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Transcript of Episode 7:

 

Ep 7: Challenges of the Developmental Stages: Infant to Adolescent

[00:00:00] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Hi, and welcome to the Hidden Language of Children. Are you interested in knowing your young child in a whole new way? Understanding what’s really going on in their developing mind? Does your child say or do things that make you stop and wonder, “Where did that come from?” I’m your host, Dr. Kimberly Bell, Clinical Director at the Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where we work with families to help children know and handle their own feelings, to become the boss of themselves.

Today, we are talking with psychologist and child psychoanalyst Dr. Margaret Zerba about ages and stages, the important developmental milestones that occur at predictable times as a child’s brain develops. And we’re going to do more than identify these challenges. We’re going to take a look at how they shape your child’s thoughts and behavior.

Welcome Marge.

[00:00:51] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Oh, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:00:54] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: So today we are talking about ages and stages, [00:01:00] which means we’re going to start at infancy and end at adolescence. We’re going to go through it pretty quickly. We’ll have to dive in deeper in some later episodes, but let’s talk about the overarching importance of different stages.

So let’s start with infancy.

[00:01:15] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: In thinking about the stages, one word that is very important is relationship. During the course of every stage of development, how the child relates to the caregiver, how the caregivers relate to the child either supporting or not supporting the developmental changes is very important.

We can look at each stage and the challenges for each stage, keep in mind that it’s the relationship with the caregivers that makes a difference. .

[00:01:49] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Excellent point and a beautiful way to start. So I think infancy is one of the most mysterious for parents in terms of the relationship because for such a long time [00:02:00] infants can’t give back or it doesn’t feel like they give back.

So what are your thoughts on the important stuff in infancy?

[00:02:09] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Well, I, I begin with pregnancy and think of what it might be like for a child to live in utero for months. And that is that infant’s, that is that child’s world. And then when a child is born, the child is faced with a lot of stimuli including people including noises visual stimuli that are very distressing at first, and the way a caregiver responds to the infant hopefully with nurturing, comfort, eye contact, holding, squeezing talking with the infant can allow the infant to feel some degree of comfort with this brand new environment.

This child has been all alone for so long [00:03:00] and now all of a sudden there’s all this going on and there’s another person, what’s another person? So much of how the caregiver responds to the child’s impression, the child’s challenge makes a difference in whether or not the child can feel comfortable and whether or not the child can trust the person who’s there for him or her.

[00:03:22] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: It just brings to mind one of the things that makes infancy so mysterious and makes it even more difficult for us to talk about is the fact that everything we’re trying to explain to parents about infancy is happening in the infant without language or words.

It’s a sensory experience. And so when we try to put words to a sensory experience we try to use all these kind of different words to describe what really is a non verbal experience. It is the, literally, the organism of the infant experiencing the world through sight and touch and smell and [00:04:00] sound and taste.

And that is what that’s what the parent is responding to.

[00:04:07] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: And the parent is trying to understand the infant, and the infant is trying to understand the parent. The mutual interaction just makes a big difference. And sometimes parents are at a loss for what can I do to comfort this child?

Should I feed him or her? Should I just hold him? And it does take some trial and error when you’re trying to focus on the child and the child can’t tell you, you do your best and usually most parents come up with a way that helps a child develop trust, feel safe.

[00:04:41] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: And developing the trust and feeling safe — the safety comes from “my body is in discomfort and the things that the caregiver does returns my body to a state of comfort,” which then [00:05:00] becomes feeling good. Does that make sense?

[00:05:05] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah. Feeling good, feeling attended to and establishing an attachment. Yeah. A very important attachment.

[00:05:14] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: And and the more often it happens in succession, that’s where the trust comes from.

[00:05:20] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: That’s right. And I think parents can see that over time within the first year, the first 18 months and can feel quite pleased that the child is responding positively to them and to the parent, to the caregiver and yeah, they, I think the caregiver feels some success that I’m doing something that helps.

[00:05:42] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Because eventually, once that develops, the feedback that the parent gets is, you think, smiling and imitating?

