Coaching children through tough times
By Connie Langland
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Philadelphia Inquirer

Here's some advice from psychologist Steven Richfield for that extra-sensitive child in the family: Step into your cantaloupe skin! Off the wall? Not when the child considers the alternative - a bruised and yucky banana skin. Richfield has a prescription for ignoring playground bullies or back-of-the-school- bus teasing: Don't take the bait! Over and over, he offers one key idea to the parents of these high-strung, difficult, or (shall we say?) rambunctious children: Be a coach. Richfield says that parent coaches can teach their children many of the social skills they'll need to function well in the classroom, on the playground - and in their adult lives. And, since every good coach needs a game plan, Richfield has developed what he calls "Parent Coaching Cards: A System For Guiding Children Toward Behavioral Success." The cards offer practical advice on handling the tantrums, setbacks and frustrations that confound parents of youngsters and adolescents.

Marie Knox-Pomerantz, of King of Prussia, sought out Richfield when her son Scott was a kindergartner who refused to speak aloud in class or on the playground. "He said his voice didn't work," said Knox-Pomerantz. "When you have a kid like mine - 5, 6 years old, afraid of other kids, afraid of the playground, afraid of birthday parties...what was so helpful was how (the Cards) took these situations step by step, teaching him how to meet other kids."

By rereading the Cards on occasion, Knox-Pomerantz found she could help her son find ways to get over his fears. "He still has episodes," she said, "but I'm quite pleased." The 4-by-5-inch cards, laminated and held together with a steel key ring, are meant to be handled often and kept someplace handy - even in a bookbag, if conflict at school is the issue. Each card has a title, such as "Thinking Side And Reacting Side" and "Don't Take The Bait." And the narrative on each card is a to-the-point account of a particular social problem, with possible solutions. For instance, the card counseling a child about "stepping into your cantaloupe skin" starts out by describing how "there are a lot of things in life that hurt our feelings... When you have your banana skin on, you feel bruised..." so try wearing a thicker skin.

Richfield, 37, with offices in Norristown and Allentown, specializes in the treatment of disruptive behavior disorders and sees families with children diagnosed as having attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), known for their short attention span and behaviors that are difficult for both child and parent to manage. Richfield recalled how he found himself hearing out clients - that is to say, parents at their wit's end - and eventually recognized that he was hearing the same laments over and over again. "I grew impatient with the passive, nondirective approach that traditional psychotherapists are trained to enter into," said Richfield. "The themes were so familiar and repetitive in my work. I was hearing the same story over and over, I found I could anticipate what the parent would say." Then, as his first son grew older, "my theoretical and practical wheels started spinning."

Advice offered in the cards is straightforward, common-sensical. Their value may lie in the very fact that they get carried home - and are therefore within easy reach. "Most interventions for families with behavior-problem children involve coming to a clinic, being given advice about what to do and then sending the parents home to deal with the problem," said Dr. Russell Barkley, a Boston psychologist, editor of The ADHD Report and author of the book, Taking Charge Of ADHD. But when parents find themselves in what Barkley characterized as "the throes of some trauma," they are hard-pressed to recall all those sage words of advice. The Coaching Cards are useful, said Barkley, precisely because they are at hand when a crisis erupts. Richfield's parent-coaching approach also is reflective of fresh efforts to counsel young people in conflict resolution and in ways to "stop and think" about consequences before they plunge into bad behavior.

Dozens of elementary schools in the suburbs are using a program developed by a Florida educator known for it's red "stop and think" signs that decorate hallways and classrooms. Guided by their teachers, children are learning ways to avoid confrontations and to bring their emotions under control. The Coaching Cards have won praise from parents and from colleagues. Therapist Alice D'Antoni-Phillips of Myrtle Beach, S.C., said she now counsels children "to develop an alligator hide." "There's not a lot out there for parents and teachers in terms of usable tools to work with children with learning problems and attention deficit disorders in particular," said D'Antoni-Phillips. "I tell my kids, if I can teach you anything, it's that you can't change anybody else...but when you change your behavior, other people change in response. So I teach them these people skills - relationship skills - that make life more manageable," she said. A shortcoming with the cards is that they are written for children who can read, and D'Antoni-Phillips has urged Richfield to write cards aimed at first grade readers.

Susan Sozogni's 9-year-old son, Chris, has ADHD and is, in the parlance of therapists, "very noncompliant." After absorbing the lessons from several of the cards, Sozogni said, she found that her role in tense situations had shifted. "When he's out of control, angry, and distrustful, I'm not the big bad parent but the coach trying to give him certain skills." Having this role, she said, "keeps you from just shouting at your child, screaming, getting mad." On a recent rainy evening, Richfield was handing out sample cards to about 30 adults - many of them mothers coping with rebellious adolescents - at a parents' event at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School. Also attending were several counselors more than ready to share accounts of teenagers in crisis - and of parents who might be well served by a different set of coaching cards, ones with such titles as "Growing up before your kids do" and "If you don't say no, who will?"

The introductory card to Richfield's set talks about a child's "thinking side" and his "reacting side." Speaking directly to the child, the card talks about reactions that "can cause us to say and do things that create problems." "That's why," the card states, "it's better to keep your thinking side in charge of what you say and do." As Richfield talked, his audience thumbed through the cards. "What I'm getting ," said one parent, "is that I can take all these situations and show my child how similar they are to what's happening in his life." Is there a place in Richfield's system for discipline? another parent asked. Yes, he replied, children need to learn there are consequences to misbehavior. But if the parent limits his role to disciplinarian, the therapist said, an opportunity is lost to guide, coach, instruct on other ways to behave. "You want your child to wrestle with the issue," Richfield said, "not with you."

Richfield and his wife, Caryn, also a therapist, have two sons, Jeremy, 8, and Jesse, 5 next month. His own preference in parenting styles, said Richfield, is "firm assertive rather than authoritarian... more a mixture of high warmth, high nurturing, high active guiding, along with firm adherence to basic values and rules." And yes, the Richfield boys are growing up knowing all about cantaloupe skins and not taking the bait and the time-honored "You Can't Always Get What You Want" - and a few more adages that have yet to make their way into Richfield's Parent Coaching ring of cards.