Soulful Parenting is positive parenting. Anyone who has been exposed to Soulful Parenting for very long has heard how strong the tendency is for parents and teachers to be critical with their kids as opposed to being positive and reinforcing.

For example, the data suggests that parents criticize ten times more than they positively reinforce. Besides being demoralizing to our kids and discouraging of healthy relationships, the core of Soulful Parenting, we also now know that by focusing on the criticizing the mistakes and failures we are inhibiting their ability to learn.

That’s right, we all learn more from mistakes than we do from successes. Wisdom and knowledge come from neural adjustments made after mistakes. So it is literally true that the wisest and the brightest are often those who have been willing to take chances and make mistakes.

But we adults tend to criticize mistakes and reward only successes. Mistakes aren’t to be avoided they are to be cultivated and investigated. Mistakes are the seeds of learning. We need to focus less on the outcome, the mistake, and more on the effort made and the lesson to be learned from the mistake.

So reinforce your kid more. Tell them you appreciate their effort even when their performance is not successful. Encourage them to try things even if they think they can’t do it. Let them know that a mistake is not a bad thing but rather a golden opportunity to learn. The more they try and the more that they make mistakes and learn from them the better their ability to learn in the future. And, in the end, the more knowledge and wisdom they will have. What parent wouldn’t want that for their kid?

It’s really pretty simple. But as is the case with many of the simple things in life, they are easy to do and easy not to do. That’s the case with the number one thing you can do to have an inoculating effect on your teens likelihood toward substance use and abuse.

The research has been done and it shows, in no uncertain terms, that the single most important thing that you can do to have a positive influence on your teen while decreasing the likelihood that they will use drugs, alcohol and cigarettes is to have routine family dinners with them. Yup, that’s it. It’s that simple.

But the research also shows that as kids get older the likelihood of these family gatherings at the dinner table decreases dramatically. It must be that as adolescence hits and our dependent kids become increasingly independent teenagers they get so active that the family time is a casualty.

Data suggests that with our pre-teens we are quite likely to have family dinners 4 or 5 times a week. On the other hand, with our teens it becomes more likely that we don’t even have family dinner three times a week. And with that change in frequency of family time comes an inverse likelihood that they will experiment with or even begin to use substances on a more frequent basis.

It’s not realistic to expect with teens in the house that you’ll be able to gather every evening for dinner together but what about four nights a week? Take every natural opportunity, such as Sunday nights which is a typical family night. Make some sacrifices and insist that you’ll be disciplined and find time on three other evenings. The stakes are too high not to work at this. It’s easy to do. Don’t let it be easy not to do.

I had a young fella come in to my office the other day. I’ll call him Peter. He’s 26 years old and he’s made a bunch of poor choices in the last eight years. All of these choices have had negative consequences. He came to me because now he’s depressed and has uncomfortably high levels of anxiety.

First, when he went to college out of high school he choose to party instead of study. And he didn’t just have a good time but he literally didn’t study and often didn’t go to class. This inevitably led to expulsion by the end of his first year. Now, in and of it’s self this isn’t terribly unusual. Lots of kids miss the point of college the first time.

But then he exacerbated his problems by spending time with friends who had no plan for where they were going and he ended up engaged in a number of self-defeating and even self-destructive circumstances. All along he knew what he was doing didn’t really fit who he believed himself to be or what he stood for. Nonetheless he found the peer influences dragged him into things he certainly now regrets.

But instead of disengaging his “do nothing, go no where friends” he justified his continued involvement with them telling himself that he could change his behavior without changing his social life. “I thought I could party on the weekends with my friends and still follow through with what I knew was right during the week.” Of course he now realizes this was a recipe for self-deception and disaster.

He did, in the process, get involved with a young woman and she became pregnant. She had the baby but their relationship didn’t last through the pregnancy. He now has routine involvement with his daughter but recognizes that it’s far from an ideal situation.

In the meanwhile time was elapsing. Now, he is in his mid twenties and probably has a year and a half of college credit. He has a daughter that he pays minimal child support on. His buddies from high school have mostly graduated from college and some have gone on to graduate school. Many of them have kids too but they are married and trying to build a family.

