Surviving Chaos: Pass the Beans, Please 
by E. Noel Preston, MD 

   One of the definitions of chaos is complete disorder, in which everything is out of place and nothing is in its proper relationship to anything else. If you put some black chimney soot in a balloon and then blew up the balloon and then pricked the balloon with a sharp needle, the balloon would burst and the soot particles would scatter all over into what might be called chaos. The same thing happens when you drop a fine china teacup on a concrete floor and the teacup shatters into dozens of pieces. Southeast Asia is experiencing chaos now as a result of the tsunami that just recently afflicted that region -- homes are destroyed, thousands of people are dead, sewage and garbage are everywhere, and telephones and electricity are out in many areas. If anything could be called complete disorder, Southeast Asia would get my vote in a heartbeat. 

   But is there really any such thing as chaos? The soot particles from an exploding balloon form a pattern: the heavier particles land near where the balloon burst, and the lighter ones travel farther away If you were to collect the pieces of the broken tea cup and fit them together again, you would see a point of impact where the cup hit the floor and the cup broke into pieces in a circular pattern away from the point of impact. A heavy ceramic cup might only break into a few pieces, but a fine porcelain cup might break into a hundred. In Southeast Asia, the tsunami came in from the sea, damaging the coastal areas more than those inland. Flimsy structures were destroyed more than substantial buildings. As awful as it was, the tsunami did not damage everything or kill everyone, and there was a pattern to its fury and destruction. 

   Some time ago I presented a seminar on adolescence, and subtitled it, "The bridge to Adulthood." The idea being that on one side of a river or some other sort of divide was Childhood, on the other side was Adulthood, and to get from Childhood over to Adulthood a young person first had to pass over the bridge, which was called Adolescence. I asked Dr. Pat Malone, a wonderful psychiatrist, to speak about Chaos and the Adolescent because something that has always fascinated me is why do some people survive anything life has to throw at them -- the death of a best friend or close family member, the relocation of the family to another city, a parent's arrest and conviction for some terrible crime. Why do problems like these cause so much trouble for some people, but not for others? Dr. Malone was honest enough to say he didn't know, but there was a word to describe those who seemed to be able to weather any storm and, like the old Timex watch commercials, "take a lickin' and keep on tickin." That word, he said, was Resilience, and some of us have it and others don't. 

   The Lutheran Church has a resource program for adolescents and their families called The Search Institute, and it has studied the concept of Resilience, trying to discover what characteristics families have whose children are resilient and what characteristics families have whose children are less fortunate. The Search Institute has tabulated its results and published them in a pamphlet called, "Building Resilience in Young People." One of their recommendations is that at least once a week, everyone in the family has a meal together, and that this one shared meal should not be a time of criticism, fault finding, scolding, or any unpleasantness, but a friendly, nurturing time of sharing, approval and fellowship. There are many other observations of family behaviors that enhance self-reliance, encourage problem solving, and promote a sense of compassion and responsibility for others. 

   But there is no one cookbook recipe for A Resilient Adolescent. Sensible families usually have sensible children, and bird-brain families, well, you get the general idea. Dr. Malone pointed out that an old, archaic definition of chaos is a chasm or abyss -- and this might be a good way to describe that uncertain, murky, sometimes dark time between Childhood and Adulthood. He also said that if adolescence was the bridge from Childhood to Adulthood, parents were the bridge builders who laid the foundations, shored up the footings, strengthened the guide rails, repaired the pot holes and provided a safe crossing for their sons and daughters above the chaos that rumbled and boiled below.

   Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither are bridges. If a bridge isn't built right and if it's not safe for traffic at any speed, attempting to cross it is going to be mighty dangerous. And so how do you avoid chaos? Pass the beans, please, and let's talk about it after dinner.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553.

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