Is Your Kid Having a Hard Time? Look for Horses Before Zebras

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It seems like everyone on social media has a hot take on what’s causing your child’s behavior problems: ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, developmental delays, hormone deficiencies, vitamin deficiencies.

Sometimes, those diagnoses are spot-on, say Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, hosts of the CatholicHÔM podcast for Catholic parents. But often, it’s worth checking out simpler reasons for your child’s chronic behavior issues.

“Nine times out of ten, a behavior problem with a kid or an adolescent — even more serious behavior problems — can be handled by somewhat better parenting tools and a more peaceful marriage and family life,” Dr. Popcak said on a recent episode of the podcast.

Kids Take the Temperature of Their Home

Before assuming something is wrong with your child, the Popcaks suggest looking at what’s happening around them.

“Kids are barometers,” Dr. Popcak explained. “They read the emotional temperature of the home. And if there’s tension in the marriage, if there’s tension in the home, that ramps up your kid’s emotional temperature, because their world isn’t stable.”

Children don’t have the vocabulary to say, “Mom and Dad, when you argue every night, I feel shaken.” Instead, Lisa Popcak said, they react: “The only thing I can do is react with all of this erupting from inside of me and behave in a way that vents it and maybe brings people into my orbit for a little while to give me the help that I think that I need.”

Sometimes, Dr. Popcak added, kids with high temperature homes will misbehave in the hope that shared concern for them will reunite their parents.

“Our children would rather set themselves on fire, not literally, than watch mom and dad fight,” he said. It’s a strategy that rarely works, but it’s what kids have at hand.

Three Ways to Find the Horses in Your Own Home

Medical students are taught a simple aphorism: “When you hear hoofbeats, look for horses before you go hunting zebras.” In other words, check the common explanation before running with the less common one.

Here are three steps to take:

1. Look at your family’s emotional climate first

Before assuming your child has a diagnosable condition, consider whether your home feels calm and stable in your child’s eyes. Tension between spouses, chaos in the schedule, or constant low-grade conflict will raise a child’s emotional temperature even when nothing is said directly to them. Strengthening your marriage and steadying the rhythms of your household is often the single most effective intervention available to you.

“Really look at how to structure your family differently and what you need to do to create that closeness, that stability in your family, that flow in your family that makes everyone feel closer together, safer, more loved by each other,” Lisa Popcak said. “See if that doesn’t start to turn things around.”

2. Ask what skill is missing

Sitting still at the table, focusing on a task, following through on an assignment, asking for help — these all feel automatic to adults, but they’re skills children have to be taught.

“We don’t tend to think of these things as skills,” Dr. Popcak said. “We think that just sitting at the table will happen as they mature, but it doesn’t.” Identify the specific skill your child is missing before assuming a deeper issue is at play.

Ask yourself:

  •       What skill is my child missing in this situation that’s causing them to act this way? 
  •       Do I need to teach them how to ask for their needs better? 
  •       Do I have to show them how to handle their emotions in different and safer ways?

Parents sometimes assume that these skills will be taught at school. Don’t rely on that, Lisa Popcak said; your child’s teacher is counting on your child coming to school with these basic skills.

3. Teach, don’t just tell

Telling a child to focus, sit still, or calm down rarely works, because it isn’t actually teaching.

“Teaching is where you walk through the steps of doing the thing,” Dr. Popcak explained, “and having them do it.”

Lisa Popcak described a friend who earned her Ph.D. at the same dining table where her daughter did homework every night, side by side. The daughter learned to focus not because she was told to, but because she practiced it in her mother’s presence, night after night, all the way to a top-rated school.

“You’re practicing these skills little by little with your child,” she said. “And that gives them the ability to do this, which brings their behavior into a place of feeling effective and capable and happy to be alongside of you.”

When You Do Need Extra Help, You’ll Be Ready

None of this means professional support is never warranted. But parents who’ve already worked to stabilize their home and teach their child concrete skills are better prepared if and when they decide to bring in a medical expert or therapist. That’s because they have lots of data to bring to the appointment, including a detailed picture of the circumstances surrounding the problem behavior.

“That actually makes you the expert on your child,” Lisa Popcak said.

And even if a more serious issue does turn out to be part of the picture, the work isn’t over. “It’s still going to be on us to make those recommendations happen,” Dr. Popcak said. Following through, day by day, remains a parent’s job.

