Tuesday, 13 October 2015

THE POSITIVES: 6 WAYS TO TRICK YOUR BODY INTO BENEFITTING FROM STRESS

THE POSITIVES: 6 WAYS TO TRICK YOUR BODY INTO BENEFITTING FROM STRESS


You know the feeling: sweaty palms, dry mouth, tightness in the gut and huge armpit stains.
But do you know the worst part about stress and anxiety? When you think about how it’s killing you.
The funny thing is, the more we think about all the negative effects of stress, the more stressed out we feel about everything. But, maybe it’s not always so bad to occupy your brain with some “what ifs.”

Can stress be positive?

Let’s flip the script real quick.
What if stress actually wasn’t killing you? What if depression, cancer, heart disease, chronic anxiety and dissolving toenails weren’t all side effects of stress?
What if it was actually enhancing your health and life? What if stress could help you focus? What if stress could make you happier, more confident and stronger?
Well, it can.
Kelly McGonigal is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford, and she just dropped a new book called, “The Upside Of Stress.” In it, she aims to shift our paradigm in thinking stress is a toxic killer. She attempts to change our view from a “stress is harmful” thought process to a “stress is enhancing” mindset.
She writes:
The latest science reveals stress can make you smarter, stronger and more successful. It helps you learn and grow. It can even inspire courage and compassion.
Okay. So what is it that makes stress enhancing, rather than debilitating?
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How can stress be a positive force?

Back in my glory days, before my basketball games, I would get all the familiar symptoms of stress. I’d be in the locker room with sweaty palms, a dry mouth, restless legs and butterflies in my stomach.
However, it never crossed my mind I was dying. I viewed this as enhancing. I viewed it as adrenaline, excitement and being pumped up.
Although all the same physiological symptoms of stress were there, my perception actually changed my biology. I didn’t freeze up due to fear, I felt energized. I didn’t lose my train of thought, I was focused.
It all boils down to perception.
How you view your stress is how your biology responds. Crazy, right?
In McGonigal’s book, she talks about two types of stress hormones. The first is cortisol.
Cortisol is the stress hormone that, if sustained at high levels over long periods of time, can hurt your health. It causes many well-known, negative effects of stress, including heart disease, cancers, depression and chronic anxiety.
The second one is DHEA. It can actually enhance focus, help your immune system, battle depression and even prevent against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Both are released by your adrenal glands during periods of stress, but what matters is the ratio of DHEA to cortisol (called the growth index of a stress response).
Those who view stress as negative tend to have a higher ratio of cortisol to DHEA. However, those who view stress as a sign of a challenge or excitement tend to have a higher portion of DHEA.
The only difference in which hormone was released was the perception people had of the stress.
Yes, you read that right.
How you view your stress literally changes whether it’s good or bad for you. Whoa.

Stress Tools

How do you work on changing your perception? So glad you asked:

1. GIVE MORE.

Entrepreneur Tai Lopez talks about how, ironically, generously giving away your money causes it to come back to you ten-fold. Bill Gates gives away nearly all his money, and he’s still the richest man in the world.
It’s the same with stress. Give more of your time and energy helping others, and watch time and energy come back to you.

2. JOURNAL YOUR VALUE.

Take a few minutes every day to write about your values. What do you stand for?
Students who wrote about their values over vacation gained more meaning in their lives. It gives us a reason for what we do, which shows us the meaning behind our stress. It causes us to view stress as helpful.
Stressful experiences become “an expression of values, rather than hassles to overcome.”
If you don’t have values, I really can’t help you.

3. MEDITATION IS KEY.

I recommend this to all my friends, and they all scoff at the idea. But meditation has been shown to decrease stress, improve focus and attention span, improve immune function and make us more compassionate.
Here’s a quick how-to:
Set a timer for five minutes. Take deep breaths in and out, and focus on one thing. The goal is to silence your mind. Naturally, this will be damn near impossible.
But every time your mind wanders, simply bring it back to that one focus point. When your time is up, you’re done.

