If you grew up before the arrival of e-mail, texting, social networking, and smartphones, your

understanding of the bullying arena includes playgrounds, school buses, walks home from school, locker rooms, and school hallways.  Bullying has always been painful and shameful.  Any child who has been bullied carries the memories with him, even if he has overcome them. 

Technology has dramatically changed the playing field for how we communicate and interact as a society.  Unfortunately, this includes the playing field of bullying.  No longer is name-calling and shaming limited to the playground and other “physically” public arenas.  Now bullies have public access that is much more far-reaching and potentially more damaging.  This is Cyberbullying.  Bill Belsey, an expert on cyberbulling, defines cyberbullying as: the use of information and communication technologies (e.g., email, text messages, instant messaging, social networking) to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others. 

Cyberbullying is most commonly seen among adolescents.  The developing adolescent brain contributes to the rise of cyberbullying.  The adolescent brain is not fully matured, specifically the frontal lobe which helps to inhibit impulses.  The click of the icon on that smartphone is easy for a teen who is full of emotion, and less full of behavioral inhibition.  With the click of a key on a keypad, reputations can be jeopardized, secrets can be publicized, and children can be broken … by their peers.   The lack of face-to-face interaction provided by technology creates a lack of boundaries for the bully.  There is also a lack of a sense of accountability or consequence.  “If I can’t see you … I can’t see your reaction … I don’t feel empathy.”  There is a disconnect between the individual’s action (the bully’s) and the reaction it elicits (from the victim).  Type it and “click.”  Everyone does it, so it makes it okay … right? 

The content of cyberbullying does not go away once it is dispersed on the internet.  The audience it reaches is immediate and vast.  It is intrusive, lacks censoring, and is unforgiving.  The damage can be devastating.  News headlines about teen suicides related to internet harassment/bullying are not uncommon. 

Just as in “classic” bullying, cyberbullying includes the following cast of characters:

The Bully – aggressive perpetrator against the victim

The Bully-Victim – sometimes the bully, sometimes the victim

The Victim – receiver of aggression

The Bystander – witness to the aggression

Signs of the cyberbullied victim include:  sudden stop in use of the computer, appears nervous when their phone indicates a text or instant message, is angry or depressed after using the computer, anxious about going to school or out socially, avoidance of questions related to the computer or phone interactions, or withdrawn from friends and family.

Signs of the cyberbully include:  closing or switching screens on the computer/phone/tablet when someone walks by, compulsive computer use, upset if cannot use the computer, avoidance of questions about computer/phone/tablet use, and/or multiple on-line accounts.

Some of the ways that parents can help their children who are victimized by cyberbullying include:  Setting up blocks on social networking sites, cellphones, email to prevent the cyberbully’s assaults.  Talk with the victim about not opening messages from the bully.  Contact the child’s school and the bully’s parents.  Check the “terms and conditions” of internet providers, websites, cell phone companies to determine if the language used violates the use of services.  And it may be necessary for the victim to receive professional support through counseling/therapy to help to regain self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth.

Schools are developing cyberbullying policies to help address this issue.  Some ways this is being done is through teaching internet safety, anti-cyberbullying curriculum, mentoring programs, monitoring students at-risk for cyberbullying, investigation procedures, consequences and remedial actions (e.g., zero tolerance policies or graduated consequences), and programs for educating students, parents, teachers and staff about cyberbullying.

The following websites about cyberbullying are helpful resources in understanding cyberbullying and for getting help:

www.cyberbullying.ca
www.stopcyberbullying.org
www.cyberbullying.us

Cyberbullying Curriculums:

www.nasponline.org/resources/cyberbullying/index.aspx  
www.seattleschools.org/area/prevention/cbms.html
http://community.cfchildren.org/home

Technology brings about changes that impact our lives dramatically  -- positively, and, at times, negatively.  The playground of bullying has changed with the ever-changing communication avenues through technology.  Becoming aware of the negative impact helps us to prevent it.

With the beginning of a new school year quickly approaching, many parents are already thinking about some of the not-so-pleasant aspects of school. One of the most common problems that parents discuss with me is the problem they experience with homework.  I often hear comments like, "Why does homework always have to be such a battle?” or "I feel like we are in combat every single night," or "My child has melt-downs every night because homework is such a struggle".  Notice the frequent references to war!  This gives us some idea about how intense this problem is for many families. 

I recently did a Google search for 'homework strategies' which resulted in "about 21,200,000" hits in just 0.18 seconds.  Some titles caught my attention.  Of the dozen or so articles that I opened, most shared some very basic strategies to help kids complete their homework with less complaints.  Some of these basic ideas include the following:

·      Set up a place in the home for your child to complete their homework.  It's best if this area is not right in the midst of family activity, but rather, in a quiet place but within range of parents so that if monitoring is necessary, you will be nearby.

