In the article “Correction Through Connection. As it turns out, there is no other way,” author Karen Young addresses how punishment cause a strain on your parent-child relationship especially if it is consistently used. She states that “if [you’re] looking to support our children and teens towards a better way to be, the only way to do this is through connection.”

Young denotes that yelling, or any kind of shaming, will cause your child to be less inclined to do the task that is being asked or even learn from the task or the yelling. Anytime that a child perceives a threat, the body goes into a fight or flight response. This perception can be based on whether or not something is actually a threat: “it’s about the way the brain perceives what’s happening – and the brain will always perceive yelling, or any response that shames or belittles, as a threat” (Young).

Especially when shouting comes from an adult, a child is more likely to feel unsafe because they are so used to their parent acting one way and then suddenly the parent is disappointed or mad. When it comes to this, it is important to remember that your child’s brain is still developing and their frontal lobes (controls higher-order thinking) are probably not making the best decisions or judgments. It is critical to understand that your child is changing ad practicing as well: “as children grow, they will slowly take over the role of protecting themselves” (Young), but until then, allow for mistakes and change to occur as they grow.

The main goal that parents want to accomplish is seeing their child as a successful adult later on in life. This only happens if they have raised their “children and teens through to adulthood in a way that will help them discover the best versions of themselves” (Young). For this to happen, children need to know that their parents will keep them safe. If kids feel safe and secure, they are more likely to open up and communicate with their parents on what is going on in their life.  Kids are going to make mistakes, and they need to know that you, as parents, will not react and punish them. Young notes that if you “associate shame and fear so strongly with messing up” then they will be more scared to make mistakes and even less likely to talk to their parents. Through connection, your children are more likely to warm up quicker, open up, and ask questions. 

Now, this does not mean that there should be no rules or follow through, but instead guidelines and boundaries for your child to follow. Young states that parents “need to be mindful of not putting consequences in place just for the sake of feeling as though [you] are doing something,” but instead reflect on yourself and how your actions can affect your child’s learning ability. Sometimes this is in the form of extra rules or commands to feel like you are controlling the situation. Connecting with your child will invite them in and together can make better decisions and practice better behavior. You and your child need to help each other reinvent or invent a new sense of self. In the book, “Inventing Ourselves,” author Sarah-Jayne Blakemore illustrates that you, as parents, will understand your child better if you understand what is going on in their brain. 

Young declares that your children still need you in their life even though they may not always show it:

“They can only learn from us when they are feeling safe. This isn’t always easy – sometimes we will be completely over it all, but it’s when they are at their worst, that they will need us more than ever. If you can’t love them out of a bad decision, be the one to love them through it. It will be the most powerful, most soulful, most meaningful way to teach them a better way to be.”

For more information on Hilber Psychological Services can help you with connecting with children or teens, parent-child interactions and parenting, please contact us.

- Written by Lily Schmitt and Tanya L. Hilber, PsyD

References

Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne. “Inventing Ourselves.” Penguin Company. 2018.  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1110515/inventing-ourselves/9781784161347.html

Young, Karen. “Correction Through Connection. As it turns out, there is no other way.” Hey Sigmund. https://www.heysigmund.com/correction-through-connection-as-it-turns-out-there-is-no-other-way/

In the article “How to Encourage Girls to Lift Each Other Up, Instead of Tearing Each Other Down,” written on A Mighty Girl blog, Katherine describes ways that parents can lift their children up in ways that will not only improve their self-esteem but also help them with their friendships. She denotes that girls are too often taught they have to view other girls as competition or as a threat rather than an ally. Additionally, Caroline Adams Miller, a psychology expert and the author of Getting Grit, states that "It’s not half the room raising their hands — it’s 100 percent of the women" that say they feel like they are getting more torn down by other women rather than men. In order to fix this self doubt, Katherine proposes that girls should be taught to be confident in themselves and build empowering friendships that will encourage and support one another.  