[00:05:52] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Smiling and eventually responding by reaching out trying to hold a [00:06:00] parent’s hand, smiling looking around, touching, very tactile, very oral, very tactile.

[00:06:08] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: OK. I think we could go into depth forever on infancy. Is there anything else you want to say about this stage before we move on to toddlerhood?

[00:06:19] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Once again, relationship is the key.

[00:06:21] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That makes, that’s such a great place to keep grounding ourselves in this conversation, back to the relationship.

And I think that, I think understanding infancy and the fact that you’re doing, when you’re just holding a child and looking at their eyes and they’re looking at your eyes, you’re doing so much more than maybe you think you’re doing, right?

[00:06:42] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I agree.

[00:06:43] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. Absolutely. OK. So then we move into the toddler phase.

[00:06:50] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: A wonderful time. Unfortunately, it has been mislabeled over the years as the Terrible Twos. However this is a child [00:07:00] who’s moving from infancy to a time of crawling, trying to stand up, trying to move away in different directions, paying attention to the environment in a totally different way.

And the child is trying so much to do things for themselves as this phase develops and it’s it’s a wonderful time if parents can tolerate the child’s lack of interest in what parents expect sometime. The parent might not want a child to move toward a stove if the stove is hot.

The parent may not want the child to grab something off the table or off the couch. And responding to the child who is trying these different things, interacting with the environment, it’s important to be done in a gentle way.

You redirect the child, rather than discourage the child, and rather than yell, [00:08:00] and call names, or do something out of frustration. Of course, moving forward, the child is then offered an opportunity to learn to use the toilet. Instead of the diaper and that can be very challenging for parents and for the child because after all that’s one of the things the child can control.

Where he or she puts the urine or puts the feces, and parents here want the child to do something that’s more acceptable, using a toilet and taking time with that. So helping a child at this point in time, feel some autonomy, feel some, success with that and feel good. Mom and dad like this. They feel good about me. And any negative response to the efforts for autonomy very often relate in a child withdrawing and being much more unwilling to attempt this next set of challenges during the [00:09:00] anal phase.

[00:09:01] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. OK, so now wait, I’m going to pause you for just a second. . Because I think, you just said so much important stuff, so I want to make sure we highlight them. First of all, when we, within the world of psychoanalytic thinking, use the word anal phase, it freaks people out. So let’s make clear why it’s called that.

It’s a very simple name that was given many years ago because of the focus in this phase is so very dominated by getting control of the bowel and the bladder. It’s just that simple. It’s not really anything weird or scary. It’s just that the person who created that, that particular phrase was a physician.

And so they were very focused on different parts of the body and their importance at different times in development. And so that’s why we call it that. But it’s really also the phase of becoming the boss of one’s body. And, so that’s the other way to think about it is that it’s about becoming the boss of your body, but in so many different ways.

And that’s, and you get to say the word no, you get to run away, you get [00:10:00] to say, me do it, that, that first assertion of self, would you say?

[00:10:07] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, and you also get to sit in a high chair with a spoonful of food and kind of, flap it all over and, and touch it and move it around and do everything with it, but put it in your mouth, yeah I’m going to do things… it’s a process of experimentation that leads to autonomy.

[00:10:26] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: OK. So you, that’s a great example. So let’s talk about that example for a second and let’s give some advice to parents here. And some that are not typical they hear, they always hear about different things with regard to potty mastery, but let’s talk about this thing you said about food being flung around.

Parents often are like, oh, that’s a mess. I need to clean that up, right? That’s our focus. It’s my child is making a mess. They are messy. I have to clean them up. And of course, you’re going to clean up your child, obviously. You’re going to clean up your child if there’s been a messy food experience.

But [00:11:00] what else is the child learning there, and what else should the parent do in the midst of this moment of making those sort of self- feeding attempts?

[00:11:11] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: If going forward with the example with the food in the spoon, if a parent can appreciate that a child is taking the spoon, using the spoon for a form of experimentation and stimulation and using the spoon instead of allowing the parent to have the spoon and give it to him.

