My interview with Dr. Thomas Ollendick of Virginia Tech

The room is brightly lit and welcoming. There is a window adjacent to the waiting room, allowing visitors to peer into office activites. Behind the large oak desk sits a stoic man with full credentials posted upon the walls. Dr. Thomas Ollendick is moving on to his next scheduled appointment of the busy day. Today’s activities include studying adolescent psychology, cognitive behavior therapy, and social learning theory. Dr. Ollendick has studied psychology for nearly 50 years, and plans to do so for many more. The following is a transcript of an interview Dr. Ollendick gave to Operation Latte Thunder.

Q: All right, just a couple of preliminaries, I saw that you started studying psychology in 1963?

Ollendick: Oh I did, yes.

Q: That’s 46 years, very impressive.

Ollendick: You’re bringing back some old memories.

Q: I was in a bit of a hurry and was trying to research as much as possible about you. You have a very impressive list of research credentials and seem to have been all over.

Ollendick: It’s been a good journey. A long journey, but a good one.

Q: One of the things I think that shapes us in our adolescent years and our developing years are the expectations of what we’re going to be experiencing in the “real world.” What do you think the expectations are now and how were they different back when you were growing up?

Ollendick: You’re taking me back to my high school years and my college days, in which of course at that time expectations were very high and also they were unlimited in the sense that you could achieve almost whatever you wanted to achieve by hard work, dedication, and persistence.

I think this is partially a way of saying that this characterized me at the time. I was a very hard worker, goal oriented, and had not a clear mission necessarily, but certainly one that said I wanted to move beyond where I had come from.

I came from a very poor background, rural Nebraska and Iowa. I grew up on a farm and my family were farmers, and here I am as a university professor. Farming is great. Two of my brothers are still farmers and I love it when I go back to visit and do things.

But my point here is that the expectations were high and were also not constrained by any existing constraints. I think the main difference now is that a lot of people still have some high expectations, but there is more stress, and there are more barriers to achieving things than I think there might have been back in my day.

So, probably contrary to most older people you might talk to, it wasn’t like the “good old days” so much. Although, those were good old days because I could achieve and accomplish and I think now it is harder to do the things I did because of a variety of things such as the economy, the world situation, or access to things. For me, things were wide open because I had this background. Where I would end up would be better than where I had come from.

Q: Those virtues of “hard work,” do you think a lot of the kids these days and their love for instant gratification understand those values today?

Ollendick: Well I have two daughters and grandchildren I should also add. I am saying that partially because I think our daughters grew up in a very different year than I did and our grandchildren are growing up in a very different year than our daughters did.

I think people still aspire and try to do things. I think you hit the nail on the head with instant gratification, in terms of things being handed to people and not having to necessarily work for them. That is not true of all people of course, as many many people have to work very hard for what they get.

But some people, a significant minority of people at least if not a majority, are unaccustomed to working hard for what they need to get. I’ve always referred to it as the “Sesame Street Generation.”

Q: Sesame Street Generation?

Ollendick: Well it’s because that Sesame Street is Pow! Boom! Boom! Stimulus! Excitement! Everything has to be glorified and right in your face, and of course that wasn’t occurring at all when I grew up. So I think there is an expectation that things will be more easily achieved.

Q: I think another big influence on people while growing up is their relationship with their parents. You see a lot of people my age and even younger entering rather abusive relationships with significant others because it’s just what they were used to while growing up. Do you think that the nuclear family unit has evolved at all since you grew up? It seems that you likely had a very tight knit family, growing up on a farm.

Ollendick: Yes. This is quite controversial, isn’t it? The way it was in the 50's and 60's is not now, when the families were closer together. For better or worse, many women stayed at home and were mothers primarily. And it’s great that women are out of the home and have jobs, and fathers as well. Fathers help out now much more than they used to. My father did very little with us as a family.

We know that divorce rates are higher than they were back in that time. We know of the stress level for couples staying together and having family time. I know one of my grandsons I could use as an example, and one of my daughters too. Three, four nights a week they were doing something. It’s not uncommon for that to be the case. When I grew up, it might have been once a week or zero times a week to be doing things outside of the home. The constraints were there and just made it happen, and now it is much more open.

Now I’m not saying that is necessarily bad. What I am saying is that the nuclear unit was tighter back then than it is now. I think we’re seeing a resurgence of that though. The divorce rate has been coming down in the past five years. I think we have gone out on that limb, and these things come in cycles as you probably know, and I think that we have gone out and have been liberated. What I think is happening now is that I think we’re kind of coming back and the nuclear family is taking on increasing importance.

