Category: Culture

  • How do feelings change?

    How do feelings change?

    Can you change how you feel by changing how you think? Dr. Ray uses a Mark Twain quote and his own experience to show how thinking changes over the years, and how feelings follow. He applies it to a parent whose grown child has left the faith.

    “Has your thinking changed since age 14?”

    Mark Twain supposedly said this: “When I was 14, my father was so ignorant I could barely stand to have the old man around, but when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man learned in seven years.” Here’s the question that quote prompts. Has your thinking changed since age 14? How about since age 21? At that time you were pretty sure of the way you looked at things, right? What’s changed since? Probably a whole lot.

    You just don’t look at things now as you did then. Whether it’s religion, politics, life, emotions, people, or relationships, your thinking has radically shifted. What changed it? Was it reality? Was it personal experience? How about making mistakes, listening to other people, even your old man? Your thinking changes all the time.

    Thinking changes, and feelings follow

    So when people say to me, “I can’t help it, that’s the way I feel,” I’m tempted to say, “Well, wait, how did your thinking change from twenty years ago about all kinds of stuff?” Obviously you felt a certain way then. How come you don’t feel that way now? Because slowly, sometimes by getting hit with a two-by-four, you realize the way you were thinking is not good, doesn’t help you, causes problems for you, makes you feel bad, creates emotions that you don’t like. You start the process of saying, “I don’t want to think like that anymore. I want to accept that I can’t change that person. For years I felt terrible because that person was a certain way and I couldn’t do anything about it, but I don’t feel so terrible anymore.”

    Why? “Well, I guess I’ve just accepted that I can’t do anything about it.” How’d you accept it? What did you do? It wasn’t magic. You changed your thinking. You kept reinforcing to yourself, “I can’t do anything about that.” In the beginning you thought you could. Later on maybe you realized you couldn’t, but you were upset, devastated, frustrated because you so wanted to change that other person. You were desperate to change that other person. There’s got to be a way. Over time you realized, “No, I can’t. I tried every way I knew how. I even called that dude on the radio, Ray Guarendi.” He said, “Are you sure you can change that person?”

    So you came to accept, to your own peace, that you can’t do anything about that situation. Obviously your emotions changed with it. You’re not as disgruntled, not as unhappy, not as frustrated, not as ill at ease or lacking peace about the whole scenario. Because as you analyzed it, thought about it, and reassessed it, ever so slowly your thinking changed, and as your thinking changed, so did the feelings. They’re not as burdensome anymore. You’re not as hurt. You’re not as devastated.

    From evangelical to Catholic

    Your thinking does that all the time. Not just from when you were 14 until now. It does it from last year. When I was in the evangelical world, I was pretty certain that the way they looked at things, their particular theology, was pretty solid, pretty correct. Well, as I started to look at things, church history, church logic, church thinking, church theology, my thinking changed. Yes, there’s a lot of beauty in the evangelical world, but I found the Catholic Church made more sense to me. My thinking changed. That happens all the time.

    If you’ve got a kid who’s 23 years old and flat out doesn’t want to hear anything about religion, and you’ve been beating yourself up, “Where’d I fail? How’d I do this? What happened?” You thought you were doing right. Maybe you weren’t doing right. Maybe you missed something. You should have prayed the rosary in Aramaic, not English. But over a couple of years you became more at peace with the situation because you recognized, one, that you did what you thought was best, however imperfect and human, and two, that you’re not responsible for how he thinks. You can’t be. He doesn’t want to hear anything you have to say. If he did, maybe you could try to reach him, but he doesn’t want to hear it. Not at all. Zero, zip, nada.

    And ultimately your feelings of self-defeat and self-deprecation started to fade because your thinking changed. Feelings do not occur in a vacuum. They are fueled or tapered by the way we look at things.

    Dr. Ray goes deeper on how our thinking shapes our faith and our peace in Thinking Like Jesus: The Psychology of a Faithful Disciple.

    Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.

  • Is an Algorithm Raising Your Kid?

    Is an Algorithm Raising Your Kid?

    Is an algorithm raising your kid? Dr. Ray explains how the algorithms on phones and computers feed kids more of whatever they look up, and why he says the only way to stop it is to delay access.

    “Is an algorithm raising your kid?”

    I heard a great line the other day: “Is an algorithm raising your kid?” I just became familiar with algorithms in the last couple of years. They are a piece of, if you want to use the word brilliant, maybe seductive is a better word, technology that says in so many words, “I’m going to see what you’re interested in.” The algorithm finds out whatever you look up on your phone or your computer, and says, “Oh, they’d like to see more of that.”

    So if your 13-year-old, who shouldn’t have a smartphone but does, looks up something regarding gender confusion or same-sex attraction, the algorithm says, “That’s what they’re interested in. We want to keep them interested, because we can sell more things and make more money.” And it starts sending many more things about gender confusion and same-sex attraction their way. It isn’t stuff that says, “Let’s measure this and see what it’s all about and think why you’re thinking this way.” No, no, no. It says, “This is what you should be heading toward.” Or if you’re a curious 14-year-old boy and you go into a site that has inappropriate material, what do you know? You can have some more of that. We’ll feed you a steady diet of it.

    “Most parents don’t know that”

    The interesting thing about technology is that most people can’t keep up with it. It moves ahead so fast that the average parent is unaware of what the algorithm does. It says, “If you show an interest in this, we will send you much more of this. It’ll pop up on your feed, on your phone, on your computer.” So in essence, the algorithm has a very potent hand in raising your kid. Most parents don’t know that. Over 50 percent of parents have absolutely no safety mechanisms on that phone or computer.

    So the algorithm says, “Let me have your kid. I’ll tell you how your kids are going to think. You, mom, you, dad, you think you’re doing a fine job of this.” And then one day they’re 19 years old and you wonder how they got to the point where they think so differently than the way we tried to raise them. Ask the algorithm. If you type in something that has to do with some sort of antagonism toward religion, what do you know? You get all kinds of stuff. They’ll slam religion. Why? Because I want to keep you watching. I want to keep you attached. I want to keep you addicted. I hate to use that word, but let me use it for now. And before you know it, I’ll have you shaped into thinking the way I want, “I” meaning the algorithm.

    “The only way to stop it”

    So the only way to stop the algorithm is not to let it have access to your kid. And the only way to do that is to have the strength to say, “This isn’t good.” The only way to stop it is to delay the access to it. Even if I’m only one in a hundred parents that does it now, realize the strength that takes. It should make you mad, actually, that they’re doing this to your kid.

    I remember reading a book about this, and they were quoting a lot of the guys who developed the technology to keep kids hooked. They said, “There’s no way I would let my kid get on this stuff, because I know what it can do. I designed it.” They were pretty upfront about it. So once more, the question: is the algorithm raising your kid?

    Dr. Ray gives parents more on holding the line in Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World.

    Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.

  • Affection Sends a Powerful Message

    Affection Sends a Powerful Message

    How do I show my kids my strict standards come from love? Dr. Ray tells dads that regular physical affection, even when teens resist it, softens the standards they enforce, and he shares what he did with his own son.

    “Loads of love”

    It’s not unusual to have your kids look around and see that the culture’s standards are lower than yours. Your goals as a parent, the things you want to teach, the way you approach raising kids is different from the bulk of people out there. If you’re raising, you hope, citizens for God’s kingdom, then your approach is going to be sometimes rapidly out of sync with the rest of the culture. Your kids know this, and some of them don’t like it, some of them don’t like it a lot.

    So what do you do? How do you convince them that what you’re doing is not because you’re bucking for the Tyrant Parent of the Decade Award, but because you love them desperately? I want to speak a little to the dads about this. It comes more easily to moms, I believe, but it’s very important, and more so when it comes from dads. How do you express to those kids on a regular basis that you are motivated by loads of love, and not by “I’m the boss, kid, my way or the highway, punk”?

    Affection sends a powerful message

    There are many ways, but I look back on my own fatherhood and I realize how very important this is: affection. Physical touch, hugs, kisses, “love you.” Moms do it a lot, and maybe as a group they do it more than dads. I am so convinced of the power of that to get across the message that my standards are different from the culture’s, but it’s because I love you so very much.

    It gets harder when they move into their teens, because the teen rules are: don’t embarrass me out in public, don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t say anything. I’ll just walk behind you by about 50 yards, and don’t turn around and look like you know me. We have allowed the kids to dictate how much affection we’re allowed to show them, especially out in public. One of the things that was critical for me as a dad was that I did not allow my children to decide when, where and how much I would show them affection. Not going to happen.

    “Try not to stink the joint out”

    My youngest son, Pete, went to St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Louisville, Ohio. His sophomore year he played basketball. He was 16. Before the home games I’d perch myself up in the fourth or fifth row of the bleachers and watch the kids horse around down there on the gym floor, guys doing what guys do, snapping each other with towels. I’d wait for an appropriate moment, and then I’d go down to Petey, grab him, hug him, and kiss him on the neck, on the cheek. And as a psychologist, I’ve realized it’s very important to be affirming and positive before a game like that. So I would always say, “Pete, try not to stink the joint out.” He would laugh.

    Afterwards I said, “Pete, I’ll bother you when I do that.” He said, “Would it make any difference, Dad?” I said, “No, it wouldn’t.” And then he told me later that a couple of his teammates came up to him and said, “I wish my dad would do that.”

