"Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll"

Why Do Kids Start Smoking; and other unhealthy, self-destructive behaviors? What can parents do?  How to develop a constructive parenting plan that will reduce the risk?

Why does it matter? "Isn't risky behavior during adolescence normal?"  "I did it and I'm fine, what's the big deal?"

Ingesting, inhaling, injecting drugs and alcohol can impact brain development during the adolescent years, a time of rapid brain growth. Even small differences in neurological development can cause lasting problems well into adulthood.  

"Altered brain development due to exposure of neurotoxins during adolescence, particularly alcohol, could set the stage for cognitive problems into adulthood, conferring functional consequences throughout life."(3)

It is best if the brain is well protected from birth until age 25.  Drugs, alcohol, tobacco (other*) all pose significant risks to healthy brain development.

Below is a list of risk factors for smoking cigarettes.  They are similar to the reasons why kids start other unhealthy activities.  There are some that are not preventable, like poverty. Kids grow up in the families they grow up in.  Don't be re-assured by high and moderate socio-economic status  (SES). While low SES is associated with smoking, high SES is associated with alcohol and marijuana* use.

"Young adults with the highest family background SES were most prone to alcohol and marijuana use."

Hold on, wait right there.  The literature on marijuana use during adolescence indicates that it is not benign. 

"The literature ... provide strong evidence that chronic cannabis abuse causes cognitive impairment and damages the brain, particularly white matter, where cannabinoid 1 receptors abound."   

Ages 12 to 25 are the important years. Young people are most likely to start using destructive substances during these years.   

" ... by 26 years of age, nearly all people who are going to use tobacco have already begun, so the focus of primary prevention with young people really spans the ages of 12 to 25 years."

• Relatively low SES,
• Relatively high accessibility and availability of tobacco products,
• Perceptions by adolescents that tobacco use is normative, that is, usual or acceptable behavior,
• Use of tobacco by significant others and approval of tobacco use among those persons,
• Lack of parental support,
• Low levels of academic achievement and school involvement,
• Lack of skills required to resist influences to use tobacco,
• Relatively low self-efficacy for refusal,
• Previous tobacco use and intention to use tobacco in the future,
• Relatively low self-image, and
• Belief that tobacco use is functional or serves a purpose.

You can see that the age range of concern is between 12 and 25, but most parents do not activate to address adolescent concerns until it's too late, often not until after-the-fact.  The point at which parents will need to begin preparing their children to reduce the risk -- at the very latest --  is prior to age 12.  

A well-designed, proactive parenting plan will begin work on preparing children for adolescents beginning at birth, but if you start late, age 8 is good.  A pro-active parenting plans lays out the pathway toward the desired outcome for each child.

To get a sense of what this plan might look like, flip each of the risk factors listed above into its positive opposite whenever possible.

• High or Low SES is hard to alter.
• Accessibility and availability? Reduce.
• Perceptions by adolescents?  Teach facts: only about 8% of high school students smoke, etc.
• Parents, aunts, uncles, grand parents, etc., stop using and disapprove.  
• Increase parental support.
• Support and facilitate academic achievement and school involvement.
• Increase peer-pressure resistance skills ("Go along to get along", compliance and conformity, is not a constructive lesson for children).
• Increase child's belief in their effectiveness in refusing.
• Address faulty ideas supporting intention to use.
• Enhance self-esteem, self-image, self-worth constructively.
• Nurture belief that substance use serves no constructive purpose.

There are critical skills children need to be taught and parents will need to have developed a relationship with their children that supports open discussion. Any parenting practices that impinge on open discussion are counter-productive.

Additional Reading

• Socioeconomic Status and Substance Use Among Young Adults: A Comparison Across Constructs and Drugs

• Social, Environmental, Cognitive, and Genetic Influences on the Use of Tobacco Among Youth

• The effect of alcohol use on human adolescent brain structures and systems

• Adverse Structural and Functional Effects of Marijuana on the Brain: Evidence Reviewed

*Traumatic brain injury

Kenneth H. Little, MA 
Achieve Educational Success
603-726-1006

© 2019 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved.  

