Transcription of Travis Wiggitt for the show Back to School #52
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle, and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show number 52, Back to School airing for the first time on September 9, 2012 on WLOB and WPEI Radio, Portland, Maine. Today’s show features Tom Shepard or Shepard Financial and also Currency Camp, Maggie Knowles and Elizabeth Fraser of Kids Gone RAW, and Travis Wiggett, licensed clinical professional counselor.
As our listeners may know, this is our 52nd show which means we’re almost at a year, and we’re pretty proud of it. We know that many of you are going back to school yourselves or perhaps are bringing your own children back to school. We know that here at Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, education is an ongoing process. We’re constantly looking for people who can enrich our lives with their insights and their experience, and this is what we think we’re doing today with Tom Shepard, Maggie Knowles, Elizabeth Fraser, and Travis Wiggett.
Whether you get information from Tom Shepard about how to educate your children on financial issues, whether you decide maybe I’ll try some raw foods after listening to Maggie Knowles and Elizabeth Fraser, or whether you get insight from Travis Wiggett about some of the emotional issues surrounding going back to school, we know that you’re enriching your own life and being a part of our community, so we thank you for that.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is pleased to be sponsored by the University of New England. As part of our collaboration, we offer a segment we call Wellness Innovations. The University of New England recently hosted a ceremony to celebrate the construction of its patient care center. This will be the clinical home of the University of New England’s College of Dental Medicine teaching clinic and dental simulation facility.
We’ll provide space for the University of New England to explore new models of inter-professional healthcare education and practice. The patient care center will be the first facility of its kind in Northern New England combining comprehensive dental education with high quality delivery of oral healthcare, as well as clinical training space for patient-centered primary care. For more information on the patient care center and the University of New England, visit UNE.edu.
Recording: This portion of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast has been brought to you by the University of New England, UNE, an innovative Health Sciences university grounded in the Liberal Arts. UNE is the number one educator of health professionals in Maine. Learn more about the University of New England at UNE.edu.
Dr. Lisa: It’s September, and it’s school season. Many of you have children in school. They’ve already started back. Some of you perhaps have college students who have not yet stated back and maybe you just have experience with past back-to-school issues on your own. What we know is that people often will notice changes in their kids as they’re heading back to school, so we thought we would invite in a licensed counselor out of Brunswick, Travis Wiggett to talk to us about some of the things that parents and children experience during this whole back-to-school season. Thanks for coming in and talking with us, Travis.
Travis: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Travis, tell me a little bit about your background. Where did you get your education and what are your qualifications?
Travis: I have a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from St. Michaels College in Vermont. I’ve been working in the field for 15 years. Most of my experience is with families and children. However, my practice is really what I would call full spectrum practice. I work with children from ages six, as well as adults into the elderly. I really enjoy working with the full spectrum because we see a lot of similarities but also a lot of differences. It makes my practice interesting and challenging at the same time.
Dr. Lisa: What caused you to decide to go into this type of work?
Travis: I always had a desire to help people. It’s just something I enjoy doing and mostly, it’s from my friends. I enjoy talking with people and really hearing their story. Sometimes, in my practice, folks come to me obviously with issues or problems that they have, trying to figure out where they’re going, what path they’d like to take, and I just really enjoy hearing their stories, and trying to help them make the best decision for them.
Dr. Lisa: Where did you grow up?
Travis: I grew up in Burlington, Vermont. I really enjoyed Burlington. It’s a college town. It’s really fun because we were right on the lake and also near the mountains for skiing. I actually ended up in Maine for the same reasons. My wife and I moved to Brunswick about four years ago. We were just looking for a similar outdoor experience and have been able to really enjoy Brunswick and everything it has offer. It also being a small college town, having access to the mountains and also the oceans. It’s been wonderful.
Dr. Lisa: Did any of your family experiences contribute to your wanting to be in the field?
Travis: I think so. I grew up as an only child, and so from that standpoint, I was always included in family decisions, I think, and in family situations. I really enjoyed being a part of that and part of that process. I think that family piece just comes naturally. It’s in my background and my experience. I’ve definitely found that in my practice. I really enjoy trying obviously as best I can to be an objective observer and trying to provide helpful information for folks who are struggling with transitions.
Dr. Lisa: Speaking of transitions, this is an interesting time of year for a lot of people because they have gone from summer into fall, and they are starting to buckle down, and to go back to school, and even adults are starting to go back into paying … Not that they weren’t paying attention to their jobs but maybe they took a little bit of a mental break. What types of things are you seeing in your practice?
Travis: Transitions cause typically a lot of anxiety in folk, kids, as well as adults, and especially families during this period of time. Often times, parents will take time off over the summer to be home with their kids. Their transition is transitioning back to typical work schedule. Kids, the big transition obviously is going originally from school which is really structured to summertime which is typically unstructured, back to a really highly structured program again when they enter school.
