The Self-Driven Child Read online

  Alas, sleepaway camp is not the world we live in. When she was around twelve or thirteen, Kara began to experience anxiety. “I think I first started having anxiety when people started telling me what to do,” she said, “when I didn’t feel like I was in control. And then when I switched schools and had to worry about fitting in and about what other people thought, I think that made it even worse. For me, feeling like I have a sense of control, that I am in charge of my own life, is so important. Even now, I like it when my parents give me choices. My friend’s mom will say, ‘Let’s play this game for a while and then let’s bake cookies.’ And that’s great and all, but it would make me nuts to always be told ‘Here’s the plan’ instead of asking me what I want.”

  These are exactly the circumstances most kids experience every day. Lest you doubt how little control children and adolescents like Kara actually have, think of what their days are like: they have to sit still in classes they didn’t choose, taught by teachers randomly assigned to them, alongside whatever child happens to be assigned to their class. They have to stand in neat lines, eat on a schedule, and rely on the whims of their teachers for permission to go to the bathroom. And think of how we measure them: not by the effort they put into practicing or how much they improve, but by whether another kid at the meet happened to swim or run faster last Saturday. We don’t measure their understanding of the periodic table, but how they score on a random selection of associated facts.

  It is frustrating and stressful to feel powerless, and many kids feel that way all the time. As grown-ups, we sometimes tell our kids that they’re in charge of their own lives, but then we proceed to micromanage their homework, their afterschool activities, and their friendships. Or perhaps we tell them that actually they’re not in charge—we are. Either way, we make them feel powerless, and by doing so, we undermine our relationship with them.

  There is another way. Over the last sixty years, study after study has found that a healthy sense of control goes hand in hand with virtually all the positive outcomes we want for our children. Perceived control—the confidence that we can direct the course of our life through our own efforts—is associated with better physical health, less use of drugs and alcohol, and greater longevity, as well as with lower stress, positive emotional well-being, greater internal motivation and ability to control one’s behavior, improved academic performance, and enhanced career success.8 Like exercise and sleep, it appears to be good for virtually everything, presumably because it represents a deep human need.

  Our kids are “wired” for control, whether they’re growing up in the South Bronx, Silicon Valley, Birmingham, or South Korea. Our role as adults is not to force them to follow the track we’ve laid out for them; it’s to help them develop the skills to figure out the track that’s right for them. They will need to find their own way—and to make independent course corrections—for the rest of their lives.

  Hitting the Sweet Spot: A Better Understanding of Stress

  Let us make one thing clear: we don’t think it’s possible to protect kids from all stressful experiences, nor would we want to. In fact, when kids are constantly shielded from circumstances that make them anxious, it tends to make their anxiety worse. We want them to learn how to deal successfully with stressful situations—to have a high stress tolerance. That’s how they develop resilience. If a child feels like he’s in control in a stressful situation, then in later situations when he might actually not be in control, his brain will be equipped to handle that stress better.9 He is, in effect, immunized.

  Bill cried every day for the first week of first grade because he didn’t know any of his classmates. His teacher was quietly supportive, and when other kids would whisper, “Mrs. Rowe, he’s crying,” Bill would hear her say, “He’s going to be fine. He’ll like it here, don’t worry.” He did, in fact, figure out how to manage the stress of an unfamiliar situation and the coping skills he learned appear to have generalized, as he never cried again in an unfamiliar environment. (So far, anyway.) The teacher was right to let him work it out, instead of swooping in and giving him the sense he couldn’t handle it on his own.

  The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child has identified three kinds of stress: 10

  Positive stress motivates children (and adults) to grow, take risks, and perform at a high level. Think of kids preparing for a play, nervous and a little stressed beforehand, but then filled with a sense of accomplishment and pride afterward. We could call this the jitters, excitement, or anticipation. Unless the jitters are excessive, they make it more likely that a child will perform well. Kids experiencing positive stress know that they ultimately have control over whether or not they perform at all. As it happens, kids are more likely to persevere and to reach their full potential if they know they don’t have to do something.

  Tolerable stress, which occurs for relatively brief periods, can also build resilience. Critically, there must be supportive adults present, and kids must have time to cope and recover. Let’s say a child witnesses her parents arguing a lot as they’re going through a divorce. But the parents are talking to her, and they’re not having blowouts every night. She has time to recover. This is tolerable stress. Another example of tolerable stress might be an episode of being bullied, so long as it doesn’t last too long, it isn’t repeated too often, and the child is supported by caring adults. A tolerable stress might even be a death in the family. In an influential study, graduate students took baby rats away from their mothers and handled them for fifteen minutes per day (which was stressful to the rats) and then returned them to their mothers, who licked and groomed them. The graduate students repeated this for the first two weeks of the rats’ lives. The baby rats who were removed and handled for a brief period showed much more resilience as adults than the pups who stayed in the cage with their mother.11 The researchers referred to them as “California laid-back rats,” as they were difficult to stress as adults. This is probably because in situations like these the brain becomes conditioned to cope, and this conditioning lays the foundation for resilience.12

