Interaction With Kids Quotes

When I was a kid, my parents smartly raised us to keep quiet, be respectful to older people, and generally not question adults all that much. I think that's because they were assuming that 99 percent of the time, we'd be interacting with worthy, smart adults... They didn't ever tell me 'Sometimes you will meet idiots who are technically adults and authority figures. You don't have to do what they say.

Do you view your relationship as something to be endured for the sake of the kids, or because you don’t want to be alone, or because you don’t think you could do better?  Or do you view your relationship, even with its imperfections, as a worthwhile work in progress?  How would your view influence how you interact with your partner, what you do, what you say?  What results would those interactions produce?

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life. We aren't just what we're taught. It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain. We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?

Children need time to become themselves--through play and social interaction. If you overwhelm a child with stuff--with choices and pseudochoices--before they are ready, they will only know one emotional gesture: More!

Are you kidding? You just told her that an invisible man who tells you to kill people just showed up when you didn’t want him to.” “Not one of our smoothest interactions,” Tobias agreed.

Any attempts to feign normal social interactions were just depressing because it was so glaringly obvious that everyone I spoke to for the rest of my life would feel awkward and self-conscious around me, except maybe kids like Jackie who just didn’t know any better.

All in all, in-person social interaction is much better for mental health than electronic communication.

He [Ted Williams] was only a 23-year-old kid when he batted .406 in 1941, but then the season ended and our country came under attack at Pearl Harbor—and by 1943 he was a Marine fighter pilot serving overseas who cheated death on several documented occasions. He came back in 1946, and he won his first career MVP after hitting 38 home runs.

So you think the best way to prepare kids for the real world is to bus them to a government institution where they're forced to spend all day isolated with children of their own age and adults who are paid to be with them, placed in classes that are too big to allow more than a few minutes of personal interaction with the teacher-then spend probably an hour or more everyday waiting in lunch lines, car lines, bathroom lines, recess lines, classroom lines, and are forced to progress at the speed of the slowest child in class?

Labeling emotions accurately increases self-awareness and helps us to communicate emotions effectively, reducing misunderstanding in social interactions.

Fortunately, the Internet is a really angry place filled with really angry people, many of whom come positively unglued when not subject to the social consequences of face-to-face interaction.

there are just two activities that are significantly correlated with depression and other suicide-related outcomes (such as considering suicide, making a plan, or making an actual attempt): electronic device use (such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer) and watching TV. On the other hand, there are five activities that have inverse relationships with depression (meaning that kids who spend more hours per week on these activities show lower rates of depression): sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books and other print media, in-person social interactions, and doing homework.

The only person that should wear your ring is the one person that would never… 1. Ask you to remain silent and look the other way while they hurt another. 2. Jeopardize your future by taking risks that could potentially ruin your finances or reputation. 3. Teach your children that hurting others is okay because God loves them more. God didn’t ask you to keep your family together at the expense of doing evil to others. 4. Uses religious guilt to control you, while they are doing unreligious things. 5. Doesn't believe their actions have long lasting repercussions that could affect other people negatively. 6. Reminds you of your faults, but justifies their own. 7. Uses the kids to manipulate you into believing you are nothing. As if to suggest, you couldn’t leave the relationship and establish a better Christian marriage with someone that doesn’t do these things. Thus, making you believe God hates all the divorced people and will abandon you by not bringing someone better to your life, after you decide to leave. As if! 8. They humiliate you online and in their inner circle. They let their friends, family and world know your transgressions. 9. They tell you no marriage is perfect and you are not trying, yet they are the one that has stirred up more drama through their insecurities. 10. They say they are sorry, but they don’t show proof through restoring what they have done. 11. They don’t make you a better person because you are miserable. They have only made you a victim or a bitter survivor because of their need for control over you. 12. Their version of success comes at the cost of stepping on others. 13. They make your marriage a public event, in order for you to prove your love online for them. 14. They lie, but their lies are often justified. 15. You constantly have to start over and over and over with them, as if a connection could be grown and love restored through a honeymoon phase, or constant parental supervision of one another’s down falls. 16. They tell you that they don’t care about anyone other than who they love. However, their actions don’t show they love you, rather their love has become bitter insecurity disguised in statements such as, “Look what I did for us. This is how much I care.” 17. They tell you who you can interact with and who you can’t. 18. They believe the outside world is to blame for their unhappiness. 19. They brought you to a point of improvement, but no longer have your respect. 20. They don't make you feel anything, but regret. You know in your heart you settled.

The process of socialization is nowhere near complete at age five or six, when modern children start spending up to half their waking hours taking their cues from other people's children. Because they accompany their parents' daily routine, homeschooled kids spend plenty of time interacting with people of all ages, which I think most people would agree is a far more natural, organic way to socialize.

Don't seat quiet kids in high interaction areas of the classroom, says communications professor James McCroskey. They won't talk more in those areas; they'll feel more threatened and will have trouble concentrating. Make it easy for introverted kids to participate in class, but don't insist. Forcing highly apprehensive young people to perform orally is harmful. It will increase apprehension and reduce self-esteem.

They don’t really listen to speeches or talks. They absorb incrementally, through hours and hours of observation. The sad truth about divorce is that it’s hard to teach your kids about life unless you are living life with them: eating together, doing homework, watching Little League, driving them around endlessly, being bored with nothing to do, letting them listen while you do business, while you negotiate love and the frustrations and complications and rewards of living day in and out with your wife. Through this, they see how adults handle responsibility, honesty, commitment, jealousy, anger, professional pressures, and social interactions. Kids learn from whoever is around them the most.

In one hallway, the floor gleaming parquet and the ceiling festooned with golden cherubs, there was a boy in a grumpy cat mask and biker boots, not involved in any sexual activity, legs crossed and leaning against the wall. As a bevy of faeries passed the boy, giggling and groping, the boy scooted away. Alec remembered being younger, and how overwhelming large groups of people had seemed. He came over and leaned against the wall beside the boy. He saw the boy texting, PARTIES WERE INVENTED TO ANNOY ME. THEY FEATURE MY LEAST FAVORITE THING: PEOPLE, ALL INTENT ON MY LEAST FAVORITE ACTIVITY: SOCIAL INTERACTION. “I don’t really like parties either,” Alec said sympathetically. “No hablo italiano,” the boy mumbled without looking up. “Er,” said Alec. “This conversation is happening in English.” “No hablo ingles,” he said without missing a beat. “Oh, come on. Really?” “Worth a shot,” said the boy. Alec considered going away. The boy wrote another text to a contact he had saved as RF. Alec could not help but notice that the conversation was entirely one-sided, the boy sending text after text with no response. The last text read VENICE SMELLS LIKE A TOILET. AS A NEW YORKER, I DO NOT SAY THIS LIGHTLY. The weird coincidence emboldened Alec to try again. “I get shy when there are strangers too,” Alec told the kid. “I’m not shy,” the boy sneered. “I just hate everyone around me and everything that is happening.” “Well.” Alec shrugged. “Those feel like similar things sometimes.” The boy lifted his curly head, pushing the grumpy cat mask off his face, and froze. Alec froze too, at the twin shock of fangs and familiarity. This was a vampire, and Alec knew him. “Raphael?” he asked. “Raphael Santiago?” He wondered what the second-in-command of the New York clan was doing here. Downworlders might be flooding in from all over the world, but Raphael had never struck Alec as a party animal. Of course, he was not exactly coming off as a party animal now. “Oh no, it’s you,” said Raphael. “The twelve-year-old idiot.” Alec was not keen on vampires. They were, after all, people who had died. Alec had seen too much death to want reminders of it. He understood that they were immortal, but there was no need to show off about it. “We just fought a war together. I was with you in the graveyard when Simon came back as a vampire. You’ve seen me multiple times since I was twelve.” “The thought of you at twelve haunts me,” Raphael said darkly. “Okay,” Alec said, humoring him. “So have you seen a guy called Mori Shu anywhere around here?” “I am trying not to make eye contact with anyone here,” said Raphael. “And I’m not a snitch for Shadowhunters. Or a fan of talking to people, of any kind, in any place.” Alec rolled his eyes.

