“Will you come with me to the next meeting?” Another parent has called. “Whenever I get in one of those meetings, I get overwhelmed. I get so upset by what the teacher and principal are saying that I end up not saying all I want to say. I don’t think they really do it on purpose but it seems I can’t get a word in.”

“I’ve got to get my son to a residential program. We just can’t handle his behaviors anymore. The school says it’s not their problem. Their problem is only providing an education. But my wife and I need relief. We want the school to help us find a place where his mental health issues can be managed and his behaviors can be controlled so he can actually learn something.” This dad was at the end of the proverbial rope.

Maybe one of these conversations — or a part of one — sounds familiar. Your child is having difficulty in school. Perhaps he has been diagnosed with ADHD or a learning disability. Maybe she has autism, a developmental disability or a significant behavior problem. You know your child is entitled to additional support but the school doesn’t respond as you had hoped to your requests for services. With every passing month, you know that opportunities to ameliorate the situation are being lost and the behavior may be growing worse or more entrenched. You are frustrated, upset for your child and just upset. What can you do?

While trying to manage a challenging or troubled child, we parents are somehow also expected to know how to navigate the complicated legal and social systems that could provide help. The school is often our first point of entry to getting the extra supports our child needs. But it isn’t easy. Often it’s contentious. We’re rank beginners while the school personnel have knowledge and experience from working with other families. Even when everyone is well-intended, it can feel like a conflicted situation from the start.

Tips for becoming a successful advocate:

• A little understanding goes a long way. Like everyplace else, schools are straining to stay within budgets and to stretch their money the best they can. Yes, we all understand that. But when it’s our own child who is suffering or whose learning is falling behind, it’s hard to stay compassionate. One parent I know was told by a distressed special education director, “If we send your child to a residential school, it means that we may have to let go of a kindergarten teacher next year.” It wasn’t legal or helpful for her to say it. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t the truth. Kids with big needs cost the community big bucks. Services for one child can mean that 20 other kids are in an overcrowded classroom. We do have to advocate well for our children, but it helps us be more collaborative when we can also appreciate the position it puts school officials in.
• Get support for yourself. Joining a parent support group or talking with other parents who have kids with special needs can be both a relief and a help. Some of those parents are way ahead of you in the process. They know the ropes. They can provide you with important factual information and they can give you emotional support when you need it. Many communities also have volunteer and professional advocates who can explain the law to you and go with you to meetings to make sure you get heard and that the school responds as it should. If it’s a paid service, consider whether some money spent now can prevent higher-cost legal help later.
• Know your child’s rights. It’s very important to be conversant with your state’s education laws and the policies of the local school system. That way you won’t waste people’s time by asking for things that you aren’t entitled to. You will be taken more seriously by administrators if you have taken the time to learn and understand what you have to work with.
• Always prepare for meetings. Take along a list of talking points and questions. Your time is valuable. So is the time of the people convened to meet with you. You want to use the time you have as best as you can.
• Always take your partner or a friend with you to meetings. Often there are six or more professionals arrayed around the table. It can be daunting. It’s very difficult to take in everything that is said in a meeting when you are emotionally invested. When you have an ally with you, it’s easier to stay focused and to make sure you cover everything you want to cover.
• Leave younger children at home. Small children aren’t always cooperative when parents need to be focused. If you can’t afford a sitter, ask a neighbor or relative for a child care swap. If you really, truly can’t find someone to take care of your younger child, make sure you bring a snack and something to keep the child busy while you talk.
• Work with the school personnel, not against them. That means being open-minded as they try to find ways to meet both your child’s needs and the needs of the other children they serve. Sometimes there are creative, less expensive ways to provide support beside adding staff or sending a child to an out-of-school placement. Interns from local colleges, some parent participation, or in-home support are options that should at least be explored. There is usually more than one way to help a child be successful.
• Keep your cool. It is never helpful to approach with anger and threats people who have something we need. It only makes the other person defensive and resistant. Keep your sense of humor. If you find yourself reaching the boiling point, end the phone call or meeting before you say something you’ll regret or that may backfire on your child. You don’t want to have school personnel running for cover when you want to talk to them. You want their willing participation in solving your child’s problem.
• When following up, don’t wear out your welcome. Yes, you do need to have regular contact about how your child is doing and whether supports are in place. But if you attempt to micro-manage, school personnel are going to become “deaf” to your requests. Keep calls to a minimum. Always have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish before you call or ask for a meeting. School staff are legitimately busy with often a dozen or more other parents who have equally compelling needs.

Before reaching a tipping point, people often are able to balance known or unknown ADHD challenges with strategies they may not have even realized they were using. They had been able to adapt and cope well with their symptoms. Their symptoms may not have interfered with their functioning, so that they avoided an official ADHD diagnosis.

But for some reason a life change — a job promotion, relationship change, school change, or myriad other things — renders the current strategies ineffective. Over time there is a sense that things are no longer going well and in fact, life seems to be falling apart in a big way.

Here are some life situations that could be possible tipping points::

1. New problems at school.

Often, when higher elementary or middle school hits, students begin unraveling. They experience more responsibility in juggling multiple classrooms, more homework and larger classes. Suddenly it seems like nothing is working anymore. They can’t get things done that they want to get done, everything becomes chaotic, things start to come undone. Their schoolwork starts to suffer; they may have trouble concentrating in class, forget to hand in homework or start to experience difficulties with old friendships.

Often, no one recognizes these warning signs as being ADHD-related because the students previously had managed or were able to compensate for their challenges. Parents and educators start to feel helpless when a previously successful student seems to become unmotivated. Students are told they just need to try harder. Everyone is unsure how to get the child back on track and the students begin to feel stupid, lazy and incapable.

2. Inability to cope after significant life changes.

Some people with ADHD experience their first tipping point after a significant life change, even a positive one such as getting married or moving into a new home. These major life celebrations are anticipated with great joy, but often may be a change that tips the balance. Perhaps you’ve been able to balance your own life and your own schedule and where you put things up until now. But then you get married and now your spouse has a different way of doing things or expectations of the way things should be organized that differ from your views. That’s not to mention having to deal with the extra stuff in your space.

Slowly you notice that things are not working as well as they had before, and because this is supposed to be the happiest time of your life, you think there must be something wrong with you — right? Wrong! Significant life changes such as getting married, having another child or moving homes often can upset an unknown balance.

3. Unable to transition successfully into a new role at work.

Up until your “tipping point” you have been performing really well in your job — so well, in fact, that you are promoted. Slowly you may start to notice that you are not doing this new job as well as everyone expected, and you begin to isolate yourself, dread going to work and may eventually get fired.

What happened? You reached your tipping point. Not because you didn’t deserve the job, but because changes in work often come with changes of staff, support, work space, etc. that throw you off.

4. Change in family dynamics.

If you find yourself with new responsibilities and changes in your family, such as taking in an elderly parent, adding members to your family, or getting a new roommate, the additional responsibilities, change in routine and stress can gradually sink in and leave you overwhelmed and unable to cope as you have previously. It is so easy to begin to think you are a terrible mom, unfit for the responsibilities of a family or that you may be destined to live alone.

It’s not you. You were thrown off-balance, and your ability to compensate for your ADHD with your old routine, structures or systems is no longer working. But instead of seeing the truth, that it isn’t anything you’ve done wrong, or knowing that you can fix this, you’re filled with undeserved guilt and shame.

5. Physical injury.

People often experience their tipping point when an ADHD-management strategy such as exercise decreases or activity level changes. Unbeknownst to many people with ADHD, participation in sports or daily exercise provides some additional dopamine to our brain and helps to create structure and routine in our lives that help to better manage ADHD symptoms.