4. DON’T TRY TO CALM DOWN.

One of the most interesting experiments in McGonigal’s book was when researchers took two groups of students who were giving presentations. One group was told to try to calm down and relax. The other group was told to announce they felt excited about giving the presentation.
Later, people who watched the presentations rated the “excited group” as more persuasive, confident and competent. If you have sweaty palms and a dry mouth, don’t tell yourself you’re calm, cool and collected. (We can see your armpit sweat from here.)
Do what I subconsciously did in the locker room: Be excited and pumped up. Announce it. Watch your actions follow suit.

5. HANG WITH FRIENDS.

One of the most powerful things you can do for somebody is let them know they aren’t alone, and vice versa.
Trust me, you’re not the only one stressed about finals. You’re not the only one stressing about money, your career, your relationship or your Chipotle and vodka habit. Many of your peers are going through the same stressful events.
Social belonging is something we all need in our lives. It’s why people go to pheromone parties, or write their Elite Daily articles at Starbucks with the other unemployed people in their city.
Go to Starbucks or Chipotle with some friends to de-stress, and chat them up about what’s going on in your life. We’re in our 20s, for God’s sake. Life is good.

6. PRACTICE GRATITUDE.

This is an awesome exercise, but it’s hard to do consistently. It’s an easy thing to put on the “I’ll do it later” list, and all of a sudden it’s 2022 and you haven’t done sh*t.
Shawn Achor, the author of my favorite book,”Before Happiness,” consistently talks about gratitude and its importance on our well-being. If you’re a stronger person than I am, try this consistently: Sit down every morning and write out three to five different things you’re grateful for.
Gratitude is the greatest conqueror of fear. When you practice being grateful in the moment, you find life really isn’t that bad.
jagadeesh krishnan Psychologist and International Author
Mobile:+91-9841121780, 9543187772
EmaiL: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
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The 6 Mental Health Habits That Kill Your Confidence

The 6 Mental Health Habits That Kill Your Confidence
How to deal with guilt, failure, regret, and a muddled mindset.

