Preventing Borderline in Our Children

The first time I held my newborn, magic happened. What an amazing, terrifying gift motherhood was. If only he'd come with an instruction manual!

Most of us intuitively know to avoid things like doing drugs around the little guys or leaving them in the care of abusive caregivers. However, there are less obvious things we as parents can do to help insure our children do not develop the core symptoms of BPD which include: a poor sense of self, emotional dysregulation, and a lack of effective social functioning skills.

I am privileged to work with some of the most devoted and caring parents whose children also have BPD. These parents have spent hours pouring over information on how best to help their children. Many of the questions they ask are the same.

I recently met with one of my most favorite people ever, Dr. Blaise Aguirre, Medical Director of the Adolescent Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Center at McLean Hospital and instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. I couldn't wait to ask him the number one question I am asked by parents I work with:

"How do I know how much I can expect from my child? Is it fair, for example, to expect they hold a job, or clean their room?" I explained that, on the one hand, the parents feel they should be requiring more from their child, but also they feel that they are causing excruciating distress to their child just by making requests.

His answer blew me away, because it really cut to the heart of the matter. He said, "one of the primary goals for the child is to develop feelings of mastery and competency."

He explains in much more detail in his book, "Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescents: A Complete Guide to Understanding and Coping When Your Adolescent has BPD." This book is a gold mine of answers I have never seen anywhere else!

After contemplating this article for many months, my recent discussion with him, and subsequent devouring of his book, prompted me to finally put down in words my own top tips on preventing Borderline in our children. In writing this article, I thought back to my own experiences, consolidated my coaching client discussions and also thoroughly researched the subject.

Remembering that the goals are to build a healthy sense of self, excellent self regulation skills, and a firm knowledge of social functioning, here are my top recommendations:

1. Validate your child and teach them to self-validate. Validating is, basically, the ability to articulate to your child that you understand their experience to be true and valid for them. This is key to helping your child learn how to trust himself.

And also, teach your child that no matter what, even the most compassionate humans are limited in their ability to understand an another person's experience. Most people don't set out to be mean and insensitive, and yet they may come across as being so. And also some people are intentionally vindictive. Either way, it is vitally important your children don't expect others to validate who they are, but rather that they learn to validate their own experiences.

2. Teach your child non-judgmental and dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinking is the ability to hold two opposing viewpoints at one time. This discipline develops more effective problem solving, better relationship building, and less black and white thinking (splitting).

3. Give them many opportunities to explore their own unique talents and competences. Guide them towards what you see they like, ask them questions about their preferences, let them make decisions. Get them talking about what is uniquely fun and interesting to them.

4. Know your own self very well. Understand your feelings, beliefs and behaviors and also expect that your child is distinctly different from you.

5. Teach distress tolerance and self-soothing skills. Those with BPD have a hard time regulating their emotions. Rather than reinforcing temper tantrums or backing down from requests just because they seem distressing to your child, teach them how to calm themselves and tolerate these types of interactions.

6. Learn not to react. Keep yourself grounded and model effective, not reactive, behavior. Firm, consistent, calm interactions are the goal.

7. Increase skill-building instruction and opportunities in the areas of: personal responsibility, interpersonal effectiveness, time management, basic finances, and appropriate social responses. On the other hand, and just as important, lower your expectations of them that are not consistent with their true selves and innate value system.

8. Attach consequences to bad decisions and reinforce good decisions. Prepare them for real world living, even if they face real challenges associated with a disability of any kind. Let them know that, even if there are challenges, you have 100% faith in your child having a meaningful life. Part of that belief is knowing you expect them to be able to navigate real-life situations.

9. Teach your child to consider others' feelings, thoughts and behaviors while also firmly holding to a strong understanding of their own needs. It is not an either-or life we live. We can remain firm in our own value system, while also contemplating and accommodating another's belief. How simple, and also how advanced a concept this is.

10. And finally, don't take life too seriously. Life is full of ups and downs. Teach them to go with the flow and don't sweat the small stuff. Life is good and meant to be enjoyed and it all turns out just fine. No one is perfect and life is about learning and growing from our mistakes.

As always, with much love and gratitude,

xxxooo

Tami

For more information on coaching with Tami, please see her personal coaching page.