Author: thecopingblog

What is it with parents today? From K-12 and into college, why will some parents not let teachers and administrators do what they are trained to do? Why do some parents get in the way and prevent self-discovery by their kids? Why do some parents enable and justify their kids’ behavior by defending them? Why do some parents protect and shelter their kids so much that their kids never learn how to evaluate their own role—“Am I to blame for what just happened?—in various situations. More and more parents today seem to feel that only they are capable of deciding what is good for their kids. Many of today’s parents are defensive when teachers, police, and other agents in society try to enforce rules of behavior because parents feel that is an intrusion on parental territory, that only parents can determine what is best for their child.

This message is beginning to permeate society: a parent complaint to a school board can get a book banned; parents are deciding certain courses—Algebra is a headliner—are not needed to get a job, so school boards should remove those courses as diploma requirements; parents are micromanaging the classroom and dictating to teachers what they can teach—Florida has banned classroom instruction from elementary school through college of any topic dealing with DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion); an amendment to a Florida law said that parents should determine if their child should be promoted to 4^th grade (the amendment was eventually removed); Oklahoma schools must teach the Bible and 10 Commandments. (This dictate has also been rescinded.) The result of these actions is that we are producing generations of kids who cannot think for themselves, who fail to acquire a social conscience that includes personal accountability, and who develop low self-esteem that makes them passive, anxiety-ridden, and dependent on others for guidance. In short, too many parents— possibly driven by a need to protect their own fragile egos—are dumbing down their kids intellectually, emotionally, and socially.

Why? What factors cause parents to be so overinvolved in their kids’ lives? Here are some possibilities. Do you recognize yourself in any of them? (1) The parents are showing a pattern of control that began when their child was quite young. Terrified that the kid would get into the wrong crowd, become a drug user, or be tempted in a world fraught with sex and AIDS, they began to micromanage the kid’s activities virtually 24 hours a day; now they cannot break this automatic behavior pattern. (2) The parents do not trust their kid. They see their son or daughter as lacking in ability and judgment; they believe their child’s success will only come as a result of the parents’ intervention. (3) The parents are convinced that competence and self-esteem result from success; failure must be avoided at all costs. Thus, they shelter the child from failure so high self-esteem will result. (4) The parents may reflect on their own adolescence and young adulthood. Perhaps they want to make sure their children have more focus and direction at a young age than they—parents—did. Just as parents who grew up during the great depression resolved that their children would have better opportunities, maybe these parents want to make sure their kids are insulated from a world fraught with alcohol, crime, drugs, and casual sex. (5) The parents may fear looking like they are ineffective and failures in their childrearing. They can’t say that their kid is accountable because that is an admission that, “I, too, am accountable because I did a lousy job of raising this person to be a responsible adult.” What we have, therefore, is a situation where both parents and child are at fault, but neither is willing to face that fact.

Being a parent is a full-time job. This particular job is unique, however, because the ultimate goal of this job holder is unemployment. Many of today’s parents are moving that goal out of reach.

Some professionals believe serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro, Paxil, and Celexa have the power to change one’s personality—defined as relatively stable, enduring patterns of behaviors and thoughts that characterize the individual. Yes, a client can have enhanced self-esteem and diminished sensitivity to criticism and rejection while on medication, but do these changes mean that changes in their personality have occurred?

Many professionals do not think so. First, if these medications are so powerful in changing personality, then how do we explain the many instances when no significant or enduring clinical effects occur?  Second, research shows that patients’ symptoms often return when they stop taking medication. Again, the drugs produce no enduring changes in one’s character traits; changes are temporary and superficial. Third, we cannot separate taking anti-depressant medication from the knowledge one is doing so, or from the fact that behavior or situational changes might occur while taking the medication. Thus, if you think, feel, or act differently while on medication, you may attribute these changes to the medication; but the true cause may be an expectancy (placebo) effect, or situational changes in your life, or changes due to your ongoing psychotherapy. Fourth, when they work, anti-depressants tend to return the patient to that personality manifest prior to the depression problem. The medication does not permanently change personality.

Permanent changes in your personality require conscious and concerted effort to change your behavior. If you change your behavior while on anti-depressant medication, you may think you have undergone personality change. Without some deliberate attempt to change your behavior, however, there is no permanent and fundamental change in personality as we defined it. Anti-depressants—which can restore your optimism, confidence, energy, and sociability—do not appear to permanently change your characteristic ways of thinking and acting. But that’s OK, and feeling that you are a “new person” is also OK. It helps to remember, however, that the medicine has treated symptoms; you are the same person you were before the med regimen. That means you must use the newly-found energy and optimism to face your core conflicts and work toward modifying your personality characteristics to help you live a more productive and satisfying life. That effort must come from you because it will not come from the medication.