Katherine elucidates that the reason why most girls feel the need to compete against one another is the fear of missing out on opportunities. She explains that a recent survey by Plan International USA revealed that in regards to opportunities within the school’s sports and leadership arenas that “30% of teenage girls felt they had fewer opportunities.” Girls tend to infer that once they have lost one opportunity they will never get the chance to try to get it again.

This is when parents and educators should step in to ensure that girls remain confident and not let it hurt their self-esteem. As girls enters their tween years, it is important to keep a close watch on how they are feeling. In detail, watch their body language to see if they are getting down on themselves. This could be because they don’t feel good enough for themselves based on what other girls are doing and saying to them. A girl’s mental state is her own worst enemy. In the article, Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist and author of  Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges, clarifies that feeling "powerlessness can be really dangerous and make it hard to know who to trust." While on the other hand, "feeling powerful activates what we call the behavioral approach system and makes us more optimistic, generally happier, and more confident and willing to take risks." She suggests that showing girls images of confident women will inspire them to stand in strength as well.  

In order to lift your child’s spirits up, it’s important to encourage your child to join a team or a group activity, such as a club or performing arts group, that they find interesting so that they can enjoy something that they love to do with others who experience the same. If girls are paired up with other girls who have similar interests, then they will automatically feel closer to them. After this, they can begin to build a friendship based on the shared experiences.  

Another way that girls can help lift each other up is by using social media in a positive way. Furthermore, girls can use social media to hype each other up by commenting on pictures or celebrating one another's achievements. This will not only boost their self-esteem but also make them feel noticed in society. Katherine demonstrates that “this is a good way to start a positive cycle of encouragement and shift social media exchanges away from a fixation on appearance.”

With the help of parents, teens can feel noticed and confident enough to put themselves out there knowing that they will not be put down. Teens and tweens may be more likely to feel confident to take opportunities that arise or even create opportunities for themselves. For more information on how one can encourage your child, please contact us. For more information on therapy services at Hilber Psychological Services to help you tween or teen gain more confidence and self esteem, contact us.

- Written by Lily Schmitt and Tanya L. Hilber, PsyD

Reference

Kristine. “How to Encourage Girls to Lift Each Other Up, Instead of Tearing Each Other Down.”  A Mighty Girl. Web. 26. June 2019. https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=21168

In the the article “Helping Girls Cope with Bullying and Frenemies,” author Signe Whitson describes the passive aggressive world girls live in. She denotes that parents should be aware of their child’s emotions and how another girl can strongly affect them. Whitson describes simple lessons that parents should teach their child that will truly help her with her troubles with her friends. Girl friends are always nice to have, a good support system, a shoulder to cry on, someone who will lift you up and give you confidence, and make you laugh, but at the same time they could be a devil in disguise. 

Whitson focuses on the common question: “What can adults do to help kids cope with inevitable experiences of friendship conflict and bullying?”

To Intervene or Not to Intervene?

It is very confusing when it is the right time to intervene. Parents have trouble deciding if they should protect their child from bullying and the pain that comes with a broken friendship or let them figure it out. Truthfully, no child should be left to deal with their pain alone especially when they lose a friendship. In the moment, calling off the friendship may have been the right decision because your child’s mental health and self-esteem can now improve, but your daughter just lost a person that was a piece of her life for so much time. This is when your child needs adult support and reassurance that everything will be okay. Bullying is a huge part of a girl’s life and most girls don’t know how to cope with it or even know that friendship should not be this hard. 

Teach Her to Know it When it Happens

Bullying is known to fly “under-the-radar” in a sense that it is very hard to distinguish when it is happening.  Many girls don’t know what they are experiencing it in their friendship until the pain, humiliation, and isolation gets into their heads. Even then, it is important that parents keep and open dialogue with their child and teach them typical behaviors that they need to look out for in a friendship...the warning signs. 

When girls know what bullying looks and feels like, they are more educated to make a decision to move on from friendships that are making them feel bad when using these behaviors.

