"One way under the anger and blame you are both feeling is to ask yourself: If I had to let go of the story of how the other person is wrong, what would I have to feel?"
Letting Go of the Story
Severe Parenting Fatigue - P.G.D. #4
I feel like Severe Parenting Fatigue should be a thing.
As soon as a mom in my course said it, I jotted down SPF!!!! It's so ubiquitous and, personally, all too familiar. Parental burn-out is especially apparent at the end of the long school year but -- believe you me -- it really knows no seasons.
Yet relationships with our children are potentially the most rewarding of this one life we have. So why would we settle for anything approaching SPF?
Bullying & the Behavior Window: The Bully, Part 2/3
Starting to forgive ourselves is courageous and arduous work, and utterly necessary. We do whatever it takes to come to a place where we can accept that our child is very much hurting; then we can become a helper and try to turn things around.
Guilt, Shame & Effective Confrontation
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!
So . . . What About Anger?
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!
Stop the whining! -- P.G.D. #2
Something was wanting my attention.
I paused with my forehead on the doorjamb of the master bathroom. I knew I needed to reflect on this something. But, tiredly, I thought, I don't have time for this. I can't believe I have to do this. Do I have to? Really?
Yet I knew from experience that it was the only way out.
Guiding Questions for 2015
On New Year's Eve at dinner, I shared that my resolution is to keep investigating what's going on when I feel uncomfortable in my skin as a parent.
Maybe you thought because I'm a Parent Effectiveness Training instructor, I'd be past that stage?
Oh, no, no, no.