Every parent has heard it: You ask your 9-year old son why he cheated on his test in school. His answer, “Well what about Johnny? He cheats all the time.” What about…? This desperate attempt to avoid accepting accountability is hardly limited to children. Few politicians can complete their tenure in office without pleading, “You criticize me for this action, when it was shown again and again by my predecessor. What about her?”

When coping strategies are the issue, justifying your mistakes by appealing to the mistakes of others is a poor strategy because it allows you to avoid taking productive actions to correct the mistakes. Imagine a coach after a game saying, “We made a lot of mistakes today, but so did the other team, so we’re OK.” No coach would excuse his team’s mistakes because the opponent also made them. Instead, that coach would tell the team, “We have a lot of mistakes we need to correct before our next game, so be ready for some tough practices this week.” Mike Krzyzewski, Duke basketball coach, was so irritated after a loss at Virginia, when the team returned to campus at 1AM he said, “Everyone suit up. We’re going to have a practice and correct some of the mistakes we made tonight.” 

Whataboutism is a close cousin of rationalization. You got caught and you cannot accept responsibility for your action. You screwed up big time but to admit it would be a serious blow to your fragile ego. So, you shout out, “I only did what everyone else does!” When it comes to coping, whataboutism is just another one of those exercises in denial. How can you be to blame when everyone else does it? Your denial protects your ego, but it is damaged, weaker than before, and vulnerable to severe consequences next time. Eventually, you will fall into a whirlpool of increasing anxiety, helplessness, and depression.

When you make a mistake, and the fault is yours, face up to it. Accept it and take responsibility. But most importantly, develop a correction plan to make sure the mistake is not likely to occur again. That is what we mean by effective coping—not trying to subdue your anxiety or other negative emotions that result from your mistakes with excuses, but charting a new course of action that makes your mistakes less likely in the future. This strategy also helps when something is not your fault. A college student, Lucy, receives an uncharacteristically low grade on a test, and she tells her roommate, “Something’s wrong here. I know it’s not my fault I got that low grade.” Her roomie says, “Oh, cut the crap and stop rationalizing. You probably didn’t study enough. You’re not perfect so face up to it and dump the excuses.” Lucy, however, persists and discovers that the test covered text chapters 6-12, but according to the course syllabus, it was supposed to cover 6-10. Lucy went to the professor and pointed out the problem: “I never read chapters 11 and 12 because they weren’t supposed to be covered. That’s why I got the low grade.” The prof agreed and adjusted the test scores with questions from chapters 11 and 12 eliminated.

Here are the coping lessons: First, when you do something wrong, do not justify your mistake by saying, “Well, everyone does it.” Second, when you fail, it is totally appropriate to examine why. Carefully and objectively collect evidence to determine if you, or someone else, is at fault. If it is you, accept it, take responsibility, and take corrective action to improve. If it is someone else, confront them or an appropriate third party to make sure the blame is correctly placed. In this case you are not being ego-defensive; you are coping well.

A great stressor is being accused of lying when we know we are telling the truth. Whether we are coping with gossip at work, suspicious friends, or dealing with serious issues like criminal accusations, few things get the stress juices flowing more vigorously than someone saying, “I think you’re lying.” In certain serious conditions, we may even be told we should take a polygraph, or “lie detector” test. Media sources say Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Pentagon officials to take a  required polygraph test—aka lie detector—to determine if the person leaks information to the press and others. Is this a good strategy? Does the polygraph actually work and detect when someone is lying? The short answer is, “No.” Polygraphs measure physiological changes in such things as respiration, blood pressure, and skin moisture, and it is assumed that these changes in arousal level indicate a person is lying. However, all a polygraph shows are changes in arousal level; whether these changes are indicative of lying is questionable. Studies that investigate the accuracy of the procedure generally show a high error rate (as much as 40%).

The whole concept of the polygraph presents problems. Imagine being hooked up to the machine by an employer and hearing the question, “Have you been stealing from the company?” You may be innocent, but do you think the stressful question might produce a measurable increase in your arousal state when you say, ”No”? If it does, we would have a false positive result—the machine identifies you as a liar. And then, there are your sociopathic types. They can be hooked up to the polygraph and tell you they were born on the planet Neptune and show absolutely no changes in arousal (meaning they must be telling the truth). In this case we have a false negative—the liar is labeled innocent. Either way, we have a problem with the validity of this procedure.