Q: One of the things you mentioned was about stay-at-home-women. I believe that there has been a communication breakdown for females in the past 50 years. Men have been the ones who have been redefining communication since the 50's and 60's and I feel that has led to a lack of understanding and has limited women in terms of expressing their thoughts and feelings or their paradigm. Do you agree that communication has evolved in that way or do you have another thought?

Ollendick: What I see has happened is that both have changed over time. Men and women have evolved together to where it more or less works. Men certainly have softened some and have learned to be more emotional and communicate. I don’t think that means that women have become less of that. I think that most women and most men are still very communicative and communicate well with one another. The primary constraint on that is that if the situation changes, meaning that women now have full time jobs and many major responsibilities, the opportunity to be the communicator has to be reduced. Something has to give.

When that happens, I think the perception is that maybe it has backed off some, but it is still there.

Q: So it will vary from family to family depending on who’s working full time?

Ollendick: Precisely, yes.

Q: This brings us to my generation. I believe that we have been controlled by a fear of failing. I think that a lot of people my age are afraid to live their dreams because they’re afraid to fail. Do you have any comments or thoughts on my generation’s predicament?

Ollendick: Yes. I think you’ve stated it well, because in the past every succeeding generation outdid the preceding generation. My life, on a number of dimensions, was easier and better than my father’s. His was better than his father’s. But then when you come down the line to my children, they’re maybe on par with us or even a little below because the opportunities aren’t there that were there for us. Now the next generation, your generation, is going to be harder still. For the first time, people are speculating that your generation may be the first generation to not outdo the preceding generation.

Q: Is this the first time this has happened?

Ollendick: I believe that’s true, but I’m not a sociologist and I don’t know that as a fact. I’m a clinical psychologist and the clients I see often times are talking about that issue. “What can I do? I can never aspire to what you were!” Kids are now saying that about their fathers. There’s that issue of “Can I achieve what you have achieved?” because of some of the boundaries.

Q: I found myself in that same situation. My father went to Monmouth College and didn’t do too much there. He’s retired now, but he ended up as the president of a branch of Danaher Motion. He was involved in industry and mechanics for well over twenty years.

Ollendick: Well there you have it. There are still lots of opportunities. If you think about Microsoft Word and other things that have been developed, there are opportunities to go beyond where your parents were. I wouldn’t want to underestimate those, but I think it’s harder than what it used to be.

Q: I read that you were studying child psychology from 1971 to 2006. I was wondering what your take was on where the mistakes were being made in terms of parenting that raise children into having an unnecessary sense of entitlement or an expectation to fail.

Ollendick: That’s a big question, and a very important one. I’m still studying child psychology now and I will be doing it for years.

Where have parents gone awry? Where have families gone awry? Terribly important. First of all, I’m not sure it’s totally “awry.” It’s different, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad or wrong. I think one of the major things that has happened is that parents have, in their attempts to be well liked by their children, given up some of the parenting role.

And what do I mean by that? There are three types of parenting that are usually talked about. One is called permissive. One is called authoritarian. One is called authoritative. The permissive parent just kind of lets happen whatever happens. It’s really trying to be a friend to the child instead of a parent. We know that children need to be guided. In my opinion, a young child is no different, has different capabilities of course, but no different than a non-human animal in the sense that they need to be guided and instructed and helped along the way.

If you’re terribly permissive, then none of that happens. The children in those families have the run of the family. They know not expectations.

On the other hand, the authoritarian parent is equally bad. I’m saying that two kinds of parenting are bad: overly permissive and overly authoritarian. For many parents, that happens at the worst time that it could happen to them and that would be adolescence.

So we know as children develop, it takes awhile to develop emotionally and cognitively and socially. But when adolescence comes in, these parents put the brakes on. Of course that’s when adolescence say “Whoa wait a minute!” And it’s natural to feel that way, but the parents buckle down more and it drives the kids up the wall.

Now the authoritative parent, that middle ground where the parent can still have a good relationship with you and encourage things, and be a friend…not quite the other friend that you just run over. A good friend will tell you when boundaries need to be made. They will also help guide you when you make mistakes and if you are making a big mistake they will try to pull you out of that situation.

These authoritarian parents don’t do that, but the authoritative parents do while setting guidelines and boundaries that are reasonable.

So where have they gone wrong? Too many parents have become permissive or authoritarian. That’s one side of the equation. You also take adolescents that are growing up into this environment where things are more instantly being gratified and things have to happen quickly without a lot of work. Those two are dynamite together. It’s gunpowder and fire. You put that with an authoritarian parent and boom, an explosion occurs.