The difficulty becomes then that the whole family dynamic shifts usually over the summer around those issues, and some folks fill their summer with summer camps and other activities to try and fill that gap which is really helpful. I always encourage families to look at what the community has to offer and to get as involved as they can in order to fill those gaps. That’s, I think, the largest challenge is really looking at what the child’s interests are.
Some kids really like the break. They like some downtime. They like to be able to relax. Sometimes giving too much of that actually causes the exact opposite to happen. They find themselves really bored, really antsy. It’s working with the child and the family to figure out what exactly would fit their personality, what they’re interested in, and trying to provide a little bit of that structure.
I also find that when kids go back to school, one of the things that is really helpful is to try and start the routine prior to school beginning. Simple things like bedtime, obviously wakeup time, breakfast routines, routines in the afternoon when kids get home from school. It’s really helpful to start that prior to school beginning so that the families have a period and the kids have a period of time to adjust.
Often times, that doesn’t happen. The kids start school and then, your body is really used to the structure you had during the summer and it just isn’t the same. They run into a lot of difficulty making that transition when they come home of like what they’re supposed to do, what is the next responsibility they have? Can they go out and play with their friends? Do they have practice or sports, music practice, those types of things? With really getting a feel for that structure because without it on that transition, again, causes a lot of anxiety and other problems come up.
Dr. Lisa: Is there a relationship between anxiety and ADHD?
Travis: There is. Actually with ADHD, typically there are two byproducts that folks actually diagnose mental health issues that go along with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. Often, ADHD, one type in particular and a tenant type is really underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed because these kids typically are the kids that are not behavioral problems in school. They don’t have the hyperactive component. They are able to sit and follow instructions, and do the tasks that are asked of them in class. However, typically, their mind is in million miles away. They really only focus on the things that they are really interested in.
As a result, the details, the small things sometimes get an extra drop and they know immediately, why can’t I do this? My friend Johnny or Jenny can do it, and I can’t, and I don’t understand why. All of a sudden, they really feel different from their peers and there isn’t really an explanation for it. What ends up happening is they really feel unsuccessful.
In my practice, I really work with folks around those issues to provide a structure, a safety net that allows the kids to be successful, that allows them to understand that, that allows them to realize that this really isn’t actually a problem. It can really be a strength as well. To really get to understand them and what they’re capable of. To hopefully reverse that philosophy or that thought process that’s created by feeling different.
Anxiety can also be a part of that as well because things, small details like turning in homework assignments, or doing really well on exams, those types of things. Sometimes, kids with ADHD really struggle with because it’s not a strength of theirs. Then, all of a sudden, it’s the same situation. They go to a test and they actually know the material but they may not really know how to reproduce it because they have a hard time focusing or concentrating, and they know that they are not going to do well, and so their anxiety increases. We all know when anxiety increases, our ability to function decreases. Even doing simple things. It can be a really difficult thing to manage.
Dr. Lisa: What types of tools do you offer the people who come to see you for this behavior change that is so necessary?
Travis: It depends on what the problem is. For kids, often what I find is really talking a lot of about structure, a lot about incentives, behavior, “behavior plans,” things that are really visual, tactile, positive for the kids that they can earn by changing their behavior, by managing things differently.
What I really find with kids is that what they desire is their relationship with their parents, and in today’s society, that can be a challenge sometimes because parents are working. They have very little time. In fact, research really indicates the number one behavior change for children especially around making difficult decisions – with drugs and alcohol, for example – is you want them to make the right decision because they know if they don’t, they’ll disappoint you as a parent; that you won’t be happy with the choice that they made.
In today’s society, that’s really hard and challenging because some parents simply don’t have that relationship with their child. Then, they’re frustrated because they don’t know how to impact their behavior. A lot of it is really working on that relationship, developing that relationship between the child and parents.
Dr. Lisa: That’s really interesting because I think that those of us who grew up in – pick any religious tradition but let’s just say Catholic or I’ve also heard about Jewish guilt – this idea of guilt. It’s interesting that disappointment is actually a tool that is worthwhile.
Travis: It’s interesting. I view disappointment a little bit differently than guilt. Guilt sometimes is really viewed as negative because it’s almost a passive aggressive way of getting somebody to do something. The conflict really isn’t necessarily out there with guilt. It’s just based on your assumption that you’re making somebody feel badly.
What I encourage folks to do is have those conversations. Bringing that out, I think, is what changes basically from guilt to disappointment. In order to be disappointed, you have to identify what the problem is. You have to be willing to have that conversation. Often, guilt comes from not having the conversation and thinking that you’ve disappointed somebody or made somebody feel badly when in fact, you haven’t even really had the conversation to know if that is true.