Tipping points are common for high school athletes who have earned success not only in their sports but academically, only to go off to college and experience failure for the first time. Without the rigorous physical training and structure of high school, they begin slowly to fall apart. Another common tipping point for people with ADHD is when they have experienced an injury and have to decrease their activity or exercise level. This change in routine and absence of daily dopamine boosts can challenge previous steadiness, energy levels and ability to focus. Life begins to wobble.

As you can see, there are many reasons, often beyond your control, that might lead you to your tipping point. A tipping point means that you are at a crossroads. You have a choice which way you will react. You can continue down that path to chaos and overwhelm, or you can get restructured and relearn ways to to cope and get back on track.

Neurobiology of Breaking Habits

Self-destructive behavior patterns, such as addictions, are hard to break because they provide immediate relief. But their aftermath makes people defeated and ashamed, requiring more relief, and the cycle continues. These habitual, compulsive behavior patterns limit new learning and connections in the brain by obstructing opportunities to experience the positive rewards from sustainable, effective coping strategies.

Kaitlyn, 17, was bright, vibrant and charismatic. She was adopted at birth (and knew this all along), then struggled from early childhood with both epilepsy and an unbearable sense of psychological pain and inner isolation she could not articulate.

Kaitlyn’s shame and sense of herself as unlovable had its origins in feeling unwanted and abandoned. She was naturally outspoken, gregarious and likable, but developed an early pattern of self-consciousness and inhibition with peers, driven by fear of rejection. She learned to act according to what she thought friends and boys wanted – anxious to be liked and secure her relationships.

Shame, Rage and Self-Harm

Kaitlyn had a history of self-harm, typically provoked by real or imagined rejection. She harbored a secret fantasy of being hurt and then rescued, and impulses to make her pain visible and have it validated by others. This dynamic was an unconscious attempt to manage overpowering feelings. It brought others close enough so she wasn’t alone, while reassuring her she was still loved.

Shame is a terrible feeling of badness associated with wanting to hide one’s head and disappear. Kaitlyn’s feeling of shame and badness was fueled by episodes of rage at home, confirming her fear that she was a “monster” who drove people away and didn’t deserve love and happiness. Rage can be a defense against intolerable shame, when shame turns into blame and is projected onto others. In this way, the bad feeling is passed on like a hot potato, providing temporary respite from feeing terrible, but propelling the cycle of shame and self-destructive behavior.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and Self-Sabotage

Shame-based self-perceptions that are acted out through self-destructive fantasies and behavior create a self-fulfilling prophecy, providing rigged evidence of badness. Feelings such as worthlessness, badness, and inferiority have various origins in early experience when we are developing a sense of self. These feelings may later be experienced as factual — as if they represent the truth about who we are. When such compartmentalized experiences of oneself remain secret and unarticulated they can lead to unconscious pressure to make this inner “truth” a reality, leading to self-sabotage.

Dysfunctional behavior patterns are habits with psychological, often unconscious, motives. Breaking them requires insight into what function they serve and the discipline to stop them. It also requires courage and initiative to try out new behaviors and allow a different chain of events to occur. On a neurobehavioral level, new behaviors that generate positive feedback create new pathways in the brain, allowing momentum for psychological growth and change.

Kaitlyn had been caught in waves of powerful feelings and a difficult cycle of self-defeating patterns. But she wanted more than anything to be strong, self-respecting and independent and began to use her determination to work toward these positive goals, instead of hurting herself.

Kaitlyn’s first step was talking in family therapy about being secretly drawn to videos about suicide and self-harm on YouTube, especially when feeling sad or alone. She initially feared being judged and was scared that access to the videos would be taken away. However, as she trusted that it was safe to talk about these secrets without being judged and could make her own decision, Kaitlyn was able to evaluate what she wanted to do.

When taking a neutral step back to assess her thoughts and feelings, Kaitlyn recognized that exposing her mind to this content fed her fantasies, pulling her deeper into darkness, and created a cycle of regression which impeded independence and forward motion. Just as she could choose what food to put into her body based on its effect, she could decide whether she wanted to expose her mind to stories and images that made it harder to resist being self-destructive.

Trying Out New Behaviors

With encouragement, Kaitlyn became motivated to try out new ways to comfort herself. Learning better ways to regulate and take charge of her feelings gave Kaitlyn a jumpstart to taking healthy risks in the world.

Kaitlyn enrolled in a Saturday class in public speaking at a local college to develop her confidence. Having had a seizure at home after the first class, she missed the following class. She felt alienated and experienced a familiar sense of herself as defective, followed by the temptation to hide. In therapy she talked about the isolation and sadness she felt.

A week later, right after the next class, Kaitlyn burst with glee into the family therapy session, followed by her mom and dad. Grabbing the feelings list, she began the meeting as always — naming the feelings that fit her state at the moment: “Alive, amazed, confident, exuberant, happy, hopeful, proud,” she said. The excitement was contagious, but we glanced at each other curiously, waiting to find out what changed.

Kaitlyn went on to describe the class. The teacher asked for improvisational introductions by each student. Inspired by another student who made himself vulnerable, Kaitlyn bravely went up in front of the class and spontaneously spoke to her experience with epilepsy, telling her story in public for the first time. Looking around the classroom as she spoke authentically, Kaitlyn noticed people listening and completely engaged. Invigorated, she was fully present and one with herself. Everything felt natural. The class was mesmerized, responding with tears and applause.

Pride – the Antidote to Shame

Kaitlyn could barely contain the exhilaration brought on by this new feeling of pride (the antidote to shame) which emerged from a new experience of herself in relation to others. She took action that transformed her loneliness and alienation into a feeling of mastery and power. But the feeling of pride came not only from challenging herself with something meaningful to her and succeeding, but from something deeper.

Healthy Risk-Taking and Changing Behavior Patterns

Kaitlyn resisted the impulse to hide or pretend that typically escalated her feeling of being alone and ignited a self-destructive cycle. Instead, she took a healthy risk to let herself be seen, acting confidently from a position of strength and self-respect rather than a wish to be rescued.

Kaitlyn’s behavior created an opportunity for interpersonal feedback that challenged her sense of herself as defective and the belief that she could feel connected and affirmed only through pain. The key element here was that this challenge occurred experientially, not intellectually.

Healthy behaviors that foster connection and affirmation from a position of self-acceptance and self-respect offer the possibility of sustainable attachments. Here, Kaitlyn broke the cycle of feeling connected and affirmed only through darkness, potentially releasing herself from a treadmill of pain.

Choosing Happiness over Suffering: the Results

As she basked in the fact that people seemed to not only like her, but respect her and admire her courage, I said, “You see — you don’t have to hurt yourself to get people to see and care about you.” “ I like being happy!” Kaitlyn exclaimed, with a sense of wonder alongside awareness of the irony of this statement. She glance at her dad and they both smiled knowingly, “Who knew?!” her dad piped up in his good-humored way.

Disclaimer: The characters from these vignettes are fictitious. They were derived from a composite of people and events for the purpose of representing real-life situations and psychological dilemmas that occur in families.

A week of fun in the sun can sound innocent enough, but watch some of the videos of the spring break bacchanals on Youtube or the images on TV shows and in the movies and a darker scene emerges. Thousands of young people, most with a drink in their hands and barely dressed, crowd the beaches and bars. They look like they are having the time of their lives. The women are young and beautiful. The men are hot. The music is loud and the dancing is sexy.

Those images suggest that if you’re not getting wasted and having sex on the beach, you’re missing out. Sadly, going along with the hype means that some young people will lose their self-respect, their idea of their futures, and even their lives on what was supposed to be a fun vacation.

Why? Because what goes on in the hot spots for spring break is often far from innocent. According to a 2006 survey by the American Medical Association, 83 percent of the college women and graduates said that spring break involved heavier-than-usual drinking and 74 percent said the partying often ended up with sexual activity.