22. Why can’t you say a joke while standing on ice? Because it might crack up!

Thoughts never stop. All you can do is stop interacting with them, stop listening to them.

It's a different generation, kid. Back then, people interacted with each other, they were patriotic, they cared about their community, shared what little they had. Today everybody's separate.

These kids aren't like us; they'll never be us. They're more like...young Lex Luthors. They've never known a world without the internet. Email. Text messaging. Social media. Likes and views are king, bullying dickheads are inescapable, and genuine social interaction can be almost completely avoided. It makes them really fucking smart technologically and really fucking stupid emotionally.

Upper-class parents enable their kids to form weak ties by exposing them more often to organized activities, professionals, and other adults. Working-class children, on the other hand, are more likely to interact regularly only with kin and neighborhood children, which limits their formation of valuable weak ties.

all the ways you can say yes, and sprinkle them throughout your daily marital interactions: Yes, that’s a good idea. Yes, I’m totally on board. Yes, that looks fun. Couples who make a practice of doing this, he has said, are much more likely to go the distance.

Twenge finds that there are just two activities that are significantly correlated with depression and other suicide-related outcomes (such as considering suicide, making a plan, or making an actual attempt): electronic device use (such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer) and watching TV. On the other hand, there are five activities that have inverse relationships with depression (meaning that kids who spend more hours per week on these activities show lower rates of depression): sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books and other print media, in-person social interactions, and doing homework.

Learning in an interactive setting as opposed to a passive one is conducive to the mix of soft and academic skills we're looking to develop in our kids.

There are times I interact with kids and recall my abortion fondly, moments like this when I cross paths with a child who is clearly a drag.

As adults, overall, in two-parent families have spent more time working for pay, the time they spend interacting with their kids has also increased.

Robux

our little bears will be able to interact with this culture with grace, love, and critical thinking—inhaling the spiritual oxygen and exhaling everything else—in a way that is as natural as breathing.

We need to set clear ground rules, while keeping in mind that our ultimate goal is not to produce compliant children as much as children who understand how to act and interact successfully in this world.

It's not even the other kids, because fuck them. It's me. My anxiety. I do this thing after I'm around people where I obsessively overanalyze every interaction to see where I went wrong or who I offended.

iGen idea: the world is an inherently dangerous place because every social interaction carries the risk of being hurt. You never know what someone is going to say, and there’s no way to protect yourself from it.

If an activity involves a screen, it’s linked to less happiness and more depression. If it doesn’t—particularly if it involves in-person social interaction or exercise—it’s linked to more happiness and less depression.

The kids just got back from camp. After four days, it's great to have them home. I find myself staring at my wife and how she interacts with them. Spoils them. As if she's making up lost time. I don't know how else to say it, but that shit is hot.

And our disciplinary decisions go a long way toward determining how strong those connections are. The way we interact with our kids when they’re upset significantly affects how their brains develop, and therefore what kind of people they are, both today and in the years to come.

Remember a Florida judge instructing a jury to focus only on the moment when George Zimmerman and Trayvon Marton interacted, thus transforming a seventeen-year-old, unarmed kid into a big, scary black guy, while the grown man who stalked him through the neighborhood with a loaded gun becomes a victim.

As children, we think that whatever world surrounds us is normal. As I entered fourth and fifth grades and began spending time in the homes of other kids, my world grew. I spent a lot of time watching and thinking about the way people interacted with other people. I began to see that not all families were like mine.

One intervention was not like the others, however: when you closed schools and put social distance between kids, the flu-like disease fell off a cliff. (The model defined “social distance” not as zero contact but as a 60 percent reduction in kids’ social interaction.) “I said, ‘Holy shit!’ ” said Carter. “Nothing big happens until you close the schools.

As a child, I was constantly being sent on playdates with other kids—the shrinks insisted I interact with cohorts. That’s what my meeting with Lyle was like: those first loose, horrible ten minutes, when the grown-ups have left, and neither kid knows what the other one wants, so you stand there, near the TV they’ve told you to keep off, fiddling with the antenna.

With avoidants, everyday interactions and conversations, whether they’re about which channel to watch on TV or how to raise the kids, are actually negotiations for space and independence. You often wind up complying with their wishes—because otherwise they will withdraw. Research shows that avoidants hardly ever date one another. They simply lack the glue that keeps things together.

In my experience, most parents sincerely want their children to be assertive, independent thinkers who are unafraid to stand their ground . . . with their peers. When a child demonstrates the identical sort of courage in interactions with them, it’s a different story: At best, it’s a troublesome phase that kids go through; at worst, it’s an example of uncooperative, disrespectful, disobedient, defiant behavior that must be stamped out. The truth is that if we want children to be able to resist peer pressure and grow into principled and brave adults, we have to actively welcome their questioning and being assertive with us. We have to move beyond our need to win arguments and impose our will, beyond our fear that we’ll be seen as weak or permissive if our kids are given leave to challenge us.

Most lecture-based courses contribute nothing to real learning. Consequential and retained learning comes from applying knowledge to new situations or problems, research on questions and issues that students consider important, peer interaction, activities, and projects. Experiences, rather than short-term memorization, help students develop the skills and motivation that transforms lives." [p. 7-8]

In Sweden, nature is not an abstract concept that is taught only on Earth Day and through textbooks about bees and butterflies. It’s an integral part of everyday life. Daily interaction with nature has helped turn many children, myself included, into passionate advocates for the environment. Not surprisingly, Scandinavia is also a world leader when it comes to renewable energy, recycling, and sustainable living.

I wasn’t sure what the most surreal part of this interaction was. If it was the fact that I was standing in some random dark woods at night, the fact that I was doing that with a dinosaur, or the fact that said extinct animal was trying to give me a pile of sticks. It was like having to smile and nod at a kid’s macaroni art you had no idea what to do with, and you had no idea what the picture was, but you didn’t want to crush their spirit.

And so I learned by observation, interaction, and experience - as well as active study and research - growing up and throughout my life how to understand dog-psychology, how to behave around dogs, and how to physically handle them (without fear or worry of being bitten) if/when necessary. I've had both good and bad experiences with countless dogs thus yielding many lessons learned as well as useful insights which will be shared with you throughout the course of this book.

