by Julie Steiny

"Do other people consider you intense?" inquires Howard Glasser, psychologist, author and keynote speaker to the large audience at Bradley Hospital's annual conference called "Parenting Matters." He's clearly intense himself.

"Do any of you have a child who's considered intense?"Besides some teachers, psychologists and daycare providers, the audience is overwhelmingly parents, and they immediately murmur irate answers to this question, with a few shouts of 'You bet.'All parents who happen to have high-energy, high-strung children have been dragged into fights with and for those kids unwillingly and all too often.

Glasser continues, "Intensity is a gift.But the world acts as though intensity is the enemy.So we find labels; we get unnerved; we have to find a cure.And the first approach is medication."

His audience is totally with him.All parents have kids who are intense in some way, at some times.But kids who are powered-up all the time can be mighty troublesome.

Glasser barks, "The message to the kids is that there's something wrong with your intensity.We can't handle it, and neither can anyone else.We need to make it go away."

This hits home with me.Some of the smartest, most creative and exciting people I've known were, well, intense (double dash) – and it seems like someone was always trying to intimidate or shame them into cowed compliance.

However, kids can also be intense because they've never learned manners or self-control from homes that were inconsistent, overly-permissive, angry, or otherwise chaotic.Kids bursting with creativity are a lot easier to forgive than loud, nearly-feral creatures.Teachers in most communities report that this sort of intensity is increasingly common.

But in either case, any impulsive intensity is a major pain in the tush if you're trying to explain long division or get through a week's grocery shopping.

Glasser believes intense kids contribute to the high attrition rate among new teachers.One third used to leave the profession in the first five years, but now half do."Parents, teachers and kids are not the culprits, but the methods are.In fact, the harder the normal methods are applied, the worse they backfire.

"Helping a child develop inner strength does not happen by turbo-charging our discipline, increasing sanctions, time-outs, yelling or adding consequences.Intense children learn pretty quickly that we're much more available to them when things go wrong.When things go right, we're boring and kids write us off."

If the kid comes to dinner when he's called, we sit down and eat, essentially ignoring his compliance.But we shower him with attention when he's a jerk.And attention is food to any child.

Glasser developed what he calls the 'Nurtured-Heart Approach,' elaborated in a book called (italics) Transforming the Difficult Child (end italics), which he wrote with Jennifer Easley.They wrote, "A difficult child can be getting a tremendous amount of negative attention throughout the course of a day and still be literally starving to be noticed... Negative attention is like junk food.It has no nutritional value."

Glasser thinks of his approach as the Nintendo strategy.Computer games offer clear structures, expectations and rewards.The kid knows exactly what he has to do to be successful, and if he's not, he tries again.Glasser says, "Given the right level of structure, these children can play life to win.The structure gives the child a way to maximize his energies and intensity.The good news is that the Nintendo structure is easily transposed to home, classroom and Grandma's house."

In effect, the strategy is to reverse when you give attention.You figure out what the rules and expectations should be, communicate them clearly to the kids, and reward them with attention when they are meeting expectations.Even if the only opportunity to praise the kid's serenity is before he's completely woken up, you can say, "Boy is it a pleasure to be with your calm, friendly self."Yes, this sounds insufferably perky.But Glasser had a video of a mom working with a couple of difficult kids who were disrespecting her silly praise, but at the same time, they were doing what she wanted.Glasser says to ignore their guff, because it still works.The message gets across.

This was my favorite of Glasser's points:"Our ancestors had to be incredibly alert to predators.So we're genetically prepared to see what's wrong with this picture."It's natural to be alert to problems and set out to fix them.But it's also a primitive response that ends up rewarding the problem behavior with attention, when what you want to do is the reverse.

Certainly the hardest part of using Glasser's technique, for both parents and teachers, would have to be finding the time to pay more attention to the calm, engaged behavior.That's when most of us run off to do whatever's next on our giant to-do list.Still, if it means a more tranquil classroom, with more learning going on, or getting off to school without a drama every day, there's a lot in it for teachers and parents.

Attention is the currency of social relations.It's not their fault if kids are acting out because they're attention-starved.If we want better-mannered kids, we'll have to pay better attention.

And in my opinion, whether or not we are directly responsible as parents or teachers, all of us should be finding more time for the kids.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises.She welcomes your questions and comments on education.She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]