  Toxic stress is defined as frequent or prolonged activation of the stress system in the absence of support. Toxic stress is either severe, such as witnessing an assault, or recurs day in and day out, in which case it is chronic. Supportive adults—who minimize exposure to things that a child isn’t developmentally ready to handle—aren’t readily available. The child perceives that he or she has little control over what happens. There seems to be no reprieve, no cavalry coming, no end in sight. This is the space many kids live in today, whether they are obviously at-risk students like Adam, or seemingly high-functioning kids like Zara. Toxic stress does not prepare kids for the real world. It damages their ability to thrive.13 To return to rat studies for a moment, when rat pups were taken from their mothers not for fifteen minutes but for three hours a day, the experience was so stressful that when they were returned to their mothers, the rat pups didn’t interact with them. They remained easily stressed for the rest of their lives.14

  So how do you capitalize on positive or tolerable stress while avoiding the bad kind? It is simple in theory, but tricky in execution: kids need a supportive adult around, they need time to recover from the stressful event, and they need to have a sense of control over their lives.

  It’s All in Your Head

  To understand how this works, it’s useful to know a few things about how the brain works. In moments of great self-doubt, understanding the brain will help kids grasp that much of their behavior is chemical, not character. Kids today are tech savvy, but they tend to know almost nothing about the hardware in their heads or the software that runs it. Our hope is that you will find a little brain science explains a lot about the thoughts and emotions that we all have a hard time controlling. Those of you who already know how the brain works will have to bear with us as we outline the nuts and bolts.

  Four major brain systems are involv
ed in developing and maintaining a healthy sense of control: the executive control system, the stress response system, the motivation system, and the resting state system. Let us briefly explain what each of these does.

  1. Three of the most important brain structures regulating stress and impulse control are the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus.

  The Pilot (The Executive Control System)

  The executive control system is largely governed by the prefrontal cortex, the seat of planning, organization, impulse control, and judgment. When we are calm, fully rested, and in control—when we are in our right minds—our prefrontal cortex is monitoring, organizing, and regulating much of the brain. In fact, the key variable in determining the extent to which we become stressed by life experiences is how much the prefrontal cortex perceives itself to be in control.

  The prefrontal cortex has been called “the Goldilocks of the brain,” as it needs a “just right” combination of chemicals—the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine—to operate effectively.15 It is easily taken off-line by stress. Arousal, mild stress, excitement, or minor pretest jitters can raise the levels of these neurotransmitters, resulting in sharper focus, clearer thinking, and stronger performance. With sleep deprivation or too much stress, however, the prefrontal cortex becomes flooded with dopamine and norepinephrine and is essentially taken off-line. At such times, the brain is simply unable to learn or to think clearly, a point we’ll return to in Chapter Seven. When the prefrontal cortex is off-line, you are more likely to act impulsively and to make dumb decisions.

  The Lion Fighter (The Stress Response System)

  The stress response system takes over when you are confronting a severe threat like a predator, or even imagining a threat. It is designed to keep you safe from impending harm. It is made up of the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the pituitary and adrenal glands.

  The amygdala, a primitive emotional processing center that is acutely sensitive to fear, anger, and anxiety, is a key part of the brain’s threat detection system. It doesn’t think consciously; it senses and reacts. Under high stress, the amygdala is the one in charge. Under the amgydala’s reign, our behavior tends to be defensive, reactive, inflexible, and at times aggressive.16 We’re inclined to fall back on habitual patterns or instinct, as our animal nature prepares us to fight, flee, or freeze like a deer in the headlights.

  When the amygdala senses a threat, it sends a signal to the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. Then it’s an agitated game of telephone to wake up the adrenal gland, which secretes adrenaline. Adrenaline is the hormone that allows us to lift a car when our child is trapped underneath it. This complex sequence of alarm notifications occurs faster than conscious thought. When we are under threat, we need a vigorous stress response. Our survival may depend on the speed of our instinctive reaction, and evolution shaped us so that we cannot think clearly under stress.

  A healthy stress response is defined by a very quick spike in stress hormones followed by a quick recovery. The problems come when that recovery doesn’t happen quickly. If stress is prolonged, the adrenal gland secretes cortisol, which is slower to come on board and has been likened to bringing in the troops for a long-term battle. If a zebra is attacked by a lion and survives, its cortisol levels will normalize in forty-five minutes. By contrast, humans can retain elevated cortisol levels for days, weeks, or even months at a time. That can be a problem, in part, because chronically elevated levels of cortisol will impair and eventually kill cells in the hippocampus, the place where memories are created and stored. This is why students have trouble learning when they are under acute stress.

