Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm sympathetic to this argument, since I am a college professor and I
have gotten phone calls from over-involved parents.  It is still
surprising to me when it happens, because it seems so inappropriate.  

On the other hand, it is a minority of parents who have called me or
have called the dean to intervene about a student I teach.  And I do
wonder about the use of terms like "skyrocketing," which have a clear
numerical connotation, without numbers to support that connotation.

How do you know, for example, that the increased demand for mental
health services isn't primarily driven by a decreased stigma attached
to those services? 
  

    
Can you also say more about this, please:

<the studies showing that even kids who seem to be genetically loaded
to develop anxiety do not develop anxiety if their parents step back a
bit and they are left to make their own accommodation to the world.>
  

    
maria, i refer you to chapter 8 of my book. the data are all there.
how do i know it's not just due to reduced stigma? because the stigma
is alive and well; many kids do NOT seek out services (many don't want
anything on their records). and still the rates of disorders are
climbing alarmingly. the american college health association reported
an incidence of depression among college students of 10.3% in the year
2000. in the year 2004 it was 15%. that's just depression. there are
vastly more kids needing and taking meds; that's not a function of
stigma. there are more episodes of self-mutilation, every one of which
tremendously disrupts a campus or a dorm because it must be treated
(until proven otherwise) as a potential suicide attempt.

binge-drinking is another problem very much related to kids having no
coping skills. the rates are incredibly high and growing (see the book
for exact frequency), and are especially high among girls in the greek
system. how is binge-drinking  related? because these kids lack social
skills and have no way to relate to others. so they "pre-game" before
going out...that is, they down a few shots of vodka in their room,
alone...and then drink to the point of passing out. in part they do
this so they can have an intense experience all their own to talk
about. "wow, last night i got so smashed...." it is a very upside down
world in which you have to drink to the oint of passing out to feel
more alive and have something to talk about.

one consequence of binge-drinking is rising rates of "alcohol-related
conduct violations." i'm sorry, these are just not the result of
diminishing stigma; they are the result of disinhibition. in the first
two weeks of the 2006-2007 school year, one eastern university with a
freshman class of 1,300 (by the way, the brightest freshman class it
ever had, on paper at least) reported 60 alcohol-related conduct
violations in two weeks. fist fights. sexual assaults. severe roommate
conflicts. one other consequence is rising incidence of date rape on
campuses.   

As for the studies on those genetically loaded for anxiety...classic
studies of psychologist Jerome Kagan and colleagues at Harvard
University, well documented in the book. Kagan followed kids from birth
well into childhood and beyond. I've reported on his studies for years
in Psychology Today. Kagan is recently retired, but his work lives on.
  

    
I must say I chuckled a little about the definition of "binge
drinking" ... 5 drinks in a sitting ... in say 2 hours that would be a
moderate buzz....  wouldn't that be almost every non-seventh day
adventist or non-mormon college student since like 1933?

Now if you made the cut at 10 drinks, I'd be more worried about it. 
And it does seem that "kids today" are even more into getting seriously
shitfaced than we were, which is saying something.
  

    
the drinking today is of a different quality. when we drank, you drank
for a little social lubrication. it made things aa bit looser and more
fun.

what's fun about pre-gaming? you down several vodka shots in your
room, alone, before you  have contact with anyone else. so you're
buzzed before you begin. five drinks in an hour? i beg to differ with
you. that is serious drinking and it will produce a serious blood
alcohol level. 

there is a great deal more alcohol toxicity now among students,
incidents where kids have to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

but you have to understand, the intent is totally different. once, you
drank for social lubrication. drinking accompanied conviviality, as it
has among students for generation. now drinking is very focused and
goal-directed: you drink to consume as much as possible in as little
time as possible.

there are a number of university presidents who a terribly concerned
about these trends. you may have heard of the recent amethyst
initiative, of college presidents who would like to see the legal
drinking age lowered to 18. 

from the website of the amethyst intiative:

Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of
chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the
United States. These higher education leaders have signed their names
to a public statement that the problem of irresponsible drinking by
young people continues despite the minimum legal drinking age of 21,
and there is a culture of dangerous binge drinking on many campuses.

The Amethyst Initiative supports informed and unimpeded debate on the
21 year-old drinking age. Amethyst Initiative presidents and
chancellors call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences
of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to
prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use. 
  

    

In college we used to have a drink, 8 oz of, say, gin, swilled down
relatively quickly and afterwards sometimes chanted "He's no fun, he fell
right over" when the effects struck someone a wee bit too hard.

But outside of one guy who became an alcoholic, we never thought about
drinking before a party.
  

    

slip
  

    
"slip"

were you just describing what happened to yourself, Jim, after some
serious swillage?


