Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 8, Three Turkeys

Mitch Could Use a Back-Up

The Framework
Tonight’s episode opens with Phil ecstatically relaying to the camera: I’m cooking Thanksgiving this year! Huge step for Claire to trust me with this… Actually “trust” is too strong of a word. As Claire confides to Alex: [This] is a back up turkey. In case your father’s doesn’t workout – which I hope it does. But just in case it doesn’t, this could save him a lot of embarrassment. Please don’t tell him. He would die if he thought I didn’t trust him.

As much as Phil might resent Claire’s back-up, Mitch would welcome some back-up when it comes to parenting Lily. He complains to Cam: You give-in to her every whim, and I’m “mean Daddy” … Lily is going to turn into a willful, fat little girl unless you start getting tough with her. Because right now you’re her pal, and I’m just a pitchfork wielding she-devil.

It begins at breakfast with this exchange.
Cam (setting a waffle in front of Lily while whisking away untouched scrambled eggs): Here you go, sweetie. You’ll like this better.
Mitch: On my gosh! You’ve got to be kidding me. Not this again.
Cam: But she said her eggs were watery, so I made her a waffle. Please don’t make a thing out of it. I’ve seen you send food back. Remember that time in Miami.
Mitch: Okay. First of all, this isn’t a restaurant. Secondly, my bisque had a tooth in it.
Cam: It was a shell.
Mitch: There was a filling in it!

Lily (to Cam after overhearing her dads argue): Uhhh… I don’t feel like waffles. Can you make me cereal?
Mitch: Absolutely not! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Lily, you’re going to finish that waffle or you’re not going to have breakfast!
Lily: Can I at least eat in front of the TV?
Mitch and Cam (respectively and simultaneously): No. Yes.
Lily (leaving with plate in hand, first to Cam): Thanks, Daddy. (and then to Mitchell) MEAN Daddy!

It continues with this.
Mitch (to Lily): Honey, come on. It’s time to go.
Lily (appearing in casual top and slacks): I’m ready.
Mitch: Oh no, Sweetie. We bought you that pretty, new Thanksgiving dress.
Lily: But I want to wear this.
Mitch: She wants to wear that, Cameron. Thoughts?
Cam: Well, Lily, uhhh… we’re all dressed up. You don’t want to be disrespectful do you?
Lily: I should be able to wear what I want.
Cam: Well, Sweetie, listen. I’m afraid we can’t leave until you put that dress on.
Lily (before going off to change): Hhhh… okay.
Cam (to Mitch): See, as much as you want me to yell, I have a more effective method. When you say to a child, “I will treat you with dignity and respect,” that child will in turn say to you…
Lily (reappearing with dress on over her casual outfit): I left the tag on. This is going back on Monday.
Cam (pointing finger): Lily!
Lily (before dashing out of the house): You said,” Put it on.” Well, it’s on.

Mitch: We cannot let her run the show like this.
Cam: Okay. Trust me. I have another plan.
Mitch: Really? Because right now our child is walking around like a Vietnamese Annie Hall.
Cam: Mitchell, I will make it clear that she is NOT the boss.

But at that exact moment, there’s a series of impatient honks from the car.
Mitch: No. No. We can’t go out now.
Cam (as honking continues): Where did she learn that annoying habit?
Mitch: Claire has been picking her up from meditation Mondays.

Finally, there’s this exchange.
Mitch: Lily, Alex brought your backpack in for you, so why don’t you go ahead and take it out to our car.
Lily: Maybe later.
Cam: Lily, you are not in charge of what you wear or breakfast or anything! Now put that backpack on and march it out to the car!
Lily (trying to pick up backpack): Uhhh… It’s too heavy.
Cam: Well, that’s tough. Because I’m not carrying it out for you anymore.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
Seven-year-old Lily is definitely running the show tonight. And Mitch and Cam flounder as they try to deal with her. First they fall back on reactive and rote responses. When that doesn’t work, they panic and lay down the law.

We (as well as Mitch and Cam) can avoid becoming overwhelmed like this by getting clear about our purpose and what’s most important in raising our kids. We can then tailor our approach to fit our own values and expectations as well as to the unique personality and needs of our kids.

