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Conventional wisdom regarding temperament recommends that parents “work with your child’s temperament, not against it." What this sage advice means is that you seek to understand your child’s inborn personality, accept its genetically-based limitations and cultivate its associated unique assets. The biological nature of temperament renders children blameless for certain unsavory tendencies they inherited, whether little Joey exhibits moody reclusiveness or a daredevil streak. As parents, we want to make the most of our kids’ personality strengths and minimize the potential harm of what could be weaknesses.

A shy, reactive child will be slow to warm up to new situations, need strong encouragement about participation in activities and thrive best in certain low-stress niches. His well-informed parent will understand that he needs firm nudges to join social groups but avoid overwhelming him with excessive expectations, especially in unfamiliar circumstances. The high-energy and thrill-seeking child will love activity, risk and stimulation. Her savvy parent will accept the chaos that accompanies her personality type and provide opportunities for her to explore her curiosity safely, learn to curb her excessive zeal and cope with limits.

Basic aspects of temperament endure from the cradle to the grave, but in between the role of nurturing is huge in shaping a child’s life. The introverted child may become a famous professor or a hermit, and the aggressive extrovert may become a successful entrepreneur or a con artist. Parent navigation plays a big (but not all-determining) role in the map-quest. Good and bad random events, neighborhood, school and financial resources also play large roles.

By Laura Kastner, Ph.D.

Call it “entitle-mania” (we did in Getting to Calm and a past ParentMap article), or indulgence, or just plain spoiling, but many families do it and wish they didn’t. The U.S. financial sector is not the only economic system that needs fixing. Most families admit to lacking optimal policies for teaching their kids the value of a dollar. They also acknowledge that spoiled kids are a big pet peeve. The trap is easy to identify—kids are easier to deal with when you give them the stuff they want and a break on chores.

One parent I see in my practice put it this way, “I know I should “just say no, but I hardly even see my son because of his busy high school schedule. Plus, he’s always so grumpy and annoyed with me. When I buy him what he wants or do his chores for him, he turns all sweet and affectionate. I can’t help myself—I give in all the time.”

As parents, it is our responsibility to prepare children for the adult world in which they will need to live within a budget and do a lot of drudgery and household chores. Therefore, we need to incorporate these experiences into a child’s life from early on. Even two year olds can put their toys away and pour kibble into the pet’s bowl. By adolescence, they should be helping with just about every household task at some point. Yes--even if they are studying for SAT’S, taking AP’s and keeping up their GPAs.

Andy loves to watch things blow up. He likes violent computer games, fireworks and paint-ball. He’s already been caught purchasing M-80’s online. His parents wonder what Andy’s obsession about explosives is all about.

Jayne is one of those girls who liked to act like a teenager when she was 6 years old, especially the sexy ones depicted on MTV and in celebrity magazines. She loves make-up, shopping and suggestive dancing. It was all her parents could do to keep her from having sex before the age of 14.

Conrad is a regular guy who loves sports, his buddies and fun. Early maturation, good looks and popularity landed him invitations to parties and dates in middle school. At 13, his parents feel like they need to police his phone, computer and even his bedroom windows.

The biological drive for risk-taking is influenced by both genes determining temperament and the brain/hormonal changes of early adolescence. Andy, Jayne and Conrad want to experience excitement due to hard-wired and genetically-programed predispositions originating in their brains. Articles on zeal and yearning delve into the nature of these motivational forces and the ways they can produce both impressive competency-building and scary risk-taking.

What images surface for you when you think of “mental illness”? Do you assume that an afflicted person is permanently damaged, compromised and diminished? Do you feel as much empathy for the person and her family as you would if the condition were cancer? Does it inspire you to hear that the person has recovered from her mental illness, become a huge success in her field and shared her heart-wrenching psychiatric history with the world?

One of Seattle’s treasures, Dr. Marsha Linehan, shared her personal history of mental illness with the world this week. Dr. Linehan is a world-famous psychologist, researcher and creator of “dialectical behavioral therapy” (DBT). Her story was printed on the front page of the New York Times. The number of comments listed in its online version is a testament to how many people she has touched with her brave and intimate account of her hospitalizations, electroshock therapy, suicide attempts and self mutilation.

By Laura Kastner

“All my kid cares about is friends. He couldn’t care less about school”, says one parent.
“My daughter never goes out because she is so shy. I worry about her self esteem and stunted social skills”, says another.
“With the amount of video-gaming my son does, I think it’s been months since he last hung out with friends while looking at their faces!” says yet another.

All parents want their children to have healthful relationships, social “bonds” and support. They know that social skills are crucial for the two most important human endeavors, work and love. Most parents understand that without social intelligence, a big fat intellectual quotient (IQ) is fairly useless.

Understanding the way the brain is wired to connect with others can motivate parents to prioritize social relationships and “face time” during childhood and adolescence. As messy as peer relationships can get during the teen years, parents need to value them as much as academic and athletic prowess if they want a good future for their children.

In this article, I will first explain the nuts, bolts and scaffolding of social development. Then, I will provide advice for parents in their support role. There are some “do’s” and “don’ts” that can make a big difference in nurturing positive friendships.

Brain science research has demonstrated that our brains are wired for social connections with others from the get-go. Babies in the womb activate in response to their mother’s voices. After birth, they prefer a face to other visual stimuli. Babies can mimic a person’s tongue thrusting in the first weeks of life. They are social sponges, responders and engines, with neural connections blossoming in direct relationship with their experiences. Social relating literally sculpts the brain, because the neurons that fire together, wire together.

All of this fancy social capacity is preparing children for the dance of relationships which will ultimately influence just about every aspect of their lives. Social and emotional centers in the brain are intermingled in a spectacular orchestration of neural pathways, allowing humans to become attuned to what others are feeling, learn how the social world works, and figure out how to interact smoothly with others.

By Laura Kastner, Ph.D.

Todd (age 16) was caught cheating on a test at school.

Anna (age 12) forwarded a text message to her whole class referring to a friend as a “fatty”.

Patrick (age 14) lied about his whereabouts, so he could go to an unsupervised all-night party.

At this point, are you making any assumptions about which child needs the most significant disciplinary intervention to learn from his or her mistake? The Latin root of discipline is “discere”, which means “to teach or to learn”. Punishment, or imposing a penalty beyond the negative consequences that may naturally occur from the mishap, can be a component of a parent’s decision, but not necessarily.

The parent’s goal when deciding disciplinary actions should be the child learning from mistakes. The art and science of this ambitious agenda involves parental judgment about how to best accomplish this objective.

When parents ask psychologists about disciplinary matters, one of our most common refrains is, “It depends”. It may sound dodgy, but deciding on effective discipline requires considering many factors, like age, circumstances of infractions, behavioral history, temperament, and parenting values. Judgment calls are needed to comb through the details and focus on “how can my child learn and grow from this experience?”