He is increasingly aware of how the consequences of his choices are having a cumulative effect on him. But in spite of these complications, at age 26, he can have a second chance if he will begin day-by-day to make better choices.

I told him that if he committed to working harder on the one thing he can change, himself, than anything else that I would bet him $10K that within six months his life would be significantly better. I said that he should come and talk with me in six months and if he looked me in the eye and said that everyday, for that six month period, he’d worked harder on him self than anything else and nothing had gotten better I would pay him the $10K. But if he looked me in the eye after six months and said that everyday he had worked harder on himself than anything else and his life was significantly improved he’d owe me $10K. Now, I’m not a betting man and I certainly never offer to bet if I think there is any chance I’ll lose. And of course Peter smiled at my offer to bet and said he wouldn’t take it. He knew he’d lose.

Then I challenged him again. If you are so sure that things would get significantly better by working harder on yourself why then don’t you do it? He smiled again and didn’t respond.

You see it’s so easy to do and it’s so easy not to do. And that’s the problem. Drift. We know what we should do and we just don’t do it.

So if your young adult, whether still a teen or not, has a similar pattern and has dug a hole encourage them to focus on what they can do: Work on themselves.
They need to know there is hope. And they need to know that they are empowered. But they also must understand that it is up to them to do it and the operational variable in the change is their effort. If, for just six months, they will work harder on themselves than anything else everything in their life will improve. It’s a bet they can’t lose!

By now you have read or heard of the story of the 15 year-old Phoebe Prince who commits suicide after relentless bullying by a group of student in her high school. It happened in Massachusetts but it could happen anywhere. Teen bullying behavior has become increasingly visible if not more prevalent. If you haven’t read of this most recent tragedy and would like to learn more you can click here.

I was about to blog on another subject before I heard this story and decided to address it. But I am not going to address the obvious topic: bullying. Many will address that over the next week or two but I believe there is another more important aspect: hopelessness.

People don’t commit suicide unless they feel hopeless. When assessing suicide risk I am always most concerned about the level of hopelessness someone is experiencing. This teenager obviously was out of hope and she hung herself. There is, in this story, the outrage of the bullying and the tragedy of Phoebe’s hopelessness.

We, the adults, must consistently communicate to our teens the hope that lies in their present and especially in their future. We must remember that they don’t have perspective. To them today will never end. The problems of the moment are often overwhelming.

This is partly a neurological issue. Adolescents live in a part of their brain that is highly reactive but not very reflective. Therefore they overreact and are impulsive. They lose hope because they can’t see hope. They react because they don’t have good judgment and impulse control.

Suicide is an impulsive act at any age. Usually if a suicidal person can be helped to delay their impulse they will, upon reflection, realize that they don’t really want to act on their suicidal ideation. And this is especially true with teens. If we can help them to believe there is hope then they will endure their present distress for the promise of the future.

Of course we must teach our kids to be kind and to refrain from initiating or joining the bullying. In fact, we need to encourage them to have character and stand for those who are bullied. And we must come along side our teens and embrace them, literally and figuratively, so they feel the comfort of our love and support.

But just as important we must insist that our teens have hope. We must communicate that we will help them and we will help them help themselves with their current stresses. And we must teach them the importance of persistence and the pay off that comes with not giving up. We must communicate the idea that all things will pass. We must inspire them to dream of better times. We must help them to embrace those things they do control so they feel empowered even in the face of problems. And we must speak to them of faith and of the fact that there is a plan for their life and the plan is not for them to be miserable.

Unfortunately this is a blog too late for Phoebe but not for your teen. Take heed. Be proactive. And remember, they must always have hope!

With baseball season upon us it’s important to think of being “safe at home” as not only a baseball term but also a parenting goal. When our teen(s) are safe at home everyone wins.

Our teen(s) have an animal brain and a human brain. The animal brain is primitive, survival focused and fear based. The animal brain is instinctual and reactive. It looks for threats then reacts through fight or flight.

We, their parents, have this animal brain too. When we or they live from fear we are living from this primitive part of our brain. Fearful people are desperate and dangerous people. When in the animal brain we react instead of reflecting and then responding. There is greater chance of errors in judgment and poor impulse control with reaction.