Respect in Latin means “to look at someone’s conduct and admire them.” When people say to kids, “Respect your elders,” they’re often really saying, “Obey your elders.” But the amazing thing is that kids inherently know the real meaning of respect, and far too often they see adults who don’t merit it—not only public figures, like hypocritical politicians and athletes, but the adults they interact with on a daily basis. This is hard to write, but for some boys it could be one of their parents.

The research is really clear on this point. Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life—emotionally, relationally, and even educationally—have parents who raise them with a high degree of connection and nurturing, while also communicating and maintaining clear limits and high expectations. Their parents remain consistent while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion. As a result, the kids are happier, do better in school, get into less trouble, and enjoy more meaningful relationships.

Groundbreaking research in neuroscience has revealed what scientists are calling the “social brain.” This is a brain region that lights up when we are engaged in social interactions. Matthew Lieberman, a social cognitive neuroscientist, writes: “This network comes on like a reflex and it directs us to think about other people’s minds, their thoughts, feelings and goals. It promotes understanding and empathy, cooperation and consideration.” Lieberman believes that we are wired not only for self-interest but also for the welfare of others.

This change in communication may have some side effects, though. In her book Alone Together, MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle convincingly makes the case that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining. When we did the large focus group where we split the room by generation—kids on the left, parents on the right—a strange thing happened. Before the show started, we noticed that the parents’ side of the room was full of chatter. People were talking to one another and asking how they had ended up at the event and getting to know people. On the kids’ side, everyone was buried in their phones and not talking to anyone around them. It made me wonder whether our ability and desire to interact with strangers is another muscle that risks atrophy in the smartphone world. You

Those kids are less likely to come, perhaps because they’re less inclined to analyze and dig deep—that’s not their comfort zone. The so-called shy kids are often hungry to brainstorm ideas, deconstruct them, and act on them, and, paradoxically, when they’re allowed to interact this way, they’re not shy at all. They’re connecting with each other, but in a deeper zone, in a place that’s considered boring or tiresome by some of their peers.” And these kids do “come out” when they’re ready; most of the Writopia kids read their works at local bookstores, and a staggering number win prestigious national writing competitions.

Sometimes, when I have a nice interaction with someone, I hope I never see them again. Occasionally, I have a nice chat with a cashier, for example. I leave the store thinking, I hope I never see them again. I avoid their register if I do. Sometimes, when I visit extended family, like my mom's cousins, or a great aunt, I think it's a shame they saw me now at my age. I think it might have been better for them to have last seen me as a kid. I think seeing me now might ruin the memory of when I was little. I often stop texting people I'm seeing after having a nice time with them. I wish I could have one nice interaction with everyone and then disappear.

Nurture parent-teacher relationships. When students feel that parents are talking negatively about their teacher, it undermines that critical relationship, akin to the acrimonious divorce of parents, notes Suniya Luthar. Students learn best from teachers they feel close to, and teachers play an essential role in buffering against achievement stress. Show respect and appreciation when you speak about or interact with their teachers. Actively build a partnership with educators so that a child can be best supported. “Replace” yourself. Consider creating your own council of parents. Value and appreciate the adults in your children’s lives. Guard that time so that they can enjoy a wider safety net of support. You might even make it formal, as some parents I interviewed did, by creating a master sheet of phone numbers and meeting together as a group. Encourage gratitude. Help children to get into the habit of telling others explicitly why they matter. You might adopt a regular gratitude practice at home, like “the one thing I love about the birthday person.” Teach kids how to think gratefully. Point out when someone goes out of their way to find a present for them, or when they do something kind that makes your child’s life better. Researchers find gratitude is the glue that binds relationships together.

Getting Started Setting up your Kindle Oasis Kindle controls Status indicators Keyboard Network connectivity VoiceView screen reader Special Offers and Sponsored Screensavers Chapter 2 Navigating Your Kindle The Kindle Home screen Toolbars Tap zones Chapter 3 Acquiring & Managing Kindle Content Shop for Kindle and Audible content anytime, anywhere Recommended content Managing your Kindle Library Device and Cloud storage Removing items from your Kindle Chapter 4 Reading Kindle Documents Understanding Kindle display technology Customizing your text display Comic books Children's books Images Tables Interacting with your content Navigating a book Chapter 5 Playing Audible Books Pairing a Bluetooth audio device Using the Audible Player Audiobook bookmarks Downloading Audible books Audiobook Library Management Chapter 6 Features X-Ray Word Wise Vocabulary Builder Amazon FreeTime (Amazon Fire for Kids in the UK) Managing your Amazon Household Goodreads on Kindle Time to Read Chapter 7 Getting More from Your Kindle Oasis Carrying and reading personal documents Reading Kindle content on other devices Sharing Using your Kindle with your computer Using the Experimental Web Browser Chapter 8 Settings Customizing your Kindle settings The Settings contextual menu Chapter 9 Finding Additional Assistance Appendix A Product Information

Let’s now look at the four basic types of EI parents (Gibson 2015): Emotional parents are dominated by feelings and can become extremely reactive and overwhelmed by anything that surprises or upsets them. Their moods are highly unstable, and they can be frighteningly volatile. Small things can be like the end of the world, and they tend to see others as either saviors or abandoners, depending on whether their wishes are being met. Driven parents are super goal-achieving and constantly busy. They are constantly moving forward, focused on improvements, and trying to perfect everything, including other people. They run their families like deadline projects but have little sensitivity to their children’s emotional needs. Passive parents are the nicer parents, letting their mate be the bad guy. They appear to enjoy their children but lack deeper empathy and won’t step in to protect them. While they seem more loving, they will acquiesce to the more dominant parent, even to the point of overlooking abuse and neglect. Rejecting parents aren’t interested in relationships. They avoid interaction and expect the family to center around their needs, not their kids. They don’t tolerate other people’s needs and want to be left alone to do their own thing. There is little engagement, and they can become furious and even abusive if things don’t go their way.

In the three years I spent working on this book, making dozens of line graphs, reading campus newspapers, and listening to the stories and opinions of young people during in-depth interviews, I’ve realized this: iGen’ers are scared, maybe even terrified. Growing up slowly, raised to value safety, and frightened by the implications of income inequality, they have come to adolescence in a time when their primary social activity is staring at a small rectangular screen that can like them or reject them. The devices they hold in their hands have both extended their childhoods and isolated them from true human interaction. As a result, they are both the physically safest generation and the most mentally fragile.

We can’t put up the walls of a house without a foundation. Our intentions form the foundation of our communications. To shift our language, we have to shift our intention. Let’s be real: in our interactions with our kids, we’re usually trying to manipulate them—to make them do something. We need to change our way of thinking, from changing the other to expressing our own unmet needs. This is where the mindfulness training comes in hand—to help us become more aware of what’s happening under the surface. Whatever the situation, we can get curious about the unmet needs underneath. When we drop to this deeper level, compassion for ourselves and for our children arises. We can express ourselves with an intention of curiosity and care—for both ourselves and the other.

