Tag Archives: Parenting

Stages of Change or how do we change? Pre-Contemplation

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Change

Change.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Change.

In a previous blog, I wrote about New Year’s Resolutions and how to get out of them. Now occasionally someone argues with me on this and says – no – really – I do want to change. I like to hear that. We, counselors, and therapists are in the business of helping people to change. I like to think of this as the happy life business. Lots of what is here is written for counselors, but if you are interested in change for yourself or others, please read on and see how we think it is that people really change.

Most people who change are able to transform their life by a gradual process, not a one-time resolution. Now I know that there is such a thing as a religious or spiritual conversion and also that some people do make resolutions and as a result change. I would suggest that most of the time that conversion or resolution is part of a process of change. They may make a change of direction but the person needs to do some work on getting to the new behaviors they want.

Every year for New Year’s or other occasions millions of people make a resolution that they will change themselves. Some plan to lose weight, some want to stop smoking or give up drugs. Lots of things they might want to change. Come back a year later and most of them will still be the way they were when they made that resolution. But a few people will really have changed. Why is it that some people are able to carry through and make the change while most people can’t? What happened to the ones that succeeded? These questions resulted in some studies of how people change and at last three guys wrote a book on how all things get changed. The book was “Changing for Good” and the authors were Prochaska, Norcross, and DeClemente. As a result of this book and others, substance abuse counselors, and many therapists are taught the Stages of Change model and they use it to help clients understand how to change.

So here is an example I tell my classes of how someone might change.

One year I attend a reunion and I run into an old friend. He comments on how much weight I have gained since he saw me last. I tell him no, I weigh the same thing I did in High School, well almost, but I am not gaining weight. He shakes his head and changes the subject.

Later that evening I run into an old girlfriend. She tells me she almost didn’t recognize me. “You have gotten so BIG! She exclaims. She is just jealous I think. Look at that skinny little wimp she is with, bet he has an eating disorder or something. I am definitely not gained any weight. I do not have a problem. And even if I have gained a little weight, so what, why would I care, I have no plans to change me.

Later in the evening, someone else remarks about my weight. This suit does seem a little tight. The tight fit is what is making me look fat. Ever since I moved to the desert my clothes have been shrinking. Even the ones in the closet that I don’t wear seem smaller recently. Some of you are thinking here that I am in denial. Maybe so.  The stages of change model calls this Pre-contemplation.

Stage 1: Pre-Contemplation

At this point, I am not thinking about making a change. People around me see a problem but so far I don’t. Now you could argue with me at this point and insist I get on a diet and lose weight. Lots of spouses do that. But if I don’t yet see that I have a problem all your lecturing me about being in denial of my problem will only make me mad.

Substance abuse counselors in the old days used to spend a lot of time arguing with clients, trying to break down denial. So did weight loss and stop smoking professionals. And the result most of the time was that clients stopped listening. So the thing you might do if you were faced with someone who did not think he had a problem would be, provide them with information. If you are reading this and you are already thinking you might need to change something, then you are already past the first of the seven steps that lead to real lasting change.

Often people reach the point of needing to change because of some traumatic experience. Until something happens we don’t even think about the need for change. Lots of people are suddenly confronted with a problem, most try to find a way to avoid change. Divorces or breakups, job loss, forced career changes, arrests and incarceration, and even medical problems can all require people to consider the need for change in their life.

One client told me he did not have a problem. This is typical in pre-contemplation. He just likes to have fun. How can you argue with a fun-loving guy? His wife, soon to be ex, she thinks he has a problem. His last employer told him he had a problem. So did his parole agent and a judge or two. But he was sure he didn’t have a problem.

With any problem, it seems to be human nature to try to find a way to cope without having to change. So we go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to try to not have a problem. Addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, or other substance are especially prone to go unrecognized. Some people also spend lives in bad relationships, sometimes we call them co-dependent or enablers, sometimes they just say they love too much.

People also can become entangled in activities, the gamble till. There is no money left and then borrow or steal money to try to win it all back. Some people are addicted to the process of pulling the lever or turning cards. Other people are addicted to being in a relationship. They would rather be in a bad relationship than none at all. Sex can be an addiction also. Recently we are seeing a rash of problems caused by electronic media. People spend all their time and money on a pornography site, even when it starts to affect their health or their relationships. Some people become addicted to gaming or high adrenalin activities.

So how do you know if the thing you are involved in has moved from you just like to have fun to an out of control life? Counselors have three ways to decide if this is a problem or not.

1. Does it affect your job or income? Has this activity you like to do cause you to lose jobs or promotions? Does it get you in trouble at work? Has it negatively impacted your career? Then this might be a problem.

2. Has the activity you are doing interfered with your relationship with family and friends? Once you start losing friends this is a problem. Especially if you find you are making new friends who agree with you that you’re drinking or drugging is no problem and then they ask you to pay for their drug use. See an issue here?  If both your ex’s thought your fun activity was a problem that should give you a clue. And if your family starts avoiding you and doesn’t want you around anymore you may have a problem.

3. If what you have been doing is starting to bother you. If you feel sad all the time or experience guilt when you do that activity, then it just might be a problem. Professionals call this subjective distress. It is easy to see when it involves depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

One way to understand this is that if multiple people suggest to you that you have a problem, weight loss in this example, then maybe you should check it out and see what they are talking about. At that point, you are ready for the second step in the process of change.

Next time we will talk about our model’s second stage of change – Contemplation.