It’s parents don’t like messes. And this is a phase where the word mess comes up often, whether it’s toilet mastery, whether it’s taking a spoon and, moving food all over the place. Understanding that this is not an effort on the child to make the parent work, to defy the parent, or to[00:12:00]

be mean or nasty. It’s simply a form of experimentation and kind of taking over in a small way, something that, the child relied on the parent to do for him or her.

[00:12:15] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: In my head, as you’re saying all of those things in my head, I keep hearing the cleanup song from toddler groups, clean up, everybody clean up, that there’s this time to make a mess and then there’s this time to clean up. And the balance between those two things— because I’m thinking about kids who, one of the first signals that they’re ready for toilet mastery is that they don’t like mess on their hands— they’re beginning to feel that conflict with mess versus clean. But that’s the challenge for parents, isn’t it, in this phase is balancing their reaction to mess like, “Uh-oh, we’ve made a mess. Let’s clean it up,” versus, “Ugh, you’re so messy.” You know that the emotional charge from the parent has such an impact on how that child [00:13:00] develops… the “Oh, Mommy wants me clean” versus the mess is something bad.

[00:13:06] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, it’s important to refrain from trying to make a child feel bad.

[00:13:14] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah, in the process of also helping them. Parenting is hard, man.

[00:13:17] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I think one of the things that can help with parenting is for a parent to develop some sense of empathy.

What’s it like to be an infant? What’s it like to have everything done for you? What’s it like to start doing things more independently? What’s it like to please mom and dad with the toilet mastery? It’s an ongoing phase where a child is learning how to move forward and feel good about it and also getting a lot of positive feedback from parents.

You’re trying to use the toilet. That’s great.

[00:13:50] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. And I, I think, Marge, you just hit on the key point to all of our podcasts. I think this is such a key point, is that our [00:14:00] approach to parenting isn’t about a do this, do that, prescribe this behavior, prescribe that behavior. Our approach is about helping parents develop empathy, a feeling with your child, seeing the world through their eyes and I think you’ve described what a toddler and an infant feel about the world and if parents can step into that, then it will naturally change the way they respond to that empathy. And really seeing a child from the inside out.

1. Let us move on now to the preschool years, let’s call them. And this idea of expanding our relationships into the outside world.

What are your thoughts to start?

[00:14:46] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I think in preschool children begin to learn how they can develop a relationship with someone other than a parent, how they can [00:15:00] be among other children— in the beginning especially children they don’t know. And listen to a teacher, feel OK. Some kids have trouble not only leaving their parents, or their parents leaving them, during a separation process when they come to preschool, or even kindergarten.

It’s hard, and It’s important to have a teacher who can help with that process and a teacher who can work with the parent and say this is something for us to try to understand and help your child feel that this is, something the other kids feel and you can work with this. Helping the child feel that you’re going to be there, even though you’re saying goodbye for either an hour or the entire morning. I remember a story, I’ll make it very quick. A little boy in our preschool, Had a lot of difficulty saying goodbye to his mom, and one of the [00:16:00] things children do is they stand on a stool near the window— Moms are going for a walk as a part of the separation process— and you know he waves, she waves, and at one point this boy had become so, so much a part of being a student, working with the teacher and being with other kids, that he yelled to his mom, “Mom, I gotta go. I gotta go. I got things to do. I can’t stand here anymore.” Of course, there were times when he missed his mom and he might call her, but you could see that he had enough of a connection with his mother, enough of knowing she would be there for him, even if he could not see her, that he could become a part of an entirely different world.

[00:16:49] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah, I always think of this stage, the mental picture I get of this stage is the child who is look what I can do. Look at me, look at my pretty dress, [00:17:00] look at my awesome shoes, look at my, all of those sort of that that joyfulness that they take, they’ve figured out being the boss of their body and now they’re like putting it on display.

For everybody else to enjoy.

[00:17:13] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I’m going to come down that big slide. Everybody look, yeah. I’m going to do it. Yeah. And I think that’s a part of. How we look at development doing for a child, doing with a child standing by to admire a child doing what they can. And then, allowing a child to, to spend more time feeling good from within, doesn’t mean the parents can’t continue to say, “Hey, that’s great,” but the child then be develops a capacity to feel good within.