Imagine a company that manufactures nails, and has 500 workers. The owner knows employee theft is occurring, so he hires a polygraph operator to test all 500. The operator tells the owner that his machine is 90% accurate and says, “I won’t get them all, but I’ll identify most of them for you.” Let’s assume that 50 workers are stealing some nails, 450 are not (neither the owner nor operator knows this, of course). When testing the 50 thieves, the 90% machine will correctly identify 45 workers as thieves, and incorrectly label 5 as honest (false negative). When testing the 450 honest employees, 405 will be correctly identified as honest, the other 45 incorrectly identified as thieves (false positive). Note that 90 workers are identified as thieves, and they will be fired. Unfortunately, only 45 of the 90 really are thieves, which means that half the workers who were fired should not have been. The 90% accurate machine gave an accuracy payoff of only 50%!

It’s not a good idea to base important decisions (such as firing an employee) solely on polygraph results. There are too many factors that influence how someone scores, and most of those factors would have nothing to do with the issue at hand. At best, polygraph results should       be used in combination with other information gathered about an individual—such as comments to other workers, attendance record, quality of work, lifestyle, and general indicators of company loyalty. Aldrich Ames was a CIA analyst who passed along secret information to the Soviets from 1985 until he was caught in 1993. He passed polygraph testing, with minor inconsistencies being largely ignored. The CIA knew they had a mole, and what led them to Ames was his lifestyle that was inconsistent with his $60K salary: He had his teeth capped; he wore expensive clothes; he paid cash for a $540K home; he bought a $50K Jaguar; the minimum monthly payment on his premium credit cards were more than his monthly salary. It was his financial world that brought him down, not his polygraph results.

Efforts at getting into someone’s private truth-telling will continue, of course, and how successful these efforts will be remains to be seen. A recent development is “brain fingerprinting,” and involves the assumption that only the guilty brain will react to details about the criminal action. As a suspect you might be asked, “Where was the murder weapon found? In a dog house or in a tree house?” Your brain waves might stay stable at the mention of the doghouse, but show irregularities at the mention of the tree house. Uh, oh. The weapon was found in the tree house. You’re screwed even though you’re innocent of the crime. But even here, all is not perfect. How can your interrogators know “tree house” triggered emotion in your brain because it was in a tree house where you first “got lucky” on a romantic night?

What are parents to do when their values collide with their adolescent’s values? In this case, many psychologists say it is more effective to act like advisors and teachers, rather than rulers or dictators. This strategy, however, is easier said than done, especially in the heat of battle with teenagers. But it is worth trying. Am I saying we should be more tolerant of adolescents and more willing to give in when our values conflict with theirs? Absolutely not! We have a responsibility as parents to assert ourselves and let our children know our values regarding such things as education, abortion, sex, and drug use. All I’m saying is that forcing our values down their throats simply will not work. “You will not take the car out after 10 PM!” That’s one thing. “You will not be intimate with anyone!” Well, that’s quite another thing. Being dictatorial in that latter case is probably not going to be very effective. Parents can remove the car keys, but they cannot remove raging hormones!

Consider the case of an adolescent who was failing in school; he neither cared nor tried very hard. His parents were very frustrated with his poor performances in school and tried unsuccessfully to get him to work harder and raise his grades. They did not confront him with the consequences of his choices he was making. Failing to confront him was unfortunate because his grades were his responsibility, not theirs. He would have to live with his grades and the difficulty of getting a good job without a decent academic background, not them. But the parents could not see these basic truths. The parents dealt with this situation by forcing him to sit at the kitchen table a minimum of two hours a night to do his homework. When asked in private what he did during these two-hour sessions he said, “I turned a page now and then to make it look like I was reading and studying.” Not surprisingly, the parents’ method was ineffective in improving his academic standing!           

Here we have a case where differing values are in conflict. The parents believe in the value of learning, doing well in school, and early preparation for a fruitful career. They were trying to instill a value lesson, but with ineffective methods. Would a better approach for the parents be to back off and let the son deal with both the short- and long-term consequences of his decision to not value his education? Certainly, he needed to be confronted with the consequences of his poor academic record. Moreover, he needed to be reminded that school is his job, and his parents have theirs. People who are not responsible in their “jobs,” (and that term includes school) do not deserve privileges. Therefore, until he is responsible with his schoolwork, he does not deserve privileges like staying overnight with friends, extra money to go to the movies, help him financially to buy a car, etc. In other words, we all must learn the difference between rights and privileges. We will not take away our kids’ rights, but they need to know their privileges are fair game. Privileges, like respect, must be earned.

