Awareness * Connection

Two Paths and Yellow Jeeps

2009-04-16T13:29:00.001-07:00

Our minds are designed to solve problems in the external world. They are really good at that overall. If they weren't we wouldn't be all over the globe. When we want something our mind helps us go after it. When there is something in our way, our mind helps figure out how to get around it, move it or climb over it.

Getting Stuck
The problem is that we use this same sort of problem solving to try get rid of or avoid emotional pain. It is the natural thing for us to try because this approach works so well externally. But for coping with difficult emotions it just isn't effective over the long haul. Whether anger, anxiety, hopelessness, whatever, when we try to get rid of it or push it out of our minds, we end up stuck with it. Yet by nature we seem to try a thousand different variations on getting rid of it, even though the long term results are always the same if we take time to look back. We often arrive at the stance of "As soon as I get rid of (anxiety, panic, hopelessness, lack of confidence) then I can pursue what matters to me (improve skills at work, get in shape, make my yard look like I'd like it to)."

Doing Something Different to Get a Different Result
The alternative is counter intuitive, and it takes practice to get the hang of. It involves stopping all the variations on trying to control your emotions and distract yourself from having them. So what can you do instead? You can be willing to have those emotions. It turns out that the rule of how this works is something like this: If you aren't willing to have certain thoughts and emotions, you will be guaranteed to have them. On the other hand if you are willing to have them, you will either have them, or you won't. If we struggle against difficult thoughts and emotions (experiences that are unavoidable in life), we get all tangled up in them and turn a given portion of unavoidable emotional pain into a giant glob of extended suffering. When we are willing to have these experiences, it changes our relationship with them.

Once I ___________, then I'll _____________.
Most of us at one time or another were waiting for our anxiety, lack of confidence, fear, panic under control before we start to make our life as we want it. Rather than waiting, it makes a lot more sense to begin now on what is important to you. Be willing to have the difficult emotions and act in a valued direction. Work on a better relationship with your kids or your partner, pick up a musical instrument, begin making exercise a regular part of your life, start doing that art you've wanted to try or take the class that is going to help you reach a goal you have.

Two Paths In Brief
One path: Continue variations on trying to control and avoid unpleasant thoughts and emotions and continue being stuck with them.

The other path: Change your relationship to your unpleasant thoughts and emotions by being willing to have them, and begin acting toward making your life about what you want it to be about.

Try it out with Yellow Jeeps
Reading this post may give you a taste of what is possible. But you'll need to figure out if what I'm describing is confirmed by your experience. How about we begin with one exercise right now: Ask yourself how many times the last two weeks you've been thinking about bright yellow Jeeps. Write your answer down and save it. Next, try with all your concentration commit to not allowing yourself to have a single thought about yellow Jeeps. If you mess up and think of a yellow 4 x 4, just make sure you don't have another thought about it. Pretty simple, right? Continue with this throughout the day. Check back with your slip of paper, and then check back in here and let me know how successful you were or weren't.

Stay tuned for more exercises to help you decide if avoidance of emotions and thoughts brings about more of them, by checking to see if this notion is consistent with your own experiences, and also to get some more experience with what flipping your willingness switch to "on" is like.

Is Any Child Actually Unmotivated?

2009-04-11T12:38:00.001-07:00

In the previous post we looked how the roots of missing motivation go deep, and aren't just caused by kids having a "bad attitude". Another way to view this is that children cannot be unmotivated across the board. All of us can only be motivated or unmotivated in reference to particular tasks. So in this sense these kids are only unmotivated to do the sort of school work that they are being asked to do. Most schools, for a wide array of reasons, don’t do nearly enough to engage the child’s imagination or buy in. Not that I'm saying this is easy to do. But there are many charter schools and alternative schools that do a far better job of engaging the child by finding out what he is interested in, and collaboratively coming up with meaningful projects for him from there. This was John Dewey’s huge contribution to education. Doing math on a ditto is altogether less meaningful than doing math to solve a problem you’re interested in, like say calculating how many schools supplies you would want to buy to open a school store.

Or yet another angle to look at this from is that in a sense we are all motivated across the board in one sense, to make sense of the world, to preserve our self-concept and to protect ourselves emotionally. Lots of this sort of motivation occurs below the conscious level. From this angle engaging the unmotivated student involves finding out what sorts of topics she tends to find meaningful and proposing projects that would help her to explore these areas.

In regard to the emotional aspects, it inolves learning to talk with her in ways that support her opening up and taking a chance rather than keeping herself up inside her shell where it makes sense from her perspective to be, since it seems to her that exposing her wishes, interests and dreams will only result in more pain as it has in the past.

Unmotivated Kids

2009-04-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

In my estimation this is a very wise thought by Charles Fay, PhD from the Love and Logic Institute. Seeing kids like this as manipulative and willful misses an awful lot of what is going on. In addition to the emotions that Charles addresses below, there are also a lot of lagging skills and unsolved problems that are often keeping the child trapped in the "unmotivated" state:

In approximately 99% of cases, the child's lack of motivation results from far more than simple laziness or a conscious desire to act out. The roots of apathy go far deeper, into feelings of frustration, anger, hopelessness, lack of control, or loss. The majority of these feelings lay at the subconscious level, where they wreak havoc on a child's ability to engage in higher-level thinking tasks, such as sustained attention to detail, problem-solving, memory, perseverance, and self-control.

This is why punishing children for getting bad grades usually backfires. Since they are already feeling bad about life, how is making them feel worse about it going to get them motivated to succeed?

…rather than making it worse with anger, lectures, threats and punishments. At the core of what we teach is the importance of loving kids for who they are…rather than who we want them to be. Yes! The healing process begins when we end the power struggle by saying, "We will love you no matter how well or poorly you do in school. Your grades are your grades…not ours. That's why we are no longer going to fight with you about them. Just let us know how we can help."

What are your thoughts on what's going on with these kids?

Of Sun Breaks and Saddles

2009-04-04T21:54:00.001-07:00

We're done with my daughter going through a week and a half of strep while my wife was out of town. Next up, I've got an upcoming presentation on parenting young children at the Multnomah Athletic Club. Unfortunately it is for members only, or I'd invite you to come along.

Did you know when people are surveyed about how they would rate their "life happiness" on a scale of 1 to 10 that weather accounts for three of those ten points? If you ask them in the middle of a wintry or rainy spell they might say, "I'm a four". But if you cue them to think about weather first they adjust their rating, so they'd say something like, "Well I would say four, but I'm thinking the weather is making things look a bit more bleak. So I'd be about a seven." There is a theory though that was explored here in Oregon that suggests that some of the depression we currently attribute to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is likely in part cause by our low activity level when were in the middle of slush or rain. When the sun comes out, you see garage doors open, bikes around, and people walking dogs and such.

So after this presentation, and with this sun boost, I plan to be back in the blogging saddle more consistently. Hope to see you 'round.

Why I Chose to Leave Teaching

2009-02-01T16:40:00.001-08:00

I ran into a friend on Facebook that I haven't seen since high school. We were catching up and he wanted to know why I left teaching in 1999 to become a counselor. I've had a number of people ask me this question so it seems like it might be worth posting this brief version of why on the blog:

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Though I enjoyed most aspects of teaching, bits of it I'm glad to be away from, the couple parents you get every year that can eat up large amounts of your time with things that aren't important, and working beneath bureaucratic policies that miss the big picture and that grind through talent and man hours without good enough results.

What led to the change was my chomping at the bit to go back to school, and wanting to do something that has a better ratio of pointless paperwork and jumping through someone else's hoops to work that is more intellectually and personally engaging. I was frustrated with not being able to get to the kernel of what was preventing some students from learning nearly as much as they could. I began to realize that working with the families directly was accessing the heart of where things happen in kids' lives. I also hated being accountable for those aspects of teaching that are actually beyond your control as a teacher.

The intellectual challenges of the crafts of therapy and coaching have turned out as I expected and even better. Being in private practice now allows me a lot more flexibility to be with my family. I love the concepts involved in the work enough that much of my free time is taken up by reading and discussion of all manner of things related to how the brain functions how it interacts with the environment, as well as to what makes human beings tick individually and in the context of their relationships. It is a really nice overlap that augments my work, and that also satisfies outside of work. I'm now accountable for variables that are much more within my control and within my areas of influence, which I find much less stressful. Or put differently, the stress is related to the challenges of the work itself rather than to being accountable for variables outside my control.

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That's the gist. I still have great respect for the craft of teaching and think that we should be paying better wages and working to attract the very best out there to be with our kids. We're slipping further behind all the time compared to other industrialized countries. We need to rethink what we're doing in education and where it lies as a priority. If we don't our lack of courage and foresight to do so is going to be a huge encumbrance that drags on our economy and every bit as importantly, the quality of our democracy.

When Your Child Lies and Digs In, Part 2: Why They Do It

2008-12-03T14:38:00.002-08:00

So why do kids sometimes lie and then proceed to dig in, even when it seems obvious to everyone else that they lied. Sometimes it is fear of punishment, often they are trying to save face, and occasionally it is because they initially lied for one of those reasons, and once they've repeated it a few times one of a couple things can happen. One is just an extension of saving face. They know that they lied and repeated the lie even when called on it, and if they 'fess up now, they have to admit that they have been lying repeatedly—not a spot any of us likes to find themselves in. Sometimes a child repeats the lie often enough that they genuinely come to believe in their own lie. I've worked with a few kids where I had a hunch this is what happened. It is what makes the suggestions on handling childhood lying to come in future posts so important. This process has a way of snowballing if you don't have experience or some insider tips on handling it.

When an adult who is good at it wants to avoid lie detection they can do so is by repeating their lie often enough that they become much more comfortable with it. They can literally rehearse their response. If we hooked up wires to measure the skin conductance of one of these adults attempting to deceive, we'd find that when they first lied, they showed more physiological arousal. As they continue to practice their lie, the biological signs of stress begin to decrease. As an aside, adults that are sociopaths, by definition, are able to lie without their conscience getting the best of them, because for all practical purposes they don't have a conscience.

Parenting is all about keeping, losing and regaining perspective. Here is one tip for gaining the big picture view you need when your child lies. When we catch our children lying it can feel like a punch to the gut. To recover enough to handle this difficult situation, it is helpful helpful to tap into our empathy skills to remember a time during our childhood when we'd cornered ourselves in a lie. Many of us learned not to lie and dig in in one of the central ways that humans often need to learn, by doing it and experiencing the consequences. We had an experience lying to someone we cared about in the moment, and then saw how it hurt our relationship with them when the lie was found out. Often as adults, it is easy to look at our kids through the lens of the wisdom that we've accumulated throughout the years, and forget that we once had to make poor decisions and learn from them before we gained the wisdom we now have. We wish they could learn through our past errors rather than make them on their own, but just as our own parents likely hoped for the same and winced as they watched us make that very mistake they hoped they could get us to avoid.

In upcoming posts in this series we'll at what happens when in our anger and frustration we use language that labels our child a liar. We'll also take a look at ways that you can avoid this mistake and handle the challenge in a way that will increase the odds that our response will help our children to use the experience to grow an even stronger sense of conscience rather than becoming more hardened to the relationship injuring aspects of lying.

When Your Child Lies and Digs In Part 1

2008-11-24T16:54:00.001-08:00

It is going to happen if it hasn't already. One of these days your child is going to not just lie to you, but even though you are darn close to certain that they've lied, they are going to dig in and deny it. Maybe even to the point that they'll begin to believe themselves that they didn't do or say whatever they are lying about.

This is a little bit heart breaking when this happens, but it is inevitable. And fortunately like most childhood misbehavior there is learning opportunity hidden within.

In handling lying there are a couple of things to avoid. One is letting your child think that she got by with lying without you knowing (or caring). On the other end of the continuum is making sure, even though it is important to let them know that you're pretty certain that they did lie, that you don't end up labeling your child as a "liar". Even if you have a child that lies fairly frequently that label is certain to work against you. After all what do liars do. If that label sticks, I can predict a lot of what is likely to happen in your relationship. And it isn't pretty. In upcoming posts I will take you through a middle path that winds its way between both of those errors.

Nothing Works for All Kids, Except the Stuff that Does

2008-10-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

It's not going to suit everyone's taste, but Despair.com does spoofs on motivational posters that are seen in offices and cube farms the world over. One of their posters I enjoy is one that quips "You're unique...just like everyone else in the world." I enjoy it just for the sarcasm, but I also appreciate a truth that it gets at.

Sometimes when parents are considering learning some strategies for making parenting easier, they are concerned that there really aren't any approaches that are effective, because "Nothing works for all kids." Well they're right. Every child is unique. And there is no strategy or technique that is going to play out precisely the same way with all kids. And some will play out very differently with different kids. This, in fact, is one of the reasons why I think counseling and parent coaching can be so helpful. "Off the rack" parenting approaches found in books though often helpful, can frequently frustrate parents as their kids respond very differently than the book predicts. And that's not to mention that you can find books that recommend just about anything you can imagine, so there's little consistency from book to book. I work with lots of parents who have often read a at least a half dozen parenting books, and are well informed yet confused because none of the advice seems to mesh together.

So, yes, kids are all unique. And no particular strategy or technique is going to be helpful with all kids. But in my experience, there are principles that have proven to be helpful from classrooms to home and with kids of widely varying temperaments. It is in the particulars of the application that the principles need to vary from child to child.

Examples of Principles You Count On:

When limit setting and consequences become the focus of the relationship, and opportunities for connection aren't there or are too few, things tend to go down hill.

Control is a basic human need. When it is shared with children in appropriate ways, kids are much more apt to be cooperative.

Attention to approximations of behaviors you're wanting from your child tends to bring about more of those wanted behaviors.

Attention on what is going poorly will lead to more poor behavior, and will also lead to the desired behaviors decreasing as well.

Kids who are given both verbal and "action messages" that they are capable, responsible people tend to behave more capably and responsibly.

So you can feel good that there are some proven principles that are helpful with kids across the board. And it is true that kids do vary in the particulars. For some parents, especially those with kids who have easier temperaments, figuring out their kids and how principles like these might apply is pretty straight forward. For those parents who have kids with more difficult temperaments, or who find it more challenging to figure out how the principles might best be applied with their kids, then coaching and/or counseling can be helpful.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Part IV: The Art of the Delayed Consequence

2008-09-19T15:59:00.001-07:00

The concept of saving the words for the happy times is about making sure we aren't inadvertently pouring on negative attention when things aren't going well. When we lecture, yell or explain too much in the moment when things are bumpy, we inadvertently make it more likely that the problem behavior is going to increase over time.

In the first three posts in this series, we discussed what can be done in the moment when we encounte the misbehavior, how to circle back afterward, and how to do a collaborative problem solving session. In part IV we'll now look in some detail at how to use a delayed consequence, and why delaying a consequence, contrary to what many still think, is in fact more effective in most cases than an immediate consequence.

Why We Crank Up
As parents we often ramp up in the moment, when it is least effective, for a lot of good reasons. Let's look at a couple. One of them is simply impulse. As human beings we are wired to more readily notice negative stimuli. When our child is acting up that is what most readily grabs our attention. Annoyance, irritation and even feeling ashamed that our child is acting in such a way can all play into our jumping into the fray.

And when the behavior is either pretty bad, or it's been going on for a long time, we often get that gut sense that something needs to be done right at that moment. Fortunately, this is actually almost never actually the case. Additionally, we often feel compelled to act because we've been taught that the behavior needs to be "nipped in the bud" or even that consequences are only effective when given right in the moment. This was actually the prevailing wisdom of the day for a while, and it turned out, as we'll see, to be just wrong.

The Delayed Consequence
It turns out for kids five and older delayed consequences can actually be more effective than coming up with a consequence right at the time of the misbehavior. Before looking at why that is, let's look at an example of how a delayed consequence actually plays out. Jon came home after being at a friend's house after school. He grabbed some chips and planted it in front of the TV. Mom was cooking dinner and the garbage that Jon had agreed would be taken out by last night was full enough that Mom could barely get carrot peeling in there without them rolling off the heap at the top. She asks, "Jon, would you please take care of this garbage?"
"I'll do it after the show, Mom"
She sighs to herself and pauses,"Jon, you agreed you'd have it done last night"
"I know. I'll do it, Mom. I just gonna finish my show first."
Having recently learned about the idea of Saving the Words for the Happy Times, she took nice slow deep breath. She inhibited her impulse to yell and remind him of what his responsibilities are and how little he contributes to the family. Instead she said, "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."
"Okay Mom," said Jon distractedly, already absorbed back in his show.

On Saturday, two days later, Jon picked up the envelope containing his allowance, as he was accustomed to doing weekly. Jon's mom had set this allowance ritual up after she'd heard about it in the parenting class she recently attended. The suggestion had been to keep chores and allowance are kept separate—allowance to teach about having money and being broke; and chores so that he would have a sense of contribution in the household. Jon opened his envelope. There were two dollars bills inside. He was used to seeing five dollars. In with the two dollar bills was a note that stated "$5.00 - $3.00 (for non-pre-arranged garbage removal) Balance: $2.00."
"What happened to my allowance?" he yelled. "That's my money!"
"I'm happy to talk about it when you're calm Jon"
"This is stupid!" He strode off to his room and slammed the door.
Mom again resisted the impulse follow and start in on his attitude. After a while he cooled off. He later came out and was able to talk about why she did the chore rather than pleading or cajoling him to do it after the time he'd agreed he would have it done. He wasn't happy about it, but after this interaction, Jon started taking more responsibility for getting his chores done when he'd agreed to.

Another approach rather than saying "Don't worry, I'll take care of it," is to say "Would you prefer to take care of that now or hire me to do it?" The key with this whole approach to chores that Jon's mother had already taken care of was 1) to set up chores ahead of time in a collaborative manner where Jon had a say in what he selected for chores out of the available possibilities, and 2) he had a time line on when to get the chores done rather than being told spur of the moment to do them, which none of us usually appreciate. Both of these details on setting up chores raise the odds that the child will be willing to contribute around the house, and make it so the child (at least at some level) realizes that it is fair for the parent to take some action when they aren't choosing to live up to an agreement they had a hand in crafting. And in line with the theme of this series, you can guess that the recommendation on when to do that collaborative setting up of chores is...that's right, at the happy times, not in the moment when things aren't going smoothly, such as when you're upset that they haven't done a chore.

When to Use a Delayed Consequence
Fortunately not all delayed consequences need to be set up like my example with chores above. Often it is much simpler. So how do you know then when a delayed consequence might be appropriate? Well first I recommend that you never need to come up with a consequence right in the moment for any child above five. This can be one of the single biggest gifts you can give to yourself as a parent. Let's look at this from the other end. You know that you don't need or want a delayed consequence under the following circumstances:

You've already told the your child what the consequence would be if they did X, and they just did X.
Collaborative problem solving feels like it would be more appropriate or helpful.
This is the sort of behavior you can simply redirect, just have the child take a break for, or a timeout seems like it is adequate.
Your child is four years old or younger (four is approximately the age when children begin to have enough long term memory for a delayed consequence to be effective).

So when something happens that doesn't fall under those categories above, and you sense that a logical consequence (tied to the time and place of the misbehavior as well as possible so as to be meaningful) is in order, then do yourself and your child a favor, and as Charles Fay of the Love and Logic Institute puts it, "Delaaaaaaaaaaay the consequence". Simply mark the event in time by saying something along the lines of "Oh we're going to need to do something about that. I want to make sure it's fair, so I'm going to give it some thought. I'll get back to you." As we've talked about before, this will be most effective if your tone is warm and friendly, which communicates, "I'm very much in control of myself, and I can handle your misbehavior without breaking a sweat," which help kids to feel safe, and as we psychological types like to say "contained".

If it is a big event, like your child just broke your front window by hitting a baseball through it, and you've previously discussed saving the baseball playing for the park, then you might want to have your child cool her heels in her room for a bit, which might sound like this, "Wow Megan, I'm guessing that window was expensive. Why don't you take a bit of time in your room to give this some thought about how you're going to handle this." Again this would be stated with empathy (keeping in mind we all made analogous mistakes when younger) and in a warm tone. When we keep it to this sort of tone, the child can't distract herself with our anger and frustration. When she can't do that the odds go way up that she's going to be able to think about her poor decision and how she plans to handle the problem in a responsible way.

Why Delayed Consequences Rather Than Immediate Ones
Delayed consequences are more effective for several reasons. First, we are much less apt as parents to come up with an unfair or overblown consequence that we later might feel compelled to retract. When we do that we lose credibility (though I do have a trick I'll share at a later time for how to minimize the credibility loss). On the other hand, when we enforce an overblown consequence we are being arbitrary, and we lose our kids' respect. Their seeing us as arbitrary breeds resentment. When they resent us, that is sad in and of itself, but beyond this fact, it also makes them want to get us back. So it is far better to steer clear of putting ourselves in a position where these are the options we're left with.

Another reason they are powerful is that the child has time to sit with their poor decision. When we deal out a consequence in the moment even if it is fair the child adjusts to it much more quickly, and they are more apt to have the "I don't care" response to the consequence. When they have time to give it thought for a while before you let them know what the consequence is they are much more apt to see it as fair, and to be able to explore what they might do differently in the future.

When we delay a consequence, kids also have a bit of time to wonder what the logical consequence might be for their behavior. In some sense they end up living through a few different possibilities as they wait. As I see it, this gets you more effect per dosage. In other words, your consequences won't need to be harsh to be effective. On the other hand with punishment or even immediate consequences often the adult has to increasingly dial up the harshness to "get the kid's attention".

It wasn't all that long ago when teachers were taught they had to deal out consequence immediately for it to work. The crucial mistake that had been made was taking findings about how lower animals (often rats and pigeons) learn, and assuming that learning worked precisely the same way with kids. The huge variable that they left out between the stimulus and response was cognition, thinking. And that piece makes all the difference, and accounts for why they were wrong about consequences needing to be immediate. It is important to let the child know in the moment that you notice the misbehavior, and that something will need to be done. But for all the reasons above, they don't need to have a consequence spelled out until everyone is a bit calmer.

Well this has been a long post, and so I'll wrap up the series here. I'll be sharing some of the ideas I mentioned previously about having the child do a written / drawn plan or using practice as a consequence in future posts.

Hopefully, we've all gotten something about the value of talking less when things aren't going smoothly. We know that isn't natural, and that it is learned skill, but it is one that is certainly worth learning. I'm still learning along with all of you how to do this more often.

What did you most helpful or thought provoking in this series?

If you enjoyed this article please vote for it on Digg, above, or Netscape or one of the other options below. You can also bookmark the site to the right. I appreciate your support.

Mother Looking Back on Doing Her Best to Help Her 5-Year-Old Cope with September 11th.

2008-09-12T10:04:00.003-07:00

This is a beautifully written piece by Kathy Sena over at Parent Talk Today about her struggles and uncertainty surrounding helping her then five-year-old boy sift through some difficult facts about the world. She shares the way she responded to her son's questions about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Why do some people want to hurt others? Are there a lot more "good people" in the world than "bad people"? And of course the underlying question of Are we gonna be safe, Mom? Clients occasionally ask me how to go about talking with children about difficult world events like these, so when I come across a response like Kathy's I want to pass it along.

5 Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing at Squidoo

2008-09-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have my second page up over at Squidoo on some Skills to Handle Childhood Arguing. Take a look and please sign into the guest book so I know you were there. Share your thoughts on the topic. Weigh in on the poll too.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Part III: How to Bring Your Child in on the Solution

2008-09-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

So far in this series we've looked at reasons to save the words for the happy times, and in the second part we looked at how to circle back after a difficult interaction. In this and the next post we'll need to explore a few of ways you can proceed once you've circled back. There are several options here including collaborative problem solving, following through with a delayed consequence, having the child make a written/drawn plan and using practice as a consequence.

I'm going to cover the most broadly useful one first. Collaborative problem solving is often a wonderful way to address the issue at hand. It is apt to work well if your child is five or older. Doing it with kids younger than that is like the proverbial cat herding. All the options we'll discuss in this post and the next can enhance your relationship with your child or teen. This one in particular tends to do so powefully. It is an approach to draw on especially for kids who for whatever reason feel very resentful of authority and are prone to getting into power struggles.

Step 1 Define the Problem: It might sound something like this "We've been on your case a fair amount about being on the computer too much. You got pretty upset last time I asked you to get off, and I'm really worried about how all this computer time is affecting your grades and how much time we spend together as a family. So we need to come up with a way to work out a reasonable amount of computer time for you, so you can do some of the things you enjoy, and some of the things you need to do, and so we don't have to worry about hassling you about how much you're on there." Notice the way that both the parent's and the child's viewpoint are included. Often there are more perspectives, and they can all be described briefly in the defining of the problem.

Step 2 Brainstorm Ideas About a Solution: Explain that first you're going to write down all the possible ideas that you can think of as a family (everyone involved in the problem that is), and that the brain is good at either coming up with creative new ideas, or at editing and evaluating those ideas, but it doesn't do both well at once. You'll want to use paper at a minimum. Ideally you'd have lots of space like on butcher paper, or up on a whiteboard. Never thought a giant whiteboard would be something that could enhance family life? It can. Make it a rule that no one, including the adults are going to censor any ideas. If your child says "How about I'm on the computer all day long?" I would put it on the board. This lightens the mood and expands the range of ideas, both of which make it more likely that you'll come up with something genuinely creative that addresses the problem. When things start to slow down or you start to get low on time, give a warning for a couple minutes left rather than just abruptly stopping the brainstorming. You could even say, "We've got about two minutes left, let's see how many more we can come up with."

Step 3 Sift Through Proposed Ideas: Try to identify even parts of ideas that might work. You might say things like "This is interesting. Here's my concern..." Kids can often surprise you with novel ideas that might work when they're brought in on the solution. You might circle ideas and parts of ideas that look worth giving a go. You can draw a line through ideas that aren't going to be part of the solution.

Step 4 Put Together a Plan for a Trial Run: The good news is that this doesn't have to be foolproof. It only needs to be an option that everyone involved is worth giving a try to see what works and what doesn't.

Steps 5 Evaluate and Readjust Accordingly: You likely already have the gist of this. Once you've given it a trial run, it is time to get together and talk about what is working and what is not. You then go back to Step 1, or wherever it makes the most sense to resume and try again. Rinse and repeat.

Some benefits of collaborative problem solving:

The nature of using visuals, especially when larger, is that the problem is experienced as something that you can "get perspective" on. There are lots of technical cognitive psychological reasons for this that I cover over at GTDtimes, but in short, writing things down or drawing is like adding extra RAM to our brains. People who problem solve for a livng rarely do it without using some sort of visual or writing down.
Problem solving is like other complex skills such as learning a language or learning to play an instrument. You get better at it by actually doing it.
Collaborative problem solving models a way of handling problems that your child/teen can use in all sorts of other situations.
Collaborative problem solving puts you both on the same side of the bargaining table, so to speak. You are less apt to end up in adversarial positions.
Kids who are included in thinking hard about solutions, esp when they are kids who often resist adult guidance, are less apt to oppose you as they are when they feel like you are arbitrarily coming up with consequences. This is esp true if they feel like you are doing so out of anger or frustration.
Because of all of the above, even when dealing with difficult problems families experience the process as bringing them closer together.

Parents I talk to about this tend to either immediately see possibilities, or they have some concerns about the process. Here are a couple common concerns.

But my child won't cooperate with this. He'll just sabotage it. Well that could be true, but what you're doing, and what you've tried before presumably weren't working. You can also offer a choice if a kid is being less than cooperative with the process. "Sam I'm wanting to try out getting you in on the solution here. If you're not willing to help out with solving this, what's your guess on the alternative I'm left with?" (up and out of the kid).

I shouldn't have to do this mamby pamby approach to parenting. Why can't I just punish him for what he did? Well the answer is that you can. I am only proposing this as one way to handle the second phase of saving the words for the happy times. My idea is that you are going to do best as a parent when you have a wide array of ways of handling problems. We'll only cover a few the possibilities over for the 2nd phase in this series, but over time at Awareness * Connection, you'll see a good deal of the array of possibilities. I only present collaborative problem solving here because it is broadly adaptable. There are times when I think a natural consequence (as opposed to punishment) is more in order than collaborative problem solving. Often which route you go is simply an intuitive choice or a value judgment on the part of the parent. I don't know any parent though who's learned how to use collaborative problem solving that has later regretting having it up their sleeve as another option.

Experiment with this. And before long I'll have our last installment of Save the Words for the Happy times where I'll cover a couple more methods for dealing with the problem at hand.

In the meantime have any of you experimented with something along these lines? How did it go?

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Guest Post Over at Parent Talk Today

2008-09-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

I've recently added a link to a very useful parenting site Parent Talk Today by a friend, Kathy Sena, a seasoned journalist that covers parenting, lifestyle, women's issues and more for magazines you'll recognize like Women's Day and Family Circle, and for newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times. You'll notice that I haven't yet linked to any other parenting sites since I'm a bit picky about whose stuff I "sign off on".

Anyway, Kathy recently posted about an article by a friend of hers from the L.A. Times, "Should We Pay Our Kids to Learn?" I commented on the article and got a bit long winded and my comment ended up a few paragraphs long. Kathy is the kind of friend you want to have...instead of asking me not to clutter up her site with article length comments, she creatively turned my pontification about how we motivate kids to learn into a guest post. So here's a good excuse to head over and check out her site.

Squidoo Page on Raising Your Credibility with Your Child

2008-09-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

I heard from one of the website effectiveness folks I have a lot of respect for, Sonia Simone over at Remarkable Communication, that Squidoo is a worthwhile format to invest a little time into. It essentially is a way to build little mini websites on any area of expertise that you have. I came up with a page to give Squidoo a trial run. I must say that I do enjoy the format and the intuitive tools to build with. I was able to put something together in short order that I think turned out pretty well.

The Squidoo page on cooperation that I came up with has some nice, practical tools for raising your credibility with your kids so that when you need them to follow your lead for their best interest, they are more likely to be able to do that.

Do any of you Squidoo? Stop by and let me know what you think of the page. If you do Squidoo, let us know in the comments below what your pages are about. When you're done, if you do any blogging, have a website, or are curious about how to communicate effectively and persuasively, especially for marketing purposes, check out Sonia's site. I'll be surprised if you don't enjoy yourself over there.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Next Installment

2008-09-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to let you know that Part III of Save the Words for the Happy Times should be up by Monday, and possibly as early as later today depending on how the weekend plays out. It is a busy one. I know a couple of you had mentioned looking forward to the next post. Hope the first week of school went well for all of you. More soon.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Part II: Circling Back

2008-08-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

We looked last time in Part I at what you might do right in the moment in the moment to avoid the flood of words that can come during difficult situations with your child. We could think of there being two phases to saving the words for the happy times. There's the not sayin' much phase during the difficult moment, and then there is the second phase, which is what you do say and do during the "happy times". Or as I like to say, when you circle back.

Note: As it it turns out this has morphed into a four part series rather than the two I originally planned. The second phase has a few different directions it can take and I think at least three of them deserve a closer look so they're detailed enough for you to use.

"Save the Words..." Origin
Incidentally, the title to this two parter is a mnemonic phrase used by Jim Fay of the Love and Logic Institute. I think by "Save the words for the happy times' Jim largely meant to communicate the concept I'm calling the Attention Principle. If you're doing lots of talking when things are aren't going well, you are inadvertantly reinforcing behaviors you would like to see less of, but that because you're pouring on the words, you are going to see more of.

I like his phrase because it is brief and easy to remember. It sticks. But it does elide the fact that you can save the words not only for the happy times, but also for "neutral" or even just "more neutral" times. Beyond the avoiding inadvertent reinforcement the attention principle predicts, it also give the brain a bit of time to cool off. And finally and just as importantly as the others, it gives you time to think. When we make decisions in the heat of the moment as parents we're going to see painful, smoking bullet holes through our shoes more often than we'd like.

Finding Out What Happened and Re-Connecting (Empathy)
So assuming we manage to keep our words brief and not do a lot of talking when our kid is acting in a challenging way, what are we going to do when we circle back?

Your first best bet, however you decide to proceed is find out more about what was going on. Let's say the situation was that your tween was on the computer and when you asked her to get off. She did, but started screaming at you about how mean you are and slammed a couple of things around on her way to her room.

That is done best with a bit of empathy. "Looks like you were pretty ticked at me when I asked you to get off the computer," can be a nice way to start off. Asking your child to tell you about what was going on with her is a good idea. Sometimes if she's reluctant, we can provide a little help by taking a guess or two about how she experienced it. "So was part of it that you were frustrated that what you were focused on was being interrupted. You were really into your game?"

Checking In

Check in with your child to see if they think you've got the gist of how they experienced the interaction. If they don't think you've got it, I'd suggest a couple of repetitions. Ask them to explain again, and then see if you can communicate back to them what it was that they said. Most kids soften considerably when they get the sense that you are are really trying to understand. I've seen many kids go from completely withdrawn and angry to genuinely talking about what was going on with them.

Usually when she sees that you really get what was going on with her at the time, she is willing to hear out what you have to say with a lot more willingness. And sometimes after hearing what was going on with our kids, we legitimately see things differently than we did at the moment when all that seemed to be in our field of vision was disrespect and insolence. This isn't too surprising when it happens because when we're not in the heat of the moment, our frontal cortex comes back online.

Where to Go From Here

Often though even when we do see what the incident or interaction was like for our child, there is more to talk about, and some instances where something needs to be done. These options can range from you just letting them know what the interaction was like for you; to doing some preventative collaborative problem solving; to applying a consequence. Often the best solutions end up being blends of the three.

So in Parts III and IV we will look at some of the common options for the second phase of Saving the Words for the Happy Times after we've done the initial reconnecting. Don't miss out on these. They've saved my hide as parent, teacher and as a parent coach more often than I can count.

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Awareness * Connection Now Listed on AllTop, Shooting for 9Rules

2008-08-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

I am was very pleased to find out that Awareness * Connection is now listed over in the parenting section by the good folks at AllTop. Just below my "Other Destinations" links you can find their badge to drop by and visit. It is an ingenious alphabetical listing that includes the feeds for the five posts for any blog listed. So it is wonderful place to catch up on the topic of your choice. I often head over to find out what is going on in the world of GTD at AllTop. One handy feature I really enjoy about he design of their site is that bar that you see going across toward the bottom in the pic above always stays where it is no matter how you scroll, so you are always one easy click away from the main alphabetical listing. Give it a spin sometime. And where did the ingenuity come from? Well one of the three owners is Guy Kawasaki who was one of the original players over at Apple involved with launching the original Mac. He has a very hot book out called The Art of the Start about getting new businesses and projects off the ground. As a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and given key posts at Apple he's got some expertise to share.

Next I'm hoping Awareness * Connection will be listed on another ingenious blog network called 9Rules. Their small green banner is over on the side along with the AllTop one. What I'm shooting for though is their official badge, which is identical to their logo over on their home page at 9Rules. It is awarded by invitation following one of their three 24 hour submission windows annually. These guys know how to build blogging buzz. Sept 3rd is the big day where I find out if Awareness * Connection has made the cut this round. Since they are content, as opposed to web design, focused in selecting network members, I'm feeling hopeful.

Save the Words for the Happy Times, Part I: Creating a Pause

2008-08-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

By Nature We Tend to Talk Most When It Helps Least

When do we pour on the words with the most intensity as parents? With the most energy and flourish? Often it is when things are going the worst. When we're irritable. When we're frustrated. When the kids are acting up. That's when the words flow with no effort. Often our words take the form of lectures. We've touched before on how lectures are chock full of You're Not Capable Messages. Also you've likely noticed the way that our kids' eyes start to glaze over when we've moved into lecturing mode. Or they get snippy or comply, but so slowly they reel us into getting more upset. Part of the reason for this is explained by the Attention Principle: Any behavior we react to with energy, attention or emotion, we will see more of. The flood of words inevitably leads to the interaction spiraling downhill from there.

Creating a Pause

So what can we do instead? Lets look first at when we're in the moment, and in Part II we'll look at how to circle back when we're much more likely to be effective. In the moment though, take some slow deep breaths. There's no replacement for doing that as a parent. It serves much like having a biological dimmer switch that takes the edge off our frustration, and our sense that something must be done "right this second", which is almost never actually the case. In fact if there were only one skill that I could help my clients with, it would be simply learning how to create a pause before acting or talking when things are going poorly.

Second, take care of the issue at hand with brevity. Often enforceable statements can serve well in keeping our talk brief. The combination of things not going well, and lots of words from us rarely equals our kids doing better. So keep the words as brief and to the point as you can. This keeps us from inadvertently making things worse.

Third, avoid making decisions in the heat of the moment that could be made later. If our child has done something that warrants a consequence of some sort, and we're feeling really irritated or angry, it is far better for everyone concerned to say something like, "We're going to need to do something about this. I need to take a break right now though. I'll get back to you." It is when we make decisions in the heat of the moment that we often come up with consequences that are overblown. And doling out an excessive consequence only to reduce it, especially if it happens often, reduces your credibility. Letting your child know that something is going to happen, but that you need to give it some thought first often makes whatever the consequence turns out to be more effective. More on that in another post.

Emotional Flooding

Keep in mind that when we're frustrated or angry we lose 10 to 15 IQ points. Sometimes we're even aware in the moment that what we're doing isn't helping, but we just keep going. When we know though in the moment that we're going to circle back and do something later when it is more effective, that in itself can make it a lot easier to put the brakes on. Things don't feel so overwhelmingly urgent.

Allowing some time to pass gives the brain a chance to cool off a bit. Most of us have had the experience, often in a couples interaction, of trying to approach the problem too soon after the initial argument, thinking we're cooled off enough to come back to it. But then WHAM we pop right back down into angry mode. We come by this honestly. The brain often takes hours to cool off, to get out of it's chemical funk, rather than minutes. Giving the situation some time and distance will greatly increase the odds that we're going to be able to be effective with our kids.

In Part II we'll look at some of the options when we circle back to address the problem that help kids shift into problems solving mode. These options help kids to be able to view their behavior more objectively and gives them a much better chance to take responsibility for their behaviors.

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My GTD Article Selected by Whakate as Best Blog Post of July for GTDtimes

2008-08-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Hey good news for a relatively new blogger, your truly. My article "Ancient Cheating and a Modern Twist" that I wrote in July for the personal productivity site GTDtimes was selected for Best Blog Picks for July by the international life design blog , Whakate (A word from New Zealand, of Maori origin, meaning “to squeeze out” or “get the essence out of” something). Life design I think is a wise choice to get away from the cheesier asssociations with "self-improvement". The article is about two powerful benefits of writing things down on cognitive function, writin' stuff down makes you even smarter.

So here is their listing for Best (Blog Post) Picks for July '08. I am a ways down the page in the personal productivity section under GTDtimes, right above Merlin Mann's 43Folders article on email. Take that Merlin. I enjoy that fact even though I somehow doubt the Merlin is feeling threatened just yet. So my thanks to the folks at Whakate.

Photo courtesy of Timothy K. Hamilton over at Flickr

One Year Ago on Awareness * Connection: Helping Your Child with Back to School Anxiety

2008-08-24T08:24:00.001-07:00

After today, only one day of summer left for my daughter. Hard to believe it's already slipped by. New beginnings are always a bit of a challenge for her, as they were for me. I've done much better as an adult with work that fluctuates according to the seasons than I did with an on/off schedule like school was. So for me seeing what going back to school is like for Hannah isn't all that big a jump empathy wise. Any of us with two kids, or who've closely observed kids, understands what the research has to say. Children are very different from one another from day one on at least nine different measures of how they react to stimuli and how they regulate their emotions (before learning or parenting has a chance to affect the measures). When our kids have temperament profiles that are quite a bit different from ours, it can take a bit more work to see things from their perspective.

