numb and not feel it.  To parents this looks and feels like lying or a lack of remorse. And most parents panic that this means their child will grow up to be an axe murderer. Truth be told, most adults try this first as well (think of all the politicians and sports figure who say “I don’t’ recall” or “I didn’t’ do it.”)

If you know they did it. Just say so. If you track your teen's whereabouts on your cell phone, then don’t ask. Just say it. Let the problem be the problem: the broken ipod or the broken rule. Don’t add “lying’ to the mix because then you are trying to solve two problems at once. Not to mention that when you pretend not to know as in “where were you?” when you actually know, you are lying to get to some ‘truth’ which you have to admit is confusing.

The kids who have the easiest time telling the truth are kids with hot-headed tempers who often don’t care about the consequences and really, really easy going kids who roll with consequences. All the other kids in the middle tend to struggle.

Remember that kids have a hard time holding both sides of a problem (I can be a good kid and do a bad thing) so if you want to help your children to speak the truth, then you have to help them hold both of those things at the same time. And learning to speak the truth takes as much time as learning everything else, maybe more. We don’t expect that they get it right with math all the time, and they aren’t going to get it right with this either all the time. Your honest reaction to the infraction “I am really disappointed that you didn’t follow the rule” is often enough to have real conversation about the broken rule or item. The calmer the conversation and the child, the more likely you will have a real conversation.

© 2015 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

Can you say that you love your body?

Can you say that you love your body? I can’t, but I want to. I know I am safe in assuming that I am not the only one who has wrestled with the issue of body image. For one thing, if you Google ‘body image issues’ you get 178,000,000 results.  Just to get a sense of scale, Mars is roughly 35 million miles away. There are five times more results on body image than there are miles to Mars. Take that in.

Second, it’s sad to say, but it seems like struggling with body image is just a part of being female. It’s the norm. Billions of advertising dollars are spent making women feel like they need to change something about their appearance to sell products. Photoshop has created a world where even the most beautiful women must be ‘fixed.’ Weight loss is a 20 Billion dollar-a-year industry. Let’s face it, no one is going to get rich off of you hanging out at home and saying you feel great.

And for the women who have experienced physical trauma, sexual abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, medical trauma or severe illness, the struggle with body image is often even greater. Our bodies weave the trauma into our cells, muscles, and being. It’s hard to untangle the trauma from our bodies.

It can be so hard to know where to start. It can feel like a Gordian knot—wherever you start to pull apart one aspect of the struggle, something else tightens up on the other side. This week one of my students brought her new baby to our class party and I was caught by the way everyone looked at this baby—including me. It was total love and acceptance. Total awe at his little features.  This is not how we look at ourselves. And there is really no reason not to. When was that one day when everything shifted and suddenly you could be subjected to judgment instead of awe? How can we each find this awe again for ourselves? I don't have any easy answers, but I offer this poem as a way to start.

Middle-aged. New Born.

Look! I have ten fingers and ten toes!

Isn’t it exciting?

I am a woman born anew. 

For years I have thrashed

in the seas of cruelty and hatred

in a boat that finally

and mercifully

cracked.

And now I am shipwrecked on a new land.

It is quiet. There is peace. And I am here.

Middle-aged.

New Born.

Oh, how new parents crow over their newborns!

They beam over each hand and foot and

coo with each yummy roll of flesh.

All these riches! All of these things to love!

And maybe I appreciate the miracle even more

looking at my hands and feet,

to find myself still whole,

still capable of beauty and love.

Still able to reach, and kick and cry and laugh.

Today it is my turn to pick myself up

and hold this new born sense of wholeness

against my heart, breathing with her as she rests.

Now I can look at her beautiful face as she sleeps

knowing I have all I need: just love.

Love of the simple fact of having

ten fingers and ten toes.

Love of the simple fact of being whole.

Gretchen Schmelzer

© 2015 Gretchen Schmelzer, PhD

Walking. A Wonderful Practice for Change.

“Walking…is how the body measures itself against the earth””

— — Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

After a day of working in the outskirts of a city I don’t know, I asked the hotel desk attendant if there was a park nearby to walk in. The day was warm and I was craving fresh air and a walk. She asked if we knew the area and I said, “No.” And then she printed out directions to a food store. If we went past the food store and turned right, the park would be on our left. So my colleague and I headed out.

Apparently we weren’t the only people who felt the warmth  in the air and headed to the park. The place was packed!  With old people using walkers, with people walking dogs –very large and very small. There were lots of parents and children. All the children were running. All the parents were trying to keep up and saying all sorts of things to get them to walk instead. As one child responded, “I’m trying to walk, but I just keep running” as she hurtled herself downhill.

I laughed when I heard her say that thinking that running usually requires more effort for me and I wished I could easily say, “I’m trying to walk, but I just keep breaking in to a run.”

And then I got to thinking about change and growth and healing and realized how familiar that feeling really is. How you start something moving. You start changing and the momentum can pick up. And you feel yourself moving faster than you thought. And it is exhilarating, but also scary. You are new to this change, this growth, and your ‘new change legs’ feel wobbly. But you can’t stop, even as as some ‘inner scared parent’ is running behind you exalting you to slow down.