Education: Improving System Success

It's not the fault of the teachers.

It's not the fault of the parents.

It's not the students ...

 ********************************************

You can always tell when a system is in trouble when blaming exceeds problem-solving.

Let's stop blaming and get on with the work of solving.

For many children, the public school system works just fine.  For some, the curriculum speed moves to slowly; for others, it moves too quickly.

To solve this, how about if we match curriculum speed to each student's unique learning speed?

Students should be able to gain 90%+ mastery on every single learning unit from kindergarten on before seeing the next learning unit.

Children who move forward with less than 90% mastery have ever increasing learning gaps accumulating as they move through the grades. Can they get away with 80% mastery?  Yes, but it's not a preferred outcome.  Can students get away with 70% mastery?  Every now and then, but if kids are chronic B-C-D students, while moving forward in the grades, they are developing ever expanding learning gaps making academic and emotional failure more and more likely.

We should shoot for at least 90% mastery on every single learning unit to ensure that all students - every single one -- understands each learning unit complete, that each has achieved mastery.

No, this does not mean holding fast learners back. Fast learners can be given the next learning unit as soon as they gain 90% mastery on the current unit.  Fast learners can zoom ahead, as quickly and as far as they desire -- to infinity and beyond!

Does this harm slower learners?  No, not at all.  They will be able to achieve 90%+ mastery on every single learning unit, something that they never have the chance to achieve in the current educational paradigm.

We cluster children according to their chronological age.  Chronological age is the least relevant criteria for clustering children into educational environments, while subject specific neurological readiness is the most important.
 
We know this, but still cluster children according to age and expect some to scurry along desperately trying to keep up, while simultaneously holding fast learners back; and then scratch our heads when children lose interest and under-perform.
 
Why we do this is a mind boggling mystery. 
 
Curriculum speed needs to consider specific student factors, including family factors.
 
I do not blame teachers.  I understand that teachers are trapped in the exact same system students are trapped in, and that teacher performance is also negatively impacted by the system within which they are trapped. 

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 603-726-1006 / KenLittle-NH.com 

Corporal Punishment (part 3)

Effective Discipline to Raise Healthy Children

American Academy of Pediatrics

Abstract

Pediatricians are a source of advice for parents and guardians concerning the management of child behavior, including discipline strategies that are used to teach appropriate behavior and protect their children and others from the adverse effects of challenging behavior. Aversive disciplinary strategies, including all forms of corporal punishment and yelling at or shaming children, are minimally effective in the short-term and not effective in the long-term. With new evidence, researchers link corporal punishment to an increased risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children. In this Policy Statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics provides guidance for pediatricians and other child health care providers on educating parents about positive and effective parenting strategies of discipline for children at each stage of development as well as references to educational materials. This statement supports the need for adults to avoid physical punishment and verbal abuse of children.

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/142/6/e20183112

Payment for Chores? No.

Never pay children for helping out at home.

Being a cooperative and productive member of the family, making a contribution to the whole, is an expected part of life.

Raising children according to a constructive value system is foundational to preparing children for a good, happy, healthy, successful life.

Values:

• Clean up after your self
• Pitch in
• Be cooperative
• Be helpful
• Be respectful of self, others, property.

All of these values are part of helping out at home.

If kids want more money, they can help themselves and the family by earning it outside the family.

Paying children to help out at home does not teach a valuable life lesson. Children come pre-wired to be good workers and you will teach them budgeting and purchasing skills as they are growing up.  The vast majority of young children want to help out at home; they want to load the dishwasher and washing machine, move laundry from washer to dryer, run the vacuum cleaner, etc. If they don't naturally want to help out, for whatever reason, it's your job to teach them gradually and progressively across time these important values. 