If you want to further understanding of systemic racism even more among the people you interact with, you can try to link to the systemic effects of racism whenever you talk about racism. Instead of posting on Facebook: “This teacher shouted a racial slur at a Hispanic kid and should be fired!” you can say all that, and then add, “This behavior is linked to the increased suspension, expulsion, and detention of Hispanic youth in our schools and sets an example of behavior for the children witnessing this teacher’s racism that will influence the way these children are treated by their peers, and how they are treated as adults.” I do this often when I’m talking about racism, and pretty regularly somebody will comment with something like, “That’s an aspect of this situation I hadn’t considered, thank you.

After thirty, people often experience internal shifts in how they approach friendships. Self-discovery gives way to self-knowledge, so you become pickier about the people you surround yourself with, according to Marla Paul, author of the book The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You're Not a Kid Anymore. 'The bar is higher than when we were younger and were willing to meet almost anyone for a margarita,' she says. We tend to overthink the interactions more. 'Will they like me?' or 'Did I say the right thing?' When we maintain a friendship for ten years or more, we become accustomed to specific roles in the relationship. Therefore, shifting our boundaries seems like a betrayal of the relationship. But people change all the time. As we grow in friendships, other areas of our lives likely grow as well.

A wealth of research confirms the importance of face-to-face contact. One experiment performed by two researchers at the University of Michigan challenged groups of six students to play a game in which everyone could earn money by cooperating. One set of groups met for ten minutes face-to-face to discuss strategy before playing. Another set of groups had thirty minutes for electronic interaction. The groups that met in person cooperated well and earned more money. The groups that had only connected electronically fell apart, as members put their personal gains ahead of the group’s needs. This finding resonates well with many other experiments, which have shown that face-to-face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction. The very first experiment in social psychology was conducted by a University of Indiana psychologist who was also an avid bicyclist. He noted that “racing men” believe that “the value of a pace,” or competitor, shaves twenty to thirty seconds off the time of a mile. To rigorously test the value of human proximity, he got forty children to compete at spinning fishing reels to pull a cable. In all cases, the kids were supposed to go as fast as they could, but most of them, especially the slower ones, were much quicker when they were paired with another child. Modern statistical evidence finds that young professionals today work longer hours if they live in a metropolitan area with plenty of competitors in their own occupational niche. Supermarket checkouts provide a particularly striking example of the power of proximity. As anyone who has been to a grocery store knows, checkout clerks differ wildly in their speed and competence. In one major chain, clerks with differing abilities are more or less randomly shuffled across shifts, which enabled two economists to look at the impact of productive peers. It turns out that the productivity of average clerks rises substantially when there is a star clerk working on their shift, and those same average clerks get worse when their shift is filled with below-average clerks. Statistical evidence also suggests that electronic interactions and face-to-face interactions support one another; in the language of economics, they’re complements rather than substitutes. Telephone calls are disproportionately made among people who are geographically close, presumably because face-to-face relationships increase the demand for talking over the phone. And when countries become more urban, they engage in more electronic communications.

What happens when insatiability dominates a person's emotional functioning? The process of maturation is preempted by an obsession or an addiction, in this case for peer connection. Peer contact whets the appetite without nourishing. It titillates without satisfying. The end result of peer contact is usually an urgent desire for more. The more the child gets, the more he craves. The mother of an eight-year-old girl mused, “I don't get it — the more time my daughter spends with her friends, the more demanding she becomes to get together with them. How much time does she really need for social interaction, anyway?” Likewise, the parents of a young adolescent complained that “as soon as our son comes home from camp, he gets on the phone right away to call the kids he's just been with. Yet it's the family he hasn't seen for two weeks.” The obsession with peer contact is always worse after exposure to peers, whether it is at school or in playtimes, sleepovers, class retreats, outings, or camps. If peer contact satiated, times of peer interaction would lead automatically to increased self-generated play, creative solitude, or individual reflection. Many parents confuse this insatiable behavior with a valid need for peer interaction. Over and over I hear some variation of “but my child is absolutely obsessed with getting together with friends. It would be cruel to deprive him.” Actually, it would be more cruel and irresponsible to indulge what so clearly fuels the obsession. The only attachment that children truly need is the kind that nurtures and satisfies them and can bring them to rest. The more demanding the child is, the more he is indicating a runaway obsession. It is not strength that the child manifests but the desperation of a hunger that only increases with more peer contact.

On the one hand, according to the theory of gene-environment interaction, people who inherit certain traits tend to seek out life experiences that reinforce those characteristics. The most low-reactive kids, for example, court danger from the time they’re toddlers, so that by the time they grow up they don’t bat an eye at grown-up-sized risks. They “climb a few fences, become desensitized, and climb up on the roof,” the late psychologist David Lykken once explained in an Atlantic article. “They’ll have all sorts of experiences that other kids won’t. Chuck Yeager (the first pilot to break the sound barrier) could step down from the belly of the bomber into the rocketship and push the button not because he was born with that difference between him and me, but because for the previous thirty years his temperament impelled him to work his way up from climbing trees through increasing degrees of danger and excitement.

I saw a striking example of this among the baboons that I study in Kenya, when both a high-ranking and a low-ranking female gave birth to daughters the same week. The former’s kid hit every developmental landmark earlier than the other, the playing field already unlevel. When the infants were a few weeks old, they nearly had their first interaction. Daughter of subordinate mom spotted daughter of dominant one, toddled over to say hello. And as she got near, her low-ranking mother grabbed her by the tail and pulled her back. This was her first lesson about her place in that world. “You see her? She’s much higher ranking than you, so you don’t just go and hang with her. If she’s around, you sit still and avoid eye contact and hope she doesn’t take whatever you’re eating.” Amazingly, in twenty years those two infants would be old ladies, sitting in the savanna, still displaying the rank asymmetries they learned that morning.

The day we visited, mothers were chatting comfortably on one of the benches while their children ran around happily exploring and playing games. The beauty of natural playgrounds is that they tap directly into children’s passions. In traditional playspaces constructed of metal and plastic, decisions about what to play are made by the designers. First you swing. Then you go down the slide. Too often, the result is competition, with kids arguing over who gets to do what, followed by frustration and tears. Conversely, in natural play areas, the child is boss. Imaginations are fired up as kids invent games with the available loose parts. Studies show that interactions tend to be more cooperative as well. Bullying is greatly decreased, and both vandalism and aggressive behavior also go down if there is a tree canopy. And with greater engagement comes longer play intervals, about three times longer compared with old-style play equipment.

Just as an adult-oriented child is more vulnerable in relationship to his parents and teachers, peer-oriented kids are more so in relationship to one another. Having lost their parental attachment shields, they become highly sensitized to the actions and communication of other children. The problem is that children's natural interaction is anything but careful and considerate and civilized. When peers replace parents, this careless and irresponsible interaction takes on a potency it was never meant to have. Sensitivities and sensibilities are easily overwhelmed. We have only to imagine how we as adults would fare if subjected by our friends to the kind of social interaction children have to endure each and every day — the petty betrayals, the shunning, the contempt, the sheer lack of dependability. It is no wonder that peer-oriented kids shut down in the face of vulnerability. The literature on the impact of peer rejection on children, based on extensive research, is very clear about the negative consequences, employing words like shattering, crippling, devastating, mortifying. Suicides among children are escalating, and the literature indicates that the rejection of peers is a growing cause.