Large numbers of students reported getting sick from alcohol and having unprotected sex, sex with more than one partner, or group sex. A night of wild, unprotected sex with a stranger or two may sound like an adventure, but for too many it leads to a lifelong disease (like herpes or hepatitis) or an unwanted pregnancy. Alcohol poisoning can result in a trip to the local hospital and an unpleasant, highly dangerous end to the vacation.

In the last few years more and more students have been traveling to Mexico or Jamaica. The State Department estimates that 100,000 will travel out of the country. The beaches are beautiful. The sun is warmer. The drinking age is lower. But the apparently easy availability of drugs adds another element of danger for the American student. What starts with what seems like an innocent buy of some party drug on the beach may end with time in a foreign jail. Mexican jails are particularly unforgiving. Mexican drug cartels are even less so. Penalties for possession in Jamaica are inflexible and harsh.

Why do otherwise sensible, bright young people end up in trouble on what is supposed to be a dream vacation in the spring? Chalk it up to mob psychology, peer pressure, and the mythology that surrounds spring break. It’s hard to be responsible when all around you seem to be letting loose. It’s tough to be the person who stops at one shot when everyone else is downing 10 or to put on a shirt when the rest of the crowd is baring butts and breasts. It’s hard to leave the mob to saunter down the beach and hang out in a beach chair with the old folks who have fled to a less popular (but still warm) spot. And who wants to be the only one who doesn’t have great stories of unbridled partying when you get home? Partying is what the spring break is all about, isn’t it? Or is it?

It really isn’t a rule that to have a complete college experience, a student has to engage in irresponsible and dangerous behavior during spring break. In fact, despite the scenes on MTV and Youtube, it isn’t even the norm. Participants in a 2009 study of students’ motivations for going on spring break that was done at Penn State showed that most didn’t go to get wasted or to have uninhibited sex. Most students, in fact, reported that they go to vacation spots simply to get away from the usual routine of school, to have a relaxed vacation, to spend time with friends and family or just because they have nowhere else to spend the week their schools shut down.

Safety Tips from Students Who Have Been There

Tips from students who have gone on spring break and had a good time without getting into trouble sound terribly like what any good parent will tell you. Don’t let that stop you from taking care of yourself.

1. Tell your parents or other people at home where you are going, who you’ll be with, and when to expect you back. Let them know how to reach you if necessary. Stay in touch to let them know you’re okay. They will worry less. You will be safer. Hopefully you won’t be one of those who drop out of sight. But if you are, it’s important that someone knows where you were supposed to be and who was with you.
2. Use the buddy system. When you are in a bar or in a partying crowd, take care of each other. Don’t let yourselves get separated.
3. Don’t go anywhere with strangers. No exceptions. See number 2. If you meet up with people who want to show you the town or take you to their homes, don’t.
4. Be aware of your surroundings. Take a moment to assess the scene and to decide if it’s where you really want to be. Know where the exits are. Don’t let yourself get isolated.
5. Know the local laws, especially if you are traveling outside the U.S.
6. Don’t drink to the point that you’re out of control. Don’t drink anything given to you by someone you don’t know.
7. Stay hydrated. Alcohol and sun are a bad mix that can result in dehydration and sun poisoning. Use sunscreen and drink plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated. (No, beer doesn’t count for hydrating.)
8. Be firm and clear about boundaries. Stay out of situations where your intentions about sex can be misunderstood.
9. Don’t have unprotected sex or do anything sexual that is against your own moral principles. When you get home, you’ll still be with the you that was there.
10. Don’t carry all your money. Keep your return ticket and some cash in the hotel safe so you are certain you can get home.

And, yes, have fun. Just use the good sense you were born with while you do it and you’ll go home with a nice tan and no regrets.

This is Pepperdine University Professor of Psychology and private practitioner Cozolino’s fourth “Neuroscience of” book, following The Neuroscience of Pscyhotherapy’s first and second editions (2002, 2010, Norton) and The Neuroscience of Human Relationships (2006, Norton). The Social Neuroscience of Education shares the most current neurological and sociological intelligence about creating classrooms that offer and reward emotional empowerment, where brains are “turned on” so that students can connect and enjoy learning. And just as important as turning on students’ brains, Cozolino points out, is supporting educators: Attachment learning provides the same fertile foundation to excite and challenge teachers.

The book falls into four sections: the evolution of our brain and its relevance to relationships, how to turn brains off, how to turn brains on, and how to apply the concepts of social neuroscience in the classroom. Throughout, Cozolino cites scientific evidence, anecdotal narratives, and the wisdom of the ages through short, relevant quotes that help clarify the hefty propositions he presents to readers.

Page after page, his research returns the same finding: that how we socialize affects how we learn. It’s buttressed by the study of evolution, which teaches us that we forever adapt and re-adapt to an ever-changing world. It’s also supported by our understanding of neurology. As Cozolino writes, “We have an estimated 100 billion neurons with between 10 and 10,00 connections each, creating limitless networking possibilities.” These neurotransmitters form synaptic connections and combine new learning with our existing memory. Recent research confirms that, in humans, new neurons reshape, rather than replace, networks containing existing knowledge.

“In other words, instead of being replaced by new neurons as they are in many other animals,” the author explains, “existing neurons are preserved, modified, and expanded in ways that support the retention of memory, deepen existing skills, and further the development of expert knowledge.” Thus, as we grow, live, and learn, we have the capacity to change, to create new memories while holding on to the truths that form the essence of ourselves.

Because of this, we need not be defined solely and for a lifetime by our earliest experiences. In fact, educators who take a special interest in at-risk children and who are supported by school administrators and curricula are able to improve the students’ emotional and cognitive learning. Supportive and encouraging classroom environments can stimulate, enhance, and rewrite emotional communication and brain development, Cozolino tells us.

I’m comforted to learn I can line my daughters’ and even their daughters’ minds with reassuring feelings that remain with them, knowing that the social brain has the flexibility to inherit new emotional connections while holding on to old ones as well.

Cozolino points out, however, that his theory works both ways. Currently, educational models and classroom environments are turning brains off at an alarming rate. From student fear to teacher burnout, the endless ways emotion and socializing alter the success of both students and educators is evident in the increasingly poor perception of public schools as well as rocketing dropout rates. In countless schools across the country, teacher burnout is considered inevitable, given the sheer number of at-risk students entering the classroom. Educators facing unrelenting stress have poorer health. Lack of sleep and absenteeism in turn lessens quality of life, dedication to the classroom, and student tolerance and performance.

But, says Cozolino, count on a Jewish proverb to address such issues: “One mother can achieve more than a hundred teachers.” The human touch, those healthy and secure attachments found in loving homes, are the chicken soup ingredients of a successful classroom as well. In one situation after the next, Cozolino conveys how caring parents or caring educators are fundamental to the healthy emotional communication required for learning — an ability hard-wired into our brains if it’s tapped.

Educator Marva Collins is one example of what happens with “unteachable” students when teacher burnout is no longer present. In the 1970s, out of sheer frustration with the Chicago’s public school system, Collins started a charter school for children considered unteachable. According to Cozolino,

“Ms. Collins’s message is as simple as it is profound: There are no miracles in successful education…. She recognizes the devastating effects of shame, rejection, and isolation reflected in the faces of the students who came to her for help. Her antidote to shame is love and total dedication to each student. Her philosophy of education is grounded in compassion, and an appreciation of the total child.”

Collins also supports physical contact, Cozolino tells us, from hand-holding to hugs, turning the classroom into the ideal nurturing family environment filled with positive support.  “Although the brain is not a muscle,” the author writes, “it responds like a muscle by growing when stimulated and shrinking when unstimulated.”