Q: Mentioning adolescence, one of my questions was when do you think the most developmental years of a person’s life are? Would that be adolescence?

Ollendick: Oh every year is a developmental year. Even at my age. Let me back off that just a moment though, because things are changing very rapidly. In the first year of life, more happens than say, how old are you?

Q: I’m 20.

Ollendick: So between 20 and 21. More is happening between zero and one in terms of your development than between 20 and 21. And more is happening for you than say someone 40 to 41. I’m 63, and more is happening for that person between 62 and 63.

Q: So you’re saying that we’re always developing then?

Ollendick: Yeah. I’m still developing. I’m not fixed. If I was, then I would be dead to the world and dead to myself and I wouldn’t want that. I have to evolve and change. My wife might not always say so and my grown daughters might not always say that, but usually they will. They will recognize that you are always evolving.

I say that they are all important. I don’t mean to minimize your question, since adolescence is very important, but so is early childhood, young adulthood and middle adulthood.

Q: The other part of what you were saying before, about how children have lots of influences in regard to instant gratification. Do you feel that the pop culture world has started to leak into the development of our children?

Ollendick: Oh I think unquestionably so. I would say not only leak, but flow. Flood, maybe. It’s hard, and you would know better than I of course, as you are probably more observant to pop culture than I am.

Q: In middle school I was very into MTV and a lot of similar stuff. I grew out of it, but I have seen that a lot of my generation still has really delved into the pop culture.

Ollendick: It’s so pervasive, isn’t it? It would be silly to think of it not affecting you, right? The pop culture back in earlier days, even just 15 or 20 years ago, was less discordant and less different than the nuclear family and the values we have been talking about.

I don’t want to be a prude here though. I don’t want to say that at all, as I have good fun and enjoy some of the current culture.

Q: Let’s talk about the sense of entitlement seen today. I think that there are a lot of people in my boat that realize that we may not surpass the previous generation and we’re afraid. Some of us are reaching out for help, but the ones who are trying to better themselves still feel like that advice should be handed to them. Was that sense of entitlement prevalent when you were growing up or has it only recently emerged?

Ollendick: I’m sure there was a level of entitlement back in the 50's, 60's, and even the 40's and 30's, but it’s all relative in comparison to where it was in the generation before you. I think what has happened is that there is a sense of entitlement that is stronger than it was 15 years ago, and it keeps evolving.

I see it in my classes, where my students at one time would be eager to come and learn. Some still are, but others feel entitled to grades and certain kinds of things independent of what they are doing. That’s the critical issue. That is where entitlement becomes a problem; if it is independent of action and your behavior. If your behavior is such to get an A, then you are entitled to an A. But if your behavior is so much of what you would get with a D, or a C or a B, and you think you’re entitled to an A, then there’s a misfit.

So the issue is that, is your behavior consistent with what you expect? If it’s not, then you shouldn’t be entitled to what you expect. If you don’t go to your job and work, you shouldn’t think you should be entitled to become the vice president of the company. You should be fired. If you don’t go to classes, then you aren’t entitled to a grade. You aren’t entitled to a professor coming to always meet on your level.

I want to be very clear on this that I have great students. I work with students a lot and I’m saying that this is the extreme when we talk about people being entitled here. The majority of students are still like I was, very hard workers. But there is this core, a significant minority that really feel entitled. They need to grow up.

Q: One of the most prevalent books in my life so far has been Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. It has given me the realization that I do have the power to take control over my life. I think a lot of strategy type books, Vonnegut, and other authors like Jack Keourac have shaped readers to transcend going through the motions of: go to high school, go to college, get a job, get married, grow up, and die. Do you feel that any other literature in particular is important these days? Does any book come to your mind specifically that has shaped development?

Ollendick: Well those are certainly good ones that I will echo. They are good because they go beyond normal day to day things and have tales of stories of those who achieve. Back in my day, it was more characters like Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle. They were individuals, heroes of the day. I’m not sure we have heroes anymore, although Obama may be coming close to it for some of us as a person who is really taking a stand on some issues and turning us, we think, in the right direction.

There has to be a better way. His writings and books have been very inspirational to me. There’s a book by Randy…blocking on the last name, called The Last Lecture. Sometimes when professors retire, you give your last lecture. So, what would you say to students in your last lecture?

Q: Oh, Randy Pausch! He had a terminal illness I believe?

Ollendick: Right, cancer. He literally gave his last lecture. He was dying. It’s a tremendously good book and an inspiration. Things like that kind of have a pull to them. There’s more than just gratification, gratification, gratification. It certainly is a good life, I have a good life, but there is work associated with that good life.

