"Stewie" My latest challenge

So, as I mentioned a number of times before, since the wait on our next foster child has been going on forever, I will continue to use this space for other topics related to children with challenging lives. Since I work with them for a living, I have an endless supply of stories.

I work as a psychologist consultant 3 days a week at high schools for children with severe behavior problems. These teens have been expelled from their inner city schools for violence, calling in bomb threats, bringing weapons to school and the like.

Anyway, I have been building a very nice relationship with a student who has been nicknamed "Stewie" after the character on "Family Guy." Personally, I don't see the resemblance, but he likes the nickname, though I refuse to use it and insist on calling him by his given name. When I sit with his class, I often sit next to him. It seems to help him focus on his work and sometimes we even work as a team so I can model for him attention, patience, noting details and organizing and planning strategies so that he can better complete his work.

He is currently on "contract." What this means is that he has been suspended so many times for violent outbursts that he is getting close to being expelled if he can not improve his self control. I have begun working with him to address his difficulties but man, he is a challenge.

Wanted to write about an event that took place this week to describe just how difficult it is for some children from dysfunctional environments to cope with frustration.

Fridays, in Social Studies, is "Extra Credit Day." The teacher offers the students word finding puzzles with words related to the topics they have been discussing in class. The students complete the puzzle for extra credit points. At the same time, the teacher asks questions regarding topics discussed during the week for additional credit.

The teacher asked the class, "London is the capital of what country?" After some of the students came up with answers such as California and Kentucky, it was clear we need to clarify the question and encourage the kids to look up the answer. I suggested that Stewie use my Droid phone which has amazingly fast access to the internet. I suggested search terms and when he found the answer, he jumped up and said "England!" with great pride. The teacher and I reinforced the idea that if you don't know something, look it up.

Stewie was anxious for the next question. He now knew how to find answers. The teacher asked who said "The British are Coming, The British are Coming!" Stewie rushed to find the answer. Another student walked in just as the teacher asked the question and she immediately responded, "Paul Revere!"

Stewie was livid. He called her a b****, threatened to spit on her, come and shoot and kill her family. When class was over, he threw pencils at her. She fought back, threatened him back. A full out war over the Paul Revere question. Stewie was removed from class to meet with the principal and then handed to me. As we processed what happened, it amazed me to hear Stewie's faulty logic. "She shouldn't have answered." "She wasn't even part of the class.""But I was already looking for the answer." "If I get suspended over this sh** I am going to kick her a**"

We sat on the floor of the hallway having this discussion. After I gave him a chance to be heard, we started talking about taking control of his emotions and not giving the power away to anyone else. We discussed the fact that if he allowed himself to be so reactive, only he would suffer. He will get kicked out of school. We started talking about how he goes from "0 to 60 miles and hour" in a split second and how we have to work on changing that if he was going to succeed at this school. We also discussed the ramifications of terroristic threats and potential assault charges.

Stewie is in trouble. His frustration tolerance is at the level of a two year old at best. My new challenge. Help him develop skills before he gets himself expelled. The clock is ticking and it is not on our side.

My unsolicited professional opinion on helicopter parenting

This past September, my eldest started middle school on new campus with departmental classes and lockers. A few days before school, my friend and I got our boys together to hang out. Her older son and my older son have been best friends since the first grade. My friend happens to run the Development Office at my son' school so she knows a lot about what happens behind closed doors there.

She wondered if I had taken my to be 6th grader to school to help him set up his locker. I was shocked, "there are parents taking their kids in early to set up their lockers ?!" She replied, "phew, I was feeling neglectful, I haven't taken my son either." We both had taken our kids *shopping* to buy their supplies, but set their lockers up for them? Uh, no. Our sons have competed on a Science Olympiad team, they build robots, they can surf their way through the web, create computer games from scratch, shoot and edit videos with green screens and all and create and manage their own blogs. It never occurred to me that my son would need his mommy's help to put his locker together.

"Helicopter Parents," my friend said. First time I learned that phrase. The phrase refers to the parents whose own anxiety leads them to hover over their children, waiting to catch them even before they fall. They continue to hover over their children far past the time when their help is necessary.

As parents we all have to figure out when to hold our children's hands and when to let go and see if they are ready to handle the next step on their own. At first, this is literal. Our children start to walk. We hold their hands as they practice. One day, we decide to let go. One day, our children are ready to walk on their own. Granted we hover for a while until they get the hang of it, but eventually we get used to our children being toddlers and not infants anymore. We realize that our children are ready to walk on their own.

Some parents may ask why it could be harmful to help their children set up their lockers before they start the sixth grade. Doesn't this just let my child know how much I care?

Yes, I am sure that helping your child lets them know that you care. Unfortunately though, too much of this type of caring may have some unintended and harmful side effects. When we feel anxious, our children know it. We feel anxious about them handling the sixth grade, they wonder if they can handle the sixth grade. You help them organize their locker, they may conclude that means you think they can't do it on their own.