Fortunately we also have a human brain or neocortex. This brain operates from a higher order. It sees life in terms of appreciation and/or love. It is the seat of our spirit and our ability to reflect. It is the part of our brain that allows us to move beyond survival to thriving. We can not be in a state of appreciation/love and fear at the same time.

Our teen(s) all too often operate from a position of fear. They are afraid of how fast their world is changing, whether they will be accepted or rejected by peers, whether they have what it takes to succeed and any number of other fears of self-consciousness.

When we make our homes a place where our teen(s) fear criticism, disgust, harsh language or anger we are forcing them to live from there instinctual, fear based, survival oriented animal brain. Of course this also means that they are in a fight or flight mode and are reacting instead of reflecting. We have engaged them in exactly the most dangerous manner possible. While fear works temporarily in immobilizing the fearful person as soon as the inhibition passes the reaction is unpredictable and often desperate.

On the other hand, when we insist on a spirit of love, encouragement, support and hope we create a safe home. In the safety of this kind of home environment our teen(s) can escape the crushing pressures of their adolescent world and our toxic culture. They can then begin to learn how to live from a higher order. They can initiate their human brain, their neocortex, and live in more appreciation. They can live from a place of thriving and love. We must insist that our homes are safe for our teen(s). They must be “safe at home.”

When I was growing up I had the good fortune to be a student of a school district that gave two grades in every subject. On every report card there would be a grade received for the subject and then a grade given for effort made in that class. So, for example, I might get a C in math but if the teacher thought I made a strong effort she might give me a B+ for effort. While unlikely, it was feasible that a student could get failing grades and yet have straight A’s for effort. Of course the opposite was possible for a very gifted student but I wasn’t one of those.

My second stroke of good fortune was that my parents were wise and paid more attention to my effort grades. I can remember my dad telling me that he was most interested and concerned that I do the best that I could. He said he could live with whatever grade I received as long as the teacher felt I had put my all in to it. And they lived it. My effort grades were what they and I were more concerned with.

New research shows that my school district and my parents understood a critical relationship between praise and performance. Praising results exclusively may actually have the effect of decreasing the quality of performance. It seems that with too much emphasis on performance the pressure builds and, after a while, kids fear that they won’t be able to keep it up. They actually become demoralized and less motivated. These are the teens that are afraid to try new things for fear of looking silly and not succeeding.

Instead the research suggests that parents would do better by their kids to praise the process and not the outcome. Tell them you appreciated how hard they studied even though they didn’t get a desired grade on the test. Be positive about their hustle of the basketball court even if they didn’t have particularly impressive statistics.

The research suggests that parents be specific about what they are praising. Generalized praise is largely ineffective. Excessive praise decreases intrinsic motivation. We want our teens to seek their own sense of satisfaction for their effort and results more than seeking external praise. And, of course, the praise must be genuine. Teens know insincerity.

So once again my folks were right. How did they know what to do when this research wasn’t even available back then? It always amazes me that they had such fine instincts. And hopefully we do too. But it’s nice to know we now have science to confirm our time tested wisdom.

Remember when you were a freshman in high school and your parents told you that you couldn’t go to that party you so badly wanted to attend? Or what about when they didn’t want you staying overnight at that friend’s house where there was minimal parental supervision? You argued with them. “But Mom, you’ve got to trust me!” Your Mom’s retort, “I do trust you. I don’t trust them and I don’t want you in that situation.”

She and your father were right. Now, I’m not saying that they always handled it the right way but they were right to be concerned about whom you were with and where you were going. As it turns out this age old wisdom is now substantiated by research. I’m always amazed at how the data so often supports what we’ve known to be true for generations. Of course sometimes the data disputes our common wisdom but that seems to be the exception not the rule.

So if you want to minimize the risks your teens are subjected to help them to understand the importance of context. When they are young teens you may even be able to control the context, i.e., where they go and whom they are with. As they age they need to be encouraged to exercise their own good judgment. You can tell them that if they find themselves in a bad situation they can always use you as an excuse to remove themselves from harms way or even call you to come and help them out of the circumstance. But mostly they need to understand the risks inherent in some situations.

