CONNECTING WITH YOUR ADOLESCENT !!

Let us discuss some of the ways parents can connect with their adolescents and learn to deal with the issues together.

Adolescence stage is a very crucial stage both for the youth and for the parents. In this crucial stage it is very important to keep the channels of communication open. 

Since the youth are already struggling with so many things, like creating their own identity, becoming independent, thinking about the future, working towards academic goals, developing new skills, pursuing new interests,  expanding their social circle, facing new challenges, celebrating their achievements, dealing with setbacks and failures  etc.etc. The list is very long.

So it comes to parents to find out ways to stay connected with their adolescents and help them in their journey to adulthood.

Here are some of the suggestions:

1.       Join them in their pursuit of developing new interest/s: It may be possible that your adolescents develop liking for something which is new for you or may be very different from your own interests. So what can you do in this situation? The best thing you can do is to join them. Spend time with them and learn and understand their interests. Let them be your teacher. Help them and guide them to get more detailed information and if possible training in the field.

2.       Dream sharing: Talk to them about your interests when you were of their age. This will help your youth to open up and discuss about their interests and aspirations. This will also give them opportunity to learn about other options.

3.       Following family rituals: Rituals create a system and bonding in the family. Rituals are something that the family does together. Celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and festivals together are some of the common rituals. Each family can create its own ritual to connect. A family can decide to pray together in the morning, or having breakfast or dinner together, greeting each other when leaving for the day or coming back home. So this could be anything. The sole purpose is to connect with each other every day.

4.       Welcome young guests: At this stage adolescents expand their social circle. The circle mostly includes friends who share their interests, values and thoughts. Welcome your child’s friends at home as you welcome your own. Let them enjoy and do activities together. Their presence and their way of interaction with each other will let you know whom and how your child is socializing.

5.       Be available: Talk to your adolescents when they come to you to discuss something.  When you give them undivided attention then they develop the trust that they can reach out to you for support anytime for anything.

6.       Be an active listener: Pay undivided attention to your adolescent when they are talking to you. Be empathetic and supportive. Give them emotional support.Help them weigh their choices and evaluate their decisions. Help them resolve their issues.

7.       Help them develop adult connections/friendships: In the growing stage, adolescents look outside their immediate family for support. Help your adolescents to develop a strong bonding with an adult on whom they can depend . This could be an adult from the extended family, a teacher, a coach or a family friend. 

8.       Have fun together: Do something which you all enjoy together. May be a family outing, or playing outdoor or indoor games together. Involve your adolescents in the planning and execution.  

9.       Don’t forget to appreciate them: Your adolescents are trying new things and developing new skills. They must be making mistakes and they may fail in their ventures also. They must be showing emotional outbursts and disagreement. But they must have been doing a lot which is appreciable. So don’t miss the chance to bless them, give them a hug and show your affection and appreciation. Do celebrate their wins!!

There are many other ways parents have adopted to connect with their adolescents over the years.

Let me know how you do it !!

WHY FRIENDSHIP ?

It’s not a friendship day per say. But today I will delve on friendship and its’ profound and complex effect on our lives.

Like any other relationship, friendship also has its bright and dark sides.

Today, however, let me take only the bright side!!

Did you think about someone when you read this Nigerian quote on friend given alongside? 

This question is for everyone and age is no bar. I am sure your answer is yes! 

If not, then it’s high time for you to find a true friend since I am going to tell you about the social, psychological and physiological benefits of having a good friendship.

Parents introduce toddlers to outside world which is mainly comprised of people like them, viz. other toddlers. They are asked and sometimes pushed to play and share. Some of them do it willingly and excitedly but some take time. It does not matter how much time a child takes to mingle and play happily with other children, but s/he learns the very first lesson that if s/he wants to play with other children s/he has to “share.”

Researchers have found that half of the children who are referred for emotional and behavioral problems have no friends or face difficulty in peer interactions.

As children grow they start learning new skills. Friendship gives them the platform to practice those skills. Observe children playing, you can see them giving constructive feedback, encouragement and most of the times practical demonstrations to each other.

Friendship plays a very crucial role during preteen and teen age. At this time most of the children start cutting off from their families and try to create their own independence and identity. It’s a very important phase of life and very complex too. In this stage of life, children look for someone outside their families, especially a friend/s for their emotional needs. They share their feelings and thoughts with one another and in this process learn to develop trusting and affectionate relationships. They learn to empathize, care and support one another.

When the entire world, sometimes including the parents of the teenagers, see them confused, rebellious or weird, friends give each other unconditional regard and acceptance. They learn to forgive and forget and most importantly to say sorry if they realize they have hurt their friend/s.

People think that they do not need friends when they grow up. However, we need friends in every age. Within your friends circle, you can be you. Friendship gives you a space to reconnect with yourself. In that space you are not someone’s partner, parent or employee; you are you. At this stage of life friends inspire each other to achieve their goals, resolve each other’s issues and conflicts, comfort each other in their testing times and keep each other’s secrets which they cannot share with their respective families. You can think of friendship as “Freud Couch” where you can have the cathartic release of your emotions!

It’s been observed in studies that people who have strong friendship bonds and have good support system have better pain tolerance and a stronger immune system. Friendship seems to reduce their risk of developing feelings of loneliness, helplessness and depression.

Friendship practically works as a healer. So, today talk to at least one of your friends!

Remember to “Hold on to a true friend with both hands.” If you don’t you will lose a confider, admirer, supporter, critic, adviser, mediator, and most importantly a counselor !

UNDERSTANDING GRIEF.................

Losing someone or something very important triggers an intense and overwhelming emotion known as grief. 

People grieve when a loved one dies, or when they or someone they love is diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when their relationship falls apart, or they get separated from someone they loved, or they lose a job or a career, or when they move away from their homes, states and countries. 

The list is very long. So where there is a loss there is grief.

The intensity of grief depends on the ‘sense of loss’ one experiences. It is very personal. No one can define how much one should feel the loss and grief in a particular situation. How people express their grief is also very personal.

Grieving is a process; it cannot be hastened, it cannot be controlled by medicines and directed by mourning rituals.  There is no set pattern of this process and there is no timelines. For some people grief lasts only for a few days while for others it many last for months or even years and for some it may be an off-and-on process.

Some people consider grief as a negative emotion. They think if people learn to ignore it, their pain of loss will go away on its own. Actually, the more you ignore it, the more painful it becomes. It is very important to accept your grief and deal with it actively. This will help in healing the pain.

People express their grief differently. Feeling sad, frightened and lonely is natural when someone or something very important is lost. 

Some people express their pain through crying. Crying is not a sign of weakness. It is just a way of expression of loss. In fact, not crying, when you really want to, is a sign of weakness. 

On the other hand, not crying does not mean that you are not feeling the pain of loss. However, it only means that you might have other ways of expressing your grief.

Psychologists have defined 5 stages of grieving process based on their observations of different reactions and responses of people who have gone through this process.

These five stages are not fixed and not all the people go through these in a set sequential way.  As mentioned earlier, grieving is very personal and so is it’s process. People may move back and forth in these stages and may or may not be able to come out of the grieving process.

However, the understanding of different stages helps the care-givers to provide appropriate help to the griever. You may think of these stages as the tools for the helper.

Here are the five stages or types of responses towards loss.

Denial and shock: 

This is the first stage of grief. When something bad happens, there is disbelief, numbness and nothingness. These are immediate and spontaneous defense responses towards shock. These responses protect the person and help her/him bear the loss. These responses work as filters and only allow that information which s/he can cope with.

Once s/he starts asking questions and let more information in, these defense-responses become weak and s/he gets aware of the loss. This awareness leads to the acceptance of reality and the person moves to the next stage of grief, which is anger.

Anger:  

The actual feelings behind anger are the feelings of abandonment or desertedness or rejection or breach of trust and faith.

This stage is very necessary in the healing process. When the person feels angry, it is a sign that s/he is out from the stage of numbness and nothingness. S/he reconnects with the loss and with others. Anger gives the way out to her/his pain. Once the pain is reduced, the person moves to the third stage of bargaining.

Bargaining:  

In this stage the person thinks about the circumstances and the reasons which had led to her/his loss. S/he thinks about all the bargains s/he should have done to prevent the loss. S/he may try to bargain with God and wish God will set the things right once again. 

S/he may try to bargain with current pain. You must have seen many people start doing something that can reduce their pain and fill the vacuum the loss has created in their lives. They may indulge in constructive or destructive behavior.  But, destructive behavior like indulging in drugs and alcohol may worsen the pain and obstruct the healing process.

Depression: 

The more the person gets connected with reality, the more s/he feels the loss. There are feelings of emptiness and void that lead to depression. It is important to know that this depression is not the clinical depression. 

