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May 13, 2015
by Amy Williams
Amy Williams is a journalist based in Southern California. Mom of two, she uses her parenting experience to help other parents raise their children to be the best that they can be. You can follow Amy on Twitter and Facebook.
 Why don’t they leave me alone?! According to Chinese tradition 2015 is the year of the Sheep. I hope it’s better than last year, which I called The Year Of The Bully.
At the start of 6th grade our son had a physical altercation at football practice. The harassment continued at school, extracurricular events, and on Social Media. We didn’t know because our son didn’t let us in on it, a typical response from tweens and teens who are being targeted.
He’d come home from practice upset, shirt torn, and occasionally with missing his cleats. At first we chalked it up to the rough nature of the game and forgetfulness. But other things indicated something was wrong. Some of the puzzle pieces we observed:
- Our son frequently complained about stomach aches and found it difficult to sleep at night.
- He was visibly upset and often would erupt in anger toward his younger sibling for no reason.
- We received emails from his teacher’s about his behavior and falling grades.
- He didn’t ask for friends to come over or to meet up at the movies.
- He suddenly stopped wanting to play on his tablet, the family computer, or use his online account with his gaming system.
- He would cry and refuse to go to Scouting functions or Church activities.
Looking back I can’t believe how blind we were. He was clearly exhibiting signs of being bullied at school and online.
One day I picked him up after football practice. Waiting by the field, I watched our son interact with his teammates. He walked barefoot to the van, desperately trying to hold back his tears. Finally, he let it all out. We felt terrible that we had failed to keep our child safe, but now, we could help and we got right to it.
Our first action was to alert his teachers, bus drivers, and school administrators. It was comforting to know there were extra eyes and ears to monitor the situation. I had a wonderful conversation with the principal who changed the seating chart for the bus ride, changed how the children lined up for lunch, and added a few more sessions about bullying into their counseling rotation. She was trying to educate students on the differences between positive ways to interact vs. aggressive behaviors.
Because 1 in 3 children are victims of cyberbullying and over half don’t report it to an adult, we began an open dialogue with our son. To protect himself, he changed his profile and names on Social Media and gaming sites. During the beginning of our journey, we opened and read all messages together and limited online contacts to friends and family only. We began to actively monitor his Internet and cell phone activity, using a convenient app that allows us to view all his accounts in one place. We also started interacting online with our son so the kids who were targeting him couldn’t miss our presence. Finally, we made a rule that digital technology would only be used in our common living area, no more kids online in isolation (exactly what harassers hope for.)
With a little effort and a lot of emotional coaching, our son is doing very well. He enjoys school again and now happily interacts with his friends online. His former harassers have improved their behavior, too. They probably didn’t understand they were crossing a line. All in all, with this situation behind us, I’d like to believe this experience will foster my son’s empathy and emotional fortitude to handle adversity.
Goodbye, Year of the Bully. Hello, Year of the Sheep. May it be lucky and prosperous for our family and yours.
April 16, 2015
by Jeannie Burlowski
Jeannie Burlowski is a full time author, consultant, and conference speaker. Learn more about her services at JeannieBurlowski.com.
 I can’t do this anymore! 15-year-old Luke had been in a dark, angry mood, starting from the moment his mother wished him a cheerful “Good morning!” and set hot scrambled eggs in front of him. Luke ate in broody silence and his mother felt momentarily thankful for the quiet. If Luke could just get off to school without his typical screaming and door slamming, it would be a good day. “It’s probably just hormones,” she rationalized after her sulky son left for school. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”
Actually, Mom, it’s probably not “just hormones.” Your teen’s dark moods, depression symptoms, mood swings, blunted, flat emotional responses, and hair-trigger anger are more likely to be linked to a psychological condition called “launch anxiety.” That’s good news since there’s a lot parents can do to help teens feel better.
Psychologists Laura Kastner, Ph.D. and Jennifer Wyatt, Ph.D. have defined launch anxiety as: “The near constant feeling of indecision, doubt, uncertainty, insecurity, and fretting that accompanies the transitioning of teens in late high school, and extending through college. It’s experienced by teens, but it’s also experienced by parents, who feel tied in knots by uncertainty, doubt, insecurity, worry, and fretting about this next step in their children’s lives.”