She didn’t have the slightest idea what Mrs. Darling wanted to see her about. But then, she seldom did. The etiquette in this place was so mysterious! Or the customs, or the conventions, or whatever…Like not showing strangers the soles of your feet or something. She tried to cast her mind back over anything she might have done wrong, but how much could she have done wrong between yesterday afternoon and noon today? She had made a point of keeping her interactions with parents to a minimum, and she didn’t think Mrs. Darling could have heard about her little tantrum this morning when she couldn’t get Antwan’s jacket unzipped. “Stupid goddamn-to-hell frigging modern life,” she had muttered. But it was life she was cursing, not Antwan, and surely he’d understood that. Besides, he didn’t seem like the kind of kid who’d go running off to tattle on people, even if he’d had the opportunity. It had been one of those double-type zippers that could be opened from the bottom while the top stayed closed, and she’d ended up having to take the jacket off by yanking it over his head. She detested that kind of zipper. It was a presumptuous zipper; it wanted to figure out your every possible need without your say-so.

The biggest fear for homeschooled children is that they will be unable to relate to their peers, will not have friends, or that they will otherwise be unable to interact with people in a normal way. Consider this: How many of your daily interactions with people are solely with people of your own birth year?  We’re not considering interactions with people who are a year or two older or a year or two younger, but specifically people who were born within a few months of your birthday. In society, it would be very odd to section people at work by their birth year and allow you to interact only with persons your same age. This artificial constraint would limit your understanding of people and society across a broader range of ages. In traditional schools, children are placed in grades artificially constrained by the child’s birth date and an arbitrary cut-off day on a school calendar. Every student is taught the same thing as everyone else of the same age primarily because it is a convenient way to manage a large number of students. Students are not grouped that way because there is any inherent special socialization that occurs when grouping children in such a manner. Sectioning off children into narrow bands of same-age peers does not make them better able to interact with society at large. In fact, sectioning off children in this way does just the opposite—it restricts their ability to practice interacting with a wide variety of people. So why do we worry about homeschooled children’s socialization?  The erroneous assumption is that the child will be homeschooled and will be at home, schooling in the house, all day every day, with no interactions with other people. Unless a family is remotely located in a desolate place away from any form of civilization, social isolation is highly unlikely. Every homeschooling family I know involves their children in daily life—going to the grocery store or the bank, running errands, volunteering in the community, or participating in sports, arts, or community classes. Within the homeschooled community, sports, arts, drama, co-op classes, etc., are usually sectioned by elementary, pre-teen, and teen groupings. This allows students to interact with a wider range of children, and the interactions usually enhance a child’s ability to interact well with a wider age-range of students. Additionally, being out in the community provides many opportunities for children to interact with people of all ages. When homeschooling groups plan field trips, there are sometimes constraints on the age range, depending upon the destination, but many times the trip is open to children of all ages. As an example, when our group went on a field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank, all ages of children attended. The tour and information were of interest to all of the children in one way or another. After the tour, our group dined at a nearby food court. The parents sat together to chat and the children all sat with each other, with kids of all ages talking and having fun with each other. When interacting with society, exposure to a wider variety of people makes for better overall socialization. Many homeschooling groups also have park days, game days, or play days that allow all of the children in the homeschooled community to come together and play. Usually such social opportunities last for two, three, or four hours. Our group used to have Friday afternoon “Park Day.”  After our morning studies, we would pack a picnic lunch, drive to the park, and spend the rest of the afternoon letting the kids run and play. Older kids would organize games and play with younger kids, which let them practice great leadership skills. The younger kids truly looked up to and enjoyed being included in games with the older kids.

Also bearing witness to the unbearable nature of the vulnerability experienced by peer-oriented kids is the preponderance of vulnerability-quelling drugs. Peer-oriented kids will do anything to avoid the human feelings of aloneness, suffering, and pain, and to escape feeling hurt, exposed, alarmed, insecure, inadequate, or self-conscious. The older and more peer-oriented the kids, the more drugs seem to be an inherent part of their lifestyle. Peer orientation creates an appetite for anything that would reduce vulnerability. Drugs are emotional painkillers. And, in another way, they help young people escape from the benumbed state imposed by their defensive emotional detachment. With the shutdown of emotions come boredom and alienation. Drugs provide an artificial stimulation to the emotionally jaded. They heighten sensation and provide a false sense of engagement without incurring the risks of genuine openness. In fact, the same drug can play seemingly opposite functions in an individual. Alcohol and marijuana, for example, can numb or, on the other hand, free the brain and mind from social inhibitions. Other drugs are stimulants — cocaine, amphetamines, and ecstasy; the very name of the latter speaks volumes about exactly what is missing in the psychic life of our emotionally incapacitated young people. The psychological function served by these drugs is often overlooked by well-meaning adults who perceive the problem to be coming from outside the individual, through peer pressure and youth culture mores. It is not just a matter of getting our children to say no. The problem lies much deeper. As long as we do not confront and reverse peer orientation among our children, we are creating an insatiable appetite for these drugs. The affinity for vulnerability-reducing drugs originates from deep within the defended soul. Our children's emotional safety can come only from us: then they will not be driven to escape their feelings and to rely on the anesthetic effects of drugs. Their need to feel alive and excited can and should arise from within themselves, from their own innately limitless capacity to be engaged with the universe. This brings us back to the essential hierarchical nature of attachment. The more the child needs attachment to function, the more important it is that she attaches to those responsible for her. Only then can the vulnerability that is inherent in emotional attachment be endured. Children don't need friends, they need parents, grandparents, adults who will assume the responsibility to hold on to them. The more children are attached to caring adults, the more they are able to interact with peers without being overwhelmed by the vulnerability involved. The less peers matter, the more the vulnerability of peer relationships can be endured. It is exactly those children who don't need friends who are more capable of having friends without losing their ability to feel deeply and vulnerably. But why should we want our children to remain open to their own vulnerability? What is amiss when detachment freezes the emotions in order to protect the child?

But if somebody does want a productive conversation and genuinely believes that being called “cracker” is the same as being called “nigger” and feels angry and invalidated by the insistence that both do not meet your definition of racism, they will say so. This is an educational opportunity. This is a great way to let that person know that you do hear them, and that your experiences do not erase theirs because even though their experience is valid, it is a different experience. A response I’ve used is, “What was said to you wasn’t okay, and should be addressed. But we are talking about two different things. Being called “cracker” hurts, may even be humiliating. But after those feelings fade, what measurable impact will it have on your life? On your ability to walk the streets safely? On your ability to get a job? How often has the word “cracker” been used to deny you services? What measurable impact has this word had on the lives of white Americans in general?” In all honesty, from my personal experience, you are still not likely to get very far in that conversation, not right away. But it gives people something to think about. These conversations, even if they seem fruitless at first, can plant a seed to greater understanding. If you want to further understanding of systemic racism even more among the people you interact with, you can try to link to the systemic effects of racism whenever you talk about racism. Instead of posting on Facebook: “This teacher shouted a racial slur at a Hispanic kid and should be fired!” you can say all that, and then add, “This behavior is linked to the increased suspension, expulsion, and detention of Hispanic youth in our schools and sets an example of behavior for the children witnessing this teacher’s racism that will influence the way these children are treated by their peers, and how they are treated as adults.” I do this often when