Having someone "get" who we are and what we are experiencing is one of the most important things to us in life. If we are surrounded by people who "get" us, our lives tend to be much happier. We also need at least one supportive relationship in our history in order for us to be relatively psychologically healthy.

It can be a good exercise to think back to a time when we went through something emotionally difficult as a child where our parents or caregivers weren't able to give us the empathy that would have been helpful. Can you remember what that was like? Experiencing a difficult emotion and feeling like you were on your own with it? What could the adult in your life have done or said that might have been helpful? All of us had those experiences where the adult was unable to be as helpful as we could have used. Fortunately, children don't need perfect parenting to do well in life. It is about what the pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnecott called good enough parenting. Our children don't need a completely supportive environment to turn out okay, just enough of one.

On the practical side, what we can do if our child expresses some reservation about school is 1) Listen, 2) Clarify and 3) Run by them your understanding of their experience. Then repeat steps one and two until they feel like you've more or less got it. The easy mistake for us to make is to respond to our children's reservations or distress by giving advice right off the bat. "You don't need to worry. After the first couple days you'll be used to your new teacher." Even if the advice is good advice, if our kids don't sense that we understand how they're feeling, the advice can feel dismissive.

If you've ever had a friend do this to you, you know that's usually not what we hunger for when we're having a hard time with something in life. If you do run through those three steps with your child though, when you do have any practical suggestions for how they might cope, they will be much more able to hear the suggestions and maybe even use a couple of them. What it boils down to often is our being able to be with them in their distress for a moment. See Our Most Important Job post a couple of posts back about this being one of our central challenges as parents.

Remember we don't always need to get this right, but it is worth shooting for an increase in how often we can meet our kids emotionally this way. It is one way to keep the connection open with them that at times can their lifeline.

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One Year Ago on Awareness * Connection: First Day of School Ritual

2008-08-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

Today's the day. New sneakers, more carefully done hair than usual, new supplies...though we can't seem to locate the new lunchbox.

We have a tradition of taking a picture in the front yard every first day of school. A friend of ours takes one in the exact same spot every year, just like her parents did when she was a girl. It is really neat looking through the photo album from when the mother was a girl. Since she's always standing next to the same front gate you can see the changes in height and in her face from year to year from Kindergarten through 12th grade. Family rituals like that are a nice way to mark certain times as special, and to mark time as we move through life. Like our unique ways of celebrating birthdays and holidays, they can be a nice source of connection and meaning. Anything regular like a family ritual also is helpful for those kids who tend to feel a bit more anxiety when starting school. The familiarity of the ritual can be grounding for them.

I like the practice, which I don't recall happening as a kid, of starting the first week midweek, so the transition is a bit less traumatic. Three days and you're through your first week. Good luck to everyone with the the first day. Here's to a new year with new opportunities.

Mark Twain on Adolescence

2008-08-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Mark Twain

What Web 2.0 Says About Human Beings

2008-08-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

What strikes me about web 2.0 is that traditional economic models wouldn’t have predicted it. Why would people, for instance, work really hard writing blogs with no monetary compensation?

Turns out that people have a much stronger drive toward self-expression and connection that the “rational self-interest” models would have predicted. And I think that is a wonderful thing to have the latest technology reveal about human beings in our face paced information era.

Hamsterbilities: Preparing Kids for Responsibilty

2008-08-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

My daughter Hannah is 8 years old and wants a hamster, bad-like. I've posted before about Bargaining on the Front End. This is about a specific version of that.

There are few areas around the house that need some improvement before we're ready to add a hamster to the mix. A couple of them involve taking care of the dog we already have. Another is Hannah cleaning up after herself when grabbing a snack or doing an art project. One other example is eating what she decides to from dinner without complaining about what is served.

We could go ahead and get the hamster, and ask her to promise to improve these areas, and then just hope she does. She's on the cusp of being ready. But if we did we'd rob Hannah of an opportunity to demonstrate that she's capable of taking care of her responsibilities. We'd also be modeling that in life you get the things you want first, and then work out the responsibilities later—that's certainly not how we will be doing things with driving. So why not be consistent and start now.

If we did get her the hamster and just hoped it went well, and it turned out not to, we'd likely feel some resentment. Another option I can think of would be to get tough and say, "If you don't start taking care of your responsibilities around here, you're not getting a hamster!" But phrasing it that way verges on an embedded You're Not Capable Message.

What can we do instead? We phrase it along the lines of "We're looking forward to seeing you enjoy having your own hamster as soon as you've shown us you're ready...and you're getting pretty close. " We collaboratively came up with a list of the responsibilities around the house that will demonstrate that she's ready for having her own pet to take care of, which together we decided to call Hamsterbilities. A term I don't think I'll ever be able to forget.

Now when she says, "How long until I get my hamster?" We can say, "Let's check out your Hamsterbilities chart and see how it's going." We then get out the chart and look at each of the agreed upon areas. We decided to rate them from 0 to 3. Zero being not taking care of a responsibility at all on up to three where she's really got it down. We decided together that she's going to need twos or above. Now she's getting accurate feedback on how she's doing. And the decision for when she gets the hamster becomes less arbitrary, and more associated with how she's handling her responsibilities around the house. Also by looking at a chart together side by side, it doesn't feel to her like it is us "just deciding". Kids tend to view things like this Hamsterbilities chart as a relatively objective, third party source of information. I can guarantee that is not how she'd view it if we just told her why we thought she wasn't there yet. There's some magic in that side by side evaluating of something together.

How's it going? Well she's closing in on her fuzzy little prize. And when she makes it, which looks to be soon, she's going to experience a real sense of accomplishment and she'll definitely be set for the ups and downs of hamster ownership. And the downs as well as the ups are all part of the learning and are part of what make a child taking responsibility for a pet meaningful.

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Reference: The Attention Principle

2008-08-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

I had to define this for another post, and it deserves its own post at minimum for now.

The Attention Principle:
Any behaviors which we react to with energy, attention or emotion, we tend to see more of.

This principle explains why yelling, reminders, and even excessive "helpful" explaining yield the counter intuitive result of more of the same problematic behavior.

This principle is worth several posts in the future, but I wanted it up here for reference in the meantime. If you want a longer description of it for now, you can find that on p. 3 of this handout from my practice website.

The Preschool Whisperer

2008-08-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

I've had more than one client spontaneously refer to Caesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic in reference to staying calm when interacting with preschool aged children. Both of these parents, and I as well, are clear that working with dogs is not the same as working with kids. But there is a powerful metaphor available in thinking about Caesar. On his show he frequently refers to the idea of Calm, Assertive Energy, as way of being around dogs that helps them to calm down and follow his lead. In very brief interactions with a problem, aggressive dog, you can often see the change in the dog's body language seconds after he enters the scene. The dog is in tune with the way he carries himself.

This Caesar metaphor nicely captures a concept that I've had a clear image in my mind about how it looks, but have some trouble communicating. I think the folks at Love and Logic have had the same challenge. It is much easier to describe the techniques than it is to capture the subtle way of being with kids, yet I think the idea is essential.

After reading some of Wayne Dyer's older books I adopted for some time his phrase of "quietly effective" practices. You'll notice one of the pdf handouts on the Enjoy Parenting Again site is titled Quietly Effective Techniques for Working with Preschoolers and Toddlers.

This idea of calm-assertiveness is a state of mind in which you are responsive, but not reactive. Where you hold yourself in a way that communicates to the child that "I can handle the situation and help you, and I can even handle you if needed." This way of holding one's self helps kids to be calmer and to feel safer, especially when they are melting down. Often instead we can become reactive or aggressive sounding. But this "I've had it" stance communicates something very different, along the lines of "I'm not really in control here. I'm powerful, but just barely managing myself." When kids are around this they often feel unsafe and act out even more. Or the attention principle comes into play.

More on this in future posts. For now I'll just say that my clients have been the source of many powerful ideas I've come across. This is one I'll be hanging onto.

David Allen Stopped By...

2008-08-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

I am experiencing a "Holy Smokes" moment right now. I just stopped by at the comments section of my latest article at the GTDtimes, which is about how...

...the smartest people are the ones that realize that they have a big, powerful, dumb part of themselves that has a whole lot to do with what they do. They structure their lives in a very intelligent way that manages the dumb and powerful part. The dumb people think they're smart all the time.

I was just checking in to see if any new comments had popped up. I do this from time to time as the notification system for whatever reason only works inconsistently. And sure enough there is a new comment there...but it is by...get ready for it...David Allen. Really.

For anyone who is not a GTDer (I won't be mean and say, who lives in a cave), this would be a bit like having a Mac zealot write a blog entry about some thoughts on the Mac OS. And suddenly Steve Jobs drops by to say, "Hey, nice write up. I enjoyed your ideas. Let's touch base sometime." And you rub your eyes, and it's actually still Steve Jobs.

So have a peek at the Big Kahuna's comment and enjoy my moment with me. And by the way, the part in italics is not my summary of my article. That is David Allen's thumbnail of it from the comment he left. It's always nice to get a reader who gets the gist of your article. But you don't really expect to have the guy whose extraordinarily successful system you're writing about stop by to say hello, much less to have clearly read your piece. That's not to say I didn't have a very distant hope for it...but I certainly didn't expect it.

And it's nice when life drops these unexpected moments in your lap from time to time.

Merlin Mann and the 90 second GTD Primer

2008-08-12T13:32:00.001-07:00

I don't usually just provide a link to a posting, but this one by Merlin Mann on GTD contexts was stellar for its brevity, wit and usefulness. It includes a 90 second GTD overview—very handy in and of itself, an exploration of why GTD contexts are so damn useful, and a quip that made me actually laugh out loud. If that isn't enough to warrant a link to another post, I don't know what would be.

Second Children Change How Parents View Parenting

2008-08-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Many people have noticed the tendency for parents to lighten up quite a bit after their first child. With our first born we tend to be tentative and err toward over-caution. I often hear the explanation for the change in behavior that the parents realized that their first child turned out okay despite the bumps and scrapes both figurative and literal. They've discovered that babies and children are pretty hearty, and treading on eggshells isn't required.

The thought occurred to me today that I think it goes a bit further than this. It has to do with this notion that I heard that first-time parents tend to be big believers in nurture. Parents with later-born children tend to be believers in nature. That is, they realize that very important traits central to who their children are that are not at all determined by how they were parented. When the second child arrives, they notice that she is often completely different in traits ranging from how easily startled the child is to how she responds to new stimuli. So this realization can occur within hours of the birth of the second child. The parent realizes, "There was no time for parenting to bring about these traits in our newborn. There has to be something about the child herself that makes her different."

Of course the question of whether nature or nurture rules the roost of who our children become is a false one. The science is absolutely clear that both are at play. I do think though that our culture errs way too far these days on the side of believing that it is always the environment that is responsible for how the child turns out.

In an upcoming post, I will describe the nine dimensions of temperament, the traits that research has shown that we are born with, and that are not determined by our family of origin.

In the meantime, what traits does your children have that you suspect they were born with?

iDog, and Up and Out of the Tween

2008-08-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

My daughter has extended her ability to delay gratification. We give her an allowance weekly and we offered to match whatever she saved for a recent vacation she and her mother took. And she kept the bulk of her money in her pocket during the vacation and decided that she'd rather get her first iPod than collect souvenirs. I was very glad to see her pull that off. Delayed gratification is a cornerstone of emotional intelligence, and it is challenging to teach.

Since she's only eight I'm happy that iPods now come with volume limiting capability, mainly to keep her from accidentally turning the iPod up way to loud. Those Nanos have touchy little click wheels these days. Also Hannah is not as good as some kids at monitoring that sort of thing carefully.

Now here's the catch. She had some money left over and decided she had to get an iDog to go with her new mp3 player. Now I'm not quite as impressed with iDog as she is. He pretty much is simple robotic external speaker; produces light patterns on his muzzle to beat of music; and occasionally moves his head back and forth and wiggles his ears. That's iDog. So much for the delayed gratification piece. And for iDog to work, we've discovered, the volume on the iPod has to be cranked up way beyond the sub-half point we set on the volume limiter to preserve her hearing for future years. My hearing, by the way, isn't great, and she may be up against a genetic component too.

I'm afraid when she's done with iDog one of these times, she'll put on those earbuds, blasting her hearing before I get a chance to reset the volume limit. It doesn't take too long to do some permanent damage. So at this point, my options seem to be 1) ban iDog, 2) throw my hands up in the air and say to myself "I guess she's almost a teen. Whaddaya gonna do?" or 3) lecture her on how delicate hearing is—try to impress upon her how important it is to make sure that she always brings one of us the iPod immediately after using it with iDog, so we can reset the volume limit again.

At 8 years old she has been cultivating that tween skill of giving off disgusted facial expressions when she doesn't like what is being said. The up side is that I have a lecture early warning sign telling me when what I'm saying just isn't likely to sink in. One of the best things I know of to help in this situation is Up and Out of the Kid. It isn't that far off from lecturing, but it is different enough that it improves on it in a couple of ways. The first way is by changing my tone so that she is better able to hear what I have to say. When we lecture, we have a tendency to lapse into being condescending. If we start catching the eye rolls and facial expressions, it can rapidly go downhill from there. We get triggered, and out it rolls: "If you're not willing to listen to me about this without the attitude, maybe you're just not ready to have an iPod." So we're off to threats, and the unstated, embedded message we send is You're Not Capable.