The preparatory thinking we do to clarify our own values and each child’s unique needs will give us a reserve to draw on when they challenge one of our decisions as Lily did tonight with I should get to do what I want! or variations on that theme – such as “Everybody else get to do it!“ “You are totally unfair!” “Nobody else has parents with such stupid rules!” After all if we’re not clear in our own minds about what we’re trying to accomplish, we can’t hope to communicate our ideas convincingly to our kids.

BottomLine
Cam (to Mitch): You know, [Lily] only [acts] the way she does to get attention.

Maybe Cam is right. It’s possible Lily is acting this way to get attention. But it’s more likely she’s doing it to get what she wants. Either way, the manipulation is working on her parents. And that’s the main reason kids do it.

Almost all kids see their job as figuring out how to get to do what they want to do. So it’s in kids’ nature to try different things to see what response they get. And it doesn’t take most kids long to figure out the advantages of playing one parent against the other to get what they want. They soon realize that just because mom says “no” doesn’t mean dad will too. Like Lily, they might even cuddle up to the more lenient parent while berating the other (the disciplinarian – who more often than not is us moms) when they don’t get what they want.

As we saw tonight with Lily, if kids succeed at this, the original issue is forgotten while the parents argue. Whether kids succeed depends on the parents’ vulnerability to being manipulated like this. But often we parents are unaware of what we’re doing to encourage this kind of behavior in our kids.

What’s a Mom to Do?
Below are a few tips to help you keep your peace of mind while keeping the peace in your home.

Present a united front to your kids. When you’re not united with your parenting partner, you’re not demonstrating confidence or being emotionally objective – both essential when dealing with a determined kid. Presenting a united front is especially crucial when it comes to important family expectations. So make up your mind not to argue in front of your kids during discussions with them. And avoid nonverbal communication that indicates contradiction or disagreement too. Even if your spouse says something you don’t agree with, unless it’s way out of line, go with it for the time being. You can come to an agreement later when out of your kid’s earshot.

Keep your rules simple and prioritize your expectations. Parenting is about managing our goodwill accounts with our kids. Imagine that you had just $1.00 a day to spend on setting and enforcing rules and expectations. Then prioritize how you spend it.

Have a broken record statement to avoid power struggles. These are particularly effective in helping us avoid hot-spot moments when our kids try to wear us down with never-ending repeated requests: “Can I? Can I? Can I? How ’bout now?” To avoid succumbing to these tactics we can determine our bottom line and develop our own broken record statement. For example, at the beginning Mitch and Cam might have said, “Lily, you must finish what’s on your plate before asking for something more.” If they both said this in a calm, matter-of-fact way, there would have been no need for further discussion. They could just keep replying with the same objective, calm response.

Model the behavior you want to see in your kids. Lily sends her food back as she had seen Mitch do before. She honks obnoxiously just like her Aunt Claire. And Lily is not alone. Many of our kids’ behaviors stem from mimicry. Our example is our best method for influencing – for better or for worse.

Tonight Lily’s dads let her behavior drive a wedge between them.
Mitch: So did you have it out with our daughter?
Cam: Well, you know it’s a holiday, and I just…
Mitch: Fine. I will be the permanent bad guy in this family because you are so afraid of our daughter not liking you. But just so you know – I had one parent growing up who wanted to be my friend and another who didn’t care about that. Guess which one is still in my life.

While in the short run splitting her parents might help Lily get what she wants, in the long run Lily would benefit more if, from the beginning, Cam (the current favorite) had backed-up Mitchell (who is out of favor at the moment). Because when parents are loyal and committed to each other, home feels more predictable, more secure, and safer. And these are feelings all kids benefit from.

Your Parenting Experiences
From a big picture view, what are you hoping to accomplish with your children? What attitudes do you hope to instill in them? What are your worst fears for them? What decisions do you want them to make? If you had just a $1 a day to spend on accomplishing what’s most important, how would you spend it?