            When people seek psychotherapy/counseling, most put the causes of their behavior into one of three categories: Global or Specific, Internal or External, and Permanent or Temporary. Most troubled people lean toward global—“I am dysfunctional in everything I do”; Internal—“It is my faults and limitations that cause my psychological difficulties”; and Permanent—“My dysfunctions are here to stay.” Therapy involves helping clients move away from one or more of these three beliefs; clients must see their problems as specific to identifiable situations, external and not due to some inherent deficiency, and temporary in nature.These orientations can motivate them to stay in therapy and attack their problems more effectively.

            When you begin psychotherapy, you must understand that it is highly prone to an expectancy (placebo) effect. That is, once you have decided to take the plunge into therapy (or even to take medication), you will look to justify your efforts by finding areas of improvement. You do not want to see yourself as wasting time, effort, and money; you want to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing. These tendencies can make you feel you are improving more than you actually are! In fact, research shows that early in therapy, clients’ subjective evaluations of their improvement is greater than improvement measured by objective tests. But that’s OK! As old NY Mets fans used to say, “Ya gotta believe!” It’s the same with therapy. Always look for that half-full, not half-empty, glass.

            But there is a cautionary point to be made here. If you are in therapy, you will always attribute improvement to the type of treatment you are receiving. If you are being medicated, then you will attribute feeling better to the medication; if you are in counseling, you will attribute any improvement to what the therapist is doing. Well, that’s fine, but notice that these attributions are external. It is important for you to know that you must work to get better. Neither medications you are taking nor talking to a therapist will work like magic. Only your effort and hard work will produce results. You must make sure you attribute your progress in therapy internally, that is to efforts you make. It is not the therapist or medications that determine positive change; it is your motivation and effort that determine progress.

I went online, opened ChatGPT, and posed a question: “Are you effective as a therapist?” In seconds I received this reply: “I’m not a licensed therapist, so I can’t replace the work of a trained mental health professional. That said, I can be a helpful supplement for: talking things through when you’re feeling overwhelmed; exploring your thoughts or emotions with guided questions; offering cognitive or behavioral strategies (like CBT tools); recommending resources like books, apps, or hotlines. But I don’t have the ability to pick up on nonverbal cues, respond to crises in real time, or provide a clinical diagnosis or treatment plan. If you’re dealing with something serious—like depression, trauma, anxiety, or relationship issues—it’s best to connect with a human therapist.”

If you are presently a client in psychological counseling, do you think your therapist could be replaced by AI on ChatGpt? Many people seem to think so, especially in the middle of the night. Jennifer Torres, writing in Florida Today (8/18/2025), says, “AI-powered chatbots are rapidly emerging as one of the fastest-growing tools for mental health support in the U.S., offering round-the-clock conversation and coping skills.”

Imagine tossing around in bed at 2AM with a throbbing toothache and moaning, “Why don’t dentists offer service in the middle of the night?” Now substitute panic attack for toothache and therapist for dentist. AI is telling you, “I’m always here and I can at least get you through the night.” When you keep the platform within the boundary conditions it specifies for you—” I don’t have the ability to pick up on nonverbal cues [or] respond to crises in real time…[but I can listen] when you’re feeling overwhelmed,”—it’s not surprisingto learn that their use is growing. Put another way, AI is not intended—yet—to replace human therapists, but supplement them. And that’s important to remember because research has shown that the personality and behavioral style of the therapist can be crucial for therapy success. Specifically,

three therapist characteristics are highly related to positive outcomes in therapy: Warmth, Genuineness, and Empathy. Clients respond best to therapists who show these qualities.

The therapeutic relationship is like no other. Many clients admit they continue to see their therapist because they have no other person in their life with whom they can feel comfortable and trusting enough to be open about their problems. Some clients see their therapist once a month for a long period of time, until they develop the kind of relationship with one or more constructive confidants who can substitute for the therapeutic one. Maybe someday that substitute will be AI. 

