Teaching Kids to Think (2 page)

We wrote
Teaching Kids to Think
to help parents understand why the Instant Gratification Generation is at such a disadvantage when entering the adult world. We aim to call attention to the valuable everyday opportunities that are lost when today's youth rely too heavily on the convenience of technology or their parents to solve their problems for them—otherwise “teachable moments” that are essential to a child's social, emotional, and neurological development. We wrote this book not out of frustration toward parents but as empathetic parents ourselves who are also raising children in this generation. We, too, are learning the challenges and feel the same temptations to (unwittingly) reinforce the Instant Gratification Generation. We want to support parents in raising children who are confident, considerate, and conscientious of their community, and throughout this book, we will share ideas and techniques for preparing children of all ages with lifelong skills that will help them lead responsible and fulfilled adult lives. We will help parents identify the traps they may easily fall into as they face the unique challenges of raising children in this generation.

So what do we mean by these lost opportunities? Socially, children in this generation are missing opportunities to interface with others in a way that promotes positive interpersonal relationships. Emotionally, they are missing experiences to develop confidence in their skills and the ability to cope with unforeseen challenges. And, neurologically, they are being put at a great disadvantage in developing the ability to plan, organize, problem solve, and make decisions. In this book, we discuss how these lost opportunities relate specifically to parenting, education, and technology. In addition, we share our experiences working with families, as well as provide information gathered from in-depth interviews with administrators, teachers, coaches, and parents who have encountered the same trends. We include vignettes taken from our clinical work. The vignettes we used were chosen because the situations reflected common themes and occurred in multiple situations. We also chose them because many readers can relate to them.

In
chapter 1
, we begin by showing parents how to identify and overcome parent traps that are so easy to fall into in this era of ease and convenience. In
chapter 2
, we address the impact on children of parental intervention, which prevents children from figuring things out on their own. This is followed by
chapter 3
, in which we discuss the temptation parents feel to protect their children from making mistakes and how it ultimately fosters dependence in their children. Developmentally, it is very important for children to experience challenges and figure out how to overcome them. Important developmental lessons are discussed in
chapter 4
.
Chapter 5
highlights how missed practice with making mistakes and overcoming challenges impacts a child's brain development and ability to develop planning, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. For most families, education is a primary focus, and parents feel overwhelmed with the pressure to protect their kids from missing opportunities to get ahead. In
chapter 6
, we address how to support and guide children without falling into the trap of rescuing them from learning how to succeed on their own.
Chapters 7
and
8
provide guidelines on productive and responsible uses of technology, including the use of smartphones, video games, social media, and the Internet. The positive impact of athletics is discussed in
chapter 9
.
Chapter 10
examines why this generation of kids is so vulnerable to substance use and what to do about it. For parents of older teens and young adults who are following the trend of the Instant Gratification Generation,
chapter 11
is devoted to ways to change those patterns. Next,
chapter 12
focuses on how parents often unknowingly model for their kids the need for instant gratification. We summarize in
chapter 13
the lessons we hope readers have learned. Finally, throughout every chapter, we offer many tips to parents so they can positively approach these challenges and avoid falling into the parent traps.

Note:
All names and identifying information used in the vignettes throughout the book have been changed to protect the identities of the people we work with.

C
HAPTER
1

The Parent Traps

Do You Take the Bait?

It is open house for the third-grade class in the local elementary school. Over the past two weeks, students have been working on a poster project about planets. Computer-generated graphic designs, charts, and neatly typed and formatted titles and descriptions dominate the posters on display. Only one poster board features hand-drawn pictures and carefully handwritten titles and descriptions. All these posters were completed to the level of a typical third-grade student. While the computer-generated figures looked neat and interesting, the handmade poster clearly took a lot of thought, effort, and planning. In addition, do you think a child is more likely to remember what a planet looks like by printing a photo from the Internet, or hand drawing it? Yet that night, the parents of that child approached the teacher, concerned that their child was not as advanced as the other students.

—Dr. Darlene and Dr. Ron

As parents, we want the best for our children. We want to provide them with guidance, support, and instruction to develop into caring and confident adults. Yet parents all across the country are also getting the message that “it is a tough world out there” and that their children need to have every advantage so they can be competitive in the college and job market. Take a moment to read that sentence again, then ask yourself whether you would answer true or false to this statement:

It is a tough world out there, and my children need to be provided with every advantage so they can be competitive in the college and job market.

That is a
parent trap
. A parent trap is a situation in which parents are drawn to solve problems for their children or rescue them in a way that ultimately stifles growth opportunities. We have seen many parent traps in our practice, where parents work harder than their children to solve the children's dilemmas or problems. Of course, you want to assist your child in any way you can. The difference is in whether you are
giving
your children advantages or
assisting
them in developing the skills that will put them at an advantage. When parents set everything up
for
their kids, they lose the chance to learn to do things on their own, which ultimately puts them at a disadvantage. On the other hand, when parents assist their children in developing skills so they can gain those advantages themselves, their children truly enter the adult world ahead of the game. With the pressures so strong in this generation, parents often fall into the trap of giving rather than assisting.

Do you fall into parent traps? Answer
true
or
false
to the following statements:

If you answered
true
to any of these questions, you may be falling into parent traps.

It is so easy to fall into parent traps! The allure of the traps is that parents want to do the best for their kids, so it's easy to interpret a situation as “helping” the child. But the previous examples are not helping, protecting, or guiding children; they are solving problems for them.

In this chapter, you will learn how to define and identify the five most common parent traps and learn strategies on how you can avoid them in the future. The following chapters will then illustrate in more detail how these traps apply to specific events or situations in a child's life and the relationship between these traps and parenting. Included in those chapters are guidelines to help parents establish appropriate expectations for their children and teens at different developmental levels.

The five most common parent traps are as follows:

The Rescue Trap

Parents hate to see their children struggle. As a result, parents often feel compelled to “save” their children from a negative experience by fixing their problems for them. The consequence of this parental behavior is children's learned expectation that things will be done for them. This denies children the opportunity to solve problems themselves.

Everyone agrees that one of the best lessons a child can learn is the ability to think and problem solve on his or her own. Childhood is full of opportunities to routinely practice these skills, but there are two areas in which parents often fall into the trap of rescuing their children from their struggles: academics and social relationships.

Academics

Academics are one area where the rescue trap can catch people. Parents get caught up in the hysteria that every grade and every assignment will impact their child's chances of getting into a choice college. This fear leads parents to attempt to rescue their children, which results in the parents avoiding very important teaching opportunities. For example, a seventh-grade history teacher recently shared with us a situation with a student who failed a test because he did not study. The teacher received a call from the mother of the student who asked what her son could do to raise his grade, to which the teacher replied, “Study.” The mother then asked if there was any extra credit her child could do, to which the teacher told her that her son had not participated in any of the extra credit opportunities given throughout the quarter. She asked if her son could have the option of completing the extra credit late, and the teacher said he could not. She sounded confused and said, “Then how can he pull up the grade?” And the teacher again said, “Study for the next test.” The student in question did not work hard although he was challenged by the class. This scenario involved a student who was doing minimal work and a parent who saw the letter grade as more important than the skills learned
earning
the grade. This parent had good intentions—to make something easier for her son—but missed a valuable opportunity to teach him the importance of hard work, not to mention planning, organization, and responsibility, because she was focused on the objective grade. In addition, the parent was clearly working harder than the student to resolve the student's problem.

When parents provide children with the solutions to dilemmas, they are teaching them that problems are solved by asking someone else for the solution. Instead of focusing on a quick fix to raise his grade, which wasn't deserved, this mom could have focused on his lack of effort, planning, and responsibility. He would then experience the natural consequences of getting a low grade in the class, such as loss of privileges until his grade is brought up. His parents could then discuss how to do it differently the next time.

Social Situations

Another area we see parents commonly falling into the rescue trap is when they see their children struggling with their peers. Whether their children have a peer conflict or parents feel like their children are being excluded, even the most well-intentioned parents find themselves trying to resolve their children's peer issues rather than let them work the issues out on their own or helping their children come up with a resolution. If parents are always in charge of their children's social calendars, it doesn't help them learn to develop friendships on their own. This trap applies as much to preschool play groups as it does to adolescent dating habits. Parents have ideas about what they want their children's social life to look like, but that may not be in line with their children's interests. In the short term, the child may feel included, but in the long term, the child hasn't learned the social skills needed to make and keep friends. A parent's role is to guide their children and teach them how to maintain friendships, not do it for them.