Sources and Resources: “Pitting Mom Against Dad Just Comes Naturally” by Lynn Smith in the Los Angeles Times; “How and Why Teens Manipulate Their Parents” by Lisa Zamosky and Louise Chang, MD a WebMD feature

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Modern Family: Season 6, Episode 7, Queer Eyes, Full Hearts

Alex Keeps on Going and Going…

The Framework
There are queer eyes, wide eyes, and eyeballs that are too tired to move tonight on Modern Family. But more than anything, tonight’s show is about dogged persistence.

Andy (the manny now calling himself a bro pair) defines this type of persistence when selling Phil on giving him a job.
Andy: I will never, ever …. Uhhh … I’m blanking on the verb …
Phil: Quit?
Andy: I had to ask because I don’t know the meaning of the word.

But it’s Alex who truly epitomizes the term.
Phil (to Alex who’s walking while reading a textbook): Hey, honey.
Alex (not looking up from her book): Oh, hey.
Phil: Still studying for that test?
Alex: I can’t; I have to study.
Phil: What time did you get to bed?
Alex (bumping into a wall as she walks away): Sure thing.

Phil: Claire, I think something’s up with Alex.
Claire (lost in thought): I don’t know. Some kind of chicken.
Phil: Why is no one listening to me? Come here (taking Claire by the arm and leading her to the hallway where Alex continues to stare at the book in her hands and walk into the wall). I don’t think she’s getting enough sleep. Look at her. She’s like a human roomba.
Claire: Alex will be fine. This (pointing to Haley who’s sitting on the couch flipping through magazines) is our real problem.
Phil: She’s 20; she’s finding herself.
Claire: How hard can it be? She hasn’t moved.

Later there’s this.
Phil: Honey, I’m getting worried about Alex. I don’t think she slept again last night. It’s like the third night in a row.
Claire: I thought you were going to set your alarm and check on her.
Phil: Stupid thing never went off.

A flashback shows us why. As Phil’s alarm goes off, Alex (still carrying a textbook – now with a reading light attached) walks into her parents’ bedroom to turn it off.

Claire: I’m sure Alex slept.
Phil: I don’t know. She’s sitting at her desk too tired to move her eyeballs. She’s reading her book like this (mimes moving a book back-and-forth in front of his face).
Claire: Alex is going to be fine. [Haley] is the one I’m worried about.

And at the end of the episode there’s this.
Alex (still holding textbook, looking totally exhausted): Claire, the words on the page are vibrating. And I can’t make them stop. I forgot how to read.
Claire: Alex, oh my God!
Alex (handing Claire the opened book): Read it to me, Mommy.
Claire (closing the book): Baby, you’re exhausted. And you have to go to sleep right now. Come with me (putting her arms around Alex and leading her towards bed).

Flipping the Frame: My Notes

Most of us remember being tired as teens. But not as tired as Alex. And not as tired as most of today’s teens.

Some teens, like Alex, get behind on sleep because of heavy homework loads and high stakes exams. But over scheduling of activities, after school jobs as well as screens and phones in their bedrooms are also culprits.

They can’t do it all. Something has to go. And often it’s sleep that gets cut.

Even when teens go to bed at a decent hour, they often have trouble falling asleep. They’re drowsy when they wake in the morning, and they’re exhausted in midafternoon. But they then perk up at night – even if they have not had a nap.

Not long ago, researchers examining young adolescents’ sleep patterns found out why. For centuries it was thought that the longer people are awake, the sleepier they become and the greater the pressure to fall asleep. But these researchers found that after 12 hours of being awake, the teens were less sleepy than they had been earlier in the same day. What’s more, after 14 hours, the teens were even less sleepy. This lead to the discovery of the “biological clock” – a clock that keeps people awake even when they are very tired at certain times of the day and at certain ages.

It turns out, that just before puberty begins (around age 10) kids’ biological clocks shift forward to help them stay alert at night about two hours longer than when they were younger. This resetting of their internal clocks creates a no-sleep zone around 9:00 to 11:00 PM – just when they should be getting sleepy. Unfortunately, our internal clocks have shifted back – making it tough for us to stay awake just when our teens are most alert.

BottomLine
Mitch: I wish I knew where your off-switch was.

Many of us obsessed about our kids’ sleep when they were babies. But as our kids get older, their sleep falls off our list of priorities. Like Claire, we focus on what they’re doing (or not doing) when they’re awake.