Whitson lists the common behaviors that bullies do that adults and kids need to be consciousness of: 

1. Excluding girls from parties and play dates

2. Talking about parties and play dates in front of girls who are not invited

3. Mocking, teasing, and calling girls names

4. Giving girls the "silent treatment"

5. Threatening to take away friendship ("I won't be your friend anymore if...")

6. Encouraging others to "gang up" on a girl you are angry with

7. Spreading rumors and starting gossip about a girl

8. "Forgetting" to save a seat for a friend or leaving a girl out by "saving a seat" for someone else

9. Saying something mean and then following it with "just joking" to try to avoid blame

10. Using cell phones and/or social media to gossip, start rumors, say mean things, or forward embarrassing posts and photos

Help Your Daughter Cope with her Anger

Remember anger is a normal emotion to have. However, many girls are taught at a young age that anger is bad. They are pressured to be “good” all the time but that is a little difficult when their feelings get hurt. This is when your child needs to express how they feel no matter how hard it may be. Whitson provides an example of how a child should communicate her feelings: "Hey. I don't like the way you are treating me right now. I'm feeling angry about what you just said/did/pretended not to do, and I'm not going to let you treat me that way anymore.

Encourage Her to Show Strength

It is okay to feel sad, or hurt, or angry, but it is even better if girls know how to communicate what they are feeling whether that is to a close friend or a frenemy. However, when it comes to facing off with a frenemy, Whitson advices to parents ”teach young girls how to show resolute strength.” Teach your child how to be strong verbally in a sense that she knows how to control what comes out of her mouth and deflect a situation whenever their feelings are disrespected. As a parent, it is your job to be a cushion for your child where she can lean on you for support and express her emotions: a safe place to be vulnerable. 

Teach Her to Know What She is Looking For

A friendship provides a sense of belonging where girls should be comfortable being themselves and opening up. If your daughter feels like she can’t do that then the friendship should be questioned. In order to feel accepted and embraced, a friendly, heart warming conversation with your daughter is never too bad to remind her about the values she should look for in a friendship. Whitson acknowledges that in any real friendship, both parties should:

• Use kind words

• Take turns and cooperates

• Share

• Uses words to tell each other how she feels

• Help each other when needed

• Compliments each other 

• Includes each other 

• Is always there for each other 

• Understands how each other feels

• Care about each other’s opinions and feelings

• Stand up for one another 

• Is fun to be with

• Has a lot in common with each other 

When girls understand their feelings and how they should communicate them, a beautiful and supportive friendship will result. With help from their parents, girls will learn all the skills needed to form a healthy friendship by knowing what a quality friendship looks like. 

For more information on how Hilber Psychological Services can help you and your children to cope with their friendship conflicts and feelings, please contact us. 

- Written by Lily Schmitt and Tanya L. Hilber, PsyD

References 

Whitson, Signe. “Helping Girls Cope with Bullying and Frenemies.” Psychology Today. Web. 12, Jan. 2015. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/passive-aggressive-diaries/201501/helping-girls-cope-bullying-and-frenemies

In the article “How to Help Tweens and Teens Manage Social Conflict,” author Lisa Damour describes the difference between a conflict and what is defined as bullying. She suggests multiple ways parents can address these problems. Also in her book “Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls,” she references how you as a parent can deal with stress and anxiety from experiencing a conflict with your child and another tween or teen. 

To begin with, Damour illustrates that middle school and high school are the prime times for bullying and conflict to occur. In school, “social friction and hurt feelings often come with the territory, with the risk of causing intense emotional stress both for the tweens and teenagers themselves...” (Damour).

“Conflict is unavoidable and can be a point of growth,” says Andrea Shaffer, a teacher and coach for conflict cases at the private preschool-grade 12 Chicago Waldorf Schools. Although conflict can be very mentally draining, once teens work out their conflicts, it is very rewarding. With friendship comes conflict. Each friendship endures a hardship that tests their friendship. As a teenager conflict is very hard to deal with alone. It is in these situations when parents are recommended to step in. Not only will parents help diffuse the situation, but also through the process, children will learn how to communicate clearly and express how they are feeling about the situation in a calm, non-blaming tone of voice. 

Parents are most helpful to their children when they take conflict seriously and “have strategies to coach them along as they work to resolve things on their own” according to Damour.