Other posts on this topic can be found at Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Early Action, Late Action, Maintenance, relapse, recovery, triggers, support system, more on support systems, Resiliency

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

NO, NO, NO – Learning NO!

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Tree with just say no

Just say no.

Saying No.

Despite its short size the word NO is one of the most difficult words in the English language to understand. Ask any school teacher and they would swear that most of their students had never heard the word before. Parents spend the first couple of years of their child’s life trying to teach the child the meaning of the word NO. Then they spend the next few decades wishing they had never taught the child that word. Aside from the obvious benefit of stopping a child’s unwanted behavior, are there any reasons a parent should ever teach their child NO? If they should teach the child this word, are there any rules to stop the child from practicing this new word on their parents?

Some parents avoid using the word – NO, altogether. This word is taboo in their house. You can spot their children in any mall in America. They seem to have heard that we are not supposed to say the “N” word anymore. Do you think people are getting confused by this? Some people seem to have no problem teaching their children the other N-word but they forget to teach them NO. There is nothing worse than an adult with a limited vocabulary. Make sure NO is in your child’s lexicon.

Parents are forewarned – you have to say NO to your child so they can say NO also. Parents don’t often like it when kids say NO to things the parents have told them to do. We expect them to say NO to negative things like drugs and dangerous friends later on in life. So yes, they need to know the NO word, and what it means. Please, parents, don’t leave this task to the child’s teacher. By then your child is in trouble, and they probably will find it much harder to learn NO in a jail cell than in your home.

So teach them the No word. But don’t stop there. They will need to practice using this word. At first, they will get this vocabulary lesson wrong. They will think the NO word means the parent shouldn’t do something or that they don’t have to do what parents said. Encourage them to say NO to themselves. “No, I shouldn’t do that.” Learning to say NO to themselves helps them establish self-control.  But learning NO won’t be enough.

You also need to teach your child YES. If everything they ask for or say is greeted with a NO they become negative people or worse yet they start ignoring you when you say NO. No is meaningless without YES. Just for the record very young kids develop parental deafness if you say NO too often. So expand the vocabulary lesson. Try “don’t do that,” “that is dangerous,” “stop” and other synonyms. And try other languages.

Now by other languages, we are not talking German or French, but you could try that if you want. Most parents, mothers, in particular, use nonverbal language. In mommy speak this is called “the look.” You can also communicate the same message using “the voice.” Rather than yelling ever louder, there is a limit to how loud you can go – try talking in a – slow – low tone of voice. Most kids quickly get the idea that “the voice” means they are about to get in deep trouble.

A well-connected child, one who got praised for pleasing their parents would rather get a spanking than “the look” or “the voice.” So much the better, you get your point across and save your hand and the visit from the child protective services folks.

On that subject, some parents substitute spankings for teaching their child the – NO word. This is not a good idea. What you teach your child is not the word and the idea of “NO” but the idea of “to get what you want hit.” A teenager can hit really hard, as parents who have mistakenly thought that hitting could change behavior have learned. Teach them the “NO” word.  It is less painful all around.

One caution about saying “NO,” too often or too loudly. This word is like a flashlight; use it a little and it sheds some light on the subject, leave it in use too long and it stops working. Use NO only when it is really needed and use substitutes often. Other options with young children are “it will make you sick” or “you will poke your eye out.”

Some behavior books like Sears and Sears in The Discipline Book relate all this teaching of NO to very young children. You would think that it would be harder to teach it to young kids and it should get easier as they get older. That would be so wrong. For some reason two and three-year-olds pick up the word NO quickly. By thirteen most kids have lost the ability to learn that word altogether. So start young but don’t give up. With older kids, you may need some other techniques to convince them NO means NO. Teenage girls especially need to learn this, otherwise, how will they be able to teach it to their boyfriends?

So here is hoping that your child will be a vocabulary expert, knowing and using the word “NO” and all its synonyms correctly. More to come on changing kid’s behavior, resiliency, and recovery.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

They’re misbehaving – again

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

People fighting

Bad behavior.
Photo courtesy of pixabay

Lots of conversations are going on about kids and their behavior, for good reason.

We see some mighty atrocious behavior every day. Sometimes the poor behavior is by teens, other times it is by their parents. It would be easy to blame the kids acting up on their parents, but that isn’t always the case. Good parents sometimes have poorly behaved children, and when that happens the parents start asking about how do I get my kids to behave. Just for the record, there is also a connection between children’s behavior and resiliency later in life.

Studies of resiliency – that ability to bounce back from trials or not be harmed by them report that relationships, especially with parents, have a big influence on future resiliency. One sometimes overlooked part of this parental influence is the way parents use discipline. Now don’t get excited just yet. The researchers use the word discipline in a different way that a lot of other people do. By discipline, they don’t just mean punishment. They also mean rewards and praise and all the things you do to tell the child when they are doing the right thing.

One analogy is that you don’t shape a garden plant only by pruning. You need to do some staking and directing in the way you want the plant to grow. Some adults think the way to make a child fit the mold they envision for them is to break them into pieces and then pour the parts into the mold. This does not work. It inspires resistance and rebellion and in the more severe cases becomes downright abusive. We might think of discipline more like sanding down the rough edges of a child’s personality so they are more socially acceptable. There are certain natural tendencies; some kids are more active than others, some like licorice, etc. You can’t train all the personality out of a child. But then who would want to?

