Social Media and Your Child’s Mental Health

Social media is one of those things that can be very positive and very negative.  What I can tell you is that a very high percentage of our students spend a lot of time on it.  There are some out there that talk about an addiction to smart phones, and I certainly would agree that some students do not know what to do if they don’t have their’s right with them all of the time.  There is a growing segment of our population that is starting to push back against this technology as it becomes all-engrossing to some individuals to the extent that other aspects of their life and personal growth are significantly impacted.

In our school setting, a very large percentage of the behavior issues, and concerns about the emotional well-being of our students, is directly related to social media.  We have reviewed what would be reams of interaction between students if it were all printed out that has caused problems of one kind or another for our students.  It is for that reason that I have sought out information that might be helpful, and one of the reasons that I posed the question to parents about banning cell phones at the high school (which received an overwhelming “No” in the unscientific poll I conducted at Back-To-School-Night).  The article below is one that I found that puts a lot of perspective on the matter of social media and the impact that it has on our kids.  Perhaps you may want to take a look at the rules and expectations you have for your child’s use.   

http://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/constant-social-media-presence-may-jeopardize-teens-mental-health-703192.html

When Do We Give Youth Sports Back To The Kids?

I would guess that those of you who read this regularly believe that I am spinning a broken record in my “rants” about youth sports.  I don’t bowl, I don’t play cards with the guys on Thursday evenings, I rarely fish and since I don’t own a gun, I don’t hunt.  I don’t tinker on old tractors, don’t snowmobile or play much golf.  I read a lot and I have spent a great deal of my life involved in athletics, and a large amount of that involved at one level or another with youth sports.  If it needs a category in my life, I guess it is my hobby, youth sports that is, not ranting!  Though I am sure there are those of you that think that I do that a lot as well!

I wrote an article a while back about the “dropout rate” among youth athletes in which I pointed out that a very high percentage of kids who play sports when they are young quit playing by the time they reach high school.  80% of the kids playing youth sports in this country right now will not be playing in high school.  In that article I provided information that explained this high “dropout rate” on burnout, injuries, and the stress that comes with meeting the demands of adults.

I believe it is important to take a very close look at the expectations we have for our kids.  Honestly, I think most parents you talk to who have their children playing soccer, softball, football or whatever, state that their number one priority is for their child to have fun.  But I don’t quite buy it.  That’s the response they are supposed to give.  It is the cliché answer.  For many parents, I believe that they are living out their dreams through their kids.  Maybe they didn’t have the level of success they had hoped for when they competed back in the day, or if they competed at all.  Perhaps they are hooked on the fact that sports today offer so many more opportunities than when they were kids that they don’t want to be left out.  I know for some it gives them something to brag on.  “Yep, Blake played eight baseball games in Minneapolis over the weekend.  Went 12 for 20, two home runs and a couple doubles.”  “Craig is 82 and 4 this wrestling season.  He’s headed to state next week and shooting for a state title.”  “Shelly is on a travel team playing middle and is getting looked at by college coaches at these volleyball tournaments on the weekends.”  Parents are establishing their own self-worth, their own self-esteem on the successes of their children!  Even though many parents have an idea of the statistics – 1 in 6000 Iowa boys will make the NFL and 2.5 kids in 10,000 will play in the NBA – they still think that their child will beat the odds!

The reality is that high school participation in Iowa has dropped by 16,000 kids over the past five years.  Schools in our immediate area are having difficulty fielding teams, some dropping sports or looking for another school to share with them.  Just this summer we got a request from a local school wanting to know if we would share girls basketball because they thought they would only have 10 girls at most go out, and the majority of those were 9^th graders.  Last year, only two teams in the Upper Iowa Conference were able to fill a complete wresting lineup.  Our numbers at NFV are fairly solid right now, but will they continue?  Will teenagers still have the desire to play sports in high school after already having played for a number of years?  What can be done to provide solid learning opportunities for kids to learn how to play the games, and yet not make the decision to quit when they get to high school? 

One idea was shared with me a number of years ago by a long-time college baseball coach who had been talked out of retirement to coach a high school team.  Like many successful coaches at the high school level, he recognized the importance of being involved with the youth program to see that there was good coaching and that kids were learning the right way to play the game.  But he also realized that kids needed to just play and have fun like we all did back before video games and over-involved parents.  So he set up a sandlot program too.  The way it worked was actually quite simple.  First off he publicized it with all of the youth teams in town and their parents and every Tuesday morning in the summer he and three or four high school kids brought a few bats and balls to the one of the parks in town and kids showed up to play, just like we did when I was growing up.  Teams were picked and they played, sometimes using modified rules like “pitcher’s hand” or played modified games like “work up.”  There was never a day when kids didn’t show up, and while most also played in organized leagues at night it sure looked like they were have a lot more fun in the sandlot on those mornings.  

The idea above is just one.  I am sure that there are others, but the fundamental thing that I believe needs to happen is that we need to back off a bit on how many games some kids play or matches they wrestle.  Maybe instead of wrestling 80 matches, scaling it back to 40 and taking some time to go and watch older kids wrestle so your son can learn by watching older kids compete will keep a young man wrestling when he is in high school.  Perhaps instead of playing in ten softball tournaments in the summer, five will keep your daughter fresh and leave some weekends open to enjoy family or other pursuits.  In many respects with youth sports, less may in fact be more.

The Marshmallow Test

In late September 2014, I was watching an episode of the Colbert Report and the host’s interview with psychologist Walter Mischel about his book The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self Control.  Apparently “The Marshmallow Test” was first conducted over 50 years ago in the early 1960’s at Stanford University when Mischel and his graduate students were curious about how young children reacted to choice and rewards.  This study has been referenced over the years in many different contexts, including investment companies working with adults to plan for retirement, and even on Sesame Street where our beloved Cookie Monster deals with temptation in order to join the Cookie Connoisseurs Club.  So what is the marshmallow test and what does it tell us?

Quite simply, the test was set up with pre-school children to see how they would respond to a choice between receiving one reward that they could eat immediately and a larger reward that they would have to wait alone for for fifteen minutes.  Could these kids be patient?  Could they delay their gratification?  The study showed that for the most part they could not.  A minority of the children would eat the marshmallow immediately, but only about a third could delay their gratification long enough to reach the fifteen minutes and get the second marshmallow.

We know that students are impulsive and we hear a lot about this generation that demands instant gratification.  They are said to lack patience and want things now.  But in reality, this is nothing new.  Mischel determined this 50 years ago and the study has been replicated numerous times with different rewards and a variety of modifications.  Mischel has stated that there are some obvious factors that influence the choice kids make, such as respect for authority and the ability to trust.  Age is also a factor in the ability of a child to delay gratification.  What is interesting is some of the correlations that have been drawn from the original and follow up studies.

From an educational perspective, one of the most interesting came about in the late 1980’s and 1990.  Those students who as pre-schoolers were able to delay gratification became teenagers and were described by their parents are more competent, and then those same kids who delayed gratification had higher SAT scores than those who were not able to delay.    So, those who exercised patience and the ability to put off gratification scored higher on the SAT test.  And, brain research done in the past ten years shows differences in the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum between those with low delay times and those with high delay times.  

 

It does appear that as the old saying goes, patience is a virtue.  Yet it would appear that in this fast food, video game culture we live in, instant rewards and gratification surround our kids.  However, it isn’t something new and the way to deal with it is pretty much the same as it has always been.  Presenting children with “if/then” scenarios and helping them weigh the benefits of waiting is perhaps the most successful.  Good things do come to those who wait, as is evident from the SAT scores, and we need to stress the idea of greater reward.  Even those people who we sometimes categorize as “overnight successes” have generally put in years of work to get where they are today.  Reaping the reward does not happen in the short term very often, and teaching that to our kids is something that will save a considerable amount of negative emotion through the years. 

If you would like to learn more about Walter Mischel and the implications of his research, enjoy this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3SWsjWzdA

What About Kids That Don’t Have a Home?

We are fortunate in our school districts that we don’t have to spend a great deal of time on matters related to homeless youth.  In fact, some would be surprised to know that we actually have had homeless students in the six-plus years that I have worked in this district.  They are not visible to the public because they do not fit the stereotype of the vagrant living off the street in urban parts of the country.  But they are here from time to time, living in a car with their mom or bouncing from couch to couch in friend’s houses.  Or, they might be taking refuge for a while in someone’s home because they were left behind by the only parent in their life.  Overall, we are fortunate that in our community that we know one another and there are a number of people that care, and for the most part the struggles that come with being homeless rarely impede on a child’s life.

However, it is troubling that in the richest country in the world we have children that do not have a home.  A report entitle America’s Youngest Outcasts from the National Center on Family Homelessness estimated that 2.5 million kids in America were homeless at some point during the 2013 calendar year.  That is incredible!  How can a country with so much, a country with excess, not provide for its most vulnerable?  We can argue that it is a parent issue, or we can say we don’t want a country based on socialism, or put forth any number of other arguments.  But regardless, there is no better measure of a society than how it treats its children.  And on that, we get an F.

It would also appear that at the same time we are seeing more homeless kids in our country, the federal government is making progress in reducing the number of homeless veterans and chronically homeless adults.  There have been some very strong advocates for those groups, and rightly so.  But it does not appear that the same can be said for the plight of homeless families and children.

Nationally, child homelessness increased by 8% from 2012 to 2013.  In the North Fayette district this year, 52% of our elementary student population is on free or reduced lunch, the common measure for students living in poverty.  This certainly positions many youngsters in dire circumstances and just one step away from having a home.  This can have a devastating effect on the child’s educational development, not to mention their emotional and social development.  The stress it causes on parents also has a significant effect on the kids.  And again, how can this be in a country that has so much wealth?

The standard of living in rural Iowa is not too high, which is one of the reasons that the problem in the heartland is not to the extent that it is in California and in the south.  But it is a challenge because it is a big change to the status quo.  The strength of our nation has been the middle class with a value system that included a strong belief in upward mobility through education and hard work.  That is not the same today.  Generational poverty is more prevalent and is accompanied by a lack of hope.  The mindset of children coming from a life of poverty is much different, and one that we are going to have to deal with more and more if the current trend continues.  This nation does not have an education problem.  It has a poverty problem.  Let’s challenge our elected officials to place a focus on fixing that.

Is Your Child A Gamer?

I ran across an article this weekend from Tim Elmore's blog about gaming and instantly thought I needed to share this with parents.  I have referenced Elmore in my blog in the past, and also provided links to some of his articles.  He is a leader in the study of adolescents and parenting, as well as developing leadership skills in our young people.  In the article that I am linking you to, he defers to Andrew McPeak, a writer, curriculum designer, and speaker.  McPeak provides some very informative insight into gaming, how it has changed our world and how he predicts it will continue to impact it.  With a gamer of my own, I found this very insightful, and hopefully you will as well!

Five Ways Gaming Is Changing Our World

Why Are We Still So Uncivilized?

Compared to the other industrialized countries of the world we still have strong remnants of the “Wild West” mentality.  There is a lot of “romance” in that tradition and a tremendous amount of patriotism and “American identity”  connected to it.  The reality is that we are a nation that is still in its infancy compared to those we consider our peers around the globe.  Perhaps an analogy is that we going through those “terrible twos” right now.  Like a two-year old, perhaps our society is going to mature in the next few years and we will be more civilized, more kind to one another, and less violent like other countries in the civilized world.  What am I talking about?  It appears to me that we have real problems in this country with violent behavior and I quite frankly wonder when we are going to get past it.

First off, I am comparing us to other civilized countries in the world.  Certainly there are examples in the world where horrendous things happen in their society, like women being stoned to death and Christians being beheaded in the Middle East.  Scores of innocent men, women, and children are mowed down by drug cartels in Central America and Mexico.   In those respects, I believe Americans believe that we are far more advanced than those societies.  What I am talking about are industrialized nations that we compare ourselves to as modern nations and civilized societies.  And it is in these comparisons that frankly, we don’t stand up as very civilized.  Yes, there are terrorist acts committed by citizens in England and France, but when you look at the degree of incidence, daily life in the United States is far more violent. 

When asked in July 2015 what are the greatest threats are to America, President Obama’s nominee to serve as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, listed in order: Russia, China, North Korea, and ISIS.  Hard to argue with that from a global perspective, though some members of Congress want to lump Iran into that category.  However, in an article that appeared in The Daily Beast earlier this year, Dean Obeidallah, argues that an even bigger threat lives right here within out boarders: ourselves.  More specific, those of use who are determined to maintain a society based on an extremist view of the 2^nd Amendment.

What I am talking about is not the right to bear arms.  Rather, I am simply pointing out that according to Obeidallah, in the United States of America, more Americans were killed by other Americans with guns in 2013 (33, 636) that all of the Americans killed on U.S. soil by terrorists in the last 14 years (3025).  That includes the 2,977 killed in 9/11 and 48 others killed by terrorists, over half of those by American white supremacists (rt.com).  To me, this is barbaric!  The fact that we are killing more of each other on a daily basis that any foreign enemy has done in years says a lot about how violent we have become!  Whether it is by gun or some other means, killing fellow human beings is uncivilized, and Americans are doing this at a far greater rate than other civilized societies.  The easy access to guns just makes it easier.  Every day over 30 Americans are killed by guns and of those 30, five children or teenagers are included.  This is 11 times more often than children and teens killed by guns in other civilized country (bradycampaign.org).

Okay, I’ll stop on the gun issue because I am aware of the emotions involved.  Bottom line: other civilized countries do not have anywhere close to the number of violent deaths inflicted by members of the citizenry.  Other proof?  How about men killing women?  Every day in our nation, three women are killed by their husband, boyfriend, or a person they had been in a relationship with at one time.  One-third of all women murdered in our country were killed by current or past male partners (cnn.com).  Domestic violence is a term we hear a lot, yet what is being done to reduce it?

