Dr. Jim Wellborn

Wellborn offers insights into 'Higher Order' parenting
By SUSAN LEATHERS
Brentwood Home Page
Brentwood Home Page and the Brentwood Library continue their monthly, BHP Night at the Library series of community forums at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 28, when Dr. Jim Wellborn, PhD, presents “Higher Order Parenting: Raising Teens in the 21st century.”

Wellborn, who practices in Brentwood, works extensively with children, youth and their families. He writes the weekly, “There’s a Stranger in My House” column for Brentwood Home Page and is frequently sought out as a speaker on parenting.

We recently asked Wellborn to answer a few questions about himself and his talk. Anyone with pre-teens, teens and young adults is encouraged to attend.

You chose as your topic “Higher Order Parenting: Raising teens in the 21st century.” What does that mean exactly?

So much of parenting is necessarily focused on everyday management issues, like “Put your dishes in the sink,” “Have you done your homework yet?”  and "What do you want for supper?”  But, kids also need to develop the personal qualities and skills that transcend and shape these everyday tasks.

Higher order parenting is the term I am using to draw attention to this aspect of parenting.  Developing your kid’s morality and spirituality are examples of higher order parenting.  But, the focus of my upcoming talk is going to be on higher order parenting as it relates to the skills and abilities that are important to meet the demands of our rapidly changing, highly technological and global work force.  These are skills like problem solving, critical thinking, leadership, persistence, initiative, communication skills; that sort of thing. 

I will be talking about 15 specific skills that experts have increasingly identified as critical for successfully negotiating the 21st century work place.  These skills are relevant not only in corporate and professional careers but also in the trades and service sector jobs.  And, they are skills parents can help foster and develop in their kids within family interactions and in the home. 

What changes have you seen in the past decade with your patients and parenting in general? What were the biggest issues you dealt with, say in 1995, versus today?

Instant, unfiltered access to any and every kind of information, image, idea and behavior, specifically, porn and the sexualization and insertion (pardon the pun) of sexuality in every aspect of our daily lives are among the biggest changes. 

The kinds of pressure and expectations that both teenage guys AND girls experience continues to astonish me whenever I step back and just take in what teens are faced with.  The implications are profound. 

As for the biggest issues from 1995 versus today?  Conflict, communication and strategies for guiding kids through the tasks of adolescence have remained constants in my practice.  They’ve always been the issues between parents and teens. 

How has technology/social media changed kids – and their parents? Or is this what you mean by Higher Order Parenting?

 No, as I was saying, higher order parenting focuses on the skills that would help kids manage and make sense of technology and social media versus being manipulated and confused by all the unfiltered information they are bombarded with.

 Technology, unfortunately, has made kids more informed.  It makes it much harder to parent kids when they can find support for any kind of idiotic idea or belief on the Internet.  Not to mention the endless supply of Facebook friends who will confirm a kid’s view that their parents are completely unreasonable. 

You practice in Brentwood. Are there specific issues that you deal with and experience here because of the city’s demographics?

Williamson County is the 17th wealthiest county in the United States; out of over 3000 counties!  Kids have a lot of disposable income in this county.  Kids have a lot of luxury items.  The pressure to purchase, consume and represent is tremendous. 

Kids lose (or sometimes don’t really develop) a sense of what really constitutes productive behavior.  They can get caught up in living the lifestyle their parents can afford rather than learning how to live the lifestyle they can afford (while they work their way toward greater success).  Kids who don’t have the opportunity to accomplish things through real work (and some struggles) have difficulty feeling accomplished and, thereby, confident in what they can achieve. 

On the one hand there are kids who are surrounded by extreme wealth and luxury and on the other hand kids are faced with families that have extreme wealth as the comparison group for what they should expect.  Their understanding of what is really important in life gets all screwed up, in part, of course, because their parents are having the same struggles.  That’s how many of them got rich. 

You have survived raising two teens yourself. What’s the best piece of advice you ever gave yourself?

I was too busy screaming at my kids to get their homework done to take any advice from myself.

 While I necessarily have an endless supply of specific strategies and advice for parents because of my profession, I guess I would say that everything arises out of time spent with your kid.  If you aren’t around them; if they aren’t around you, it is very difficult to pass things on to them. 

Doing things together where they can soak up your values by observing how you act and where you can shape their view of themselves through comments and encouragement may be the most powerful way to influence your kid’s personal development. 

If one parent in Brentwood should attend this event, who should he or she be? (In other words, who will most benefit?

 Me, since I’m giving the talk, of course. But in addition, I don’t know!  I can’t ever tell who would find what I have to say worth listening to.  That’s the good thing about being paid for your opinion as a therapist; you can tell pretty quickly whether you are providing anything worthwhile; people don’t come back. 

One of the things I try to do through my talks is to make it easy for parents to have access to ideas and strategies that experts have found to be important and effective without having to become an expert themselves. 

Some parents will take the things I’ll be talking about on the 28th and try to find ways to work some of that into what they are already doing with their kids.  Other parents will be really taken by the ideas and be inspired to have a more systematic approach to helping their kids develop all these skills.

 Kids aren’t the only ones who are bombarded by an overwhelming amount of information.  I try to filter out the noise from important issues, areas and information parents need to know more about as they raise their kids.  The reason I chose this topic is that more and more business leaders and educators are talking about this issue.   It’s not just for parents who have kids taking all AP classes.  These higher order skills are relevant regardless of the professions or jobs teens will end up having as adults in the new century. 

Is your talk geared specifically to parents or should they drag their teenagers along with them?

I love it when parents bring their teens to my talks.  It is always funny to me to watch their reactions when we talk about them in front of their backs.  However, there is a different style I have when talking directly to teens.

 If parents want to bring their kids, I would recommend that they tell them up front what we will be talking about.  This talk is geared toward parents about parenting, so many teens might find it less than interesting. 

On the other hand, the skills I’ll be talking about are directly relevant for teens themselves.  They are the ones who are going to need these skills.  And, parents should also warn their kids that I am not above trying to give them a hard time.  It is a character flaw of mine that no amount of personal therapy has been able to resolve.  (Thanks, Dad.) 

Coming Up:

Tuesday, July 26: Retired pediatrician Dr. Bill Fleet will share his wit, wisdom and a few of his favorite writings with the Brentwood community.

Tuesday, Aug. 23: Let’s play ball! Head football coaches Ron Crawford (Brentwood High); Ralph Potter (Brentwood Academy) and Joe Rietveld (Ravenwood) will talk about themselves, their teams and the 2011 prep season.