Now some parents think the way to have a good relationship with their child is to let the child do pretty much what the child wants. This does not generally make for a good relationship. Kids who have no or minimal rules don’t learn to follow what they are told. In short, the parents have no control over the child.  You might think this would lead to the child having more control over them but in most cases, it results in just the opposite. As adults, these people often say they are afraid they will not be able to control themselves. If your parent could not control you maybe you are uncontrollable. Kids need limits and structure so they will learn to stay inside the limits. They need parents to teach them how to control themselves and make good decisions. Kids need parents to teach them self-control.

Now one mistake new parents make is to try to teach lessons the child is not ready to learn. Coaches do not begin by teaching advanced skills, they start with the basics. In learning to play chess you are not taught multi-move openings – you start with how the pieces move. But parents often try to teach the proper use of silverware before they have taught the child not to climb on the table. This makes for upsetting dining out for the family and the people at the next booth.

Now the earlier you start training a child in good behavior the easier it is. I am not one who thinks that a person is ever too old to learn socially acceptable behavior but if you don’t teach it to your child someone else – like his parole agent, may need to step in and teach them.

One trap parents fall into is to yell, the worse the child gets the louder and longer the parent yells. This results in a condition called “parental deafness” this is similar to another medical syndrome called “married-man deafness syndrome” which I have written about elsewhere, only parental deafness develops at a much younger age. For a good description of “parental deafness,” you might want to check out “The Discipline Book” by Sears and Sears. They talk a lot about the way to teach a young child to behave. Most of the time I see older people, teens, and even adults who were cheated out of their lessons on behavior at a young age and now need some remedial work on behaving.

So the conclusion is: Children who are taught socially acceptable behavior at a young age are more able to control their own behavior at a later point in their life. And good self-control is one factor in being able to recover from the bumps in life’s road.

In future blogs, I plan to write more about behavior, resiliency, and what to do if you were absent the day these lessons were taught. We should also look at some of the things you can do if you are responsible for some remedial education on behavioral control. So what do you think about discipline, behavior, and its relationship to resilience?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Teens, drugs and resiliency

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Teenagers.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Some new developments in the area of teens, drugs, and resiliency

Energy drinks:

These drinks have been involved in a large increase in hospital emergency room visits. Many young people and some adults think that energy drinks since they are sold in food and convenience stores are safe. Maybe they are in and of themselves but the way many people are using them is not safe. In a five-year period, hospital emergency room visits involving energy drinks have increased more than 1,000 % from just over 1100 to 13,000. The majority of these incidents, more than half, involved using energy drinks with drugs and alcohol. Males were more likely to mix energy drinks with illegal drugs and alcohol while females mixed them with prescription drugs.

A single can of the stronger energy drinks contains up to ten times as much caffeine and other stimulants than a caffeinated soda. People who consume energy drinks with alcohol are more likely to be involved in accidents as they do not feel impaired and over-estimate their abilities to drive or engage in other dangerous activities. The full report is available from SAMHSA, in the DAWN report (Drug Abuse Warning Network.)

New synthetic drugs.

In the race to create new drugs and the efforts to control or ban them, we are not sure who is winning. These products often sold as “bath salts” or incense but commonly abuse by younger consumers by smoking, continues to be a problem. Despite analog and similar laws that say that even if you paint the duck red it is still a duck, manufacturers are finding ways to make and market new synthetic drugs that are different enough to escape the net of banned substances.

Join Together, (join together at the partnership at drugfree.org.)  a great source of information on the latest drug trends, reports that 43 states have laws regulating synthetic drugs. Some laws list specific chemicals as illegal. The manufacturers of synthetic drugs keep changing to new chemicals, not on the list. Other localities have listed categories of chemicals as illegal. Under these laws, prosecution is more difficult as the chemical may have legitimate uses that are not related to drug abuse.

Occasionally one of these new synthetic drugs results in a rash of hospitalizations or even deaths. Often these incidents are confined to a small area or a particular supplier of the product. The risks here are real but the problem keeps changing.

Volunteering reduces teen drug use and increases resilience.

In a previous blog, I wrote about the role of sleep in reducing teen problem behaviors and increasing resilience. There is more.

Another simple low-cost prevention measure for reducing teen drug use and improving resilience has been found. Surprising how simple some of these ideas are. The report, again by Join Together staff, reported that kids who regularly volunteer to help others are less likely to use drugs and get into trouble. This sounds a little twelve stepish.

The study they reported about was conducted with rural teens. Rates of drug use among rural teens are rising rapidly. No folks you can’t protect your kids from drugs by moving to the country, and the country folk isn’t just drinking whiskey anymore.

The economy and government budget cuts have reduced or eliminated many after-school programs and activities for kids. There are almost always opportunities to volunteer to help others. Not only did volunteering to help others reduce rates of teen drug use, the results continued into their young adult years, possibly beyond.

Food is also a treatment for teen drug use and promotes resilience.

While I am on the subject, I recall a study that reported that teens that sat down around one of those old fashion dining room table things, no T. V. mind you, that is kids who regularly eat dinner with their parents, they have fewer drug problems, better grades, more resilience and so on.

The conclusion

The risks and dangers for kids continue to grow. We can’t always protect them, probably parents have always been less able to protect kids than the adults would have liked. What we are seeing are research studies that show what a lot of folks always knew. Plenty of sleep, regular family meals, being taught right from wrong, and volunteering to help others, all these things result in a teen who is less likely to take excessive risks and more likely to develop resilience and bounce back from adversity.

