Interview with Child Development Expert JoAnn Deak, Ph.D.

         On October 6 through 8, parents, teachers, and others interested in child development will converge upon the 8th Annual Treasure Valley Montessori Conference. A coalition of area Montessori schools produces the annual event as a continuing education venue for teachers.

        This year organizers are particularly excited about content and speakers they say will be popular with parents as well. In fact, the conference kicks off with a workshop specifically for mothers and another for fathers presented by child development expert JoAnn Deak, Ph.D.

        An experienced educator and psychologist, Dr. Deak currently focuses on coaching parents and teachers in their roles as guides for children. She has been lauded by professionals and associations alike as an expert in child development, learning, identity formation, and brain research. She consults with education associations and schools across the U.S. and internationally and has written How Girls Thrive and Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters. She has also collaborated on and contributed to other books and articles. Her first children’s book is scheduled to be published this fall by Little Pickle Press.

The following is from a recent interview with Dr. Deak:

Organizers of the Treasure Valley Montessori Conference say you proposed conducting parent workshops as well as those for educators and other professionals. What should parents expect to learn from your presentation?

        In the last five years, brain and gender research has mushroomed. People like me spend our lives not only collecting the data, but putting it into a format that leads to best practices for both professionals and parents, pulling out the aspects that have rather profound implications (in the development of children). My presentations elsewhere have attracted a real mixture of parents and professionals.

Tell me about your work in Preventive Psychology. What is Preventive Psychology and what should parents understand about the role they play in the lives of their developing children?

        If you have a stairway with a missing step, traditional therapy is like waiting at the bottom for someone to get hurt and then taking care of the problem. (Preventive Psychology is different.)

        For example, in school, we know that if a child thinks a teacher cares about her, the (brain) works better. If we have a teacher who shows disdain or belittles kids, we’re going to have issues. When we know something like this, we can provide a setting that provides better learning at the outset.

        In the home, we have pretty good research that any kind of contempt expressed by parents, even as a lightly contemptuous statements (like “what is wrong with you?!”) begin to erode self-esteem, as well as the relationship between that child and that adult. (Properly) expressing anger, on the other hand, isn’t harmful, and can be effective.

        Sarcasm, until the prefrontal cortex is developed, can be misjudged as contempt. I ask parents and teachers of younger children to get rid of sarcasm altogether. Some people in the field label sarcasm as “anger as a smile.” It’s not as bad as contempt, but it can be misinterpreted.

In your work, you describe “crucible events” and “crucible moments.” What are these?

        Events that forge you to become either

a weaker or stronger person or a combination of both are “crucible events” and “crucible moments.” “Events” are easy to recognize

and deal with. My father died suddenly when I was 14, and that event changed me. The difference in the outcome of an event depends on whether it is handled with care. With crucible events, there is going to be an effect forever.

        “Crucible Moments” have a similar effect, but at the time don’t seem to be important. A parent doesn’t die, for example, but a teacher or queen bee puts a girl down in public. Our tendency is to focus on the crucible events that can change our child’s brain. Like a CD that’s burned, both events and moments impact the brain forever. When I talk about the plasticity of the brain, it changes, but there are these burns that don’t change. We have to realize this, and minimize the impact of (not only the events but) the moments that can cause a lifetime of struggle, by giving children the tools to be resilient to the lumps that come along.

In your forward to the latest edition of How Girls Thrive, you talk about the destructive effects of stress on both girls and boys.   What is different about the stress children are facing now as opposed to that faced by other generations?

        Kids’ use of social media tools such as Formspring (a social networking site that allows members to post comments anonymously) has skyrocketed. (Anonymity) removes any kind of social conscience. The biggest problem is the fear tweens and teens experience as a result of anonymous bullying, because there is no sanctuary from it.   (As a child,) if someone got mad at me, or said I was fat, or whatever, I could get away from it at home. With the tools children use today, they can be bullied 24/7.

        Brain research shows that persistent stress causes neurons to die, starting with the emotional system and spreading to the judgment system. Kids today live in a different emotional landscape than we did. We had sanctuary. We didn’t have the media jumping into our lives. Now it’s even popular to denigrate someone, to put them down. There has been this absolute paradigm shift that says it’s weird and geeky and outright stupid to be nice (to others).

        I don’t say this to cause panic in the streets, we need to put this information together to give this the punch that parents understand. It’s imperative that schools take action earlier (on bullying issues) than they have in the past, with policies that address even light bullying, even outside of school hours. It’s necessary that parents step into their children’s lives as well.

        For example, (parents) are not doing their job if they’re not going into two or three social networks once a month, plugging in their child’s name and seeing what comes up. If your child says “you don’t trust me,” the response is “it’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of understanding of that there are a lot of highways in your life, and it’s my job to help you cope.”

        As parents, it’s our job to pull the net under our children just a little closer. This is not coddling. We know that as parents we need to let our kids develop callouses, so it’s a fine line. It’s a razor’s edge. It takes a lot of talking to know where that line is.

In your work you note that differences in the brain make-up can cause a difference in the way girls and boys react to bullying. How?

        Stress causes a cascade of different chemicals in the brain and triggers different emotions that lend themselves to the gender roles (of boys and girls). In general, the neurobiology of boys is predisposed to anger over fear, which causes different actions during confrontations than with girls. Girls, when confronted, tend to feel a little more fear and anxiety than anger.

        Anger is more of an action emotion than fear, and boys learn to use more direct approaches to stress, whereas girls learn not to punch. Girls pervasively use more social aggression and boys use more direct approaches. With girls under stress, one might cry, and another goes and tells someone.

When should a parent intercede when she feels her child is becoming the target of bullying? How?

        If you feel your child is being bullied, the first person you talk to is your child. Ask: do you need help with this? Tell me what’s happening, tell me why you think it’s happening. Evaluate the situation together to see if the cost of intervening is too high. Perhaps just having a conversation about it is enough to help your child, or you can discuss some things to try, or agree to help with indirect intervention (such as going to the coach if the problem is with a teammate).

        (In parenting) this is called “negotiating the grey.” There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but when the hair stands up on the back of your neck about what’s happening to your child, you need to act on it. Depending upon their age, you may or may not go along with what they want to do. If they’re seven, for example, you may want to take different action than if they’re a teen.

        A lot of parents just do end-runs and try to control (the situation) without totally understanding the perspective of their children. I hear from children all the time who are concerned that their parents are moved directly to action and control rather than assessing what they really need. Often, children need more of a partner, someone to help them negotiate their lives through conversation.

        The 8th annual Treasure Valley Montessori Conference is open to parents as well as educators. For more information or to download a registration form, visit www.boisemontessori.com or call 938-0100.  

Beth Markley is a freelance consultant and writer who lives in Boise with her husband and two sons.