Rebecca Wallace-Segall, who teaches creative-writing workshops for kids and teens as director of Writopia Lab in New York City, says that the students who sign up for her classes “are often not the kids who are willing to talk for hours about fashion and celebrity. Those kids are less likely to come, perhaps because they’re less inclined to analyze and dig deep—that’s not their comfort zone. The so-called shy kids are often hungry to brainstorm ideas, deconstruct them, and act on them, and, paradoxically, when they’re allowed to interact this way, they’re not shy at all. They’re connecting with each other, but in a deeper zone, in a place that’s considered boring or tiresome by some of their peers.” And these kids do “come out” when they’re ready; most of the Writopia kids read their works at local bookstores, and a staggering number win prestigious national writing competitions. If your child is prone to overstimulation, then it’s also a good idea for her to pick activities like art or long-distance running, that depend less on performing under pressure. If she’s drawn to activities that require performance, though, you can help her thrive. When I was a kid, I loved figure skating. I could spend hours on the rink, tracing figure eights, spinning happily, or flying through the air. But on the day of my competitions, I was a wreck. I hadn’t slept the night before and would often fall during moves that I had sailed through in practice. At first I believed what people told me—that I had the jitters, just like everybody else. But then I saw a TV interview with the Olympic gold medalist Katarina Witt. She said that pre-competition nerves gave her the adrenaline she needed to win the gold. I knew then that Katarina and I were utterly different creatures, but it took me decades to figure out why. Her nerves were so mild that they simply energized her, while mine were constricting enough to make me choke. At the time, my very supportive mother quizzed the other skating moms about how their own daughters handled pre-competition anxiety, and came back with insights that she hoped would make me feel better. Kristen’s nervous too, she reported. Renée’s mom says she’s scared the night before a competition. But I knew Kristen and Renée well, and I was certain that they weren’t as frightened as I was

In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children in residential nurseries were reunited with their mothers after separations lasting from twelve days to twenty-one weeks. The separations were in every case due to family emergencies and the absence of other caregivers, and in no case due to any intent on the parents’ part to abandon the child. In the first few days following the mother's departure the children were anxious, looking everywhere for the missing parent. That phase was followed by apparent resignation, even depression on the part of the child, to be replaced by what seemed like the return of normalcy. The children would begin to play, react to caregivers, accept food and other nurturing. The true emotional cost of the trauma of loss became evident only when the mothers returned. On meeting the mother for the first time after the days or weeks away, every one of the ten children showed significant alienation. Two seemed not to recognize their mothers. The other eight turned away or even walked away from her. Most of them either cried or came close to tears; a number alternated between a tearful and an expressionless face. The withdrawal dynamic has been called “detachment” by John Bowlby. Such detachment has a defensive purpose. It has one meaning: so hurtful was it for me to experience your absence that to avoid such pain again, I will encase myself in a shell of hardened emotion, impervious to love — and therefore to pain. I never want to feel that hurt again. Bowlby also pointed out that the parent may be physically present but emotionally absent owing to stress, anxiety, depression, or preoccupation with other matters. From the point of view of the child, it hardly matters. His encoded reactions will be the same, because for him the real issue is not merely the parent's physical presence but her or his emotional accessibility. A child who suffers much insecurity in his relationship with his parents will adopt the invulnerability of defensive detachment as his primary way of being. When parents are the child's working attachment, their love and sense of responsibility will usually ensure that they do not force the child into adopting such desperate measures. Peers have no such awareness, no such compunctions, and no such responsibility. The threat of abandonment is ever present in peer-oriented interactions, and it is with emotional detachment that children automatically respond. No wonder, then, that cool is the governing ethic in peer culture, the ultimate virtue. Although the word cool has many meanings, it predominately connotes an air of invulnerability. Where peer orientation is intense, there is no sign of vulnerability in the talk, in the walk, in the dress, or in the attitudes.

The Western medical model — and I don't mean the science of it, I mean the practice of it, because the science is completely at odds with the practice — makes two devastating separations. First of all we separate the mind from the body, we separate the emotions from the physiology. So we don't see how the physiology of people reflects their lifelong emotional experience. So we separate the mind from the body, which is not something that traditional medicine has done, I mean, Ayuverdic or Chinese medicine or shamanic tribal cultures and medicinal practices throughout the world have always recognized that mind and body are inseparable. They intuitively knew it. Many Western practitioners have known this and even taught it, but in practice we ignore it. And then we separate the individual from the environment. The studies are clear, for example, that when people are emotionally isolated they tend to get sick more quickly and they succumb more rapidly to their disease. Why? Because people's physiology is completely related to their psychological, social environment and when people are isolated and alone their stress levels are much higher because there's nothing there to help them moderate their stress. And physiologically it is straightforward, you know, it takes a five-year-old kid to understand it. However because in practice we separate them... when somebody shows up with an inflamed joint, all we do is we give them an anti-inflammatory or because the immune system is hyperactive and is attacking them we give them a medication to suppress their immune system or we give them a stress hormone like cortisol or one of its analogues, to suppress the inflammation. But we never ask: "What does this manifest about your life?", "What does this say about your relationships?", "How stressful is your job?", "To what extent do you lack control in your life?", "Where are you not authentic?", "How are you trying to work so hard to meet your attachment needs by suppressing yourself?" (because that is what you learn to do as a kid). Then we do all this research that has to do with cell biology, so we keep looking for the cause of cancer in the cell. Now there's a wonderful quote in the New York Times a couple of years ago they did a series on cancer and somebody said: "Looking for the cause of cancer inside the individual cell is like trying to understand a traffic jam by studying the internal combustion engine." We will never understand it, but we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year looking for the cause of cancer inside the cell, not recognizing that the cell exists in interaction with the environment and that the genes are modulated by the environment, they are turned on and off by the environment. So the impact of not understanding the unity of emotions and physiology on one hand and in the other hand the relationship between the individual and the environment.. in other words.. having a strictly biological model as opposed to what has been called a bio-psycho-social, that recognizes that the biology is important, but it also reflects our psychological and social relationships. And therefore trying to understand the biology in isolation from the psychological and social environment is futile. The result is that we are treating people purely through pharmaceuticals or physical interventions, greatly to the profit of companies that manufacture pharmaceuticals and which fund the research, but it leaves us very much in the dark about a) the causes and b) the treatment, the holistic treatment of most conditions. So that for all our amazing interventions and technological marvels, we are still far short of doing what we could do, were we more mindful of that unity. So the consequences are devastating economically, they are devastating emotionally, they are devastating medically.

There's an old joke among software developers. When something works in an unexpected but strangely effective way, the developers often kid, "Oh, that's not a bug. That's a future." While this is usually a joke, designers can use the same technique of reframing the problem when tackling their own projects. In fact, there's an old joke among designers: "It's not a problem. It's an opportunity.

Harvard professor Robert Putnam’s ground-breaking book Bowling Alone stirred the conscience of America in 2001, when he showed that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, socialize with friends less frequently, and even get together with our families less often. 6 Latchkey kids return to empty homes each day from school, and our electronic culture entertains us without meaningful social interaction. These experiences, among others, contribute to the growing alienation that we sense.