Till next time, I will keep working on that elusive book and writing this blog. Your comments are welcome. What do all of you think about adolescent drug use, risk, and resilience?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Treatment for teen’s risky behavior

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Teens

Teenagers.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

An amazing discovery in the treatment of risky teen behavior was reported over the last several weeks. It went largely unnoticed by most mainstream media.

Furthermore, one single treatment has been shown to have high efficacy in treating teen risky behavior. It is extremely inexpensive and can be obtained and applied without a prescription. The treatment, while often resisted by teens with high-risk behaviors, has been shown to not only be effective under a wide range of conditions but to treat a large number of undesirable teen behaviors at a very minimal expense.

In a startling report, two researchers for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia found after studying data for over 12,00 U. S. high school students that a single deficiency coexisted with a huge increase in teen’s risky behavior. While the government report was reluctant to say that this deficiency was the cause of risky teen behavior, they speculate that this one key ingredient might reduce overall risk-taking in teens significantly.

Unfortunately, this key ingredient cannot be prescribed directly because it is not USDA approved for over-the-counter sales and is, in fact, available without a prescription. This one single item, not yet patented by a drug company, is available to almost all U. S.citizens for free.

High School students who were deficient in this one key item, and almost 70 percent of our teens were deficient, were almost two times more likely to be smokers. A continued deficiency if this ingredient, reported being necessary for happiness, resulted in a 50% increase in marijuana and alcohol use.

Long-term deficiencies in this factor were correlated with a huge increase in teen sexual activity. That was surprising since we most often have studied added factors that might cause an increase in sexual activity. Not many people would believe that a deficiency in a single ingredient necessary for life might increase the sexual activity of teens.

But wait – there is more, this deficiency doubled the risk for a suicide attempt. It was also related to getting into physical fights and being sad and hopeless. Kids who had this deficiency were also likely to be overweight, get less exercise, and generally have a less healthy lifestyle.

So what was this deficiency? And how can we supplement teen’s lives to overcome this insufficiency?

The deficiency was a lack of sleep! Sleep deprivation was significant in kids with all these problems. And the one simple cure was more sleep!

Now teens will resist sleeping more, especially sleeping during the night. It appears that most teens are truly nocturnal creatures. More than one adolescent who was brought in to the psychiatric facility has confided to me that they rarely get much sleep at night. An increasing number of kids have T. V.’s and computers in their bedrooms. Many are online texting friends or playing games until close to morning. They have to set alarm clocks to wake up and even then they often can’t quite get it together in the morning.

Eventually, a teen who stays up most of the night finds they can’t function in the daytime. They are at risk to fall asleep at school, cut class or just plain be grouchy and get into fights and other negative behavior.

So it just might be that one thing a parent might do to improve their teen’s life is to make sure that child is getting enough sleep, even if that means restricting electronic avoidance of sleep.

Be careful if your teen has been avoiding sleep on a regular basis. If you suddenly try to take away their electronic addiction your teen may go into electronic withdrawal. During withdrawal from electronic sleep avoidance teens have been known to become grouchy, throw things break things, swear or even threaten to harm themselves or others. In extreme cases, you may need professional help to get the teen back on a night-time sleep schedule. But if your teen is having difficulties in life you just might want to examine their sleep habits and see if more sleep might improve their mood and behavior.

More sleep might improve your mood and emotions also. What do you think?

Till next time. David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Three-year-old judge decides right and wrong

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

child

Child.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

6 ways to tell right from wrong.

Preschool kids seem to be so very good at telling what is right or fair. They tell us often enough – “That’s not fair!” So how come they so often do things that we say are wrong? Maybe we should appoint three-year old’s to the Supreme Court? Is the understanding of right and wrong something people are born with or do they learn it? And if they learn moral values, how do they learn it?

In the early grades the ways in which kids decide the difference between right and wrong starts to change, at least for some of them. It is important to understand how it is that people learn right from wrong. Why some don’t seem to learn might also be a good thing to find out.

People who study child development probably learned about some theories of how an understanding of right and wrong developed. Counselors are often taught about the stages of moral reasoning, in some developmental classes and then seem to promptly forget it once they start working with real clients. But isn’t right and wrong, and conflicts over how that should be decided one major reason we see clients in counseling?

Lawrence Kohlberg researched and wrote about moral development. So did Lickona who wrote a very readable book “Raising Good Children.” I would recommend it to any parent struggling to teach their child the difference between right and wrong. Somehow all this work is getting forgotten despite the constant reports of high crime and failure of discipline in the home and school. We spend a lot of time these days emphasizing math and science in schools, but less and less time in our homes and schools is spent on right and wrong. So how is a sense of right and wrong likely to develop? Let me give you a brief description of Lickona’s ideas as I remember them. For the full details you might want to look for the book but here is my short version of the 6 stages of moral reasoning as I understand them. Lickona numbers the stages zero to five. The fact that he arranges them this way does not mean everyone agrees that a lower numbered stage is, in fact, better than another stage with a larger number.

0. Getting what I want is fair!

This is the default way of deciding right and wrong. It’s not fair – I wanted ice cream and I didn’t get any. Some people seem to be able to go through their whole life thinking this way. They take what they want and that is fair to them. Some of them go to prison. Some learn to hide what they are doing. Some of these folks end up elected to public office or working on Wall Street. These folks make lawyers rich when they try to get out of trouble for doing what they want. If we don’t want more of these folks around we need to work on teaching kids the more advanced ways of deciding right from wrong, or we need to build more prisons.