Do you struggle with self-doubt and self-defeating habits?  Do you want to feel more confident about yourself and what you have to offer?  Do you focus on pleasing others, rather than following your dreams and living your best life?  The best way to start feeling better about yourself is to notice the automatic mental and emotional habits that don’t serve you well and find more self-compassionate, life-affirming ways to think and behave.  With conscious awareness and a daily focus on changing old habits, you can begin to build new, positive emotional pathways in your brain. Our brains possess the capacity for neuroplasticity, which means that practicing new ways of thinking and behaving can actually change your brain neurons and the pathways between them.  
This article will show you how to stop re-running those old self-critical scripts and self-defeating behavior patterns.  If you are willing to face your negative habits, you can learn to be morecognitively flexible(link is external) and to set healthier boundaries, thereby building a brain that is better wired for happiness and success.  Read on to see how to overcome six important barriers to feeling confident, happy, and successful in your life.
Feeling Guilty
Guilt is an emotion that we often learn inchildhood. “Eat all your food. There are people starving in India,” or "I’ve been working my fingers to the bone to take care of you and you think you have a right to complain?” As adults we internalize these messages and feel like we’re never enough or can never do enough.  The emotion of guilt can be helpful when it keeps you from intentionally hurting others or violating your deeply held values.  But too much guilt can be crippling and can take the joy out of life — not letting you enjoy the fruits of your hard work.  There are many types of guilt and research shows only one is good — guilt about something harmful that you did.  If you lied to someone you cared about or acted in a selfish and hurtful way, then feeling guilt can motivate you to stop doing the hurtful behavior and make amends.  This will likely improve your relationships and self-esteem. Most other types of guilt are counterproductive.  These include: (1) guilt about not doing enough to help someone else, when you’ve already done a lot or when the other person is not taking responsibility (2) guilt about having more money or better relationships than friends or family members, or (3) guilt about thoughts that you don’t actually act on, like feelingjealous of a friend who just had a baby.  To combat the unhelpful guilt, realize that your thoughts don’t hurt others, only your actions do.  Learn from past mistakes and try to feel worthy of the gifts and good fortune that life has given you. 
Thinking You’re a Failure
Many of us have a sense of failure that colors our perception of ourselves and our achievements.  If you look at your life through the lens of failure, you will fail to pay attention to or minimize your positive achievements.  A mindset of failure also doesn’t take into account the difficult circumstances you may have faced or how hard you tried.  This failure mindset may have its roots in growing up with critical parents, not being as smart or athletic as your siblings or close friends, or having undiagnosedattention deficit disorder.  It may be the result of disappointment in a key life area, like getting divorced, being single, having too much debt,  or not getting a college degree or dream job.  Once this failure mindset develops, you bring it with you into every new situation — believing that you lack what it takes to succeed.  Having a failure mindset can act like a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading you to get in your own way.  You may procrastinate and not get the work done on time, or become overly perfectionistic and focused on details, rather than the big picture.  You may act in an insecure manner that doesn’t inspire the confidence of potential bosses or customers, or you may do a careless job because you know your work isn’t good anyway.  The first step in overcoming a mindset of failure is to realize it is there and that you don’t have to believe it.  Each new opportunity is a fresh start and a chance to learn from previous mistakes and act differently.  
Being a Perfectionist
Are you your own biggest critic? Is nothing you do ever good enough to meet your high internal standards.  Perfectionism can result from a rigid mindset where you don’t change your expectations based on the situation.  It can lead to second-guessing yourself, procrastinating, feeling constantly overwhelmed, or giving up and not even trying.  An article published in theReview of General Psychology found thatperfectionists are more likely to struggle with depression or anxiety and they are more likely to commit suicide.  Perfectionists are also more likely to be diagnosed with intractable conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome orfibromyalgia, Perfectionism can be dangerous to your mind and body!  Perfectionists have conditional self-esteem.  They can only like themselves when they do well.  But nobody can do well all of the time.  Perfectionists often feel like imposters or frauds and live in constant fear of being exposed.  To combat perfectionism, get rid of the “shoulds” and black and white thinking.  Give yourself credit for trying.  Stop seeing mistakes as a disaster.  Give yourself time limits for getting the job done.  Don’t allow yourself to check and re-check your work.  Try to focus on the bigger picture and find more compassionate ways to view the situation.