Even the most popular sport we watch is extremely violent, some say barbaric.  In fact, it may seem the spectacle of American football is second only to gladiators in the Coliseum in terms of sanctioned violence.  The National Football League had over $9 billion in revenue at the end of  the most recent season with the stated goal of $25 billion by 2025.  And players are dying playing the game.  No, there has not been a death on the field in the NFL for years, and in fact, only one actually died on the field during a game back in 1971.  However, one cannot ignore the deaths related to brain injuries suffered playing the game, nor those of players from youth leagues to the college level.  The rest of the world has moved beyond gladiator contests with soccer being the most popular contest in the world.  You get into all kinds of arguments about the future of football and how long it will last.  Some state that as we evolve as a society it will become a thing of the past and we will move on to less violent spectator options.  Who knows.  But, there are attempts to make it less violent, which begs the question, will it be as popular if it is not?

Maybe what is going on right now is that American is undergoing some growing pains.  The angry, whiney two-year old in us is lashing out against things that make us unhappy and we just don’t know any better.  Maybe because parents are making choices for their children to keep them away from some of the more violent games at a young age will have an impact on our society.  We still have not addressed the issue of mental illness very well in our country and the violence that accompanies it, and that is a worry.  But hopefully this is a stage we are going through and perhaps one day people killing one another in our country will reflect the numbers in more civilized societies.

What Do You Have To Lose?

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” – Steve Jobs

I pulled this quote off an article I read shortly after Apple icon Steve Jobs passed after an incredible battle for a number of years against cancer.  It really struck me at the time and I saved it, coming back to it a number of times to contemplate my life, as well as what it means to me as an educator.  As I thought about what I have experienced with teenage students and see every day when I walk the halls or visit classrooms, Job’s words may in fact be the best advice that I could give to students.  And, after being an educator for thirty years, the reason that I want to send this message is because things have not really changed. 

This is what I have seen.  High school students want to be accepted.  Peer pressure has always been there.  There is no difference today than there was when I was a rookie teacher in 1985.  Teenagers will go to great lengths to be accepted by others.  They get their hair cut or styled like other kids.  Their clothes are basically the same as other kids they hang out with.  The do, say and believe the same things.  With just a few exceptions, there are very few unique individuals among a typical group of high school students.  There are some that like to think they are expressing their individualism and “real-self,” but in reality they are just like other kids that are trying to so the same.  Most boys think about girls, and most girls think about boys.  Some kids like sports, some like cars, and some like hanging out with friends.  Same as when I was in high school.

At the same time, there is a difference between the teenagers we have in school today compared to those when I started out in the mid-eighties.  In my opinion, kids today live under much heavier influence from their parents.  In the past we heard the term “teenage rebellion,” but we don’t hear it much these days.  Parents aren’t as strict as previous generations and thus their kids don’t have to challenge them as much as kids once did.  They also care about what their parents think.  They don’t want to disappoint them and thus there is a fairly high level of conformity.  The young people today in no way resemble the high school students of the 1960’s or the 1980’s who not only challenged their parents but also the status quo.  I am not saying it is an easy job being a parent of teenagers today, but I will argue very strongly that it isn’t as tough as it was for moms and dads in previous eras.  Sure, it is a sign of the times and things are a lot different now, which is perhaps why Job’s made the observation noted above.

We have created a sense in this country that everything is high stakes and every thing our kids do is vitally important to their future.  We have protected, coddled and laid out a plan for their future so that they can succeed.  We have done everything we can to limit risk in their lives.  Heck, even in rural Iowa we have parents reserving spots in the “right” pre-school before their kids are even born!  We have given trophies to all the players so they feel like they didn’t lose.  And we have spent money we don’t really have so our kids have the right clothes.  Moms and dads call professors at college to check and see what their child can do to improve their grade.  This very, very strong environment of conformity and fear of failure has resulted in kids not knowing how to cope or deal with adversity or when life throws them a curve.  

So how does this fit with what Jobs had to say?  It is simple: take a risk.  Take a chance.  Try something just because you want to and don’t worry about what others might think.  No risk no reward!  I read where psychiatrist’s and therapist’s appointment schedules are packed in many parts of our country with twenty-somethings who cannot cope with having to make decisions on their own, or have no sense of accomplishment or self-worth because all they ever accomplished was actually done by their parents.  What I would love to see within our school community is for kids to break out of the mold.  Why does popularity conflict with leadership?  Why can’t kids stand out from a crowd and be a leader without risking negative ramifications from their peers?  What about standing out from the crowd and showing support for a cause that might not be so popular, or defending a peer being persecuted by others?  Or better yet, not being afraid to create and think, and not worry about the grade?

In reality high school is a very brief period in a person’s life.  Some marketers try to convince kids that they are the best years of their life, a sham to get them to spend money on “memories.”  From my perspective, a way to make them better years in one’s life that perhaps results in a more productive and happy life is to take the Apple innovator’s advice and approach every day like you don’t have anything to lose.