·      Structure and consistency is necessary.  It is important that a routine be established for homework.  There should be a regular time set aside every day for your child to complete homework.  This should be established after consulting the extracurricular activities of the various family members, but once set, should remain consistent.

·      Use of rewards or incentives for homework completion. 

Related to this last point, I would like to add a very simple and powerful suggestion to help you help your child with homework.  In fact, this suggestion is not new at all and has been used as a powerful motivator by parents for years and years.  It is sometimes referred to as the Grandmother's Rule. Urban Dictionary used the following definition: “The general guidelines used by parents, grandparents, and teachers to motivate children towards correct behavior”.   Simply stated, is the idea of First Work, Then Play.  Also known as the Premack Principle, a simple definition provided by Wikipedia states that "any high frequency activity can be used as a reinforcer for any lower frequency activity”.  So, for example, you might say to your child, "Once you finish your homework (low frequency activity) you may have 1/2 hour of screen time (high frequency activity)".  The inverse of this principle is also simple, “If you don't finish your homework, you don't play”.  The trick here is to never waiver and give in to whining, begging, pleading, etc.  By remaining calm and steadfast in your resolve, your message will be clear.  It's at least worth a try.

On a separate but related note, the above discussion assumes an amount of homework appropriate for the child’s age and grade.  It also assumes that the child is able to complete their homework with some level of independence.  When homework challenges rise to a more significant level, it may signal that other factors might be responsible.  A careful evaluation may be needed to determine if there are potential underlying reasons for your child’s struggle with homework.  

Children are beginning the countdown until school is out for summer vacation.  With only a few weeks left, parents often anticipate this time of the year with mixed feelings. On the one hand, summer vacation means a more relaxing time for the whole family, a time free from stressors associated with the school year such as homework, busy schedules, extracurricular activities, after school sports.  On the other hand, parents often worry about how to plan for this long stretch of time and how to keep their child from becoming bored or spending too much time in front of the television or playing computer games.

Summer vacation is a time to recharge.  Many of the students that I see in my practice are especially glad for the summer break due to stress around social relationships, following rules, paying attention, sitting still, and generally working extra hard to accomplish what most of their peers can accomplish with seeming ease. 

Some report to me that they look forward to doing nothing during the summer and just want to “chill out”, sleep late, watch television and play video games, and most of all, to relax. The pressures of the school year are often overwhelming for kids who struggle to learn and fit in.

Yet, as many parents know, it is important to maintain some sort of routine and structure during the summer. Children do better when they know what to predict and what is going to happen next.   A structured summer program is one way to have a ready-made routine and there are many options to choose from, depending on your child’s interests and your budget.  Camp sessions can range from one week long to most of the summer.  There are some camps that are specifically geared toward working with children with special needs and they might include academic support and social skills experiences for part of the day. 

There are many other ways to provide your child with a safe, exciting and fun summer vacation.  Many parents prefer to arrange an individualized summer schedule for their children.  This might include a combination of activities that could consist of daily swim lessons, and in home projects like arts and crafts, cooking, and science experiments.  Trips to a museum, the library, or zoo or amusement park can add extra interest.  Planning activities with friends increases the enjoyment as your child shares his experiences with peers. 

Planning a summer experience for your child can be fun especially if you include your child in some of the decision-making.  It is important to remember that most children do best when they have some sort of routine built into their day.  While free time should definitely be part of your child’s summer experience, some routine and structure will help maintain a balance to the day and your child will be happy to know what is in store for the next day.  

I often get referrals from parents who are confused about the various disorders and diagnoses that they hear about from their child's teacher, other parents, from the professional community or from information learned from surfing the web.  Let's use a frequent example of a parent who calls about their child's delay in learning to read.  The parent wonders whether their child may have Dyslexia or a Learning Disability. Or, perhaps the child has an Auditory Processing Disorder or maybe a Reading Disability.  Since he often becomes frustrated and has a hard time keeping focused on his school work and homework, maybe it's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  Because the child also happens to be extra sensitive to sound, touch and textures, could it be a Sensory Integration Disorder? Added to the mix of confusion is the idea that some children display normal variation and, especially in the early grades (e.g., kindergarten or first grade) are not yet developmentally ready to connect with the reading process.  Often, parents are told that their child just needs more time.  While a "wait-and-see" approach is sometimes a good idea, parents have also heard that the earlier the intervention, the more successful the outcome.  With such confusing and sometimes contradictory messages, it's no wonder that parents don't know where to turn for help.

Confusion, indeed!  There are no manuals or guide books for dummies to help parents muddle through all of this information and, on occasion, misinformation.   I can offer, however, a few general principles to help parents begin the process of getting some help for their child and to feel confident that the help they receive is first-rate.