Q: So you’re saying that the heroes of the past aren’t here in the present anymore. Or, if they’re here in the present, they have taken on drastically different personas.

Ollendick: Using the analogy of sports heroes, look at the heroes today. Then look at the papers the next day and you realize they’re drug users and were on steroids for ten years. That’s not to say that all sports figures are like that. Lance Armstrong may well be an exception, he’s one of mine as a cyclist. As far as we know he has not been involved in drugs, but that isn’t always the case.

So if you take those people, and even the presidents. It isn’t to say that people in the old days were always clean and good. Now it may be a function moreso of our society and our instant communication, as you’re a communication major. You can’t do anything without people finding it out.

So we have Bill Clinton, who was a very good president, except that he did some things that tempered how he was going to be perceived. Everyone knew it. John Kennedy on the other hand is alleged to have had many affairs and no one even talked about it. It wasn’t an issue. If you go back into the presidents of the past, it’s the same thing. Now, everyone knows what everyone else does.

Didn’t someone write a song, Willie Nelson, called “Are There Anymore Real Cowboys?” The issue is are there anymore real heroes, for our discussion here, who really are what they are without this other baggage.

Q: A major theme of my blog has been to add in the lyrics of other musicians and prominent thinkers, so it’s interesting you brought up Willie Nelson. Another thing I’d comment on is that our first several presidents were war heroes or prominent figures that led the American people to some sort of victory.

We’re a bit short on time, if I could just ask one more question. How do you think that people my age have been shaped by their past, aside from their relationship with their parents?

Ollendick: Well I’m a developmental psychopathologist. What I mean by that is that I’m a firm believer is that what has happened in the past predicts to a large extent what will happen in the future.

Q: Do you think it repeats itself?

Ollendick: To some extent, yes. The best predictor of your behavior right now is your past behavior. I can take any person I see, whether it’s you, my wife, my daughters, or someone reading this blog, and predict their current behavior if I knew enough about their past behavior. That is to say that not only are parents important, but all of the experiences and opportunities you’ve had.

Depending upon your socioeconomic background, you’ve been exposed to things that you yourself have that some people the same age were not exposed to because they didn’t have the socioeconomic background you had.

Peers and social networks are extremely important. The two biggest influences on adolescents and developing children are peers and parents. Then you add to that social context such as money and socioeconomic status, and ethnicity. You are afforded things that an African-American might not be afforded, simply because you are not African-American.

That’s reality. It’s unquestionably true that you get by on some things that other people don’t. You don’t get watched when you go into a store. I have a good colleague here in the department that is African-American and he talks about when he was a youngster growing up he was always watched.

Q: Yeah, I came from a very rich, white suburb. I could count the number of African-American children in my school on one hand, and unfortunately that’s just the way it is in that community.

Ollendick: And that’s something that helped shape you though, and helped shape that handful of people you’re talking about.

Q: That’s why coming here was a nice change of pace with all of the diversity.

Ollendick: To have more diversity.

Q: Or diversity at all!

Ollendick: So it’s all kinds of influences. Genetics, I have a list of ten or twelve things I’d ordinarily talk about in one of my classes. Genetics are very important, like who your parents are. That’s not parenting, that’s who your parents are genetically. Your temperament, how you were born. Some of us upon birth in our first few weeks of life are very active and energetic and some of us are lethargic. That’s a biological influence. It’s not genetic necessarily, but genes are there and what happened during gestation while you were being birthed, and the birthing process.

Q: So there are thousands of variables it seems?

Ollendick: There really are. Certainly hundreds. And psychology and related fields has a handle on maybe one tenth of those. There are many, many variables. And then when you start to look at the interaction between genes and temperament, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, it’s so complex. Human beings are not like a bridge. I always envy my civil engineer friends because they can do things with a relative certitude and produce something that is there. I can’t make a human being. I can try. I certainly tried with my daughters. But you know you can’t make them. They are beyond making. They’re a product and a producer. Human beings are producers of their environment as much as products of it.

So all of these things we are talking about, you’re a product of that but you also produce it. You could have a genetic disease and still handle that much differently than someone else. I know a lot because of my work perhaps, but low socioeconomic status people, Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Japanese-American, whatever. It makes no difference, but there will be families that have one kid who does really well, and two other kids who don’t, or two who do really well and one who doesn’t. It’s not just the environment. It’s not just that family and it’s not just the genes.

Q: Understood. Okay, thank you very much for your time.

Ollendick: Not a problem, I enjoyed the conversation.