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November 20, 2012
The following is an excerpt from my new parenting book, Teaching Kids to Be Good People. It’s from the chapter on Emotional Intelligence.
 If you try you might get what you need Right before Thanksgiving a few years back, my dear friend Bettina, who was having some health issues, emailed me: “I know this is incredibly presumptuous and Miss Manners would be scandalized, but I’m wrangling for an invitation.”
I was blown away. Not by her directness (God no!), but by her feeling that she had no right to say, “I’m not feeling well and I don’t want to be alone. Can I come over?” Immediately I called and thanked her for trusting me to understand her vulnerability. I also gave her top marks for the way she had honored herself by asking for what she needed. She was relieved to hear that she’d done the right thing by speaking up.
Most of us are much quicker to stand up for others than for ourselves. On some level we must believe we don’t deserve to get our emotional needs met. But where does that foolishness come from? Here’s my theory . . .
Babies are irresistibly cute so adults fall hard and take good care of them. Once they’ve gotten their sweet baby hooks into our hearts, they are experts at expressing their physical and emotional needs, nonverbally. As our children grow, our conversations with them center mostly on the physical aspects of life: Sweetheart, are you hungry? Do you want something to drink? Is it nap time? Why don’t you put on a sweater? As a result, asking for tangible stuff is very easy for kids: Dad, I need a ride. Mom, I need you to sign this. I need a new phone. I need money.
Because most parents don’t teach kids about expressing emotional needs, teens rarely say: I need a hug. I need to share this exciting news! I need you to listen. I need you to tell me the truth. I need help.
I asked a bunch of sixth–eighth graders to rate themselves on these two statements: “It’s easy for me to ask for help” and “I pretend things are OK when they aren’t.” The results? Twenty-five percent of the kids said it was “never or almost never” easy to ask for help. Another 25 percent reported that “sometimes” they had trouble asking for help. And here’s another sad finding: A whopping 83 percent admitted that “sometimes, always, or almost always” they pretend things are OK when they aren’t.
An unwillingness to ask for help, coupled with a habit of pretending things are fine when they’re not, is unhealthy. When we deny our human need to connect heart-to-heart, we end up short-changing ourselves and the people we’re closest to.
A parent’s role is to raise an emotionally healthy young adult. That includes helping a child recognize what s/he’s feeling and learning to ask for support when needed. Of course self-reliance is essential and being able to calm yourself at times of stress is a life skill, but there’s no denying that we all feel vulnerable at times. It’s also true that we’re all interdependent. When we let people know how we feel and allow them to love us and help us, we honor our humanity. We do the same when we love and help others.
On that Thanksgiving, my family and I were heading out of town, so our home was going to be cold and dark. I couldn’t offer Bettina a warm place at our table. But with my encouragement, she was confident enough to express her needs to another friend who gladly opened his heart and home. What would surely have been a sad and lonely day for her, turned into a wonderful occasion. Less than two years later, Bettina died. Thinking about her, then and now, I’m comforted knowing that she wasn’t alone on one of her last Thanksgiving holidays. She was brave enough to reach out and ask for what she needed. Bettina taught me a powerful lesson, especially important when we’re vulnerable: When it comes to friends and family, hold nothing back. Allow yourself to love and be loved fully, without limits.
Happy Holidays, from our family to yours.
November 17, 2012
I originally wrote this article for TakePart.com where I write a weekly education post. Check out the rest of my articles there.
 Fighting for our kids All living things, with the exception of clones and genetically modified food, are unique. Of course, that includes children. Every kid has a collection of traits, quirks, interests, annoying habits, talents, and abilities that makes him or her truly special. That’s why education should be special for every child. But unfortunately, it’s not.
Many schools could do a better job fostering creativity and problem-solving skills that 21st-century students will need to solve 21st-century challenges. The same can be said for the low priority most school place on character education. So, on many levels, students in the “mainstream” are not getting a lot of what they need to succeed. It’s also true that millions of kids with special needs are being grossly underserved, despite federal law mandating that these children receive truly special education in public schools.
While I am a seasoned educator and a parent, I have no direct experience with the challenges of raising a child with special needs, nor the complexities of navigating an education system to best meet those needs. But here’s what I do know from talking with parents who have lots of experience in this realm: Crippling state budget cuts aside, one major obstacle to providing effective special education may be educators who pre-judge a child’s ultimate learning potential and then design programs based on what the student can’t do rather than acknowledging what s/he may not be able to do yet.
More: Special Education in the U.S. Has a Long Way to Go—Here’s What Schools Can Do About It
As school psychologist Jan Baumel, M.S., states in her excellent article,Understanding Special Education Laws and Rights, “The courts have said that a child must receive ‘some benefit’ from his education, but schoolsdon’t have to maximize your child’s potential. (That’s what’s meant when you hear that the schools have to provide ‘a Chevrolet not a Cadillac’ education.)”
But why not push for maximizing potential? Every child deserves that! No one can ever predict exactly where anyone else’s path may lead. For that reason, education must help all children construct a path toward their own unlimited future. Because that doesn’t happen in every school, all kids need parent advocates. Kids with special needs may need especially loud and pushy parents to go to bat for them.
Here are some tips to help you advocate most effectively for your child:
Know your rights. Educate yourself about what your state law guarantee in terms of special education. Each state’s Department of Education also has its own division for Special Education and Support. Search the Internet for “Special Education (your state)” to find the programs and services to which your child is entitled.