In college in Austin, I clocked the auburn-haired Asian kids who smoked Marlboro Light 100s and drove Mitsubishi 3000 GTs and Toyota Celicas with swooping, pearlized spoilers. They talked about AKs, were seemingly very good at pool, hailed mostly from Houston, and were decidedly cooler than church nerds or extracurricular-scholastic-group nerds. We didn’t interact much beyond the shade they’d throw as I walked by with my white boyfriend. “He’s half Mexican!” I wanted to tell them, but of course, that proved nothing. The other Asian crews were part of the Greek system, and I was leery of them as well. I knew them only because the housing administration of the University of Texas at Austin automatically roomed you with an Asian kid in a larger suite of Asian kids, and my Chinese suitemates rushed for Asian Panhellenic sororities. My roommate was a gorgeous socialite from Taiwan who spoke little English and dated guys who bought her clothes. She wore only Armani. We all kept a healthy distance.

own image. Image Courtesy of Steve Corey

Fact: God created plants before the sun.

Most of us raise our children based on our gut reactions. But how do we know whether such responses are trustworthy or just the result of bad lasagna? Actually, adult “gut reactions” are the results of childhood responses to family emotions and interactions. Therefore, “gut feel” is more valid if we had a happy childhood and presently have peaceful and rewarding relationships at home and elsewhere. On the other hand, if we react to our childhood by saying, “I sure want to do things differently with my kid than my mom and dad did with me,” then our gut reactions will probably be untrustworthy and faulty.

Don’t you remember going to class and raising your hand? Participating when the professor called on you? It was interactive and stimulating. “Kids today are stuck in front of computers instead of living their lives among others,” she continued. “It’s no wonder Sami is so socially inept. She doesn’t know how to interact with others.

Stress the positive. Make compliments and encouragement a natural part of your conversation. As you interact with your kids, stressing the positive is just as easy as stressing the negative, and the results are so much better.

If you are not able to pick up on the subtle feedback cues (e.g., sighs, eye rolling, look of boredom, bodily tension, attempts to interject) that are abundant during a social exchange, you may have to rely on the more obvious clues that do not occur as frequently (statements such as “You’re weird!”). Thus, you may continue to pursue a social approach that causes stress or tension among those with whom you interact. A video game, however, provides immediate feedback. A video game character gets points for each object acquired and loses energy or levels of the life meter when injured. If only social interactions were this obvious.

As young girls, my friends and I often played “school” or “house,” cooperative role-playing games in which we acted out scenarios like math class or making dinner. As long as I got to be the teacher or the mother, I loved these games. They played into my need for control and my love of organizing. If I didn’t get to be the teacher or the mother, the game usually ended in a nasty fight between me and the girl who got that role. Other kids’ rules made no sense to me. They felt all wrong. I had to be in charge or I wasn’t playing. Dr. Tony Attwood describes this as “god mode”—the way that autistic kids need to control every aspect of a social situation to make it safe for them to interact. For whatever reason, a few friends tolerated my god mode and hung around, though not all the time. I remember sometimes daily shouting matches that left me without a playmate for the rest of the day. Unlike boys’ games, where there tend to be winners and losers, girls’ games are often based on how well a girl cooperates with the group to create an enjoyable role-playing scenario. Boys

Cool! me too!");     }               else               {        System.out.println(userInput + "? My favorite color is better! I like blue!");     }       System.out.println("What is your favorite

The nuclear family is said to be the basic unit of society but is itself under extreme pressure. Divorce rates have soared. Divorce is a double whammy for kids because it creates competing attachments as well as attachment voids. Children naturally like all their working attachments to be under one roof. The togetherness of the parents enables them to satisfy their desire of closeness and contact with both simultaneously. Furthermore, many children are attached to their parents as a couple. When parents divorce, it becomes impossible to be close to both simultaneously, at least physically. Children who are more mature and have more fully developed attachments with their parents are better equipped to keep close to both even when they, the parents, are apart — to belong to both simultaneously, to love both simultaneously, and to be known by both simultaneously. But many children, even older ones, cannot manage this. Parents who compete with the other parent or treat the other parent as persona non grata place the child (or, more precisely, the child's attachment brain) in an impossible situation: to be close to one, the child must separate from the other, both physically and psychologically. Owing to the marital conflict that precedes divorce, attachment voids may develop long before the divorce happens. When parents lose each other's emotional support or become preoccupied with their relationship to each other, they become less accessible to their children. Deprived of emotional contact with adults, children turn to their peers. Also, under stressed circumstances, it is tempting for parents themselves to seek some relief from caregiving responsibility. One of the easiest ways of doing so is to encourage peer interaction. When children are with each other, they make fewer demands on us.

The first reason why peer-oriented children have to harden emotionally is that they have lost their natural source of power and self-confidence and, at the same time, their natural shield against intolerable hurt and pain. Apart from the steady onslaught of tragedies and traumas occurring everywhere, the child's personal world is one of intense interactions and events that can wound: being ignored, not being important, being excluded, not measuring up, experiencing disapproval, not being liked, not being preferred, being shamed and ridiculed. What protects the child from experiencing the brunt of all this stress is an attachment with a parent. It is attachment that matters: as long as the child is not attached to those who belittle him, there is relatively little damage done. The taunts can hurt and cause tears at the time, but the effect will not be long lasting. When the parent is the compass point, it is the messages he or she gives that are relevant. When tragedy and trauma happen, the child looks to the parent for clues whether or not to be concerned. As long as their attachments are safe, the sky could collapse and the world fall apart, but children would be relatively protected from feeling dangerously vulnerable. Roberto Benigni's movie, Life Is Beautiful, about a Jewish father's efforts to shield his son from the horrors of racism and genocide, illustrates that point most poignantly. Attachment protects the child from the outside world.

To be quite frank, I don't know nor understand how one can stand up and say I'm a 'perfect father'! I reckon myself to be a great dad in my children's eyes and maybe the kids I interact with just by passing by and cracking a few jokes that eventually put a smile on their faces. I call myself a 'great dad' cause my CREATOR chose me to bring an innocent and beautiful life to this world because the Heavens above believed that: 1. I'd never compromise my child's happiness over anything or anyone! 2. I'd do whatever possible, within reason of course to ensure that my son sees LOVE, HOPE, FAITH, HAPPINESS, LAUGHTER, OPULENCE, THE HEAVENS and definitely a FATHER whenever he looks at me or through my eyes! 3. I'm a GREAT-DAD until my children say otherwise.