Too many parents shoo children away from helping while they are young.  This is counter-productive. Accept their help gladly and make it fun, even if it takes longer.  Think about it?  Is your priority to get the laundry done or to teach your children all of the skills and values they will need to have a good life? 

If you shoo your children away from helping when they are young, do not expect them to help willingly when they are teens.    

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com / KenLittle-NH.com

 

Behavioral Process: Step by Step

Rule #1 Believe that “children do well if they can.”  If they aren’t doing well, wonder why that is - what is interfering. 

Establish realistic expectations that the child is, in reality, capable of achieving.  Expecting something more than what the child can actually achieve is highly likely to result in failure, increased behavioral difficulties, and to foster a sense of ineffectiveness, helplessness, and worthlessness.

Implementation Dip. 

• When you begin a new intervention .. expect things to get worse first.  
• It all works best if the process is entered into collaboratively -- with parent and child / teacher and child in agreement. 
• Let child know what is changing before beginning
• If you change your approach / style and they don't know why, it can make kids anxious and defensive. 

Visualize Success. 

• What will success look like?  
• What are you trying to accomplish?
• What is your purpose?
• What are your short, mid-range, and long-term objectives?
• Flip negative behaviors into their positive opposites.

Move Toward Success Slowly, Progressively, Patiently, Persistently.

• Practice patience.
• Be persistent in your effort to achieve success. 
• Gradually, thoughtfully shape behavior through successive approximations.  
• Expect set-back, ups and down; regressions happen. Behavior is not linear.  When the going gets tough, people regress.  
• Be practical -- close enough really does count. It never needs to be perfect.  We are working a practice to mastery activity.     

Analyze the Task / Situational Demands.

• What are the required steps
• Environmental factors
• Time of day factors
• Competing  factors
• Where is the breakdown?

Evaluate Skill Level.  

• What skills are fully developed
• What skills are partially developed
• What skills are not developed

Assess Developmental Stage: challenges should be matched to developmental capacities.

• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Biological
• Chronological.  Age is the least relevant in terms of developmental capacities, especially in school.  Each child follows a unique developmental trajectory moving at it's own pace.  Age does not tell us anything about ability.    

Develop Behavioral Plan Collaboratively (parents and children)

• Identify problem
• Generate potential solutions
• Choose the best solution
• Implement plan collaboratively (parents and children).
• Launch plan
• Monitor progress
• Evaluate Outcome

Reward & Celebrate Successes. 

• Partial success
• Proportional success (e.g.: minutes success v. minutes of failure, etc.)
• Tangible rewards
• Intangible rewards

Analyze & Celebrate Failure. 

→ Return to step 1, as needed.

Critical Components

• Be Optimistic
• Be Supportive and encouraging.
• Do not criticize.  
• Emphasize mastery: Practice to improve / practice to mastery / practice never makes perfect

Anger:

• Anger is normal / natural / helpful.  Anger tells us when something is wrong, when there is a problem we need to attend to.  
• Anger can inspire action. 
• Anger can lead to determined effort.
• Everyone gets angry
• Too much anger is bad - build an anger management plan

Anger management activities must be implemented prior to reaching the threshold of anger.  As anger increases people become increasingly irrational.  To intervene with anger plan, the intervention must happen before the brain dissolves into an irrational mass of goo. 

• Adult initiated 
• Child initiated

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 603-726-1006 / KenLittle-NH.com

A Guide to Behavioral Intervention

A Guide to Behavioral Intervention

Assess intellectual, instructional, learning, and situational factors and how they affect / contribute to the behavior problem. Develop and utilize a decision-making tree.