1. The teacher said – the authority approach.

Some kids learn this at home before they go to school, for a variety of reasons. Most kids learn this in school. It starts by learning to do what the teacher says. Eventually, the appeal is to some higher authority like the principal. Some people get really legalistic. It says on the page — of the revenue code, that I can do this so it must be right. In some places, with statute law, if there is no law against it, you can do it. In most places in the United States, we have the common law which says you should use common sense unless there is a law otherwise. Then we have lots of layers of appeals courts because we are so short on common sense. We see lots of people who appeal to religious writings as their rule book, sometimes to good effect and sometimes to some awful results. The problem here is not especially with the particular religious writing, but some of the bizarre ways people can interpret those writings. The philosopher, Charles Shultz once reported, something to the effect that “There is nothing in the book of Leviticus that prohibits the wearing of contact lenses.” See how hard I am trying to be politically correct here?

Some people would separate “The Teacher said.” part, from the “The rule is.” Both are resorting to authority but one is putting your faith in a person and the other in some specific set of rules.

2. One hand washes the other.

This commonly heard, usually, in business, expression says right and wrong is something we trade.  We take turns. Most kids learn this on the playground really fast. If you don’t take turns with the ball you may not get to play at all. In Congress, this is called trading votes. You vote for my bill and I will vote for yours. It is pragmatic, gets things done. But is it the best way to determine right and wrong? We need to study this. Send me a million or so in federal money and I will be glad to work on this approach. At a million dollars a year we may need years of study. See how problematic trading one thing for another might be as a way to separate right from wrong?

3. I want you to like me.

So if I want you to like me I should do what you think is right. This is the “what will people think of me” approach. This type of social conformity can keep people acting in a socially positive manner – sometimes. The issue here is what people’s opinion do I care about? This goes to the discussion of peer pressure which I wrote about in an earlier blog. Take a look at that one – now if you want, it’s ok. I can wait here while you look.

You back? So you see that if my peers are good law-abiding people I probably will follow the law. But if my social circle includes convicts, murders, rapists, bankers, politicians, and other undesirables, I might decide that stealing your money was an acceptable thing to do, so long as I steal it using the same methods as my peers.

So using other people’s behavior as a guide to right and wrong may reduce the conflict we have in life, but it is no sure way to figure out right and wrong or to stay out of prison. Ask the group from Enron.

I may be a little hard on this stage. It is great to be a good son or daughter or a good parent. But that may not be enough, especially if you didn’t have good role models. This step in the development of morals is mostly about your relationships with people close to you.

4.  What is best for all of us?

This is the stage where people may do things that have personal costs because it is the thing that is best for our society. This stage of moral reasoning gets people to join the military or become volunteers. This is an altruistic stage, most of the time. It is also a way of moral reasoning that has been used to excuse some horrific atrocities.

Today in America we value diversity. Some of us do anyway. But can you see how someone in another place and time could do some awful things and justify it as “what is best for us?” Think genocide here. Could someone do that thinking it was what was best for their group? The difference between being a volunteer to work with the poor and trying to run a minority out-of-town hinges on who you define as us.

5. Some things are right just because they are right.

This is an easy one to explain in theory, until you are faced with the choice, then it is easy to default to an earlier stage of moral reasoning. Sometimes people are faced with things going on in their society that are just not right. And often it costs to do the right thing at these times and for sure there is nothing in it for you when you do the right thing at these times. This is about respecting everyone just because they are.

So there is my explanation of stages of moral reasoning as I understand them. Can you see how hard it is to figure out the right thing to do sometimes? Some parents are able to teach their children right from wrong despite all the influences around them to the contrary, but what about the other kids? It feels to me like we should spend more time in our society on the ways to determine right and wrong and less on some celebrity’s outrageous behavior. But that’s just my opinion. What do you think about how we learn to tell right from wrong?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Is your child taking too many meds? Are you?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Drugs

Medications.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is your child taking too many meds? Are you?

Ever wonder about the amount of medication, especially heavy psychiatric medication, which is being prescribed to very young children, especially foster children? I know I do. How did we get so many children who need that level of medication? What should you think if your child or the child you care for was prescribed that kind of medication?

There was an article on the internet this morning about the large number of prescriptions for antipsychotics to foster children.  These kids were being given not one medication but multiple medications and many of those medications have serious long-term side effects. Some of these side effects do not go away even after the medication is discontinued. So is all that medication really necessary?

The usual warning applies here. No matter what you and I think, it is unwise to stop, start or alter the dose of a medication without talking with your doctor first. If you are not confident with that doctor’s opinion get a second opinion. It is not safe to play doctor and change the meds yourself. But you should question things if the medications are not working or if it appears to be creating serious side effects.

So why so much medication in children? And why foster children in particular?

Now we have been hearing tales about facilities that overmedicate residents to keep them manageable for a long time. Mary Jane Ward in her book “Snakepit” describes patients in a mental hospital who were heavily medicated primarily to keep them from causing the staff problems. We also hear stories about jails and prisons using lots of meds to keep inmates from causing trouble. But is that sort of thing happening to kids? And why foster kids?

Maybe the reason is that foster kids are the ones that have the most problems? Are children in foster care more likely to have serious mental illnesses? There are two reasons to think this is not true.

The study reported that when kids in foster care were compared to other kids who were receiving Medicare the foster kids got a lot more medication that the kids who were not in foster care. Secondly, the kids in foster care should be the ones who would respond to a secure home situation. Foster care is usually looked at as a housing problem, not a mental health problem. So the seriously mentally ill children should and often do end up in group homes and institutions where they can be managed with less, not more medication. So what is going on here?

