Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Reframe: Will Luke Be the Last Man Standing?

Season 4, Episode 16 (Rebroadcast from 2/20/13)

The Framework

The verb “fall” and its various forms like “fell,” “falling,” and “falls” help shape the storylines of tonight’s episode. In one storyline Cam is doing a movie-theme photo shoot with Lily and baby Joe as his models. All goes fine until Lily glues a wig to Joe’s head. Mitch and Cam eventually cut the wig off – and with it much of Joe’s hair. Now they’ve got another problem: Who’s going to take the fall and tell Gloria?

Woven into tonight’s storylines about falling there’s a string of con artistry – all orchestrated by Luke. And with perfect sitcom logic, Jay becomes the fall guy for baby Joe’s haircut when Luke blackmails him by revealing that he’s on to how Jay’s team won the bowling tournament: They broke league rules by subbing in a pro.

As it turns out, Luke also knows a thing or two about breaking rules:

Luke (to camera): I have to get [a] letter signed because I failed my assignment on the Revolutionary War. I recreated the Battle of Bunker Hill using one of my old science projects. Seemed re-revolutionary to me…

(To view the original post, click here.)

Flipping the Frame: From My Life as a Parent

We send our kids to school to learn content and skills and how to figure things out. But in many ways we parents are in the best position to teach our kids about how to work and to encourage them to work hard. So what do you do when you have a kid like Luke who seems to be always looking for shortcuts when it comes to their schoolwork?

My son was one of those kids. Try as his father and I might to model the advantages of hard work, our son’s preferences as a teen were different. I’ll never forget the supper one night when my husband asked our son, then 16-years-old, about his plans for the evening. Upon learning that the plans didn’t include any studying, my husband suggested that our son needed to take his schoolwork more seriously. Our son then turned to his father and, using his best “get out of my life” teen voice, told his father that he didn’t want to be anything like him. Our son saw his father working almost all the time without the big social life packed full of fun activities that our son craved for himself.

When your teen rejects your model – and they probably will to some degree – it’s important to remember you don’t need to accept their values or agree with their ideas. But respect is like air to teens; take it away and that’s all they can think about. So if you want to be able to influence your teen, you do have to respect that their preferences may be different than yours. And the wisest approach when it comes to school (and most other things that don’t involve their health or safety) is to try to strike a balance by providing some guidance while giving them some room to find out who they are. A fitting first response at our dinner table that night – the one I’d wished we’d been smart enough to have – might have gone something like this:

You don’t have to choose the work ethic we’ve chosen. You can choose to have a bigger social life. But to be successful and have the advantages that come with success – including the lifestyle we enjoy – require hard work.

Right now your work is school. You have to go. And you have to get passing grades. We hope you’ll do much more than that. We hope you’ll work hard enough to excel at school. But the choice about how hard to work is mostly yours.

It’s our job to help you understand that the choices you make about how hard to work now are affecting the habits you’re developing and the options you’ll have when it comes time to choose what to do next. If you want one of the cool, in-demand jobs and the matching lifestyle, you’ll have to do more than pass. The cool jobs are snatched-up by people who learn the self-discipline of working hard on stuff – even when that stuff is boring and seems irrelevant.

Keeping our emotions in check while having this kind of ongoing conversation is part of the safety net our teens are counting on us to provide. Here are a few other things that can help us strike the right balance when it comes to our kids’ schoolwork:

• Taking a longsighted view of their education. Our kids’ willingness to work hard is the best predictor of how much they’ll ultimately achieve. So rather than acting as if grades are the most important thing and punishing, threatening, and bribing them to get A’s, we’re at our best when we take a longsighted view and focus on instilling a willingness to work hard and a love of learning.

We can teach our teens to focus more on effort and learning by:

Asking more about their learning process and their opinions about their effort and less about the grade. (You can find a sampling of questions that foster a longsighted view of learning here.)

Sharing with them the findings from recent brain research, showing that learning prompts neurons in their brain to grow new and stronger connections. Tell them that their brains are like muscles and that the harder they work, the smarter they’ll get.

• Organizing your family’s routine to make schoolwork a priority. It’s wise not to impose more structure than our teens need, but if your teen seems low on willpower when it comes to getting at their schoolwork, try collaborating with them to establish a homework routine. Together agree on a regular starting time and the duration for study. A good rule of thumb is 10 minutes of study per school night for every grade in school. So for 7th graders this would mean 70 minutes a night, for 8th graders, 80 minutes and so on. And if you have an unmotivated teen who is floundering, consider rewarding them for regularly getting their homework done. (You can read more about using money to bribe your teen here.)

• Helping them get started on big projects. This is particularly important if your teen procrastinates when it comes to schoolwork. (You can read more about helping your teen overcome procrastination here.)

