I have been working the children and parents for over 25 years. I also have 3 daughters of my own. The question of raising a gender neutral child brings us back to the big question of Nature vs. Nurture. In the modern world traditional male and female roles have been extremely blurred. But roles don’t necessarily change nature. Twin studies generally point toward nature being the greater decisive factor. Human’s want to feel that nurture is the greater force. As much as humans have many reasons for wanting this to be true it just doesn’t seem to pan out. What we need to understand is that nurture can influence a nature to some degree. That influence when raising an young person can help shape the child. Exposure to various elements may soften up the extreme gender tendencies, but that is about it. I have three different daughters who have 3 different natures. I have tried to help them achieve a more well rounded nature, but I still see that one is more into sports and “guy” stuff, another is Artsy and showing interest in fashion, and yet another is bookish and nerdy. They are all a combination of the traits my wife and I genetically supplied to them. My goal as a parent is too keeping them from being to extreme in any area, but my influence is limited. So simply put the answer is no you can’t raise a gender neutral child, but you can probably move them somewhat closer toward neutral if you know the right way to influence them.
Anxiety, Worry, Stress, and, Fear can be good
The mental health community in its effort to help people, unfortunately has created some misconceptions. Whereas it is obvious that various forms of anxiety are not generally considered to be a positive, they should not necessarily be considered a negative either. I will elaborate as best I can. In the wild all types of fear have a positive function. I am afraid of the tiger so I will not let him get near me. That is a simple example, but really if you expand on it one can really see that fear is one of the essential ingredients to survival. Now to use the tiger metaphor a bit further lets say that any “perceived” threat to our survival is the tiger. The perceived is in quotes for a reason that I will explain a bit later. So the tiger could be that you have not stored enough food for the winter. That fear would drive you to increase your stores of food. The tiger could be your dwelling does not feel safe enough to survive the storm so you work to make it sturdy. The tiger could be the land you farm seems to be under producing so your fear makes you look for new land. Simply put fear motivates new behaviors to try to ensure survival.
Modern humans rarely have the more obvious threats to their wellbeing that humans had not to long ago, but we still have them. Our job pays the bills so that we may have the resources to feel safe. Our relationships with others also provide reassurance that we will have help to survive. Modern humans have tigers near all the time. They are just not thinking correctly about the situation. So the word perceived comes up now. When we feel fear in any form our brains try to compel us to act. For example I am worried the doors not locked so I am compelled by my fear to get up and make sure the door is locked. Ok that is no big deal, but for some people their behavior does not alleviate the fear. They are compelled to repeat the behavior again. Some people will repeat it over and over. This is what we call OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Now many people have some degree of this issue. It actually can be an asset at times. Double and triple checking to see if the mushrooms are poisonous or how many sponges need to come out of us before the surgery is over are two good examples. So why don’t we openly praise people for this behavior. The answer is that we see how the fear can become misdirected and illogical. The behavior that is repeated often makes not sense or is excessive. The mother following the bus in her car on the first day of school is one example. What possibly can this behavior due. She can stop her child from being teased. She can ensure the bus driver is safe. Her fear for her child compelled her to perform a useless behavior. In fact it took her away from behaviors that actually could be of benefit to her and her family.
Fear and all it variations is a vast subject so I can’t begin to write enough about it. But the key point of this document is to begin an examination of the positives and negatives of fear or anxiety. Lack of enough fear can lead to incorrect behaviors just as much as misdirected and illogical fear can. Each of us must examine how our primitive survival instincts can both be helpful and harmful if not supervised by our good human judgement. So if you deal with anxiety you should not beat yourself up about it, but try to understand it and drive it towards truly healthy behavioral responses. Because really that is why we have it.
Poor Communication: Major problem in relationships
What is poor communication? Why is it a major problem in relationships? Communication is at its most basic an exchange of thoughts, feelings, desires and all forms of data. This at its face seems understandable and achievable. But believe me it is not. Humans rely on words, tone, syntax, expressions, gestures, volume, and behavior to name a few to communicate. All these things and more combined are intended to communicate our data to others. We generally desire to exchange our data accurately and that is the problem. More often than we think we fail to exchange accurately, because of one simple problem. The other people don’t understand our communication tactics. Simply put if I said my favorite color was glorb would I be communicating effectively. Obviously the answer would be no. Now if you knew what glorb looked like you would certainly be more likely to understand, but it goes beyond even that fact. What is my understanding of favorite and what is yours. Does that mean I prefer that everything is glorb. Do I want a glorb house, a glorb car, do I think I look good in glorb clothes. it is obvious that I am over the top on this example somewhat, but the point is simple we don’t always understand what the other person sees. Stand up comedians stumble over more true things about human nature than most of us would probably like to admit. They often comment on how men and women communicate differently. They are pretty accurate with that observation. Unfortunately, every man and women also has his/her own subtle and maybe not so subtle differences. The classic example is when a wife ask her husband if he is going to wear that shirt? If he says yes, she can get upset. If a husband says to his wife are you going to wear that shirt? She can get upset. Why? Simple the stereotypical feminine communication tactic is more subtle. She is likely telling her husband “I don’t want you to wear that shirt”. Men tend to be direct and take communication as a very simple straight forward thing. Men hear a question and assume the wife just wants information. He then gives her the information. In the reverse scenario the wife thinks that her husband is not asking if she is going to wear the shirt. She thinks he is saying “You should not wear that shirt because it is ugly or not appropriate.” This is where communication goes horribly wrong we tend to think that others communicate just like us. This is disconnect that leads to poor communication.