Don’t Confuse Conflict With Bullying

Damour alludes that “when our [a] child suffers a social injury, it’s easy to conclude that he or she has been bullied.” However, experts suggest that this word is commonly misconceived. Bullying is a term that is used frequently when aggression is in the eye. 

Social discord “rarely involves bullying,” explains Phyllis Fagell, a counselor at the Sheridan School, in Washington, D.C., and the author of the forthcoming book “Middle School Matters.” “Most commonly, conflict stems from anything ranging from a misunderstood comment to a spilled secret, to a lopsided friendship.”

When this occurs, it is difficult for many to diagnose when to intervene. Sometimes teenagers just need to work it out, while other times require adult, teacher, coach or counselor supervision. In either of these situations, it is important to remember that each child is emotional. Although one may be the main cause of the problem (the bully), they should both be treated fairly. As a parent, Damour explains that “you’ll want to take a measured, evidence-based approach to the problem” if your child is being bullied. This way you can develop strategies to help manage the situation such as sitting down and having a conversation, separating the two who are in the conflict, or taking it up to a more authoritative figure at the school.

Teach Healthy Conflict

In order to diffuse conflict, parents should coach and practice what their teen should say and do. From there, teens and tweens can decide their next move based on how comfortable they feel with the whole thing. It is dire to measure how serious the situation is. Either way, it is important “to stand up for yourself while being respectful of others” (Damour).

At any age, most people go directly to an unhealthy response and source of action when it comes to being upset with someone. Damour suggests that when “advising adolescents on how they might handle a disagreement, I first teach them about reactions to conflict and allow them to daydream their way through a bulldozer, doormat or doormat-with-spikes response.”

Most people want to get back at the person who caused them pain. Some people verbally rake someone while others post an unflattering image of the “friend” on social media and write a nasty comment about them. With this being done, the “friend” might respond. There is no telling how or in what tone they will respond in, but the whole goal of the picture on social media is to get a reaction out of the other person. By doing this, the two friends are forced to talk because one caused a commotion that needs to be dealt with. 

“Kids may need to be reminded,” says Ms. Fagell, “to keep arguments offline. Because once they’ve waged war in a group chat at one in the morning, it becomes much harder to achieve a peaceful resolution.”

Let Them Pick Their Battles

When it comes to two teens who are in an argument, it is best to either decide to guide your child in the right direction by diffusing the situation in a civil way or deciding not to engage at all. Although you may feel the urge to help your child or tell them what to do every step of the way, “conflict, even when handled well, takes time and tremendous mental energy” (Damour). In these types of situations, it is best to help your child weigh out the costs and benefits of engaging in conflict. Damour states that it is important to ask you and your child questions that will help them determine their next step: “Do they care about the relationship enough to want to work on it? Do they expect their pillar overture to meet with a similar response?”

“Contrary to conventional wisdom,” adds Ms. Fagell, “kids aren’t always looking to restore friendships. They may need permission to move on or need help creating a more comfortable, if distant, interpersonal dynamic.” They just need to find some closure.

Teaching your child to pick their battles is a risky step. In detail, they could go the easy way and just cut off their “friend” or they could do everything to hurt that “friend.” Either way, most tweens and teens will want to emotionally hurt the other person and make them feel the burden that they felt. But that’s not the goal. As Ms. Shaffer notes, “we don’t have emotional Bubble Wrap for children, but we do have ways to help them develop the emotional agility to navigate through difficult situations.”

For more information on friendships, teens, and tweens and conflict resolution, please contact us. To learn how we can help you or your child who may be struggling with being successful managing the social world, contact us or visit our website. For more information on therapy, visit Hilber Psychological Services.

- Written by Lily Schmitt and Tanya L. Hilber, PsyD

References

Damour, Lisa. (2019, Jan 16). How to Help Tweens and Teens Manage Social Conflict. The NY Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/well/family/how-to-help-tweens-and-teens-manage-social-conflict.html.

Damour, Lisa. (2017). Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Damout, Lisa. (2019). Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.