TreatmentTalk – Practical Intelligence

Today is a beautiful day in northern California, but I thought I would come in, at least, for awhile and write another blog entry. The parent dilemma continues on with adult children, whether you have children with addiction issues or not. How much do you help them, and how much do hold back when they are struggling? For kids with addiction or dependency problems, we have been told in Al-Anon, as well as from the counselors and interventionists, not to enable our children, and they are right. Why does it feel so difficult? Our hearts are heavy when our children are hurting. It’s hard to go with your life as if everything is wonderful. So I remind myself. I only have one life, and it is mine. My children have to find their own way, and their life is their own. For any mother, this is not easy.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote Outliers, “People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage.” I think certain circumstances lead up to a person having difficulty in life. There is not one particular thing, parenting, genetics, divorce, opportunity, financial status. We know that the circumstances in life can be identical for two people and their success in life can be very different. Gladwell goes on to talk about “practical intelligence”, a term from the psychologist, Robert Sternberg. Gladwell says that Sternberg feels practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it and knowing how to say it for the maximum effect.” “It’s knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want.” Gladwell goes on to explain that practical intelligence is partially in our genes, but it also is taught to us as we grow.

We, as parents, learn to sit back and watch the lives of our children as they unfold. We delight in their success and we feel their despair during their hard times. Do all these addicted young adults have no practical intelligence? Did they not have it in their genes, or miss the lessons growing up? They know their world is falling down around them, and yet they seem to continue to deny the reason for it. Their standard of living continues downward, as they continually lower their expectations. Many of these are young adults are from middle class families, yet they are willing to deny many of the basic human comforts for their drug of choice. Did they have practical intelligence, and their addiction took over and destroyed it, or because this was a skill they were lacking, were they more prone to addiction? For me the final question is, if you missed the boat at some point during your youth, is it now too late? Can you recover and learn practical intelligence later in life?