Recent research finds a near epidemic of anxiety among 21st century high school and college age students. Is your child one of them?
5 Action Items for Combatting Launch Anxiety
1. Take this short quiz.
To gauge whether your son or daughter might be experiencing launch anxiety, take a look at the symptom list below, excerpted from www.anxietycentre.com. Do these symptoms sound familiar?
____Continual feelings of anger, impatience ____Feeling “down in the dumps”
____Depression ____Emotionally blunted, flat, or numb
____Emotional “flipping” (dramatic mood swings) ____Everything seems scary, frightening
____Frequently being on edge or ‘grouchy’ ____Feeling like crying for no apparent reason
____Not feeling like yourself, emotionally numb ____Feeling anxious, apprehensive, or fearful
____Feeling you are under constant pressure ____Feeling detached from loved ones
If these symptoms sound familiar there’s a good chance your child has some form of anxiety. Next steps…
2. Quit telling your child that if s/he “doesn’t get into a good school, s/he won’t be able to get a good job after college.” This is patently untrue, and the message is harmful.
3. Ease up on your kids’ schedules. Exhausted students who’ve been run ragged by every club, extracurricular activity, and sport can build up layers of anxiety, making them less attractive to colleges. Don’t believe it? Read this New York Times article where a Harvard admissions officer laments that student applicants “seem like dazed survivors of some bewildering lifelong boot camp.” Ease up. Please.
4. Spend at least one hour per week with your child outside the house doing an activity you both enjoy. No nagging allowed. No anxious questions about homework, grades, college applications, etc. One of the greatest antidotes to anxiety is caring, face-to-face, human connection. So schedule time to simply enjoy your child for who s/he is, not for how he or she is currently performing in school, sports, extracurricular activities, or college preparation.
5. If the anxiety becomes severe, seek professional help. Are feelings of anxiety just part of growing up? Should we just stand back and let our kids deal with it? Not if anxiety symptoms are constant and debilitating. If that’s the case, please seek help from a school psychologist or other licensed professional who specializes is working with teens.
Have you seen any anxiety symptoms in your teens or college students? What remedies have you seen work?
March 30, 2015
 Yes, I am! I answer lots of email from tweens and teens. From time to time I share letters here to gently remind parents, teachers, coaches, and counselors what it’s like to be a teenager. With that in mind, you’ll be better at helping the kids in your life. Of course, there isn’t one “right” way to ease a young person through an emotionally confusing time. I offer my advice to them (and to you), as one of the possible ways to proceed. You might use it as a suggestion if you ever find yourself in a position to mentor a child (your own or someone else’s).
Teen: I’m a 14 year old ignorant child who has a problem.(Obviously) I’ve been feeling like my life isn’t going great and that I’m already wasting it. Before you say “Oh, you’re only 14. Don’t worry about that! You have so much time” I just want to say I’ve seen plenty of kids do something with their lives at my age. I’m honestly scared to dream big. I’ve been doing theater for nearly 5 years and I’ve sometimes done public performances and feel like I can take it somewhere. I’m just not supported for it. No matter what my ambitions are my mom ignores it, or no one seems to take me seriously. I wanna follow my dream but I feel like my life doesn’t call for it. It makes me depressed and even now, writing this, there’s tears in my eyes because I feel so doubtful. I get jealous of people my age doing great things and I feel I’m nothing compared to them. I don’t even know were to start to make anything happen. What should I do?
Annie: Of course, it helps, if you are supported in your dreams by parents and other family members. I won’t lie to you and say that it doesn’t matter. But just because you don’t get support, doesn’t mean you can’t achieve your dreams, whatever they are. You love theatre. That’s awesome. (Many 14 year olds haven’t a clue what they are interested in. So you are already ahead of those kids!) Ultimately, if you want something in life, you are the one who must figure out how to make it happen. So let me ask you this: What is in the way of your doing more theatre and getting better and better at it? What is your biggest obstacle? (HINT: The answer is not “Lack of support from my mom.”) Think about it and write back. We’ll talk some more.
