Unlike adults, kids don’t have a whole lot of choice about when and if they learn something new. Sure, we may ask them before signing up for soccer or dance or music instruction.. But readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic—well they don’t have much of a choice. In our culture, kids are going to school and gosh darn it they are going to learn academics. If I, as a confident, mature adult, experienced doubts learning something new by choice for one hour a week, can you imagine the kinds of doubts most kids must have when first learning to read, write, and add and subtract for seven hours a day, five days a week? Those doubts are inevitably compounded for the significant chunk of kiddos for whom reading, writing, and math does not come easily, or for kids who are dealing with social or emotional difficulties.

So how do we balance the need to help our children learn while supporting them and empathizing with how difficult and can be to put yourself “out there” and risk vulnerability and failure when trying something new? It is important to remember that there is no learning without some level of failure. As parents, educators, and other helping adults, we need to monitor what a child is capable of and let them experience the smaller failures while supporting and encouraging them. Reminding them that no one learns everything the first time around and that there is nothing lost by trying something new even if you are not immediately successful may help. Reminding them that they are loved and worthy of love unconditionally goes far. As a society, we tend to place a huge emphasis on accomplishment and goal-driven behavior. When providing feedback and praise to children, it is important to separate the “person” from the “act”. For instance, one can say “I am so proud of you because you got 100% on your spelling test! You’re an awesome speller!”, or one can say “I am so proud of you because you worked so hard to learn your words! You are determined and applied yourself. That’s something I hope you feel proud about, too.” Though it may seem subtle, the second response does several important things:
–it places the emphasis on the process of learning and the child’s application of him/herself to the task
–it takes the emphasis off of the end result (the test score)–ultimately, the end result (the way we measure learning) is not as important as the act of learning (the process)
–it encourages him/her to congratulate him/herself, an important skill. Adults don’t always receive external praise and must learn to provide themselves with their own positive feedback
–it doesn’t define the child by his or her accomplishments—the first response “you’re an awesome speller” uses a child’s test score to define a portion of their personhood. The flaw in this logic is that if the children internalize the idea that “I am what I do”, then when they inevitably do poorly on something, they will incorporate that poor grade into their self-definition, leading potentially to feelings of low self-esteem/self-worth, shame, and doubt.

With back to school season here, be mindful of your little ones and everything they are asked to do (without their choice) and with no guarantees of success. Applaud them for taking risks and putting themselves “out there” as learners, and reframe their perceived failures as a necessary and expected part of the learning process. Share with them how you as an adult feel nervous when trying something new and how you sometimes fail but learn through the process. Be empathic when they feel the same way. Above all, hold them close and love them for who they are and not just for what they do. Happy “Return to School” everyone!

In psychology, this phenomenon is known as extinction burst. While that may sound like something involving dinosaurs and helium balloons, extinction burst refers to the tendency for a behavior to accelerate in frequency when reinforcement is removed. If you ever took intro to psych, you read about pigeons and rats pushing and pecking on bars to receive food pellets. The little critters associate the act of pushing/pecking the bar with receiving the food. They’re no dummies, so they keep pecking/pushing and they get their food more frequently. This is operant conditioning at it’s most basic–a behavior that is reinforced will tend to be repeated. Once the operant conditioning learning sequence is complete, the mean old scientist types can decrease how often the behavior is reinforced. For instance, rather than giving a food pellet for every bar push/peck, the poor hungry critter might get reinforced for every fifth peck, or every tenth peck, or every thirtieth peck. And how often the food is given may be variable, so that one time it might take three pecks, another twelve, the next four, the next twenty-seven… you get the idea. A variable reinforced behavior tends to become the most resistant to change, as the creature must say to itself something like “wow, if I just keep pushing a few more times I’m sure to get that tasty pellet!” Trying to decrease a previously reinforced behavior is called extinction. To extinguish a behavior, you stop reinforcing it. Cold turkey. If the behavior was established using a variable reinforcement schedule, it will take awhile to extinguish. And just before the behavior is extinguished, it tends to increase. This increase is called extinction burst.

So how does this apply to people? Our most entrenched behaviors tend to be those that are variably reinforced. Take for instance the child who wants a candy at the front of the grocery store. Little Joey asks and mom says no. Asks again, mom says no. Asks a third time, mom says no. Asks a fourth time while mom is busy talking to the checker and she throws up her hands and says in an exasperated voice “oh for goodness sake yes, get the candy, but this is the last time.” Poor mom. She just created a variable reinforcement paradigm. And before we all tsk-tsk at her, most of us who’ve gone down the road of parenting have been-there-done-that at some point! Next time this mom is in the store, little Joey knows to ask multiple times, because at some point mom is sure to say yes. So next time, he may have to ask many more times before mom gives in. And maybe mom won’t give in, which will actually result in an increase in asking. Stay the course, brave mom! This is extinction burst, as fun to listen to as fingernails on a chalkboard for most parents. Try to ignore it, take a deep breath, and know that once you have set a limit it is so important to stick to that limit if you want to avoid a repeat. Another example of how short term parenting solutions (giving in to stop the whining) set up long term parenting nightmares (demands every time you are in the store).

Of course, we full grown mature adults are immune to extinction burst, right? Wrong. Think about the last time you tried to institute a new habit–or quit a bad habit. You may have had an initial strong commitment and motivation to this new habit. After that initial motivation faded, you may have found it harder and harder to resist the call of your former ways. That, my friends, is extinction burst. The difference for adults versus children is that we generally hold the keys to our own reinforcement. We can go to the store and buy that high sugar treat when we are trying to cut back, or we can lounge on the lazy boy when we know we would do better to excercise. While it is certainly hard for parents to stay the course and stick to their guns with kids, it can also be hard to constantly keep yourself motivated and stick to your goals. But just at the moment when you are ready to cave in and can’t seem to persevere, remember extinction burst. You are likely at the crux of turning a corner from “working on a habit” to “kicking a habit”. Reframe your thinking around this and try to view the difficulty as a sign of progress–it is! Remember that little rat in your brain, pushing on that bar, getting more and more frustrated… he’ll stop soon and you’ll have freedom!

However, if you are having sleep problems at night and taking regular daytime naps, you may want to consider giving up the afternoon snooze.  Hard to do.  If you’re not sleeping regularly at night and feeling sleepy during the day, it seems like a good idea to get some shut eye.  But regular daytime naps do help abate sleepiness, even though they are not necessarily as restful as a good night’s sleep.  When you sleep during the day, you decrease sleepiness, one of the primary motivators for falling asleep at your desired bedtime.

If you have regular sleeping difficulties, set a bedtime and a time to wake up that is reasonable and makes sense for your schedule.  Get up at your wake up time, no matter how much or how little sleep you got, and don’t nap during the day.  Yes, you may have a couple of crummy, bone-tired days, but you should eventually begin sleeping better at night.  Be reasonable in the sleep that you request from your body.  If you are currently sleeping only 4 hours a night, shoot for a goal of 6 hours of sleep to start with and build your way up to 7 or 8 hours.  Trying to start with 8 hours of solid sleep may set yourself up for some frustrating sheep counting.

As always, talk with your physician or a mental health provider for more specific ideas to help your situation, and to rule out any medical issues that may be affecting your sleep.  Sweet dreams!

Know what you are putting into your body, whether it is something our society traditionally labels a “substance” (drugs, alcohol, nicotine), a medication that has an impact on your sleep cycle, or a food or food additive that leads to sleep interference.  Consider herbal preparations as well. 

If you are having sleep problems, it is best not to use any non-prescription substances unless advised by your medical doctor.  If prescriptions are impacting your sleep, discuss that with your doctor.  Alcohol, while a depressant, can disrupt your sleep cycle and lead to night time awakenings and poor sleep quality. 

Don’t forget America’s substance of choice–caffeine.  A stimulant, caffeine impacts the nervous and cardiovascular systems.  It increases mental alertness, as well as heart rate and other cardiovascular indicators.  Caffeine affects people differently, and some of us are more sensitive to its effects than others.  Large amounts can affect sleep (especially if consumed prior to bedtime), and can mimic or exacerbate anxiety symptoms.  If you are having sleep difficulties, chart how much caffeine you are consuming and talk with your health care professional about its potential impact on your sleep.  There are easy fixes–switch to decafe altogether, or at least after a certain hour of the day.  But if you are consuming a large amount of caffeine and totally stop your consumption, you can have withdrawal symptoms including headache, fatigue, irritability, depression, and poor concentration lasting for a couple of days.  So you may want to cut back slowly rather than going cold turkey–or would it be cold java in this case?

