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Michael G. Thompson Books

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“One of the best perks of being a child therapist is that parents think you are awfully clever when their child shows dramatic improvement. Mostly what happens is that the child grew up. He reached a new developmental stage that let him share, control his aggressive impulses, or make a friend.”

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Book:Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children
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“It seems contradictory, but if you want your child to be adventurous, you need to cuddle her more. If you want your child to always be close, you need to applaud her explorations. Some children need a little push out of the nest, but never give the shove without an unlimited free pass for coming back home. Children of all ages need to be able to regress sometimes, pretending to be younger than they really are. They need to know they can cuddle with you or check back with you any time they want. Other children will race away recklessly and need to be held in check a little. Don’t hold them back, however, without a clear message that you’re eager for them to try their wings, once they can do it a bit more safely. Otherwise, the clingy children will just cling tighter or stumble out into the world unprepared. Conversely, the reckless child will just rush out even more impulsively or catch the parent’s anxiety and become fearful.”

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“Adults often ask me why children in groups are so cruel. I am always astonished by the question. What about groups of adults? What about the Holocaust? What about the Serbs and Croats? How could neighbors who had lived together for hundreds of years suddenly turn on one another and begin to see each other as enemies? Why have Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland been willing to plant bombs in each other’s neighborhoods and kill people only blocks away? What about the Hutus and the Tutsis? During the genocide in Rwanda, a Hutu man beheaded his Tutsi wife and three sons in front of a crowd when the Hutu chief in his town told him that he had to kill all Tutsis. What force could make a person do something like that? Peer pressure. Peer pressure in a horrible group cause.”

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“No matter how old your child is now, try to remember that incredible sociability of infants and toddlers – the way they flirt, smile, pull at our heartstrings. Everything you see now has been built on that foundation. It’s hard to see that happy little guy you raised inside your touchy fifteen year old. But does that little boy emerge when your son is laughing with a group or watching TV with a friend? If so, relax. If, however, you cannot spot any sign of your happy youngster in your older child, if he or she cannot take any pleasure in friends or in a group or is always isolated, then, as a psychologist, I am worried - and you should be too.”

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“I learned to compliment children on their behavior as guests in our house from a friend of mine. There is something lovely in having another child’s mother say, “Susan was a great guest. We enjoyed having her.” Complimenting a child honors the child, dignifies the child’s visit, and makes him or her self-conscious of having been a guest all along. Many parents don’t realize it, but complimenting a child also makes him or her aware that there is a process of evaluation going on in the host parent. That is to say, if a child is accustomed to hearing a compliment and doesn’t receive it one time, then he or she will think about what made it a not-so-good visit.”

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“Every once in a while, parents give birth to a temperamental replica of themselves, but usually we have to get over the universal, narcissistic wish to have a clone and come to grips with the fact that our children are truly unique. Some parents arrive at that place of wisdom more easily and with more grace than others. It is a help to our children when we get there relatively quickly, so that they don’t have to beat us over the head with their differences.”

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“You should look for opportunities to turn your child into a social leader. Brownies, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Indian Guides, National Outdoor Leadership Schools, church and synagogue youth groups, and almost any type of community service opportunities are extraordinarily helpful to popular children. These opportunities allow them to turn their attractive traits into concrete acts of generosity toward others. Good leaders show respect toward other people; good leaders use win-win strategies. It is not enough for children to be smart or to be able to reflect on moral problems. Children need to be put into situations where they can practice moral acts - and that is true of the socially gifted as it is of kids who veer toward the antisocial. We have to give our naturally popular children the moral guidance to make them into true leaders.”

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“Stuck with a pile of tumultuous feelings about her friend, your daughter handed those feelings off to you. Now she can go out and play happily, while you are the one with the overload of feelings. In his book Playful Parenting, Larry Cohen calls this the game of emotional hot potato. We are sitting ducks for this game because we are hardwired to empathize with our child. We have to make sure we don’t overreact because we were the last ones left with the potato.”

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“If your children are popular or accepted, I am delighted for them. They’re going to have an easier childhood than some other kids. However, your work is not done. The daily newspaper provides numerous examples of well-known political or entertainment figures who behave extremely badly toward others. Such misbehavior begins early because such leaders were allowed, when they were young, to use their social influence in any way that they wanted. As we have seen through countless examples in this book, popular and accepted children wield a lot of power over the lives of other children. Some of that power is pretty destructive, so parents have to take every opportunity to be moral leaders. Many potential bullies can be transformed into positive leaders who actually enhance the moral and social atmosphere of a school or a group of children.”

