Bernards Voices

Dr. Brad Sachs spoke tonight at Bernards High School on Raising Teens With Love And Acceptance (Despite How Impossible They Can Be).  He clearly has a lot of wisdom, experience, and practical advice for parents.  I can’t do justice to his whole talk here, but others who saw it may want to chime in with their thoughts.

About 100 people attended. During the performance I got one email from a parent that had to stay home with their teen–we know sometimes parenting does get in the way of a good night out. But Dr. Sachs gave us a good night out.

I’m going to focus on 2 slides of the 30 or 40 he showed.

Slide 5 is just 3 points: The Fantasy Teen, The Actual Teen, and The Good Enough Teen.  The fantasy teen is the one the parent starts with in his or her mind.  This teen exists before your child is even born.  It may exist before you even get married.  It is the fantasy child that has the best of all your strengths, and is also strong where you are weak.  The fantasy child is happy, well-adjusted, has great friends.  Is successful on the field and in the classroom, etc.  When the actual child comes along, he or she will dance on the grave of your fantasy child.  This may happen in the first weeks after birth, maybe when the baby doesn’t take to nursing well.  Or it may happen in early adolescence.  But it will happen.  It has to happen.  Then begins the process–the work that the parent and the adolescent do to shape the fantasy child and actual child into the good enough teen.

Slide 7 and the next couple of slides are about grieving.  The adolescent is grieving the loss of their childhood.  All the symptoms of grief (which Dr. Giacalone talked about Tuesday morning) apply.  You don’t get to adulthood without saying goodbye to childhood.  It is a necessary thing.  A healthy thing.  A painful thing.  When the adolescent says “I’m such a loser,” they’re literally saying they’ve lost their childhood.

The parent is also grieving.  The parent is grieving at least for the looming empty nest.

Here is Dr. Sachs presentation.

Dr. Sachs wrapped up on slide 30 with key advice, that we’re hearing in all the talks: LISTEN! Listen to your child.

Other talks asked us to: Listen to our spouse. Listen to ourself.

Dr. Gail Giacalone spoke this morning on grief.  I’ve been seeing Gail for 3 1/2 years, but I learn new things each time I see her. I’ll start with the new for me.

Loss doesn’t just mean death. Divorce, loosing a job, a pet, one’s youth … all involve grief. A person will grieve the same way.

Parents should talk about death with their children.  Starting as early as ten weeks old.  There should be small things, in your everyday life, that can prompt the conversation.  A plant dies in the house.  A gold fish dies.  A pet dies.  Or more significantly … a parent gets sick.  Discuss this with your children.  Talk about life having a beginning and an end.

Pets grieve, too, for their lost owner.

Tears of grief have salt. Tears of joy/laughter have no salt. Listen to your body. Your body won’t lie.

Complicated grief:

• high, ambivalent feelings toward the deceased
• poor resolution of previous loss
• deep-rooted, unresolved business with deceased

Other topics which I’m very experienced with:

• everyone grieves their own way, in their own time (the DSM only allows the bereavement diagnostic code for 3 months)
• healthy ways of moving your grief through: walking, cleaning your closet, swimming, conversation, reading
• 7 stages of grief — but don’t consider this a sequence — shock, volatile emotions, disorientation, guilt, loneliness, relief, re-establishment
• grief, not dealt with, will surface somehow.  physical problems like rheumatoid arthritis, GI track inflammations, cancer … can happen.  Losses not properly grieved for may wait dormant, each new loss piled on top of another … only to be toppled over when kicked by a loss later in life