Thirteen Reasons Why

Nextlix series: "Thirteen Reasons Why." Does it ring true?

I've thought a lot about various issues to begin this blog, but the one that currently is pressing on my mind is the Netflix series, "Thirteen Reasons Why." Whenever anyone from a particular field watches a drama about their field I think they are always checking it for things that don't ring true. I remember when I first saw, "The Sixth Sense," I wrote off the fact that the child's therapist was going to his house etc. as bad writing about the field of psychology, rather than a clue as to what was really happening. I currently work in a middle school that is not unlike the community that "Thirteen Reasons Why" takes place. I've worked with many depressed, bullied, and suicidal teens over the years. There has been a lot written about the glorification of Hannah's particular suicide and I don't think I need to add to that body of literature, although I agree with the criticism overall. Here is a summary quote from The New Yorker review by Jia Tolentino, "Hannah's suicide is both an addictive scavenger hunt and an act that gives her the glory, respect, and adoration that she was denied in real life."

But, does it ring true that Hannah Baker would take her own life? And if so, what are the characteristics that led her to this? Hannah is a beautiful, intelligent, and socially skilled teenage girl. These facts, of course, in no way make her immune from the troubling inner life of many depressed/suicidal teens. Additionally, the fact that Hannah is social and appears happy at times also can ring true for depressed teens, who are in the moment and sometimes give adults the illusion that they must be happy. The show goes out of the way to demonstrate that Hannah's parents are loving and supportive. Thus, when I was first watching the series, it wasn't making a lot of sense to me. Hannah's depression (prior to the trauma of her own rape) didn't seem to reflect the inner life of a seriously depressed teen. Then, I saw the scenes after the popular girls ask Hannah to drive them to the dance. Hannah is wining to her parents that their car isn't new enough to impress the other girls. Subsequently, her father goes out an buys an expensive, new jeep so she doesn't have to suffer the embarrassment of an older car. That was the moment that I began to think that this is a girl who might kill herself. It has been made clear that the family is struggling financially and, in spite of that, they take on a ridiculous amount of additional debt to spare her this "pain." This is what rings true to many students that I've worked with who are critically depressed. Their parents have not let them cope with any psychological pain and leave them exceptionally vulnerable to life's everyday challenges and failures. If Hannah's parents were willing to act so irresponsibly in this situation, it indicates that they have acted like this throughout her life. This would have left her lacking resilience and usually ends of being the bedrock of low self-esteem, anxiety and depression (in spite objective strengths). I've seen, over the course of my career, parents ability to tolerate their child bearing any amount of pain, skyrocket. In fact, in many communities, it is so common, that it is seen as good parenting (as it is portrayed in the series).

The teen years is when parents become unable to fundamentally control the outside world and children must begin to cope with failure, loss, and sometimes rather traumatic events. Additionally, it is a time when children begin the process of individuation, and thus tend to turn away from their parents. This is a devastating combination (add pressure to perform/ be perfect and it is literally crippling). I think the series was a warning to "good" parents that it can happen to anyone, not to be taken off guard. Coping with a trauma as a teen can certainly leave the healthiest adolescents vulnerable to dire consequences; it is a particularly difficult time is the developmental course.  At the same time, the series fails to connect things that parents do that can leave their child more likely to be unable to cope with challenges. I've notices as a culture, we are extremely resistant to look to how parental behaviors (particularly of white, middle class parents) directly affect children's skills, feelings, and behavioral responses. We don't want to "blame" loving parents with good intentions. However, it's not about blame. If we don't acknowledge the connection of parenting choices/style to outcomes how can we begin to change the outcomes? I've noticed an almost complete blind spot in the very thing that improve children's emotional outcomes. Children have become the "identified patient" and the environment that has created and sustains these unhealthy patterns continues. Young people get medicated, meditation, and skills that help them cope with these negative outcomes better, but the family situation that has created it goes on and on.  We don't even see the elephant in the room anymore.

In my own career when working with students like this, I meet with parents and try to point out patterns that seem to be negatively impacting student's emotional health. Parenting is a ridiculously  difficult job and often the inadvertent outcomes of patterns are quite delayed and hard to connect. It's not a blame game but a variable that can significantly change the course of a child's life. When this is met with denial and defensiveness by the parent I've seen the behaviors and negative feelings generally continue. However, when parents dig deep and make even minor changes in control, allowing their child to cope with adversity, and/or reducing pressure to perform, we see almost immediate results. They start out slow but build significantly over time.

Next up: How this taboo of identifying family issues has led to misdiagnosis of children.

What does a school psychologist have to say about the educational system in this country?

I've been working as a school psychologist for the past 20 years.  My work background is very diverse; I've worked in rural districts, suburban and currently work in a major U.S. city. Furthermore, I've worked in poor communities, middle class as well as rich.  I've had the privilege of working with some great teachers and administrators, but also poor ones. I think that professionally school psychologists are in a unique position in that we are involved in a lot of what goes in in schools, but are not the teachers or administrators and thus, in many ways I think that makes us somewhat more objective.   When you work in the system over time you see patterns in the worlds of education, parenting,  and the diagnosis of children. I'm a highly opinionated person who likes to tell it like it is so I expect to piss some people off.  However, I believe in the discourse, as long as it remains about the subject and does not become personal attack. That is my intention here, to begin discourse and express ideas that may not be the current mainstream. I am intensely vested in furthering the field of education and helping children be happy, well educated, and healthy. I also believe in the public school system, but realize that there is room for a lot of improvement (like most systems). We cannot begin to improve our work without seeking out weaknesses and trends that have negative impact on student outcomes.