So with Up and Out of the Kid, I try for something more along these lines. "So Hannah, if you forget to bring us the iPod and you end up with the volume too loud, for too long, what could happen?"
"It could ruin my ears"
"Yeah. And if that happened, how long would your hearing be hurt for?"
"It could be hurt forever"
"Right"
"So after you use iDog, what do you always need to do?"
"Bring you my iPod so you can do the noise thingy [volume limiter]"
"Good thinking. And if you're not remembering to do that, what do you think we'll need to do?"
"Not let me use my iPod."
"Right. You'd be taking a break from it for a bit. So is that something it would help to write yourself a note about, or is that something that you could just remember on your own. What is your thinking on that?"

"I can remember." [self given You're Capable Message]

"That would be great. I bet you can too."

Up and Out of the Kid is not perfect, but in my mind it beats lectures and threats by a long shot. One of the advantages is that instead of bouncing off Hannah's cranium, which is what seems to happen when I lapse into lecturing, the ideas come up and out of her nervous system. And by definition that increases the odds that she's actually going to remember to do what she's saying. Also, you'll notice lots of my saying "Right" and "Good thinking" in these sorts of conversations. Where the unstated message of a lecture is, "You're not very sharp, so I'd better spell it out for you." the embedded message in a conversation using Up and Out of the Kid is more along the lines of, "This is important stuff. And I bet when you give it some thought you'll know how to handle it." An added bonus is that since by answering my question she stated the likely logical consequence of not bringing me the iPod, she is not going to be too shocked if that comes to pass. She'd still get hacked at me, but not in the same way since she was able to predict what would happen herself.

I'm betting she'll do well with this. God they grow up fast.

This is Your Elephant on GTD. Any Questions?

2008-08-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

I was going to forgo posting this feature article I wrote for the GTDtimes, but I've been getting a good response to it over there so I thought it deserved a brief mention here. Though the piece is aimed at Getting Things Done, it actually is about essential knowledge for acquiring any complex skill.

The article is about the way that our automatic and unconscious processes tend to wander off in a different direction than the goals we deliberately se, and that we may very much want to achieve. Our conscious desire to learn the skill is like the rider on an elephant. And the unconscious part that keeps us from going to the gym or from using a new parenting skill, even when we fully intend to follow through, is like an elephant the rider is perched upon. The only way this gigantic beast can be influenced is by training and repetition, as it very much has a "mind of its own". And getting angry with it or berating it is pointless.

Why Stating If/Thens in the Positive is Essential to Your Relationship

2008-08-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

I've posted before about the importance of enforceable statements, stating the conditions under which you will do, provide or allow a child to do something. By definition enforceable statements are stated in the positive. An example would be, "You're welcome to head outside as soon as your room is clean." We've focused in the past on how these statements increase adult credibility because they are actually enforceable (as contrasted with "Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice", which is much less enforceable). This time let's take a look at how framing your if/then or when/then statements in the positive affects your relationship with your child.

The Difference Between the Two

When things aren't going smoothly, or when we are rushed, we are much more likely frame our requests and commands in the negative So the enforceable statement about the room above goes downhill to become "You're not going outside, unless you get that room cleaned."

The puzzling thing about it is that in the two examples, stated in the negative and then in the positive, the limit being set is exactly the same one. You could say that the statements are logically equivalent. Though they are setting the exact same limit, framing the statement in the negative undermines your relationship with your child in a huge number of way. Let's look at a few.

When an if/then statement is put in the negative, it sounds like a threat. Think about how you feel when someone threatens you. The hair stand up on the back of your neck, and you want to defy the person issuing it. You might even resolve to get back at them. Needless to say when your child hears a threat, it becomes much harder for your child to comply. And when used frequently she will be much more likely to need to struggle with you over control in other areas, even unimportant ones.

Command Avalanche
Whether you make your if/then statements in the negative or positive has a compounded effect over time. I think it is easy for us to forget just how much kids have to put up with adults setting limits for them. And don't get me wrong, I'm all for adults setting reasonable limits for kids. Kids need them. But lets pause and consider (or even remember) what that's like. They have to listen to parents, teacher and other adults throughout their day telling them when they can eat, that they have to be quiet, that they can't play yet, that it's time to clean up now, and on and on.

The point is that when you add up all these commands, the positive manner of phrasing them leaves your child focused on the options at hand. They sound more like the world is filled with opportunities, and they have choices to make. It helps them to behave more responsibly and feel more capable: "Feel free to dig into those cookies, as soon as your lunch is finished." On the other hand, when stated in the negative, the child ends up with what must feel like an avalanche of threats, constraints and negativity. "If you don't get that desk clean, you're not going to recess", "If you don't finish your dinner, no chocolate milk for you."

The Embedded Message We Want to Avoid

This last point is an important one. Kids respect adults who can warmly set reasonable limits with them. They feel safe and protected knowing what their limits are. When they hear limits set in the negative, the underlying message they seem to get, even when we don't intend it that way, is "I don't like you all that much, you're not very capable, and I certainly don't want you enjoying anything in life." The piece about wanting them to enjoy themselves, within the limits of responsible behavior is a biggie. Teens are very apt to see adults as wet blankets as it is. It is part of the process of individuation, to a point. Talking to our kids by phrasing things in the negative from early on though makes the waters more troubled, and sets you sailing in them sooner than you need to.

The negative command tick is a challenging habit to break. See my article at GTDtimes about elephant training to understand why that is, AND what you can do to make your success much more likely. Also see this previous post on seven tips for mastering new interpersonal skills.

Making Fun

2008-08-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

I came across this parody site, Done Getting Things, the other day and enjoyed it thoroughly. It lampoons a range of productivity sites, mostly GTD themed ones, from the Zen varieties to de-cluttering oriented ones. One of the ones I enjoyed most was Annihilate Mr. Procrastination with your Zen Tank. Also worthy of mention is Declutterization 101A—5 Ways to Declutter Your Life. Just the unnecessarily convoluted redundant title was enough to make me smile.

I hope they keep posting more content here. Enjoy.

GTDtimes Article: Ancient Cheating and a Modern Twist

2008-07-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

I was surprised this morning to see my second article already posted over at the GTDtimes, exploring how writing can be used to "cheat, and increase our cognitive capacities in two different ways, both powerful. David Allen often refers to this as clearing out our "psychic RAM". I mentioned previously that I am pleased to have been taken on as a regular contributor to their well known productivity blog.

Image courtesy of "cheetleys" over at Flickr

Easier or More Difficult?

2008-07-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

I've talked before about how I think that Getting Things Done and Love and Logic function in similar ways by helping to distill the chaotic into the manageable. Getting Things Done does its distilling magic in areas from tracking and paying bills, to managing work projects, to planning birthday parties. Love and Logic does its transformation with everything from having heart to hearts with your child, handling the stolen item found in the backpack, to teaching kids about demonstrating some appreciation for their parent's contributions around the household. Because I think they are doing some sort of similar process, I would predict that you're going to find some ideas from each model that apply to the other. Well here's one that I've noticed that comes from David Allen. He says that implementing GTD is both easier and more difficult that you would respect.

"...both easier AND more difficult than you would expect"

David Allen

Now that is a bit of a paradox, AND I think its true. It is likely true of each model in similar ways. The easiest part has to do with what David Allen calls advanced common sense. Like with Love and Logic people say to him from time to time, "Well this is just common sense." And they are simultaneously right and wrong. It is common sense. Take for example always identifying a next action for any item on what would be more commonly called your To Do list. Once you get in the habit of it, it really does come to make sense and you might wonder how you used to do without it. The part that is wrong is the "just" in the sentence. It is common sense, but not just common sense. David Allen uses the term "advanced common sense" to describe it. I pointed out in a my first post over at GTDtimes that social psychologists might be more apt to call it hindsight bias, the illusion that what you know now, you must have known all along. Or there's a corollary I've added, which is What I know now must have always been very easy to come up with. Well, maybe not. But the fact is that we very rarely if ever do come up with these models on our own. And though we often do it, it doesn't really make much sense to hold ourselves or others accountable for information they couldn't have had at the time. This is a very common phenomenon with Love and Logic. I hear parents make similar statements all the time along the lines of "It only makes sense" or "I can't believe I didn't think of that.

So the easier part I think is that the principles are pretty straight forward. They aren't terribly complex. In fact that is actually part of the beauty of both models. You don't have to memorize ultra complex procedures, and when you break down the ideas, virtually anyone can get them. How about the more difficult part? What is more difficult than we might expect is that given how the ideas are relatively easy to grasp, it is surprisingly more difficult to put them into action that you might expect.

This has to do with why I was taken on as a contributor over at GTDtimes. Part of what the executive editor is wanting me to provide for readers is how our brains interface with the Getting Things Done model. In other words, what about cognitive psychology might explain why the principles work as they do. The reason things are more difficult comes largely down to two things. First it comes down to neural plasticity, which is neurospeak for the way that our brains change as you learn. The fact is that learning is a physiological process. And much of that learning actually takes time to chemically and neurologically alter the brain so that that learning stays long term.

A hugely common phenomenon is in coaching is that parents are surprised when they understood a principle in session, and were excited about it, but then they go home and do the same old ineffective thing and just yell at the kids, for instance. To me it is predictable, because I know that it just takes time, and one other key ingredient, repetition. Now lots of different things can work as repetition. First, they could hear about the technique several times in several different contexts. Often I encourage parents to listen to CDs about the Love and Logic techniques for exactly this reason. Another ways is by reflecting on what occurred when it doesn't go well and tying it in with the new learning. Another way to put this is to say that Awareness is the first step. I literally tell parents to expect that even though they fully got the concept of say, enforceable statements, to expect they will go home and blow it. That is why it is essential that they consider awareness progress. If they set the bar at going home and nailing right off the bat, the predictably run off the rails in short order.

So the good news is both programs are easier than you would expect. I've seen people transform their lives both in the areas of parenting and in "stress-free productivity". And the bad news isn't so bad. If you know the little bit about brains and learning that I just shared and you can fully accept that, it actually won't be much more difficult than you expect...or that's my prediction anyway.

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Life's Second Task (via GTDtimes.com)

2008-07-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

What are the three baskets that life's main tasks fit into, at least according to one well-seasoned psychologist who was my supervisor? How does GTD fit into Child and Family Therapy or other psychotherapy?

It's official. My inaugural article, which answers the questions above was posted today over at GTDtimes.com. You'll be able to find me there in the navigation bar to the left under my name, Michael Gorsline. Please take a look and visit often. They've got lots of other good stuff there as well.

More Wisdom from Twain

2008-07-27T15:30:00.001-07:00

"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause."

~Mark Twain

You'll Soon Be Able to Read Me at the GTD Times—with a Different Angle on GTD

2008-07-25T10:49:00.001-07:00

I just got an email from Oliver Starr, the senior editor over at the GTD Times, letting me know that he's taking me on as an official contributor at the GTD Times with a focus on the intersection of Getting Things Done and psychology / cognitive neuroscience. In other words what is it about our psychology as human beings and about the peculiarities of how the brain functions that makes GTD as helpful as it is to people? A specific example might be what is it about GTDs Natural Planning model that makes it a good match for the human brain? or Why does writing down a next action, rather than just holding it in mind, help people to feel so much less anxiety?

I'm very excited about writng for GTD Times. My education is in counseling psychology rather than in cognitive science. My qualifications on cognitive science would be more along the lines of what a science journalist does. I've spent the past several years reading in the area, and participating in a book group where cognitive sciences were the sole focus. It's nice when things in life come together like this where your passions find a nice place to plug in with a good opportunity. So check for me over at GTD Times early next week. I'll see you there.

Transition from Spanking to Parent Coaching

2008-07-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

Parent coaching is going to be around for the long haul. I'm biased in my opinion, of course. You can judge by the end. Sometimes parents are hesitant to come in for help because they are afraid of what it might mean about their parenting skills. My thought is that the parents who come in for coaching are the smart ones. They are the ones who are doing now what will become commonplace a few years down the road.

Temperament
Parenting is hard work. The exception to this is for the few parents out there who have children with exceptionally easy temperaments. Most people who have children with easy temperaments assume that they are brilliant parents. That is an okay illusion to have about yourself in that circumstance. But it leaves you a little judgmental about parents who have children that they struggle with. The rest of us have kids with temperaments that can make them harder to parent. Though the qualities that can make a child hard to parent can end up being very positive traits later in life such as being energetic and being a leader. For those of you that fit in the "rest of us" category, the first step is to realize that not every behavior that your child comes up with is your fault. There is a huge amount of research showing that kids are born with very distinct traits that have absolutely nothing to do with how you parent them. That is just who they are. The good news is that how you respond to their temperament can influence both their behavior, and your relationship with them. Not all their behavior is your fault, and there practical ways to handle it.

The Shift Away From Spanking
As far as discipline goes, our grandparents, and all previous generations for that matter, had a much easier time with discipline than we do. If their child got out of line, they got smacked, spanked, walloped, ridiculed or even beaten. The interesting piece is that this can never be the same again. We've progressed in our treatment of children. We see that spanking sends ironic messages to kids (e.g. the "don't hit" irony) and damages the relationship with the parent. But parents who spank now, unless they live in communities where most everyone does something similar, will not get the same effect that their grandparents got. Because the effect depended on children looking around and thinking that getting spanked was something that happened throughout the community. That will never be the same again. I think that's progress though it has a catch.

