Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Social Media: a Cure for Perfectionism?
By Lynne Gots, posted on March 5th, 2012.
Psychologists who treat anxiety aren’t immune to worries of their own.
One of my worst fears is of doing or failing to do something that will lead to embarrassment and professional disgrace—specifically, of committing a major, irrevocable, hugely public gaffe on the Internet. I’ve laid awake at night thinking I might unknowingly have forwarded to the entire Maryland Psychological Association list-serve a private email exchange with another colleague containing a snarky comment, or fretting about the privacy settings on my personal Facebook profile.
I find blogging scary. In keeping with my number one piece of advice about dealing with anxiety (“MAKE YOURSELF ANXIOUS!”), my blog about cognitive behavioral strategies is a cognitive behavioral strategy (for me). It’s an exposure exercise, an opportunity to wallow in uncertainty.
Every time I post, I risk being seen as: stupid or unprofessional or a bad writer or indifferent to parallel sentence structure or too concerned about archaic rules of grammar or incapable of proper spacing after a period or too fond of parenthetical expressions or dull or pretentious or trite or old or trying too hard to act younger than my age or insensitive or wrong or foolish or too free with italics. Or self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating or insecure or not funny or too formal or too casual or technologically inept or politically-incorrect or offensive or unlikeable or incompetent or too self-disclosing or pedantic or preachy or judgmental or opinionated or wishy-washy or too scientific or not quantitative enough or redundant or neurotic or unconventional or stodgy or canine-centric or dogmatic or not fit to practice psychology.
You get the point. No matter how carefully I choose my words and edit my copy, someone undoubtedly will find fault with me. And there’s nothing I can do to prevent it from happening.
If blogging is opening a can of writhing mental worms, then Tweeting is plunging an arm into it up to the elbow. I’m new to Twitter, and I don’t understand its the finer points—or much at all about it, really. And there’s no one I can ask for help because my husband, usually my go-to advisor for all computer questions, and even my kids, don’t have Twitter accounts. Nor do any of my friends or colleagues. So I’m entering this new country—with its own symbols, language, and etiquette—by myself without a guide. Pretty nerve-wracking.
Yes, the Internet is a gaping maw of uncertainty for the perfectionist. “Social media fear of failure,” as one social media consultant calls it, is pretty common, it seems.
I’m about to embrace the unknown in another way as well by opening up the blog for comments. I’m willing to take the chance that people will disagree with me, dislike my opinions, or (maybe worse) not respond at all. But I also want to minimize the potential for legal or ethical issues to arise and preserve my professional reputation. Hence, the following disclaimer:
This blog is intended solely for the purpose of entertainment and education. All remarks are meant as general information and should not be taken as personal diagnostic or therapeutic advice.
If you choose to comment on a post, please do not include any information that could identify you as a patient or potential patient. Also, please refrain from making any testimonals about me or my practice, as my professional code of ethics does not permit me to publish such statements. Comments that I deem inappropriate for this forum will not be published.
So here goes. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Tags: fear of mistakes, perfectionism
Posted in Disclaimer, Perfectionism |
Coping with College Admission Stress: Why Parents Should Care Less about Getting Their Kids into the Ivy League
By Lynne Gots, posted on March 1st, 2012.
I was out walking my dogs the other day when I passed a woman with a fluffy puppy. As I fed Freddie bits of freeze-dried liver to keep his mind off barking, I asked if her pup was a Labradoodle. “No!” she said emphatically. “He’s an Australian Labradoodle.”
Little did she know she was talking to a dog and people expert who would profile her, possibly incorrectly and certainly unfairly, solely on the basis of one verbally italicized modifier: Australian. Quick assessments are my métier, and I decided on the spot that the puppy’s owner was a status conscious mom new to dog ownership.
You’ll need more information to understand how I came to that conclusion.
