Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 6, The Help

The Dunphy Daughters Call to Claire for Help

The Framework
“Help” (some helpful, some not so much, and some way too much) is what tied the plotlines together tonight. Gloria hires a too-good-to-be-true nanny to help out around the house even though Jay and Manny seem dead-set against it. Mitch and Cam hire Pepper to help plan their dream wedding, but Pepper’s dreams are way over-the-top. And over at the Dunphy house, Phil’s recently widowed dad Frank has come for a visit because he’s a bit down-in-the-dumps. But when Phil and Jay try to help cheer him up with a night out on the town, Frank ends up hiring a hooker – by accident.

Meanwhile, Claire is looking for something that’ll help cut down the fighting between the girls.
Claire: Tension between Haley and Alex has been getting pretty high. So our solution was to move Haley down to the basement – which we were just about to do.
Phil: When my dad came out for a weekend visit.
Claire: Two weekends ago.

Claire is right to be concerned. Anger between the sisters is spilling out of their shared bedroom into the rest of the house. It overflows into the kitchen where the rest of the family is trying to enjoy breakfast.
Alex: You’re ruining my life!
Phil: These eggs are delicious.
Haley: What life?! Get out of my room!!
Claire: I put milk in them.
Alex: It’s not your room anymore!!
Luke: Well they sure are fluffy.
Haley: Mom!!!
Claire: I’m just going to go stand out in the yard.
Haley: Seriously, get out!!!
Alex: I told you it’s not your room.

Later the girl’s outbursts continue with this.
Haley: Gross!!! Those are my socks!!
Alex: They are not! Mom!!
Claire: I’m just going to pop outside.
Phil: I should get her a rake.

And this.
Haley: Mom! I’m going to throw-up! Alex’s hair smells like cheese.
Alex: It is not cheese!!! It is cruelty free, organic shampoo with traces of churned goats’ milk!
Haley: So cheese! (taking a whiff and then holding her nose) Ugh!!! I need a bucket!!!

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
It’s a given. Siblings will fight with each other. That’s just what they do.

The best way to keep brothers and sisters from fighting is to space them at least four years a part. Obviously, there’s nothing that can be done about this now, but it’s true. Siblings close in age (like Haley and Alex) fight more, and the fights seem to intensify as soon as the youngest becomes a teen. This is so for a gazillion reasons – competition, jealousy, differences in temperament all lead to clashes.

It drives us crazy to hear two kids we love acting so hateful to each other. So we often wade into the middle of the fight to try to stop it with something like this: “Each of you tell me, one at a time, what happened.” The problem is that the minute we step in, the issue totally changes. No matter what the original battle was about, it now becomes a competition to see who can win us to their side. And if we begin to arbitrate like a judge, we promote case pleading on both sides that can be endless. Plus the more often we step in, the more likely our kids are to call for our help – just like Haley and Alex did tonight in each of their squabbles.

What’s a Mom to Do
Usually our kids can resolve their issues in their own way. Their screaming might drive us crazy, but as long as there’s no threat of physical violence or emotional abuse, we can often facilitate this best by staying out of the way. (Claire, thanks for modeling this for us tonight. You were wise to step outside instead of stepping into your daughters’ fights.)

Sometimes, though, the fighting intensifies to the point that we have to step in. Below are some tips for stepping into the fray when you can’t ignore it.

– Separate them. Send the fighters to their own corners for a cooling off period – their own bedrooms or opposite corners of the house will do. Sometimes the space and time apart seems to be all that is needed. But separating them teaches them nothing, so if we want lasting results, we’ll often need to do more.
– Reconvene with them. When things have calmed down, direct the warring parties to another neutral place – for example, the kitchen table. Sit down with them, and listen to both sides without trying to judge who’s right and who’s wrong. Try instead to clarify the problem: “It sounds like you’re mad at Alex because you think she took your socks.” Ask both kids to offer a solution that might work for everybody involved. If they can’t come up with any ideas, suggest a solution. For example, if the teens are fighting over whose clothes belong to whom, you might suggest that they keep their things separate by always hanging them up or putting them in drawers when they’re not being worn. Each might also be responsible for doing their own laundry to further minimize the mix-up.
– Reinforce the family rules. Before you all get up from the table, remind your teens of the rules for fighting fairly. For starters, this should include that nothing physical is allowed – no hitting, pushing, shoving, or hair pulling. No damaging each other’s things. And no name-calling. This is also a good opportunity to ask for your teens’ input on these rules and how they’re enforced.