I once served as a guest commentator on a radio call-in show. It was early December, and the topic was holiday unhappiness and the special stresses the holiday season can bring. A woman called in complaining about how she was so unhappy because her husband had died 10 months ago, and this would be her first Christmas without him in many years. We went through the usual questions covering hobbies, friends, outside interests—anything this woman could do to re-invigorate and re-energize herself. But no matter what was mentioned, she always had the same reply, something along the lines of, “No, I don’t do that,” or, “No, I don’t like that.” Finally, I said, “Why don’t you call the local people-without-partners group, or a similar support for folks who have lost loved ones? Why don’t you go visit a nursing home and give some comfort to other folks who are hurting? Get outside of yourself and your problems and do something.” No way. She said she had bad legs and it was hard for her to get out of the house. She was absolutely unwilling to engage in any specific behaviors that would get her out of the house and “out of herself,” so to speak. The holidays were not making this woman miserable; her unwillingness to engage in behaviors to confront the holidays in a productive way made her miserable. When someone is trying to deal with stress, it’s hard for them to do so when they are unable to recognize and focus on the true problem responsible for their stress. How did this episode end? The host looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Thanks for calling. I see we have another caller,” and we moved on.

Are you an adolescent teen? Are you stuck with loneliness, mood swings, sleep disturbances, anxiety, poor school performance, low confidence and self-esteem, vulnerability to stress, peer conflict, and family disruptions? Have you been captured in the phony, manipulative worlds of Kik, TikTok, Discord, Snapchat, and Reddit? In your mind, is your world a pretty negative place, frustrating your search for independence and control? If so, it’s not surprising; after all, our 21^st century world presents a huge and varied frontal attack that brings coping challenges from multiple directions. Family disruptions are of particular importance because psychologists know that a solid, stable relationship with parents is the first line of defense for you to navigate the confusing biological, cognitive, and emotional swings that go along with adolescence.

So, where do you find help for your mental well-being? Do you fix your eyes on that glowing screen as you dig into the internet looking for something, anything, that will give your life meaning? That screen is entertaining and informative, but it’s also full of fake stuff, especially the stuff that talks about your mind. Nor is the answer to your problems found in all those “wellness” exercises that are plentiful on various media formats. While things like deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and visualization techniques are helpful in the moment, they do not get to the root of mental coping issues. Also, many media sources encourage you to focus on self-centered, egotistical traits like physical beauty and perfection as providing the pathway to well-being and happiness. Forget it; they’re all a dead-end streets.

The fact is, help for mental and psychological well-being is found in actions that solve problems. One of the best actions is communication with others, but not the fake interactions with some unknown stranger online who is probably looking to groom you for self-sabotaging actions. No. We mean respectful, caring, face-to-face communication with trusted others—especially adults—who can instill you with the confidence needed to evaluate your issues. What follows from that kind of communication is Empathy. There is nothing more uplifting than realizing that others have the same problems and need understanding, too. The development of empathy is essential to healthy coping with stress.

What follows from empathy is Service to Others, which has enormous healing properties. Few scenes are more tragic than a lonely, confused, dejected person of any age locked onto their computer screen desperately seeking happiness and validity for being, but finding instead “advice” that leads them farther into a black hole of despondency, misery, and hopelessness. Service to others allows you to break from this technological spell of deprivation, get “outside” of yourself, and act to help others in need. What follows from service to others is a discovery of your values. Effective coping cannot continue without a set of values to guide your actions; values give purpose and meaning to your actions. What follows from values is contentment, satisfaction, self-discovery, and happiness at your place in life. Happiness cannot be sought; it materializes from values-laden actions.

It all begins with actions. A basic tenet of psychology is that when you see yourself engaging in an activity, you incorporate that activity, and its accompanying values, into your self-concept. When you serve others with purpose, meaning, and contentment, you will endow your self-concept with purpose, meaning, and contentment, and arm yourself to cope successfully with the stressors and challenges that face you. Keep that fundamental principle in mind next time you struggle with yourself.

Stress is a part of life. Unfortunately, most people try hard to avoid it, which is too bad because avoidance will only strengthen your stress, and it will eventually overwhelm you. How many times have you watched a sporting event where a large lead for one team slowly gets smaller? The announcer says, “The game is slipping away because they’re no longer playing to win; they’re playing not to lose.” The same is true with raising kids, a job, your marriage, your friendships—no matter what the circumstance, when you try to avoid the negative emotions that can come along, you will lose. Whether your stress creates anger, guilt, loneliness, frustration, or depression, you must accept the fact that those emotions are not your problem; your problem is the avoidance actions you take in response to the emotions. When you stop seeing those emotions as the problem, and accept that the problem is the lack of pleasure and satisfaction in your life, you have something concrete in your life to focus on—actions that bring satisfaction and pleasure. Your task when coping with stress is to take positive actions that bring satisfaction and meaning to your life. The emphasis changes from concentrating on an emotional state, to concentrating on behaviors and thoughts that can bring you more satisfaction. When coping with stress, it’s a big difference.