Homework can bring us to our knees — “Just, will you JUST, finish it ALREADY!?” It’s hard to like ourselves as we scream, judge, blame and compare when we’ve flipped our lid. And, once we’re calm, it’s difficult to let go of the guilt. It’s crazy making stuff that we want to be SO DONE with.
Over the years, a number of parents have been concerned about their child’s hesitance to assert themselves. I wrote the tale below in 2014 with that (and a very special girl) in mind. I like to imagine living in a kingdom where our leader models assertive Confrontive I-Messages! Here’s how one such person came to be so wise.
Without a secure bond with a trusted, stable adult, kids are more prone to social media addiction. The nature of Internet communication leads to a digital intimacy that falls short of authentic, vulnerable relationships so they keep grasping for more approval and acceptance.
It's so easy to feel aggressive when we impute bad intentions to our kids -- e.g. He's deliberately NOT writing the invites to get a rise out of me. If we pause to contemplate the spins we put on kids' behaviors, we just might choose not to believe them.
He grinned down. I grinned up. Then, shaking my head in wonder, I went to my journal to record this remarkable conversation.
"Remarkable" because the old Catherine would not have known what to do. I probably would have peppered him with questions, "What's wrong? Well, have you tried approaching him again? Did you ask him why you you got that score? Have you gone over the rubric - maybe you missed something?"
I went back in time recently to relive parenting a toddler. While my brother and sis-in-law were in Japan, I got to take care of my niece Emma.
Since Emma lives in the US, I see her only once a year. This was her first visit to my home in Hong Kong. The P.E.T. skills helped me to establish trust and mutuality and deal with those big toddler emotions.
Watching Tracey Larcombe's Nobel Prize, I cringed, not only as a certified instructor of Parent Effectiveness Training but also as a mother who recognized her former self in the ordering around and the go-go-go. I may never have been quite so harsh, but I have said my fair share of things I regret.
So rather than just lambaste the characters, I thought it might be more helpful to turn a P.E.T. eye onto the situation and imagine another set of interactions.
After all, most of us are familiar with what we DON'T want to be doing when it comes to our kids. The trouble is knowing what better options would look like.
Last year, a friend described senior year (Year 13 in HK) as "excruciating," joking that she'd be relieved when her son, after dragging his feet for months on his college applications, finally took off. I just nodded nervously: would that be me?
Not so! I am deeply grateful I am enjoying Harrison's last year.
And then there's the Q & A session Jake held recently for my class participants . . .
Brene Brown, a mother herself, found that parenting is "a primary predictor of how prone our children will be to shame or guilt.” (page 224) She exhorts us to -- and I love her term for it -- parent with shame resilience as a goal.
So how to do this when confronting our offspring?
With a huge semantic tool: the Confrontive I-Message!
Something comes into focus as we consider the groupings on the poster we have drawn up:
It is primarily the many factors within ourselves -- TOTALLY INDEPENDENT of the child's behavior -- that affect our receptiveness to it.
Whoa.
This is a huge reckoning for the many of us who have been in the habit of blaming our children for our response to them: "You are making me so mad!"
But it is also most freeing because of what it implies . . .
You may be wondering though: Is it worth it?
You bet.
Based on my experience with three kids now 17, 15 and 12, here is how learning Dr. Thomas Gordon's paradigm and skills can pay off in spades: mindfulness; support for the parent; quick, if not immediate, results; children who want to be with us; joy and influence.
I wish someone had sat my butt down and made me read Lawrence Cohen's Playful Parenting. His approach jibes well with the philosophy of P.E.T. and I've been recommending it left and right!
So where might play fit in the Behavior Window? Turns out -- all over the place.
By zooming in on behavior, we often feel in an uncomfortable bind: Gee, I don't want to encourage this! If I give her attention or Active Listen her, isn't that rewarding unacceptable behavior? I need to teach her that that is NOT a good way to act.
