PHASE III

There is a framed poster found in many children’s rooms that goes like this:

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

If children live with:

Criticism, they learn to condemn.

Hostility, they learn to fight.

Ridicule, they learn to be shy.

Shame, they learn to feel guilty.

Tolerance, they learn to be patient.

Encouragement, they learn confidence.

Praise, they learn to appreciate.

Fairness, they learn justice.

Security, they learn to have faith.

Approval, they learn self esteem.

Acceptance, they learn to find love.

Most children who are at risk in America live with the first four items, day after day, year after year. Like Plato’s prisoners in the Allegory of the Cave, they become conditioned to believe that the negative life placed before them, and their place in it, are cast in concrete. Their lot in life, they believe, is set for all time, and they are forever doomed to misery.

It is virtually impossible for such a child to emerge from that background with anything but a negative view of life. Our challenge as a compassionate society is to help such an individual pick up the pieces of his or her life and try to develop a positive framework upon which to build a happy and productive future.

The obvious challenge is to replace these negative processing mechanisms with positive ones. This has been repeatedly accomplished in Group Homes and Juvenile Correctional Facilities utilizing the PTE program, and has been incorporated into the Pathways to Excellence online course for teachers of students at risk.

Anyone seeking to use PTE with at risk or incarcerated minors, needs to remember the threefold essence of the approach:

1. Understand why antisocial or criminal decisions seem logical to the individual;

2. Show flaws in the logic that led to negative decisions and lifestyles;

3. Provide a logical basis for adopting a new and positive perspective on Life.

Specific techniques are discussed more fully in the complete text www.4pte.com.

Merely by participating in this dialogue, the participant has activated the process of personal evolution. This process provides focus for improvement, as well as increased self-awareness. He will go from living with shame (and feelings of guilt) to living with approval (and feelings of greater self-esteem).

A REALISTIC VIEW

Let me tell you about two teenagers I’ve met:

                     John is 14 and lives in a relatively stable family with his mom and dad. Though life has never been luxurious, John has always had a roof over his head and food on the table. Neither of his parents use drugs, although both experimented when they were younger, and they both drink moderately. He’s starting piano lessons in September after the family’s annual road trip to Virginia .

·                     Tom is also 14 and comes from a middle-income family. His father is an alcoholic, and can be counted on to verbally abuse Tom on a daily basis.  When his father gets drunk, he often physically abuses Tom as well. His mother rarely stands up for him for fear she’ll be the next target.

The respective treatment of each child has a profound impact on how they behave and interact on a daily basis.  At school for example, John has no problems when a teacher demands that the class quiet down, or when he is corrected on an error in his school work.  Tom on other hand, has a completely different reaction.  The demand of the teacher, which is generally in an intense, somewhat raised voice, makes Tom completely shut down, for it is connecting with the exact same point in his mind as his father’s verbal abuse.  He is unable to distinguish between what happened at home, and what is happening at school.  The same is true when he is offered suggestions on his school work.  In his mind, he is being criticized, just like his father.  As a result, Tom is having great difficulty in school, and acts out as a result, further compounding the problem.

In Tom’s case, this is basic classical conditioning. Direct communication is far more threatening to someone who connects the experience with abuse.

Every one of us has a host of behaviors and mental filters which are directly connected to their experiences as a child. Understanding the child’s background makes it easier to understand their mindset as they grow older.

For example, I know a woman named Rose who lives in New York . As a child her grandfather sexually abused her. This led to a series of self-destructive events through her life, including anorexia, two years as a prostitute, and a series of very difficult relationships with men in general and other family members in particular. A direct line can be drawn between the low self-esteem generated by the trust being broken by her grandfather and her ongoing challenges in maintaining bonds with other family members of both genders. And though the grandfather is no longer in her life, the scars he created are influencing her views of the world that she’s passing on to her two sons.

Whether the abuse is sexual, verbal, or physical, children suffering from it tend to have extremely poor social skills. Since an increasing percentage of our society is being built upon good social skills (school interviews, job interviews, selling products or services, etc.), the world these children are growing into demands they know how to compartmentalize bad things in their life and focus on constructive issues. Kids who don’t learn the basics are oftentimes harshly judged and mistreated by others.

In an effort to guide troubled children to a positive view of socially constructive behavior, the PTE program has always initially focused on non-confrontational matters. Issues such as living environment, chores, and personal hygiene help ease the hostile and disenfranchised into the mainstream, assuming delivery of these assignments comes from a source and in a manner the kids consider acceptable.  Once these basics are in place, the child always feels better and has improved behavior.  From this point forward, he or she is then far more receptive to looking at specific behavior issues and strategies for dealing with them.

Our Mother's way of life becomes our way of life very early on, since we’re influenced by everything she thinks and does, including her emotions, use, or non use of tobacco, caffeine, alcohol and other drugs even before birth. Children are also very heavily affected by what goes on around the house. Childhood is usually a series of routines, such as when to eat, sleep, bathe, do homework, exercise, brush teeth, etc. Children growing up with a stable routine are trained to take care of themselves, and are expected to take these lessons with them throughout their lives.

Almost all at risk and incarcerated children, though, have had no such routines drilled into their heads. Often there is one parent working two jobs just to be able to live in surroundings that would shock mainstream America . There are also fifteen year old mothers with no fathers around who are living with parents in distressed surroundings. Issues such as consistent mealtime or bedtime are non-existent in this type of family, nor is there help for homework, brushing teeth, or any of the other basic building blocks.

The mother probably won't even see notes from teachers indicating potential problem behavior if she works several jobs. Even more middle class (and less stereotyped) families can run into this scenario. Consider, for example, the eight year-old whose mother died and whose father retreated into the haze of drugs rather than deal with the pain of his own loss. His daughter cannot get to school on her own when dad stays out all night getting high, and DSS threatens to take away the child when school authorities learn of the problem.

In either case, and at any end of the social spectrum, there is a child without an understanding of things the mainstream child would do automatically.

I am reminded of Adam, who lived in a group home in Ventura , CA. Instructions were given to all residents of this home that they needed to change their sheets every week. And though his sheets were always clean, an inspection one day revealed a pillowcase in use obviously more than a week old.  When he was reminded that sheets were to be changed weekly, he responded; “You didn’t say anything about the pillowcase!” Odds are good a mainstream child would have simply changed the sheet and pillowcase simultaneously.

FINDING STABILITY

Putting basic, consistent order in place helps stabilize behavior tremendously. The most productive areas for developing basic order include:

·       Attitude

·         Hygiene

·         Room

·         Chore

·         Job

·         School

Room layout is also critically important. Properly cleaning and organizing the room has an immediate and profound impact on many areas of the child’s life, particularly when he or she is an active participant in the process.  When good hygiene is added in, you have a child experiencing great personal growth. He will automatically feel a lot better about everything around him. He will begin to trust you. And, most importantly, he will be ready to enthusiastically listen, laying the groundwork for future improvements.

When staff and children, or parents and children work together toward positive goals, improvement accelerates for all and success starts to feed upon itself. This team approach lends itself to building the basics at home, and then provides lessons for success in school, business, and other social situations. The lesson “Together we can move mountains” has been taught.