The BottomLine:
Claire (to the hooker she mistakes for a therapist): I’m just at my wit’s end with these two. (Hopeful) I don’t expect you have any experience with teenagers?

It’s not always the intensity of our kids’ fights that drives us crazy. Sometimes it’s the sheer number of the clashes that give us battle fatigue.

To reduce future fighting…
– Try to be evenhanded. Teens are especially quick to pick-up on preferential treatment. Although our teens may protest whenever they feel slighted, we’re wise not to try to prove them wrong. Because we can’t. In almost every family there’s going to be one child who needs more of something – our time, or attention, or resources. So rather than trying to treat our kids all the same, it’s better to assure our kids that we’ll try to always do our best to give them each what they need.
– Hold family meetings. Get together once a week as a family to give everyone a chance to air grievances and work out solutions together. This is also a good time to praise any negotiating or compromising you’ve noticed during the week. Reinforcing their positive behavior – perhaps even with a tangible reward sometimes – can help with future battles.
– Make time for one-on-ones. It’s never easy to find time alone with each child – and it can be especially difficult in large families. But our kids tend to resent each other less (and squabble less) when they feel that we value them as individuals. When we regularly make time to give each child our undivided attention – with special excursions or a few minutes on a daily bases – we are valuing their individuality and letting them know how important each relationship is to us.
– Model fair fights. Our highest form of influence in our kids’ lives is our day-to-day modeling. And our kids learn a lot about how to deal with disputes by watching and listening to us resolve issues with our spouse. So it’s important that we get it right. (Click here to read more about this in last week’s post. Claire, you too!)

Your Parenting Experiences
Some fights are easier than others for our kids to resolve on their own. What issues tend to require you to step in when your teens squabble?

Sources: Get Out of My Life by Anthony Wolf and webmd.com/parenting

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Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 4, Farm Strong

Everybody Has a Sensitive Side

The Framework
Members from every family “got in-touch with their sensitive side” tonight. Alex begrudges losing to Jay in “Words with Friends.” Gloria has qualms about getting older. Even Claire seems reflective as she thinks back on how her mother never attended any of her things as a kid. But nobody’s sensitivity matched that of Phil or Cam.

Claire and Phil, tired of watching Luke sit on the bench, skip out of his soccer tournament and then become guilt-ridden by their decision. At least Phil did:
I killed a bunch of baby birds. … and now the mom is just staring at me. … None of this would have happened if we’d gone to Luke’s game. … We’re terrible parents for not going.
And later: The universe punished me. I did something awful to a bunch of baby crows.
Manny (listening-in): Actually it’s not a “bunch” of crows. It’s called a “murder.”
Phil: I know what I did!

Meanwhile, Cam’s sister Pameron whirls into town, bringing news of her engagement to Cam’s first boy-crush and the farm family’s drama with her:
The whole family said you wouldn’t take it well. … Everyone knows, Cam. You’re not farm strong. … You’re weak and weepy. That’s why we can never say anything to you because we know you’ll crumble into a big heaping mess.

Pam sets Cam up to become – well … weak and weepy. Cam is right: She can be meaner than a barn owl at sunset.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
We all have a sensitive side – a side that causes us to pay alert attention, that nudges us to think and feel deeply about what we’ve noticed, and makes us vulnerable to feelings of remorse. But some of us are more sensitive than others.

The very name Farm Strong implies that variations in sensitivity come from differences in our growing-up environments. Not long ago most scientists would have agreed. Sensitivity (and temperament in general) was believed to be mostly due to nurture rather than nature. However, years of research data since indicate that a substantial part of who we are is determined by our genes, our brains, and our nervous system. One large study (begun over two decades ago and still going on today) followed kids from infancy through adolescence and into adulthood. Based on a forty-five minute evaluation of four-month-olds, researchers were able to predict whether babies were more likely to turn into sensitive introverts or extroverts. When exposed to things like popping balloons, colorful mobiles, and the scent of alcohol on a cotton swab, about 20% of the babies were highly reactive. They cried loudly and wildly waved their arms and legs. About 40% of the babies stayed quiet and calm. And the remaining 40% landed somewhere in-between. Interestingly, it was the high-reactive babies who were likely to develop into quiet teens with a tendency to be shy, good at schoolwork, watchful, and prone to worry. These tendencies didn’t disappear in adulthood.

BottomLine

Claire (to Luke): You might want to go to the game without us tonight. …
Phil: But it’s totally up to you. Whatever you want. Because we love you very much.
Claire: Right. You can either ride with your teammates like the LA Kings or you can ride with us like Gloria and Grandpa take Joe to play dates. Professional athlete; little poopy baby; your call.
Luke: I’ll get a ride with Max.
Claire: I love that kid!
Phil: Can you imagine how easy our lives would be if it was just him? I mean…
Alex (walking by): I know what you mean.

Some teens, like Alex, are more sensitive to their environment – they seem to see and feel things more. These teens have especially excitable amygdala or emotional brains. But teens in general – regardless of their fundamental temperament – have more excitable emotional brains than the rest of us.

Recently researchers ran a study to compare how adults and teens process social signals. They found that in adults the frontal lobes (their rational brain) and emotional brain work together to make sophisticated judgments when interpreting social signals. Teens on the other hand – especially younger teens – relied heavily on their emotional brains when identifying emotions. They responded with gut reactions to emotional stimuli. And one of the most common mistakes made by teens was to mistake fear or worry for anger.

The bottom line is our teens don’t see what we see when they interpret our interactions with them. They often see anger and aggression when none exists.

So what’s a mom to do?

In the book Anger by Carol Travis there’s a story about a Bengali cobra that provides some clues. The cobra has a nasty habit of biting villagers who cross his path. Finally, a swami – a man who had achieved a high level of enlightenment – convinces the cobra that biting is wrong. The cobra promises to stop biting at once, and does. But, alas, it’s not long before the village boys grow unafraid of the snake and start to abuse it. When the battered snake complains to the swami that this is what keeping his promise has brought him, the swami replies: I told you not to bite. But I did not tell you not to hiss.

Sometimes we moms need to a hiss – to warn or to show our disapproval. We all have areas in our lives that need improving. Really loving someone means you care enough to address these areas. This is especially true with teens. They’re counting on us for guidance. But even when our intentions are good, our guidance isn’t always helpful – instead it creates anger, resentment, and a desire for revenge in our teens. Because our teens mistake our hiss for a bite.

Our teens’ emotional brains are a lot like an exposed tooth root. Even the slightest sensation is exaggerated. So we’re wise to be especially careful to relay our criticism as a hiss meant to help rather than a biting personal attack:
– Helpful criticism is done face-to-face and in private.
– It deals with the specific problem at hand instead of piling on all the things we’re unhappy about.
– And it doesn’t judge or categorize the teen by labeling them. Labeling our teens puts them on the defensive, making them no longer receptive to what we have to say to them.

And when our teens flair-up in anger, we’re at our best if we can minimize the attack on our senses by taking it as a hiss rather than a bite. We may be shaken by their cutting remarks as they challenge a statement or decision we made. And if their words are not acceptable, we need to let them know that. But we also must try to listen to their meaning. And what they’re trying to say is often quite simple: Respect me. My views are important too.

Everybody has a sensitive side – especially teens. But take heart. Those researchers studying how teens process social signals followed the kids for years and found some good news: The teens’ prefrontal regions became more active and their judgments more accurate as they matured.

Your Parenting Experiences
As a baby my daughter was like those high-reactive babies in that study. As a teen she shared some of the traits we see in Alex. My son, on the other hand, was a much calmer baby and easy-going as a teen – more like Luke. What about your teens? Are they more sensitive or more easy-going? Could you have predicted it from their demeanor as a baby?

Sources: Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

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