[00:17:41] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: One of the things that I think parents struggle with and that comes into my head about this piece of it is that this is the phase where a child says… There was a child that was here and I will never forget because she thought that pink and orange were the best colors in the world and that everything that she wore should be pink and orange.[00:18:00]

So she would come in and she would have one pink sock and one orange sock and one pink shoe and one orange shoe and a pink top and an orange skirt, or, I’m going to wear my Halloween costume to preschool today or to daycare or wherever. And a parent, when you have a child who comes out and says, “OK, I’m ready to go,” and they’ve picked out, and they’ve got their magic wand with them or whatever it is. And parents are like, what will people think of me? If I let my child go to the mall like this, or if I let my child go to the restaurant like this, and what would you say our advice to them on that is?

[00:18:35] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: My advice would be let your child appreciate what he’s doing for himself and give the child some positive feedback about making those choices. That what’s the big deal of having two different colored socks? Your child made a decision which is something you’ve been working on for years.

You’ve been working on, toilet mastery, separation for school. Now this is another part of a [00:19:00] child saying, “Yeah, this is who I am. I’m going to decide what socks I’m going to wear,” so it’s all part of the same developmental process. And a parent can say, “Hey, it’s fine with me. Let’s move, let’s see what you’re going to wear tomorrow.”

[00:19:15] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. Yeah. And guide them and give them choices, right? It’s cold out today, so you can wear this or you can wear this, but allowing that kind of choice may seem like a, from an, again, empathy from an adult perspective, may seem like a silly little choice. Like come on, everybody’s got to get to work in and to daycare or preschool or school or whatever. This is just clothing, but you have to narrow it down to the size of the child’s world and wearing this outfit or these socks are It’s a very big choice in the world of a child, right?

[00:19:50] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I think you used a very important word reflection of who I am as a parent I see parents do that. I see it [00:20:00] happen in a supermarket. I see it happening in different situations where a child might, for any reason, yell out and make a lot of noise, or go to, the cereal department and pick out a box off the shelf.

And parents immediately think, what are people going to think of me?

[00:20:17] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: What we hope the parent is feeling on the inside is pride. That they have a child who feels so free to be so fully self expressed and that if another parent has a feeling about that, that’s probably a reflection of the parent who’s observing and judging, not necessarily feeling like they can manage if their kids were doing that, right?

It’s not a judgment on you as much as it is the anxiety it raises in the other parent. But maybe that’s a whole other conversation, too. I don’t know.

[00:20:49] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: There will be parents in the supermarket who’ll say, God, she doesn’t know what she’s doing with this kid, she’s a lousy mother…

[00:20:56] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: But that’s what I mean. I feel like when somebody makes that judgment, it’s really a [00:21:00] projection of their own insecurity. It’s like putting that on another parent. But if that parent understands the importance of self expression in this phase…. And look, there are times right? The boots have to go on if there’s snow, the coat has for the most part has to go on if you’re going a distance that’s further than, house to car and those are sometimes going to be battles and they’re going to be control battles and that’s OK.

But you don’t have to, you don’t have to die on every hill.

[00:21:24] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah. And it’s one of the challenges for parents is to help a child distinguish between those things that only a parent can decide and… and but there are many things that your child can decide that, there’s some kind of compromise in there.

You can decide that. I’ll, I’m going to decide this and, pretty soon you’ll be able to do the things that I’m deciding about. It’s just fascinating when you think of all the possibilities that go into a child feeling like his or her own person.

[00:21:57] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. OK. So we have to move [00:22:00] on?

Yeah. So let’s move on. Now we’re talking about the elementary age kid, and you and I both know that the development of the conscience starts right away, but it really comes into play in this sort of elementary age with the focus on rules and things. So what are your thoughts about that in, in relationship to the parents?

[00:22:18] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: The whole word rules, when you say that what comes to your mind?

[00:22:24] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: I think that this elementary age is one of the most difficult. It’s when most kids come into therapy, it’s most kids get a diagnosis of some kind, learning disability or otherwise.

And it’s, but it’s also the time where kids, when I think of rules, I think of learning how to play a game with your friends without cheating and how hard that is. That’s what I’m talking about.

