A Practical Guide to Family Psychology E-Book

James Powell

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: Practical Guide Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 224

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Based on practical, clinically proven, and tried-and-tested approaches, Introducing Family Psychology - A Practical Guide looks at fifteen major problems that are typically encountered by families. Introducing Family Psychology - A Practical Guide provides workable solutions based on experiences that cross cultural boundaries. This Practical Guide is a valuable resource to help child carers - from single parents to grandparents - deal with the difficulties that can arise when bringing up a child.

Leseprobe

First published in the UK and USA in 2013

by Icon Books Ltd,

Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

email: [email protected]

www.iconbooks.net

This electronic edition published in the UK in 2013 by Icon Books Ltd

ISBN: 978-184831-536-5 (ePub format)

ISBN: 978-184831-537-2 (Adobe eBook format)

Text copyright © 2013 James A. Powell

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset by Marie Doherty

About the author

James A. Powell, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist with over 40 years’ experience working with real families and the problems they encounter. His methods have stood the test of time, come from sound theoretical principles and have been successfully used by thousands of families from all walks of life.

Dr Powell has an AA degree in psychology from Glendale College, a BA in psychology from Stanford University and his Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) from Baylor University. He has worked in psychiatric hospitals, mental­ health centres, school systems, probation departments, outpatient offices and the courts.

He has two grown children (of whom he is immensely proud), Clifton Powell and Eileen Sullivan. He currently resides in the UK with his wife of 38 years, Sherry, while working with the US Air Force.

To Sherry

You are the inspiration for all I do.

Contents

Title page

Copyright information

About the author

Dedication

Introduction

1. Why have children?

2. And Then There Were Three

3. The Day After

4. Attack of the Wild Things

5. Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

6. Where Have All the Good Things Gone?

7. Why is the Trash Bin Always Empty?

8. The Daily Horror Show

9. Down in the Dumps

10. When Band-Aids Are Not Enough

11. What’s Going On Here?

12. The Natives are Restless

13. Beyond the Birds and the Bees

14. Dangerous Frontiers at Home

15. Is That the Headmaster Calling Again?

16. When it all goes Pear-shaped

17. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

18. Gone Forever

Epilogue

Sources

Index

Introduction

Raising well-adjusted children in our complex society is an achievable goal. Almost all parents wish to do this and are anxious to do so in the best way possible. In my 42 years of practice as a psychologist I have worked with thousands of children and their parents to alleviate a host of problems such as lying, stealing, rebellion, temper tantrums, fears, anxieties and even self-mutilation. The purpose of this book is to share some of the experiences families have found most helpful and give parents extra support in managing their own children.

In today’s society, families are often composed of single parents struggling to fulfil the role of mum and dad; parents from mixed races or ethnic groups; and grandparents who find themselves raising a second family. These situations each present their own challenges to the role of being a parent. While these differences are important, there are many common factors in child behaviour, whatever the make-up of the family. It is these characteristics that form the basis for many successful interventions in resolving problems.

The case studies in this book are drawn from my own experiences with children and the experiences of others, as well as valuable research studies. They are all real and involve actual families who sought help for their problems. All names or data that could specifically identify the individual or family have been deleted. The ways presented of dealing with these situations have all had success in real life. These are solutions that really work!

This book will help parents with children of different ages. Clinical practice has clearly indicated that a ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work: tots, under-tens, teens and adolescents all require different approaches.

Many, if not most, of the problems a parent encounters in raising a child in today’s society can be dealt with successfully through a better understanding of the principles that create and aggravate problems. It is often the case that the solution which works best with a child involves the parents making changes in such things as their own attitudes, personal beliefs and actions. This book will help parents examine their own reactions to child behavioural difficulties, as well as offering an insight into the child’s psyche.

When parents seek advice on improving their interactions with their children, they must keep four main concepts in mind:

The child will often not perceive his or her behaviour in the same way as a parent.For each situation there are many choices for changing behaviour.Parents may do well to think back to their own childhood experiences.As children mature, their physiology and psychology are affected by biological influences.

Integrating these concepts into a successful approach to parenting is entirely possible for the typical parent and is key to raising children who are happy and well adjusted.

It is the purpose of this book to provide guidance, but if you find a situation to be unresolved after considering the suggested activities, then the assistance of a professional therapist can be invaluable. In such cases a parent will not be admitting defeat, but merely enlisting the support of someone with a wider knowledge of the ‘behaviour battle’.

A note on style

While I began with the intention of keeping examples non-gender specific, I have had to modify this approach in a number of places to keep the text readable. In the majority of such cases I have adopted male pronouns but this is not intended to indicate any bias; unless stated otherwise, the situations described in this book are applicable to boys and girls alike.

1. Why have children?

Raising children is not as easy as having them. But it does not require a university degree, nor is it something that only a professional can do successfully. What is required is the perspective that the child is residing with you on a temporary basis and will soon be an adult. You have a responsibility to the child, to yourself and to society to try and teach them how to become a caring, respectful and responsible adult.

Perhaps the place to start in your quest to become the best parent possible is an examination of the reasons for having children in the first place.

‘If I have his child he will see how much I love him’; ‘I wanted something that was an expression of our love for each other’; ‘We felt it was the right time to have children before we got too old to enjoy them’; ‘I wanted something that was totally mine and that nobody could take away’; ‘I love children and have always wanted a large family’; ‘Having children just happened.’

All these reasons have been given in response to my query about why a person has had children. They tend to share a feature that is easily overlooked. This is that the child is viewed more as a possession than as a person. The child is referred to as though he or she exists only to satisfy a need of the parents rather than as an individual with his or her own unique desires, hopes and dreams.

Becoming a parent can be one of life’s most precious moments. The joy of creating a new life, the satisfaction you feel from holding your child close, and the pride that one can have in a son or daughter are some of the most intense and satisfying feelings people can experience. However, it may be because of the very intensity of the love we have for our children that when disruptions occur in our relationship with them, we often feel bewildered, frustrated and confused. In coping with these reactions it is often beneficial to examine your own background for those influences that have shaped your perception of what is required to be a parent.

Children are, by their very nature, self-centred and demanding of more love, time and attention than they give. The perception that a child should automatically and unconditionally give the parent love and acceptance is an incorrect belief which often underlies the reactions we have to our children.

One example of not obtaining self-insight before becoming a parent is the situation where I was called upon to counsel a very pregnant thirteen-year-old girl referred to me by Social Services. She indicated that the session needed to end promptly at 11 o’clock because she had to get home and ‘care for my children’. When I asked her about this she related that she had already given birth at age eleven and again at twelve, and that her own mother was caring for the children while she was seeing me.

‘How does your mother feel about you having children so young?’ I asked her. She said that her mother was fine with it because the father of the children, a former teacher, was a good man and both she and her mother believed that the more children she had with him, the more committed he would be to staying with her.

To this thirteen-year-old girl, having children was not only the product of her relationship with her lover but a way of ensuring his loyalty. Although she identified herself as a ‘good mother’, it was obvious that she had no concept of the enormity of the task she was assuming in creating and raising children.

Although this young girl probably did love her children, she lacked any real understanding of their developmental needs. She had not gone through the adolescent stages of separation and individuation herself, so how could she be expected to understand the role she had to play in raising kids?

It is necessary for parents to comprehend the developmental needs of children at their different ages if they are to succeed at parenting. This can be learned by almost all parents but first you must have the maturity that only time and experience can provide.

People are tempted to assume that the very unusual perspective on raising children displayed by the young girl was simply the result of physical immaturity. After all, she was just a child herself. Unfortunately, such attitudes are not limited to the young.

Consider a situation I experienced where a woman who was pregnant with her eighth child complained that Social Services had stolen all of her other brood shortly after their birth following accusations of neglect. Her stated plan was to continue to have children until Social Services tired of trying to find foster homes for them and then she would get all of her children back and would raise them the way she wished.

This woman was neither educationally disadvantaged nor seriously emotionally disturbed. Although she was somewhat extreme in going to the lengths of having so many children, her perception of parenting is tragically common­. She believed that the act of giving birth was sufficient to instil in her the ability to raise a child. She was thinking of her own personal need to have something of her own, that would love her exclusively, and not of the needs of the youngster as a developing person. To simply love a child is not enough to raise a happy and well-adjusted person.

Perhaps such views were once acceptable but this is now long in our past. Our society has set various basic guidelines for the raising of children. As a parent, you must adequately feed, clothe, house and provide for the education of your children. Corporal punishment is restricted by the laws concerning abuse and neglect. Physical, sexual and emotional abuses are prohibited. Unfortunately, the definition of what is and is not abusive is often vague and unclear.

Most people would agree that screaming at a young person and calling them names (e.g. bitch, bastard, stupid, incompetent, ugly) is unacceptable at best and probably emotionally abusive. But what about telling your daughter that you wanted a son and not her? What happens when you tell your child that they don’t have a father and that they should just be satisfied with you? Are these actions an attempt to be open and honest or are they emotional abuse? The answer requires an understanding of the developmental age and reasoning capabilities of your child, as well as your own motivations.

In the course of my practice over the past decades I have found that understanding your own reasons for having children in the first place is crucial in raising them to be happy. When this insight is combined with the age-appropriate capabilities of the child, parenting is not only much easier but can be a joyful experience. Self-awareness can help you become conscious of how attitudes and actions affect the problems children display and what you might have to do to change their behaviour.