The book concludes with an emphasis on emotional security. A quote from Lao Tzu — “Being loved gives you strength, loving someone gives you courage” — speaks to the benefits of a caring environment where attachment-based thinking allows students and educators to thrive without fear, shame, or bullying. Ultimately, successful learning resides in humanity and in the hearts of parents and educators who allow students to blossom into curious and creative minds. These students in turn become the mothers, fathers, and educators who can make our world a place where the quest to learn turns into a lifelong ambition paid forward. Its benefits, Cozolino says, are abundant and enduring.

The Social Neuroscience of Education:  Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom
W. W. Norton & Company, January, 2013
Hardcover, 440 pages
$37.50

Dr. Pennebaker, psychology department chair at the University of Texas at Austin, has made his mark on social psychology in the last 30 years. His latest book, The Secret Life of Pronouns, is a treasure map to his most recent research.

Though first interested in content words (which have inherent meaning, such as “old” or “woman”), Pennebaker and his team soon realized that function words (which connect and organize content words) were far more prevalent, accounting for 55 percent of our words. Pronouns — I, she, it — are the most obvious function words. Other word categories important for their function, rather than meaning, include articles, negations, and quantifiers.

Without statistics and a computer, picking up the subtle nuances of language is difficult. Luckily, the team has both. Each chapter discusses different studies conducted to analyze function words in different contexts, which revealed the relationships between pronouns and poets, presidents, and the public.

As Pennebaker puts it:

Our emotions influence our thinking, which is reflected in the ways we use function words. By extension, function words can give us a sense of how other people are thinking and feeling. They also serve as public announcements alerting others to our own emotional states, our thinking patterns, and where we are paying attention (p. 130).

The chapter on personality and pronouns was especially interesting. The researchers used the idea of a projective test, in which people are thought to project aspects of their unconscious onto a picture they are describing. (Think of the infamous Rorschach inkblots.) Though helpful for understanding people in therapy, most psychologists dismiss these tests beyond that, because they are impossible to score objectively.

In Pennebaker’s experiment, subjects were asked to describe a photograph of a water bottle. The twist came when Pennebaker ran these descriptions through his word analysis program. Distinct personality traits emerged that correlated to the way people described the bottle. For example, among college students who described the bottle, those who focused on light and shadow made higher grades, attended more art shows, played computer games, and enjoyed vacuuming.

Pennebaker’s book is accessible to casual readers and stimulating for highly educated readers. Psychologists will be a bit bogged down by descriptions of basic concepts such as the Rorschach test and Freudian slips, but will enjoy the flow of the chapters, which together form a much more comprehensive picture than a single study. Pennebaker ties together strings of years of research and seemingly unrelated findings under headings such as The Words of Age, Sex, and Power and Lying Words.

Regardless of background in psychology, the book is fun to read for the new awareness of words it creates. Pennebaker equips the audience with practical ways to understand the language swirling around them. He instructs readers to put the book down and visit his website, to try a mini-version of an experiment he’s done. He discusses how he felt when he analyzed his own emails and discovered inherent status hierarchies embedded in his writing, and points readers to the same word analysis program. Never too lofty or caught up in abstractions, Pennebaker constantly gives concrete applications. The end of the book includes “A Handy Guide for Spotting and Interpreting Function Words in the Wild.”

I felt like a language ninja after I finished reading: aware of pronouns, word usage and speech patterns that no one else could detect. Everyone from statisticians to beauticians will enjoy becoming “word sleuths.” This is real research that’s as fun as pop psychology.

If you’re interested in Shakespeare, Carroll, the tweets of Paris Hilton, the Federalist Papers, clues to deception, campaign speeches, psycholinguistics, or anything in between, this book is for you. Find it at an online bookseller for $20, and begin your foray into the secret life of pronouns.

He’d get stuck sitting in one particular chair, hunched over with his head in his hands for hours at a time, was tied to the clock for all activities of daily living, and totally isolated himself from his friends and peers.

I’ve always found it amazing that even though things were this difficult for him the last few weeks of his freshman year in college, he still attended classes and managed to successfully complete the semester.

After connecting with many OCD sufferers over the last few years, I’ve come to realize that Dan’s ability to continue on with his life is not that unusual. Of course, everyone’s circumstances are unique, but it seems to me that many people who suffer from severe OCD still get up in the morning and either go to school, work, or run a household. They are incredibly brave, doing this while often dealing with nonstop obsessions and hours and hours of compulsions. And while they may seem okay to the outside world, inside they are truly tormented.

How can those with OCD be so debilitated and yet so “functional?”

OCD sufferers know their obsessions and compulsions aren’t rational; they just can’t control them. Couple this with the very real stigma that still exists around obsessive-compulsive disorder and you have people who live in fear of being “found out.” A mom with OCD who has harming obsessions may be terrified that her children will be taken away from her if her OCD is discovered. Someone else may be afraid of losing his or her job. These are just two examples of why those with OCD may use every ounce of energy they have to appear “normal.” While outwardly they may be smiling, inwardly they are tortured.

There’s Little Benefit in Hiding OCD

Unfortunately, hiding OCD rarely benefits anyone. Something as basic as receiving a proper diagnosis and treatment is delayed if the sufferer does not seek help or is not honest with his or her therapist. A diagnosis of OCD involves the disorder causing significant disruption in the sufferer’s life. If a person gets up and goes to work, or fulfills whatever his or her daily obligations might be, then the consensus might be that his or her mental health issues can’t be “that bad.” Indeed, the sufferer may believe that also. “If I can work (or go to school, or run a household), I must be okay.” But being able to function does not mean that your life is not significantly affected. And so valuable time that could be used working toward recovery is spent suffering instead.

Another drawback of keeping severe OCD a secret is that it perpetuates the misconception that it is a “cute, quirky disorder.” While inaccurate media portrayals definitely play a role in this misunderstanding of OCD, the fact that so many of those with the disorder mask their suffering so well might also be a factor. Even if an OCD sufferer’s compulsions are visible to others (a need for symmetry at work, for example), what is obvious is their odd behavior, not the depth of their pain.

Additionally, for those seeking accommodations either at school or in the workplace, the belief that OCD is “no big deal” can be a roadblock to receiving the assistance for which you are entitled. Dan experienced this firsthand when the academic resource director at his school remarked at how well he seemed to be functioning. Why should he need any accommodations?

While I believe we have made some headway in reducing the stigma associated with all mental illness, we still have so far to go. If people feel the need to hide their disorder, then we obviously still have a lot of work to do. We have to continue advocating for OCD awareness and spread the word as to what OCD really is and is not. Also, we need to remember that things are not always what they seem. Your smiling co-worker may actually be severely debilitated by obsessive-compulsive disorder; you’d just never know it by looking at him or her.

Online opportunities for learning and for earning college degrees have become pervasive in the last 10 years. Most two- and four-year colleges now offer online options. For-profit colleges that exist solely online now offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Consortiums such as Coursera, a tech company that partners with universities worldwide, offer non-degree oriented, free classes for people who simply want to learn new things. This is a sea change in education.

And yet… Only 50 percent of students who register for online classes succeed. (This is compared to an average of 70 percent of students in traditional campus classes.) It’s not because those who fail aren’t smart. It’s not because they don’t have good intentions. Research has identified factors that have more to do with a student’s psychology than intelligence. My own experience as a teacher of online classes leads me to the same conclusion.

If you are considering taking online courses and want to be in the 50 percent who make it through (and with good grades), here are at least some of the variables that make a difference:

Be realistic about what you are taking on.

There seems to be a myth among at least some students that online classes are easier than campus classes. Generally they aren’t. You are signing on to wrestle with new material, to master new skills, or to increase your own knowledge base. A good online class will be as challenging as any course you’ve taken in a brick building.

Be realistic about your reality.