Before children are 2 years old they start insisting on doing things are their own. They pull the baby spoons from their parents' hands and try to feed themselves. As they become more verbal, it is not uncommon to hear, "I do it!" from children as they push their parents to allow them to do more for themselves. This is healthy. We want our children to know that we believe they can do it. If they can't, we help them, but only until they are ready to do it on their own.

My professional opinion: Know when you are being a Helicopter Parent. We want our children to know that we believe they "can do it" if they keep at it. We want them to know that we believe that they can successfully handle new challenges and new experiences. We send them the message that we believe in them and in turn they learn to believe in themselves. "You can do it" from mom and dad becomes, "I can do it," for a lifetime.

My unsolicited professional opinion: Buying sneakers with young children

When people find out that I am a Clinical Psychologist (especially because I work mostly with children), I am often asked questions. So I decided to try out an idea here. I am going to offer my professional opinion on stuff and call it a series entitled, "My Professional Opinion."

Warning, put three psychologists in a room and you may get three different opinions. So note, on this blog, you will only get the benefit of mine.

When my two sons were little (they are now 12 and 8) I always enjoyed buying them cute clothes and adorable shoes. I liked it almost as much as I liked buying them books and toys.

One day, when my oldest was about 3, he needed (yet another) pair of new sneakers (he is now a Men's size 11, so he has had rapidly growing feet his whole life). I have always been a fan of the Nike swoosh. I have no idea why. I just like them. I saw these adorable ones for him that were white with a blue swoosh. I thought nothing could be cuter than this pair of mini grown-up sneakers on my adorable child.

But then we took a trip to Target. He fell in love with these (god awful) silver Spiderman sneakers. I wanted to get him the (much cooler) Nikes. But what did I get him? The (ugly) Spiderman sneakers of course! My son is not an extension of me. He is his own person with his own likes and dislikes, his own opinions. He is entitled to them even if his don't agree with mine. The sneakers fit, they were the right price, done. I didn't have to like them. He did.

I am hoping all that are reading this is saying to themselves, "duh, I didn't need a psychologist to tell me this." If you are, I will happily respond, "good, I wish that were true of all parents." I have seen other scenes where the shoe shopping didn't quite go this way.

I was reminded of this nine year ago event because my husband recently took my younger son shoe shopping. He let my son buy a new pair of (god awful) sneakers that my son was thrilled to wear to school the next day. My husband asked me if I liked them. I said no. He didn't like them either. But our son liked them. Knowing about this pet peeve of mine he told me that he cringed as he watched another father-son duo shopping for shoes. Except this dad handled things a little differently. Dad picked out a pair that he liked while his son had his sights on another pair. Dad expressed disapproval of his son's choice by letting him know they were nerdy and kids would pick on him if he bought those sneakers. He told his son that the sneakers he chose were really cool and they should get those.

So that is why I am offering this professional opinion:

Our children are in many ways reflections of ourselves but they are not extensions of ourselves. Want them to grow up to be confident and independent? Don't force your sneaker choices on them.

If you have any questions you'd like addressed in this series, speak up or send me an email at tikunolamdb@gmail.com

My second time with the boy soldier

This post follows the previous post. If you have not read that one, please read it before continuing on to this post.

Eight months after my boy soldier friend (M) was released from the detention center, he appeared again in the intake area. Since the time I had seen him, he had continued to wear his ankle bracelet, remained stable, and gone back to school. I found out later that he had relocated to Pennsylvania where he was living with another family member. His father sent him to PA to get him out of the inner city.

The day he showed up at our intake area, he was transported by the X County Pennsylvania Human Services Police and a parole or probation officer. He was in shackles. His arms were in shackles, his legs were in shackles, and he had a bee keeper like helmet on his head and he as thin as a rail. The bee keeper like helmet was apparently on his head to prevent him from spitting on the officers. You'd think he was Hannibal Lecter.

M was clearly psychotic when he walked in the door. The X County police people just wanted to dump him at our facility. We had two choices. We could tell the officers that he is not medically cleared to enter our facility and send him back to X County, PA. or we could accept him, and the liability that taking a medically unstable detainee entails (which is against policy and never done) and send him to the hospital.

I asked the transporting officer for M's paperwork. I wanted to see his medical records from his stay in X County. I didn't understand how he could be in this condition and I didn't want to make a further move without seeing all the progress notes that had been written by the medical department in X County.

Reading the progress notes, I couldn't believe what I found. He had been psychotic his entire twenty-something days at County X's detention center. On the last day he was there, he was on a two-to-one watch, writing in blood on the wall, threatening to kill himself, threatening to kill other people, and proclaiming that he was Abraham and at times proclaiming that he was the Black Jesus. Nursing staff had to repeatedly check him for dehydration because he wasn’t eating anything as he believed his food was poisoned.

