When “Good Enough” is Not Possible 

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

By Karen Libber Fishbein, MSW

Sunday, May 11th was Mother’s Day. Articles about grief kept coming up on my newsfeed. Women missed their wonderful mothers.  

But I would like to discuss a different kind of grief  – a kind that some mothers (and fathers) experience – and not just on Mother’s or Father’s Days – but on a regular basis. This is a kind of grief that is harder to name and conceptualize. It is the grief of knowing that being able to provide “Good Enough” parenting is not always possible. 

It is a grief I encountered on Mother’s Day last year.

In 1953, pediatrician and psychoanalyst, Dr. Donald Winnicott, coined the term “The Good Enough Mother.” A “Good Enough” mom is a responsive and nurturing figure who does her best to meet her children’s developmental needs but who may not always do everything “perfectly”. This is in contrast with the notion that many parents have these days of having to keep their children happy at all times. It recognizes that parenthood is a difficult job where mishaps and misattunements will inevitably occur. 

The idea that I did not have to be a perfect mother, but just a “Good Enough” parent provided me with much solace over the years and helped ease some of the pressure that goes along with raising children. 

But this solace shifted once I was in a position where I could not even be “Good Enough”. 

In December of 2022, I contracted the Coronavirus for the second time. The initial infection was quite mild, but unfortunately, once the COVID symptoms started, they never stopped. To this day, they’re still affecting me, though I’m finally almost back to my baseline. As part of the Long COVID journey, I took a turn for the worse from November of 2023 until September of 2024. During these 11 months, the Long COVID symptoms dramatically reduced my ability to function. I found I could only do the bare minimum of parenting. I remember having to force myself to get out of bed or pick my kids up at school. Trying to keep a smile on my face when I felt so awful was extremely difficult. Housework was nearly impossible,  and sitting down with my kids to play a game or help with homework was not happening. I was fully aware of the various struggles my girls were having and I simply could not muster up the strength to support them.

Intellectually, I knew all of the things I was supposed to do to be a “Good Enough” mother – but physically, it was impossible. I felt completely unable.. My symptoms involved feeling  achy and uncomfortable all day as well as experiencing extreme fatigue. The final diagnosis of one of my particular problems was “irritable larynx syndrome”. Thankfully, this is treatable, and I’m expected to make a full recovery.  However, living with this for a year and a half has been very difficult. When symptoms were most severe, I needed to use heat and steam daily and I had to spend six to eight hours a day resting in bed. I was still working and I had two children to take care of, so needing to spend this much time on bodily care meant that many tasks went undone.

My illness would have been bad enough if it had just affected me, but as a mother, it felt terrible to know that it also affected my family. However, as many negative effects as there were, I was surprised to see that there were also some positive effects. 

The negative effects included my husband and kids feeling frustrated with me, the kids not having as much of my support with schoolwork or other pursuits, and their being bored when I was too sick to plan activities. There were many days where they spent way more time on screens than they should have. And as far as socializing with friends and neighbors was concerned, there were multiple events I had to skip. 

Interestingly, with all the things I couldn’t do during this time, one of the major sources of annoyance for my kids was me clearing my throat and massaging my larynx. They just hated the sound of my doing these things – and my younger daughter, in particular, had a visceral response to them. She and her sister nicknamed me “The Hock Monster!” Though we can laugh about the nickname now, there is also a bittersweet aspect that goes along with it. At one point, my younger daughter asserted, “I just want a normal mom!” 

But, there have also been some significant areas of growth for my family as a result of my illness. For better or worse, out of necessity, both of my kids had to step up their game and learn to be more independent. My 12-year-old is fully in charge of her own laundry now! Both kids have honed their empathy skills and have tried to understand and support me when they see I’m not feeling well. They’ve also gotten much closer to friends, family and neighbors.  As they say, a village is needed when raising children, but it is of the utmost importance when a parent is sick. 

I am so thankful to those who showed up for my family when I was down for the count.

Additionally, I owe my husband a great deal of gratitude. His TLC and efforts to keep everything together for our family during my prolonged health struggle were essential.

And, as I’ve gotten better, the family has become visibly healthier and happier. A major area of growth for the family system is that my husband and I are now team players as we navigate daily responsibilities. This is something with which many couples struggle. Long COVID forced us into a reset, and a more balanced system has remained intact even now that I’m feeling better. 

Many people have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I’m sure as my family and I look back on the time I was ill, there will be painful, traumatic feelings. But another less well-known concept is Post Traumatic Growth. Despite the hardship my condition has caused, I truly believe that the growth my family has experienced during my illness has been extraordinary. And for me, as I heal, I have a new take on life. I’m living each day to its fullest and I am beyond grateful that I’m now able to show up for my children and family with an almost entirely healthy body. And also – we’re certainly going to be celebrating when my symptoms are fully resolved.

Have You Watched “Adolescence”?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

It takes a certain amount of bravery to get through the Netflix mini-series Adolescence. It is compelling but also harrowing, showing a family’s intense pain when their thirteen-year-old is accused of committing a terrible crime.

This show is being thought about, discussed, and written about all over the media. 

But what is the show about? Is it about what the internet has done to childhood? Or is it about mental illness? Or perhaps the intersection of the two?

Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the show and you don’t want to know what happens, stop reading here.

In Adolescence, a thirteen-year-old is accused of killing a classmate. And for the first two episodes, it is just impossible to believe that he has actually done this. Sweet-faced and smart, this boy looks to have barely reached puberty and his obvious love and respect for his father make you want to believe that he is a good kid who has been falsely accused.

But as the show moves on, as inconceivable as it seems, the viewer is led to believe that he is, indeed, the murderer.

But, as the viewer you want to know: why did he do it? And how could he have? 

And this is where the impact of social media and the boy’s difficulties with his mental health intersect.

It becomes clear that the victim made fun of the boy. And she did it, as is so often the case now, on social media. And how she did it was subtle, speaking in the secret and nuanced language of adolescence: emojis. Tiny, seemingly harmless symbols – which turn out to convey enormous, humiliating insults. Through these emogis the girl lets it be known that the boy she is targeting is unwanted, unappealing, ugly…  and perhaps even an incel, one of those angry men who can’t get a woman to go out with them and who are resultingly furious with all women as a result. Or, as one boy in the show puts it, a virgin for life.

This is a deeply cutting insult for a boy, of course, but is it enough to lead him to murder? 

After all, teasing between adolescent boys and girls has gone on since time immemorial.

Certainly we can look to the internet for introducing kids to the overstimulation of porn and to concepts such as the incel. We can blame social media for widening the scope of teasing to include everyone in a given school, and beyond, in the larger internet community. And this obviously amplifies the impact of teasing to ever more humiliating heights – but again, is this enough to drive a thirteen-year-old to murder?

We know that this sort of teasing has driven some kids to suicidal actions – and to completed suicides.

But again, in these cases, too, is it just the teasing? And the social media advertisement of the teasing?

I think not.

In the final episodes of Adolescence, we find out some interesting things. We find that the boy in question has a problem with his anger. He can escalate to violence and when he does he can be cruel, impulsive, destructive. We find out that despite his sweet face and his obviously good intellect, once angry, he cannot calm himself down without firm limits from outside of himself. And we find out that his parents did nothing about this.

This was a boy who was allowed to sit alone in his room with the door shut to look at whatever he wanted on his computer, including, evidently, humiliating posts and reactions to his posts by the kids in his class. And this was also a boy whose obvious anger was not seen as anything more than an echo of his father’s anger, who was not helped to understand this anger and who was never provided with any help to learn how to bring himself back from it.

This was a boy like so many children, who was left largely on his own not only to deal with social media but to deal with the darkness contained in social media and with his own darkness, his own rage and his own difficulty containing it. Yes, he was egged on by social media. He was insulted by his peers publicly and he was rejected by a girl he wanted – but he was also neglected by an educational system that was obviously immune to the real needs of children and by a loving set of parents who just did not seem to know whether or how to help him.

The portrayal of this boy, as I imagine the creators of the show intended, is similar to the description of so many of our school shooters. It is the profile of so many adolescents, often boys, who go unnoticed and unhelped by ever more overburdened, underfunded and undercaring educational and mental health systems.

This is the boy who needs us. This is the boy who needs to be seen, and heard, and supported at school and through early intervention. His are the parents who also need support and guidance. And he is the boy and they are the parents we are failing.

Why Aren’t Kids More Independent?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ 4 Comments

Kids aren’t doing things independently as much as they used to. This is the thesis of a recent podcast by Screenagers founder, Delany Ruston – and I highly suggest you listen. (See below for link)

Her first premise is that kids are less independent because they spend so much time watching screens. And her second premise is that kids are less independent because of parental anxiety and the restrictions parents put on kids as a result.

Her guest on the podcast is Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, the “terrible” mother who let her nine-year-old son ride the subway in New York City.

Well, let me just say, I rode the public bus when I was nine – and I did it because I wanted to. I also went to spend overnights with my best friend – and from the time we were about six, her mother, who didn’t like to cook, would send us to the corner store for lunch.

This was fun. This was exciting. And we didn’t get kidnapped.

But these days, when we see kids riding the bus or the subway at nine or ten and those who walk around alone or with a friend at six we think they are being neglected, possibly abused and definitely in danger.

However, Dr. Ruston said an interesting thing. She quoted a mentor of hers as having said, “People do not mature in preparation for responsibility – they mature as a result of it.”

And from my own personal experience, and as a child psychologist, I have found this to be true.

My father died when I was 14. I started to be the one to lock the doors at night, just as he had once done. I mowed the lawn, as he had done, and when I was 15, I got a job. 

I didn’t do these things because my mother yelled at me and told me I had to. I did these things because I wanted to. And doing these things actually felt good. Doing these things made me feel more confident and more able.  And when I went away to college, I felt prepared to handle myself independently.

Did my boss at work yell at me? Yes. Did she tell me I was terrible at my job? Yes. But I still enjoyed working for her and I REALLY enjoyed getting that paycheck.

Meanwhile, in my practice, I am seeing college-aged kids who don’t seem to know how to do so many things, who seem self critical, who seem to lack confidence and who seem to prefer to sit on their beds and scroll. I see college kids who need to text a parent multiple times a day. And I see college kids who, once they have an internship or a job, can’t stand a moment of criticism and feel like they have the right to push back immediately.

I think these college kids are not used to being independent. I think they feel unsure of themselves and they need to check in with parents to see if what they are doing or what they might do is OK. Often these are the kids who were driven everywhere they needed to go and who were given advice about everything they needed to do.

Of course, their parents restricted their independence out of fear. The kidnapper, the accident, the rapist lurked just around the corner. And their parents gave advice because they wanted the best for their kids. They hired the college consultant because they were unsure about whether their own judgment or their kids’ judgment about which colleges to apply to were good enough. They kept their kids from having jobs because they wanted them to get the best grades they could. They scheduled their kids with activities because this is what they thought was best for their kids.

But does constant protection and constant advice give enough room for kids to experience life for themselves, to make some mistakes, to learn how to handle a yelling boss or a bus that never comes?

I think we all know the answer.

And for the ubiquitous phenomenon of overprotected kids, over anxious kids, and over anxious parents, I, like Dr. Ruston, blame screens. But for once, I don’t blame the screens the kids are on. I think part of the blame goes to the screens the parents are on.

We know that we all receive too much news too much of the time via our phones. And we also know that we all receive an enormous amount of pseudo-news too much of the time. And we know that we keep reading this pseudo-news and we keep clicking on the clickbait even when we know we shouldn’t.

For parents, the content they consume often has to do with all the worst things that can happen to kids, and all the possible criticisms of the parents whose children suffered these terrible things.

No parent wants to be the bad parent. So an abundance of caution, a fear of criticism and genuine love for their children often keep parents from allowing their children a bit of freedom, a chance to take a walk or a bike ride with a friend, a trip on the bus or subway or train by themselves.

And this spills into other decisions – do parents let their kids go on overnights or to overnight camp? Do they let them spend time with aged relatives? With relatives who are sick? Do they let their kids attend wakes or shiva or funerals?

The worry parents experience can lead to restrictions on all sorts of experiences.

Of course, the desire to protect comes from love. But we have to ask, what does our protection lead to in terms of kids’ development?

My parents didn’t watch local news. In fact, they were busy and didn’t really watch TV at all. I’m sure they worried about my taking the bus. And yes, I later found out that my mother followed the bus on the first day and she followed me almost all the way home as I walked from the bus stop. But I didn’t know it. And I was so proud of myself for having successfully ridden the bus home! In fact, a few years later, on nice days I also started walking home from school. And it wasn’t a short walk. My older sister had done this before me and she could often be seen walking down the street while simultaneously reading a book. I wanted the same independence she had. I wanted to be like her. And even though I was six years younger than she was, my parents let me have it.

Getting a hot dog with a friend at age 6, riding the bus at age nine, losing a father at 14 – these experiences, and many more, both good and tragic, can be growth-promoting and independence-promoting experiences – at least, they were for me.

Podcast Link:

https://www.screenagersmovie.com/podcasts/raising-independent-kids?utm_source=TTT+and+Movie&utm_campaign=ed57135e64-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_TTT495&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-e0518a1e9b-160707841&mc_cid=ed57135e64&mc_eid=38d3a9d11c

What’s Up With Hook-ups?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Hook-up culture has been around for a while. Often fueled by alcohol, these encounters avoid all the the preliminaries – the flirting, the talking, the “dates”.

Kids in their teens as well as young adults are getting drunk and having sex of one sort or another… and then ghosting each other.

But why?

And what can they possibly be getting out of this?

Delaney Ruston of “Screenagers” recently released a podcast and a blog post on this subject and she interviewed Dr. Lisa Wade, author of American Hook-up: The New Culture of Sex on Campus.

According to Wade, kids in high school and college often feel that “everyone is doing it”, referring to hooking up.

So perhaps one motivation for hook-ups is to be doing what “everybody” else is doing.

But there must be more.

Having an intimate encounter with someone can involve allowing oneself to be vulnerable. And allowing vulnerability, often leads to feelings of closeness and connection – which is something most teens want.

But teens who opt for hook-ups are getting the vulnerability and the physical closeness with none of the emotional connection.

Why opt for this?

I wonder if some teens – whether in high school or college – are avoiding something by engaging in hook-ups. I wonder if they are avoiding the anxiety of acknowledging that they like someone, taking the risk of contacting that person and actually talking with them face to face. I wonder if the anxiety and the potential for an awkward encounter – or even worse, for disappointment – is keeping some kids from trying.

But why is this more true now than ever before? Why is there even a hook-up “culture” at this point in history?

Could the isolation of COVID, combined with the usual awkwardness of adolescence and the prevalence of social media have made it harder for many adolescents to socialize face to face?

Of course, it is true that casual dating decreased during COVID. It was harder to meet people and it was harder to get together without the risk of exposure to illness. (2)

But the desire for a relationship did not decrease. This put teens in a difficult position. The longer kids were in isolation, the more many kids looked forward to the rewards of getting back to socializing and potentially finding a romantic relationship. (1)

However, hook-up culture existed pre-COVID and still exists post-COVID. So the appeal of the hook-up must transcend the loss of opportunities and the lack of social skills kids experienced as a result of COVID.

So this leaves me to speculate: I think there was always a certain amount of hooking-up. I think that kids have been having substance-fueled sex for a long, long time. But perhaps the prevalence of hook-ups now points to something more malignant.

At this point, many teens and young adults seem ill at ease with one-on-one interactions. And this is true even when it comes to the phone. Recently I read that one teen likened hearing his phone ring to being stabbed in the chest. People in this age group do not like to talk on the phone. They seem to lack confidence in their ability to hold down a one-on-one conversation. Even worse, for some, is getting together. Many kids prefer to stay on their beds. Many don’t have “friends” anymore – if they have anything, they have remote friends they talk to on social media or with whom they play video games. At best, they have “friend groups”. While sometimes they may get together one-on-one, more often the group does things together.

Something has happened to teens and young adults in regard to their ability to tolerate contact and intimacy.

And it is not just a few teens and young adults, it is many.

I suspect the advent of contact through screens has something to do with this – but perhaps not all of it. With the use of video gaming and social media, kids no longer have to leave the house to get stimulation. Now it can be had from the comfort of bed or basement. Social skills are no longer needed. And there are not nearly as many opportunities to practice what social skills a teen may have, or to make mistakes and recover, or to experiment.

I also think that one one-on-one conversations and interpersonal interactions are not demanded of teens and young adults often enough. Parents AND children spend hours each day on their phones. Even when they are together, parents are not talking to kids as much and kids are not talking to their parents as much as in previous generations.

And at school, as I wrote about in my last post, kids are on their phones at least some of the day, rather than interacting with each other. And at some schools and in some classrooms, kids use their computers rather than engaging in classroom discussion and debate.

The malignant thing I referred to earlier is not just the proliferation of screens, it is not just the aftermath of the isolation of COVID, it is our teenagers’ loss of faith in themselves as social beings.

And it is contributed to by our allowing teens to hide behind screens, stay on their beds, and avoid interpersonal interaction.

I think hook-ups, in many cases, are the workarounds that many kids have found to get to have sex and contact without having to utilize much in the way of social skills.

But hook-ups are a desperate workaround, a decidedly second-rate, often risky, and more often hurtful and disappointing way to try to get something rather than to risk what kids fear: getting nothing in the way of romance or sex.

One male student said:

“Most of the time, it’s not a fun experience. Sometimes it’s great, but more often than not, people are kind of left feeling maybe a little bit regretful, kind of embarrassed, awkward. There’s pressure to hook up, but if you don’t, you feel like you’re missing out.” He added, “If you hook up with someone and they don’t text you after, that can be pretty hurtful.” 1

This is only one student, but I suspect he speaks for many others. Hook-ups meet a basic desire for sex, but they don’t meet any of the other needs that teens have for interpersonal relatedness and connection, for affection, support, and validation.

References

1 Ruston, Delany. 2025. Is Hookup Culture Really the Norm? Feb. 18.


 Kuperberg, Arielle (2022). Dating during COVID-19: A sociologist’s perspective.


2 Breaux R, Cash AR, Lewis J, Garcia KM, Dvorsky MR, Becker SP. Impacts of COVID-19 quarantine and isolation on adolescent social functioning. Curr Opin Psychol. 2023 Aug;52:101613. Epub 2023 Jun 1. PMID: 37364468; PMCID: PMC10232930.Ki

How Much Time Do Teenagers Actually Spend on Their Phones at School?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Screen use amongst children and teens in the US and elsewhere is an enormous concern – with adolescents aged 13 – 18 spending an average of 8.5 hours daily on screen-based media. This is at least one-half of all their waking hours – and it is time that could be spent in so many other ways.

And some of these 8.5 hours of phone use take place in school.

Yes, kids are on their phones at school.

The issue of whether kids should even have their smartphones with them during the school day is one that comes up again and again – including in this blog. Some parents feel it is a safety precaution in case their children need to get in touch with them. Others feel that phones are a distraction from learning and are better left in lockers or in a central location at school.

But there has been very little good data concerning how much time kids actually spend on their phones at school to date.

Finally, however, there is a study which looks at this. Just published in the Journal of The American Medical Association Pediatrics, this study begins to help us understand kids’ phone use at school.

The researchers not only answered the question of how much time kids spend on their phones but they also looked at what kids are doing on their phones during school hours.

As it turns out, kids spend an average of an hour and a half on their smart phones over the course of a six-and-a-half-hour school day. But a quarter of kids spend more than two hours on their phones while at school. And the most looked at apps or categories of phone use are messages, Instagram, video streaming, audio and email.

These are very revealing findings. They are not surprising….but they are shocking. The researchers who performed this study said, “Parents and adolescents may derive benefit from access to phones for communication and learning purposes during school. However, application usage data from this study suggest that most school-day smartphone use appears incongruous with that purpose. The analyses show high levels of social media use during school.”1

In other words, kids are not just using their phones to communicate with their parents during the school day. They are using their phones for the same purposes they use them out of school: scrolling social media, watching YouTube, etc.

It is time for us as a society, and for parents as individuals to think about whether this is the best use of kids’ time – both in school and out.

This is the third in a series on phone use in school.

Footnotes/References

1 Christakis DA, Mathew GM, Reichenberger DA, Rodriguez IR, Ren B, Hale L. Adolescent Smartphone Use During School Hours. JAMA Pediatr. Published online February 03, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.66

Does Your Teen Hate Social Media?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

I know, I know. Most teens love it and are on their phones 24/7. But do you have one of those rare teens who is just … over it? Who sees through all the curated images of life? Who is actually tired of sitting on their bed all day and watching life go by through a screen?

Because, if you do, they are not alone.

A New York Times reporter, Alex Vadukul, has written two stories on a group of teens in Brooklyn who started something they call “The Luddite Club”.

Biruk Watling, was one of the founders. Now a student at Temple University in Philadelphia, she says that she and some friends from high school started the club in 2022. They gathered in Prospect Park on the weekends sketching, painting, reading … and most radical of all, talking together. 

They named their club after the bands of English workers who destroyed new machinery in cotton and woolen mills from 1811 to 1816, because they believed the machinery was threatening their jobs. These days, we use the name Luddite to describe people who oppose new technology.

Logan Lane, one of the members of the club in Brooklyn,  said, “Like other iPad kids, I found myself from the age of 10 longing to be famous on apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok. My phone kept the curated lives of my friends with me wherever I went, following me to the dinner table, to the bus stop, and finally to my bed where I fell asleep groggy and irritable, often at late hours in the night, clutching my device.” Then at 14, she had a revelation while sitting by the Gowanus Canal. She said, “I felt the sudden urge to throw my iPhone in the water. I saw no difference between the garbage on my phone and the garbage surfacing on the polluted canal”. A few months later she signed off on social media and put her smartphone in a drawer. 

The Luddite Club members all got flip phones so they could call people and used their computers for homework – but otherwise, they tried to stay away from electronic media.

Now Biruk is recruiting members for a new Luddite Club at college. But just because she and her friends have tried to embrace this lifestyle does not mean they find it easy.

 Sometimes they feel left out. Odile Dexter, another founding member of the club says that she has resisted using technology since high school but she is sad that everyone at college uses dating apps and she cannot. Another member said she tried to adhere to the lifestyle but ended up getting a smartphone because she needed to order an Uber now and then. Many of the club members agreed that it is harder to live without using a smartphone these days.

It’s just not easy giving up technology. It’s omnipresent – but that hasn’t stopped more clubs from forming. There is one at Brooklyn Tech, one at Telluride High School in Colorado, one at Oberlin College and one each at high schools and colleges in Seattle, West Palm Beach, Florida, Richmond, Va., South Bend, Indiana, and Washington, DC.

If you have a teen who’s had it with social media, tell them about these clubs and maybe your teen will want to start one, too.

And if your kids are still loving their phones, try these ideas, as suggested by Andrew McPeak, who wrote an article on the subject:

1. Expose your kids to shows and articles about children and teens who are making different choices about their use of social media.

2. Bring up the question of how your kids’ media choices are affecting them and encourage your school to do the same.

3. Plan device-free activities, times, days and vacations for your family – and this means you too!!!

For more info on Luddite Clubs:

https://www.theludditeclub.org

References

Vaduku, Alex. Still averting social media’s grip. The New York Times, February 2, 2025.

McPeak, Andrew. A new wave of teens are pulling away from social media. Growing Leaders. https://growingleaders.com/a-new-wave-of-teens-are-breaking-away-from-social-media/

Does Gentle Parenting Actually Work?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ 1 Comment

This is the second in a series on Gentle Parenting

The term, Gentle Parenting was coined by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a British writer who has authored a variety of books on the subject. She emphasizes the importance of empathy, respect, understanding and boundaries in parenting. And in doing so, she shares some of the best practices of good parenting.

But you may be surprised to know that Ockwell-Smith actually has no qualifications for calling herself a parenting expert. She has an undergraduate degree in psychology, she is a mother, but otherwise, nada. 

Her ideas are her own. Like other parenting experts before her such as William Sears (attachment parenting), she speaks based on her own opinions and observations rather than from scientific research findings.

In other words, Gentle Parenting has no data behind it.

And it is just beginning to be studied.

So how can parents know if it is an effective technique for raising happier children? 

Well, they can’t.

But this has not stopped many parents from adopting Gentle Parenting wholeheartedly and feeling deeply that this is the “right” way to parent.

It is important for such parents to keep in mind that since parents started to parent, there have been styles of parenting that have been popular and then gone by the wayside, ways of parenting that have been considered “right” at the time and then, just as quickly, have gone out of fashion.

And in the last 75 years there has been a particular trajectory to parenting styles: Since Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote his first parenting book in 1946, parenting has become progressively more “child-centered” with Gentle Parenting being the most child-centered of them all.

But is this actually good for children?

Let’s look at what little data there is.

In one of the first studies of Gentle Parenting, professors Annie Pezalla and Alice Davidson gathered data from 100 self-identified “Gentle Parents”. And what they found may not surprise you. They said that these parents are “at risk of burnout”. 

It turns out that this parenting style is extremely hard for parents to implement. For example, the expectation that a parent can remain calm at all times regardless of children’s behavior is extremely emotionally taxing for parents.

This is what they said, “Parenting young children has always been hard, but evidence suggests that it might be getting harder. The pressures to fulfill exacting parenting standards, coupled with the information overload on social media about the right or wrong ways to care for children, has left many parents questioning their moment-to-moment interactions with their family and leaving them with feelings of burnout. 1

And they found that gentle parents were not always so gentle on themselves: “the emergent theme of self-critique, expressed by over one-third of gentle parents, and the findings that, among those self-critical gentle parents, the levels of self-efficacy were significantly lower, illuminates the need for more explorations and more support of these parents. One of the gentle parents in our sample, a 40-year-old mother of two children, wrote that her approach to parenting is about “Trying to remain calm…but I do reach my limit sometimes.” Gentle parenting seems to represent an approach that is extraordinarily gentle for the children, but perhaps not-so-gentle for the parents themselves. “1

Moreover, it is also not clear that remaining calm at all moments is actually helpful for children.

While extreme emotional outbursts from parents in reaction to children’s misbehaviors are obviously not advantageous, I would suggest that there is a natural feedback system that is in place in parent-infant/child interactions both in humans and in most other mammals: when a child or young animal misbehaves by doing something dangerous or annoying, the parent naturally reacts accordingly – with an angry word or growl and sometimes a correction. From this, the child understands that she has done something she should not have. The parent’s negative reaction is the logical and normal consequence for a child’s misbehavior and the child learns what the parent will and will not tolerate.

And the effectiveness of providing a consequence for misbehavior has been widely researched. As I discussed in my last post, in the parenting style known as Authoritative Parenting, parents make their expectations clear, they support children’s feelings and needs and they provide gentle punishments or consequences when children misbehave. And this parenting style has been shown, in many studies, to be the most effective parenting method (amongst the three types of parenting styles: Authoritative, Authoritarian and Permissive) and the one that yields the happiest children.

Gentle Parenting does share some characteristics of Authoritative Parenting – it advocates clear boundaries and provides support for children’s feelings and needs.

And where Gentle Parenting also gets it right is in the area of advising parents to stay calm in the face of children’s extreme feelings. A parent’s ability to remain calm in the face of an infant or young child’s distress – sadness, pain, frustration, IS helpful – and we have known this for a long time. Theorist Wilfred Bion wrote about the mother’s ability to contain her infant’s highly charged affects by reacting with soothing as being one of her most important functions and the one that helps infants learn to tolerate their own distress. He explained that the mother who can grasp the importance of, and take into herself, some of the baby’s earliest and most primitive anxieties helps her baby to internalize the mother’s capacity to tolerate and manage anxiety.

So this is a well known function of the mother, one that was recognized before Gentle Parenting and which Gentle Parenting wisely incorporates – just as it includes a variety of other important parental functions including empathy, endeavoring to see matters from the child’s point of view, verbalization of the child’s feelings and motivations and support for these.

Where Gentle Parenting goes wrong is that it asks WAY too much of parents and it asks WAY too little of children.

At this point in history, most parents work to earn a living and face a host of demands just to survive. Adding to this the expectation to stay calm in the face of every sort of child emotion and behavior, being endlessly empathic, and having no consequences for misbehavior may just be asking too much of parents.

Parents need a sense of having SOME control at home. Sometimes they need a child just to do what they have told them to do. And parents need some way to express themselves to their children. When a child does not comply with what a parent has expected of them, it is natural for the parent to be annoyed and to say so. This is life. Children need to know that not everything they do is acceptable and that some things they do come with unpleasant consequences. They really need to learn what not to do and what to do – because once they go to school and eventually to internships and to jobs, once they have friends, and eventually romantic relationships, this will be the reality of their lives. Not every person in life will be understanding and empathic. Not every motivation for every kind of behavior is equally acceptable in life.

Moreover, research has shown that children feel safer when they know what is expected of them AND they feel less guilty when they have a consequence when they do not comply.

In the end, this is what the researchers who did one of the first studies on Gentle Parenting had to say: What seems to be unique about the gentle parenting movement is that it has not been presented or advocated by scholars of human development; rather, it has largely been the product of social media. Considering that parents are increasingly stressed or burned out by their caregiving responsibilities, it is imperative that evidence-based guidance is made available to those who are interested in gentle parenting. What does this approach entail? How is it related to other parenting approaches? Is it a sustainable approach for caregivers? These are empirical questions, and they deserve empirical answers. 

1 Pezalla, A., Davidson, A., (2024) Trying to remain calm…but I do reach my limits sometimes; An exploration of the meaning of gentle parenting. Tenth International Congress on Peer Review and Sicentific Publication, July 31.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307492#pone.0307492.ref010

Psychology professor’s research offers first look at popular ‘gentle parenting’ movement

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator/202311/when-gentle-parenting-doesnt-work

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307492#pone.0307492.ref010

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/gentle-parenting-style-hard-on-parents-rcna176917

Consequences vs Gentle Parenting

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

Should children suffer consequences when they don’t do what we tell them to do?

This question has come up a great deal recently in light of the advent of “Gentle Parenting“.

Most of you have probably heard of Gentle Parenting and some of you may even be using the Gentle Parenting philosophy to raise your kids. But for those who are not up to speed, the Gentle Parenting movement was started by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a British author and mother of four. She has written a variety of books about gentle parenting, including The Gentle Parenting Book. She emphasizes understanding children’s feelings and acknowledging the motivations behind challenging behaviors as opposed to correcting the behavior itself. She advocates setting firm boundaries, giving choices, and avoiding punishments.

According to a New Yorker article on the subject, “Instead of issuing commands (“Put on your shoes!”), the parent strives to understand why a child is acting out in the first place (“What’s up, honey? You don’t want to put your shoes on?”) or, perhaps, narrates the problem (“You’re playing with your trains because putting on shoes doesn’t feel good”)4

This sounds great – and it IS great: trying to understand why your child feels the way she does, and putting this is into words for her is part of good parenting. And yet, this may not be enough. It may not result in the desired outcome…and parents are getting tired of exerting all the energy this style of parenting requires.

We want our children to do the things we want them to do—like getting dressed, coming to meals promptly, sitting at the table, doing their homework, not fighting with their siblings, etc.—and we struggle with how to accomplish this without violating current parenting norms.

And we don’t just want our children to do these things when we tell them; we also want them to learn to do these things without having to be told.

But there’s more. We want our children to internalize good values. We want them to develop their own moral compass. By the time they are 9 or 10, we want them to understand the importance of listening to others, following rules, treating others with consideration, and being honest, among other things.

And often we don’t know how to reach this goal.

So what do we do? Talk to our children each time they do something we don’t like or when they fail to do something we want them to do in the style of Gentle Parenting? Provide consequences when they don’t do what we tell them to do? Or do we go back to old fashined punishments – and actually punish them—whether by a spanking, the removal of a privilege, or by taking away a promised treat?

Physical Punishment

Well, let’s start with physical punishment. That is an immediate no – because we have long known that physical punishment is not beneficial for children. In a review article on the subject, Anne B. Smith states that while physical punishment has often been considered an effective, and even necessary means of socializing children, research has revealed it to be a predictor of a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for children. There is widespread agreement on this throughout all the recent research done in the area. Physical punishment is associated with increased child aggression, antisocial behavior, lower intellectual achievement, poorer quality of parent–child relationships, mental health problems (such as depression), and diminished moral internalization.2

In a review of the literature on this subject, one researcher found that there was also widespread agreement among studies that physical punishment tends to lessen the chances that children will internalize parental rules and values.2

Talking to Our Children

Now let’s move on to another alternative: talking to our children. This has been found over and over to enhance children’s understanding of parental expectations as well as maintaining the affectional bond between parent and child.

But, as I mentioned, talking is often not enough. While some advocates of Gentle Parenting may differ, it has been found that what is more effective than talking alone is setting clear expectations, instituting gentle punishments, such as consequences for misbehavior, and being consistent.

This is called authoritative parenting.

Authoritative Parenting

And the research on parenting is clear on this. In many studies of three types of parenting: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive, authoritative parenting has been found to be the most effective as well as the style that yields the happiest children.

Authoritative parents are responsive to their children’s feelings and needs, and they are more often supportive than harsh with their children. This style of parenting is associated with talking together with children about their behavior as well as setting up mild punishments or consequences for misbehavior. Studies have shown that this type of parenting results in lower levels of depression and higher levels of school commitment among adolescents.3

Authoritarian Parenting

Meanwhile, authoritarian parents are those who are low in responsiveness to their children yet highly demanding of them. The authoritarian parenting style is associated with emphasizing obedience and conformity and expectations that rules be obeyed without explanation. Authoritarian parents exhibit low levels of trust and engagement toward their children, discourage open communication, and engage in strict control. And it has been found that verbal hostility and psychological control are the most detrimental of the authoritarian parenting behaviors. Adolescents from authoritarian families have been found to exhibit poor social skills, low levels of self-esteem, and high levels of depression.3

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parenting is characterized by high levels of responsiveness to children coupled with low levels of demandingness. Permissive parents affirm their children’s impulses, desires, and actions and consult with their children about decisions. In results that may surprise you, adolescents from permissive families report a higher frequency of substance use and school misconduct and are less engaged and less positively oriented to school compared to individuals from authoritative or authoritarian families. And permissive parenting is also associated with low self-esteem in children.