Adam: Of course, the pressure Adam was feeling was not just related to the math test. The roots of his anxiety went much deeper. Still, the physical symptoms of anxiety became so debilitating that he eventually quit going to school altogether. Naturally, his parents were extremely concerned but also uncertain what to do. It took almost a year before Adam was sufficiently in control of his symptoms to return to school. Clearly, he was working to avoid the pain of any kind of interaction, because he was so afraid of rejection or humiliation. His social anxiety became so extreme that he feared the symptoms as much as the stressor itself; in fact, his fear of interaction developed into a full-blown phobia. Adam’s anxiety profile obviously featured all the physical symptoms on the list (especially shortness of breath, accelerated heartbeat, dizziness, and depersonalization). They surfaced almost daily and were extremely incapacitating, affecting him to a high degree whenever he was actually in the situation that caused them. Of course, when Adam avoided these situations, their frequency and severity diminished, but their degree of interactive interference increased until it was at level 5. The symptoms were so bad that they were preventing him from interacting, all the way to the point of incapacity. Obsessive thought patterns were a contributing factor as well: “Am I good enough?” “Will they like me?” Adam even had these recurring thoughts when he was alone in his room, looking out on the street at the neighborhood kids playing below.

Humor Humor is a great social lubricator—it can make interacting go more smoothly. If you are good at telling jokes, try a few. Telling jokes is risky, however; do not tell ethnic, racist, or off-color jokes. And as always, pay careful attention to interactive chemistry. One high school student who attended my program reported that, although he tried to become part of a popular social group at his new school, playing on the football team and joining several clubs, he was not invited to socialize with the other kids off the field. He had become known for telling joke after joke, in vain hopes of being accepted. When we examined things more carefully, it became clear that his style of telling jokes—sometimes irrelevant, sometimes just plain corny—was not appealing to the peer group he was associating with. Quite simply, the chemistry was off. If you wish to inject humor and levity into an interaction, it’s better to tell funny stories. If the funny stories are about yourself, great: People enjoy mildly self-deprecating humor. You can also find amusing true stories in the newspaper.

I propose that so much of what drives our responses to our kids is an unannounced set of laws that are more about what we want for ourselves and our lives than what God wants for and from our children. In our allegiance to our law, we end up breaking God’s law in our interactions with our children. In this way we are just like our children: people who need to be rescued from ourselves.

Negotiation is at the heart of human interaction. Every time people interact, there is negotiation going on: verbally or nonverbally, consciously or unconsciously. Driving, talking to your kids, doing errands. You can’t get away from it. You can only do it well or badly.

so much of what drives our responses to our kids is an unannounced set of laws that are more about what we want for ourselves and our lives than what God wants for and from our children. In our allegiance to our law, we end up breaking God’s law in our interactions with our children. In this way we are just like our children: people who need to be rescued from ourselves. You

As with all mammals and many other animals, it was simply the natural order of things that the innate attachment drive itself bonded the young with caregivers — adults of the same species — until maturity. That is nature's way of ensuring the survival of the young into healthy adulthood. It is the context in which the young are fully enabled to realize their genetic potential and in which their instincts are best given full and vigorous expression. In our society, that natural order has been subverted. From an early age, we thrust our children into many situations and interactions that encourage peer orientation. Unwittingly, we promote the very phenomenon that, in the long term, erodes the only sound basis of healthy development: children's attachment to the adults responsible for their nurturing. Placing our young in a position where their attachment and orienting instincts are directed toward peers is an aberration.

Walking through the halls of my son's high school during lunch hour recently, I was struck by how similar it felt to being in the halls and lunchrooms of the juvenile prisons in which I used to work. The posturing, the gestures, the tone, the words, and the interaction among peers I witnessed in this teenage throng all bespoke an eerie invulnerability. These kids seemed incapable of being hurt. Their demeanor bespoke a confidence, even bravado that seemed unassailable but shallow at the same time. The ultimate ethic in the peer culture is “cool” — the complete absence of emotional openness. The most esteemed among the peer group affect a disconcertingly unruffled appearance, exhibit little or no fear, seem to be immune to shame, and are given to muttering things like “doesn't matter,” “don't care,” and “whatever.” The reality is quite different. Humans are the most vulnerable — from the Latin vulnerare, to wound — of all creatures. We are not only vulnerable physically, but psychologically as well. What, then, accounts for the discrepancy? How can young humans who are in fact so vulnerable appear so opposite? Is their toughness, their “cool” demeanor, an act or is it for real? Is it a mask that can be doffed when they get to safety or is it the true face of peer orientation? When I first encountered this subculture of adolescent invulnerability, I assumed it was an act. The human psyche can develop powerful defenses against a conscious sense of vulnerability, defenses that become ingrained in the emotional circuitry of the brain. I preferred to think that these children, if given the chance, would remove their armor and reveal their softer, more genuinely human side. Occasionally this expectation proved correct, but more often than not I discovered the invulnerability of adolescents was no act, no pretense. Many of these children did not have hurt feelings, they felt no pain. That is not to say that they were incapable of being wounded, but as far as their consciously experienced feelings were concerned, there was no mask to take off. Children able to experience emotions of sadness, fear, loss, and rejection will often hide such feelings from their peers to avoid exposing themselves to ridicule and attack. Invulnerability is a camouflage they adopt to blend in with the crowd but will quickly remove in the company of those with whom they have the safety to be their true selves. These are not the kids I am most concerned about, although I certainly do have a concern about the impact an atmosphere of invulnerability will have on their learning and development. In such an environment genuine curiosity cannot thrive, questions cannot be freely asked, naive enthusiasm for learning cannot be expressed. Risks are not taken in such an environment, nor can passion for life and creativity find their outlets. The kids most deeply affected and at greatest risk for psychological harm are the ones who aspire to be tough and invulnerable, not just in school but in general. These children cannot don and doff the armor as needed. Defense is not something they do, it is who they are. This emotional hardening is most obvious in delinquents and gang members and street kids, but is also a significant dynamic in the common everyday variety of peer orientation that exists in the typical American home.

Nothing was written in stone. Neither the mother’s personality, nor the infant’s neurological anomalies at birth, nor its IQ, nor its temperament—including its activity level and reactivity to stress—predicted whether a child would develop serious behavioral problems in adolescence.20 The key issue, rather, was the nature of the parent-child relationship: how parents felt about and interacted with their kids. As with Suomi’s monkeys, the combination of vulnerable infants and inflexible caregivers made for clingy, uptight kids. Insensitive, pushy, and intrusive behavior on the part of the parents at six months predicted hyperactivity and attention problems in kindergarten and beyond.21

Capitalist society is particularly in need of stories. Our everyday lives are defined by going to school and to work, caring for our kids, listening to gossip, having a laugh, and stressing about this or that. Yet all of these micro-interactions take place within a set of larger structures and relationships whose primary purpose is to make a profit. The vast majority of people go to jobs that were not created to meet human needs but to give the owners of capital a return on their investment. All of us, wage-earners and capitalists alike, are locked into a system designed to perpetually accumulate more and more profit, not to satisfy human needs or provide for the common good.

How does brain growth and shrinkage fit into the framework of parenting a child through puberty? Simply insofar as it helps to remember that becoming good at something, be it a language, physical skill, social interaction, or following a rule, takes time. Over many years, the brain physically shifts, cementing frequently trodden pathways and deleting those it doesn’t use. So while your kid may grasp a lesson in a moment, it can take much longer for the knowledge to burn into his brain.

Science

Nature

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Spell. Spell who? W-H-O!

What do polar bears eat for lunch? Ice berg-ers!

Lily: I’d like to buy some birdseed. Bruno: How many birds do you have? Lily: None! I want to grow some!