Moving the Needle: Parents, Teens, and Resilience

Family Action Network (FAN) welcomes for the third time clinical psychologist Madeline Levine, Ph.D., the best-selling author of The Price of Privilege and Teach Your Children Well. Dr. Levine is a FAN Advisory Council member, and we have invited her to come and talk about what she feels are the current hot button topics for parents, schools, and kids. She’s been traveling the country for over a decade exhorting communities to follow best practices to raise healthy, fulfilled, compassionate and productive adults. And yet, in her view, the needle has barely moved on the levels anxiety, depression, and dysfunction in teens.

Dr. Levine is currently drafting her third book, examining some of the assumptions about the factors driving the epidemic of emotional problems in kids. She’s curious about why some kids don’t crack under pressure, while others do; why some kids handle academic and social stresses successfully; why some kids are robust where others are fragile. She’s focusing on learned helplessness as the result of parental behavior that causes a child to feel inept and powerless, and the “immaturity creep” – delayed development – that is becoming more common. As she puts it, “We’re treating our children like babies, our teens like children, and our young adults like teens.”

Dr. Levine references the acronym VUCA — Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous — coined by the military to describe the environments in Iraq and Afghanistan. She admires the major structural changes both the military and corporate America have made in response to a VUCA world, and hopes for a similar shift in education and parenting. Collaboration trumps solo efforts; social and emotional intelligence matters more than IQ; horizontal rather than vertical leadership. Come join us for what promises to be a very thought-provoking evening. Dr. Levine is a FAN favorite – a sharp mind with strong views, leavened with true compassion and love for kids, teens, and families.