Living with Regret
Regret is a negative cognitive/emotional state that involves blaming yourself for a bad outcome, feeling a sense of loss or sorrow at what might have been, or wishing you could undo a previous choice that you made.  If there is an opportunity to change the situation, regret, although painful to experience, can sometimes be a helpful emotion.  The pain of regret can result in refocusing and taking corrective action or pursuing a new path.  If you have anaddiction, regret can be a motivator to give up the harmful substance and live healthier. However, the less opportunity you have to change the situation, the more likely it is that regret can turn into chronic rumination and mentally beating yourself up.  Those experiencing regret replay a stressful or humiliating situation over and over again in their heads, causing the constant release of stress chemicals like adrenalin and cortisol.  This can take a toll on your body and mind.  To combat regret, usemindfulness strategies to keep your attention focused on the present moment.  As meditation teacher Jack Kornfield wisely said:  “Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
Comparing Yourself Negatively With Others
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” - Theodore Roosevelt
We compare ourselves with others and then make judgments about how well off and successful we are based on these comparisons.  There are upward comparisons (with people who seem to have it better than us when it comes to money, achievement, looks etc.) and downward comparisons (with those who seem to have it worse than we do.) We often feel better about our lives and accomplishments when making downward comparisons and feel bad about ourselves when making upward comparisons.  The problem is that we don’t really know what is going on beneath the surface of other people’s lives.  So when you compare, you are comparing your insides to everybody else’s outsides, as the saying goes.  A paper in the journal Science  reported that activation in brain areas related to reward respond to relative differences in wealth even more han absolute amounts.  Evidently, many Silicon Valley millionaires feel deprived because they can’t keep up with the billionaires in their neighborhood.  We can always find an area in which we’re not as good as others — physical appearance, athletic skill, or career achievement.  Comparison puts a lot of pressure on yourself because we all have different circumstances.  If you could afford a daily chef, life coach, and personal trainer, you would likely also have a movie star body. Unfortunately, parents often compare kids to their siblings and those labels can become our self-image.  “You’re the athletic one while your sister has the brains.” Comparisons are oversimplifications of the complexity and gifts we all possess as human beings.  The best comparison to make is what you know and are doing today, compared to last month or last year. This type of comparison takes your individual circumstances and ability into account.
People-Pleasing
People-pleasing behavior stems from wanting everybody to like you and overvaluing others' opinions at the cost of your own time, energy, and self-esteem.  You may have had narcissisticor emotionally abusive parents and learned to focus on pleasing them to survive psychologically in the family.  Research shows abused kids are more able to correctly identify angry facial expressions than non-abused kids.  At a very deep level, your brain may have gotten wired to please and appease others so they don’t get angry and hurt you physically or emotionally.  People-pleasing may also result from being sensitive to rejection and trying to avoid it.  Or you may have grown up with a depressed or addicted parent and learned that the only time you got attention was when you were taking care of your parent or meeting their emotional needs.  People-pleasing is a misuse of empathy.  Just because you can "know" what others are feeling doesn’t mean it is your responsibility to make them feel better.  You always have a choice.  So get rid of the “shoulds.”  Think about what people-pleasing behavior costs you in terms of increasing your stress and taking you away from pursuing your own goals.  People-pleasing can backfire and lead you to resent others for mistreating you. Practice setting boundaries and saying “no” to requests.  Learn to accept some immediate discomfort in exchange for longer-term stress relief.  Learn to prioritize and balance other people’s needs with your own.  Stop surrounding yourself with needy, demanding “energy vampires” and learn to be pickier about whom you get close to. 
jagadeesh krishnan Psychologist and International Author
Mobile:+91-9841121780, 9543187772
EmaiL: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
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The 5 Fighting Words You Need to Drop From Your Relationship

