1) What are the best aspects of being a therapist?
Being a therapist gives me a chance to connect. I get the opportunity to help them make meaningful changes for children, their families, and the future. Beyond that, being a therapist is about creating space for real humanity to show up. I love being a therapist for the same reasons I love being a mom, a wife, and a friend. Investing in relationships is always the most worthy thing I can do to make this world better.
2) What kinds of trends are you noticing in your practice?
Both parents and kids are reporting more anxiety than ever before. It's important to note that anxiety in childhood is relatively normal. We don't want to tell children not to worry. We want to say, "When you worry, here's what I'm hoping for you. Let's work on that together." Also, help your child build a healthier relationship with the unknown. Engage in wonder, curiosity, and awe. Do it in small, safe, accessible ways throughout the day. Get that part of the brain going. You can also say, "This feels terrible today, but tomorrow's a new day. I wonder how we will feel next week when we look back on this problem. Maybe we'll feel worse, but maybe we'll feel better." These sound like abstract concepts for a child, but I'm doing them in real everyday ways with my kids, and they are coming back to me and repeating it and saying the same thing.
3) What are the most common reasons parents seek help from you?
Number one is some version of their kids not listening or not following household rules.
4) What are some productive ways that parents can approach this?
First, I tell parents that family rules need to be clear, consistent, and kind. Clarity is around the why, and the child understands the details of the rule, and it doesn't change based on parenting comfort. It has to flow from values. For example, my kids know they can't have candy all day, every day, because we have an overarching family value about nutrition and health. If I say yes to sweets on a special night, they know it's unique. If I say no, they know the answer is no.
Children aren't dumb or immature, and they understand sophisticated ideas like values.
5) How can parents be consistent without being rigid?
Rules must be applied the same across family members, even if the rule is tweaked based on age or some other facet of the individual. You won't have the same bedtime as your child because you're a grown-up and they're a child. You need a different amount of sleep, but if the family has an overarching value for healthy sleep and it's not a punishment, everybody has a bedtime. Everybody talks about it that way.
6) How can rules be kind?
It has to be clear that the purpose of family rules is to live our values and care for one another. My son is 11, and everybody else has a phone. He is not on social media. He's saying, "Sometimes everybody else is on their phone, and I'm just sitting there alone." So we're like, "Yeah, that's a problem. I get it. How do we work through that problem together? Is the only solution for you to get a phone? Are there other strategies?"
We have this one family value about protecting your childhood for as long as we can because adult life means navigating technology all the time. I want you to have brain space. There's also kindness around this rule because I'm not dismissive with him. We share this family value. We talk about how phones get in our way.
7) How can parents handle their kids not listening or following rules when they have been clear, consistent, and kind?
When a child is not listening or not following a rule, it is a cue that something has gone wrong here. Your child is not obsessed with power and control. That's adults; that's the world we've been socialized in. Instead, children are obsessed with community, belongingness, their crew, and what the rules are for them. So when rules are unclear, unkind, inconsistent, they push back on them because they're trying to figure them out.
Parents can say, "Something got off-track here. We're in this together. In the moment, we gotta get to school, and you don't wanna eat breakfast. Maybe we've been all over the place eating breakfast, or you see Mommy skipping it, but we have to get to school. I'd like you to have something in your tummy, but more importantly, we need to get to school. So let's take something on the road today, and then we can figure out what matters to us for the morning and what we're going to do about it.
8) What's another complaint parents come to you about?
I'm hearing, "My child is mean or rude to other people and me." It spans ages. They feel like their child is a hard person to be around or their child is not acting out in the world the way their parents want them to. I'm hearing a lot about negativity, anger, and bad mood.
9) How are parents slowing down improvement?
Parents can get stuck with learned helplessness or by fighting fire with fire. "You're not gonna talk to me that way. Don't talk to that kid in that way." Learned helplessness is the opposite, "I can't do anything. I've tried everything. I've asked her to be nice. What can you do?” Both reactions reinforce anger and negative mood.
10) What do parents need to understand?
Children are engaging in belongingness. So somewhere in their world, they're learning this isn't where to be in relationships. Not good or bad; it's just how we act. So they're absorbing and adapting something in the system or their environment.
Also, pay attention to other behaviors. Listlessness, less interest in activities or life, staying in one's room, and persistent irritability can be red flags that there might be something more pervasive, like depression going on. Or it could be the presence of anger and negativity in their environment that they're role modeling and adopting. Being rude or mean creates contact, and kids are value-neutral about good or bad means of connection.
11) What kinds of actions can parents take when they hear reports about their children being rude or mean to others?
There's a lot of foundational groundwork to establish we're in this together. I am your person, no matter what. I heard X happened. Tell me more about this. They tell me the whole story, and I ask, "Is there anything else I don't know or should know if we're going to think this through together?" I give them a chance to complain about it or tell me something hard that they were embarrassed about.
Then I say, "Well, what are we gonna do about this? Our values are to treat people with all the respect and dignity every human deserves. Your feelings have an impact that matters as much, if not more, than intention. So you're responsible for this. How do we make amends and repair in the short term, and then how do we plan for the next time you feel this way?
Sometimes they say, "Mom, I was standing up for someone, and it got out of hand." Or "Mom, that's not what happened. I said X, Y, or Z. The other kid said whatever." And I have to believe them. And again, it's the long game. I am raising children in a balancing act of "I'm your person, I'm on your side, and part of being on your side means having expectations that you rise to be your best self.
Dr. Erika Bocknek holds a master’s degree in Couples and Family Therapy, a doctorate in Child Development, and two postdoctoral fellowships in Child Psychiatry and Infant Mental Health. She is the Associate Editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal and serves on the editorial boards of Adversity and Resilience Science and Infancy. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters for professional audiences, and she has also written articles for parents that have been seen in PBS Newshour, Marketwatch, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
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