So back to the question: What is the best thing for parents to do?

Well, it seems to me that what some people call “gentle parenting” can end up being a lot like the “permissive parenting” I described above.

And, according to the research, authoritative parenting seems to yield happier children and children who eventually internalize the rules.

So this means setting clear rules and limits for your children starting early, talking to them about these, and instituting clear, mild punishments, or what I call consequences, for when children do not do what you have told them to do.

And notice, I use the words, “what you have told them to” instead of what you have “asked.”

It is time to stop saying, “OK?” after each thing we tell our child to do. As the parent, it is time we stop asking our children to do things we actually want them to do. It may be hard to act like an authority with our children, but generational boundaries are important. Our children need to know that, in the end, we, as the parents, are the boss.

As parents, we are often afraid to set limits or to give consequences. We are afraid of making our children unhappy or angry. We are afraid of meltdowns—whether in public (embarrassing) or at home (frustrating).

But we have to understand that we need to be able to tolerate our children being upset, disappointed, sad, or even angry with us if we want them to learn how to do what we want them to do and if we want them, eventually, to internalize the values we hold dear.

So, let’s start to institute consequences, be consistent, and let the consequences fit the misbehaviors. Often called logical consequences, these will make sense to you and your child. For example, if your child does not put on her pajamas in time for her to have books read to her on a certain night, then story time will have to wait until tomorrow.

References

1. A. Mageau, Joannie Lessard, Joëlle Carpentier, JeanMichel Robichaud, Mireille Joussemet, Richard Koestner (2018). Effectiveness and acceptability beliefs regarding logical consequences and mild punishments. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol 54, Jan-Feb, 2018.

2. Smith, Anne B. (2006) The state of research on the effects of physical punishment, Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand.

3. Hoskins, Donna. (2014). Consequences of Parenting on Adolescent Outcomes.Societies, 4(3), 506–531; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4030506

4. Winter, Jessica. 2022. The harsh realm of gentle parenting. March 23, 2022, The New Yorker.

Is There Growth After Loss?

~ corinnemasur2331 ~ Leave a comment

It is terribly painful to watch our children suffer loss — whether it’s the loss of a grandparent, a friend, or even a pet.

Children struggle to understand separations and death, and their feelings of missing the person they loved are powerful.

But it is important to understand that loss is part of life — and it is not something we should protect our children from.

We do not need to sugarcoat the experience for them. Nor do we necessarily need to keep our children at home during the funeral.

What we do need to do is to explain to them what has happened and to be there for them through all of their questions and feelings. And I am talking about children from the earliest years, on through adolescence. Even two and three-year-olds are interested in why someone is not there anymore. Whether the person has gotten angry and left, or the person has moved away, or the person has died, we can explain this in terms that they will understand. And we can understand that being with them to help them talk about and process their loss helps them to grow.

Researchers have looked at this phenomenon. Calhoun and Tedeschi called this “post-traumatic growth,” and they observed that following a loss, some people experience a number of positive effects. Some develop a greater appreciation for life, some experience a strengthening of close relationships, some feel increased compassion and altruism, some identify new purpose and new possibilities in life, some feel a greater recognition of personal strengths, some experience enhanced spiritual development, and some develop enhanced creativity. And they found that the activity which most helps people to grow following loss is talking about and processing the loss.

Another researcher and clinician, Jessica Koblenz, specifically looked at children. She found that following loss, some children expressed a heightened sense of life and a new appreciation for the value of time. They were aware of not wanting to waste time or have regrets. Some learned to seek help from others, and they figured out how to determine who was capable of giving them the help they needed.

Two other researchers looked at college-aged kids and found that the greater the loss was, the greater the growth could be – but only in those who did not avoid their feelings.

George Bonanno, in his research as described in his book The Other Side of Grief, also looks at the importance of understanding that many of those who suffer loss do so with resilience. While he does not study children, Ann Masten does, and she has found that the majority of children who suffer loss, even traumatic loss, come through the experience without developing any major mental illness.

These findings support the importance of not over-pathologizing the grief process and not protecting our children from feeling the feelings they have around loss. In fact, these finding support helping our children to explore, express and process their feelings — whether this is through talking, art work, or play.

References

Bonnano, George. (2009). The other side of sadness: what the new science of bereavement tells us about life after loss.

Calhoun, L. and Tedeschi, R. (2001). Post traumatic growth: the positive lessons of loss. In R. A. Niemeyer, Meaning, Reconstruction and The Experience of Loss (p 152 – 172), APA Press.

Koblenz, Jessica (2016). Growing from grief. Omega, 73(3), p. 203 – 230.

Masten, Ann. Resilience and development: Contributions from the study of children who overcome adversity

Development and psychopathology 2 (4), 425-444