Dr. Robert Leahy Receives 2023 Outstanding Clinician Award

The above may seem like a simple question, but it’s not one that we necessarily think about every day. From a therapy perspective, values can best be defined as the things that are important to us in terms of who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. They are different from goals in that values can never be “achieved;” instead, we strive to embody our values on a daily basis with our behavior. It can be helpful to think of values in terms of single-word concepts, such as “adventure” and “resilience.” We can then use these small words as a daily reminder for how we want to behave.

As an example therapy exercise, below are 10 values. Pick up to 3 (and only 3!) that feel very important to you in terms of how you want to act towards others and yourself.

• Authenticity
• Connection
• Creativity
• Forgiveness
• Gratitude
• Kindness
• Love
• Patience
• Responsibility
• Self-development

Now, ask yourself the following question for each value that you picked [say, for example, that one of the values I picked is connection] :

• “How well do I feel I currently am embodying my value of connection? When I think about how I behave and how I spend my time and energy, how much does it align with how important connection is to me in my mind and heart?”

If you feel that you currently are doing a lot toward embodying the values you picked, great! If not, that is okay! The point of this exercise is not to make you feel bad if there is a gap between your stated values and your current behavior, but rather to serve as a barometer for how well you feel you’re behaving in alignment with your truest priorities. For example, maybe I really do value connecting with others, but I realize that I haven’t been putting much effort into maintaining my relationships or socializing. So, I ask myself this second question:

• “If I were acting in greater alignment with this value, what would I be doing differently on a regular basis?”

For example, if I were acting in greater alignment with my value of connection, maybe I would be making more frequent social plans, keeping in touch with loved ones more, or engaging more with my colleagues when at the office.

I can then create specific goals to help hold me accountable. Perhaps I would generate the following action items related to my value of connection.

1. Schedule at least one get-together with a friend per week
2. Call my cousin who I haven’t spoken to recently
3. Accept my coworker’s invitation to go get lunch instead of eating at my desk

In sum, identifying our values can not only help draw our attention toward areas in our lives where we don’t feel we’re living as richly and authentically as we could be; it can also help us clarify what shifts we need to make to show up in the world as the person we want to be. Talking about values in therapy can therefore be a powerful tool for creating change and living well.

Parenting Corner: 

Making it More Likely Your Kids Will Behave the Way You Want Them To

by Susan Paula, Ph.D.

All parents have expectations of their children, whether we realize it or not. It turns out that many of us don’t think about what those expectations are until our child has violated them. We realize after the fact that we don’t think it’s ok if our child takes things off the grocery store shelf without asking, or interrupts when we’re talking on the phone, or grabs toys from other children.

If we don’t know what our expectations are, we can’t communicate them to our children. We may be setting our kids up for failure if we don’t teach them what we want. 

To further complicate things, behavioral expectations are personal to us and our families. There’s no list that I know of to help us decide what are kids “should” be doing. Each family has to decide what their own expectations are. For example, my nieces and nephews in Georgia aren’t allowed to call adults by their first names, while all of the families we know in Queens allow that.

So, it pays to sit down and put some thought into how you expect your children to behave in different situations and with different people.

Here are some prompting questions:

• What are the rules when they’re home?
• What do you expect of them at meal times?
• What do you expect of them when they’re getting ready for school?
• How quiet do you expect them to be?
• What are the rules when they’re in a store?
• What are the rules when they’re on the train?
• What are the rules when they’re in the playground?
• What are the rules when they’re playing with their brothers or sisters?

Now that you’ve put some thought into what your expectations are, make sure your children also know very clearly what you expect of them. This discussion is best done before problems happen, not during or right after. Have a quick relaxed talk with your kids before you head out the door or before guests come over to let them know what you expect. Review the rules and the consequences for violation of the rules. Check that your children have heard and understood the rules by having them repeat them back to you. Keep it light and use humor, if you can.  

Taking these simple, quick steps can prevent problems from happening later. And if problems do happen, your children won’t be able to tell you that they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong.