PARENTING: Some Things You Should Know Caryl Oris, MD www.caryloris.com
Parenting is Exhausting!
Parenting is Hard!
Parenting is Stressful! • How Parental Stress Negatively Affects Kids • How to Cope With Parenting Stress and Anxiety • Many Parents Are Happier Than Non-Parents — But Not in the U.S.
Automobile Manuals
Printer Manuals
Baby Manuals???
So Here are my Goals… • To hopefully decrease your anxiety and stress about parenting by giving you useful information about best parenting strategies • To talk about the tools and character traits our children need for academic, social and emotional success • To share with you my own insights both as a child psychiatrist, and a mom!
There is so much information!!!
So Let’s Break it Down… • The science of effective parenting is one of the most well-researched areas in the field of social science: • Authoritative Parenting is considered to be the most effective style of parenting. • Better emotional health • Better social skills • Increased Resiliency • Better attachments to parents
4 Types of Parenting
Characteristics of Authoritative Parents • Authoritative parents expect their children to meet high standards while also being willing to reason and be flexible with children when they make mistakes. Authoritative parents allow children to have a voice in what happens in their lives, and children perceive that their parents are open and sensitive to their needs. • As a result, children have the opportunity to learn how to negotiate, become self-reliant, achieve academic success, develop self-discipline, be socially accepted, and have increased self-esteem.
What Authoritative Parents Do • Show their children that they care. Accepting and affectionate. • Praise positive behavior and accomplishments. Hold to high standards. • Set clear and fair expectations. • Listen to their children. • Provide opportunities for children to make decisions and choices. • Discipline: Establish clear rules, but solicit child’s opinion and allow disagreement • Rules are based on reason and limit setting is done with love and caring • Be demonstrative in showing affection and saying, “I love you.”
Authoritative Parent
The Permissive (Indulgent) Parent
Characteristics of Permissive Parents • Have few rules or standards of behavior • When there are rules, they are often very inconsistent • Are usually very nurturing and loving towards their kids • Often seem more like a friend, rather than a parent • May use bribery such as toys, gifts, and food as a means to get a child to behave • Provide little in the way of a schedule or structure • Emphasize their children's freedom rather than responsibility • Rarely enforce any type of consequences
Outcomes of Permissive Parenting • Children have lower academic achievement • Children struggle with problem-solving and decision making • Children struggle with emotional self-control, especially when things do not go their way. They are less resilient • They engage in more substance abuse • Due to lack of limit setting and rules, they have poor time management skills.
Outcomes of Parenting Styles • Children from authoritative (wise) parents are more self-reliant, and have better self-control. They are more confident and less likely to be affected by peer pressure. Because they have better self-regulation, they generally have less anxiety. They are generally more academically successful. They have less anxiety, and less delinquent behavior. • Children from authoritarian parents have lower self- esteem, are less self-reliant, they give up more easily in the face of obstacles. • Children from permissive homes are self-assured and confident, but have less motivation in school and have greater substance use.
Nature vs Nurture??? • Genes are the blueprint, experience shapes the brain • The potential of the brain is shaped by genetics, biology, and experience. • Focus has always been on early childhood, age 0-3. What about age 9-14? • Providing key positive and learning experience during the period of brain development which occurs at the onset of puberty can significantly influence neural developmental trajectories. • Important to shift tendencies away from negative risk-taking trajectories and towards healthy exploration and learning – essential for acquiring skills and knowledge relevant to taking on new roles and responsibilities that lead to adult capabilities. Thus, providing environments that support progress and learning during these periods of rapid growth and development can have great impacts and enduring effects.
It’s Nature AND Nurture!
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) • Effects of Stress: The ACE Study • Children most vulnerable to adverse experiences in the 1 st 4-5 years of life. • Neurons are changed by stress: the architecture of the brain is changed. • Stress for long periods of time at a young age is dangerous for the child. It is toxic. • Adverse experiences: child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, household members abusing drugs/alcohol.
ACE Pyramid
What about life’s daily stresses? • Important to teach your child that sometimes stress, anxiety, and negative emotions can happen. • Stress can be positive — helps keep us alert, and motivated. • Don’t always try to fix it and make it immediately better — children need to develop strength and resilience. • Communication is key: talk about the problem, try to have your child come up with possible solutions. Work on strategies together.
Strategies Children Need to Learn to Manage Stress • First and most important, how do they see you manage stress? Assess your own stress level, and the stress level in your home • Organization, schedules, planning are so important for managing stress. Time management should be learned at a young age. • Developingchild.Harvard.edu • Exercise, Relaxation practices • Headspace.com • Strong4life.com • Mindworks.com • Children need LIMITS, and explanations for why limits matter: • Sleep, nutrition, screen time
It’s about setting limits
Many of these qualities and abilities are associated with success: • Self-control, delaying gratification • Regulation of one’s emotions • Motivation and drive • Planning, organization, scheduling • Thinking through decisions before acting • Learning responsibility, how one’s actions can lead to good outcomes • RELATIONSHIPS
Our Brains are Hardwired to Connect to Others
It’s about healthy relationships • Harvard Grant Study • 1938. Followed hundreds of college sophomores • People who are more socially connected to family, to friends, and to community are happier, they're physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected. And the experience of loneliness turns out to be toxic. • Sardinia Study: People here live longer than most other places in the world. Communities of caring. • “ Face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters, and like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future. So simply making eye contact with somebody, shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust and it lowers your cortisol levels. So it lowers your stress. And dopamine is generated, which gives us a little high and it kills pain.” • Face to face contact is crucial for learning, happiness, and resilience. Relationships help children learn, increase happiness, and can actually extend our lives.
How to Live a Longer Life
“All I want is for my child to be happy” • It’s not really about making your child happy and doing everything possible to eliminate any stress or negative emotion. • It’s not about scheduling them for every possible class or sport or tutor and buying them everything that their friends have • It’s about being unconditionally loving and supportive, while setting high expectations not just academically but for being a good, decent, caring, empathic human being. • And happiness will result from being a decent, moral, kind, productive person who can have kind, loving relationships with others.
It’s about mutual respect
Respecting One Another • It is about accepting someone for who they are, even when they are different or you do not agree with them: • “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught”: South Pacific • Having conversations with your child about diversity and racism is very important. Children learn from their family and their environment. • Respect builds safety and trust in relationships • Discuss with your child how it feels when they treat you disrespectfully. Share your feelings with your child. EMPATHY: What is it like to walk in someone else’s shoes?
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