In this stage grief enters into a deeper level. The person may withdraw from life, there are intense feelings of sadness and s/he wonders how she/he will carry on with life. S/he may even question the need to carry on with life.

Acceptance: 

This is the last stage of grief process. Acceptance does not mean that everything becomes normal once again. Acceptance means that the person has learnt to live again. S/he has established the new normal for example s/he has taken up new roles and responsibilities, established now connections, and developed new meaningful relationships. S/he has evolved and has changed as a person.

In case of loss of a loved one, sometimes person develops a sense of guilt also. When s/he starts living a normal life, s/he may think she/her is betraying the loved-one and gets confused whether s/he should feel happy again or not. Some people are never able to overcome these feelings of guilt and are not able to live a peaceful life. Society also plays an important role here in the readjustment of the person after the loss of a loved one.

A Reminder-

Not all the people go through all the stages and in the same sequence. People move back and forth and may or may not be able to come out of their grief. Some people say that grief only changes its form but it remains there with them.  It may not be painful anymore but it is still with them in the form of memories. 

ANGER AND THE MYTH

Anger is a normal emotion like happiness and sadness. We all feel angry sometimes as we all feel happy and sad.

The intensity of these emotions depends on how we perceive the current situation and on how we evaluate our past experiences.

But how we express these emotions depends on us. We may think that our behavior is a spontaneous reaction of how we feel at that time and that we don’t have any control over it and that anyone would have responded in the similar way in that particular situation.

But if you observe closely this is not the reality. Not every person who is feeling angry behaves aggressively.

Aggressive behavior is a choice, intended to get control of the situation or the person. In other words, a person who feels threatened or out of control behaves aggressively.

So aggression is not a sigh of strength. People who are in the martial arts or who are in the army may agree that they are trained to act and not react.

A person can show direct physical and verbal aggression towards other person/s or s/he may use/show passive-aggression. Any kind of aggression, direct or passive, is an abuse; physical, verbal or emotional.

I have read many quotes which say that people who use bad language, or in other words abusive language are clear at heart. Do you agree? If yes then think again.

I would say that aggressive people are those who have not learnt good coping skills. In challenging situations, they feel angry and helpless.

To overcome these feelings of helplessness and in an effort to take control of the situation or the person/s they use aggression. Then they use their ‘Large-Heartedness’ as an excuse to justify their aggressive/abusive behavior.

They also blame the other person/s for their aggressive behavior.

“I love you so much but you always make me mad. When I am mad I cannot think and I hurt you”, is a very common statement in domestic violence cases.

So next time when you hear anyone saying or you read anywhere that aggressive or abusive people are large hearted, think again.

Rather,there is high probability that someone else is suffering due to the aggressive behavior of such people and needs help.

There is no justification for aggression or abuse. FULL STOP !!

LEADERSHIP- A humanistic perspective.

In today’s corporate world, there is a lot of buzz about two words, Professionalism and Leadership.

For a majority of people, one aspect of being professional is to act in a defined and expected manner, even if they are experiencing something else at that moment.  

For them, being professional means to have the ability to wear a mask, or may be many masks, every day;  mask of being perfect, mask of being strong, mask of being practical, mask of being hard task master and most importantly mask of being not having feelings and emotions at the work place.

I am not sure if this facade is of any help to the person, maybe or maybe not.

But one thing is sure that this must be creating lots of pressure and stress on the person. It is not easy experiencing in one way and acting in a different way. The situation becomes more challenging when the person starts identifying with the masks. He thinks his masks are real.

With time this person with different masks, starts leading people. 

As far as I understand about leadership, it is a helping profession. A leader helps his team members to grow and develop their potentials. A leader achieves this goal by developing a genuine and trusting relationship with his team members.

Now the question is, can this person, who is disconnected with his inner-self, be able to develop a genuine and trusting relationship with others? When he is not, he fails to achieve his leadership goal.

As per Rogers, a renowned humanistic psychologist, there are three fundamental conditions for all helping professions.

Empathy

Unconditional positive regard

 Genuineness.  

These conditions are actually the attitude of the helper towards himself and towards the person he helps.

A helper can only help if he is able to accept himself as he is. In Rogers words, “a decidedly imperfect person, who by no means functions at all times in the way in which he/she would like to function.”

He understands that a person cannot change unless he/she thoroughly accepts what he/she is now.

Once that acceptance is there change comes naturally.

A helper then shows this acceptance towards others whom he is helping.

People stop pretending to be someone else if they feel understood and accepted. They gradually drop their masks and move towards self awareness, personal growth and self actualization.

