consider having your child attend a summer camp. Make it a part of the fabric of your family, an expectation. There are countless benefits to camps, as there have always been: introductions to new friends, sports, music, and other activities, to be sure. But today, the benefits are invaluable. Your child will spend a week or two or more, or several hours a day, engaged in other activities besides the phone. Over time, even kids who are quite reluctant to attend camps tend to rise to the occasion, and enjoy participating. I personally find that kids who attend camps tend to carry that balance with them long after camp is completed, spending more time outdoors, playing, laughing, making up games, and being fully engaged with friends.
Spending some time engaged in volunteer activity can also provide this balance. Once you play your “parent card” here, you will find, I predict, that your child’s volunteer participation becomes somewhat self-sustaining. Not only does it bring balance to be free of social media and other social pressures, as well as academic and perhaps familial stressors, but your child will also, in all likelihood, discover how much she enjoys being of service to others. Kids frequently describe to me how invaluable their time serving others can be to them, how important it is to see the faces of the people they are helping, and how grateful they become for their own life circumstances. Volunteer work pays countless dividends. Again, I encourage you to make service an automatic part of the family creed. It is tough to get your teenager out there if volunteering and service are not already a core part of the vernacular. It can be done with a “parent card,” of course, but if you have younger children, get them serving others early.
Self-Reflection, Self-Control, and Social Media
Research shows that we adults grossly underestimate the time we spend daily on social media, often by a factor of hours. I encourage you to track an average day, and honestly look at your track record. Do you spend an hour on social media? Two? More? The answer is yes for many of us. I find that once we are aware, truly and fully aware, of the amount of time we spend, and waste, on social media every single day, we are far more inclined to change the habit.
One of the best ways to reset your social media habit, as a family, is to pick a day—I find a Sunday works best—and fully fast from social media. All phones and computers and pads are off for twenty-four hours. You will hear grousing and complaining. You may even be the one complaining most. But when the fog clears, you will find yourself, your children, your entire family, are far more present in the moment with one another. This exercise will remind you, and perhaps teach your kids for the first time, that most of the good things in life take place away from the screens. A day off, heading into the city or out to the country on a family adventure, will punctuate that point nicely.
You may have to mandate this exercise to get it to actually happen, but it will be well worth it.
Many parents have told me they do not feel as if they have a “parent card” to play. They are certain their child would not sign up for a sport, play, or club, even if they insisted upon it. Their child will not listen and will not comply. And the pull of the screen feels far more potent than any parenting power we may have felt we could exert in the past.
This is where the Emotional Bank Account comes into play. This account is among my favorite methods for examining any relationship. If you read my first book, or if you have ever heard me speak publicly, you will find yourself quite familiar with this crucial concept which is a key to effective parenting.
The balance in the Emotional Bank Account, or EBA, is effectively an indication of the accumulated goodwill in any relationship. If things are running smoothly and your relationship feels resilient to any minor difficulties or bumps in the road you may encounter together, you are looking at an EBA that is solidly in the black. If, however, you feel disconnected and that communication is either one-way or trying, if either or both of you feel unheard or misunderstood, the EBA is likely in the red. This is a relationship that is in trouble and, in all likelihood, causes significant emotional distress, conflict, and a sense of disconnection for both parties.
The very good news here is that the EBA is flexible, pliable, and forgiving. The balance can be shifted with any deposit or withdrawal. Anything smacking of a disconnect will read as a withdrawal: an inopportune judgment, a lengthy lecture, or a misplaced punishment, for example. These may feel like good ideas, and perhaps even parenting mandates, in real time. But with the culture shifting so dramatically and rapidly, we need to be operating from a new parenting playbook, one in which we will frequently need to call real-time parenting audibles based on the needs of our child and our connection with our child. Today, we simply cannot afford unnecessary withdrawals from the EBA. A positive balance here trumps nearly every other factor in parenting.
Because if we are parenting from an EBA in the red, our voice is unheard, and our parenting is frustratingly ineffective. All of this can be quite frightening at times like these, when we know how critical our input is for the well-being of our children.
So, how then do we deposit into the EBA? How do we sustain a balance well in the black?
This is the good news, and perhaps the best, most enjoyable part of parenting. To increase the balance in the EBA, we simply connect. We table the lecture, and we play with our kids. We laugh with them. We create in-jokes with them. We dig in and learn all we can about their worlds: the music they listen to, the video games they play, the social media they favor, the teams they follow, their politics, and so on. And listen with them, play with them, cheer with them. Dig in without judgment, and with true curiosity, and you will find yourself well on your way to a smoother connection, an EBA in the black. But if you are hunting for trouble under the guise of connecting, if you are looking for clues as to how your child is performing in class, or whether she is hanging out with the wrong crowd or posting something inappropriate, your child will sense the disingenuous gesture. There will be a time for all of that if you sense that your child’s well-being, health, or safety is in jeopardy.
But to build the EBA—especially one in which the balance is already fractured—work on the connection. If you feel your child is a stranger to you, they feel the same. Rediscover your connection. It was there once, not that long ago. And from our parental perspective, we tend to disconnect from a place of fear—fear that if we do not bear down and control our child, he or she will wind up in peril.
But the logic here is faulty. It is precisely that connection itself, that positive balance in the EBA, that effectively inoculates our child from such peril. With so many elements of her life drawing down her sense of self-worth, your Unconditional Positive Regard will prove to be the godsend that will provide a crucial layer of protection from the dangers you fear for her. So, it is urgent that you see past your fear in order to recognize where the value in your relationship lies.
She does not need your lecture. She already knows how you feel. Just ask her. She does not need your judgment. She is highly self-aware, and likely over-judging herself. She does not need your ire or unkindness. Her world is harsh enough as it is. Rather, she needs your light. She needs to know that, despite anything she feels about herself, anything she may do incorrectly, and any poor choices she makes, you are there for her, 100 percent, unconditionally. Your relationship with her can be her port in the storm of adolescence. In my opinion, that’s the best parenting story you can possibly write.
An Emotional Bank Account Inventory
Both Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, and Dr. John Gottman, a prominent expert on relationships, have discussed the ratio of positive to negative interactions necessary to maintain a good working relationship. Though they reflect primarily on intimate relationships, I find that their work applies equally well to the parent-child relationship.
And the ratio required to maintain and sustain a positive balance in the EBA