Most online students are adults with adult lives. That means families, jobs, and complicated schedules. Be sure you really have the time and energy to put eight to 10 hours a week into reading, researching and responding. Often the students who have had to drop my class have found it overwhelming to fit class work into already over-stressed lives. One man who did very well for the first few weeks found to his dismay that he had underestimated the effect of a new baby in the house. The needs of the baby and his need for sleep overwhelmed his ability to focus on the class.

Whatever your good intentions and optimism, there are only so many hours in a day and you only have so much energy. Before writing the check to take a class, be sure you can fit it into your schedule.

Be realistic about your own motivation and maturity.

Online learning requires that you “show up” and show up regularly. Often you will be responsible for making submissions that other students need in order to keep a discussion going. Since there is no set time to participate in class, it’s easy to let a day or two or four go by because of other obligations. That’s a setup for failure.

More than a few of my students have fallen by the wayside due to major issues with procrastination. If you procrastinate and get behind, it becomes harder and harder to get caught up. If you are irresponsible about doing your share of group work or getting assignments done on time, you risk alienating your classmates and annoying your teacher, who doesn’t have the time or the responsibility to chase you.

Be realistic about your time management skills.

Succeeding online means logging in every day or at least 5 days a week. It means doing the reading so you can do the assessments and assignments. It means taking the time to participate in the class discussions. Students in my classes who succeed treat the online course very much like a part-time job. They set aside regular, predictable time to do the work. They keep a calendar to make sure they meet deadlines and immediately do makeup work if they had to be “absent” for a day.

Be realistic about your willingness to engage with others.

Ironically, your professor and classmates will get to know you online at least as well, and often better, than if you were sitting together in class. Campus students can be virtually invisible by not volunteering in class. Online learning requires that you be out there, visible and engaged. Success comes to those who post regularly, who show that they have thought hard about the readings, and who contribute novel and interesting ideas to discussions.

Success also comes from encouraging others, from asking good questions, and from being willing to be challenged. When people engage in discussions without attacking others and without being defensive about their own contributions, discussions can be very rich and meaningful. One of my classes only requires three posts a week. The students who do best in terms of mastering the material are often showing up 10 – 12 times, sometimes with just a word or two of encouragement for a classmate, sometimes with a new insight into the material, sometimes with an anecdote from their own life that highlights something we’re talking about. These are the students who breathe life into the class. Often they are also the students who truly master the course.

Be realistic about your skill with words.

For now, at least, online learning generally requires communicating well in writing. “Discussions” are all by posts. Group work is through written chats within the class. Your words represent you. Poor grammar, spelling mistakes, rambling prose, or confusing paragraphs will get in the way of success, no matter how good your ideas may be. Teachers and peers don’t have the energy and patience to decipher your meaning. If you aren’t confident about your ability to communicate well in writing, it would be wise to get a tutor to help you hone your skills before tackling a course online. Another option is to first take an online course in expository writing.

Be realistic about your skill on a computer.

If you aren’t a reasonably competent typist, if you don’t know your way around Word or have difficulty learning how to navigate a platform, you’ll quickly become frustrated with the whole enterprise. Frustrated people tend to get anxious and annoyed. Often they fall behind and then get so discouraged they drop out. And please: Don’t do as one of my students did and ask your mother to do your typing. He often lost points because she didn’t have time to be his typist when he had deadlines. More to the point, it made me question who was really writing the responses.

It’s a new world. I fully expect that the boundaries between campus and online learning will continue to blur as an inevitable outcome of technological advances. The best online students are those who find it exciting to be on the cutting edge of change and who engage in class with curiosity and enthusiasm. As for me, I thoroughly enjoy getting to know my online students and watching them stretch and grow through their interactions with the materials and with the class.

Whoever made up that rhyme is just plain wrong. Consider these comments from letters to Psych Central’s “Ask the Therapist” column:

• “My folks just tell me that I’m fat and stupid. They’re always telling me I’m no good.” –14-year-old girl
• “No matter what I do, my parents criticize me. I get good grades. I help out at home. My girlfriend is polite to them. But I can never do things enough right for them.” –17-year-old boy
• “Both my parents yell at me all the time. I try to stand up for myself but it only makes it worse. They say they wish I’d never been born.” – 11-year-old girl
• “I think my mom is depressed. She stays in bed all the time. She expects me to clean house, cook dinner every night, take care of my little sister, and bring her whatever she wants. She’s not a bit grateful. Actually, she complains about me to my grandmother and to my dad. Then they yell at me too. I don’t think I can take it much longer.” – 16-year-old boy

The anguish and bewilderment in these kids’ voices is heartbreaking. Some of the letters are laced with anger. Most are testaments to the pain of feeling unloved by the very people who the whole world tells you should love you — your parents and extended family.

The teens who write are essentially good kids who are doing all they can to do okay in school and contribute at home. They try to please their folks. They often do far more in the way of housework and child care than is reasonable to expect. All they want is for their folks to love them but all indications are they don’t. These kids want an explanation. They want to make it right. They wish and hope and dream that there is something they can do to make it different.

Sadly, there’s probably not a thing they can do to make loving parents out of angry and inadequate adults. Their parents are too caught up in their personal pain or too unloved themselves to comfort and nurture their kids.

If you relate to the kids in the beginning of this article, know that you are not alone. It’s not fair that you need to take charge of your own life so young. But constantly thinking about the unfairness will only keep you stuck and hurting. A better use of the energy that is born of anger and disappointment is to use it to fuel efforts to move on. The teen years do not last forever and there is much you can do to set yourself up for a happier present and more promising future.

Don’t add self-abuse to your parents’ abuse.

Cutting, isolating, failing in everything you do, abusing drugs and alcohol and attempting suicide may seem like reasonable responses to pain. But none of these tactics are likely to make you feel better or impress unloving parents. Although hurting yourself may provide a temporary distraction or relief, it won’t make your life better. Not loving yourself won’t help you find love.

Take it seriously but not personally.

It’s really hard not to take things personally when you’re the person being attacked. But when parents don’t love their kids, it’s usually not about the kids. Usually the parents have mental health issues of their own. Sometimes there is a family secret around the child’s birth (like a rape or grandparents’ disapproval) and the child gets scapegoated. Sometimes parents got so little nurturing themselves as children they haven’t a clue how to be good parents.

Whatever the case, it’s important that you refuse to accept your parents’ opinions. They are not an accurate assessment of your worth, lovability, intelligence, appearance, or potential. They are a reflection of your parents’ inadequacy.

Drop your end of the tug of war.

When parents are inadequate, yelling, arguing, debating, and defending yourself go nowhere. It only frustrates you and makes your parents more angry. In some cases, it fans the flames to the point where the parent gets violent. Give it up. You’re not going to change who they are or how they treat you. You don’t need to hear whatever they say when you get into a fight with them.

Develop a life outside of your home.

When home isn’t a place you want to go home to, it’s essential to find other places where you feel safe, supported, and seen for who you are. Join up with an organization, team or cause or get an evening and weekend job where you can hang out, where you can make a contribution, and where you can find friends and adult mentors who appreciate you. The best antidote for feeling bad about yourself at home is to feel very good about yourself in the larger world.

Be open to other older people who are ready to love you.

Some people aren’t born to the right family. They have to make one. When an older relative, a teacher, a friend’s parents, or a coach offer to mentor you, follow up. Invest some time in getting to know them. These people can give you some of the wisdom and support your own parents can’t give you. Some of these relationships can evolve into lifelong friendships.

Prepare for independence.

It may not be fair, but it’s important to be real. Unloving parents aren’t going to prepare you for independence. They’re just going to be glad when you move out. It falls on you to learn the skills you need to know to survive out there on your own. Make a list of what you need to know how to do, from doing your own laundry to managing money, and set out to learn how to do it. Get a job and start putting money away so you can rent a place of your own the day you graduate from high school. Get good grades and ask your school counselor to help you identify scholarships so you can go away to college.

Report.