So be aware of the mental health issues and be willing to reach out for extra help when it is warranted. “But don’t just grasp at possible answers when you feel panicked, because every parent feels panicked from time to time,” Dr. Popcak said. Usually, providing your child with the environment and tools he or she needs to be successful will save you a trip to the doctor.

For more tools to help your children grow in virtue and self-mastery, check out Parenting Your Kids with Grace by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, or explore the CatholicHÔM app for ongoing coaching and support.

Are Political Arguments Ruining Your Family Relationships? Here’s How to Change the Dynamic

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Rose and her 28-year-old son get together regularly, often to cook or bake—an activity they both enjoy.

That’s the good part. Unfortunately, their time together often ends up spoiled by political arguments.

“Our conversations always seem to devolve into political arguments,” Rose said in a call to the More2Life radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak. “His facts and my facts. He wants to convince me of his position, and in many cases I just can’t go there.”

Political rancor can cause real problems in families. Studies show about 35 to 40 percent of Americans report having heated arguments over political differences. A smaller number (15 to 20 percent) have gone so far as to cut ties with a relative.

And yet, for most of us, family ties trump political ones. In 2021, the Pew Research Center asked 2,596 U.S. adults: “What about your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying? What keeps you going and why?” The top response among both Democrats and Republicans was “family.” Politics wasn’t among even the top five responses.

For people who value family relationships more than their political affiliation, the good news is that political differences don’t need to spoil those relationships.

Three Tips for Avoiding Political Meltdowns in Your Family Relationships

Here are three tips from Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak about how to handle situations like Rose’s.

1. Put things in perspective

Ask yourself, what’s more important, scoring points or loving the person in front of me? The truth is, the outcome of our political arguments rarely matters as much as it might feel they do.

“We often think that we have to die on these hills that are just stuff on social media that’s freaking everybody out and will pass in the next four to eight years,” Lisa told Rose. “Things will change.”

Will the political battles that seem to matter so much today really matter that much in ten years? Probably not. But long after the news cycle has moved on, your family relationship will remain.

Here’s another reason to avoid engaging in political debates: As much as you might want to persuade your child to your perspective, that is unlikely to happen. In fact, pushing your views too hard will likely just reinforce your child’s stance.

“This is a time where it’s kind of better to bear the wrong patiently, in a sense,” Dr. Popcak said. “You’re not actually doing any good by engaging.”

2. Warmly redirect the conversation

When someone tries to engage you in a political debate, warmly but firmly redirect the conversation to personal matters.

“What you want to say to him is, ‘Hey, I respect your viewpoint on that, but it’s beside the point. I’m loving spending time with you. I’m loving cooking this with you. Tell me what you did this week. Tell me about your life,’” Lisa advised Rose. “You want to show him that you love him, you respect him, and you want time with him.”

Dr. Popcak agreed. “Then it really becomes about loving him, you guys loving each other, and not turning each other into projects on some kind of political or social level.”

Notice that by warmly redirecting the conversation, you’re not conceding the point or pretending to agree. You are simply telling your child that she matters more to you than the topic does, which happens to be true.

3. Hold out for the payoff

All of this restraint might feel like a lot. As parents, we are hardwired to guide and protect our kids, and by the time they are adults, we’ve had many years of practice doing just that. But as the Popcaks frequently point out, we can’t treat our adult children the way we did when they were two, ten, or even sixteen.

What we can do, though, is maintain a warm, personal relationship with our adult children so that we can be there for them when it matters most. If your child shares that he is struggling with work, for instance, you can empathize with him, and even offer a prayer: Lord, please bless my son and help him know how to handle this. Similarly, if he shares good news, you can pray: Lord, thank you so much for bringing that joy into his life.

“Let him know how much you love him, and then you move on,” Dr. Popcak told Rose. Communicating that love and bringing God into the relationship is where you can make a huge difference in your child’s life. “The political stuff is kind of a distraction from the real issues that you want to be addressing, in order to ultimately lead him to a place where he’s more open to the Lord. But you won’t get there by having the abstract political arguments. It’ll only be by redirecting things back to the personal relationship and how you can be a support to him there.”

For more on building the kind of relationship that makes your adult children open to what you have to say, see Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s book Having Meaningful (Sometimes Difficult) Conversations with Your Adult Sons & Daughters. And for personalized support with an adult son or daughter, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.