How to fix poor communication. First the person desiring to communicate must understand it is their burden to verify that they have communicated accurately. This involves more words than we generally use. It requires asking questions of the other person to see if you can piece out what if anything they understood. The more a person is different than you the more effort it will take to verify accuracy of communication. Often when we actually take the time to really check the accuracy of our communication we find that we are in agreement and have a good understanding of each other. In the modern world more and more communication is strictly written. This blog itself is merely written. Written expression can be a wonderfully form when being used in an artistic sense. This allows individuals to interpret things through their own perspectives. But in interpersonal communication it frankly stinks. Text messages are awful, emails are bad, and post can be down right problematic. Most communication is actually not the words, but all the other things. Imagine a text that say’s “What are you doing” . Know think of the many different ways you could say that simple sentence. It could be a simple query, a playful invitation, a suspicious question, or a down right condemnation of your actions. Yea, think about how many disagreements you have had with someone because of a potential misunderstanding of what was written. In therapy people often have to exam how they communicate and how they perceive others communication. If you have communication with a significant person in your life you might want to start by checking to see what they think you meant when you said or did something. You might be surprised on how wrong they were in understanding you.
ADHD, or ADD is it over diagnosed, misdiagnosed, or just misunderstood
Whether it is called ADHD, ADD, for a surprising number of people in our country and culture we seem to see it everywhere. If you or someone you care about has been told they have problems focusing you begin to wonder what is the problem. Or in fact is there really a problem at all. Well I am here to tell you that the answer is both simple and complicated at the same time. Simple in the fact that if you struggle to focus that is most definitely a problem. People need to be able to focus. Not focusing is therefore a problem. The complicated part is WHY is it difficult to focus. It can be anything from poor sleep to depression and maybe even some organic brain problem. Oh yes and it can be ADHD as well. Teasing out what is causing the problem is the only way to come up with a plan to remedy the problem. That is what Professionals are supposed to do.
Now the important thing in figuring out if ADHD/ADD is the cause is to understand better what it means to have ADHD. If you go to your medical doctor and tell them your tummy hurts will that be enough to make a diagnosis. No of course not. More information is needed to determine the most likely cause. With ADHD/ADD certain things must be present with the problems focusing. Some degree of doing and saying things without adequate forethought is required. Hyperactive or fidgety behavior may be present. But this is not enough. First and foremost you need to understand why people do these things. Many Physicians look at symptoms and then treat. I look for causes.
Now for ADHD the cause is usually related to interest. If you are not interested you will have difficulty focusing. Now immediately people will say, “That is true for everyone” and they would be right. It is the degree of trouble that separates the ADHD from the other folks. This again can be challenging to tease out. Believe it or not ADHD is not something you have or don’t have. It has degrees of intensity. Many years ago only the very severe were diagnosed. Now milder and milder cases are being observed. In a nut shell the environment our culture has created has become far less friendly to those with ADHD traits. If I see a child or adult with ADHD traits I ask questions about their parents. If one of their parents don’t show signs of traits I take another look at them. Maybe I missed something. But I almost always find that at least one of the parents had or has traits of ADHD. Don’t worry if you have these traits it is not all bad. In fact it is actually very good in certain settings. In fact if you look at certain professions ADHD is almost a requirement. Police, Athletes, Emergency workers, artist, inventors, actor, comedians, and of course our military are full of ADHD people. It is not a matter of ADHD being over-diagnosed as much as the world is expecting unrealistic traits that they don’t possess. If you are 5 foot tall the NBA is not likely to happen, but a Jockey might work. What if the world ask you to do things you are not wired to do? Hmmm. If you think this might be your issue you can get help where you need it. But you don’t need it everywhere.
In subsequent blogs I will discuss why ADHD exist at all. It is actually a very useful thing.
Jeff Fry LCSW
360 Prospect Place, Alpharetta Ga 30005
866-525-2128