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?"
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!
We are motivated by love. We fervently want our children to adopt our closely held values to improve, not our lives, but THEIRS. But how best to pass them on? The problem is that most parents have never had a chance to think about or practice this. That's where P.E.T. can help, but it's hard stuff.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Nothing remotely like that transpired. Instead, I did a Roadblock Mash-Up:
OH MY GOD! EVERYONE COME HERE RIGHT NOW! (Ordering) WHO DID THIS? (Interrogating) WHO . . . DID . . . THIS????? (Interrogating very slowly) . . . [silence on the part of three beautiful and terrified youngsters] . . . IF NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL THE TRUTH, THEN NO VIDEO GAMES FOR ONE MONTH! (Threatening)
