How to Help Parents & Kids Cope with Big Issues During Tough Times
We all need to hone the ability to regulate ourselves, and teach and model for our children and students how to do the same. That means sharpening our social and emotional skills so that we can function and thrive in todayâs societyâcreating healthy relationships and health and wellbeing for ourselves as well. What are the core social and emotional concepts that we need to understand? How does our understanding of how we deal with anger, frustration, shame, discomfort and anxiety play a role on how we relate to others and how we conduct ourselves with others? We all need support in these areas- now more than everâfor both ourselves and the young people we care for each day.
Important Messages:
- Tiny guides are 18 separate guides that walk people through how to cope, manage and understand issues like anger and frustration as well as anxiety and dignityâunderstand the world around you especially when things are complex and pretty stressful- like now.
- Emotional granularity: the ability to have a wide range of precise, specific words to describe how you are feeling. This is important because our culture doesnât affirm the complex feelings of children and teens. Young people have very strong feelings. We need to give them tools to talk about their emotions so that they arenât controlled by those feelings and are able to speak, draw or write about them. We all need this- so much more obvious now since this is a very tough time.
- One of the things we should NOT say to young people: âI know how you are feeling, I was your age once too.â Even though itâs true that you were their age, nobody knows what someone elseâs life experiences are. We can relate to someone- you may have similar experiences but the world is different. This pandemic makes things different too.
- Young people are growing up with no privacy. The people who are posting things about what is private is their parents- who are posting things about their children since they were little. If you think back to your own childhood- imagine it was your own parents who were taking away your privacy. What would that have been like?
- If our kids are going through a hard time, we need to instead be saying;
- âI was your age once but I actually donât know what itâs like to be you and I donât know what itâs like to grow up today and itâs way more complex. I give you much respect for the fact that you are having to live in this world and you are going through this and I want to listen.â
- âIâm really sorry. Thank you so much for trusting me to tell me and together letâs think through how to deal with this problem.â
- Kids shut down when we go into fix it mode or we start asking a ton of questions.
- We watch our kids going through things that are frustrating and we wind up having trouble knowing how to get involved and when to get involved. We get frustrated with ourselves, with each other.
- We have had so much family togetherness. Right now people are really frustrated.
- Frustration is a feeling and your feelings are your feelings. You are entitled to your feelings! Itâs what you do with them that is important and we have to consider. It points to how you regulate these feelings when you feel these feelings.
- Adapt
- Avoid
- What do you avoid talking about when you get frustratedâand why? What areas are you able to adapt to more easily? Avoidance strategies- you know that in the short term they make you feel better but they donât solve the problem. Example: Dishes in the sink. âFine, Iâll do it.â Kid gets away with being a bad roommate. Enables child. Deals with problem in short term. Or some people blame others. No need to feel shame. Give yourself grace with how you are handling things. Donât judge yourself or others.
- Be hard on ideas and soft on people. But our culture does the opposite. We are so judgey.
- Seeing parents judge each other- losing the ability to be the village we need to be for one another. We need to adapt instead. Step back.
- For example- strategy. The person who is less triggered and reactive, is the one who talks to the child when something needs to be addressed. That person must be on the same page. Be clear about the 3 things that have to be communicated to the kidsâwhomever is taking the lead.
- Young people have been raised in a culture that shows that somebody elseâs embarrassment or humiliation is someone elseâs entertainment.
- Need to deal with leadership that says âif you donât agree with me, you are a problem.â
- Many people are abysmal talking about race. Many parents believe that itâs enough to talk to kids about kindness and equality- itâs not. Come from generation of not having debate and talking about history regarding race and racism.
- If we arenât able to get into a discussion and be in a relation with you so we understand what was your purpose? We want to talk about this. If they can not authentically and purposefully have that conversation and say âI want to have that conversationâ and understand their point of view and listenâand be listened to- then itâs an opportunity to learn and be better for it- if we toss them out, they will find another communityâand it will be one that agrees with them. That doesnât challenge them. Why was I proud? Why did I do something that was incredibly hurtful to others?
- What was the avoidable education around them? What was their upbringing? Could they be open to learning? We donât want to lose the opportunity to have discourse. They wind up getting angrier and blaming more- fuel to the fire.
- Listening is being prepared to be changed by what you hear.
- If itâs a pattern of behavior where people are demonstrating callousness and a purposeful disregard for the dignity of other people then that is the criteria upon which you say that âyou canât be a member of this community because you canât be in relation with other people in our community that is based on dignity- the worth of other people.
- Connect it to dignity. Treat the person with dignity because they made a mistake. You donât respect the actions of that person but will treat you with dignity- as we go through the process of trying to repair your relationship to this community. If you canât do thisâthen this is not the place for you.
- BUT- anger can be helpful. Angerâchanneling into change. Anger meets productive discomfort.
- Understand legacy of anger so you know how it comes out and affects you. Have you been told not to be angry with people in authority? Elders? Being angry is okay. What were you permitted to do? If I am not being treated with dignity, then I have a right to be angry. If someone else is not being treated with dignity, you have a right to be angry. Separate the position from the person.
- If you speak out against the person, it doesnât mean you donât have respect for the position. Separate dignity and respect.
- Leaders, coaches, teachers, parents, police officers- some are wonderful, some are not great. People who count the most in school are the young people. That doesnât mean they can do what they want. But their dignity matters. If the people in power treat kids with respect, the kids will meet them more than half way. Kids feel when they are treated with dignity. They want to be in school. They want to be in relationships with adults. But they donât want to be in relationships with adults who are dominating and abusive.
- Some school resource officers are wonderful. However, what is the larger context? Many SROs are often in schools that are urban with people of colorâin full armor-even though most school shootings happen in white areas with white males as the active shooters. What is the larger context? Does this really make the school safer? Some have changed lives but we have to have a harder look at certain cases where there is a mismatch. If the child doesnât understand or doesnât agree, are they being defiant?
- The principle of dignity is where you start. Itâs the inherent worth of every person. Everything flows from there.
- You donât have to know everyone elseâs story to know they have a story. If you knew the reason- you probably would understand why they are acting in the way that they are. Better understanding. Doesnât excuse. But helps understand. Becomes easier to navigate difficult situation.
Notable Quotables:
- âPeople need very concise bits of information to help them manageÂ
- themselves through difficult times and they needed them separatedâŚand if you have young people at home, they need a way to talk to young people about the experiences you were feeling, as a parent or the experiences they are feeling, as children.âÂ
- âYoung people can have very strong, powerful feelings and it can be very hard to articulate what those feelings are even under the best of circumstances. Itâs so important for young people to be able to take these feelings and be able to process them, put words to them, to draw them. Once they start to do this, the feelings donât control them as much and donât have the same power to be able to affect their behavior.â
- âItâs so deeply important and life -affirming and life-saving to be able to have an experience and put words to it and images to it. Thatâs what emotional-granularity does. There is a very big difference between words like sadness and despair. We have to give young people those tools.â
- âWe should never say to young people: âI know how you are feeling, I was your age once too.â Even if itâs true that you were their age once, nobody knows that someone elseâs life experiences are. You can relate. You can say; âI have had a similar experienceâ but itâs not the same. And even before the pandemic we shouldnât be saying that because the way that they have been raised and the culture in which they have been raised is vastly different from the way that we are raised. And with the last 4 months, I donât think any adult can say to any young person with any credibility that âI know what it was like to be your age.â You donât.â
- âWe want to be hard on ideas and soft on people. But we live in a culture that is hard on people and soft on ideas.â
- Young people have been raised in a culture that we all, in some way, participate in that shows that somebody elseâs embarrassment or humiliation is someone elseâs entertainment.
- Â âMost white people have been absolutely abysmally irresponsible about talking to their kids about race and racism. Theyâââ say; âIâm uncomfortable and Iâm not racist and I didnât raise my kids to be racist. I taught my child that everyone is equal and we should love everyone with kindness and compassion but itâs not enough and it never has been.â
- âWe must listen. Listening is being prepared to be changed by what you hear.â
- âIf there is a pattern of behavior where people are demonstrating callousness and a purposeful disregard for the dignity of other people then that is the criteria upon which you say that âyou canât be a member of this community because you canât be in relation with other people in our community that is based on dignityâ â the essential worth of other people. Then itâs based on the principles of the institution not âyou did something bad so now you need to go.ââ
- âWe each carry a legacy of how we can communicate and express our anger. That has to do with our socio-economic class, our gender, our race, our religion, our birth order. All of these things will inform how we express our anger. Itâs important to have some self-knowledge about what that legacy is for you and to be able to say so when does that get me off my rails? When does that make me not treat myself or others with dignity? When does my anger turn into self righteousness? When does my anger turn into self-hatred?â
- âIf there are adults in positions of power and authority, the people we are supposed to respect, if those people treat young people with dignity, young people will meet those adults more than half way.â
- âPeople who count the most in school are the young people. That doesnât mean they can do what they want but their dignity matters. If the people in power treat kids with respect, the kids will meet them more than half way. Kids feel it when they are treated with dignity. They want to be in school. They want to be in relationships with adults. But they donât want to be in relationships with adults who are dominating and abusive.â
- âWhat we are seeing around the county is young people demanding their dignity.â
- âItâs hard to feel what you canât see.â
- âThe principle of dignity is where you start. Itâs the inherent worth of every person. Everything flows from there. â
- âYou donât have to know everyone elseâs story to know they have a story.â