The Scientific Method Begins with a Construct

I appreciate the anonymous comment about "another label" as it referred to Parent Frustration Syndrome (PFS). While the response is provocative it is also erroneous.

As one other reader responded, as a Ph.D. psychologist I do not prescribe drugs. I also had no agenda to promote prescription drug use when writing my post. I am not against the field of psychiatry in any way. That said the comment I am referring to made it seem that I was on a mission to recklessly try to promote psychiatric meds by inventing PFS. This is not the case.

Science begins with observations, inferences, constructs, and testable hypotheses. PFS is a construct I made up to encapsulate the struggles of parents whose toxic thoughts lead them to become adversarial with their own children.

The framework I lay out in my new book Liking The Child You Love delineates 9 different toxic thoughts that parents can fall prey too. These nine toxic thoughts are listed and briefly described below.

The Nine Toxic Thought Patterns

Slow Burning Toxic Thoughts

#1 Always or Never Trap. The tendency of parents to think about their kids in either a completely positive or completely negative manner.

2) Label Gluing. In this case, parents affix negative labels to their children, which tend to de-motivate their children and inhibit them from making positive changes.

3) Seething Sarcasm. Parents are using this toxic form of sarcasm when they deliberately say things that are mocking exaggerations or the opposite of what they're saying through their tone of voice.

4) Smoldering Suspicions. Parents prone to Smoldering Suspicions face major challenges trusting their children. Ironically, the more children feel they can't be trusted, the less trustworthy they will become.

5) Detrimental Denial Detrimental Denial is a unique type of toxic thought. It reflects parents struggling with denial that their children engage in problematic behaviors.

Flaring Up Toxic Thoughts

6) Emotional Overheating. Emotional Overheating occurs when a parent convinces him or herself that his or her child's behaviors can't be "handled."

7) Blame Blasting. Parents who key in on a child and reflexively point their fingers at him are driven by the toxic thought of blame blasting.

8) Should Slamming. Parents who think about and relate to their children with "he/she/you should" statements find that their children will feel distanced, isolated, misunderstood and resentful.

9) Dooming Conclusions. This is a toxic thinking pattern where parents overly exaggerate the future negative actions and events concerning their children.

I will give examples of how these insidious toxic thoughts damage parent child relationships in future posts....please stay tuned.