We all hope our kids will have good, strong character. And good character matters. But it doesn’t matter as much as we think. Even good character can be compromised by relational and situational influences. There is no shame for parents or their adolescents in managing the context in which our character operates. After all that’s what our parents taught us. They were right!

Here’s the challenge. You’ve got one day to get to know me as well as you can. But you can not ask me any questions. In fact, you can not spend any time with me. And you can not observe me. And you can not ask any one else anything about me. You can not use any established information source, such as the internet, that might provide biographical data. The only information you are given is the names of the five people who have the greatest influence over me. How would you go about knowing me better? There is a sure fire way.

First, interview each of the five folks who most influence me. But remember you can not ask them about me so you would ask them about themselves. Spend an hour or more with each person asking them all sorts of questions about who they are, what they value, where they are going and such. You can not ask how they know me or how long we’ve been friends. You can only ask them about themselves.

Then after gathering the information on each of them compile all of the data. You now have a long list of personality characteristics, values, experiences, beliefs and interests. You will have accumulated a list of dreams, hopes and fears. You will see how these five people are alike and how they are dissimilar. And in the intersection of all of this you will find who I am. You will have accomplished the challenge. With about eighty percent accuracy you will be able to describe me.

It is a fact that we are the reflection of the five people who influence us most. Or as the old saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together.”

And of course the same is true of you and your teen. If you want to know what you are reflecting to your teen consider what the five folks who influence you most reflect. If you believe you are having a powerfully positive influence on your adolescent but your associates reflect attitudes, values and behaviors that you wouldn’t want communicated to your teen then you are probably having an unintended consequence on your kid. You can’t help but reflect those who influence you most.

And if you want to better know your teen then look closely at the five people who have the greatest influence on them. Too often parents look at their teen’s friends and believe that their teen is not involved in the activities that their teen’s friends are participating in. They are uniformly wrong. Oh, it may be true that there are some differences between a teen and each of their friends but overall there is huge overlap.

But of course you can’t pick your teen’s friends for them. In fact, if you try you will only drive them closer. So what must a parent do? We’ll answer that question in two weeks in the next blog.

In the meantime do an assessment of your associates. Consider the influence they are having on you and therefore on your family. And also assess your teen’s associates. Get to know them better. Be honest with your self about the things these kids represent and recognize that they are a reflection of your teen. Since relational influences are so important it is critical that we have an accurate read on what influences are impacting us and our loved ones. Then we can effectively address what needs to change.

We had another one of those stories in the news the other day. You know the one where a couple of high school girls admitted that they had become sexually involved with their adult male coach. I have heard these stories throughout my thirty-year career so it’s nothing new. It happens way too frequently. A local radio station called me and asked if I’d comment on what this was about. It got me thinking.

Over the years I’ve had innumerable high school girls complain to me that the high school boys “are so immature.” And it is a fact that girls this age grow and develop more rapidly than boys. It’s why the high school senior boys frequently date the sophomore girls but the senior girls rarely date the sophomore boys. It just doesn’t work that way.

So with this sense that the high school boys are immature the twenty or thirty something male teachers and coaches seem, to many of the high school girls, so much more sophisticated. These girls often feel that these older guys are more their peers than guys their age. And if these men are of the inclination to take advantage of the situation they can use these circumstances to their advantage. Too many do.

The host of the radio show asked, “what should parents do?” I said, “Tell your daughters about the creeps. Make sure your daughters know that there is something wrong with these guys. They are not cool. For them this is not about love and romance it’s about sex and power. Make sure your daughters know

There are so many messages that we have to communicate to our kids. It seems a shame that this is a crucial one but it is. Use “teaching moments” such as the news report the other day. Tell them you read this blog about male teachers or coaches preying on young women and use it as a reason to talk with them. Use your own experiences of when you have seen the tragedy of such a situation. But whatever you do, please don’t hesitate to warn your daughters about the creeps.

How can we, as parents, have greater influence on our teenagers? We love our kids, we send them to great schools, we afford them tutors, travel teams and private lessons, we tell them specifically what we value and want for them, and we give them incentives for their appropriate behavior. In spite of all of these efforts, too often we stand by helplessly watching them struggle and still don’t get the desired result. As a psychologist and father I’m often asked this type of question and I know that the answer is complicated and not what parents always want to hear.