My need to walk today felt like a need for any other food or nutrient I have ever craved. In previous blogs I have talked about the need for routines as part of healing. And for me walking can be such a routine. In some ways it functions as such a source of organization or grounding, literally, feet connecting with the ground. And especially in times of change, or growth or healing, walking feels like a requirement. When I am away from home, or having a hard time connecting with myself—walking becomes my connection. There is something so reassuring about the fact that one foot follows the other. You keep putting one foot out, and the other follows. You feel the earth beneath your feet. You feel your arms swing. You feel the air in your lungs. You feel the air on your face.

One foot in front of the other. The rhythm and repetition are soothing. One foot in front of the other. It is the body’s perfect mantra. A way of practicing change. I can go from here to there. I only have to put one foot in front of the other. I can change where I am and how I feel. I only have to put one foot in front of the other. It’s not a matter of doing something huge. It’s just one foot in front of the other. And yet, if you keep doing it. If you keep walking, the steps add up. I know how to do this. I can speed up. I can slow down. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  And you will see, you try to walk, but you may just find yourself running.

And if you can't get out for a walk yourself today. You can follow Libby Delana on Instagram. She regularly posts photos of her #morningwalk and you can either let that image inspire you to head out on your own, or you can just rest in the image for the day.

© 2015 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD  

Parent's Corner: Five Things to Help our Children (and Ourselves) after a Traumatic Event.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkeness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have witnessed so many shootings. So many struggling refugees. “How do I help my children understand the violence?” “How do I help them understand the struggle and the grief?” “How do I protect them from the news?” What can I do to help them feel better?” What can I do to help myself feel better?”

Trauma shatters. That is true regardless of the trauma. It shatters our sense of trust. It shatters our sense of stability. It shatters our sense of safety. The physiological responses to trauma set off alarm systems in our bodies that make us capable of running away or freezing on the spot—which is designed to help us survive. But trauma shuts down our ability to take in a wide variety of information, and it often has us in survival mode of shutting down and avoiding, rather than staying active and reaching out.

And unfortunately, these events seem to be happening more frequently so it seems important that parents and really, all of us, understand the impact of these traumatic events and how best to recover, heal and strengthen our resilience. What can you do as a parent to help your children and yourself during these stressful events?

First: Turn off your television. Do not reinforce the traumatic experience at the emotional or neurological level. Our visual systems are highly connected to our amygdalas –the fear centers of our brain. Constant watching of traumatic images helps strengthen a neural pathway for a frightening event. News is 24 hours and the event already happened. You and especially your children do not need to watch the events of a shooting over and over. A different camera angle may help the FBI catch the perpetrator but all you will get is another experience of fear and helplessness. For you as an adult you will be activating your stress response system each time you watch it—and this will not help you create a calming environment for your kids or anyone around you. Television is problematic for children for different reasons.  Because they are more reliant on imagination and fantasy they may not understand that what is being shown repeated footage—they may believe that it is continuing to happen.

Second: Trauma shatters our experience of safety so we all seek some reassurance that our loved ones are okay, and we want to believe that this will never happen to us. While you can’t promise them that nothing bad will ever happen to you or to them, you can reassure them that you will do everything in your power to protect yourselves and them. You can say that there are bad people in the world who do harm to people, but that most of the people in the world aren’t like that. You can talk about all of the people who helped the people who were hurt: the policemen, the nurses, the doctors, the men and women of the national guard, the FBI and law enforcement. You can talk about how quickly people helped. You help the children see that in bad situations people can help.

Third: Trauma shatters our sense of trust and stability. The antidote to this is to attend to your routines. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Bath, books, bedtime. Consistent routine help all people, not just children, feel more solid and secure. If trauma is about being caught off guard and thrust into the unknowable, familiar and nurturing routine help us feel more contained and safe. It can be tempting to let them slide and you may get more push back to the usual routine. Don’t give in if you can help it. Stick to the routine. Let them cry. Hug them tighter. And the routines apply to us as adults too—go to work, attend your meetings, keep up with the routines and rituals of your life.

Fourth: The hallmark of trauma is helplessness. At the moment of trauma we are rendered helpless to protect ourselves and others. Often this experience of helplessness is the most significant symptom. One of the greatest antidotes to trauma and the experience of helplessness is to help. Be active. Reach out. Especially for children it can be very healing to be able to do something to help. I know most people think, “What can children do?” But they can do a lot. In response to the actual traumatic event they can draw or paint pictures for the victims and you can mail them to the hospitals near the tragedy—or for the nurses and doctors and physical therapists or counselors who will work with the victims Or for the firefighters or police officers. Or for the other students and professors at the school. There isn’t a teacher or a police officer in the world who isn’t moved by a thank you card painted by a child. It helps your child feel better and it reinforces for the helpers their passion for what they do.

Or, you could look around your world and think about the people who need help closer to home? Who might need a picture, or cookies, or a song? What relative haven’t you connected with in a while?

Which brings me to my last and Fifth point that can help all of us. True to Martin Luther King Jr.’s words—only light and love can drive out the darkness and hate. This week we experienced this darkness again, and once again we all need to work together to bring in the light.  Let’s resolve each day to bring a little more light and a little more love: smile more, let the person in front of you pull in to traffic, pay someone’s toll or coffee, offer to get up and let someone who looks tired sit down, bring dinner to a friend or neighbor in need, call your pastor or minister and ask of there is someone who could use a little more support this week, plant a few more flowers. As a Girl Scout we were always taught to leave a place cleaner than we found it, and perhaps more now than ever we need the corollary—to leave a place ‘lighter’ or ‘more loving’ than we found it. Talk to each other. Reach out.

© 2015 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD