O'Grady Psychology Associates

Psychotherapy, Marriage Counseling, Neuropsychological Assessment

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Six Ground Rules for Introducing a New Girlfriend or Boyfriend to Your Kids

hiding from emotions is never a good strategy

When is it okay to introduce your kids to a date after divorce or separation?

This is a common question for newly separated or divorced parents. Like so many things involving children after divorce, the answer is “it all depends.” But there are a few ground rules that can help in the transition to dating.

In evaluating when to let children know about a new romantic partner, the goal is always to protect the child’s psychological best interests. Much depends on the child’s age and the quality of your relationship before and after your separation. As noted in a previous post, watching parents treat each other with disrespect and lack of affection harms kids even more than having to shuffle between two homes.

Everyone is different with regard to dating readiness. Some people will wait for months, some for years. Consider, though, that when a relationship has been unhappy, it’s important to give yourself time before jumping right into Match.com or eHarmony. Make use of this found time alone when you do not have the kids. Get to know yourself again. People are often surprised to discover that they can enjoy a kid-free weekend or weeknight without feeling guilty. Many have said it is an unsuspected silver lining in divorce. Time alone without kids is often a rarity in marriages where fathers and mothers both devote themselves to family life and the nurture and growth of their children.

Individual psychotherapy during this period can help you to reclaim the parts of yourself that have been lost or damaged. Taking this opportunity before dating again will help you, your kids, and your eventual romantic partner. No one wants to date someone on the rebound from a marriage. Dating to fill the void or to build your self-esteem will not work in the long term, bringing more harm than comfort.

Eventually, the time will come when you feel ready to explore relationships again. When the transition to living separately is established and custody has been worked out, agreed upon, and is going smoothly, parents will begin to think about dating.

Keep in mind the following suggestions to help you, your kids, and your ex ease into this new and often threatening territory.

Some Guidelines for Dating Post-Divorce

1. Children need to establish a routine with each parent. This is best done when the custodial parent is fully present, undistracted by a romantic interest.

2. Dating should be done during non-custodial times. The introduction of a new partner is often confusing to young children, especially during the first year after a divorce. In older kids, who may be exploring their own sexuality, seeing their parent with another partner can make them feel self-conscious and embarrassed.

3. It is important to not create a climate of anxiousness about where they belong in each parent’s lives. Children need to feel like they come first. If a romantic partner is introduced too soon, this sense of secure attachment will be compromised and can create anxiety.

4. Do not bring a partner home for the night on your evening with your child. Waking up in the morning and seeing that a parent’s boyfriend or girlfriend has slept over can be confusing and hurtful. Kids will feel an allegiance to their other parent and will feel protective of them, fearing they’d be hurt by knowing that there is someone else in the house.

5. When the time comes to date openly, it is a courtesy to inform the other parent. Letting your ex-partner know that you are dating and want to introduce a serious relationship to your children allows the non-dating partner to process this news without being blind-sided, for example by seeing you with another person at children’s events. Do not let your children be the ones to tell the other parent that mommy or daddy has a new love, and certainly don’t ask them to keep secrets from their other parent. They should not be put in this position. When children innocently expose this information, it can engender angry and painful reactions that can cause the children to feel guilty, sad, and embarrassed.

6. Always treat your ex-partner with respect whether their non-custodial parent is present or not. Kids learn from watching. When you begin to date, show respect to your ex-partner and to your children by not flaunting your new partner. Respect boundaries with regard to public displays of affection. For an ex-spouse to see their former partner kissing during a recreational event will most likely cause anger or hurt. It is common for one party to feel jealous or possessive when they realize that their former spouse is dating. This is a tender time for everyone. Remember to be kind and respectful to each other. This role-modeling will help your children to assimilate a new person into their lives in a healthy way.