One problem is that as a society we are increasingly relying on medications, drugs if you will, to fix all our problems. Despite all our programs to get people off drugs, there are countless commercials that try to convince us to go to the local drug store and get some pills to cure all that ails us. Try counting the number of pro-drug ads on the television on any given night and then tell me that we as a society are opposed to drugs. In this country we love drugs so much, are so convinced there is a chemical that can cure whatever is wrong with us that we now want all our children to take all the drugs they can. We just want them to get their drugs from a drug store not a drug dealer in an alley.

So why are children being given so many drugs? To relieve suffering? Not a chance!

Kids are getting prescribed drugs to make them smarter and to make them behave.

Kids are being prescribed powerful stimulants for ADHD. Even kids with mental retardation and developmental delays are getting ADHD medication. This makes me question the accuracy of some ADHD diagnoses. And if the pills make one kid smarter shouldn’t all children take them?  Here is hoping you read that blog post also.

The other reason kids get so much psychiatric medication is to make them behave. I thought not always behaving properly was a symptom of childhood? Can’t we teach them to behave without sedating medications?

Children are being given lots of sedating antipsychotics mostly because their behavior is causing some adult a problem. Some of my colleagues will argue that if the child does poorly in school or gets in trouble for bad behavior they will end up suffering so by giving them medication we are preventing suffering. For me, that would make sense if there were no other alternatives. But there are other options.

Many of the problems of children for which we give them medication can be controlled, even cured by giving them attention in the proper way. Therapy and counseling are especially helpful for treating many emotional problems. ADHD can be treated by training parents as I wrote about in a previous blog. But far more kids get a prescription for a medication than are getting a session with a caring adult.

Yes, there are professional counselors and therapists; I do that for a living. But the benefits of other adults in a child’s life should not be underestimated. Teachers, grandparents, natural or foster, and friends all are helpful in a child’s learning emotional regulation. So why do we reach for meds first instead of human contact for all the emotional and behavioral problems?

Some people have suggested that counseling is just too expensive. I am not buying that argument and you won’t either if you see how much agencies are spending on medications.

Despite all the things we have learned over the last couple of centuries about the benefits of counseling in overcoming life’s problems we as a society still seem to think that if something bothers you there should be a drug to fix that.

My conclusion from all this is that a lot of kids and some adults are being given lots of medication instead of human contact. It appears that we as a society and some people individually just don’t care enough to bother with anything more than a pill to make the kid behave.

So what do you think? Could we try another approach? Are kids and adults taking too much psychiatric medication because we don’t care enough to do better?

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

6 Rules for surviving your teen

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Teens

Teenagers.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

When the teen years arrive, armed combat begins.

How do you survive your teen unharmed?

Sometime between eleven and thirteen that cute cuddly kid turns into an unrecognizable scratching clawing creature. Once in a while, the parent gets away unharmed but not often.  Parents say they don’t know what happened to their child. They don’t recognize this kid. So what happened?

How do you survive the teen years and is there a life after teens? Here are some ideas; maybe we could call then rules for those years.

1. Don’t try to hold the lid on the boiling pot.

You have spent a decade on more raising a generally civilized child, as the teen years approach and the emotions boil parents often make the mistake of clamping down. Suddenly the cute little daughter who everyone likes – well – the everyones who likes her, are no one you would want around. The result is trying to keep her in. “No dating till you’re thirty,” the parent says. Then the battle ensues. Parents try bolting the windows in her room shut, but like a magician, she somehow gets out. Parents put kids on monitoring. Call me every hour. The kids retaliate with more excuses than a congressman.

Controlling a teen, especially an older one by force is likely to wear you out and have no effect. Sometimes parent’s efforts to make the kid behave turn into violence. Sometimes the parent resorts to hitting the child, always a bad idea. You may discover you no longer have it in you to go ten rounds with a younger and stronger opponent. I have seen parents seriously hurt by their kids. The other, more serious problem with using force on a child is it teaches them to use force and there is no end to how far this will go. So rather than trying to keep the steam in the kettle by holding the lid down, try directing the steam where you want it to go.

As the teen approves adulthood parents may need to learn to discuss and even negotiate things with their offspring. I am not saying let the kids take over the house, but you do need to teach them how to handle more adult responsibilities. By sixteen or seventeen you should have taught your child the difference between right and wrong. If you haven’t it is probably too late and someone with more control than you will need to take on the job, someone like the police or parole. You need to keep up hope that the child will survive, unharmed, the episode of moral amnesia that so many of them experience.

2. Do not try to overprotect them!

You spent ten or more year protecting your child, every “good enough parent” does. Suddenly the experts tell you to stop trying to protect them. I know they will be sixty and you will still feel protective towards them but the teen years are the time for loosening the restrictions, not tightening them. You had to let them ride their bike without your hand on the seat, now you need to let them try some more adult things.

Every night in crisis centers around America we see kids whose parents have always been supportive or permissive, who suddenly engage in a life or death struggle for control with their teen. Kids who had no curfew now chaff as the parents set limits.  Parents worry about drugs, alcohol, driving, and mostly sex. They try to keep their kids safe by keeping them away from the risks – that won’t work.

One day they will turn eighteen and then they will be allowed to make all their own decisions. Some kids start before that. There is no magic cloak of maturity you can give them on that occasion.  You need to begin now teaching them how to be responsible adults and one way they learn that is to try things and see what works and what doesn’t. Increasing rules and restrictions may feel like it is protecting your child but it may also be delaying the growth of maturity.