But it’s not just that sleep matters. It’s how and how much it matters. Inadequate sleep can have negative effects on just about every aspect of teens’ lives – their stress level, their grades, their health, their sports performance, their ability to get along with friends and family, their growth, their mood, their emotional stability, their concentration and memory, their energy level, their ability to think clearly, their risk of injury, their skin condition, their weight, and their use of drugs and alcohol.

And most teens aren’t getting nearly enough sleep. A recent National Sleep Foundation poll found that 59% of middle schoolers and 87% of high schoolers were getting about 1½ hours less than the recommended 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep on school nights.

Like Mitch, many of us find ourselves wishing for an off-switch. Because when it comes to our teens’ sleep habits, we’re not totally in charge. We can set a bedtime, take the TV out of their room, and confiscate their phone and computer. But we cannot make them sleep.

What’s a Mom to Do?
Rather than giving up on them, we need to monitor how much sleep they’re getting and look for ways to work with them to make sleep more of a priority. Here are some things you can do to try to help.

Provide them with a model. (Click here for more on how our sleep habits affect those of our kids.)

Offer a convincing argument for more sleep. Pick and choose among the list of researched negative effects of inadequate sleep listed above to fit your family’s values and what your teen values. For teens like Alex the research on how sleep affects learning and memory found here may be particularly convincing.

Keep things calm at bedtime. Help create a calm atmosphere in your home around bedtime, and encourage your teen to have a regular routine to help them unwind before sleep. Doing the same calming things every night before sleeping will signal their body that it’s time for sleep and help them fall asleep faster. So encourage taking a warm shower or bath, reading a book, listening to music, or other relaxing activities.

Urge them to plan naps right. If your teen is drowsy in the afternoon, a nap can be revitalizing, but it should be short (less than an hour) and not too close to bedtime – otherwise naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night.

Help make their room a sanctuary for sleep. Cool, quiet, dark rooms are better for sleeping. Some teens may benefit from eyeshades or blackout curtains.

Adjust the lighting. Bright lights stop the body from producing melatonin – a hormone that responds to light and helps determine whether we feel sleepy or not. So to reduce the risk of sleep disruption, urge your teen to keep the lights dim near bedtime. This includes turning down the brightness of their phones, tablets, and computers. And in the morning, open curtains and blinds to let the bright light in and signal their body to wake-up.

Help them establish a bed and wake time that they can stick with. Teens tend to have irregular sleep patterns across the week – staying up later and getting up later on weekends. Encourage your teen to keep weekday and weekend bedtimes and wake times within a couple hours of each other. And if they need to sleep in to catch-up on missed sleep during the week, they shouldn’t sleep more than two hours later than they normally do on a weekday. Sleeping longer will disrupt their internal body clock – hurting the quality of their sleep, making it even harder for them to wake up on Monday.

Tonight Claire yells at Haley: Get off the couch! Do something with your life! Yet she says nothing as Alex keeps on going and going. It’s tempting to come down hard on Claire. But sometimes highly motivated teens keep up a daily brutal grind because they can. They think they should if they can, and it’s tough to convince them otherwise.

In truth, it can be more difficult to help a go-getter kid decide what is most important and what may need to be cut back than it is to motivate a less ambitious one. Yet when Alex was totally overwhelmed tonight, she came to Claire for help, reminding that even our most self-regulated teens are counting on us to be there to guide them.

Your Parenting Experiences
Different teens value different things. Which of the negative effects of too little sleep would be the most convincing to your teen? Would it be their stress level, their grades, their health, their sports performance, their ability to get along with friends and family, their growth, their mood, their emotional stability, their concentration and memory, their energy level, their ability to think clearly, their risk of injury, their skin condition, their weight, or the risk from drugs and alcohol?

Sources and Resources: “Teens and Sleep” by the National Sleep Foundation; Snooze… Or Lose by Helene Emsellem, MD & Carol Whitely; “Sleep and Teens” by UCLA Sleep Disorder Center; “What You Can Do to Promote Better Teen Sleep’ by Mayo Clinic; “Adolescents and Sleep” by Sarah Spinks

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