The Down Side of the Shift
So here's the problem though. Parents who don't have children with easy temperaments are left without any effective way to handle behaviors that push to the end of the line. There are all sorts of therapists and websites that will tell you that you just need to work with children in democratic ways and that if you do they will cooperate. Now some of these ideas work in certain contexts and I help parents use them all the time. I'm here to tell you though that this isn't the case when it gets to what I call "end of the line" behaviors with young kids, hitting, kicking, scratching, biting and spitting come to mind. You'll also find therapists and all manner of books that will tell you that if you child has been raised with attachment style parenting that you are to encounter these problems. That is a complex topic, but suffice it to say that you child being well attached does not mean that you won't run into these problems. Those bevhaviors are simply natural for kids to try out.

The majority of parents who come in to see me are educated, intelligent kind people who have worked hard and read a number of books trying to set reasonable limits with their kids. But having well-attached kids and using democratic principles just aren't enough. Instead of putting up with the hitting, kicking and spitting, some have given up on setting limits because they are sticking to their values about not spanking, but they just don't know what to do with those end of the line behaviors. Or the kids have gotten older and now parents handle them with a combination of bribes, threats and lectures or allow them to drift off into endless "screentime". When parents of these older children try to set reasonable limits, they get the older child version of end of the line behaviors which usually involves door slamming, name calling, tantrums and breaking property.

Now What
Now from the stats I'm aware that a large number of you are thinking, "Well if you just smacked them on the butt when they were little the problem would have been solved." Again, I don't think so, because unless you live in a community where that is condoned, you can't do it with the effectiveness that grandpa did. I also see a large number of parents who did try spanking and that also have ended up with results they don't like. Spanking may get you immediate compliance, but in the longterm it is a much dicier proposition. In addition to that the reason most parents try not to spank, even if they do in moments of deperation, is because they believe it is wrong, not just because it doesn't provide the results they want.

Here's what I think has happened. We have put a whole generation of parents in a very difficult position. They realize that there is a moral problem, not to mention the effectiveness problem, with hitting kids to get them to behave. And make no mistake, spanking is hitting. It is just a specific culturally condoned variety of hitting. It progressed historically from simply beating your kid; to slapping them in the face; to hitting only on the rear with paddles, belts and switches; to only hitting them on the rear end. I think that has been a very good series of changes. And I think that we now have to figure out as a society how we support parents as they go about setting reasonable limits in the household.

The Upside
The good news is that there are a whole host of other techniques that are very effective that help you to elicit your child's cooperation and set reasonable limits around the household needed to raise responsible, happy people; not to mention just being needed to make living in a household livable. These involve the sharing of control where you don't have it, or where you don't need it so you can have control as a parent when it is needed. It is connecting with your child in ways that leave them much more willing to follow your lead. It means learning about your child's temperament and how to work with it, and around it. And it involves having some humane ways to enforce those end of the line limits. A specific version of timeout is usually needed that respects the child's autonomy and that encourages the development of self-calming skills. The lack of those self-calming skills is usually central to the sort of obnoxious behavior were talking about here.

Timeouts some training to be able to pull off effectively and respectfully. I know if I weren't in the line of work I am, as a former teacher and a mental health professional. I would have spanked out of desperation. But it can be done without the spanking, and done well. I've helped a lot of parents to learn how.

Keep in mind that there are dozens of ways to do timeouts in ways that will run you off the rails in short order. That is part of the problem. If parents have tried a couple of variations on timeout that didn't work, they are convinced that "timeout simply doesn't work."

The Suggestion
So we now treat kids more humanely than we once did. And letting them run amok, hit their parents and call them names certainly isn't going to be acceptable, much less helpful to the kids. But the alternative skills to spanking aren't easy ones. They certainly take more gray matter and self-calming skills than spanking did by a long shot. But let's not expect parents to reinvent that wheel all by themselves. Way too much time and energy are burned up, and damage can be done over time to the child's self-concept and to the relationship with the parent as parents try to figure out how to parent without spanking.

So my suggestion—which after all I've written so far is going to have to be elaborated in another post—is that we need to think differently about parenting classes, parent coaching and counseling. These need to become commonplace rather than the exception. You need a contract, you see an attorney. You need your teeth cleaned, you go to the dentist. You have a 4-year-old you can't get to bed, you come see me. We also need to start thinking in original ways such as offering parenting classes in high schools. We've progressed in the right direction. We just need to do more as a society to help parent than send them to the bookstore on their own. The solutions are low cost, reliable and relatively straight forward to implement. So let's get to it. And in the meantime you want a little support from a parenting class, a parent coach or some counseling by all means don't feel bad about it. Quite the opposite. You my friend are walking the path of the future.

Start a discussion in the comments whether you spank, see a parenting coach or something in between. Keep it civil and you'll get heard.

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As Minimalist as it Gets: GTD on 3 x 5 cards

2008-07-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

I have been coaching an increasing number of clients on using Getting Things Done (GTD) strategies to get organized and on top of the myriad details one has to manage to live in today's world. It helps to make it all more straightforward and doable, which, as you see on the descriptions of my blogs minimizes stressor spillover into our relationships and the things we passionately want to do with our lives.

Bits and pieces of GTD have seemed quite helpful for different clients, each with their own unique needs. One very understandable obstacle to getting going with the approach is that the GTD computer programs which are most helpful either take a fair amount of time investment to set up and learn, or they are just plain expensive.

I happen take care of most of my GTD needs between an older Mac laptop and my iPhone. I do like to use cards and a pen as well though for writing things down ("capturing" in GTD speak) on the hoof. That iPhone keyboard, for me, just doesn't lend itself to fast flexible entry of of ideas and details on they fly. So there are lots of reasons why someone might want a paper or notecard-based version of the system.

I came across this post by Joe Ely over at the GTD Times on setting up a GTD system with index cards and a binder clip, that's it—which is well worth sharing. I've seen different set ups like this around the web at first facetiously, and now commonly, called the hipster PDA. If you want to get an idea of how huge this phenomenon is just check out a google search of the term. Even more fun is a search of hipster PDA hacks, modifications of and improvements on the basic notecard with binder clip system.

There is also a whole movement of people using Moleskine notebooks in a similar fashion, all with their own sets of rituals and hacks. The link I provided for Moleskines shows a much broader range of uses for the notebooks. I had to give you that one because the art that some people use them for, for me anyway, is stunningly, jaw dropping good. But google "moleskine hacks" or "GTD" and "Moleskine" if you want to see how those are used by more folks than you can count good old GTD purposes. If you've followed any of my links over to 43Folders in the past, you may already be familiar with much of this, but I digress. Back to the mission of the post:

Joe Ely's article on setting up a GTD notecard system sans all the cultural references and elaborate innovations mentioned above is the most straight forward explanation of a solid GTD system that uses common, inexpensive materials that I've seen. And it manages to include all the essential details including use of color coding for contexts and a very intuitive and useable notation system. Check it out. It is so good, it almost makes me want to set my computer aside to give it a whirl.

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Bargaining on the Front End

2008-07-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever come home from work after a hard day and had your son asks you to do something with him that you really didn't want to do, but you did it anyway because you wanted to connect with him? After agreeing to the activity the child has in mind, and it is time to wrap up,it is pretty common for the child to say something along the lines of "How come you wont play longer?" in a tone that isn't exactly flowing with gratitude.

Now sometimes, of course, this is because the child is just right. We don't spend enough time with him. In future posts we'll look at some ways to make connecting with our kids more doable in ways that are fun for both of you. But other times it is more important to focus on the process of agreeing to the activity. The vignette described above is just one of multitudes of ways that we end up as parents getting into something and then feeling resentful at our kids when it could have gone much more smoothly with a little bargaining on the front end.

Bargaining on the front end can apply to anything from playing a game, to letting them watch a movie, to having a friend over. Here is an example of a mother using this idea with her daughter. Mom has some work that she needs to wrap up at the computer, but her eight year old daughter wants her to take a break to play some badminton, "Come on Mom" it will be fun." But mom remembers that last time that she played a game with her daughter she ended up getting a lot of attitude when it was time to wrap up. So instead of getting into the game only to feel frustrated and unappreciated when she needs to stop, she says something like this:

"Well let me see. If I can take a bit and put the work I'm doing on hold, what do you think I'm going to hear when I need to stop. Am I going to hear, 'Mom, you never play with me long enough. You're no fun at all'? Or will I hear something more like, 'Thanks for playing Mom. That was fun.'?"

The child will usually agree to the second option that involves using some social skills and expressing some appreciation. When we ask for that on the front end, the child agrees to the "terms" and in answering the question, the more prosocial words actually come "Up and Out" of their nervous system. Making it much more likely that those words will come to her. It also leaves the parent with more dignity. Reprimanding the child after the fact, rather than doing the bargaining on the front end feels mean spirited to the kid and doesn't do much for our parenting self-concept.

Now any kid worth keeping is often going to forget anyway. When she does, and starts off with "But you never play...", you can interrupt in a calm assertive tone, saying, "Ohhh. What did you say that I was going to hear?" For most kids that is enough to cue them and they'll slide right into the groove of expressing appreciation. When they do it is important to circle back and let them know..."Remember when you asked me to play catch with you, and I had to stop and get dinner going, and you said, thanks for playing. That really felt good. When I hear that it really makes me feel like playing more often." On the other hand, when that isn't enough to cue them, then you can wait until the next invite, and express some sadness..."Remember last time we played checkers, and when I had to stop, you scowled at me and kept that up for the next hour. I'm not sure I'm up for that today. But try me tomorrow. If you let me know what your plan is for that, I bet I'll feel more like playing.

So don't get into the activity and end up feeling resentful. Talk about the terms on the front end. Use "Up and Out of the Kid" to prime your child to be successful. And play more often.

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GTD Flow Chart Made Outwardly Beautiful Too

2008-07-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is from over at anabubula. I think I'll keep my Portland Japanese Gardens rock garden on my phone, but it makes a nice little jpg reference that I have tucked in a GTD reference folder on my desktop. It will certainly suit some folks tastes more than David Allen's more corporate blackline master. Enjoy, however you use it. Thanks to anabubula for creating it and making it available.

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Another Bump in the Technology Road for Yours Truly

2008-07-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

In my travels around the blogosphere I ran into Disqus (pronounced discuss). And like so many of my technology adventures go, I ran over a nail and now have to pull over for repairs. I'll explain first what I was after. The idea of Disqus, so far as I understand it is that comments from your various blogging interactions on your own blog and where you leave comments elsewhere all end up in one place. The idea is that hypothetically someone could click the little Disqus badge in the comments section and see how you are commenting on other blogs, and see all the other folks commenting on Awareness * Connection all in one easy place, without having to go to each article and click the comments link at the bottom.

At any rate, the buttons on the settings at Disqus that say to keep all the comments you already have on your blog did not work as expected. So for now, and possibly forever, those first comments have disappeared into the ether. The upside is that the comments feature is now working (it appears). I'm done messing with html templates for now so I think I'll just leave it as is for now. I always hope that I'm on my way to getting that stuff, but it so often turns out like this. When will I learn and just accept my inner luddite, or get weathy enough that I can hire a blogging consultant to do all html grunt work?

By the way, in my efforts to increase my "web presence" and get traffic to Enjoy Parenting Again as well as to Awareness * Connection, in part so I don't need to pay Google for Adwords so people can find me when they search "Parenting" or "Counseling" and "Portland", I've begun a sister site over at Tumblr. It will have a lot of overlapping content, but will include some more informal things. I may start posting the recipes over there in the interest of keeping Awareness * Connection lean and mean in its mission.

So far I would recommend Tumblr. It is free site. It is very straightforward and requires a lot less work than a more traditional blog like this. I was up and running with a few initial tidbits, right off the bat. It has preformatted, easy to use entry forms for photos, quotes, articles, links and more. Anyway, my overall purpose seems to be working so far. Folks are now finding me on their own, and Google doesn't get to skim $90 plus a month off my earnings.

Who's in Charge Around Here? You or the Clutter?

2008-07-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

A frequent theme on Awareness * Connection is productivity and organization in service of making life simpler and reducing the spillover from work, bills, home and car maintenance, etc into the truly important areas of our life, our relationships and our passions. The Getting Things Done approach is fantastic for managing all those areas that like to take over, so that they can be dealt with effectively and efficiently. One potential problem though is that we can begin to put all sorts of things on our next action lists that involve maintaining and organizing all manner of things that are essentially clutter—miscellaneous crap that subtracts from the quality of our lives. The phrase the more you own, the more you are owned comes to mind, and seems to be true on multiple levels. So without taking a look at the clutter issue, we can end up being really effective and efficient with a bunch of junk that gets in the way of living a more fulfilling and rewarding life. This reminds me of Stephen Covey's quip about making sure that before you start getting all excited about how quickly you are scurrying up the ladder, you might want to check to ensure it is against the correct building.

I've got a couple of other books on the docket before It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh. He's the guy from TLC show Clean Sweep. But I'm definitely looking forward to checking it out and looking a little more closely at this aspect of my life. Merlin Mann of 43Folders has high praise for this book. He's in a good place to talk about it judging from his frequent posting about his own batttle with clutter. This has apparently come to a head in his role as a relatively new father.