3. Notice when your child does something right.

Many kids report the only time their parents notice them is when they are correcting them. Constantly finding fault with teens is not likely to make them perfect. It often results in kids who are highly anxious, afraid to do anything because they are sure they will never be able to do it right, or you get kids who give up trying. If the only way to get your attention is to mess up, they will mess up on a daily basis. They are after all giving you what you are requesting. You will get more of whatever you attend to.

Now I am not suggesting hollow praise here. Kids can see right through praise that was given to increase self-esteem but which they see as just something everyone is able to do. What I am suggesting is that you need to pay close enough attention to your child to know when they do something noteworthy and then let them know that you noticed and approved of that.

4. Be their parents, not their friends.

Kids should be kids and parents should be parents. Sharing your drugs with your child does not make for a good relationship. It makes for a child who does not know how to observe boundaries. And even worse are the parents who flop back and forth. One day you want to be the kid’s best friend, maybe even keep a secret from the rest of the family, the next they come down on the kid with all their force because the kid is not doing what they want.

5. Know the difference between rewards and punishments and bribes and abuse.

Lots of people in our society don’t seem to know this one. From the way we see celebrities and politicians acting you would think they are the same thing. They are not.

Rewards and punishment should be directly related to the person’s actions. For adults, this is easy to explain. If I show up for work on time and do my job I get a check. If I am late, I get docked some pay. If I keep coming in late I may lose my job. Parents get this confused and send the child to their room for getting bad grades. Bad grades should get more study time. Going to your room should be a punishment for not behaving around others. See there is some connection between the two.

Do I need to say that some of the punishments I see require me to report the parent to child protective services? Don’t ever let the punishment get out of proportion to the action. When it does it can turn into abuse. This is especially true of physical punishment and name-calling. Calling your child stupid will not improve their grades; it will make many of them stop trying.

6 Pick your battles

Parents, especially of late teens begin to get desperate. Time is running out to teach your child how to behave, especially if you have a strong feeling they should behave exactly the way you want them to. So every day becomes a battleground. The chances that your child will turn out perfectly are not especially good. They all have their flaws. So do their parents.  Unless you really like to fight, day and night, I suggest you reserve your line in the sand efforts for the really big things. Which is more troublesome, your teen’s messy room, or their drug habit?

Like all advice, these rules are easier to say than to do. My hope is that this is helpful to someone out there. If you have comments or suggestions please comment on this blog.

So there you have them, 6 rules for surviving your teen.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

ADHD Cure- – Treat Parents

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Sad child

ADHD?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Could we cure ADHD or depression in children, especially preschool children, by treating the parents?

Just read a report that concluded that the epidemic of ADHD in preschool children can be very effectively treated by training the parents in Parent Behavioral Therapy (PBT). This raised a lot of questions. Why the increase in ADHD? Why in Preschool children? And most importantly how could treating the parents – cure the children?

The Press Release about the report by the McMasters Center can be found here. 

The McMasters center report suggested a different way of viewing ADHD and the older ADD. As I understand their concept they are convinced there is one larger umbrella disorder – Disruptive Behavior Disorder meaning the kid is doing things or not doing things that cause the adults problems.  This more general description, which is a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-4-TR they then subdivide and refine into ADHD in all its varieties, Optional Defiant Disorder, and finally the most severe form Conduct Disorder.

This makes sense to me since most of the referrals for ADHD screening begin with things like – he won’t stay in his seat, is not doing his work, etc. These are complaints teachers and parents have, not things a child, especially a preschool child would complain about. Hence the child’s behavior disrupts an adult’s life and the diagnosis. They report that this disorder began with the label of “minimal brain damage” but when no one could find the specific brain damage we dropped that label.

Further, the study says that ADHD should be thought of as a spectrum disorder. So it might vary from no problem, through milder forms to “for sure you got it” forms. This like so many other mental illnesses are not a case of you got it or you don’t but rather how much of this disorder do you have. Also, there is no medical test for ADHD. We use screening tests and other ways of diagnosing this but the truth is who gets the diagnosis depends on who does the diagnosing.

So why an increase in ADHD cases in preschool children?

Calling them preschool children does not mean that they do not attend school. ADHD and related problems first began to be recognized about 1902 when most children on earth began to attend mandatory universal education.  Now a large number of children are attending preschool – hence lots of preschool-age children are attending school. The report on effective ADHD treatments included all children under six in the preschool group. They especially noted that at this age it is difficult to separate the effects of a condition like ADHD from normal maturation.

I think young children – by definition are immature, so we don’t diagnose “too young” as a condition unless they don’t act like we want them to then they have some kind of disruptive behavior disorder. Some countries in Europe have children wait until they are at least six to start school on the premise that before six they are too immature to benefit from school. In America, we go the other way and start them out at age two or three on the premise that the younger we start pushing them the sooner they will grow up.

So who gets diagnosed with ADHD?

Most new diagnoses of ADHD occur when children begin to attend some form of formal education and are asked to sit still and concentrate on things the adults want them to learn instead of the things kids want to learn. The majority of diagnoses are made between the ages of five and ten years of age. Diagnoses of ADHD after the sixth grade drop sharply and those first diagnosed after age eighteen are even rarer.

The majority of those diagnosed are boys. In fact, boys in the primary grades are four times more likely to get the diagnoses than anyone else. In my own experience, the time children are more likely to get referred for assessment for ADHD is when they first start school, preschool, kindergarten, or first grade. The next big surge in referrals is between the third and fourth grade when there is a shift from learning to read to reading to learn, and the poor readers get really bored.