Times have changed. Gone are the days of influence through “carrot and stick” parenting and we all know throwing money at problems isn’t the best idea. So what is the best way to influence our teens to be moral, safe, thoughtful, successful and any other positive quality we want to see in them?  Here is the part that most parents won’t like– having your teens change their behavior is a lot of work on your part. Ghandi said it best, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  You and your spouse must lead by example.  If you want your teen to drive safely, show him or her by doing it yourself.  Want them to go to church at least once a week?  You had better be faithful in going with them.

A teen’s engagement in what we are trying to pass along to them, our lessons, is directly related to the power a parent has to influence. Through a parent’s own consistent actions that exhibit the morals and values you want to pass along to your teens you can become an inspiration.  Once you are able to inspire you can influence your teens on a much deeper, internal level.

The importance of impacting teens internally versus externally is that internal motivations are much longer lasting and values built from them can be applied to many life situations. Parents shouldn’t just give children external motivations like punishment or because “it will make mom happy.”  Teens need to develop lasting, internal motivations. The best way for that to happen is to lead by example and be the change you want to see in your teens.

Having the title of “parent” is no longer as powerful as it once was, with teens especially; your title doesn’t hold as much weight as it did a generation ago or even when your teens were children.  Teens have to grow up a lot faster these days and are learning things now that some of us didn’t experience until thirties. “Positional power” is less compelling when you are trying to influence and inspire your teens to do what you want.  Competence and credibility as a person more often than not is what will determine your influence. Competence is what a parent does and how well they know and do their job as a parent.  No one is inspired or influenced by someone who doesn’t know what he or she is doing. Without competence there is no influence.

Credibility is what kind of person you are as a parent. Today, to have maximal influence a parent must be trusted. And to be trusted parents must be worthy of that trust. Trustworthiness is a function of consistency of message and behavior. Some call it integrity but no matter what it’s called it is vitally important to parents. Being consistent in the values, morals and actions you want your teens to exhibit inspires trust in your teens, trust in that even though you still don’t know how to program the TiVo, you actually know what you are doing as a person. This is what is meant in saying, “influence is all in their heads.” Increasingly, influence comes through what your teens think of you as a person, their relationship with you, rather than the position you hold as a parent or the allowance money you control.

A parent’s influence is about inspiring your teens. Not the inspiration of a charismatic person, in fact, quite the opposite. It is the inspiration of a parent’s character rather than personality. It’s “what we are” all the time and everywhere whether anyone is watching or not. It’s authenticity, being the same person at work, at home and in social situations. Yes, parents need to be on their best behavior even when their kids aren’t around to watch. You might think that your teens won’t hear about how you act when their not around, but they do.  Neighbors, relatives, their friends’ parents—they all talk and your teens listen.

So let’s assume you are a competent parent and person. How do you “get in the heads” of your teens?

First, make a habit of taking a fearless inventory of your own life. Do you live in a way that consistently communicates the values you hope to see your teens? Your greatest limitations as a parent are the inconsistencies between what you expect of your teens and how you live yourself. This is, after all, your credibility.

Second, recognize that words count. There are no “throw away words.” The first minute of an interaction with you teen determines the outcome. The interaction that starts well ends well. Use positive language, be direct and above all, be consistent in what you say when you speak with your teens. Words reflect who and what you are.

Finally, recognize success and accomplishment. Having your teens do the right thing without you having to tell them means that you are inspiring and influencing them.  They are becoming properly motivated.  Always push for improvement in your teen but reinforce their behavior by celebrating the small gains made by them. This shifts your teen’s consciousness, their frame of mind to the type of thinking they should have and begins their development of appropriate, internal motivations.

By Gregory P. Sipes, Ph.D., Sc.D. & Louis A. Pagano, Jr.

Dr. Sipes is a clinical psychologist, a founder and senior partner of Indiana Health Group, one of the largest privately held, multidisciplinary behavioral health firms in the Midwest, and founder of nextVoice, a company committed to helping others have better relationships for business and for life.

Louis Pagano is a senior at DePauw University and Indiana Health Group’s intern.