;=)
  

    
yes, drinking BEFORE a party? hell no...that would ruin the fun. now
you drink beforehand to loosen up and get buzzed, and to have an excuse
for acting stupid, because you don't know how to otherwise start a
conversation or find common ground with others. check out the urban
dictionary on pre-gaming.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pre-gaming

to me the beer bong symbolizes the difference in drinking approaches.
it's designed to get as much beer (or other alcohol) down your gullet
in as little time as possible. you don't have to "waste" time ordering
another beer. you stick a tube down your throat and there's a
gravity-feed of alcohol.
  

    

In the interests of self-disclosure I never fell over but I did my share
of praying before the porcelain alter before I wised up and realized that
a few minutes of drunken 'fun' was not worth hours of repentence.
  

    
The data cited identify changes in behavior but do not support the
argument that these changes are caused by a shift in parenting style,
and Kagan's studies undermine the notion that parenting is the sole, or
even the most significant, factor in determining temperament.
  

    
i'm not sure what summary you are reading of kagan's studies, but the
studies on the anxious kids definitely indicate that overinvolved
parenting has its effect. one of the ongoing debates in all of
psychology is how much effect parenting has on ordinary kids. it seems
that negative parenting has a large effect, and this would include
intrusive parenting. and it seems that good and bad parenting have a
particularly big effect, in opposite directions, of course, on
difficult kids. this will be a debate until the end of time. no one can
ever prove that an act of parenting had an effect x years down the
line. 

check out the studies of psychologist jeffrey wood, at ucla, reported
in the book, in the chapter From Scrutiny to Fragility. he is directly
testing intrusive parenting in a very close-up way.
  

    
Your description of the effects of parenting seem in line with Bowlby.
 I thought Kagan aimed to refute Bowlby, advancing the theory that
temperament is at least as much, if not more, the result of nature than
nurture.  Could you point me to the particular studies by Kagan you're
using for support?
  

    
Difficult kids?  Are they different from kids with difficulties?  If
no one can ever prove that an act of parenting had an effect x years
down the line, why should we fear the results of parenting styles that
differ from our own?
  

    
I went to college between 1990-1994.  Nearly everyone I knew
binge-drank, for a least a while.  Beer bongs were already a staple.  I
knew a few people who engaged in "cutting," and none of us would have
considered telling anyone in authority.   And "alcohol related conduct
violations" sounds like a phrase that could include drinking while
underage.  

You say "one other consequence is rising incidence of date rape on
campuses."  According to the Department of Justice, sexual assault has
dropped by approximately 60% since 1993.  I've read, also, that more
people are reporting rapes than used to be the case, particularly on
campuses, many of which now have anonymous hotlines that rape victims
can call.  Are you sure that there is an increase in the number of date
rapes on campus?  When do you start counting?  

On the stigma attached to mental health services, I didn't say the
stigma has gone away. I said that it may be reduced, and that the
possibility that it has been reduced needs to be taken into account
when using demand for mental health services as evidence that we are
increasingly becoming "a nation of wimps."
  

    
reducing the drinking age to 18 is a good idea.  It's ludicrous that
someone can get married, incur debts, drive an 18 wheeler, fight and
die in war and yet can't have a beer in public.  Public drinking has
several benefits towardsw (tolerable) sobriety: 1) it's more expensive
2) there publican will cut yu off 3) there is public peer pressure to
not become a puking mess, if only so as not to filthy-up up the
crapper.

ALong a similar line I was in ireland this summer and heard a radio
show about problem drinking and it's consequences.  Apparantly the
crack down on drinking and driving that started in Ireland a few years
back has resulted in many more single males sitting at home and
drinking alone, very heavily, with all kinds of negative consequences.
  

    
jennifer, check out kagan's studies on overprotective parenting,
conducted with doreen arcus, and which i reported in Psychology Today
in 1994.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19940901-000013.html

in fact, that year at the American Psychiatric Association, kagan was
part of a symposium on that topic, mentioned in the article.

over the years, kagan also reported the studies at meetings of the
American Psychological Association, which i attended and took notes on.

it is the impression of many who head up campus counseling services
that cutting and other forms of self-mutilation have become much more
common. (this is not a reportable disorder, once again.) an annual
survey of heads of campus counseling centers shows that it is happening
more often on their campuses and they are responding to more
incidents. in fact, a national conferences was held on the topic in
2004, to address the burgeoning problem. it is for sure a secretive
act; that is its nature. but when a roommate walks into a room and
there is blood on the floor, or there is blood dripped around the sinks
in the bathroom, it is a scary sight (the sight of blood has an
alarming effect on us, and many people can't even tolerate the sight of
blood), and that is how it often comes to the attention of
authorities. as i said it is considered a sign of suicidal intention
until proven otherwise, and all kinds of forces are mobilized to
respond to such an incident. so despite the secretiveness,it comes to
the attention of residential staff, who are required to report it and
act on it. colleges are now hyperaware of suicide and (if for no other
reason than liability issues) bring in the heavy artillery if there is
even a whiff of suicide-like activity. this is definitely the case now,
since a series of well-publicized, and very costly, campus suicides
earlier this decade. 