When a parent develops a relationship with his/her child based on the attitude of warmth, genuineness and acceptance, the child becomes ‘self-directing’, ‘socialized’, and ‘mature.’

When a teacher develops a relationship with his student based on this attitude, the student becomes ‘self-sufficient’, self-initiator’, ‘confident’ and self-disciplined.

When a leader creates such a relationship within his organization, his team becomes more ‘responsible’, more ‘creative’, more ‘adaptive to change’ and more ‘cooperative.’

As Rogers pointed out, this masked professionalism is actually interfering in developing genuine relationship with others and as a result affecting the growth of individuals and organizations.

It will be a real achievement if people are able to learn those core and fundamental principles of trusting relationship with self and others.

Reference: ‘ON BECOMING A PERSON’ by Carl R. Rogers.

COUPLE THERAPY- Emotionally Focused

It’s one of the first brief couple therapies that uses emotion and attachment to understand and to deal with the couple’s problems. EFT considers “Emotions as the Music of a Couple’s Dance.”

EFT assumes that relationship problems are perpetuated by rigid negative interaction patterns that reflect emotional states of fear and anger. The negative interaction patterns contain maladaptive behaviors that are attachment insecurities resulting in separation distress. EFT explains that affect and interaction form a reciprocally determining and self-reinforcing feedback loop.

A healthy close relationship is defined in terms of secure attachment bond. Distress in relationship is related to attachment insecurity. Insecurely attached individuals either heightened expression of anger and distress and aggressively demand reassurance or they disengage and minimize expression of distress. Relationships-distress perspective of EFT is well authenticated by research.

The main goal of EFT is to reprocess experience and recognize interactions in order to create new cycles of secure bonding that will increase partners’ ability to regulate emotions.

To bring this change, EFT therapist performs some main tasks that culminate in creating a safe and collaborative alliance. By assessing and expanding the emotional responses, the therapist guide the couple’s interactions in the direction of mutual accessibility and responsiveness.

Several steps are involved in this therapy. In EFT building of therapeutic alliance and assessment go hand in hand. By showing empathy and genuineness, the therapist actively intervenes in the interactional process of the couple. As a result a de-escalation process begins. For example, the demanding and blaming partner becomes less reactive while the passive partner becomes more engaged.

In the next stage, there occurs an interactional position shift and new bonding event occurs. The withdrawn passive partner starts taking risk of expression of wants and needs, becoming more emotionally involved. Throughout the process, EFT uses reflection and validation.

At the third stage, the therapist’s goal is consolidation and integration of the changes into everyday life of the couple. This is done by the replays and feedback that slow down the process. The partners ultimately develop more positive perception of each other.

COLLABORATIVE COUPLE THERAPY (CCT)

CCT assumes that in a relationship every moment provides opportunity for intimacy, but problem arises when partners do not confide with each other their thoughts and feelings and engage in compensatory fall-back measures.

CCT also assumes that relationships undergo shifts of cycles. When partners are confiding, they are in ‘empathetic cycle’, when not confiding they are in the ‘withdrawal cycle’ and when they are not confiding and are also blaming they are in the ‘adversial cycle.’

CCT thus differentiates between distressed couples and healthy couples on the basis of time spent in the last two cycles and their ability to return to the collaborative phase.

The role of a therapist is unique in this therapy. The therapist let him/ her get affected by the negative interaction pattern of the couple and undergoes negative cycles. He again and again pulls himself/ herself out from the negative cycles. During this process the therapist is able to find out the inner struggle of the clients that has resulted in the symptomatic behavior.

In CCT, the therapist sometimes serves as the spokesperson of each partner. The therapist encourages the partners to express their inner thoughts and feelings, but when they are not able to do this, he does on their behalf. This helps the partners to understand each other.

CCT Points that when the partners’ are able to express their thoughts and feelings; positive and negative, of the moment on a day-to-day basis their relationship strengthens.

The goal of CCT is to increase the expression of thoughts and feelings between partners. CCT defines intimacy as letting you partner know who you are at the moment. Expression of thoughts and feelings creates a joint platform for the partners to deal with their issues collaboratively. So the partners become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Sometimes when partners are difficult to engage in collaborative talk, the CCT helps them to do so after sometime i.e. by holding the recovery conversation.

CCT can also be used as a preventive measure for the well functioning couples. Teaching then to engage in their inner struggle or self- conversation will help them to understand themselves and their feelings and will also help in realizing their partner’s perspective.