If your parents move beyond criticism and belittling words to physical or sexual abuse, report to the local authorities and get yourself out of there. Talk to your school counselor or your doctor or the local children’s services department. Yes, it’s hard to give up on your family. But it can take years to recover from chronic abuse. You deserve better — even if your parents don’t think you do.

In this, his latest book, Elmore offers the culmination of his experience to advise parents, teachers, and leaders on how they too can empower the current generation of young people to become authentic adults and develop more than just an “artificial” maturity. Yet despite his decades in the field, Elmore may not be as reliable a guru as he’d have us believe.

To define the current generation, Elmore has coined the term “Generation iY,” which he explains as follows:

Because of the ubiquitous technology available on our phones and at our fingertips, we are raising, not Generation Y, but Generation iY. They have grown up online and have been influenced by the ‘iWorld.’ … In short, the artificial maturity dilemma can be described this way:

1. Children are overexposed to information, far earlier than they’re ready.
2. Children are underexposed to real-life experiences for later than they’re ready.

This overexposure-underexposure produces artificial maturity. It’s a new kind of fool’s gold. It looks so real because kids know so much, but it’s virtual because they have experienced so little.

This is the starting point of Elmore’s book, as he argues that today’s young adults have been denied the opportunities to truly develop their own personalities due to the perfect storm of spending too much time in the “virtual world” of technology, an increased dependency on prescription drugs, and being overprotected by their parents.

Elmore then summarizes four key areas to respond to this issue:

1. Provide autonomy and responsibility simultaneously.
2. Provide information and accountability simultaneously.
3. Provide experiences to accompany their technology-savvy lifestyles.
4. Provide community service opportunities to balance their self-service time.

These certainly make sense, and over the rest of the book Elmore offers a number of tips and techniques that can be used as interventions when working with these young adults. Every chapter is summarized in concise “Chapter In A Nutshell” segments. Elmore also provides “Talk It Over” suggestions, to encourage discussion over some of his suggestions, as well as real-life examples of “Exercises for Maturing Kids,” where various contributors offer their own stories and share what worked for them.

There is undoubtedly a lot of useful information in this book, and parents who are keen to see their children develop into “authentic” leaders may glean a great deal from Elmore’s wisdom. Many of the techniques and suggestions here could be applied to a variety of situations, rendering the book a potentially useful reference tool for those who regularly work with young people and are looking for a little help in how to control or guide them. Still, Elmore’s perspective is a narrow one.

One such example comes when he reminds us of the importance of using technology to involve young adults in activities and encourage them to work together. Unlike some social commentators, the author does not believe that Facebook, iPhones, and video games are the root of all evil; rather, that they are wonderful tools that need to be used appropriately and in the right measure. Elmore shares a story to illustrate this point:

“When faculty and staff at Conlee Elementary School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, started having students do five minutes of Just Dance (an active video game for Nintendo’s Wii) at the start of each new day, they noticed a trend: tardiness went down. Kids began getting to school on time. What’s more, they got some exercise every day playing the game. Students love it. Teachers love that they’re now engaged. Not a bad trade-off.”

This story may be true, but it’s also quite simplistic. Elmore doesn’t acknowledge the fact that enticing kids into school with a video game could in fact be seen as bribery, or indeed pandering to what the children want. And there are several occasions in the book where he suggests something that might seem to be simple common sense, but could equally be interpreted as patronizing, or condescending. He writes:

We all know that people need to find a career in an area of their personal strengths. When this happens, we come alive. We deepen our passion and tend to become the best versions of ourselves. I am suggesting, however, that before students take that plunge they may be served well to do something outside of that ‘fun’ area in order to build discipline:

• Waiting tables at a restaurant
• Inputting data in a computer program
• Washing and detailing cars
• Filing folders or shipping products
• Cleaning offices and restrooms

What Elmore is clearly saying here is that humility is important, and that we shouldn’t allow our young adults to become too self-serving or narcissistic, or to allow their egos to get out of control.  This is obvious. But I’m not convinced that cleaning restrooms, washing cars, or waiting tables is a fundamentally worthwhile activity for anyone, no matter how much of a character-building exercise it might seem.

Furthermore, the author doesn’t look into some of the systemic problems that often prevent our young people from moving into the careers they desire, or the hurdles along their journeys toward trying to achieve their own goals and dreams. It’s easy to point the finger at “Generation iY” and blame them for all of their flaws and foibles, but what about the society that puts them in that situation in the first place?

“This is actually a book of hope. I love kids,” Elmore says in his introduction. But much of the book comes across as being genuinely skeptical about the ability of young adults to make informed decisions of their own, and can as a result seem rather pessimistic and cynical. Headings such as “What the Next Generation Needs Most” left me feeling uncomfortable, almost as though Elmore were trying to dictate a cure-all panacea for everyone to follow, without pausing to think about what young people’s wishes might be, or whether he might have his own agenda.

The book does have plenty of commonsense tips and techniques, plus a large helping of real-life experience and information that could be put to use when working with young adults.

But I was ultimately left feeling that the world would be a much duller, less vibrant place if every child were raised to become the kind of carbon copy “authentic adult” Elmore has in mind. I have faith that the children of today can become the successful and independent young adults of tomorrow. But I believe they can get there of their own accord, using their own unique skills and abilities — and that they’ll be able to do it without cleaning toilets.

Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults
Jossey-Bass, 2012
Hardback, 272 pages
$24.95

When my three children were young, we homeschooled off and on throughout the elementary school years. My son Dan, in particular, loved the freedom of being able to explore his interests as he pleased. He continued homeschooling throughout high school, and received his diploma from a nontraditional school that works with homeschoolers. Always bright and self-motivated, he was truly born to homeschool. He has since graduated college.

His diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder didn’t come until after he graduated high school, and while he had known something was wrong for “a while,” his father and I didn’t have a clue. So the decision to homeschool, on our part, had nothing to do with the fact that Dan has OCD. From Dan’s point of view, it was how he learned best. He did give high school a try for a few months in ninth grade, but decided to leave so he could “continue his education.” Whether his OCD played a part in that decision or not, I don’t really know. But I do know that Dan genuinely loves learning, and he and homeschooling were a great fit.

Over the years, I’ve noticed, mostly from talking with people and reading blogs, that a considerable number of children with OCD are homeschooling. This is a totally unscientific observation; I don’t have any statistics. But I do have a question: Why? No doubt everyone has their own reasons, but some possible explanations might include:

• OCD often is associated with above-average intelligence, as well as creativity, and these two attributes do not always mesh well with traditional schooling.
• The school is unable or unwilling to meet the child’s special needs (even though they are legally bound to do so).
• The child refuses to attend school. This might be directly related to the OCD (for example, he or she may believe the school is contaminated), or indirectly related (the child is being bullied because of his or her odd behaviors).
• The child is willing to attend school but parents feel it is advantageous (in reference to OCD) to keep the child home.
• The parents or child believe homeschooling is the best way for this particular child to learn (independent of any issues with OCD).

I believe in homeschooling. While I know it’s not for everyone, it can be a rewarding experience for parents and children who undertake it for the right reasons.

But if your child has left school or has never attended solely because he or she has obsessive-compulsive disorder, it may be a good idea to reevaluate the situation. It’s true that school might be a fervent breeding ground for OCD triggers, but is avoiding it the right thing to do?

To complicate matters more, for those also dealing with social anxiety and perfectionism, school can be torturous. I know it’s easy to say “avoidance is never the answer,” but when you have a child who is terrified of going to school, what do you do? Sometimes, could it be that avoiding certain situations is the right thing to do?

As with everything related to OCD, there are no easy answers. Parents, therapists, teachers, and students all need to become as educated as possible about the disorder. If it’s decided the child will attend school, the appropriate support network should be put in place. Of course, a support system is also necessary if the child is homeschooling.