    If you’re not an affectionate guy, nobody’s forcing you to not be affectionate. Maybe it doesn’t feel at ease, but it will feel at ease the more you do it. It sends such a powerful message to the kids: you’ve got to understand, son or daughter, how very much I love you and what you mean to me in my life. And that softens the standards you’re trying to get across and the way you’re enforcing things. They’ve got a smartphone and they’re 15 and they’re thinking, “How did I get stuck with this Neanderthal?” But it’s hard for them to deny all the affection coming their way. That’s hard to ignore.

    To this day, my son, he’s in his 20s, I hug him and kiss him almost every time I see him. And I’m Italian, so we hug and kiss. Message to the dads: it’s wonderful to have high standards. It’s wonderful to walk counter-culturally. It is. You should have an easier time of it if they know how much you love them, and they’ll know how much you love them by how much you show it.

    Dr. Ray offers more on parenting against the grain in Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World.

    Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.

  • Non-Judgmental Language is Just Wrong

    Non-Judgmental Language is Just Wrong

    Why do therapists avoid saying a child’s behavior is wrong? Dr. Ray recalls the “non-judgmental” language he was trained to use and says it follows from leaving God out of the picture.

    “Inappropriate” instead of “wrong”

    I didn’t catch this when I was in grad school, because I was at one of those points in my life where I had one foot strongly planted in the psychological narrative about many things and one foot in my faith. I would have been more sensitive to this, except I wasn’t. How’s that for an explanation? The language we were told to use, the language that was the coin of the realm, was to be non-judgmental. You didn’t tell a child that punching his brother was wrong. That’s judgmental. You were to say that’s inappropriate or unacceptable. That was the language you were to use, not only with kids but with adults.

    So your 17-year-old daughter believes that you leaving your wife and her four siblings is just unacceptable, inappropriate, a bad choice, a mistake. You always wanted to go to confession: “Bless me, Father, mistakes were made.” You couldn’t use “wrong.” You couldn’t use “bad.” Those were such judgmental words. It’s like kicking a puppy. Unacceptable? I think it’s pretty bad, actually. And what if you’re in Boston and you’re rooting for the New York Yankees? That’s really bad. That’s not just inappropriate. “Bless me, Father, for I have made some inappropriate choices.”

    Why the language changed

    Part of the reason that language gained prominence was that we didn’t give much acknowledgment to God. He was sort of quietly shunted off to the side. He really didn’t have a part in our therapy. We recognized that some of our unenlightened clients might still believe in God, might still guide their lives by his suggestions. That is, not his commandments. That’s kind of overbearing. His options, the Ten Options. So we didn’t use words like “wrong.” Who’s to say what wrong is?

    Furthermore, with the self-esteem movement gaining momentum, if you say someone’s behavior is wrong or bad, you’re kind of digging up their self-esteem. If you say their behavior is inappropriate, that certainly takes away the stinger of doing something wrong to another person. But now, the ice pick in your sister’s arm: poor choice, unacceptable. Listen to young parents talk to their preschool children. I guarantee you, on a ratio of about 10 to one, you will hear “unacceptable,” “inappropriate,” “bad choices,” before you hear “wrong.” “What you did was very, very wrong” just stings of judgmentalism, doesn’t it?

    “If there is no God, you can’t say it’s wrong”

    You’ve got to figure it this way. If there is no God, and the mental health professions by and large tend to drift toward either no God, or they reconstruct him in a more psychologically acceptable image, then you really can’t say that something is wrong. How do you say it’s wrong? You say it’s socially unacceptable by current standards, or by current agreed-upon legalities or societal opinions. It just goes against the reigning psychological conduct standards, I guess.

    Leaving your wife and kids is wrong. Why is that? “Because… why? I don’t think it’s wrong. I’m unhappy, I’m miserable, I found somebody better. How could that be wrong? I want to be happy.” You can’t say that’s wrong. If there’s no God, the guy’s got a point. He really does. It’s pretty much a societal standard. “Yeah, I made a commitment, sort of, at one time, but so what?” “It’s wrong to break a commitment.” No, you can’t say that. Says who? When he made the commitment he wasn’t thinking ahead. He didn’t think he’d meet somebody else. He didn’t think his wife would be so difficult to live with. You can’t say it’s wrong. It’s maybe going to have unexpected consequences.

    Without God, most behavior is unacceptable or inappropriate if it’s negative. But if there is a God, you can probably still use “wrong” and “bad,” and those are good words. Those are acceptable words.

    Dr. Ray looks at how psychology looks different when you take God seriously in Jesus, The Master Psychologist: Listen to Him.

    Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.

  • The Causes of Our Cultural Violence

    The Causes of Our Cultural Violence