[00:22:42] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah. Yeah. Developing relationships with peers and teachers and in a different way than a preschooler might. I can remember some children who were trying to figure out how they could deal with kids in the neighborhood who were [00:23:00] quite mean, always barraging them with snowballs in the wintertime, and how were they going to get together and take care of themselves? And they were eight or nine years old, and one of the kids’ fathers said I’ll help you build a fort and then you can protect yourself, but it was an interesting combination where these kids, these little girls were trying to relate with their peers, work with them, have some, feeling of togetherness, but they still realized that mom or dad could help them.

It’s an important time because the energy is transferred more to work with peers, work with teachers. It continues the work that starts in preschool and earlier. But it becomes more important. It’s we as a group. We as second, third, and fourth graders, we’re going to do this together.

Yeah. We’re going to watch a movie together, we’re [00:24:00] going to play together, it’s I’m going to go down…

 

[00:24:02] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Sleepovers..

[00:24:03] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, sleepovers, or, we hear kids down the neighborhood yelling come out and play with me, yeah. So those relationships are so important.

[00:24:14] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: And then, and also though, putting into place this idea of, I hate to use the word morality, but I think that’s the word people mostly understand. The conscience is what we would call it. The inside helper voice, the voice that tells you how to be kind to others and treat others as you would want to be treated. Like the capacity of the brain to just process those concepts becomes much more complex in its development at this age.

It’s also the time, which I think might be a most annoying for parents, when kids come home and say things to them like, “The teacher said…” and correct them. And the teacher said smoking’s not good for you. The teacher said… and that can feel hard for a parent?

[00:24:56] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, it can.

And I think if a parent can understand [00:25:00] that the child is trying to negotiate the differences in expectations from different adults and also trying to negotiate what will I agree with my friends, or how will I go along with something, or how will I not do what someone in class is doing.

If someone is pushing someone around, what will I do? And it’s really an important time because kids do come together they learn to work together and operate on different things. That is a time when kids often engage in a science fair that intellectually meets their needs, or engages in basketball or football, different competitive games where you learn how to cooperate and compete, and it doesn’t really have that much to do with approval or disapproval from mom and dad. It’s the peer relationships that kind of guide how a person responds. So they need mom and dad. It’s peer [00:26:00] relationships become pretty important. Is that kind of what you had in mind?

[00:26:03] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That and what you just said, though, I think is important because for parents it can be a hard time because they’re all of a sudden feeling like, “Why are you saying that my child doesn’t need me?”

And we never say that. How would we describe to parents, like, what your child needs from you in this stage in the relationship?

[00:26:26] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I just think some support and approval is important from parents, you know the…

[00:26:34] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: The standing by to admire piece.

[00:26:35] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Standing by to admire and… I can remember situation where a child was verbally abused by a teacher the child ran home and, told parents what happened, and the parent came back and talked with the teacher and so on.

And that was a way for the child to realize [00:27:00] that he did something that was not appropriate in the classroom, but at the same time the teacher was. also inappropriate. And it was an interesting balance that I think the parents helped the child realize that not all teachers are good teachers.

But at the same time it’s important for you to follow the rules.

[00:27:20] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: So in this stage also, let’s talk a little bit about the idea of what we consider to be an identification. This is the phase of my “dad’s bigger than your dad.” Identifying with superheroes.

[00:27:33] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Like I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up ?

[00:27:35] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yes. Like that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the basics of why that happens.

[00:27:43] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I think that there’s a child who starts to fantasize about what I’m going to be when I grow up, feels a permission from parents to think in those terms. And, sometimes when kids know how to read at this point, usually they do, they might read about somebody who [00:28:00] climbed a mountain, or discovered something.

I think kids look for ways to fulfill fantasies and develop images of role models that go beyond the parents, and I think that’s, it’s a good thing. And I think if parents can allow that, it can help a kid develop the sense that I can have these ideas and my mom and dad, no matter what happens with them, my mom or dad are OK with wanting to be famous or wanting to be smart or the child’s developing values.

Yeah.

