Opinion: Helping parent-teen communications

OK, raise your hands if you can remember what it’s like to have been a teenager.

How about being a parent of a teenager?

In either case, can you recall it as something other than a blur, a paradox of being both too short and seemingly endless?

The blur is not just from the energy of young people in that challenging age but from the energy it takes parents to cope with that complex period in their and their children’s lives.

In a high-energy community such as Palo Alto and an intense Silicon Valley culture, a big question is how best to sustain — or establish — family connections in the face of smartphone and other addictions and too-busy schedules. The overall topic has been an underlying concern of many parents over several decades of a sense of increased pressure on young people and their families.

It also has become a focus of many health professionals and counselors, especially those who work with families with adolescents in cases where some form of addiction is involved.

“Motivational Interviewing” (abbreviated as “MI,” like a British intelligence service) is primarily intended for use by professional counselors. It was developed during the 1980s by clinical psychologists William R. Miller, Ph.D., and Stephen Rodnick, Ph.D., who in 1991 published a detailed how-to description of procedures for clinicians.

It since has become an international practice guideline for use predominantly by all levels of therapists.

I was intrigued by an announcement of a two-day workshop March 16 and 17 on MI, having been engaged personally in interviewing literally thousands of people over five decades in full- or part-time journalism. When working with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, I spearheaded creation of a program called Family LifeSkills, with life-affirming examples and suggestions about strengthening family communications relating to dealing with anger, blame, positive communications, negotiation and problem-solving. (The series is still available online.)

The MI workshop was cosponsored by the Palo Alto-based Adolescent Counseling Service and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and held at the Silicon Valley offices in San Mateo.

I was the only journalist among the nearly two dozen attendees, nearly all one form of counselor or therapist. My interest was primarily in whether the MI techniques could be applied within families, derived from my development of the “Family LifeSkills” materials for Palo Alto and Gunn high schools in the early 1980s, when I was with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. The materials were developed as a life-affirming series of mailings giving concrete examples and suggestions relating to personal choices and a sense of personal power. A follow-up program for workplaces, “WorkSkills,” has been widely used by professional consultants.

Both programs, developed in the 1980s and early 1990s, rely heavily on approaches similar to MI concepts and techniques.

Yet MI, it turns out, focuses mainly on helping people overcome addictions, itself a life-changing achievement for those who succeed. It is not intended to be a cure-all for mental illnesses, depression or suicidal thinking, but MI might help with the combination of helplessness/hopelessness that is a factor in self-destructive actions, including addictions.

The central message is something that might apply in almost any situation, whether within families or in a workplace.

The core message is that one needs to avoid preaching, and the infamous “should” so common in our national culture, and instead adopt a “nonjudgmental, nonconfrontational and nonadversarial” approach. The latter is something that might be a challenge for parents concerned about their teenagers’ behavior. But it seems to work.

One MI-related website even reprinted a Hagar the Horrible cartoon in which a doctor instructs him to “stop overeating, stop drinking, stop staying out late, stop fighting, stop worrying, stop eating sweets, stop gambling.” When his wife later asks what the doctor said, Hagar replies: “I don’t know. I stopped listening.”

Ring true, parents and kids?

There is a mnemonic-style reminder: RULE. R means Resist telling them what to do; U means Understand their motivations; L is for Listen with empathy; E means Empower them to set achievable goals and identify techniques to overcome barriers.

To be an ally for change, in other words, not a judge.

At the outset of the MI workshop, Rosalind Corbett, M.S., CATC, a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, underscored the core message with an interactive “persuasion exercise.”

First, she outlined traditional persuasion techniques of telling a person he or she should (emphasis on should) make a change; list three benefits; say how to change; emphasize the importance of a change; tell the person to just do it; and if there is resistance repeat the above exercise

Sound familiar, parents and kids?

She asked participants how that approach made them feel. Responses were “argumentative, judged, resistant, embarrassed, hopeless, shamed.” She said that authoritarian approach may work in some cultures, but definitely not in others.

“Children expect this kind of communication,” Corbett noted. “What they’re thinking is: ‘You don’t understand.’ And/or: ‘I wish you would just shut up.'”

In contrast, the MI approach would be to start by asking questions, once a change topic is identified, such as, “Why would you want to make this change?”; “How might you go about it, in order to succeed?”; and “What are the three best reasons to do it?”

Then you summarize what you heard and ask, “What will you do next?”

Attendee reactions included “affirmed, understood, empowered, supported, respected,” with more “clarity on own values.”

With addictions, age of a person may not be a factor in using MI, Corbett said: Due to the time-arresting nature of addiction, “You can be talking to a 13-year-old in a 50-year-old body.”

The idea of taking a nonjudgmental approach dates back a century or so: It was a key element of Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. “Time” is another key element of change, but today it becomes a key barrier for many busy Silicon Valley families. Carving out a slice for an MI-type talk might help, along with a simple reminder from LifeSkills: “Take time to listen.”

Former Weekly Editor Jay Thorwaldson can be emailed at jthorwaldson@paweekly.com and/or jaythor@well.com. He also writes periodic blogs at PaloAltoOnline.com.