Dr. Gordon points out that, in raising children, we often rely too much on unacceptance of behavior. We think the optimal way to guide is to send the message that their behavior -- here, the crying and screaming that many might deem "too sensitive" or "clingy" or "wimpy" or "babyish" or "crybaby" -- needs to change.
He advocates a vastly different approach:
Besides wanting to make peace, I had gone into Claudia's room as her cheerleader.
You see, in my room I had reflected on whether I had ever openly defied my own mother and came up with not a single instance.
No surprise there. I was always a very, very, very "good" girl.
It is truly humbling but, as you may have read in my last post Roadblocks I - Child Owns the Problem, our patterning is just to use a heck of a lot of Communication Roadblocks instead of helping our children or confronting them with good results.
Change starts, though, with a simple decision and firm commitment. We've got your back as you strive to communicate in new ways that better serve you, your child and your relationship together. You will love the results.
The 12 Communication Roadblocks are all around us - gosh, everyday we must hear dozens of them!
Dr. Thomas Gordon laid them all out for parents to see that, despite best intentions, our efforts to help our children can backfire.
How messy does a child's room have to be before we feel steam coming out of our ears?
That is such a personal thing.
Thank you, dear reader, for requesting a post on this very common issue. Let's start where we always do in P.E.T. with our go-to question: Who Owns the Problem?
With all the talk in P.E.T. about how anger is a secondary emotion, however, some participants have seemed stumped and even sheepish when trying to identify their feelings.
"All I know is I'm angry, but I'm not supposed to feel that, am I?"
"I know I have to find what's beneath the anger but what do I do about the fact that I want to strangle my kid?"
Gee, I guess we all must have missed the school lesson on how to deal with anger. Hah! So few of us -- are there any? -- have been supported with processing any emotion, much less this biggie.
Doing this important work now, though, means we can give a ginormous gift to our children through modeling and consulting!
I initially wanted to say that my values were:
But there was more to it when I started thinking about where these values came from. My mother (I focus on her because my father passed away when I was two) did not model rigid punctuality.
I realized my strictness comes from the keen discomfort I feel (less and less now but it's still there!) when people are displeased with me.
It was then that my husband spoke up from the corner.
"I think it has to do with optimization," he began. "We are all in a position where we can provide everything our children need. They, like us, will most likely go to college and lead successful lives. And they know we love them."
"The question is," he continued, "How much will they talk to us after they leave home? How much of a real relationship are we going to have with them? How close can we be?"
I love, love, love my job! I am invited for a while to have a front row seat at people's transformation.
With this participant's blessings -- I'll call her Flo -- I hereby share her story. Mind you, this happened a mere four sessions into the course!
Harrison, as you turn another year older, I wanted to tell you about my reframe.
Instead of being my sorriest victim, I like to imagine you now as the perfect witness to my change. I hope you can draw strength from my journey as you face your own inevitable, painful challenges (some of which, yes, are based in childhood experiences).
"I so love your blog. As a P.E.T. instructor in South Africa I can so relate . . . Once again you were my inner voice today with your 'she makes it look so easy.' Even though I often experience a lot of ‘failures’ in my personal relationships, I am not where I used to be. Thank you for your Vitamins, I take them repeatedly every week. Think of it as ‘taking care of the caregiver.' "
Do you have the perspective you want on parenting?
Are you full of gratitude? Joy? Confidence? Contentment? Optimism?
If you feel you have no control -- over your anger towards your kids, over your reactions and judgments, over them listening to you -- please know that you are not alone in your burnt out and despairing state! Parenting is supremely difficult and, yet, we are not offered support as a matter of course. By luck, sheer luck, I stumbled upon a class.
I don't think anyone noticed my barely audible intake of breath. I was momentarily dumbstruck but for the best reason: I was stunned by the fact of my own transformation.
I'm still a work in progress but, OMG, I used to be pretty far down on one end of the passive-assertive-aggressive spectrum.