Also consider serving sizes when thinking about how much of a substance you are consuming.  Those grande triple espresso mocha soy latte-cinos you may love are probably WAY more than one serving of coffee.  The margarita that arrives in a fishbowl… don’t kid yourself into letting that count as one drink.  Some more interesting info on caffeine can be found here, including serving sizes for various beverages and their caffeine levels.  As for alcohol, a serving is one ounce of hard liquor (that’s about 2 tablespoons), 4 ounces of wine (that is a 1/2 cup, and usually much smaller than most wine glasses), or 8 ounces of beer (one cup, much less than a frosty mug would hold).  Inform yourself so you can make smart choices.

Substances also have very different impacts on developing children’s and adolescent’s brains as compared to adult brains.  A great reference on that topic is the book Just Say Know by Cynthia Kuhn et al.  If your child is experiencing sleep difficulties, look at his or her diet for any hidden caffeine sources, and consider what he or she may be eating or drinking when not supervised by you.

So Just Say No, and Just Say Yes to taking back your sleep!

Reference indicates things you need to save for a specific, time limited purpose.  This could include monthly newsletters, schedules, seasonal information, school lunch menus, sales flyers you intend to refer back to… you get the idea.  I say “time limited” because items that you need to save for reference FOREVER–insurance policies, tax information, medical records–require their own special storage spot, preferably in a filing cabinet folder clearly labeled with the contents.  Set an appointment with yourself, preferably once a week but AT LEAST once a month, to clean out these boxes.  Any outdated Reference items can leave.  Any Action items that require, well, Action, are acted upon. 

What’s the “T” for?  Trash.  If your mail is anything like mine, there is a lot of T in it.  Throw that in your recycling pile, properly shredded of course as necessary.  What is truly trash?  Any items you don’t need to act on or need to refer back to.  Information that can easily be recreated elsewhere–catalogs, schedules, menus, or statements you can read online–may also be considered Trash depending of course on how much you reasonably have room to keep.  If you are so inspired, use the amount of trash mail you receive as impetus to take your name off of junk mailing lists, or request that routine information be emailed to you rather than sent through the mail.  You’ll be green AND reduce your paper related stress level all at the same time!

Once again, the Bard prooves to be an astute observer of the human condition.  If he were born 400 years later, would he still be a writer or would he perhaps be a psychologist?  But I digress…

Few things cause as much frustration as failing to get a good night sleep.  Most adults need between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a night, while teens need about 9 and a quarter.  Many adults do not get their full share of sleep, and I’d hazard to guess that even more teens are not getting  their full 9.25.  Sometimes life gets busy and we aren’t able to have our full measure of sleep, but other times difficulty falling or staying asleep cut into our precious Z-z-z-z time.   Here is the first in a series of tips to help make the most of your eyes closed time.

Tip 1:  Use your bed for sleeping.  Your bed is not a desk, a lazy boy chair, a library, and certainly not a kitchen table.  Don’t do work, read, pay bills,  watch tv, have heated phone conversations or discussions, or eat in your bed.  Remember the story of Pavlov’s dogs?  Pavlov’s dogs heard a bell and then were presented food.  Naturally, they salivated when they saw the tasty treats master Pavlov had prepared.  When this pairing of bell and food was presented many times, the bell stimulus became associated with food.  Later, when the bell was presented without the food, the dogs would salivate.  In psychology, we call that a classically conditioned response.  Same goes for your bed. No, I’m not talking bells and dog spit, stay focused people!  This really does have to do with sleep! 

The connection you want your body to have with your bed is one of relaxation and sleep.  When you are doing things like reading, watching tv, or working while on your bed, you are associating your bed and all the cues in your bedroom environment with staying awake, being  alert, and focusing.  If you are doing work that is frustrating or having heated phone conversations or arguments on your bed, you are additionally connecting the bed with uncomfortable feelings.  Not conducive to sleep.  As much as possible, try to move all these activities out of the bedroom.  Make the bedroom a sleep sanctuary–surround yourself with relaxing and comforting objects and sounds.  Associate the bed with sleeping and relaxation.  If you do have difficulty falling asleep, or falling back to sleep upon awakening in the middle of the night, get up and leave your bedroom.  Staying in bed feeling frustrated about an inability to sleep sets up an association of feeling frustrated with being in bed.  Go somewhere else, read, watch tv, play solitaire on the computer–something relatively mindless that will not further rev up your brain–and return to bed when you begin to feel sleepy again. 

Remember:  Bed=sleep, bed=sleep, bed=sleep… you get the idea.

Sweet dreams!

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