Awarded the 2018 Educator of the Year Award by the Learning Disability Association of America!

 I will  be offering workshops in the PSW approach to identifying a SLD to the following groups: Westwood School District (9/5); Fairfleld School District (9/14); Little Silver School District (9/22); Mountain Lakes School District (10/4); Hanover Park School district (10/9); NJ Association of Learning Consultants (10/20); Newark School District (11/2, 11/6); Rutgers GSAPP Continuing Education (12/6).

I continue to offer training in conducting evaluations for specific learning disabilities at the following districts: Westwood (1/15/24); Newark (2/20 & 2/22/24); Southampton (2/16/24); and Burlington (2/26/24).


The Impotence Impasse: Surviving Unmotivated and Disaffected Children

The Impotence Impasse: Surviving Unmotivated and Disaffected Children

One of the most difficult challenges for parents, teachers, and therapists is dealing with the unresponsiveness if unmotivated or disaffected children. Impasses develop because there is an absence of connectedness between the adults and children.  Despite our best efforts, everything we know or have learned does not effect change. In fact, being stuck often leaves us with a feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and ineffectiveness.

What is worse is that this impasse deadens us, and it is very difficult to be spontaneously creative or think out of the box. Instead, we experience a feeling of dread when we think of our next encounter with the child or situation that is stumping us, and engage in a kind of predictable “dance” where we repeat the same logical, reasonable strategies that have failed only to feel even more defeated when they fail once again.

Here is what we need to understand about impasses and how to break them:

  • Impasses are bilateral. That is, each party is contributing to the stalemate.
  • Impasses develop as a result of deterioration in the state of the relationship we have with the other party. This worsening of relationships comes from or starts with a withdrawal of emotion or connection.
  • Fixing the connection requires that we find ways to rekindle the good feelings we have had in the past.
  • Paradoxically, the beginning of the solution to the impotence impasse is the willingness to acknowledge our feeling of powerlessness. It is only then that we can unlock its’ inherent power and utilize it as a strategic tool to lift ourselves out of the morass in which we find ourselves.

How does this work? Children who are unhappy, angry, or frustrated with the adults in their lives or with school will tend to induce in adults the very same feelings they are experiencing. They typically do this by being unresponsive (i.e. not answering when contacted, saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t care”) which usually leaves adults with feelings of powerlessness resulting from the disbelief, fear, and rage that may result.

As difficult as this may be, the first thing adults must do to break the impasse is to tolerate the induced feelings and join with the child in their feeling. It is important to remember that this does not mean sanctioning their behavior or accepting it. It simply means that you must start where the child is if you wish to promote a change. For example, an oppositional young girl who was furious about her mother dragging her into therapy, would not talk to the therapist. She even went as far as turning her back to the therapist. The therapist, resonating with the child’s rage, questioned how come her parents have not figured out that she has no intention with cooperating with their plan that she see a therapist? By posing this question, the therapist was putting into words what this girl was acting out and indirectly acknowledging how she was feeling. As a result, the girl began to talk about how her mother does not even know her and the impasse was broken.

Impasses are really resistances on the part of the child who is acting out emotions instead of talking about them. They are also counter resistances-behaviors by adults who are also acting out instead of talking about the feelings induced in them by the child. The end result is that the emotional connection is attenuated and each party just engages in a repetitive behavioral cycle that each knows will go no where.

Tolerating the intolerable feelings and not acting on them is a difficult task. However, it is absolutely necessary in order to break impasses between adults and children. The next step-giving the impasse or resistance a “twist”, is also difficult and requires some expert consultation. Changing a system requires a system. Thus, adults who are stuck in a tug-of-war with the children in their lives may need professional help to turn impasses into constructive relationships.

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