Parental Supervision Required

When you walk into a doctor's office, you've got to have the same attitude you would about anything else. You've got to ask tough questions, and you've got to not be afraid to challenge their credentials.

-Tom Brokaw

 

When teaching children about good touch/bad touch, the example that is often used is the bathing suit example. The parts of the body that are covered by a bathing suit are parts that are considered to be private. We teach kids that these places are not to be touched by others nor are they permitted to touch others in these areas. Children are not to expose these body parts to others nor are others permitted to expose their own privates to children. But like all rules, there are exceptions. Kids are often taught that there are three exceptions to the “bathing suit rule”: the child’s mother, their father, and a doctor whilst in the company of their parent.

The motivation behind this article is the recent saga of Dr. Larry Nassar, the former US Gymnastics trainer and doctor, who pled guilty to charges of sexual abusing minors. There is plenty to discuss on this subject, but there is one specific point that I would like to focus on. This is the report that Dr. Nasser abused his patients even when their parents were in the room! Whilst such brazenness among abusers is far from the norm, the question remains, what safeguards do parents need to utilize to protect their children from a doctor who is willing to abuse, even in the presence of a parent?

A parent being with their child is not the same as a parent supervising their child. Parents are often one corner of the park doing their own thing, not paying attention to what their kids are doing in the other area of the park. Personally, I have even watched young children  run out of the park into the busy street, all the while their parent is absorbed in their own conversation with their friends. The rule we teach our kids “a doctor whilst in the company of their parent” is only good advice if the parent is supervising. Just being present isn't sufficient, active supervision is required. In some of the cases with Dr. Nasser, it was reported that the parent in the room was busy with their phone. In other words, in these cases the parent was present but was not supervising.

Another important lesson to be taken from this is the need for parents to know what is, and what isn't acceptable in the medical field. What problems will require that my child be undressed for the doctor? What issues will give legitimate reason for the doctor to touch my child’s genitals? How is the doctor touching them? Is the doctor hurting my child when touching them? Should it be hurting them? Parents need to educate themselves in this area to better understand when a doctor is doing their job, and when they are overstepping their boundaries. 

There is one final rule that I would like to share. When I was taking a course back in graduate school, the teacher taught us all the interventions we should use and when we should use them, but in the last class she gave us the following message: Always go with your gut. She then proceeded to tell us that it means even if our gut tells us differently than what we’ve been taught, we should go with our gut.

If you aren’t comfortable with the way the doctor (or the tutor, or the coach, or the babysitter etc.) is treating your child, even if you can’t explain why you are bothered, go with your gut. 

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages who are looking to improve their awareness and their social skills. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety. 

You can email Yisroel at YMPicker@gmail.com

Bridge Out

“Believing there is a bridge from where you are to where you want to go is 99% of the battle. The other 1% is to cross it.”

― Richie Norton

A bridge is something that connects two things that are in different places. To a motorist, a bridge is something that connects two pieces of land. A community liaison is a type of “human bridge”. Their role is to bridge people with organizations and services, trying to establish bonds and trust between two groups that were not previously connected. There is an additional type of bridging, one that I try to utilize. That is the concept of bridging thoughts and ideas.

Before I describe this idea of bridging thoughts and ideas further, I need to give a bit of a background of myself first. I have a Masters of Social Work degree and I write and speak about topics involving child safety, but the majority of my practice involves something called Instrumental Enrichment, which I use with clients as a means of helping them with how they think and process information. Here is how I describe Instrumental Enrichment on a basic level: The theory that you can teach a person to recognize their own thought process, and once you are able to get the person to that point, together you’ll be able to correct deficiencies in their thought process. These deficiencies can be in their input of information, in how they elaborate the inputted information and in their choice of solution, which is referred to as output.

For example: Isaac is a guest at someone’s table. There are 7 people at the meal, and there is one plate of fish on the table. This plate has 7 pieces of fish. Isaac takes two pieces of fish.