The 5 Fighting Words You Need to Drop From Your Relationship
Why you should never say 'whatever' again.
Arguing is a part of every healthy relationship. You and your partner won't agree 100 percent of the time, and sometimes one or both of you will say or do something that upsets the other. When this happens and you have a fair fight, you both voice your issues, listen to each other, talk, disagree, talk some more, and come away feeling closer.
But many of us don't fight like that; we fight dirty. In my 35 years as a marriageand family therapist, there are certain fighting words and fighting phrases I see couples use repeatedly to get a rise out of each other—or to shut the other down:
1. "Nothing"
People who fight dirty often do it because they're actually afraid of fighting, or don't want to take ownership of a fight. Instead of coming out and telling you they're upset or angry, a partner may radiate negative energy that begs you to ask, "What's wrong?" That's when your partner says the first fighting word:"Nothing."
Since it's obvious thatsomething is wrong, "nothing" really means, "Of course I'm upset, but I'm afraid of bringing up anything that may start a fight, so I'm going to provoke you into starting one for me."
The next time your partner says, "Nothing," counter with, "That response is only going to get us into a fight. When you're ready to talk about it, I'm here to listen."
2. "Whatever"
Let's imagine that your partner has just thrown out the first fighting word, "Nothing," and instead of countering with, "When you're ready to talk about it, I'm here to listen," you say, "I can tell something is wrong." That's when your partner drops the second fighting word: "Whatever."
"Whatever" can cut to your core—it's dismissive and minimizes your feelings and concerns.
Next time your partner says, "Whatever," don't take the bait and escalate the fight—which is often what a passive-aggressive partner wants. Instead, calmly say, "When you say that to me, I feel like you're not interested in how I feel or what I have to say—and that makes me feel bad."
If your partner doesn't offer a sincere apology, you've got to walk away and let them fume on their own. Otherwise, you're just agreeing to fight on their terms.
3. "Always"/"Never"
"You're never on time." "I'm always cleaning up after you." "I always go to your work parties; you never go to mine."
"Always" and "never" are rarely factual. When you use phrases that include "always" or "never," you're telling a partner that they can't ever do something right and that you don't believe they can change. This leads your partner to feel resigned and not try.
Why should your partner help you clean when, "Please take out the trash," translates to them as, "I'd like it if you took out the trash, but I know you won't"? You can't expect your partner to adopt an "I'll-prove-you-wrong" attitude.
Remove "always" and "never" from your relationship vocabulary. Instead, try "frequently" or "often," keep the focus on the present situation, and be specific: "It upset me when you were late today."
Let your partner know you have faith in them to change.
4. "You're just like your [father/mother/sister, etc.]"
This is another example of something a passive-aggressive partner would say to bait you into starting the fight they'd like to have. Instead of, "I feel like you're nagging me," your partner will say, "You're just like your mother."
Try to take a deep breath and simply respond, "It really upsets me when you compare me to my mother." Don't escalate—but let them know they've hurt you.
5. "You're too sensitive"/"You take things too personally"
"You're too sensitive" and "you take things too personally" imply that it's not OK for you be sensitive or feel slighted. These are fighting phrases, but they may also be cry-for-help phrases.
Your partner may be trying to say—albeit in a very unhelpful way­—that they needghg to tell you something that may upset you but they're afraid of your reaction.
In my individual and couples counseling sessions, I teach my clients how to steer clear of the fighting words and fighting phrases that can turn a minor disagreement into a screaming match. When you can keep your fights clean, you keep the relationship healthy.
jagadeesh krishnan Psychologist and International Author
Mobile:+91-9841121780, 9543187772
EmaiL: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
my boooks
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Web;http://issuu.com/home/publications
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The 7 Habits of Socially Connected People