First, it is important to get a thorough, comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation of your child's abilities.  This will result in a learning profile, identifying strengths and weaknesses and identifying potential underlying causes of your child's difficulties.  Sometimes, the results of such an evaluation will rule out any specific disabilities.  At the conclusion of the diagnostic process, you will be given specific strategies and recommendations to help your child, whether he has been given a formal diagnosis or not. 

When deciding on the professional who will conduct this evaluation, there are several choices.  The evaluation can be completed by your local school district or Intermediate Unit at no cost to you.  Alternatively, it can be completed by a psychologist in independent practice.  Your level of comfort with the professional who will be completing the evaluation of your child is one of the most important factors to consider.  It is perfectly acceptable to speak with the evaluator beforehand and to ask questions about their level of experience with children who exhibit problems similar to your child's.  You might also ask them about their credentials and years in practice.  You can also inquire about the specific tests and procedures that will be used and how to best prepare your child for the evaluation.  You should be able to establish a good working relationship with the evaluator. This will do much toward helping you feel more confident that your questions and concerns about your child will be answered in a responsible and professional way.

Ultimately, if your child is diagnosed with a particular disorder or disability, you should be able to feel confident that the evaluator also considered other competing diagnoses.  He or she should be able to explain the reasoning behind a specific diagnosis of, for example, a Learning Disability, and tell you why it was not a Sensory Integration Disorder or an Auditory Processing Disorder.  The results of the psychoeducational evaluation lay the foundation for the interventions that will be implemented at home and in school.  Therefore, a thorough understanding of your child's learning profile is essential.


 

In our last entry, an overview of Executive Functions was discussed and now, we will give you some ideas for dealing with problems in this area.  Some of the suggestions or strategies might seem like common sense, and they really are the kinds of things many people do every day without thinking.  But as we reported last time, individuals with problems in Executive Functions do not use strategies automatically and so they have to be directly taught specific things they can do.

When young children of Elementary School age have been identified with problems in Executive Functions, it is important to provide as much external support and structure as possible.  External structure is the kind of support that can be provided directly by the significant adults in the child's world, like parents and teachers.  Gradually, as children develop and mature, they should learn to take on the responsibility of using these strategies on their own. 

Practicing the strategies that you want your child to use is essential because through repetition, the skill will eventually become automatic. Young children and adolescents will not spontaneously use strategies on their own without first being taught and then given adequate time for practice.   Think of a time when you were learning a new skill for the first time, say, learning to drive a car.  You might remember that it was very difficult to keep all of the various aspects in mind at the same time and you may have thought that it was almost impossible to remember to look in the rear view mirror, the side view mirror, the road in front of you, while also paying attention to traffic signs, street signs, pedestrians, people on bicycles, poor weather conditions, not to mention other cars!  Most likely, you weren't able to listen to the radio  at the same time and had a hard time following the directions of the person sitting beside you and instructing you.  Now, of course, you don't even think about these things while driving because with practice, it has become totally automatic. 

Here are some ways that you can help your child develop the sorts of skills needed to experience more success: 

For Elementary School Age Children

• Increased structure in the environment or in an activity is important for students.  Try to build in routines for everyday activities. Eventually, the task will become more routine and this will eventually increasing independence.
• Stress doing one thing at a time.  Avoid giving directions with too many parts.
• Use a step-by-step approach to tasks.  Breaking steps into smaller, more structured steps may reduce the sense of being overwhelmed.
• Use checklists to indicate stages of task completion.
• Teach self-monitoring strategies (“What have I left out?”).
• Check your child's understanding of a task by asking him/her to repeat the directions back to you before proceeding with the task.
• Your child may benefit from techniques that use “inner reminders” in situations where attention is important. For example, you might teach your child to use self-talk statements, such as “Sit up straight", "Eyes on the speaker,” “I need to keep looking at the person speaking,” and “I need to write this down.”
• Along the same lines, it is important to teach your child to use self-talk statements to check their work, such as "I need to remember to go back and check my work", "Did I follow the directions?", "Did I use the right procedure"? 

For Students in Middle School and High School, teach your child to....

• Use a written checklist of steps needed to complete a task.
• Use “to do” lists on paper or index cards to develop automatic routines.
• Verbalize a plan when beginning a new activity, homework assignment, or project.  Then, the plan can be broken down into steps, arranged in order.  Parents or teachers can help develop this plan.
• Ask yourself questions, such as, “Do I understand what I am supposed to do?”; “What have I left out?”; “Did I check my work?”
• Pace yourself so you don’t work too quickly or too slowly.
• Know when and how to get help – from friends, books, parents, teachers, etc.
• Predict how well you will do on a particular task, then compare your prediction with your parents or teacher to see how well you actually did.
• Think of things you already know that are like what you are learning.
• Use helpful tools, like writing down information you need to remember; say ideas into a tape recorder.
• Learn from your problem-solving so you can solve future problems.