• Identify specific problem behaviors and their source / function.
• Conceptualize positive alternative behaviors.
• Progressively teach, coach, and support the student in developing and utilizing the positive alternatives: healthy, value-system-based behavioral and coping strategies in support of school / community / family success.
• Encourage the practice and progressive growth of positive alternative behaviors with coaching and positive, proactive behavioral planning.
• Scaffold: provide more support, encouragement, and behavioral skill instruction until the child begins to show some sense of competence, then wean and monitor.  
• Alter academic / instructional components as needed in accordance with assessment data and educational best practices.
• Establish realistic expectations that the child is capable of achieving. Expecting something more than what the child can actually achieve is highly likely to result in failure, inspire behavioral problems, and foster a sense of ineffectiveness and helplessness.
• Provide a reasonable and constructive disciplinary structure that will work in support of the positive behavior plan to contain and reduce the frequency and / or intensity of the problem behavior over time while simultaneously facilitating positive behavioral growth and academic progress. 
• Collaboration between the child, family, and school personnel is essential. Fractured teams may contribute to costly, counter-productive and / or harmful outcomes.
• Ongoing assessment and outcome evaluation is an essential component.
• Ongoing assessment enhances understanding and accurate conceptualization of the problem.
• If, after a reasonable trial period, whatever is being tried is not producing positive results then reassessment; a different plan or approach may be needed.
• Reasonable trial periods and outcome assessments guide the process.
• There are no guarantees in behavioral work.

Research indicates that gentle, patient, and positive interventions lead to better long-term outcomes.  Avoid critical, punitive, and harsh disciplinary measures as much as possible.

Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com / KenLittle-NH.com

Coercive Transaction Cycle

Coercive Transactions

Imagine an argument you've had with either a child or significant other, one that spins out of control and get's pretty heated.  Keep this in mind while you are reading the interaction described below.  The interaction might be triggered by your child not doing something, not taking the trash out, or moving too slowly, like while getting ready for school.  The interaction can also be triggered by your child doing something undesirable. Do you recognize the pattern?  

“Coercion refers to a sequence of interactions between the child and parent. The sequence includes actions and reactions that increase the frequency and amplitude of angry, hostile, and aggressive behaviors. The sequence may begin with an argument over some action that has or has not been performed. It intensifies through verbal statements (e.g.: yelling, swearing) to more intensive actions (e.g., hitting, shoving). Ultimately, one person gives in or backs away from the interaction. In other words, the high-intensity interaction of one person ends the aversive behavior of the other person." (Kazdin) 

Basically, Person A (the child in this case) in the interaction responds to a parental action (comment, limit, etc) with mild hostility.  Person B (the parent) responds with mildly hostile behavior.  Person A increases the level of hostility as the interaction continues.  Person B increases hostility as the interaction continues.  Person A increases hostility high enough to cause Person B to discontinue their hostile behavior.  The discontinuation of Person B's hostility inadvertently rewards / reinforces the use of Person A's hostile behavior. 

This is a win-lose outcome.  In this case, Person A "wins" the interaction and will be more likely to utilize hostile behavior in the future.  Person B "loses" the interaction.  Losing fosters anger and resentment, which makes it more likely that hostility will be present at the very beginning of the next interaction. 

Note: it's not recommended that either person persist in using hostility instead of discontinuing the interaction.  It's also important to know the outcome can be reversed, in which case Person B "wins" the interaction and is inadvertently rewarded for using hostile behavior.  Who ever is the person in charge, is responsible for disengaging from the argument and calling for a short break to cool things down.  After cooling off period, the adult invites the child to enter into a conversation that will solve the problem in a mutually agreeable manner: win-win, instead of lose-win or win-lose.       

“In the context of oppositional and aggressive behavior among children … Several [adult] practices are known to foster child deviance, particularly child aggression. These practices include:

• attending to and reinforcing deviant child behavior,
• using commands excessively,
• using harsh punishment,
• failing to attend to appropriate child behavior,
• engaging in coercive adult-child interchanges,
• and failing to monitor children (e.g., their whereabouts).

This research has established that adult practices can directly foster and increase aggressive child behavior.” (Kazdin, 2005, p. 167)

Bibliography:

Kazdin, A. E. (2005). Parent Management Training: Treatment for Oppositional, Aggressive, and Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.