The number of adult cases is half of those in children, so either a lot of people outgrow this condition with or without treatment or it is not so much of a problem once you are out of required school.  Or maybe a lot of kids get the diagnosis because they are bugging someone in the position to make a diagnosis.

The poor, especially those on Medicaid are much more likely to be diagnosed, but the rich (higher Socio-economic status) are much more likely to receive medication. The poor are more likely to stop taking meds after one prescription. For much the same reasons the poor are much more likely to drop out of parenting education programs.

When meds work for someone it is wonderful, unfortunately, the only way to see if a med will work for you or your child is to try it and there are side effects to worry about. Note that any meds may have side effects but some are worse than others.

In very young children – under the age of six, treatment with a stimulant ADHD med is likely to reduce the ADHD symptoms, but it increases the depression and other mood symptoms. Or maybe the sadness was always there but it becomes more noticeable when the child is able to sit still. The meds also suppress growth, something that a forty-year-old who is overweight might hope for – but not something we want to see in a child under six. And there is another problem.

In one well-documented study children who took a placebo – a non-active pill – did almost as well on managing their ADHD as children who took the real med. When the meds were stopped, 97.5 % of the kids on ADHD meds did not have a relapse, pretty impressive. But of the kids on a placebo who were treated with nothing resembling a drug other than the pill form it was given in, well a full 88% of these non-medicated kids did not relapse either. The conclusion here could be that the thing that helped the kids was the extra attention involved in treatment, not the medication.

Now, why not just send all these kids for therapy? Well as much as that helps some kids, and remember I am a therapist, there is a limitation on therapy. We see the kid for one hour a week. What happens the other 167 hours? So when parents take a class in Parent Behavioral Therapy or work with the therapist on how to help their child, they are able to maintain the treatment all week not just in the therapy hour.

Now if your child is on meds, please do not suddenly take them off, talk to your child’s doctor or psychiatrist first. But for very young children consider approaches other than medication.

The moral of this story? The more we adults work on our skills the more we can help kids with ADHD, with or without medication. So if your child has ADHD or depression or any other emotional problem, consider participating in therapy and learning new skills that might help your child.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller

Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Are you a rat?

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By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.

Truth or lie

Separating truth from lies is hard work.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Should you ever rat? When is it OK to tell on someone?

We tell kids to talk to the teacher if someone bullies them. We tell them no one likes a tattletale. Teenagers are vehement that it is never OK to tell on your friends. Parents of teens wish someone would tell them when their child is in danger. What things might your child be doing you would want to know about? What things do you hope your friends are keeping secret?

In a previous post, I wrote about the way in which kids will tell their friends and their friend’s parents about things they would never tell their own parents. When you hear those things, what should you keep to yourself, and what is so important you need to tell? Should we accept the rule that we should never rat? Should it be OK if our kids keep those things secret?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were all or nothing rules for behavior in life? Some people try to make absolute rules, for themselves and for others. They are mighty sure what the right thing to do is until you call one of their actions into question.

Most of the time in life, things are on a continuum, from good to less good to a little bad to a lot bad. Telling a friend’s secret to someone else is on that continuum.

As a parent, I would want to know if my child was thinking of killing themselves. Wouldn’t you? Could your child feel good about themselves if their friend confided to them that they were suicidal and they did nothing? People who talk about suicide may want to be talked out of it, to be reassured that there is someone who cares enough to intervene and stop them. Would you want to be the kind of person who saved a life or the kind who let someone die?

How would you explain to the parents of a murdered child that you knew someone was going to kill their child but you didn’t want to tell? Could you live with yourself after that? How would you feel if your friend bullied someone and they killed themselves?

It is a good idea to talk with your child about morality and ethics before they have to make those tough decisions.

If a teen is endangering their life with drugs and drinking and driving do you owe it to them to talk to them about it? If they don’t want to stop and continue to endanger their life it is permissible to tell someone else who is in a position to stop them.

Every year we hear about a local teen that is killed by driving drunk, being a passenger of a drunk, or being hit by a drunk driver. Does not trying to stop that when you know about it make you a bad friend? Would you rather be a good friend who kept a dead friend’s secrets or a bad friend who saved their life?

Professional counselors and therapists have legal constraints on secrets. We can’t tell things we might like to such as having a client tell us about past crimes. The counseling relationship has a high level of trust and if we violate that trust we keep clients from coming for the help they need.

But there are other things that counselors are legally and ethically required to talk about, like intervening if a client plans to kill themselves or someone else. We also can intervene when someone does not know how to care for themselves even if they want to be left alone.

Knowing when to keep a secret and when you need to tell to protect that friend, others and society is one of the tasks people need to learn to be adults. A parent’s major job is to help their child grow up. That sometimes it is OK to tell is a lesson we all may need to learn.

P. S. I know that tame rats can, in fact, make good pets. I have no idea why we call people who tell on each other rats. Rats don’t tell on each other. At least I don’t think they do.

I know there are some of you who won’t agree with me on this, you are entitled to be wrong.

Still feel free to comment on this or any other blog and feel free to like, forward and recommend to your heart’s content. Till next time, David Miller LMFT, LPCC.

Staying connected with David Joel Miller

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!

My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.

Story Bureau.

Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.

Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.

As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.

Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.

Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.

Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.

Planned Accidents  The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.

Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.

What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?

Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.

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