Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety by John Duffy

Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety by John Duffy

Author:John Duffy [Duffy, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642500509
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2019-08-06T13:17:52+00:00


The Crisis Crisis

The mom was not unclear in her message: “Dr. Duffy, please call me back right away. We’re really in crisis here.”

There was nothing unusual about this phone call. After all, I’m a psychologist. People rarely call to let me know things are rolling along smoothly.

And this mom definitely had something salient on her mind. She had long suspected her teenage son, an honors student and accomplished athlete, had been smoking pot. But on this day, she had discovered the paraphernalia to prove herself correct: the tiny baggies, the rolling papers, the resin-stained, trippy-colored little glass pipe.

All the signs were there. She had a major-league crisis on her hands.

But was this really a crisis, in the true sense of the word? The definition of crisis suggests an unstable, dangerous event that will dramatically impact all future events.

When I called the presumed weed smoker’s mom, I asked her how she was handling the situation. She confirmed that she was in “full panic mode.” In the first few minutes of the call, the subject shape-shifted from her discovery of weed in his room, to wondering whether his grades might be dropping, whether he can keep his job, whether he’s hanging with the wrong crowd, whether he could still go to college, and then, “We are in a deep state of crisis here!”

There was no good available in her mind to outweigh the bad. The athlete? The honors student? The sweet kid she raised? All of that was behind her. Now there was only The Massive Weed Crisis of 2019, the dramatic, awful shift that would negatively impact everything that was to follow, the beginning of the end. The Crisis.

I am not knocking this mom. It’s so very normal to feel a bit traumatized when we discover these perhaps inevitable behaviors. But take a moment and remember, this is something your kid did or tried. It’s not who she is.

And it’s likely just a situation, not a crisis.

We owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to do better. Let’s agree to put an end to the Crisis Crisis. This involves thinking differently about any situation we find ourselves in with our child. Again, if we feel, and behave, as if we are in crisis, our children will respond in kind. If we use different, calmer, more empowering language, then we are modeling a method for handling situations that arise in a calm and empowering way. It is imperative that we change our thinking and behavior here and provide space for our kids to follow suit.

Creating the Un-Crisis

You may be wondering how this mom could have better reacted in this situation. After all, she did find something alarming, and some action is necessary. Well, given that we make poor decisions when we are in a crisis mindset and tend to overreact (and model overreaction in the process), the most effective thing I’ve witnessed is allowing the passage of a little time. I find my parent clients create far less regret for themselves when they allow even five short minutes to pass before they react.



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