yes, you are very correct that DoJ data show a drop in child
victimizations of all kinds, including sexual. this has gone on for a
long time, since 1993, as i show in the book. it's why parental fears
are out of proportion to the data, the true risk is wildly
misperceived. but the actual incidence of date rape, as with all
alcohol-related problems, is increasing on campuses. i don't know how
much of that, if any, is reported to the DoJ, to tell you the truth. i
have no idea when anyone started counting. i know only that one source
of counting has gone on since the 1980s and the numbers keep going up.
also, when you tap individual schools you find that their numbers of
incidents keep going up.  
  

    
I still don't see the data.  The most detailed information, listed at
the end of the article under "Temperamental Journey", does not address
parenting style.  Is there a way to access the actual study online?

Kagan and Arcus, as quoted, come to a number of qualitative
conclusions, accompanied by universal quantifiers.
  

    
i'm glad that a number of college chancellors and presidents took the
initiative to open the discussion on reducing the drinking age to 18.
there are a lot of reasons why it makes sense. but these folks are
taking on the emotionally powerful interests of mothers against drunk
driving, who have a certain moral force on their side. it's going to be
an interesting debate. i don't know that, as a country, we have the
sophistication right now to see how earlier drinking could actually cut
dangerous drinking. if you tend to see issues in black and whiite, you
won't get this one.
  

    
#184: I don't tell her "that's dangerous" or "you could get hurt." I
say, "It scares Mommy." In other words, it's *my* limitation, not hers.


I was surprised to read about lost kids cowering in corners because
they didn't know how to ask a stranger for help. I practiced 'losing'
my kid a few times to make sure she'd know what to do -- with the
result that I can hardly turn around in a store without getting one of
those announcements from the overhead because she went to Customer
Service to tell them her mom was 'lost' -- but at least she knows how
to handle it.
  

    
you know, we inoculate our kids against an array of pathogens. why
shouldn't we be prudent and inoculate them against an array of common
social dangers. exactly as you say, instructing them what to do in a
store or crowded place if they get separated from us makes a great deal
of sense. and while we freak out when we have to enact Plan A, our
kids don't necessarily, if they feel confident in the instructions
we've given them. we had the ultimate nightmare happen, here in new
york city. the subway doors closed, separating my older son from his
nanny. he was 6 or 7 years old at the time. he got off at the next
station and she found him right there on the platform, waiting for her.
of course, she nearly had a heart attack. he was fine. 
  

    
the emotionally powerful interests of mothers against drunk
driving

The 21-year-old drinking laws create late adolescent scofflaws when
the REAL issue is not the drinking per se, but the drinking and
driving. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, drinking laws were
lowered (if yer old enough to serve your country, yer old enough to
drink).  The statistics were strong that disproportionately more late
teens were dying on our roads, so MADD pushed for an age delineated
sort of prohibition.  We all know how well the prohibition era went
over.  I'm glad to see the college presidents take a controversial
stand.  MADD promotes a WIMPY approach that avoids the idea of young
people drinking responsibly. It's the easy law-and-order copout that
teaches the wrong attitudes toward living lawfully.
  

    
scott, yes, it's the drinking and driving...or any irresponsible
drinking behavior. i spent a couple of days visiting a large midwestern
university a couple of years ago. i was asked to come out to speak to
the faculty and administration, which i did. but i also asked to
listen, to the students, which i did. there was an incident at this
university a couple of years before that was, and still is, to be best
of my knowlege, in litigation. the campus is totally isolated, and
students are allowed to have fairly liberal amounts of hard alcohol and
beer in their rooms. several students decided to go to a bar in town
off campus, several miles away. they acquired fake ID cards and drove
the several miles into town. while they were drinking, the bar was
raided, the kids caught. and what was the parents' reaction? they sued
the university for not protecting their kids(!) and to get the arrests
off the kids' records. did they care that their kids lied and forged ID
cards? no. did they care that their kids were driving under the
influence? apparently not. they cared that their kids might have a mark
against them on their records that might keep them out of law school. 

there are many parents who believe that all drinking in college is
something to be winked at.
  

    
by and large, these parent are totally unaware of the very driven
quality to much campus drinking these days.
  

    
From <http://clinicaltrial.gov/ct2/show/NCT00593515>:

"Does parenting style affect emotion regulation among children who
initially demonstrate high levels of fear and anxiety? Although recent
correlational research has demonstrated a linkage between parental
behaviors, such as excessive intrusiveness, and children's
manifestations of fear and anxiety, it is not clear if parenting
behaviors directly influence children's ability to regulate these
emotions. Alternatively, these parental behaviors may be elicited by
children who express fears and anxieties more frequently than other
children do."

- Jeffrey Wood