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How Couples Counseling Can Guide a Divorce That’s Better for the Kids

Staying Together for the Kids: Why This Isn’t a Good Idea

In my work as a counselor, I approach every couple with the intention of helping them heal what isn’t working in their marriages. I know that even the most challenging issues are often repairable. But occasionally, it is in everyone’s best interest to separate.

Parents considering divorce often find the very idea of being without their kids part of each week is unthinkable. The reason so many people stay in unhappy marriages is to avoid losing their children and to spare the kids the pain of not having both parents always present.

Research by Dr. John Gottman has shown that couples wait an average of seven years after becoming aware of problems in their marriage to seek counseling. This period of time can be subtly or obviously harmful to your child’s mental health. During those years when your relationship is not working, your kids are being affected—despite your best intentions to protect them.

While statistics often cite the harm divorce causes children, many studies fail to factor in the harm caused by a bad relationship. When your marriage has deteriorated into loss of intimacy (loving gestures, emotional closeness) this may be internalized by children and can affect their ability to love and be loved in their adult relationships. Likewise, when parents are obviously hostile and negative toward each other, kids may show signs of distress such as anxiety or depression with symptoms of guilt, worry, and low self-esteem.

When is it time to leave an unhappy marriage? Some reasons to leave an unhappy relationship are obvious: verbal, physical, or sexual abuse; ongoing substance abuse; broken trust through unaddressed lying and cheating; and a myriad of other extreme reasons. But sometimes the reasons are less obvious: sexual desire discrepancy, loss of respect and love, and unresolvable communication problems.

Divorce and Good Communication

Children are harmed when they are used as pawns by hostile parents: for revenge, for example, or to increase support payments. If the primary wage-earner in the family is resentful of having to pay spousal support, and seeks to reduce payments by asking for more physical custody of the children, when it is not in their best interests –this battle once activated drains emotional and financial resources—creating tension for everyone.

Kids pick up the negativity, so how you show your respect and love for their parent is important. If you are showing verbal or non-verbal signs of irritation and disrespect when talking about or to your ex, you child will be harmed. Then there are more blatant reasons, such as use of child pornography, repeated DUIs, and other criminal behaviors.

Sure You’re Getting Divorced? Couples Counseling Can Still Help

Couples counseling can be useful in learning what went wrong, not to assign blame or fix resentments, but from a perspective of taking appropriate responsibility. Doing a post-mortem of your marriage serves several important functions.

1. It helps you help your children to cope with the changes brought about by divorce. When children of divorce see their parents bickering about money, possessions, or time with the kids, they feel bad. It’s common for kids to feel guilty or responsible for the breakup. Being able to talk with your partner, calmly and respectfully, models good communication. Children pick up behaviors from their parents. Little ones are like sponges, picking up not only the crumbs but the bacteria as well.
2. If you leave a marriage without understanding what lead to its demise, you are likely to make the same mistake in your next serious relationship. In the many years I have done couples’ therapy, I have often heard this refrain: “I married someone so much like my previous partner—why didn’t I just stay?” We can’t run away from a bad marriage and assume it will be perfect with someone else. Spending time with your spouse trying to understand the complex dynamic you wove will save you from making similar mistakes in the future. Plus, couples often will decide to stay together once they realize and repair what got them to the point of divorce in the first place.
3. And, lastly, you will be co-parenting for the rest of your life. Learning better communication will help you as you raise your children in separate households. There will be many times you will have to consult each other about issues, school, friends, and problems that come up over the years. You will both need to be present at graduations, weddings, or grandchildren’s birthdays. It is a lot better to be friends working together to provide the best post-divorce environment for your kids possible.

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ADHD Medications in Childhood: Dependency and Addiction in Adulthood

ADHD Medications in Childhood: A Cautionary Tale

The NY Times article ‘Drowned in a Stream of Prescriptions’ was all too familiar. Over the years, I have seen college kids who were started on stimulants for ADHD while still in elementary school. Some of these kids needed the medications and were helped immensely by the proper diagnosis. Some were medicated without need. The decision to medicate is often made by families who are frustrated and at wit’s end

Proper Diagnosis is Crucial

When kids are having troubles with peers, inattentiveness, temper tantrums, and other behavioral problems, they are usually referred to a psychiatrist or a behavioral pediatrician for evaluation. Many of the screening exams use good reliable questionnaires that assess the child’s behavior at home and in school. Parents and teachers are asked to fill out checklist forms to help with the diagnosis.

If a diagnosis is made, and stimulant medications started, everyone waits to see the effect. Typically, if learning and behavior improves, it confirms the ADD or ADHD diagnosis. These children go on in school, graduate, and go onto jobs or college. But for optimal results, it is necessary to work in concert with the school, family, and a counselor—either an academic tutor or a psychologist—to help the child and his family organize and structure a learning environment and routine that will provide the infrastructure to support him in the future.

In the case of  Richard Fee, there was gross negligence on the part of the prescribing psychiatrists, leading to addiction and culminated in suicide. As the article points out, “Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.”

Obtaining Stimulants in College is Easier than Parents Realize

When kids enter college, they face tremendous pressure to perform academically. Combine this with the structure-less college life of dorm parties, alcohol, and pot, and the situation is ripe for acquiring stimulants from whatever source is most available. Kids sell stimulants to other kids. But the cost per pill is high and it is cheaper to go the ‘legal’ route and get a prescription, paid for by insurance. The symptoms and signs of ADD are available on the best health websites. The symptoms listed are identical to the ones that the psychiatrist will ask about. They are yes or no questions, easy to misguide the examiner. Many of these college kids go to clinics where the physician hands them a script after asking the questions, the kid has come prepared to answer from his web search. They walk away with the prescription and use it along with other stimulants like such as caffeinated energy drinks. When decongestant meds became harder to get, the energy drinks combined with prescription stimulants produced the desired effect of counteracting the sedating effects of alcohol and pot, and gave a buzz lasting all night. From that point on, the cycle repeats until the kid is addicted both physiologically and psychologically. Classes are missed because the sleep cycle is thrown off.

Psychotherapy: Learning to Cope without Dependency

When a family refers their grown son or daughter to psychotherapy it is usually at a crisis state. Like Richard, in the Times article, Ray came to psychotherapy at his mother’s urging. Ray moved home after a year of college. The first time we met in my office he was guarded, monosyllabic, and made no eye contact. He furtively glanced out my window at the trees and seemed absorbed in thought. Tears streaming down his face, he looked tortured. Eventually, he admitted to using Adderall abusively. He told me what a joke the treating psychiatrist was, how he gave him prescriptions during a five-minute meeting. But Ray kept going back for more meds. He was angry but also shamed. Irritability, staying up all night, then sleeping all day was his life. He chuckled to himself in a way that reminded me of schizophrenia. I was concerned he would take his life and got him to sign a suicide contract, promising me he would take the procedures we outlined if he were to feel like harming himself. After a month of twice weekly appointments, Ray opened up about his loneliness, his lack of friends in childhood, and his estrangement from his family. He was able to see his role in some of this, how he pushed his mother and father away with his anger. While much of his anger was due to the stimulants, he was beginning to see how deep his emotional pain went.

After about a month of therapy, Ray went to the prescribing doctor and told him that he had lied about having ADD. He told his parents too. Without my knowledge, Ray took himself off all his drugs—cold turkey. He withdrew from Adderall, pot, and caffeine and the effects were initially unbearable. Yet within several weeks, he was clean and feeling better. Gradually Ray discovered that he liked himself, not a lot, but he was okay with himself. He re-enrolled in college and at the termination of our therapy; he had just graduated with a BA. Ray was fortunate. He sought therapy, and his parents were willing to pay for him to see me. Most importantly, he had the fortitude to hang in there with the pain of withdrawal and the physiological symptoms.