I love this title of one of his posts on this: Clutter War II: Attack of the Giant Baby. Boy, he's hit on a big one here. You'd think raising a baby in our current culture entails needing a Lincoln Navigator and a house that would fit at least a couple other families if we didn't have all the stuff. Notice that in the advertising working to convince us that we need all of it, that everything these days with babies involves a "system"—a stroller system, a carseat system...a diaper bag system?!?. Not that some of the stuff isn't really innovative and cool, but let's reign it in a bit here folks. Is it really a diaper bag system?

So just starting by asking, Do I really need, or even want all this stuff in my life? Is it really helping me live the sort of life I want? seem to me like questions worth asking. I'll close with this post with The Hidden Side of What You Own from Think Simple Now. It's a very worthwhile crash course on the same topic as Walsh's book, and a nice place to stimulate a few ideas.

What kinds of things are clutter magnets for you?

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An iPhone 2.0 Day of Ups & Downs for Me

2008-07-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

Thursday

Up: New version of iTunes is here. Here we go.
Up: The app store is now open. Check all this out.

Up: Lots of free apps.

Down: No scrabble for iPhone.
Up: I just bought some apps. Esp the OmniFocus app I've been craving to sync with my iPhone. The desktop version is the all time greatest GTD app by a mile. Synchage could be amazing.
Down: No iPhone 2.0 yet.
Down: No midnight release.
Down: No 1 am release.

Friday Morning
Down: I am tired.
Way Up: Oh here it is, iPhone 2.0!
Up: Loading of 2.0 going fine.
Up: It's done! Here we go.
Down: Not activating. iTunes error -4. Try again later. How about now? Two seconds is later.
Down: More -4 errors
Repeat 146 times like a lab mouse tapping a bar for electrical brain stimulation, minus the pleasure quotient.
Go to the gym.
Get back from the gym.
Down: !@$#@, more of the -4.

Repeat 23 times.
Up: I read a blog entry on a sure fire way to get through. Hope running high.
Down: Doesn't work.
Down: Lots more reading. More -4 error. !@$#

Friday Mid Day
Up: Another suggestion on a blog.
Way up: It actuall worked, see previous post! iPhone 2.0 is up and running.
Up: Testing out apps.

Up: Email multiple delete! This is awesome. Didn't realize how nice this could be.
Up: SplashID password storage for iPhone.

Up: Free voice notes with Jott or Evernote.

Down: I can barely hear the recorded message. The iPhone (1st gen) speaker phone is an achilles heel, always has been.

Up: I'm keeping my 1st gen iPhone anyways. Steve Jobs doesn't get another influx of money from me yet.
Up: FileMagnet to read word docs, pdfs and more on iphone. Does it enable using iPhone as a disk?

Up: Cool desktop counterpart to the iPhone app to upload files. Syncs effortlessly.
Down: FileMagnet doesn’t have a landscape feature. Hard to read docs. Okay for looking for text you already know is in there. I suggest landscape to developer.
Up: Developer assures me it is in demand and is coming.
Up: PocketPedia. I can look up and store info on an pics of books.
Down: Doesn't sync.
Up: Multiple home screen function that was introduced a while back is very handy with all these new apps.
Up: OmniFocus very cool on the iPhone. Can't wait to get it synced to my Mac. Location aware contexts could be huge change for civilization, well maybe for GTDers.
Down: Can't get OmniFocus to Sync.
Down: Lots of reading about how to do it.
Down: More reading.
Down: Had to buy space on BingoDisk server that I wouldn't otherwise want.
Down: Lots of time setting up.
Down: More time setting up.

Friday Close to Midnight
Up: I have achieved synchage. Woohoo. My primary purpose fulfilled.
Up: Playing around with possibilities.
Down: Uh Oh. Entries (next actions) missing from OmniFocus (OF) on Mac.
Up: Looks like I've got it corrected.
Down: Nope. More entries missing.
Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down
Big down: No synching that works for me. I'm not a techie. Even the friendly helpful folks at Omni haven't gotten me through it.
Up: Beginning to accept that synching aint gonna happen until their Mac software is no longer in apha. Sigh. This hasn't exactly been an example of getting things done, has it?

Big downs: Way too much time fiddling around with software, on forums asking questions, getting my hopes up for a yet another new solution, only to find it wouldn't work, trying out options that lead to dead ends. This drives me nuts about computers and technology. Computers are fantastic when they are working smoothly. Incredible. But too damn often they aren't. At their best they save time, enhance creativity and planning, and generally make things beautiful. Other days they are a giant time suck, doing exactly the opposite of what we've created them to do. And then there are days like iPhone 2.0 day. Up and down. Too much down. I'm tired now. I should convert back to paper and pen. Where is my Moleskine notebook?

Pretty big ups: Multiple email delete! Separate calendars in iCal. Search in Contacts. Separate contacts app so you don't have to open the phone and go to contacts. Finally possible ways to synch notes, though I haven't found the one I like yet. OF-iPhone is pretty cool, potential to be off-the-charts cool when it syncs, and within a few weeks I think it may work for non techies like me. App store is up and running, very promising. Apps update easily through iTunes, so initial kinks could be worked out pretty quickly. It will be interesting to see how the prices, which are now all over the map, shake out.

If you can't afford OmniFocus for your mac, do get the iPhone version. At $20, if it is your primary version of OF, it is a deal. When it syncs properly it will be a steal and will be an unbeatable productivity combo. I look forward to it.

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iPhone 2.0 Activation Fix. Get Through Server Overload

2008-07-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here is the fix that finally got me through after hours of hitting the okay button on the -4 iTunes error message:

1) When the error message comes up hit okay, but Do Not Disconnect your iPhone.
2) Quit iTunes
3) Relaunch iTunes
4) Voila. If you had the same luck I did, you're likely breathing easier now just like me.

Hope this helps.

Shared Control: The Art of Offering Choices Within Limits

2008-07-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

At some level we are all aware that sharing control with children is essential. As I mentioned in my last post, kids get bossed around all day. Others decide what they can eat, what they should watch on television, who they can play with, etc. I'm not suggesting that this shouldn't be the case. The adult should be making a lot of these decisions. But think about this from your child's perspective for a minute. It would drive us nuts if our boss, for instance, had that much control over our lives.

So the idea of sharing control with kids is to do it both consciously and wisely. One of the most widely used and time tested ways to share control with kids is to offer choices within limits.

Many parents have heard that it is good to offer choices, and have tried it. There are lots of places to go wrong though. The one I see frequently go awry is offering a child two choices intending that he will pick one of them. So the first tip is to make sure to only offer choices where you'd be fine with the child going for either option. You know deep down that if you have one you really are wanting him to go with, he's going for the other. We forget this fact in the heat of the moment though.

Offer most choices when things are going smoothly. Sure choices can, and should be used to set limits as well. In fact, lots of choice both share control and set limits. But choices work best when they are mostly offered on things that really don't matter much to the adult. Jim Fay often quips that there are two places to share control: 1) where we don't really need it, and 2) where we never had it to begin with. I love the second of these two because there are often things that we waste all sorts of our energy trying to control when there is about as much chance of us pulling it off as the family dog does of finally catching his tail.

Now when you offer choices like these inevitably our cherubs will occasionally pick a third option that is not on the list. Sometimes when things aren't going smoothly in the home, kids will do this most of the time. This can drive a parent to the brink pretty quickly. "I'm trying to give him some choices, and he NEVER cooperates." See my next post on choices for how to handle this twist on shared control.

The photo above was taken by Alatriste of his nephew. You can see more of his creative, clever shots on Flickr.

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Four Ways to Effectively Handle Arguing

2008-07-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

It can be really aggravating when you ask a child to do something reasonable and you get arguing in response. There are a wide array of ways that this can be handled effectively. One thing to keep in mind is that an important and often overlooked part of the mission is that you as the adult model ways to take good care of yourself.

Communicate some empathy. No matter what the circumstances, starting off with some empathy can never hurt. “Looks like you’re not to happy about TV being over for the day” “You really wish I’d let you go over to Ian’s house. I can understand you being frustrated with me.” What is counterintuitive, but very powerful is being empathetic, but still maintaining the reasonable limit. You can be pleasant to be around as a parent and still set reasonable boundaries and limits.

Use an enforceable statement. “I’ll be happy to talk about this when your voice is calm like mine.” We’ve covered enforceable statements before. The essence is that in a positive tone you describe what you are willing to do, provide or allow, and under what circumstances.

Walk away. This is especially powerful and helpful if 1) you have already made an enforceable statement, repeated it once calmly, and the child continues with the arguing; or 2) in some circumstances when the child is being especially obnoxious, you can pair the enforceable statement with immediately walking away. This is one of many examples of how to enhance your credibility as a parent. As they say at the Love and Logic Institute you “Say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say you’ll do.”

Circle back around at a calmer time. One very easy error to slide into as parents is trying to work things out in the heat of the moment. If you’ve implemented one of the above suggestions, it can help strengthen your connection with your child to check back in later when things are calm. At that calmer time you can note the child’s frustration and 1) simply acknowledge it without doing anything else, 2) invite them to talk about the situation, or 3) invite them to go back to the drawing board with you and collaboratively work on exploring other ways to look at, and work with the situation that the arguing was about. Looking more closely at collaborative problem solving certainly deserves its own set of posts. When you circle back like this fairly regularly, it makes it easier for your child to cooperate since they have some say and won't tend to feel pushed around. When you stop to think about it, kids do have to put up with a lot of adults making the decisions. By circling back and acknowledging how they feel, it makes this more tolerable. As the late Haim Ginott, the wonderful child psychologist, put it. The child should either have "voice or choice". In other words if they can't have some say in the matter, they should at least be able to protest, especially if done reasonably.

Whatever you do with arguing, the one thing to avoid is arguing back in the heat of the moment. Losing your composure ratchets down your parenting credibility quotient, and it never seems to help resolve the issue at hand. For maximum effectiveness jot these tips down and put them somewhere you can refer back to. Post its, as always are your best friend.

What age are your kids and what sorts of things do they tend to argue about? Have you had any successes trying out any of these four principles, or some related one?

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Using Children's Books for Difficult Topics

2008-07-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of using books with young kids for discussing difficult topics. Though we may have the best of intentions, with young children, it is just not a good developmental fit to sit across from them and simply talk about a difficult topic as we might with a friend or much older child. Of course it's not that conversations aren't appropriate at all. Though there are some tricks as far as timing and context that can help, which I'll cover in a separate post. Picture books are wonderful though for topics ranging from grief, to moving, to divorce and blended families. Kids naturally just enjoy picture books and being read to. During challenging times when your child might need one of these books they need cuddling more than usual. Reading with them invites to satisfy that healthy need in a context that feels natural doesn't make them feel awkward.

During these difficult times, kids also very much benefit from repetition. The repetition of coming back to a book is in and of itself soothing. By listening to a book read to them or looking at books on their own, they can continue to approach a difficult topic, like divorce or death or even a first visit to the dentist, again and again as they settle into adjusting to the difficult issue in their lives. Prior to a bladder surgery when my daughter was in Kindergarten, she began adjusting to this big life event by coming back to the book several times about staying the night in the hospital.

Books like this have another huge valuable affect. That is that it is much easier to talk about a book or a character in a book than it is to talk directly about their own feelings. It is much less threatening and allows them a bit of emotional distance that can make the topic more approachable. Older kids often benefit in a similar way from books that are just text.

There are a wide array of books on topics like these. For me a great place to start if you're stumped on books for the biggies is with Marc Brown, the author of the well known Arthur books. His style of illustration is soothing, and often familiar. He hits all the specifics of the difficult topic in a very straightforward, understandable way.

As a side note, these aren't just for kids. As adults, especially with the death of a loved one, it hits us hard in a tender very child-like place. I've heard lots of adults talk about benefitting from reading books that were meant for their children. The one I've most often heard about this with is Tear Soup. You can even see in the reviews some adults talking about being touched by this "children's book" when they lost a spouse. So if you have a child in your life that is struggling with one of life's big topics from the death of a pet or family member, to having a medical procedure done, to a divorce or separation, consider a book on the topic.

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The Prozac Goose Chase. Why Prozac Probably Works Differently Than We Thought

2008-07-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

The Boston Globe reports on a theory that I'd heard about a while back that seems to be gaining traction, amassing evidence to support it, Head Fake: How Prozac Sent the Science of Depression in the Wrong Direction. The idea is that rather than depression being due to a shortage of some neurotransmitter or other, that it is actually due to neurons (brain cells) shrinking and dying in much the same way as they do in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The only difference being that with depression the damage appears to be reversible. This new theory also might account for the phenomenon known as the "Prozac lag" where despite the serotonin levels increasing in patients hours after taking the drug, the decrease in depression takes weeks. This points to the serotonin explanation just not explaining what is going on. Fascinating stuff. It will be interesting to see how things shake out with the evidence over time.