• Continuing to be a role model. Our highest form of influence in our teens’ lives is what we model on a day-to-day basis. So if you have a teen who seems to reject your hardworking model (as mine did), you can redouble your efforts to share the highlights of your day with them to model work as fascinating. And perhaps nothing we do can model the importance of hard work better than letting our kids regularly see us doing some type of mind work or quiet work while they’re doing their homework. Yes, we’ve worked hard all day. But our teens will argue that they have too. And you have to admit that demanding they get at their homework while we settle into watch our favorite TV show doesn’t send a particularly clear message.

Flipping the Frame: Your Parenting Experiences

• If you have a teen who’s a bit like Luke when it comes to schoolwork, what has your approach been? If you’ve done some tinkering to try to change your teen’s work habits, what have you tried?

Flipping the Frame: What’s in the Picture for Next Week?

Next week there will be a brand new Modern Family episode and a brand new post to go with it. See you next Monday!

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Reframe: Manny Vies with Luke for the Phantom Lead

Season 4, Episode 14 (Rebroadcast from 2/6/13)

The Framework

Tonight on “Modern Family” Luke and Manny are involved in a play – a middle school production of “Phantom of the Opera.” And both take some risks and stretch their comfort zones as the lead changes from one to the other.

When the student star gets mono, Manny initially lands the lead.

Cam: I’ll need a “phantom” for this rehearsal.
Manny: I guess I could help.

Then we learn that Luke, who’s been painting sets, can sing better. And Manny, determined to keep the lead, plays on Luke’s peer fears:

Manny: Look at the bright side. What if you don’t screw up, humiliate yourself, and get mocked forever.
Luke: Get mocked?
Manny: Only by the cool kids. But who needs them. You’re one of us now: the theatre geeks.

With that, Luke refuses to sing. In the end, however, he does take the lead. And, as Cam puts it, he sings like a nightingale.

(Click here to see the original post.)

Flipping the Frame: My Notes

Teens are biologically set to seek out thrills and take risks. In fact, brain changes tracked by neuroscientists suggest that teens’ reward systems (unlike those of younger children or adults) seem to bias their choices and decisions towards the thrill even if there is risk involved. (You can read more about the teen brain here. These brain changes evolved to spur this age group to leave a safe home and increase their range of experiences so that they’d learn new skills and make new discoveries about themselves. Which is all well and good.

But there is a potential downside. Our teens’ developmentally driven craving for trying new things can lead to boredom. And there’s a growing consensus that dangerous risk taking increases when teens are bored. For example, researchers have found that kids ages 12 to 17 who are often bored, are 50% more likely to use drugs and alcohol. Add a wad of cash ($25 or more a week of spending money) and those bored kids become 3 times more likely to use.

The good news is that the risks our teens are hardwired to take don’t have to be destructive ones. And that’s where we come in. We can stay connected to our teens and redouble our efforts to encourage them to try new things and test their limits in constructive ways. We can help them take…
• Life risks that include social ones like joining a club, emotional ones like asking someone new on a date, and physical ones like rock climbing or skateboarding.

• School risks that include academic ones such as taking an AP course or learning a new language, athletic ones such as going out for a sports team, and extracurricular ones such as trying out for a play (like Manny and Luke did) or running for student council.

• Community risks, for example volunteering to help the homeless, mentoring a younger child, and leading by starting a small business or charity.

Teens say that their parents have more influence than anyone else when it comes to their decisions to challenge themselves with the right kind of risks. And when we help our teens find meaningful opportunities to push their bodies, expand their minds, and nurture their spirits, we are helping to satisfy their craving for trying new things that test their limits. In the process we’ll deepen our connection with our teens and reduce the chances that they’ll get into trouble with destructive risks like drugs and alcohol.

Sources: (CASA, 2003; Teens Today, 2004)

Flipping the Frame: From My Life as a Parent

My son was a thrill seeker. He was hooked on the adrenaline rush that comes from a close call. I saw this aspect in him early on. When he was in elementary school I’d sometimes watch him play basketball in our driveway with a neighborhood buddy. And if he got too far ahead as they went one-on-one, I’d see him sit back a bit and let his opponent catch-up. Now don’t get me wrong. My son liked to win, but he liked the thrill of a close game better.

He sought out close calls off the court too. At age 12 he’d saved enough of his birthday money and allowance to buy a mountain bike (and the mom required helmet). After that he spent a part of most weekends riding down the steep trails and jumping the logs that crossed his path in the North Carolina woods near where we lived.

Then we moved. Of course we brought his bike with us. But there were no steep trails near enough for regular riding.

It would be awhile before I’d realize how important those steep hills had been to him…

Flipping the Frame: Your Parenting Experiences

• I’m really glad that Phil ended up attending Luke’s performance. And I was delighted when his grandfather also showed up. Showing up is one way to encourage our teens to take positive risks. What other ways have you found to support your teen’s participation in these activities?

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