Labradoodles are extremely popular these days for their allegedly hypoallergenic properties and adorable shagginess. Every dog class I’ve helped teach usually has two or three. The Labradoodle isn’t an AKC-recognized breed; nor is the more highly coveted Australian Labradoodle, although breeders in Australia are trying to develop a uniform breed standard so as eventually to gain entry into purebred dog clubs. “Australian” signifies that a dog is a “ multigenerational hybrid” descended from parents who are Labradoodles, not from a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Poodle, the original provenance of this fancy mixed breed. Breeders draw an even finer distinction between American Australian Labradoodles and Australian Australian Labradoodles, which is more information than you probably care to know.
But Labradoodles are still technically mutts, albeit very trendy, expensive, and genetically modified ones.
Like first-time parents who latch onto every enrichment gimmick in the hope of turning their infant into a baby Einstein, new dog owners are suckers for marketing ploys that claim to produce a superior pet. High on the list of the Australian Labradoodle’s merits is its “nonshedding” coat (which actually varies in degree of sheddability from dog to dog). This feature, along with the affable temperament these dogs are bred for, attracts many new owners who are put off by doggie odors and dog hair—in other words, those who are less likely to be diehard dog people.
Families with young kids love Labradoodles because of their hypoallergenic rep (a false one, as it turns out: no dogs are truly hypoallergenic) and because they look cuddly and goofy and are usually good-natured. But [public service digression] untrained, they may turn out to be more than a busy family can manage, which is why so many quintessential family dogs like Labs and Goldens wind up in shelters after they outgrow the cute puppy stage.
It may seem I feel superior because I have an AKC-registered, pedigreed dog, an Australian Shepherd (a breed originating in the United States, not Australia, by the way). But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’m actually rather embarrassed about my dog’s aristocratic lineage. As a dog lover, I’m a staunch supporter of rescuing animals in need of a home and would have taken the adoption route with our newest dog had I been able to find a suitable puppy at the time. My next dog, purebred or mixed, will definitely be a rescue.
And I’m not disparaging Doodles, either. I also have one of those—a Cockapoo (shouldn’t they be called Cockadoodles, like Labradoodles and Goldendoodles?). He’s turned out to be an excellent dog, even though we acquired him in a highly questionable fashion, without knowing anything about his temperament, from a backyard breeder who placed an ad in the newspaper.
What does all this arcane talk about dogs have to do with elite universities?
The puppy owner’s need to announce her dog’s “bone fidos” [sic] made me think of all the cars in my neighborhood (my own included) with designer-brand college stickers on the rear windshields. And of all my conversations with fellow, hypercompetitive Montgomery County parents about where our kids were applying to college and where they would be heading after the acceptance and rejection letters arrived. There was a lot of bragging (“She got a full scholarship to Maryland, but how could she pass up the opportunity to go to Brown?” and a lot of defensiveness (“He’s going to Maryland, but he’ll be in the Honors Program”).
With two of my children out of college and the last one more than halfway through, and having seen many students in my practice over the years, I’ve acquired a different perspective. The students I treat are all struggling, whether they’re at Georgetown (#22), GWU (#50), or American (#82). I’ve come to believe that where our kids end up going to college doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think it does.
So does Harvard graduate Jay Mathews, education writer for the Washington Post and author of the book, Harvard Schmarvard: Getting Beyond the Ivy League to the College that Is Best for You. Mathews claims, and offers research data to back his argument, that traits such as persistence, honesty, optimism, and character count far more than an elite college degree in determining future success.
I’m not surprised. I’ve worked with Princeton and Yale graduates whose emotional issues kept them from doing well in college despite their perfect SAT scores and who continued to underperform in graduate school and beyond. I’ve also seen high-level government officials and corporate lawyers who, in spite of having attended mediocre colleges, went on to elite law schools and achieved success in their careers.
And just look at Freddie, my Australian Shepherd. He’s endowed with superior physical attributes and a keen intelligence passed down from his award-winning show dog and herding ancestors. But when I looked into enrolling him in a sheep herding class to channel his instincts into a more productive activity than corralling our guests, I realized it would be out of the question. Freddie is highly sensitive. He recoils when strangers reach out to pet him. Teaching him to herd sheep, it seems, would involve prodding him with sticks. He’d probably bite the trainer in fear, and I’d suffer a nervous collapse anticipating the lawsuit.
It just goes to show you, an Ivy League degree (or impeccable papers, in Freddie’s case) isn’t everything. The flip side is also worth considering. A less impressive resume isn’t necessarily handicapping. Take Uggy, the plucky Jack Russell terrier, who stole the show in “The Artist.” He was a nine-year-old Death Row inmate when his trainer rescued him and made him a star.
Parents of high school students, and the students themselves, could take some of the pressure off the intense college application process if they remembered one point: just because a college is the best doesn’t mean it’s the best for you.
Tags: college admission
Posted in College, Dogs, Parenting |
Parenting French Style: Just Say “Non!”
By Lynne Gots, posted on February 28th, 2012.
What’s with our admiration these days of all things French? If the Oscars are any indication of current trends, Francophilia is having its day. More than a few awards went to films that were either written, directed, or starred in by Frenchmen (“The Artist”) or featured nostalgic scenes of Gay Paree (“Hugo,” “Midnight in Paris”).
A recently published book about the virtues of the French style of childrearing also romanticizes the Gallic way of life. In Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, American ex-pat Pamela Druckerman extols the strict rules, authoritarian methods, and no-nonsense attitude towards emotional expression characteristic of French parents. True, they may produce children who are “good little sleepers [and] gourmet eaters . . .” But a New York Times reviewer pointed out a less enviable byproduct of the French approach. During an emergency room visit the reviewer experienced with her 14-year-old daughter, who had broken her wrist during a soccer match, the examining doctor manipulated the injured extremity so brusquely that the girl started to cry. The physician responded in typical French parental fashion by shaming her: “He’s a little boy [pointing to a quiet four-year-old nearby] and you’re a big girl, and he’s not crying. Why can’t you be more like him?”
While I don’t think American-style indulgence is the best way to encourage self-sufficiency and independence, the French approach may be taking it a little too far.
I was on the receiving end of such methods when, at fourteen, I attended a French private school during a year my family spent in Paris. This was a very long time ago, of course, and I’d thought (hoped?) times had changed. But after reading about contemporary French parenting and researching the French educational system, I’m not so sure.
I felt lost and self-conscious my first day of school because I knew almost no French and, having already reached my full height, towered over my more petite and slower-to-mature classmates. There was no student ambassador appointed to show me the way. The teachers and headmaster ignored me. Fortunately, I attached myself to an American girl who told me where to go. But the next day, when I sat down next to her, she got up and moved across the room. Her parents, she said, had forbidden her to associate with other Americans. They were afraid her French would suffer.
For months I remained mute, too scared to risk making a grammatical error until one day, pushed by an impatient, chain-smoking (in class!) teacher who’d had enough of hearing me say I didn’t understand, I stood at attention as per the rules and answered her question in fluent French.
French teachers don’t coddle their students. They don’t care about encouraging creativity or independent thinking. And they certainly don’t worry, as American teachers and parents do, about damaging a young person’s self-esteem. In middle school, the French system tracks students by test scores into classes with others of similar ability.
My performance on the school’s entrance exams, which I took in French before I had even a rudimentary grasp of the language, had landed me in the slow class. And even among my low-achieving peers, I was at the bottom. We all knew everyone’s place in the hierarchy because after every test the teachers read out the grades from highest to lowest, mocking the students who had performed poorly. Ridicule and humiliation were—and still are, from what I can tell—as much a part of the standard, French pedagogical repertoire as memorization and recitation of passages from Molière and Racine.
In the end, though, I had my revenge. Handing back the final exam, the science teacher did a double take and rechecked the top paper to make sure he hadn’t miscalculated the grade. He grimaced. “Gots? C’est incroyable!” (“It’s unbelievable!”). Never a “Good job!” or an “I knew you could do it.” But, to me, the victory was still sweet.
I’m not saying we should adopt the French, tough-love approach to raising our kids. We anxious American parents could never pull it off, just like we can’t manage to look as effortlessly chic as the French. But maybe there’s a middle ground, somewhere between enrolling our kids in infant swimming lessons and swaddling them in life jackets before letting them near the water and throwing them in to sink or swim.
Tags: French parents, Parenting
Posted in Parenting |
