[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak||no_popup[/img]A neighbor called recently to ask if I could help with her 14-year-old daughter who was constantly picking her eyebrows and acting increasingly combative and defiant.
I said that there was a lot I could do and that she should bring her daughter to see me.
When they arrived, I asked the mother if she wanted to sit in. The daughter immediately interrupted. She did not want her mother in the session.
I told her we were in my office. I made the rules. Meanwhile, the mother declined to stay.
Our session was difficult.
The daughter spoke with me regarding a whole host of her perceived issues. She didn’t want to go to a new private school because she would lose her friends. She always had to touch everything three times. She felt she had obsessive-compulsive disorder. She could not focus so she thought she had ADD.
Why Be Like Everyone Else?
Besides all of that, she did not want to wear a uniform at her new school.
It was clear this young lady had created her own issues, and she was using them as leverage to manipulate her parents. She was emphatic that she could gain as good an education at a public school as at a private school even though she had also said that her current teachers didn’t care and were overloaded with a high number of students in each class and that the school work was boring and not challenging her.
In our long talk, I explained my brother was a public school teacher and that as much as he cared for the progress of his students, he was unable to give each one the needed time. He was dealing with classes of 40 students five times a day, five days a week. He saw all kinds of students failing every day because they could not gain the one-on-one attention they required.
In a private school, I said, classes were smaller, teachers able to dedicate more time to helping students progress, to providing intense individual attention. She would be more academically challenged. No time for boredom.
As for touching things three times and the apparent OCD, she admitted that these were things that she had decided to do and decided to make them issues. She understood she was deciding to do these things and that if she chose, she could stop them, which, she said, she has now decided to do.
Was This a Good Reason?
She said she only picked at her eyebrows when she was stressed. It was a stress reliever, especially when she was frustrated or not getting her way.
We were able to pinpoint the things that were creating her self-imposed stress. We discussed tools to help reduce her perceived stress.
As for the uniform, she began to understand that since it relieved her of deciding what to wear to fit with her peers, it was a good idea. By wearing a uniform she only had to be concerned about fashion after school and on weekends. Slowly, she saw its merits.
We talked about the economics of living by herself as an adult, costs involved in living in your own home, leasing or purchasing a vehicle, the registration, insurance, gasoline and costs of maintenance, phone, utilities, food and entertainment.
I showed her the job she could get without a high school diploma, and the much larger income she could expect with a college degree.
Life was not as simple as she thought. Education was more important than she had realized.
Loss of friends was a big issue. But at 14, she was likely to lose current friends but definitely would make friends at her new school.
If the kids at her new school were not like her, she feared she would not like them. At first, maybe. But with the constant exposure to her new environment, before long she would be became part of a new group with a different communication than she had before.
Tackling her lack of concentration was the easiest challenge. It was not related to ADD.
I found out she ate little protein. Her mood swings, irritability, inability to concentrate were triggered by her pure carbohydrate and sugar diet. I gave her a diet rich in protein. Within days, her concentration improve, her moods started to stabilize.
Talks with her mother revealed the girl was ruling the roost. Mom needed to regain control. She forgot every decision has consequences, and they can be good or bad. A system of reward and punishment should be established.
I advised the mother write down the behaviors that she expected from her daughter, right down to brushing her teeth, eating the right foods, academic studies, even doing dishes.
She should sit with her daughter, tell her what was expected and show her the negative and positive consequences of her behaviors.
The mother faced these choices:
• Leave her daughter with everything she had and develop a system of consequences or,
• Take away everything except a mattress on the floor, comforter and two changes of clothes and have her daughter make good choices to earn back everything.
Mom opted to have her daughter lose everything.
Initially, the decision sparked a huge argument. Mom stood firm. Little by little, her daughter changed.
As of today, she has dramatically improved.
She is starting to enjoy regaining her privileges.
In the process of making new friends, her grades are improving, and she has stopped picking her eyebrows.
For the first time in quite awhile, she is fun to be around.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321 or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net