The issue is that Isaac didn’t process the non-verbal instructions. Seven people and seven pieces mean that the instruction is “if you would like fish, take no more than one piece”. This is my basic explanation of Instrumental Enrichment.

One tool used during the Instrumental Enrichment lessons is called “Bridging”. The teacher tries to connect the experience and lessons learned in the current situation to new situations. “Where else can we apply the lesson we have just learned” is a common question asked during these sessions. Sometimes more specific questions such as “Where else in your life to you suppose it is important to have a strategy?" and "How often has 'impulsivity' gotten you into difficulty in your family life?" to name a few examples. The goal here is simple, to try to create a thinking process that can easily adapt to new situations.

There is a classic Chinese Proverb that teaches us that by giving a man a fish you feed him for a short period of time, but if you actually teach him to fish, you will ensure that he will not go hungry for life. The quote illustrates that the skill is greater than the result of the skill. This lesson is even more important when applied to thought processes, as thought processes cover a much wider area than the aforementioned single skill. The ability of knowing how we think coupled with the ability to bridge known concepts to unknown situations leave us more powerful than the man who has only been taught how to fish.

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages who are looking to improve their awareness and their social skills. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety.  You can email Yisroel at YMPicker@gmail.com

Right Answer, Wrong Question

“To be able to ask a question clearly is two-thirds of the way to getting it answered.”

― John Ruskin

 

The following is a story that is told in almost all yeshivas. It is shortly before Pesach and a widow comes to the Rabbi of the town. The widow asks the Rabbi if she is able to fulfill her daled kosos obligation by drinking milk. The Rabbi then gives this widow enough money to purchase both wine and meat for the upcoming holiday. The Rabbi’s logic is quite simple. Since she is asking about drinking milk, it is obvious that not only does she not have wine, but she also doesn't have meat.

When I first heard this story as a 7th grade student, it really didn’t have much of an impact on me. What’s the big deal? It doesn’t take a tremendous genius to realize that she doesn’t have meat. So why was this a story that gets told at all, let alone so often? As I grew older, I started realizing that there are tremendous lessons one can learn about sensitivity. The Rabbi could have easily just answered this woman’s question, instead he went out of his way to help her. A number of years ago, I realized the story is not just about sensitivity, it is about a special skill within communication. This is a skill that I call what are they really trying to say?.

Using the above story as the example, the words the woman used were “Can I use milk for daled kosos?” but what she was really saying was “Rabbi, I am really desperate for money, I have no wine, I have no meat, and I am too embarrassed to ask for help in a direct manner”. In the story, the Rabbi is able to decipher the actual request.

There are many examples of such questions, but there are two specific examples that I have seen repeated more than others. There are stories of victims of domestic abuse who claim that months prior they told their clergy of their situation. They were then advised that they, the victim, need to be more happy, more positive, more upbeat. The only problem is, they didn’t actually tell their clergy about the domestic abuse. They couldn’t bring themselves to say those words. Instead they went to their clergy and said “My spouse is always so angry”. The clergy didn't ask about the anger and didn't press for more details. They answered what they perceived to be the question, a question about anger, when they were actually speaking with a person who was asking for assistance with a domestic violence situation.

When I was 16 years old, one of my classmates publicly asked the teacher “Is suicide muttar?”. As a 16 year old, I thought I knew the answer to that question; suicide is forbidden. We all knew that by that age. So why was he wasting everyone’s time with a question that we all knew the answer to? But that wasn’t his question. His question wasn’t about the knowledge of the halacha, his question was a cry for help. He was considering ending his life and he chose this route as a way of letting his intentions be known.

Let’s use the following hypothetical. Your child is 11 and they take the school bus back from school. One day your child asks if they can walk home from school and not take the bus. Do you right away start telling them that it is too far a walk, too dangerous of a walk for them? Or do you start asking your child why they don’t want to be on the bus and why they’d prefer to walk? If the child is having an issue on the bus, whether it be bullying, abuse or anything else, the child is much less likely to say more about this issue they are having if you immediately start telling them why they can’t walk home. Ask your child, speak with your child, learn about your child.