[00:28:36] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: And, yeah, and the parents are like And the visual I always get is like the, when you go bowling with kids, you can put these bumper guards on the gutters so that kids don’t get gutter balls, it just bounces around. And that’s what I feel like, OK, in our family, these are our family values.

And then when you go out into the world and you wonder about these things, they can try the very basic things on without the parents being there to be like nope, that’s not how we [00:29:00] treat people. Nope. It’s important to be a good winner and a good loser. Nope.

Like they’re bumper bowling their way through this phase.

[00:29:06] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Trying to incorporate what their parents might expect and still be a part of a group, a community outside of their parent and family life.

[00:29:17] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: All right. So we should probably move on from that as well.

We could spend hours on any of these subjects, but OK. Let’s wrap up with talking about adolescence for a little bit because now we’ve the culmination if you will. What are your thoughts on the important thing there?

[00:29:32] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Adolescence is a time of rebellion, it’s a time of trying to balance out what my parents have taught me, what’s important to them, what I want to do. , A good thing is eventually if the kids come up with not only their own identity and what’s important to them, but if they come up with it’s situations where what they want and what their parents want are the same. Being able to differentiate [00:30:00] between I want to go to school, and I want to tell somebody what I’ve been thinking, and I don’t like this person, or I like this person, and my parents, wouldn’t want me to do that.

They would want me to keep my mouth shut. A kid is trying to find a way to act on their feelings, on their thoughts, and developing what’s important to them, and at the same time taking into consideration what their parents expect. And sometimes those two things come together, but sometimes they don’t.

I had a professor years ago, who said that adolescence is a stage that begins at age 12 and sometimes ends. And I think that’s an interesting comment. I think all of us, to some degree are, faced with what’s important to me? What’s important to someone else? How do we compromise, and yeah I can remember my own adolescence. I won’t go into it, but I think it’s important. It’s very hard for [00:31:00] parents. It’s a different kind of challenge than infancy and autonomy and latency. It’s a different kind of challenge because you got an older kid more verbal usually has some friends who agree with what you don’t agree and it’s a real balancing act, but it is something that can be resolved, it’s I do think it’s challenging and I do think most kids want to find a way to please themselves and get some approval from their parents, but that doesn’t always work, especially if you have parents who are unrealistic or sadistic or cruel.

An adolescent might feel a stronger pull to really be his or her own person in a totally different way. It is a big, it’s a big time but it’s so alive. It’s so alive and it, when it moves forward past age 18, [00:32:00] moves into age 21, that’s when you see some young people becoming politically active, acting out what they want in certain settings that, taking on roles and, different different causes.

It’s it’s an important time. It’s very hard for parents.

[00:32:18] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: It is because they’re not only are they doing what … we call it object removal, right? Like this idea that you’re emotionally separating from your parents to the extent that you will separate from them as an adult, right? There’s always an emotional connection.

But that you can disagree and you can get into these heated arguments with your parents and have fundamental differences as you develop your identity. But at the same time that you’re looking for independence, what we would call autonomy, you’re also desiring and missing the intimacy of a connection that you can’t have with your parents anymore.

And you turn towards peers or romantic [00:33:00] relationships as well.

[00:33:01] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, it’s a loosening of ties with parents. And there’s an old rock and roll song that goes hang on, but don’t let go.

[00:33:10] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Oh yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

[00:33:12] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: There’s something in that for some kids. It’s and I think some parents really enjoy and support changes that their kids go through, even if they’re very different from what the parents value.

[00:33:26] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: And here’s another place where I think that parents have to really consider perspective because when parents are saying that’s dramatic, like a response to something while you’re just being dramatic and in 10 years this isn’t going to matter a breakup or a loss of a friend or a personal slight or whatever it might be.

And I think one of our things is the part of this that you want to really see through your kids eyes is this idea that within their world, these early disappointments [00:34:00] are as big to them as some adult loss would be to us. And that diminishing the importance of it is rarely helpful.

