FMSC Welcomes Dr. Mia Smith-Bynum

Exciting news today, as Dr. Mia Smith Bynum, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Family Science . Dr. Smith-Bynum, who will join the school next winter, is one of several faculty new faculty members for the upcoming school year. The Healthy Turtle will be talking with many over these next few months.

For today, we talked with Dr. Smith Bynum about coming to Maryland, her research, and how parents and college students can communicate better.

Healthy Turtle: What are you most looking forward to about coming to Maryland?

Dr. Mia Smith-Bynum: I am thrilled to be coming to Maryland! I am most looking forward to the opportunity to join my background in mental health with the wide array of interdisciplinary research opportunities in the Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, and the larger university. There are so many exciting opportunities – it will be hard to figure out where to start!

I am a clinical psychologist by training, but I have long thought about my work from multiple perspectives. I have also had a longstanding interest in African-American families dating back to my days as an undergraduate. Joining the Department of Family Science will give me the opportunity to pursue my research on families and health in a broad, multidisciplinary way. This opportunity brings together all of the key elements of my background and aspirations in ways that I could only dream of.

HT: What are your main areas of research?

MSB: I am an expert in adolescent and ethnic minority mental health and racial identity in African-Americans. I have a strong interest in African-American adolescents and their families, parenting, and parent-child communication. My current research focuses on understanding how African-American parents adapt their parenting behavior to respond to threats to healthy development in African-American adolescents.

I am currently investigating how parent-adolescent communication about coping with racism affects how African-American adolescents respond to the stress created by such encounters and how the strategies they use to respond to racism affects their mental health.

HT: As an expert in family communication, what do you see as the main obstacles right now to parents and children communicating effectively? Are these obstacles new?

MSB: I think that parents and children often have a sense of what the issues are but they may lack the skills to communicate effectively. Sometimes families can get locked into certain patterns of communicating about a problem or disagreement and discussions can be ineffective.

Also, as children get older and move into adolescence, parents find communicating with teenagers especially stressful and challenging. There is an increase in daily, mundane disagreements involving everything from curfew to homework during this period. This is a normal part of teenagers separating from parents and developing their own identities. Nevertheless, it can still be difficult for both sides. Contrary to popular belief, frequent highly conflictual, highly argumentative exchanges between parents and adolescents are atypical. Families experiencing conflict at this level may need family therapy.

I don’t think that the obstacles to communicating are necessarily much different today in substantive ways. The influences that children have to contend with have certainly changed though. For example, technology makes it harder for parents to monitor what is going on with their children today. Children can be exposed to all sorts of negative influences due to involvement with technology via social networking sites, e-mail, texting, and online chatrooms. This can serve as a new source of disagreements for children growing up today as parents work to monitor their child’s online activities and children experience this as an invasion of privacy.

HT: How can college students improve the way they communicate with their parents?

MSB: Traditional-age college students are at the tail end of their adolescent years. These students are in the unique position of being semi-dependent on their parents. They’re young adults, but they often still need their parents for certain things. In some cases, it’s tuition, housing, or other forms of financial or emotional support. When students want to make choices that differ from the wishes of their parents, it can make for some difficult conversations.

It is made easier when a student has a good relationship with his/her parents--one characterized by love, trust, and mutual respect. This is the foundation of good communication with parents. In these situations, students need to anticipate their parents’ position on an issue and think about the issue from the parents’ perspective. Usually, parents have a clear rationale for why they want students to make certain choices. They are interested in the student’s safety, happiness, and personal well-being. They may also be struggling with sadness at the prospect of an empty nest and working to be sure they maintain a close relationship with their child.

If a student goes into the conversation understanding where the parent is coming from, it is easier to avoid getting caught up in an argument about expectations that the student feels are unreasonable. Maintain a calm demeanor, acknowledge the parents’ position and feelings and also state how you feel and why. A conversation may have to be repeated several times before parents and college students can successfully negotiate expectations for this new phase in their relationship.
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Thanks to Dr. Mia Smith-Bynum for sharing her expertise. For more information about Dr. Smith Bynum, visit the announcement on the SPH Web site here .