One mustn’t assume that they understand the question. Don’t be afraid to ask why the question is being asked. Children and adults alike have a hard time saying certain things. Abuse in either physical, sexual or emotional form are especially difficult for many to discuss in a direct manner. Take the extra minute or two to make sure that you really know what you are being asked. While you might be getting the answer 100% correct, you got the question very wrong.

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages who are looking to improve their awareness and their social skills. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety.  You can email Yisroel at YMPicker@gmail.com

Know What You Don't Know

“Wisdom is knowing what you don't know.”

-Socrates

“He doesn't know what he doesn't know” is a phrase that I have used to describe more than one person. It often confuses the person I am talking to. The person who I am conversing with will usually ask me “Well, isn't that the problem with everyone, that there are things we don’t know?”. Correct, that is a problem, people should never stop learning, they should always be looking for ways to expand their knowledge, but that is not what I am referring to. I use the phrase to refer to people who think they know something, when in reality they are completely ignorant on the subject. Let me illustrate what people initially think I mean, and what I actually mean, using the following example.

Example of what people think I mean: Boy is drowning, witness sees him drowning, but witness doesn’t know how to swim. So the issue is the lack of knowing how to swim.

The above example is not what I am referring to.

Example of what I actually mean: Boy is drowning, witness sees him drowning, but doesn’t know how to swim. Witness doesn’t recognize that he doesn’t know how to swim, and therefore jumps into the water. Now there are two people who require rescuing.

There is no one who knows everything. There is plenty that each and every one of us needs to learn. But what are we doing in the interim? Are we trying to fool ourselves? Fool others? Or do we have the knowledge and the humility to admit that we don’t know?

When I lecture on this subject, it is at this point that I stop generalizing, and start getting into specifics. When I speak with doctors, the goal becomes for the doctor to realize at which point they are no longer able to help the patient, and need to refer the patient to a specialist. The doctor needs to take a long term view here. If they don’t refer to a different doctor, the patient will eventually choose a different doctor, whereas by referring to a specialist, the patient is more likely to return when they need medical attention for other ailments.

This idea of “knowing what you don’t know” is also very important in parenting. Do you, the parent, know how to handle the issue of your child being bullied? Do you even have a concept of what cyber-bullying is, and the types of harm it causes? How about the reverse? What if you find out your child is being a bully? Do you know how to check to see if your intervention is successful? Do you realize that the intervention that worked for an older child might not be right for your younger child, or do you believe that one size fits all when it comes to your children? Are you prepared to recognize that there are issues that you might not be able to assist your child with? If so, what do you do?

Parenting can be extremely difficult and challenging. When our children were born, they didn’t come with an operating manual. There is no “tech support” hotline that has all the answers for each individual child. What worked for one child might not work for another child. What worked for this child two years ago might not work for this child now. As soon as we know what we don’t know, we have taken the step into the right direction. We acknowledge that at the present time we are incapable of handling this issue. Perhaps we need to learn more to better equip ourselves. Perhaps the advice of someone we respect can enlighten us to a different technique, one we never would have thought of. Perhaps we will require someone else intervene, whether a family member that the child trusts, or perhaps a mental health professional.

The issue isn’t that the parent doesn't know. There is plenty that we all don’t know. The issue is when the parent thinks they are helping the child when in fact they aren’t. Our children are our most precious resource. Let’s not harm them because we are allowing our egos to blind us from the fact that there are things that we don’t know.

I’d like to conclude with one final comment. For this article, I switched my writing style. I decided to use terms like our, we, and us. The reason for this is simple. I am also writing this message for myself. This is not a message that one can hear once and remember. This is a message that needs to be internalized. A message that needs to be on a front burner, not a back burner. Recognize what you don’t know, accept that you don’t know. Find another way to assist your child despite your not knowing. Don’t give up because you don’t know. Don’t keep trying the only methods you know, just because they are the only methods that you know. We try to teach our children that it is okay to ask for help. We need to remember as parents, it is still okay to ask for help.