Apparently, according to progress notes, medical staff tried to have him admitted into a hospital in Pennsylvania, but the hospital turned him down or something. I can't imagine why and it was never explained to me how that could have possibly happened.

Even though the policy of our detention center was to deny admission to youth who did not meet medical clearance, (if they didn't they needed to be cleared by a hospital doctor before admission) I was afraid to send him back to Pennsylvania. I was afraid that M could die if we sent him back, he was already wasting away.

M was suffering from extreme psychosis. X County had not taken care of him. I decided to go to the Director and the Warden as I didn't not know what to do. After discussion, out of sheer
humanity, the Director and Warden agreed that we needed to take responsibility for this child. It was the only moral and ethical thing to do. Even if it meant liability to the facility.

I was left furious that they had neglected this child so badly. I felt so powerless. All I could do was send him to the hospital. To see a human being, a mentally ill child treated like that tore me apart. I knew what he was like when he was well. A lovely human being, a true survivor. A strong, smart, kind young man. I put in call to the local Office of the Child Advocate which put me in touch with the state's Office of the Child Advocate. The attorney that I spoke to there promised that there would be an investigation into the matter of the neglect of a youth of our state by another state. I don't know what ever happened with the investigation, or if it happened, but I did get a nice little letter in the mail thanking me for advocating for a child of the state.

Truth is, I doubt the investigation was pursued. If having one psychologist for 280 incarcerated youth was any indication of how much money the state wants to invest in the "throwaways of society," I highly doubt they were going to pay lawyers to make this investigation a priority.

M was in the hospital quite a while. A couple of kids from the detention center, in the meantime, had been in the hospital and come back reporting, “oh, everybody there kinda has behavior problems, but there’s one crazy kid in there." They were referring to M.

M eventually got well. He stabilized on an antipsychotic medication called Haldol. He returned to live with his father and was compliant with followup aftercare.

I saw him briefly once again, for a minor violation of probation. He was lucid and well. I was not glad to see him in a jail again, but thrilled to see him sans shackles, bee keeper helmet and with his weight back on. He was well.

Boy Soldier

I worked in a Juvenile Detention Center for 3 years, from 2004 to 2007. Once a week, I would meet a good friend, a writer, for coffee. She thought that my stories would make a great book and started to record me as I told of my adventures at the Detention Center. While there I met with suicidal children, transvestites living on the streets, murders, rapists, gang members, you name it. I worked at the largest detention center of the state as the Staff Psychologist of the medical department. I was the only Staff Psychologist there.

My friend recently sent me the transcripts from some of our coffee meetings. For various reasons, the book was never completed and I don't believe ever will be, so I thought I would tell some of my stories here.

One day, I came into work to be greeted by two officers who were anxious to see me.

“Dr TikunOlam, you got to see this kid. There’s something wrong with him. He thinks his food is poisoned and he won’t come out of his cell and he’s been up for the last 24 hours chanting Christian songs . We sent him down to the nurses last night and he said he was just praying, so they sent him right back upstairs. Please come see him now, there is something really wrong here.”

So I went up to his unit and sure enough he had that look in his eyes that I recognized from the two years I had worked on a psychiatric inpatient unit. He was paranoid and psychotic. He believed that we were working with the Devil and that we were all trying to get him on our side. He wouldn’t eat anything. He believed his food was poisoned.

Even many of the other teens detainees expressed concern. Some of them knew him from playing basketball with him or going to school with him. They told me that they had never seen him like this, that they knew him as totally normal. His peers were frightened seeing him this way and they pleaded with me to help him.

I sent him to the hospital where he was treated with anti-psychotic medication. In about a month, he was well and returned to the detention center.


When he returned to the detention center, his mind was as clear as anyone else's. This is uncommon for those who suffer from Schizophrenia and as I got to know this young man better, I started to wonder whether Schizophrenia was his actual diagnosis. The young man explained that at the time that he was psychotic, he remembered thinking that I was the "head demon" because he could tell that I was making the decision. He told me that he has had difficulties feeling safe, especially in confined spaces.

What he told be about his early childhood blew me away. Before he emigrated to the United States he was living in Liberia. He was a child soldier. He had seen his mother shot and killed right in front of him. At nine years-old, he carried a gun as he walked over dead bodies to protect
what remained of his family. He was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was lucid enough to explain all of this to me. One of the strongest, most kind and appreciative teens I had ever met. He thanked me over and over for sending him to the hospital where he was able to get well.

I was able to arrange with a judge to have him released on an ankle bracelet (electronic monitoring) due to his mental illness. To the judge's credit, he didn't hesitate in his humane decision which prevented this young man to have to be locked in a cell again. Unfortunately, I met up with this young man later, in even worse condition. I will save that story for my next post.