Either way, the child must receive proper treatment. Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy, the frontline treatment for OCD, is actually based on facing one’s fears, and is therefore the opposite of avoidance. So the actual location of the battleground (school or home) isn’t so important. What matters is that the war against OCD is faced head-on.

They aren’t feeling motivated to study. They don’t like their classes or they like their classes okay but still can’t find the time or energy to do the assignments. They sleep through their alarm clock. Even if they do get to class, they nod off or forget to take notes. They report feeling anxious or depressed or overwhelmed or sick or just all-around miserable.

Why, they ask, are they in school? What’s the point?

There are times that asking a question implies the answer. If you wonder if it would be a good idea to take time out from school, you probably already know the answer. You know you aren’t being the student you could be. You know you are wasting a substantial amount of money. You wish you could find the motivation and ambition you once had but now clearly don’t. It’s probably time to take time out.

Taking a break doesn’t have to mean you are giving up. A break is just that – a break. Sometimes there are good and respectable reasons for taking a year or two or more away from academics. College won’t go away. Your credits usually won’t evaporate. Going home doesn’t mean you are stupid or inadequate or crazy. There just may be other priorities or other issues that make leaving school a smarter, wiser idea than staying in.

5 Good Reasons to Take a Break

• When you’re not sure why you’re there. College these days is an enormous financial investment. If you don’t have clear goals, it’s reasonable to ask yourself why you are taking loans and using up your parents’ savings to be there. A “gap year” program or a couple of years of work experience might help you set clearer goals for yourself, including your goals for your schooling.
• When you find you’re unprepared for higher-level work. Sadly, not every high school adequately prepares its students for college-level work. Even if you got all As you may not have the education you need to compete at the college level. If you find the work too challenging, it may well be that the problem isn’t your IQ. You may not have the fundamental information and skills needed to understand the material or to express yourself adequately in writing. If that’s the case, it makes sense to take time out to take some remedial classes at your local community college or to get a tutor to bring you up to speed.
• When a family crisis distracts you. Some people are able to compartmentalize their life at school from their life at home. But many more can’t. If someone you love is fighting cancer; if your parents are going through a divorce or are in some other crisis themselves; if one of your siblings is in serious trouble or ill or a much-loved relative has recently died, you may find it difficult to concentrate on classes and assignments. It might be better to go home than to be constantly distracted by worry or overwhelming feelings of loss. Feeling helpless to help or feeling guilty for being away isn’t going to do much for your GPA. Take a semester to put things in order or to feel like you’ve done what you could and you’ll do much better when you return.
• When you are making a major life decision. Big decisions sometimes need all of our attention, not a distracted part of it. The decision to marry or to break up, the decision to change your major when you’ve already invested three years, the decision to leave school and to take a big opportunity instead – whatever life-changing matter is before you may matter so much that you need time to figure it out without academic demands pulling for your attention.
• When you are so stressed out by school that you are miserable. If the idea of studying gives you a panic attack; if the thought of going to the library makes you so depressed you can’t leave your room; if you get no joy out of reading the materials or listening to the lectures but only feel scared, anxious, or generally irritable, you may be in no shape to take on school for now. By all means, talk to your teachers and take advantage of any counseling services available to you. Sometimes a little help can send someone in a more positive direction. But if every attempt at getting help isn’t helpful, maybe you need to go home to take stock, to get involved in some therapy, or maybe just to mature a little more before starting college.

Know Yourself

Yes, there are some people who can manage 18 credits, active participation on a varsity team, a lively social life and a deeply meaningful love relationship without missing a beat. Good for them. Would that everyone was so lucky. But many people need to take life in smaller chunks. It doesn’t have to be seen as a failure or as a character flaw. Different people are just different.

If you do go home, use the time wisely. It’s not a time to hole up in your old bedroom feeling sorry for yourself and sucking your thumb. It’s a time to rest, regroup, and reconsider your options. Get some experience, training, or remedial education. Get a job and pay down some of your loans or save up for your return to school. If time management was part of the problem, then get some practical coaching. Depressed or anxious? Get yourself into counseling to learn better coping skills. By taking care of yourself, you’ll be in a better position to decide when and if higher education is for you.

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I believe what happened to Dan could have been prevented if he’d had the proper support systems in place. Ideally, parents and students can work together to begin establishing these important relationships, even before arriving on campus. In my opinion, your support system, at the very least, should include a mental health professional, appropriate school personnel, and family.

The logical place to begin your search for a mental health professional is at the counseling center on campus. A word of caution, however: Many therapists at college and university mental health centers are not trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy. Even if they are, the number of appointments each student is allowed per semester often is quite limited. Staff at a good college counseling center will be able to give you local referrals to area therapists who specialize in treating OCD with Exposure Response Prevention Therapy.

Even if you feel that a therapist won’t be necessary at school, I encourage you to at least make an initial contact with one. That way, if problems do arise, you will already have a therapist in place. If you currently have a therapist at home that you are happy with, talk with him or her about the possibility of scheduling phone (or Skype, etc) sessions with you, either on a regular basis, or as needed. The most important thing is that you have a therapist available to you. Additionally, if you are taking medication, talk with your psychiatrist at home about getting any necessary prescriptions, and what the plan will be for communicating with him or her. If you or your doctor feels it would be beneficial to have a psychiatrist closer to school, you can get referrals from your current doctor or your campus counseling center.

Next, I recommend connecting with the appropriate school personnel, as mentioned above. Most colleges have an academic support center that assists students in need of accommodations. Again, a word of caution: Accommodations for obsessive-compulsive disorder can be a tricky business. There is a fine line between helping and enabling those with OCD. Also, it is not always clear what accommodations might be helpful to each OCD sufferer. For example, the common accommodation of untimed testing may not help students with OCD, and actually could make matters worse. More time for testing and handing in assignments means more opportunity to ritualize, and more ritualizing may intensify the OCD.

In Dan’s case, the staff at his academic support center had little to no understanding of what OCD really is, and while they seemed willing to help him, they had no idea how. A letter written by your current therapist outlining appropriate accommodations can be extremely helpful, but what might even be more important is the open-mindedness and flexibility of the college support staff. This is because the truth of the matter is that sometimes those with OCD don’t even know what they need until after the fact.

Though we didn’t realize it when Dan started college, he, like many OCD sufferers, often had trouble with time management, the balance of details within the big picture, and over-thinking. Once this became evident, we requested regular, detailed feedback on his work (he is an artist). Another example could be a new college student who might not anticipate getting “stuck” while reading a textbook. Because the OCD sufferer’s needs will likely evolve as the semester gets underway, periodic communication is essential. Again, even if you don’t think accommodations are necessary, you should have them in place. Better safe than sorry.

Other appropriate school personnel to connect with might include your dean of students, academic advisor, and professors. The more people who are aware of your OCD, the more overall support you will have.

The final support system, family, can make all the difference in the world. It is crucial to keep the lines of communication open with your parents and other family members who have been helpful to you in the past. Aside from regular contact with them, consider allowing (through written consent required by law) your parents access to your academic records. This will help assure them that you are on track with your classes, and also alert them early on to any potential academic issues which could be related to your OCD. If this is something you’d rather not do, talk with your family about how much you are willing to share with them.

A final word of caution: While the advent of college often is associated with independence, it is a sign of maturity to ask for help when you need it, and then be willing to accept it. I was fortunate that Dan allowed me to advocate for him when necessary. I believe this is especially important when you are in a new environment where people do not know you well. If you are having problems, an advocate who knows you and understands your OCD can be invaluable.

There is no question college can be stressful, but if you have your support systems in place and address any issues (OCD-related or not) sooner rather than later, chances are your experience will be positive. Here’s to a great year at school!

