Author: murrayof

“It was an accident!”

At some point children discover this very useful phrase. It signals a new level of cognitive complexity. They have moved past did or did not, into the realm of intentionality. Congratulations. Questions of intentionality have flummoxed many juries filled with capable adults. This is truly sophisticated stuff.

The layered sophistication inherent to questions of intentionality tend to make it an unwieldy tool for the child, when they first take up this defense. As they enter this complex realm, they very well may have difficulty self-monitoring their honesty.

As parents, our job is to simplify this for them. The best way to do this is to avoid making sharp distinctions in our reactions, between events presented as intentional or accidental. When we have our wits about us, we can be clear and empathetic in either case. What we want to avoid most is an argument about their honesty, about their true and possibly unknowable intention.

When our child announces “it was an accident”, it can be tempting to accept the invitation being offered, to skip addressing the child’s personal responsibility. Taking the invitation is easier on everyone, in the short run.

This all may sound pretty complex, because it is, but here is how to keep it simple. Tell your child: No one but you can be responsible for what your body does.  -For what flies out of your hand. -For how the stick you are holding cuts through the air. It’s your job to make sure that you manage yourself in a way that does not hurt anyone.

Screen time, and how to manage it, are hot topics in parenting conversations in our time. How we consume entertainment and media is very personal. Media contains stories that are close to our hearts. There is a unbelievable amount of great content available to our families!  From a special seat on the couch, to a favorite snack, we develop small rituals around our media consumption habits. It’s special, and it’s different from family to family. Furthermore, there is a great range of responses different children have to screen time. Some find it calming, while others are consistently upset or out-of-sorts after having time with a screen.

 

Therefore, what works is going to look different across different families. However, there are a few guidelines I would suggest in general.

 

Keep screens out of children’s rooms at night, unless it’s a dedicated reading device with a screen set to not disrupt circadian rhythms.

 

When it comes to passive viewing, and games, maintain a time boundary around total screen time, across devices. The right time boundary depends on the particulars of your family.

 

Protect your children from age-inappropriate content. Common sense media (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/) is a helpful guide in giving you information to help you decide what’s appropriate for your child.

 

Most social media platforms prohibit children under a certain age from having an account. Facebook prohibits children under 13, as does Instagram and most others. This gives a parent an easy reason to say “no.”

 

Try to join your children in watching media or playing video games during their screen time as much as you can. Discuss the experience. Even when you don’t have the flexibility to join them, still engage them in conversation about what they have seen or played.

 

Do not grant your child unfettered and unsupervised access to portals connected to the internet such as a web browser, or youtube app.

 

 

I will tell you what is working in our household. Our screen time policy has slowly evolved over the years, and this is the current state of things.  I share this not as an example of what you should do, but just as example of something that works somewhere.

 

We have two kids, age 7 and 4. Wednesday is “TV day”.  They can watch one hour of tv, together or seperate. It’s usually something we stream off pbs kids, or a streaming service. Saturday is “video game day”, and there is one hour of video game time available. Our youngest is not interested in video games so she can watch something for an hour if she would like. Usually the kids use their time on the specified day, but if for some reason they don’t, they can use leftover time another day.

 

We let the kids have unlimited access for creative purposes. This includes drawing apps, movie making, stop motion movie making, audio recording, and picture taking.

 

The hour limit was hard-won initially with our older child. I was ready to throw out the television at one point early on, and he knew I meant it. But once we established the boundary and my resolve was thoroughly tested, we settled into an established routine where finishing tv or video game time is usually just a small, acceptable struggle. 

 

I wish you luck in discovering what works for you.

As part of my practice, I offer groups for children or adolescents.

Alongside work with parents, work with young people has been central to my experience. Over the course of my sixteeen years of running groups, I have moved toward a style sometimes referred to as a process group.

The purpose of the group is multi-faceted, and somewhat different from member to member. However, one aim is to provide participants with the opportunity to experiment and learn socially, and interpersonally.

How does the group provide this opportunity? One way to think of it: The social stakes are low.  Typically, you don’t have pre-existing relationships with other members of the group. This lowers the social stakes. If you make what feels like an interpersonal misstep, you won’t experience the consequences at home, or at school with friends. Group members are less constrained by these concerns, and it’s possible to have what I call a heightened conversation.

This provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn about yourself, and your impact on others.  Social missteps become rich opportunities for gaining self-awareness, as the group is able to offer valuable perspectives. Healthy interpersonal risks occur frequently, and when successful in our low-stakes environment, the experience can be internalized and eventually brought outside the group.

This type of group might be particularly appealing to a young person who wants to develop interpersonal awareness, or social skills, but would not benefit from a didactic, pragmatic approach.

Please contact me if you have questions, or if you or someone you know may be interested in being a member of such a group. I’d be happy to talk to you about it.

Children generally desire autonomy. Some children are more eager for it than others. As parents, we are excited to see our children demonstrate what they can do. We want to watch them grow, and applaud them.

For example, we look forward to the day when they can responsibly cross the street on their own. We want to raise them so that they can eventually navigate the wide-open world of the internet safely.

There is no rush. Our child’s deepest wish is to be safe.

Some children are especially hungry for autonomy. What I notice frequently is that children that demand more and more autonomy often don’t get any more peaceful or content when they get it.

To make sense of this, sometimes I imagine this child on a spiral staircase that does not have railings. They run up for a while, then look way down to the ground and anxiously exclaim “Oh my god!,” and then usually run up some more.

The core paradox is that while children want to grow free from your constraints, they also want you to hold them and keep them safe. Perhaps when they are granted too much autonomy – even when they have insisted on it, they are unhappy because they don’t feel held and safe.

If that is the case, don’t join your child in rushing their childhood, especially when there is a question of safety. Childhood will pass, savor the good parts while you can.

Our children push our buttons. It’s not up to us. Whether we are aware of it or not, they will find them.

Why? How?

Hold on. First, let’s be clear about what it means to push someone’s buttons. To push someone’s buttons is to activate a formative emotional wound. We’ve all got them, you can’t grow up without collecting at least a few.

Why do our children push our buttons? Because they are so effective at commanding our attention, and attention is as good as life itself.

If you had not given your close attention to your child when they were an infant, they would not have survived. After cutting the umbilical cord, your attention was their lifeline. Now that they are older, they may not need your attention for survival quite the way they used to. But there remains a deep, rich, and special association with your life-giving attention.

How do our children find our buttons?

-Trial and error. -Adaptation.

Let’s use an analogy. Imagine a monkey, loose in a complicated laboratory. In the laboratory, there is a panel covered with buttons. The walls have buttons all over them. There are even buttons on the floor. There are thousands of buttons.  The monkey is in the laboratory day after day, after day… The thing is, most of the buttons in the laboratory don’t do anything especially interesting. However, a few of them make a banana fly out of a chute right into the middle of the room.

How long do you think it will take for the monkey to find, and memorize which buttons make a banana appear? The monkey will stumble on it, and remember it due to the sweet reward. -And then they will keep pressing it. Some people might call the monkey manipulative. I’d just say that they like bananas.

When our children push our buttons, they win our attention. If they push the right button, they sense that we are still thinking of them, even as we attempt to go on to the next thing. Even though our buttons often draw out negative feelings, the attention to the child is still sustaining and affirming. It is wonderful to be held in your parent’s mind.

What’s the solution? I am not advocating that you cut off attention from your child when they push your buttons. The first step is usually developing better awareness of your own buttons. That awareness can earn you some space to develop some different responses,  including, but not limited to when your buttons are pushed.