Connect with other parents. It doesn’t matter that one child’s special needs are significantly different from another’s. What counts is the simple fact that parents working together, supporting each other, brainstorming questions in advance of district meetings, sharing information after such meetings, are more powerful and effective advocates for the rights of children.
Communicate with your school. To understand and navigate school district policy on behalf of their children, parents need to keep the lines of communication open with teachers and other school support staff. It is helpful to take the point of view that you and the professionals who work with your child are on the same team. Your appreciation for the job teachers do helps build trust, and it can ease the way to get the services your child deserves.
Bottom line. The challenges of advocating for a child with special needs can be stressful for families. The challenges of providing excellent special education can be stressful for educators as well. Parents and schools need to work together to understand the diverse educational requirements of every child with special needs and how best those requirements can be addressed and fulfilled. It often takes tremendous patience and persistence. And yes, pushiness helps!
November 13, 2012
by Mackenzie Gavel
Mackenzie Gavel is an aspiring journalist and a senior at NYU, with a double major in Journalism and Psychology. Founder of Belittle the Bullies, Mackenzie is also a blogger for CITYist, the online component of City Magazine.
 Mackenzie Gavel, circa the Teen Years Teachers are supposed to be more than educators. They are supposed to be mentors. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. It is a sad day when an adult acts like an adolescent, and an even sadder one when an adolescent finds herself feeling lost and confused in the wake of an adult’s misguided actions.
I am a naturally thin girl. I’ve never had an eating disorder. But in eleventh grade one of my classmates started a rumor that I was anorexic. The lie eventually made its way to the ears of my math teacher, Ms. R. For those of you who read my blog, you know that I was an easy target in high school. To find myself at the face of an ugly rumor was not unusual. But I did not find out about this particular accusation until I sat, crying, and begging for my guidance counselor to believe the truth. The counselor told me that she never had any reason to believe the lies. That was reassuring, but what could I do about the rumor? It’s not easy to prove to people that you don’t have a psychological disorder.
After meeting with my counselor, I angrily confronted Ms. R. Why would she run straight to the counselor before first talking to me? With just a few questions, I would have told her that one of the other girls had been bullying me —forwarding and changing the wordings of my text messages to the boy I liked and spreading rumors like wildfire.
Ms. R never provided an explanation for her actions and in the weeks that followed she was colder toward me, less approachable. Perhaps she wanted to be the friend to the majority, rather than the advocate for the minority. In doing so she took my life and turned it into a nightmare.
To be the mentors young people need, teachers need to think about their actions. They need to have the proper training to handle difficult situations, and they need to remember that they are the guiding forces in students’ lives.
They need to be more like Mr. McTrunugh, another teacher of mine. One afternoon in his class, a student made a negative comment about my hair style. I did not give her the satisfaction of a reaction, but Mr. McTrunugh told the girl that if she said one more word, it would only prove that she, herself, was unhappy and insecure. Now that is a teacher who was unwilling to stay neutral, sit on the sidelines and watch the bullying play out!
Being a mentor sometimes requires you to stand up for kids. You also have to give them a reason to stand up for themselves with dignity and integrity. A teacher’s job is more than just following a lesson plan. It is to be an advocate, the supportive voice that kids so desperately need to hear.
If there is one lesson that I learned from these painful memories, it is that you never have to apologize to anyone for being who you are. Do not let anyone diminish your integrity. Ever.
November 8, 2012
I originally wrote a version of this article for TakePart.com, an interactive publisher and the digital arm of Participant Media. Check out my weekly Education posts there.
 "Help! I'm drowning in social garbage!" I’ve been answering teen email since 1997. The ongoing Q&A has made me an expert on the social garbage many 11-17 year olds slog through every day. Typical teen questions include:
- What do you do if your friend is mad at you but won’t tell you why?
- What do you do if people are spreading rumors about you and no one believes that they aren’t true?
- What do you do when friends pressure you to do stuff you don’t want to do, but you’re afraid not to because they’ll make fun of you?
Sound familiar? These might be the same issues we once dealt with, but our children aren’t responding to them the way we did before social media. When 21st-century kids experience peer conflicts, online and off, they typically respond with a level of social aggression (aka verbal violence) that damages individuals in profound ways and pollutes school climates everywhere.
In September I spoke with nearly a thousand students at a couple of international schools, one in Singapore and another in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We talked about Real Friends vs. the Other Kind, based on my Middle School Confidential series. In each presentation the kids and I discussed tough issues like: stress, peer approval addiction, and the brain’s occasional habit of working against our desire to do the right thing. Even though I was 7,000 miles from home, the comments and questions coming from these students expressed the same conflicts and emotional confusion I’ve heard repeatedly from kids in San Jose, St. Louis, and Philly.
Back in the last century, when we had a problem with someone at school, we went home for dinner with the family, did homework, and watched TV. Sometimes we even read a book to take our minds off school and social garbage. The next morning in class combatants were usually less combative and we were all better able to concentrate on whatever we were expected to learn.
Today’s kids are mind-melded with peers 24/7. School and home are equally conducive for frantic texting and getting more people involved in the drama du jour. Status anxiety regularly submerges so much mental real estate, our students are often flooded with destructive emotions. They can’t think clearly when they’re upset. No one can. Which is why the adults who live and work with kids need to actively teach kids to be good people, otherwise, their moral compasses will be calibrated solely by their equally clueless peers. (Not a pretty thought!)
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