Remember that learning any new task is difficult at first, and it takes much effort and requires lots of practice.  Once well learned however, it becomes a part of the normal routine and then your child will be better able to perform the task without giving it much thought. 

What exactly are "Executive Functions"?  While this term has been around for awhile, many parents are just hearing about it for the first time when their child is being evaluated for a possible diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 

Executive Functions have been defined as the sorts of skills that are necessary to be, for example, a successful executive or a CEO of an organization.  In order to be successful, these individuals would need to have good skills in such areas as organization, planning, flexibility.  They also must have the ability to initiate tasks and ideas, to monitor their own performance ("How am I doing?"; "Am I on the right track?"), and to be able to shift gears and change directions when they realize that they may be on the wrong track.  Broadly speaking, they need the skills necessary to "make things happen".  This is a skill that requires higher level thinking ability and it is a skill that develops gradually from early childhood to the early adult years.  By the time students are in middle school and certainly by high school, the executive function skills are on their way to being well-developed.  Because of this developing skill, students are increasingly able to handle such advanced school requirements as planning for and completing long range assignments, being able to develop timelines and deciding how to divide the amount of work they have with available time. 

Executive functions also play an increasingly larger role outside of school.  For example, students must begin to understand the relationship between school tasks and how this fits into the larger framework of multiple responsibilities, such as family responsibilities, extracurricular activities, peer relationships, and fulfilling basic needs such as eating and sleeping.  Many students are able to learn how to do this without too much direct instruction and seem to develop this ability implicitly by modeling by their parents, older siblings, extended family members, teachers, coaches, etc.  Some students, in spite of good role models, need more explicit guidance in order to successfully negotiate their varying responsibilities and with a bit more guidance are able to manage adequately.  At the other end of the spectrum, however, are students who experience significant and even extreme difficulty managing tasks of this sort. 

Executive function deficits have a high correlation to those diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  Dr. Russell Barkley, a prominent research psychologist and expert on ADHD discusses executive functions as a set of self-directed actions that help the student achieve some future goal. Students with ADHD experience significant problems with these tasks and  have problems completing even simple tasks and reaching daily goals.  Often, students diagnosed with ADHD cannot manage to bring home material from school needed to complete nightly assignments or they may even forget to write their assignments down.  Lack of organization leads to trouble remembering what materials are needed for which assignment.  Problems in planning lead to an inability to logically follow a procedure even though there have been frequent reminders by parents and teachers.  The overarching problems in self-monitoring and self-regulation are often the culprits.

Help is available!  Even if your child has not been diagnosed with ADHD, he or she may exhibit some of the characteristics associated with weak executive functions.  Stay tuned for Executive Functions – Part 2, where I will talk about some ways to help kids with problems in executive functions.  

Thank you for your interest in Kid Matters, the blog page of Bonnie Socket, Ph.D. & Associates.  Since this first post finds us in the middle of the holiday season, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about holiday stress.  While this is a common topic of discussion at this time of the year, I would like to describe how children experience stress during this busy time.  Too often, young children get caught up in all the hype they experience around them and are bombarded by ads on television, newspapers and the internet, displays at the mall, school festivities, family gatherings, etc.  Children often can't decide what is important to pay attention to and what is not important.  This often leads to a child paying attention to everything and then become overstimulated.  When children are overstimulated, they may react in negative ways, sometimes showing problem behaviors.  For example, these behaviors may include moodiness, sleep problems, restlessness, hyperactivity, anxiety.  It is important to monitor any behavior changes in your children and to try to determine the source of these changes.  If you suspect holiday stress and overstimulation as a possible cause, you may want to try one or more of the following:

1.  In spite of the many and exciting holiday festivities, make sure your child's schedule is as consistent as possible.   Children thrive on routine and knowing what to expect.  They will be able to deal with stress better if their daily schedules remain as predictable as possible.

2.  Good nutrition and exercise are excellent buffers against stress.  Although time is more limited for meal preparation at this time of the year, try to limit prepackaged, convenience food and fast food resturants as much as possible.  Find time for family outings which include exercise.

3.  Arrange to spend some "down time" with your child each day in an activity that is not related to the holidays.  This could include reading a book, playing a board game, working on a craft project, taking a walk together or just having a soothing cup of hot chocolate.

4.  It is helpful when parents are able to manage their own stress.  Children learn by what they see, and if you remain calm and relaxed, your child will probably also be more calm.
 
Let us know what you are doing to help your children deal with the stresses of the holidays.  We'd love to hear from you!    Dr. Bonnie S.