Ray was lucky. Richard was not.

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10 Things Parents can do to Help Their Kids Engage in School

 

Helping your child in school
Monday can’t come fast enough!

My daughter posted this photo and comment on her Facebook page after purchasing her textbooks for winter term. She is a full-time senior at a university and works part-time at an independent bookstore. Yet she can’t get enough of reading and learning. Her twin is equally passionate about learning. After seeing my daughter’s Facebook post, I reflected on what we did to encourage and support their love of learning.

We survived the homework battles and our daughters are now months away from finishing their undergraduate degrees. It wasn’t always easy. We didn’t have many of the challenges that some families face, like those with ADHD, depression, anxiety, or medical problems, but over the years we found ways to support them in school.

In his February 15 New York Times editorial, David Brooks commented on President Obama’s agenda for getting kids better prepared to start school by providing early educational opportunities before kindergarten. Brooks wrote:

Today millions of American children grow up in homes where they don’t learn the skills they need to succeed in life. Their vocabularies are tiny. They can’t regulate their emotions. When they get to kindergarten they’ve never been read a book, so they don’t know the difference between the front cover and the back cover. . . . This is rude to say, but here’s what this is about: Millions of parents don’t have the means, the skill or, in some cases, the interest in building their children’s future. Early childhood education is about building structures so both parents and children learn practical life skills. It’s about getting kids from disorganized homes into rooms with kids from organized homes so good habits will rub off. It’s about instilling achievement values where they are absent.

The Importance of Reading

These are lofty goals in a world where there is much inequity in income, lifestyle, and education. Raising kids is challenging in the best of circumstances; just getting dinner on the table after work can be exhausting. But even families from affluent homes struggle to find time for family when screen time takes over or heavy work schedules make direct parental attention scarce.
A good story is captivating even to unpracticed readers. A friend of mine volunteers at a juvenile hall a couple of times a week, reading books for incarcerated teens. Many of these kids have never been read to. She tells me that in the five years she has done this, no kid has complained. Many are there for weeks at a time and so they hear bits of the stories and look forward to the reading even without the benefit of continuity of the story.
David Brooks is saying something important: raising kids who possess the necessary skills to find jobs or go to college requires not only affordable educational opportunities but family involvement as well.

What can you do to help your child in school?

1. Read to them every night. Start when they are very young, and continue until they ask to read out loud to you. They will stumble over words, one page taking a long time to finish, but stick with it and try not to show impatience. (In the long run, it’s a lesson in more than just reading.)

2. Talk about what you read. Discuss what the characters might have been feeling or doing.Reflect on the stories together.

3. Continue reading as a family; take turns reading aloud to each other. There are many young-adult (YA) books that are great for adults—look at the worldwide popularity of Harry Potter among readers of all ages. My daughter’s bookshop holds an adult book group that meets monthly just to read YA titles.

4. Download books or borrow the audio CDs from the library and listen to them on car rides and in place of video games, movies, or TV.
5. Make a place for study and homework (this could be just the kitchen table) that is a dedicated quiet area: TVs and smartphones off.

6. Limit and monitor all screen time, including texting, gaming, and Facebook. Screens can consume inordinate amounts of time for all family members, but just as in marriage, turning away from preoccupations and toward your child in little and big ways every day will help them feel loved.

7. Make a family plan about how much is okay and stick to it—adults, too. Some families do well by limiting TV/screen time to one hour a night once all schoolwork is complete, but not too close to bedtime. Save the hour before bed for quiet time—reading or listening to books—or talking about the day together.

8. Keep growing and learning through hobbies, reading, classes, or learning to play music. Follow your own passions and your child will see that learning throughout the lifespan is valued.

9. Never let your kid have a TV in their bedroom. This will surely lead to nighttime TV, inappropriate shows, or staying up late—leading to trouble getting up for school the next day.

10. Eat together several times a week. Having dinner conversations that are not forced or stiff is a skill. Don’t just talk to your kids but to your partner as well.

We weren’t always perfect but we tried to follow these guidelines, and now we are enjoying our daughters as they graduate from college—entering the next chapter in their lives. 

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Educational Engagement : Learning to Learn

Red Brick, Ivy, and Spiderwebs: Learning to Engage

I spent my first two years as an undergraduate at a red-brick ivy-covered college. I remember very little of those two years, but not because I was partying. I was in a different kind of daze, induced by class sizes of up to 200 and studying for tests that required bloodless rote memorization, devoid of joy. The only professor I remember was my biology teacher, Mr. Jenkins. I was enthralled with his course. It was taught in an enormous lecture hall but did not feel big because Mr. Jenkins was so animated, clearly delighted in his subject.  He walked back and forth on stage in front of a screen displaying his photos of spiderwebs, flora, and fauna. Each intricate web was unique, many glistening with dew in early morning light, evening light, and moonlight. The slides were awe-inspiring.

During the first exam for this class, I sat stunned, tears falling down my cheeks, as I realized that I could not answer most of the questions. I had studied, yet I was unable to finish three-fourths of the test. Noticing my distress, Mr. Jenkins gently touched my arm and asked to see me after the exam.  In his office, he asked me how I studied for the test and I told him about flashcards and notes. That was all. Without chastising me for poor study skills, he showed me more of the beautiful photos he had taken with his son, who had died, he told me.  His kindness and his openness about the loss of his son had a big impact on me.  I realized I wanted more connection with my professors.  I wanted my education to include dialogue and engagement with the subject.

Somehow I had made it to college with no idea how to learn. I wasn’t even burdened with attention deficit disorder (ADD) or some similar diagnosis. What I assumed were good study skills were completely off base. It was an awakening.  I did not know how to memorize and assumed that I was incapable of being successful as a student.

Something in me persevered—I think it had to do with those dewy spider webs. Without consulting my parents or friends, and in a time that pre-dated the now ubiquitous larger web, I discovered an experimental college in the woods.

I entered The Evergreen State College because I wanted to learn without the focus on grades. I found a good fit. The class sizes were under 20 and the professors knew our names, and skied with us on Friday nights. They read our journals and interacted with us at all stages of the course.

I discovered I could learn. It developed imperceptibly at first as I read Montaigne and dialogued with him in my journal. I argued with Nietzsche and ranted at Machiavelli. I empathized with Faust and the urge for power and knowledge that led him to sell his soul. I fell in love with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Unlike my first two years of college, the last two are a vivid, still-living memory. While I did not return to the study of biology, I discovered a love of liberal arts.  Active engagement with the reading took organization and skill.  These were not simple books but through discussion and writing, they came alive.

How To Do What You Love

Engagement, I found, is the key to learning. Today’s children face enormous pressure to ace standardized tests and get into only the top colleges. If they have ADD/ADHD or other learning disorders, good medications and therapies exist for them. But do they care about learning? Do they love it? Do they know how to structure their time and work with their minds and hearts in the ongoing process that learning requires? In my practice, I have seen the results when kids fail to engage. They become dependent learners. Apathy and boredom are common.

Paul Graham—programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist—writes in   How to Do What You Love” about the intricate dance of finding meaning in what you do and sticking with difficult tasks. Nothing can be achieved without effort. Engagement is not about taking an easy road. We will serve ourselves and our children well by modeling discipline and love of learning. When my girls were little, we would watch spiders make their slow crawl over the lawn, in awe of their perseverance.  Tiny legs, and impossibly large grass obstacles, yet biology won out as they did want they are designed to do.  When our resident mockingbird would call from the chimney, we would run outside to listen to the concert. These simple experiences would later be woven into a story or a dinner discussion.  Bringing mindfulness to everyday life leads to a plethora of opportunities to find fullness in life, and in learning.