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages who are looking to improve their awareness and their social skills. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety.  You can email Yisroel at YMPicker@gmail.com

Not Always!

Not Always!

“You will fall to ruin because you believe that exceptions to the rule make new rules.”

― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

Every single one of the fifty states has some type of law that require children to be using a seatbelt while riding in a car. All but one state requires that the driver of a car be using a seatbelt while operating the vehicle. The reason for these laws are quite simple. Seatbelts keep the occupants restrained in their seats. This greatly reduces the risk of such dangerous incidents like blunt force trauma and being ejected from the vehicle. Due to these and other safety reasons, in addition to the laws mandating seatbelt usage and fines for violating these laws, states are also using media campaigns to educate the public about the safety benefits of seatbelts.

Just because seatbelts have saved so many lives and just because of all the legislation mandating their usage, doesn’t mean there aren’t times when it would be more advantageous had the occupant not been using a seatbelt.

In August of this year a 38-year-old businessman in India was charred to death when a car he was driving caught fire. The man died inside the car as he could not unlock the seatbelt and escape. - (full article: https://goo.gl/qSwRCp)

I am using seatbelts to try to make the following point. All too often people believe that an exception to the rule either disproves the rule or creates a new rule. Very rarely will there be a rule that applies 100% of the time. Many have driven drunk without causing harm to themselves or others. I also personally know someone who not only survived a fall from a height of four stories, but he did so without sustaining any injuries. Neither disprove the fact that both are extremely dangerous. Likewise the case of the seatbelt trapping the Indian man inside his burning car doesn’t prove that seatbelts shouldn’t be worn. While these are exceptions, neither change their respective rule.

So how does one properly educate their child, or anyone else, that the exception doesn’t alter the rule?

A common mistake that I often see people make is that they deny the existence of the exception. The better method is to give validity to the exception. If you aren’t acknowledging what the other party is bringing to the discussion, don’t expect them to give validity to that which you are bringing to the discussion. By showing that you are listening to them, you have a greater chance that they will be listening to you. Once you have given the validity to the exception, here are two suggested methods of how to approach the subject: statistical based and risk vs. reward.

With the seatbelt example above, the best approach would be the statistical based approach. Yes, this man in India died because he was wearing his seatbelt, no one is denying that. It is an occurrence that can and does happen. But such a situation is a statistical anomaly. There are two main situations when the seatbelt would be more hindrance than help, a car fire and a car getting submerged in water. Using statistics from 2015, less than 0.01% of accidents resulted in a vehicle catching fire, and less than 0.003% of accidents ended with a vehicle being submerged under water. Deciding not to buckle a seatbelt because of possibilities that are less than 0.01% and less than 0.003% is not a wise decision.

The risk vs. reward method is also a useful approach. What is especially helpful about the risk vs. reward approach is that it doesn’t require that the statistics be in your favor (unlike the statistical based approach). All you have to show is that the reward that will potentially be earned isn’t worth the potential risk. In these cases, the risk might only be a very low percentage risk, but all that needs to be accomplished is to show that the risk outweighs the reward. For example: I need to park my car and run into the store for only a few minutes. Do I pay the fifty cents for parking or do I risk receiving a $75 ticket for non-payment?

Both risk vs. rewards and statistical based are rational approaches. They will have tremendous success when having a rational debate. They will be much less effective when the other party is having an emotional discussion. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to argue rationale when the other side is arguing emotion. Example: It would be very difficult to debate the need to buckle a seatbelt with the sister of this Indian man who died in the above mentioned car fire. His sister would be arguing not from logic, but from emotion.

Statistical and Risk vs. Reward are great tools for the parent to use when speaking with their child. By using these methods, the parent will be able to convey not only the “what”, but the “why” as well. People, not just children, are more likely to follow the “what” when they have an understanding of the “why”. Being able to speak these things out with your child, and having them listen is wonderful, but it still isn't the ideal goal. The ideal goal should be giving the child these tools to use within their own thought process, educating them to recognize how and when to use each of these tools.

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages who are looking to improve their awareness and their social skills. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety.  You can email Yisroel at YMPicker@gmail.com

Know Your Enemy

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

In July of 1996, the festive nature of the Olympic games in Atlanta was ground to a halt by a pipe bomb. The attack left two dead and injured over 100. Just as the eyes of the world were on the Olympic games, so too the eyes of the world would be focused on the investigation. The police and FBI were under tremendous pressure to not only find the culprit, but also to locate them quickly. At the same time, there was tremendous pressure on the journalists there to be the first to “break the story”. Very quickly, it was learned, that the FBI was focusing on a security guard named Richard Jewell. Once a local Atlanta newspaper said that Mr. Jewell "fits the profile of a lone bomber”, many other news outlets followed. News organizations all over started interviewing their experts who all said that Mr. Jewell fit the profile of a “lone bomber”.

There was only one problem. Mr. Jewell was an innocent man. The FBI and the media got so caught up in this concept of a profile, this concept of “what the bomber should look like, what his background should be”, that it distracted them from analyzing the evidence. Years later a man by the name of Eric Rudolph was arrested and confessed to the crime, but not before he bombed three other locations.

A person having an incorrect perception of who is and who isn’t a child molester, based upon their profile, can be a very dangerous thing. It causes undue harm on those innocent individuals who are viewed negatively, simply because they fit one’s profile or perception of what a child molester looks like. Additionally, and more importantly, it enables those who are harming children to keep harming them. People mistakenly think “Such a person could never harm a child!”.

So who is the enemy? What type of person molests a child?

Firstly, you may have noticed that I did not use the term pedophile. I specifically stay away from that term because it is misleading. Not all pedophiles sexually abuse children, and not all people who sexually abuse children are pedophiles. I will not go further into this point as the focus of this article is on the safety of the child, not the psychological diagnosis of the abuser.

People who sexually abuse children usually fall into one of two categories, Situational and Preferential.

Preferential: The preferential abuser abuses because they have a sexual attraction to children. They will make life decisions in order to gain access to children (e.g. job, residence, marrying someone to gain access to their children). The preferential abuser may spend years working up to a position of authority and trust within a shul, school, or youth organization in order to have access to children. They often won’t abuse until they feel that they have gained that trust. The majority of their victims are vulnerable children whom they court or groom for the purpose of victimization.

Situational:  The situational abuser does not display any distinguishable sexual preference for children yet they will engage in the sexual exploitation of children if and when they find

themselves in situations where a child is readily available for sexual use. Even though the situational abuser does not have a sexual preference towards children, they molest children for other reasons. They include, but are not limited to curiosity, manipulation, control, desire to harm the loved one of the molested child, poor self-esteem, and to escape feelings of powerlessness and loneliness.

From a victim’s perspective, the above differentiation is irrelevant. Both do serious harm to their victim. There is no correlation between type of abuser and nature of the abuse committed. However, these distinctions do come in hand when planning intervention and prevention. It also enables us to realize that we really shouldn’t have a “profile” in our mind as to who a child molester is. They could be the strange person who lives alone and they could be the outgoing community leader who is respected by all. Age, gender and marital status also play no role in determining who is and who isn’t a child molester.

Since the child abuser comes in so many different forms, the duty of the parent is to always remain vigilant, trying hard to be consistent with the rules of child safety (i.e. don’t have different rules when the child’s uncle is watching them vs. a babysitter). A parent must also always try to ensure that there is an open line of communication between the parent and the child, so that the child feels safe enough to report any incidents to their parent. 

Yisroel Picker is a Social Worker who lives in Jerusalem. He has a private practice which specializes in working with people of all ages helping them understand their own thought processes, enabling them to improve their level of functioning, awareness, social skills and more. He also lectures on the topics of communication and child safety.  

You can email Yisroel at yisroel@ympicker.com

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