At this time of year in 2011, those of us in the northeastern U.S. were all reminded that nature can play terrible tricks. We had a blizzard resulting in power outages so severe some lasted for weeks. Halloween was cancelled. We went into survival mode.

We certainly weren’t alone in this. Any family that has dealt with the devastation of tornado, earthquake, blizzard, hurricane, flood or wildfires knows that life can change dramatically in a matter of hours. During such times, people can experience tremendous challenges to their sense of security, their sense of home, and their sense of personal strength. They also can experience what it means for family and community to come together to help and support one another.

The UN General Assembly established the International Day for Disaster Reduction in December 1989. Its purpose is to raise awareness of ways to reduce trauma following disasters. Governments are encouraged to set up systems to prepare for inevitable disasters. Parents and teachers are encouraged to be proactive in their efforts to protect their students and families.

We can’t prevent the unexpected. But we can build our capacity, and that of our family, to cope. Personal strength is only partially a result of genetics and temperament. It is primarily a function of the coping skills we’ve learned and our willingness to put some time into strengthening our inner resources and outer connections. Parenting well in danger zones means becoming an emotional rock our children can cling to and giving them the resources they need to come through hard times.

But preparing for emergencies is most effective when everyone in the family is involved. An international day is as good a time as any for parents to put good intentions about preparedness into action:

• First, deal with your own anxieties and fears about weather events. Kids pick up our feelings, no matter what we say. If you have fears grounded in something that happened to you when you were young, do the psychological work you need to do to heal. You deserve to feel more secure. Your kids need you to be someone they can hang onto if there is an emergency.
• Talk to kids about weather events that historically have happened in your area. Read young children stories as a low-key way to introduce the topic. If you need some help with finding titles, take a look at the University of North Carolina Extension Service list of age-appropriate books that talk about how kids dealt with natural disasters.
• Open a discussion about what your family could do. Strike a balance between being honest with kids about possibilities and reassuring them that there are usually people around to help. Validate their fears and feelings. Then move the discussion to how they can get help and how they can use their own good skills to manage if a disaster happens. Listen to their ideas and support their sense of personal strength.
• Prepare an emergency supply kit. We all know what we should do: Stock up on nonperishable food and water; keep a supply of prescription medications on hand; have a plan for reaching those we need to reach. (See a checklist here.) Many of us become inured to the reality that a disaster may happen here, to us. It’s time we all get busy and just do the tasks of emergency preparedness that we all intend to get around to and don’t. An emergency is far easier to handle when we can reach our loved ones and basic creature comforts are taken care of.
• Involve the children in making the emergency supply kit. Even preschoolers can help put together a first-aid kit and stock a shelf with nonperishable foods. Make sure everyone knows where the flashlights and extra batteries are kept. Post phone numbers for fire, police, and ambulance in a central place. Post phone numbers of relatives and neighbors who need to know you’re okay there too.
• Make sure your children understand whether they should come home or stay put if there is a natural emergency. It is likely that they’ll be at school or daycare if the unexpected happens. Make sure the children know who to call and where to go if they are caught outside.
• Promise to use your own good sense. Take the weather service seriously. Protect your home if you can but put people’s safety first. Stay home or evacuate as the authorities advise. Inconvenience is better than trauma.

Be Prepared

Kids, like adults, do better when they have a plan. We don’t get as fearful if we have an idea of what to expect or what we’re supposed to do. It’s when we don’t know what to do that we get the most anxious and upset.

I wish International Day for Disaster Reduction had a snappier name. With a nod to the Boy Scouts, it would be more kid-friendly if it were called something simple like “Be Prepared Day.” But whatever we call it, having a special day can be just what we need to get us to build our family’s preparedness for the unexpected.

Living as I do in a college town, the stress of living with housemates brings a fair number of young adults to my door. Some are bewildered. “What happened?” they ask. “I thought we’d never have a problem we couldn’t solve.” Some are heartbroken. “How could my friend be that way? I thought we were friends.” Some are outraged. “He or she is unfair, unreasonable, and ridiculous! I don’t know what I saw in them.” Almost all are sure it’s the other person’s fault. By the time they get to me, it’s difficult to repair the friendship. Sometimes the best we can do is help the person sitting there in righteous indignation consider that maybe he or she did have something to do with it and could learn from it.

You know what they say about an ounce of prevention. Friendships can last with an investment in some serious personal reflection and upfront conversations. Making the transition from friend to friend-and-housemate requires thought and attention.
So let’s back up a bit. Before signing a lease with your best bud, consider whether it’s really the best thing to do at this time with this person.

Step 1: Look at yourself. Have you ever had to share space in a meaningful way? If you’ve always had the privilege of having your own room, you may not be prepared for what it means to share one – or even to share an apartment. If you have very strong needs for privacy or control, are you comfortable with giving up a fair amount of both? These are important skills to learn, especially if you hope to marry and share a home someday. The question is whether you are willing to work on it now. Housemates are less forgiving than mates.

• Do you have “issues”? If you have a diagnosed mental illness such as significant OCD, depression, bipolar, or borderline personality disorder, you may be able to manage it well enough that your friends aren’t affected all that much by it. Maybe you keep to yourself when you feel your worst. Maybe you have ways to cope that get you through an evening or a day. But when we live with other people, they see all of us. It’s only fair to ask yourself if you want to be that exposed. It’s only fair to your prospective housemates to let them know ahead of time what it’s like to deal with you and what they should do in the times when your ability to cope is overwhelmed by your illness.
• Do you deal with conflict calmly and productively? Conflicts are inevitable when people live together. People who stubbornly insist on their “right” to have things go their way are doomed to making themselves and their housemates unhappy. People who give in all the time in the name of keeping the peace often end up resentful. If you tend to either extreme, it’s important to think about whether you are prepared to make some changes in your approach to conflict in order to preserve your relationships.

Step 2: Look clearly at the other person. Charming, wonderful friends don’t necessarily make good housemates. What you look for in someone to hang out with is different than what’s important in someone you live with. Can you count on your friend to be responsible about paying bills on time? A friend who is always short of cash isn’t likely to have the money to pay the rent or keep the cable on. Do you have similar standards for neatness? You may be able to stay out of someone’s sloppy room in the dorm but that same mess is likely to migrate to the living room and kitchen in an apartment. Are you okay with that? Or if you’re, shall we say, casual about such things as cleaning the bathroom, are you sure your friend has a similar tolerance for the ring in the tub and the toilet?

• Does your friend have “issues”? If your prospective housemate has a diagnosed mental illness — or even less-than-charming quirks — do you think you can handle a daily dose of it during bad times? It’s one thing to be a supportive friend. You can take a break from his or her problem by going home. That’s not so if “home” is a place you share. The issues have taken up residence with you.
• Does your friend know how to deal with conflict? Is he or she able to compromise? If he or she is a “my way or the highway” kind of person, rethink signing the lease. You’ll be signing on to living by his or her rules. If you know from experience that your friend will simmer with resentment and give up a friendship rather than deal with a problem, it’s likely that’s the treatment you’ll get the first time there’s a major disagreement. Think about it.

Step 3: Talk out ground rules ahead of time. Often enough, the seeds of problems are in the original agreement – or lack of agreement – about what sharing a household means. The group figures that of course everyone knows what they’re getting into and that friendship will see them through. It won’t. Being friends is one thing. Sharing bills and chores and deciding on ground rules for daily living is something friendship alone doesn’t require.

Talking things through up front and in detail can prevent a whole lot of grief. If people don’t want to talk about it, it’s already a red flag. People who aren’t willing to negotiate the terms of being housemates are often the same people who aren’t able or willing to work things through when there is a problem that needs to be solved.

When a group is able to meet a few times to really work through what they expect of themselves and others, they establish a new level of respect and mutual support that will be carried into their living situation. Such friendships are enhanced and deepened by the experience of sharing their space and their lives for awhile.

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