  The hippocampus has another role to play. It helps turn off the stress response. It says, “Hey, remember last time you freaked out about being late and it was no big deal? Chill.” It’s like the calm, loyal friend who shows up to talk you off the ledge. It’s perspective—which is invaluable in all aspects of life. People suffering from PTSD, whose hippocampus has been compromised, don’t have this perspective. When they’re in a situation that’s even remotely similar to one in the past—say they’re in a crowded mall instead of a crowded market in Baghdad where an IED went off—their hippocampus can’t put those past memories in context, and they panic.

  Stress disorganizes the brain. It reduces brain wave coherence, the desire to explore new ideas and to solve problems creatively. It kicks our prefrontal cortex out of the driver’s seat and limits the flexibility with which we can pull ourselves together or learn. When the Lion Fighter is in charge, you might have sharper instincts on a lion-infested savannah, but less so in sophomore English. How could you possibly focus on Shakespeare or process math when your body is telling you you’re in a fight for survival?

  It’s not that the stress response system is bad exactly, but it is a bit like the “heavy” you bring in under duress. You want him there for tough times, but you don’t want him there all the time. Chronic stress enlarges the amygdala, increasing the Lion Fighter’s presence and thus your vulnerability to fear, anxiety, and anger.

  The next two systems we’ll only touch on here and will return to in more detail in later chapters.

  The Cheerleader (The Motivational System)

  The motivational system is the “reward center” part of the brain that releases the neurotransmitter dopamine. Anything you experience as rewarding—winning a sports match, earning money, having a good sexual experience, receiving recognition—leads to a higher level of dopamine. In contrast, low dopamine levels are associated with low drive, low effort, and boredom. An optimal level of dopamine allows for the experience of flow, which we come back to in Chapter Five when we turn to the all-important question of motivation. In acclaimed stress researcher Robert Sapolsky’s words, “Dopamine’s more about the wanting than the getting.”17 It is the key to drive. When you are under chronic stress, dopamine levels go down the tubes over time. It’s harder to want to do something, and as a result, you lose your motivation.

  The Buddha (The Resting State)

  For years when scientists used MRIs to assess the brain’s activity, they studied what activates the brain when it’s given a specific task (like counting backward from one thousand). But around the turn of the twenty-first century, scientists started looking at what happens when we’re just sitting with our own thoughts. What they discovered was that there is a complex and highly integrated network in the brain that only activates when we are “doing nothing.” This is known as the default mode network. Our understanding of its functioning is still new, but we know it must be very important, as it uses 60 to 80 percent of the brain’s energy.18

  2. The default mode network is concentrated in the shaded areas in the front and back of the brain that activate when we think about the past or the future; think about ourselves and others; and simply let our minds wander.

  When you’re sitting in a waiting room or unwinding after dinner, if you’re not reading, watching television, or on your phone, your default mode network is projecting the future and sorting out the past. It’s processing your life. It activates when we daydream, during certain kinds of meditation, and when we lie in bed before going to sleep. This is the system for self-reflection, and reflection about others, the area of the brain that is highly active when we are not focused on a task. It is the part of us that goes “off-line.” A healthy default mode network is necessary for the human brain to rejuvenate, store information in more permanent locations, gain perspective, process complicated ideas, and be truly creative. It has also been linked in young people to the development of a strong sense of identity and a capacity for empathy.19 Not surprisingly, stress impairs the default mode network’s ability to work its magic. Scientists are concerned that because of technology’s ubiquity, young people have too few opportunities to activate their default mode network and, as a result, too few opportunities for self-reflection.

  —

  That is a lot of
brain science to take in all at once. The main thing to remember for now is that chronically stressed kids routinely have their brains flooded with hormones that dull higher brain functions and stunt their emotional responses. Parts of the brain that are responsible for memory, reasoning, attention, judgment, and emotional control are dampened and eventually damaged. Over time these areas can shrink, while the parts of the brain that detect threats grow larger. Ultimately, an overactive stress system makes a child far more likely to develop anxiety disorders, depression, and a host of other mental and physical problems.

  One of my students came in after a test one day and reported that he’d blown it. “I had a panic attack and left the testing room again,” he said. “Every time, I dwell on one question and waste time. Then when the proctor comes in and says ‘You have five minutes,’ it’s like a trigger and I lose it.

  “It was going so well,” he said, “and then I just took so long on one thing and it killed me.”

  “So what was going through your head when that problem got to you?” I asked.

  “When I tried doing the next problem, it was almost like I couldn’t think logically. Like I couldn’t understand what I was reading. Or how to go about the problem.”

  His Lion Fighter had taken over and the Pilot, who really knew all the answers, was nowhere to be seen.

  —Ned