It is important to remember that self-awareness does not necessarily mean self-blame. Very often parents will come to a psychologist with a feeling of guilt about their child’s unmanageable outbursts or attitudes. They often feel it is their own fault that their son or daughter has a problem and that people will judge them as a bad parent because their child screams uncontrollably in public when denied a treat or toy. Parents need to remember that children are not born as a blank slate upon which we can write and determine the formula of their psychology.

Children are born with inherent tendencies that are moulded by their environment, nutrition and the way others, including parents, react to them. Thus while parents may believe that they can create desirable qualities, the reality is that they can influence­ only a part of the developmental process. Basic qualities that were once thought to have developed entirely through the child’s interactions with others, such as shyness, in fact tend to have a strong genetic component. For example, researchers at the University of Colorado and Pennsylvania State University observing identical and fraternal twins have indicated that genetics constitutes roughly half of the underpinning of shyness.

This does not mean that the difficulties parents have should simply be accepted as part of the child’s inherent nature. Parents should not assume the total blame for a youngster’s actions but should assume the responsibility to change or moderate concerning behaviours.

There are many and various things that a parent may try. With the correct approach, clear improvements in behaviour can occur, even if the problem does not disappear entirely. Parents can apply the activities suggested in the following chapters to produce someone that can be the source of pride and enjoyment that was hoped for when first conceived. The satisfaction that comes from raising a well-behaved child is one true source of riches that can and should be yours.

2. And Then There Were Three

Generally there are five ways that a child comes into a family:

Planned-for event.Happy (or not so happy) surprise.After infertility treatment.Adoption.Through inheritance from another family member.

Each of these pathways into the family brings with it unique but similar challenges. Therapists have found that couples traditionally fight about three things the most: money, sex and children. It can be reasonably argued that children significantly­ affect the first two of the three.

If the addition was a planned or hoped-for event then the parents are perhaps better able to accept the deprivations that will occur when their child arrives. They have decided that enlarging the family is a joint goal, so when they have to limit their outside activities in order to care for the baby, they can at least rationalize that this was something they chose. Parents may still not like the loss of freedom­, nor the expense of it all, but they can usually accept it.

In the situation where the child was not planned, the ‘surprise’ can be either happy or devastating. If both parents are agreeable that enlarging the family is both desirable and timely then the result can be the same as if this was a planned event. Unfortunately, there is often one parent who is more distressed by the pregnancy than the other. Resentment and accusations are typical responses to an unplanned pregnancy, with much bemoaning of the costs involved and the ‘poor timing’ of the event. Anger can escalate to the point of breaking up a relationship, or in some cases a rush to get married when the couple are not really ready for such a level of commitment.

The key to coping with an unplanned pregnancy is talking with your significant other in an open and honest manner. Try to keep fears associated with becoming a mum or dad in perspective, for these are experienced by most new parents. Is there ever a time when we are truly ready to add a child to our lives? Do we ever have enough money saved to raise a son or daughter? Most parents would resoundingly respond ‘no’ to these questions and yet they still manage to raise healthy and happy children. You can too, if you are willing to confront your fears and share them with your partner. Together, as a team, you can conquer your worries and make up for any real or imagined deficiencies as a parent.

Infertility treatments carry their own special baggage in addition to the typical concerns that surround having a baby. There is a very high expectation of becoming pregnant that is often followed by repeated disappointment. Sexual interactions can become a chore due to the need to perform on demand at the whim of a device that indicates ovulation. This change in attitude towards having sex can last long after a baby is conceived.

‘Sex on demand’ sounds like something associated with a prostitute. Yet this is essentially what is required, regardless of your mood, when ovulation is anticipated. If you can learn to laugh with your partner at your state of affairs and see the humour in what you are doing, then most resentments evaporate. What is a temporary inconvenience can become a charming intimate anecdote as your lives together progress.

When a couple reaches the decision to adopt it is typically after a very frustrating period of trying to conceive. Most people find the adoption process to be abysmally long and expensive. The number of infants available is low compared to demand. The decision to adopt brings you into confrontation with personal racial biases, preferences as to gender and age, and even the possibility of taking on someone with special needs.

In addition, the adoptive couple today often has to confront the possibility of sharing their family with the biological parents. The American Association of Open Adoption Agencies defines an ‘open adoption’ as ‘a form of adoption in which the birth family and the adopted child enjoy an ongoing, in-person relationship’. In 1975, on moral grounds, both England and Wales passed laws allowing every adopted individual access to their birth records. The UK Office for National Statistics has projected that 33 per cent of all adoptees eventually request a copy of their original birth records, although studies suggest this may be a somewhat low number. These concerns can sorely test the stability and coherence of an adoptive couple, even to the point of breaking up.

You have love which together you want to give to a new member of your relationship. You are creating a family. Although the journey to adopt can be arduous, it does have an end point. When this is reached, the vast majority of people find that the result was well worth the effort.

In our current society an increasing number of births are to single females who may be emotionally unprepared to become a parent but who have chosen not to have an abortion. Instead, some go down the route of seeking a relative to adopt the baby. Raising a child born to another family member has many of the concerns of adopting but with the added complexity of extended family members knowing that the birth parents are other relatives. There is often the fear that the biological mother or father may want to reassert their ‘rights’ at some point. This concern is like a ticking time bomb to many couples and it takes extraordinary emotional strength and flexibility to cope with this fear so that it does not erode the bond between the parents.

The old saying that ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ is correct. Rather than fret about whether the biological parents will intervene in your lives, make your views and desires crystal clear at the time you assume responsibility for the youngster. State your needs about what others can say and do around your child to all family members. Then write this down so that you, and they, will know exactly what is expected.

Regardless of the mode by which a couple becomes a family, few people are truly prepared for the impact the addition will have on their attitudes and interactions with their partner. If you ask a person who has never had children what it would be like to become a parent, they will typically give a glowing description of their hopes and dreams for their son or daughter. Most descriptions are centred on the joys of raising a child, the sense of completion they would experience and the activities involved in helping them to be happy and successful. Many times they will talk about their own childhoods and use this as a reference, either as something to aspire to or to avoid. Both partners usually agree upon these general ideals. However, it is in the nitty-gritty of the actual parenting that difficulties may arise.

Consider these three essential hardships involved in creating a family:

Emotional.Physical.Financial.

Sexual relationships between partners are impacted by the need to spend time feeding, changing, washing and dressing a new addition. Loss of sleep is almost inevitable. Who really enjoys getting up three times a night with a crying baby? With exhaustion often comes a reassessment of personal priorities. The partner who goes to an outside job insists that they must get some rest and justifies this by thinking, and sometimes saying, that childcare is the responsibility of the stay-at-home partner since now they ‘do not really work’. Sleep may become more important than making love. The routine of putting a child to bed can be time-consuming and at times frustrating.

Studies suggest that 10–15 per cent of women after giving birth develop Postnatal Depression (PND). This particular syndrome often gives rise to irritability, anxiety, a loss of sleep and exhaustion. The loss of sexual desire in depressed individuals is significant. This condition may last for many months after birth and severely impact the relationship between partners.

The costs of such things as nappies, prams and new clothes come as a shock to many people. Trips to the pub may be curtailed by the need to pay for these items and at times it often appears that parents are doing nothing else but working and caring for their offspring. Personal time and space are often gone, or if maintained by one then resented by the caregiving parent who remains home.

As the little one ages there comes the need to decide when to have a new baby. Most parents want two or more children and begin to worry about the age difference. They fret that if their children are too far apart in age they will not play with each other. They also become concerned about being too old to have further children. All of these things can easily lead to disagreements.

These differences are resolvable but they require patience and understanding on the part of both partners. When you are discussing having an addition to the family it is necessary to go beyond the generalities and talk about the daily impact upon your lifestyles:

How will you cope with the loss of income?Which partner is going to a job and which will stay home?Will the grandparents be used as babysitters?Do you want to raise a family in the city or the country?What is ‘spoiling’ a child or babying and what is not?

The list goes on and at times seems almost endless.

It is not necessary to answer all of these questions before you move forward with a family. However, it is important to establish a framework for responding to the inevitable differences between the two of you that the process of raising children brings to light.

The key concepts here are:

A sense of being in it together.Respect for the other person.Compromise.The ability to take a long-term perspective.

You and your partner are a team who have taken on one of the most important tasks in the world together. Both of you have valuable insights and opinions with regard to rearing children, even if you are not aware of them.

A good example is the question of how long you breastfeed your child. A woman who especially enjoys babies may want to continue breastfeeding up to age three or more. However, her partner may look forward to the child maturing into a person he can introduce to sports or another favourite pastime, and he may see this prolonged breastfeeding as delaying the child’s development. He may vent his unhappiness in directives to ‘Stop babying him!’, which in turn might be perceived as insensitive to the needs of the mother and child. Neither parent is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in this situation. Discussing your goals and expectations can usually result in finding common ground and prevent many hurt feelings.

You must remind yourselves constantly that childrearing is a phase that will eventually end when your independent son or daughter moves out and then it will be just the two of you again. If you have maintained the respect and love of your partner throughout the process then the next phase of life can be as enjoyable and fulfilling as that which came before.

3. The Day After

By sticking it out through tough times, people emerge from adversity with a stronger sense of efficacy.

—Albert Bandura, Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 1994

Once the family has been formed, the reality of the joys and stresses of raising a child begins. Watching a baby’s first steps, hearing his or her first words, and the pride of being referred to as ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ are priceless. However, there are still important issues that need to be addressed:

Spending time with your child.Giving the primary caregiver a break.Keeping on top of housework.Making time for each other as a couple.