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“While conflict is inevitable in friendship, friends also have the ability to tolerate each other’s needs and to resolve differences. As Frans de Waal writes, “Fires start, but fires go out…We know a great deal about the causes of hostile behavior in both animals and humans…Yet we know little of the way conflicts are avoided - or how, when they do occur, relationships are afterward repaired and normalized. In his wonderful book Peacemaking Among Primates, Frans de Waal makes the case that for all primates, humans included, “making peace is as natural as making war.”

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“As long as we think about the competitive power a school might possess because of its size rather than what the daily social experience will be for the vast majority of children (most of them not football players) we are missing the boat. What all children want is a safe environment where they are known and appreciated. I do not believe it is possible to provide such an experience for enough children in gigantic schools.”

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“Sometimes, however, unmet attachment needs have a positive impact on future relationships, if those later friendships are experienced as second chances. Eager to love and be loved, eager to meet those basic needs for caring and affiliation, children can make up for those unmet needs by being outgoing, having strong leadership qualities, and becoming devoted friends. So insecurely attached children are not doomed to a life of desperation, withdrawal, clinging, aggression, or insecurity, but they may need some additional help negotiating the complex terrain of the social world. The deeper a child’s unmet need, the harder it may be to ever have it filled later on. Expecting rejection, neglect, or smothering, the child may respond to peers with passivity, withdrawal, or aggression. Children who are afraid to assert their own needs may follow along with whatever the friend or the group says.”

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“It doesn’t always have to be that way, however. Later friendships can offer a second chance to finally get those old needs met. I often ask adults in therapy how they managed to cope with the terrible traumas they endured. The ones who coped best, even ones with horrendous histories of abuse and neglect, were those who found a friend or supporter. Somehow, even through the betrayals and abandonments, these individuals managed to connect with someone, usually a very special person who saw through the child’s surface layer of aggressiveness, withdrawal, or fear and persisted in offering a helping hand. For some survivors of abuse, this connection came from a peer, perhaps someone whose own suffering made them especially empathic. Others were supported by an adult, someone who didn’t abuse or neglect them, but treated them with respect and dignity. Still others were shut out of human connection but managed to find a friend by connecting with a pet, a doll, a character in a favorite book or an imaginary friend.”

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“The white middle-class kids were looking forward to high school, academically and socially. The black kids and the white working-class kids had mixed feelings about the transition. For them high school meant an end to the one big happy family they had experienced in their grammar school. Because these students were a minority, they spent some time hanging out within their groups, building identity, and part of the time with the majority kids, building bridges. In high school, though, as they had heard from older siblings and friends, the black kids hung out with the black kids, the Asian kids with the Asian kids, and so on. There were big enough groups in each of these categories that identity politics often took precedence over friendship. Friendships across those lines weren’t impossible, but they were much harder.”

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“It has to be okay for a child not to be an alpha male or queen bee–otherwise almost everyone is doomed to misery. Set your sights a little lower and look to see if your child has the basics covered. Watch your child with a friend. Are they happy to see one another? Do they engage in reciprocal play? Do they take each other’s feelings into account? Can they resolve conflict without help? Do they have more peaceful time than fighting time? If your child can do these things at least some of the time, you can relax.”

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“First and foremost, you need to talk with your child’s teacher. If you think that your child is on the margins of the class, ask the teacher if that is true. It is a painful question to ask and a tough question to answer. Be blunt. Explain your worry and lay out the facts as you see them. It may take this kind of bold appraisal before a teacher will say, “Yes, I’m sorry to say that your child doesn’t have a friend in the class,” or “Yes, he is teased an awful lot.” Parents need to know that teachers are generally very kind, diplomatic, and supportive. It is difficult for them to be direct about a child’s terrible social situation unless he is a bully who’s causing problems for other children. If a child is the real victim, teachers sometimes hold themselves responsible for fixing the problem and feel defensive if they cannot.”

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“To listen to children dissect one another in public and respond with weak words is not helpful. Wait for an opportunity, catch the malefactors in the act, and then label their behavior for what it is: “That’s cruel.” If it continues, you may have to stop the car and declare, “I have to ask you to stop talking about Isabel that way. It is unbearably cruel and I cannot tolerate it.” Your child and your child’s classmates should know that you do not condone their horrible treatment of one another and will not collude silently with it.”

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