Sometimes, traditional mother, for example, who would use guilt often doesn’t address how they are feeling. They hold that and then will passive aggressively behave in a way to get the child to change rather than talking about what the actual conflict is or what the issue is. I think that’s the relationship piece that has been helpful in families but needs to change. It’s really being willing to have those tough conversations.
Dr. Lisa: You really need to identify a cause and effect, and put it out there, and actually use this, I feel when because?
Travis: The “I feel” statements are really, really important because people aren’t necessarily responsible for other people’s feelings but they are responsible for their behavior. If you really care about somebody, you’re really going to care about how they feel, what makes them happy, what makes them sad. That’s really important to understand in your relationship.
People, honestly, sometimes will behave in a way and not realize that they are impacting somebody. The only way for that to really be clear is for that person that that behavior impacted is to actually address it and say, “You know what? That realty made me feel bad when you treated me that way” or “When you didn’t call when I was expecting you to call.”
The only way that behavior is going to change is if we identify that it’s a problem, and then, you use the relationship really to change it. If, quite frankly, you interact with somebody and there is a problem but there isn’t any relationship, the other person really doesn’t care about changing their behavior because they don’t really have that relationship that matters. That’s a lot of the work I do with families and children, not only identifying the problems but really exploring the relationship and seeing how folks interact in the family, and really what kind of behaviors they really want to change.
That’s the hard part. Sometimes, folks come in and there is a lot of stuff going on, and we have to sit down and say, “Okay, what’s really important? What is it that you want to change? What is it that you want to get out of coming to therapy?” That is usually where we create our plan and figure out a direction to move in.
Dr. Lisa: Do you ever find that people are coming in wanting somebody outside of themselves, i.e. their child, to change when really the changes need to be happening inside them, the parent?
Travis: That often happens especially with anxiety. It’s much easier. When people have difficulty with anxiety, they often like to throw their anxiety on to the other people. Sometimes, it’s called projection. We throw our feelings on to other people and while that’s effective especially with anxiety, it’s if you throw it on to somebody and they are willing to accept it, what you get is this visual behavioral response from the other person. It actually causes the original person who had the anxiety to feel a sense of relief because they’ve made somebody feel like how they are feeling.
What ends up happening is that there generates now another conflict that is completely unrelated to what the original problem was. Often, that is a real good defense mechanism because if they’re successful able to throw it and they get somebody to react, they don’t actually end up having to talk about how they feel which makes them vulnerable.
Often times, folks that I work, not everybody but sometimes folks come in with an abuse history and that’s really what it’s about. It hasn’t been safe for them to make their feelings vulnerable, to be vulnerable. As a result, they often will throw their anxiety in their relationship ore relationships with other people often are significantly conflicted as a result to that.
Dr. Lisa: That’s a strange bouncing mirrors kind of thing that will go back and forth.
Travis: Yeah, and the number one way to address it is just to be honest about what the problem is and resolve it, move on.
Dr. Lisa: I feel like we could keep talking on and on because there are so many interesting things that you have shared with us today, and I’ve learned a lot myself just sitting here. How about some pointers just quickly for talking with your children about this back-to-school issue, about transitions, about maybe bigger issues? What are some of the top suggestions that you could offer to parents who are listening today?
Travis: Often at home, kids’ anxieties are based on really wanting someone to take control, wanting someone to dictate how things go, what’s expected. Interestingly enough, when I have a child come in that is having a problem at home or problems at home, one of the first thing I ask them is, “How do you manage at school?” I’ll say, “Do you have that behavior in the classroom? Do you treat your teacher that way?” Often, the child’s response is “Absolutely not.”
I’ll say, “Why don’t you treat your teacher that way? What would happen if you talk to your teacher the way you talk to your mom?” The immediate response is, “Well, I’ll end up in the principal’s office.” I say, “Well, is that where you want to be?” “Well, no, so that’s why I don’t do it.” “Why do you do it at home?” Because there is no consequence for that behavior and there is no structure. There is no limit. Then, a consequence afterwards.
A lot of it is really working with the families around those pieces. It’s realty setting up what reasonable expectations are at home, a reasonable structure so it’s pretty clear to the kids what’s expected and what’s not expected. If they aren’t successful at following through, what the result is going to be? That’s a hard part for the parent. They have to have the strengths to follow through with that. In our busy lives today, that’s a really difficult thing to do.
Dr. Lisa: Travis, this has been very helpful, I am sure, for the parents out there and maybe even non-parents who are listening because I think it’s all about human relationships, all of this stuff you’re discussing. How can people reach you if they would like to come see you as a patient or know more about your practice?
Travis: My office is located in Fort Andross in Brunswick which is right at the end of Maine Street. The actual address is 14 Maine Street, Suite 210E. My telephone number is 406-2697.
Dr. Lisa: Great. Thanks so much for coming in today, Travis, to talk to us about going back to school.
Travis: Thank you.