Teen: Hey, thank you for taking the time to reply 🙂 Appreciate it. I guess what’s been stopping me is usually when I think about my future and what I can do, I can’t help but feel like nothing good is going to come out of the future and that I might not even be alive honestly. I feel limited, which I know I am, but when I see some girls at my school presue things such as modeling or acting or art-related, the first thing that comes to me is “My life doesn’t call for it.” Well not now, obviously, but I was thinking later in the future. I know it’s negative, but if I’m not very lucid and realistic with my life I won’t know what to do later if or when I experience disappointment. I’m a little scared for that. So it’s myself that’s been holding back.
Annie: Yes. It’s you, who’s been holding you back. 50 points for that right answer. Just to let you know, “the future” doesn’t exist. We create our path in life right here… in the present moment… and in the next moment… and the next. It’s all about the choices we make. The choice to have a positive vs a negative attitude is a key factor in success. Comparing yourself to others only works if it inspires you to do your best. Comparing yourself to others with an attitude of “They’re so much better than me, why should I even bother?” is unhelpful. So… quit sabotaging yourself and get on your own team! Yes, there will be set-backs and disappointments along the way. That’s to be expected, not feared. Think about it this way, for each disappointment, there will be something useful for you to take and move forward with. You can make the life you want. A positive attitude, hard work, and belief in yourself are the keys.
Teen: I know this is late but thank you so much 🙂
Annie: Sounds like you found my advice helpful. I’m glad! Be well, my friend.
Sometimes the best support we can give teens is to listen as they share their self-doubts, let them know we believe in them, and assure them they have what it takes to succeed.
March 17, 2015
Morning walks with The Pupster reveal more and more free stuff in the neighborhood. Curbside boxes filled with coffee mugs (“Kalua!”), anemic Christmas cacti, Danielle Steele novels, rusty tools. (Be still, my heart!) Horray for spring cleaning. I should race down to my own garage and thin out the flotsam and junksam, but I’d rather be blogging.
 My best friend doesn’t love me anymore! Though yesterday, I did a bit of feng shui. In my SENT BOX, I found a dust-covered Hey Terra letter from 2002. (Thank god, I answered it promptly, thirteen years ago.) I have no idea why I hung on to this one. I’ll take it as a sign it should be posted, if for no other reason than to give me permission to delete it and to show that when it comes to girls’ friendship issues, some things don’t change.
Hey Terra,
My best friend of five years has just decided to end our friendship.
She claims that I constantly destroy her self-esteem. I always try to support her, and tell her how wonderful she is. I am usually there to pick up the pieces after she is hurt by others. So I don’t understand why she’d accuse me of things I have never done. She also claims that we don’t get along anymore. This is the first spat we’ve had in five years. She never allowed the friendship to push through the disillusionment/spat to actually cultivate a more meaningful relationship. She just ended it.
She seems to lean towards friendships that really have no depth.
She always has to be the leader of the group. Another thing, she
never has any passion for anything in her life (except her own
wants). She cannot see past herself. She tends to separate
herself from people who actually have passion in their life.
She never listens either. I just do not understand why she would be
like this, and why she refuses to listen to anyone. Doesn’t a close,
five-year relationship mean anything to her? She wasn’t even
willing to try to work at it!
Thanks,
Curious
Dear Curious,
From what you describe it sounds like you and your friend expect very
different things from a friendship. You seem to be looking for a
“meaningful” relationship that goes beyond the surface. You think of
yourself as someone who has passion for things and you clearly
don’t admire the fact that she “never has any passion for anything…
except her own wants.” You describe your friend as a person who needs
to be in control and tends to be self-centered and “never listens to
anyone.” From your words, she doesn’t sound like much fun to be around.
Yet, in spite of all these differences, which have clearly been obvious to you for a while, you still call this a “close” relationship. That makes me “Curious” too! Is
this a real friendship or a 5-year habit that you might be interested in breaking?
Think about it.
In friendship,
Terra
Meanwhile, back in 2015…. How might we do a better job teaching our girls there are standards in friendships and that it’s smart to evaluate relationships with an eye toward what you want and need? If it turns out that your daughter is not happy in a friendship, encourage her to discuss it (privately and respectfully) with her friend. If that doesn’t result in positive changes, let’s teach our girls to find the EXIT so they can get more of what they deserve from someone else. Your thoughts?
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