The 7 Habits of Socially Connected People
For one thing, they might not be the life of the party.
Some people are naturally gregarious and find themselves socially connected seemingly with no effort. But for most of us, feeling integrated into a social scene takes some work.
Luckily, there are some predictable patterns to social success: Do certain things, and more people should be drawn to you. Here are the 7 skills that socially successful people possess:
1. They focus on quality over quantity.
People who feel socially connected may have a thousand Facebook friends and even more Twitter and Instagram followers, but they know deep down that this is not the heart of their social circle. They acknowledge that most of their social-media "friends" are acquaintances at best. Having many acquaintances is not a bad thing. Still, those who succeed socially understand that acquaintances need to eventually become close friends in order to feel truly tied to their friend group. These individuals don’t settle for quantity, but always aim for quality.
2. They prioritize face-to-face interactions.
Maintaining relationships requires effort. Most socially connected people prioritize seeing others in person. While in-person time can seem less efficient than online or phone interactions, there’s a value to in-person communication that socially successful people understand. It’s how you start seeing people as just that—people.
3. They share.
To feel socially connected, it’s vital to feelseen by those around you. But to feel seen, you have to let others get to know you. Socially connected people understand this and are willing to share at least bits and pieces of personal information with others. This doesn’t mean oversharing with strangers; it simply means making yourself a little vulnerable to those with whom you want to feel close.
4. They listen.
Introverts may have a hard time feeling as socially connected as extroverts. But the most extroverted person in the room may not be the most socially connected. They may receive attention, but if an extrovert does not learn a bit about those around them—by quietly listening to them—those other people will hardly feel closer to them. Listening to others makes people want to be around you, and wanting to be around each other is the essence of feeling connected.
5. They ask questions.
Socially connected people understand that all social interaction is fundamentally about demonstrating interest in one another. If you don’t act like you’re interested in those around you, you’ll come across as aloof, cold, or even rude. The easiest way—by far—to demonstrate interest in others is to ask questions. The most socially successful people ask not just factual questions (“What do you do for work?”) but questions that are a little more personal (“How do you like what you do?”). These two types of questions, used in conjunction, accelerate feelings of connectedness.
6. They see past differences.
Inevitably, you will notice differences between you and any friend, whether in terms of politics, religion, or lifestyle. Socially connected people realize that nobody will be, act, and look exactly like them, so they make an effort to not let differences stand in the way of closeness. They understand that we’re all human, and can all naturally relate to one another.
7. They don't worry about rejection.
It is natural to fear rejection when entering a new social group or meeting a new person you really like. While socially connected people likely feel this fear, they don’t worry about it. In other words, they don’t dwell on the fear and allow it to turn into an unproductive rumination on what could go wrong. Instead, they identify the people they want to be close to and march bravely into those relationships despite any fears that may arise.
jagadeesh krishnan Psychologist and International Author
Mobile:+91-9841121780, 9543187772
EmaiL: jagadeeshkri@gmail.com
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Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges

Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges
College personnel everywhere are struggling with students' increased neediness.
A year ago I received an invitation from the head of Counseling Services at a major university to join faculty and administrators for discussions about how to deal with the decline in resilience among students. At the first meeting, we learned that emergency calls to Counseling had more than doubled over the past five years. Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. Recent examples mentioned included a student who felt traumatized because her roommate had called her a “bitch” and two students who had sought counseling because they had seen a mouse in their off-campus apartment. The latter two also called the police, who kindly arrived and set a mousetrap for them.
Faculty at the meetings noted that students’ emotional fragility has become a serious problem when it comes to grading. Some said they had grown afraid to give low grades for poor performance, because of the subsequent emotional crises they would have to deal with in their offices. Many students, they said, now view a C, or sometimes even a B, as failure, and they interpret such “failure” as the end of the world. Faculty also noted an increased tendency for students to blame them (the faculty) for low grades—they weren’t explicit enough in telling the students just what the test would cover or just what would distinguish a good paper from a bad one. They described an increased tendency to see a poor grade as reason to complain rather than as reason to study more, or more effectively. Much of the discussions had to do with the amount of handholding faculty should do versus the degree to which the response should be something like, “Buck up, this is college.” Does the first response simply play into and perpetuate students’ neediness and unwillingness to take responsibility? Does the second response create the possibility of serious emotional breakdown, or, who knows, maybe even suicide?
Two weeks ago, that head of Counseling sent us all a follow-up email, announcing a new set of meetings. His email included this sobering paragraph: 
“I have done a considerable amount of reading and research in recent months on the topic of resilience in college students. Our students are no different from what is being reported across the country on the state of lateadolescence/early adulthood. There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life. Whether we want it or not, these students are bringing their struggles to their teachers and others on campus who deal with students on a day-to-day basis. The lack of resilience is interfering with the academic mission of the University and is thwarting the emotional and personal development of students.”
He also sent us a summary of themes that emerged in the series of meetings, which included the following bullets:
Less resilient and needy students have shaped the landscape for faculty in that they are expected to do more handholding, lower their academic standards, and not challenge students too much.There is a sense of helplessness among the faculty. Many faculty members expressed their frustration with the current situation. There were few ideas about what we could do as an institution to address the issue.Students are afraid to fail; they do not take risks; they need to be certain about things. For many of them, failure is seen as catastrophic and unacceptable. External measures of success are more important than learning and autonomous development.Faculty, particularly young faculty members, feel pressured to accede to student wishes lest they get low teacher ratings from their students. Students email about trivial things and expect prompt replies.Failure and struggle need to be normalized. Students are very uncomfortable in not being right. They want to re-do papers to undo their earlier mistakes. We have to normalize being wrong and learning from one’s errors.Faculty members, individually and as a group, are conflicted about how much “handholding” they should be doing.Growth is achieved by striking the right balance between support and challenge. We need to reset the balance point. We have become a “helicopter institution.”
Reinforcing the claim that this is a nationwide problem, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran an article by Robin Wilson entitled, “An Epidemic of Anguish: Overwhelmed by Demand for Mental-Health Care, Colleges Face Conflicts in Choosing How to Respond" (Aug. 31, 2015). Colleges and universities have traditionally been centers for higher academic education, where the expectation is that the students are adults, capable of taking care of their own everyday life problems.  Increasingly, students and their parents are asking the personnel at such institutions to be substitute parents. There is also the ever-present threat and reality of lawsuits.  When a suicide occurs, or a serious mental breakdown occurs, the institution is often held responsible.
On the basis of her interviews with heads of counseling offices at various colleges and universities, Wilson wrote:
“Families often expect campuses to provide immediate, sophisticated, and sustained mental-health care. After all, most parents are still adjusting to the idea that their children no longer come home every night, and many want colleges to keep an eye on their kids, just as they did. Students, too, want colleges to give them the help they need, when they need it. And they need a lot. Rates of anxiety and depressionamong American college students have soared in the last decade, and many more students than in the past come to campus already on medication for such illnesses. The number of students with suicidalthoughts has risen as well. Some are dealing with serious issues, such as psychosis, which typically presents itself in young adulthood, just when students are going off to college. Many others, though, are struggling with what campus counselors say are the usual stresses of college life: bad grades, breakups, being on their own for the first time. And they are putting a strain on counseling centers.”
In previous posts (for example, here andhere), I have described the dramatic decline, over the past few decades, in children’s opportunities to play, explore, and pursue their own interests away from adults. Among the consequences, I have argued, are well-documented increases in anxiety and depression, and decreases in the sense of control of their own lives. We have raised a generation of young people who have not been given the opportunity to learn how to solve their own problems. They have not been given the opportunity to get into trouble and find their own way out, to experience failure and realize they can survive it, to be called bad names by others and learn how to respond without adult intervention. So now, here’s what we have: Young people,18 years and older, going to college still unable or unwilling to take responsibility for themselves, still feeling that if a problem arises they need an adult to solve it.
Dan Jones, past president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors, seems to agree with this assessment. In an interview for the Chronicle article, he said:
“[Students] haven’t developed skills in how to soothe themselves, because their parents have solved all their problems and removed the obstacles. They don’t seem to have as much grit as previous generations.”
In my next post I’ll examine the research evidence suggesting that so-called “helicopter parenting” really is at the core of the problem. But I don’t blame parents, or certainly not just parents. Parents are in some ways victims of larger forces in society—victims of the continuous exhortations from “experts” about the dangers of letting kids be, victims of the increased power of the school system and the schooling mentality that says kids develop best when carefully guided and supervised by adults, and victims of increased legal and social sanctions for allowing kids into public spaces without adult accompaniment. We have become, unfortunately, a “helicopter society.”
If we want to prepare our kids for college—or for anything else in life!—we have to counter these social forces. We have to give our children the freedom, which children have always enjoyed in the past, to get away from adults so they can practice being adults—that is, practice taking responsibility for themselves.

Source: Basic Books, with permission
And now, what do you think? 
Have you witnessed in any way the kinds of changes in young adults described here and that seem to be plaguing colleges and universities? How have you, as a parent, negotiated the line between protecting your children and giving them the freedom they need for psychological growth? Do you have any suggestions for college counselors and professors about how to deal with these problems they are struggling with?
I invite you to share your stories, thoughts, and questions in the comments section below. This blog is, among other things, a forum for discussion. As always, I prefer if you post your comments and questions here rather than send them to me by private email. By putting them here, you share with other readers, not just with me. I read all comments and try to respond to all serious questions if I think I have something worth saying. Of course, if you have something to say that applies only to you and me, then send me an email.
jagadeesh krishnan Psychologist and International Author
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