[00:34:09] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah, I think empathy is a big help. Getting in touch with what your adolescent feels is more important in lots of respects than what choices they make. Now, when choices are dangerous that’s a different story. And lots of times parents give up. When they have an adolescent who says, I don’t like what you’re doing, I’m not going to church anymore, heck with this, heck with that. Sometimes parents give up when they, they very well could say to themselves ” Let’s try to figure this out and see if we can have a form of communication so that we can understand better where our child is coming from, because he’s not a child anymore.”

 

[00:34:46] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: I wish I could just underline it, see the words hanging in the air and underline those, because I think what you just said is so vital.

Oftentimes, the first thing we say to parents is what did they say when you talked to them about it? And they’re like, “Oh [00:35:00] yeah, I haven’t talked to them about it.” Because as parents, you’re so used to being the one who fix handles and changes things, right? So they got in trouble at school or they made a bad choice or you caught them doing something that pushed the boundaries of adolescence too far.

And you’re trying to think of what’s the right… what’s the right consequence and what’s the right boundary and what’s the right, and I would say 99 percent of the time when we say to parents what was it like when you talk to them about it? And what did they feel would be a consequence for that, for breaking the family values or whatever.

And they’re like, “Oh, I was trying to figure it out without them.”

[00:35:36] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: I think that’s really a good way to say it, that parents forget that they can have conversations, or at least convey to their adolescents, we’d like to understand. We’d like to figure this out with you.

We don’t want to figure it out for you. We’d like you to be a participant with us. Yeah. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out, [00:36:00] but let’s try to have some mutual understanding.

[00:36:03] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: Yeah. And don’t make assumptions about your child based on your own memories of adolescence.

[00:36:08] Margaret Zerba, Ph.D.: Yeah. And, you can also invite your adolescent to think in terms of how his parents or her parents feel.

It’s a two way thing.

[00:36:16] Kimberly Bell, Ph.D.: This has been awesome, Marge. And, of course, you and I are going to talk more in, in future episodes about a lot of these things as we continue on in our podcast. We’re going to start to get more and more in depth about these very specific subjects.

And I really, I can’t wait to have you back. So we can dive into some of these things. Cause I think you and I share a particular passion for developmental phases and could talk about them forever.

For now let me say that if you are struggling in any way, are looking for advice, you have a child who you think is struggling getting through a particular developmental phase, we at Hanna Perkins Center are here to help in the Hadden Clinic.

Certainly we offer individual therapy, we offer parent guidance we offer family therapy and we’re looking forward [00:37:00] to offering group therapy here in the near future. And you can contact us by simply calling 216 991 4472 or certainly on our website, Hannaperkins.org. In addition, we have this book.

Right here. And I say right here because we’re going to be putting a picture of it up. For those who can’t, who are listening and can’t see, it is the ultimate guide to understanding your child’s behavior. It is called Timeless Advice for Parents of Young Children and it was written by a group of Hanna Perkins Early Childhood Development Experts.

We’re going to show a QR code for the next little bit on our YouTube channel, which you can scan to find it on Amazon for less than 20. From tantrums to preschool jitters, it unlocks the mysteries of your child’s mind. It’s easy reading, with short chapters organized by common situations, and it offers gentle and loving strategies for so many challenges that parents face.

Timeless Advice can bring out that nurturing, patient, and resourceful parent that lives in all of us. [00:38:00] Plus, every purchase supports our non profit Hanna Perkins Center.

1. Marge, this was so much fun. I really enjoyed today. That is our time for today. If our audience would like us to answer a question about their child’s behavior, please send us an email at hiddenlanguageofchildren@gmail.com or you can visit our website, hiddenlanguageofchildren.org.

We are grateful to all of our listeners today. We hope you enjoyed this conversation and found it to be helpful when making parenting decisions appropriate for your child.

The Hidden Language of Children podcast is a production of the nonprofit Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development in beautiful Shaker Heights, Ohio. Our audio video editor is Greg Romano. Bob Rosenbaum is our managing producer and Dan Ratner is our consulting producer. If you like this podcast, please subscribe to hear future episodes and share it with your family and friends.

We welcome your comments and your questions. For more information about our approach to healthy child development, [00:39:00] remember to visit us at hiddenlanguageofchildren.org. I am Dr. Kimberly Bell and we will see you next time.