Seven Inside Tips for Mastering New Skills

2008-07-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Be patient with yourself. This is the most important one. People often have unrealistic expectations for how quickly they are going to master a new behavior. This unrealistic expectation sets up for early discouragement.
Pick one or two new skills to focus on. Don't try to change everything at once. Just as it makes sense to help your kids to work on only one or two new skills at a time, you should do the same with yourself. As number 3 below will explain, you need to give your brain time to change. It is not an instantaneous process. Accepting that fact and working with it vastly increases the odds of your success.
Don't confuse understanding with mastery. Lots of times when parents hear about a new skill, like enforceable statements for instance, and have an exciting moment of insight into how it would help and why, and some become disappointed when they go home and end up doing the same thing they did before they learned about the new skill. The insight was important, very important, but the way the brain works dictates that it take some time and repetition for a new habit to form. Your brain is actually altering physical neural connections and is forming new ones. It doesn't happen all at once, as nice as that would be.
Understand how your brain works. In the heat of the moment our brains very automatically shift into what psychologists call over-learned skills, that is skills that we've practiced over and over and over. So if we usually get upset and yell at our kids, in a moment of stress, our brain will tend to powerfully veer toward that old way of doing things. This is not your fault. It is just how the brain works.
Use visual cues. The veering to overlearned skills is the reason why when you have a new skill you want to master you need to get it to the forefront of your mind, over and over. Post its are your best friend for acquiring new skills. Slap them on the bathroom mirror, on the door jamb of your closet. If you have young kids, stick them on the fridge (they can't read yet). These not only might remind you in the heat of the moment of the skill you could use, they also function to create repetition. Every time you see the post it reminding you of the skill, it reinforces those newly forming connections, which neurology textbooks explain, will make them stronger.
Create a learning loop. Make a habit of reviewing regularly, maybe before bed or at breakfast, how you did on the one or two new skills you're working on. Without judgment review how things went. How did you handle the situation? If you yelled or phrased what you said to your child in an unhelpful way, picture how you would say it according to the new skill. Picture the scenario and visualize your calmly doing what you hope to be able to do in the future. The key is to do with with number 1 in mind.
Count awareness as progress. Parents who give themselves credit for at least realizing after the fact that they could have done something differently are the same ones who go on to make changes in their relationships with their kids that make life more enjoyable for everyone involved. Those who don't usually get discouraged and give up on the new skill before it has a chance to take root. This is one of many reasons why awareness is half of the name of this blog.

Now you're ready to select one or, at most, two skills and make them yours. With patience and realistic expectations about how your brain makes changes, you can make them happen. I see who are equipped with this knowledge do it all the time.

Also this article I did over at GTDtimes looks a bit more in-depth at the dance we do with the unconscious, automatic parts of our mind every time we try to take on a complex new skill, which includes any interpersonal skills, and especially parenting. The idea is essential for understanding why we often commit to ourselves to do something and then are puzzled when we just don't follow through. I think you'll enjoy it.

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Quick Rant on Leaving Comments

2008-07-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

I know at least two people have mentioned that they tried to leave a comment and weren't able to because the protocol for leaving it is not all that intuitive. Though I'm grateful for the Blogger software, which overall is very well-designed, especially considering the price (free), I have to agree with the critique for comments.

At the bottom of each post, you see a envelope icon. Kind of looks like where you'd leave a comment doesn't it? Especially given the context that it's at the bottom of the post. It's not the place. That's where you email the link to the post to your friend. The word "comments" is down there too, but there is no icon to click on. By now, some readers newer to blogs have already given up on leaving a comment. Now you blog savvy folks would have no problem, but let's not come down with a case of expert-itis. Keep in mind that at one time all of us were figuring out how this stuff worked.

Here's How
Turns out that you leave the comment by clicking on the word "comments" itself. The actual word is the link, though there is no underlining before you run your mouse over it to indicate that. So those of you who have tried to leave comments without success, give it another go. For those of you who haven't left any, go ahead and press the comment link. Say whatever is on your mind. Leave your mark. It'll do ya good.

What You're Not Saying That Says So Much

2008-07-03T23:50:00.001-07:00

Early in my teaching career I learned about a concept that first got me thinking seriously about just how important our use of language can be when talking to kids. I overheard a skilled, veteran teacher making a mistake with a kid. I remember clearly that it was a group of first graders walking down the hallway. One of the kids was messing around in line. His teacher walked up to him, took him by the arm and escorted him to the back of the line. While she was walking him, she said something along the lines of "Since you can't behave yourself, you can go to the end of the line." Even as inexperienced as I was at the time, it occurred to me, "You know, I think she just told that kid that he can't behave himself. I'm not sure that's really a message that is in her interest to give to him, much less in his interest." As I reflect on this, I think just hearing that interaction and realizing its importance was probably a major influence to my deciding to change my career to working more closely with children, families and adults as a parent coach and therapist.

Now like all of us, at some of my, shall we say, less than stellar moments, I make this exact sort of mistakes. Lots of times I'll even be aware that I'm doing it and still not be able to pull it together in the moment. What is going on in these interactions, often below the level of what is actually said, is that there is an implicit message. The gist of that message generally says one of two things. It says either, "You're a capable kid," or "You're not capable." Now any single sentence said to a child is not likely to harm her over the long term. The problem would seem to come from repeatedly hearing You're Not Capable messages, and hearing relatively few of the other sort.

To get more of a handle on this principle lets look at an example with a younger child. You could say, "If you don't start eating politely, you're going to be heading to your room." You could even add "Mr." to the end for emphasis. Not quite as bad as the one in the teacher example above, but still not in the You're Capable camp. An alternative way of saying something like this might be, "We'd love to have you eating here with us as long as you're using your manners." Notice that both ways of stating this are getting at setting the exact same limit with the child, about eating at the table. But the second not only sounds more inviting, it implies that the child has good manners and has an option of whether to use them or not. On a side note, it also sounds like the adult wants to be with him. Most importantly it implies that he's capable and in control of his behavior, a message we want him to hear again and again.

Another variation on the example above is to use the Up and Out of the Kid principle that I originally heard described by Betsy Geddes, a former Portland Elementary School principal and a colleague of Jim Fay's. I'd heard other use the strategy, but no one seemed to call it anything or have a name for it. I've used that phrase ever since to describe the idea to clients.

Up and Out means rather than simply telling a child something (which often tends to slide into unhelpful lectures filled with inadvertent You're Not Capable messages) asking a key question that brings the answer up and out of the child's nervous system. This might sound like, "Geoff, if the goofing around at the table continues, what's your best guess about what might happen?" said in a friendly, confident voice. This not only invites the child to think through likely results of his behavior giving a chance to change course, it also sends a subtle and powerful message, "Geoff, I think you are a responsible and smart enough kid that you can figure this out with just a brief prompt. I don't need to spell it out for a sharp kid like you."

A big way that you can incorporate this into your parenting or work with kids is to start out by just listening to how you and others talk. When you have a sense that a You're Not Capable message was imbedded in what was said, try to imagine what the alternative way of phrasing it might be. If you can't think of it in the moment, write it down and post it as a question in the comments section and we can brainstorm You're Capable alternatives right here at Awareness * Connection.

And don't get down on yourself when you find yourself giving your child You're Not Capable messages. The most highly trained of us still do it. We all do from time to time. The first and most important step is simply increasing awareness (note the name of the blog). If you give yourself credit for that first step of just awareness, you'll likely move on to become increasingly effective in communicating with children in ways that invite long term responsible behavior.

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The Joys of Ziti

2008-07-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

I have only recently discovered the joys of baked ziti. I think I actually first became aware of the dish when watching the Sopranos. I made my first one based on this recipe by Mario Batali with a balsamella sauce: Baked Ziti al Telefono. The name refers to the cheese being nice and stringy and apparently reminding some Italian folks of telephone wires. With this nice little allusion, combined with a passing resemblance to some sort of fancy macaroni and cheese, lots of kids will enjoy this one too.

The balsamella sauce itself isn't included in the recipe above. I'm not sure why. Luckily it is pretty straight forward and happens to be posted here. This version of baked ziti is delicious, but very rich. I cut down on some of the mozerella and substituted some meatballs that I cut up into smaller bite sized bits. Lots of Italian dishes I don't mind eating for a few nights in a row, but this one, due to the richness is a once in a while kind of thing. Luckily Ziti freezes very well. A half batch of this one might be a nice size to start with. Perfect for those smaller square casserole pans.

If you try this, let us know how it turned out, any substitutions you made and any of your other adventures in the Land of Ziti.

Tomorrow I am putting one together that is simplier and a few notches less rich. I'm just using a meat sauce I made today and am combining it with some chopped, grilled chicken that I have left over from the quesadillas we're having tonight, and some cubed mozerella, all topped off with some bread crumbs and a bit of romano cheese. The grilled chicken and the ground beef (in my sauce) combo might not work for purists, but with gas prices as they are and the way they in turn are pushing up the cost of everything, food included, I'm enjoying getting creative with ways to make sure no good food gets wasted. And ziti saves the day in this department, being endlessly alterable and able accommodate a wide range of leftover ingredients that might otherwise get tossed. Also the combo of beef and chicken could be a nice excuse to have a glass of red wine and a glass of white as well.

Soon I'll post a recent iteration of my meat sauce. It has been fun improvising with them. By the way, the book that got me started with Italian sauces back when Erin was pregnant with Hannah (going on 9 years ago now) is appropriately enough Pasta Sauces by Charles Bellissino. I got a lot of the ideas for variations on sauces from him.

Buon Appetito!

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Be the Trend Setter

2008-07-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've been very encouraged by the traffic this blog has been getting. It is fascinating to see people reading from everywhere from South Africa to Texas to Stockholm. This Internet stuff is amazing. And to think that it wasn't even around a couple decades ago. As encouraging the traffic is and as grateful as I am for the readership, I'd love to see folks weigh in with comments.

All it is going to take to make this more of a community affair that can be even more useful and fun for readers is for a couple folks to weigh with comments. You can be the one who got it all started.

Gorslini's Fabulous Quesadillas

2008-06-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

Well the kitchen has been finished for a few weeks, so where are all the new blog posts you might be wondering? Well I've been using the new kitchen more than I ever dreamed I would, which has translated into less computer time. I often seem to do this in life where I rediscover something that in the past I very much enjoyed, but have just gotten away from for one reason or another. In this case, I partially fell out of the habit of cooking due to the particularly bad electric stove we just got rid of. Actually all of our appliances were well overdue for an upgrade. But part of it is just the way I seem to loose track of some activities and later rediscover them.

I made a lot of my tuition money for college by cooking at a fairly upscale seafood restaurant. The food was very good there overall. I started as a prep cook and ended up working just about all of the kitchen positions, cooking on the line, making all the sauces and chowders, cutting expensive fish we got flown in and even working the oyster bar for a year or so.

I'd always enjoyed cooking since I was a teen (I started out with pizza). But cooking in college I managed to learn enough to get me started with a pretty good array of dishes that I'm comfortable cooking and improvising with. I rarely stick to a single recipe these days for any given dish. Most dishes that I cook, if I don't already have basic strategy in mind from memory, I research by looking up several recipes from various sources and get a feel for the basic ingredients, cooking strategies and some of the common variations. I then get started and just follow my intuition where it takes me. Usually it works out pretty well. Occasionally it goes south, but I always learn from those.

The three cuisines that I most frequently draw from in my cooking are Mexican, Italian and Asian (primarily Chinese, but lots of others as well). Lately we've been eating a lot of fresh guacamole and salsas. We've been having variations on these quesadillas once in a while lately.

Here is a nice summer time recipe for some quesadillas and homemade pico de gallo tossed with avocado to go along with it:

Ingredients
flour tortillas (burrito size)
1 chicken breast
1 1/2 cups jack or mozzarella cheese
2 tsp olive oil (more if you sautee the chicken above)
1 or 2 cloves garlic (more if you sautee the chicken above.
1 jalapeños
1 jar Mexican green salsa (tomatillo based). You can find this in ethnic sections of many grocery stores. If not any mexican market will have it or in a pinch you could substitute pureed salsa.
1 small avocado
1 lime
1 medium tomato (deseeded)
2 green onions chopped finely
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
1/2 bermuda red onion minced
freshly ground pepper to taste
salt to taste

To prep the chicken, since it is summer the easiest way would be to grill with some garlic power and light salt and pepper. Alternatively you can also dice the chicken breasts and saute them with fresh garlic, olive oil and a little salt pepper. Poaching also works fine. If you grill or poach them, let them cool before dicing, and set aside.

Pico de gallo
Deseed the tomato. Cut off both ends of the tomato and set them aside to dice after deseeding the main part. Cut the remaining part of the tomato in half ("along the equator"). Use your finger to dislodge the seeds and pulp from inside the tomato. Check it with your fingers from the top and bottom. The pulp can be used in a spagetti sauce or just discarded. Dice the tomato, and the red onion. Other kinds of onions can be substituted, but the red ones look particulary good in this pico de gallo. Chop the green onions and cilantro finely. Set aside a couple teaspoons of each. Make sure to rinse the cilantro in particular because it is often gritty. This is a good idea with all your produce of course. If you want hot pico de gallo, leave the seeds and the veins in the jalepeño. Other wise use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and the veins (the white stuff). Mince the jalepeños finely. You may want to use latex gloves. Other wise be careful not to rub your face (or other sensitive areas ;0) ) until your hands are washed afterward. Mince the garlic and add. Juice half the lime into a separate cup to ensure you don't get seeds into your gallo, then add to the other ingredients. Add the olive oil. Salt lightly and add fresh ground pepper to taste. Mix the ingredients well. Add the diced avocado last and toss. Adding it after the mixing the other ingredients prevents it from getting mashed up...much prettier. Taste again and add salt and pepper or more jalepeños if necessary

Note: To judge the heat of your jalepeños let the pico de gallo sit for a half hour. Like salt, it is best to start a bit low on peppers and add more if you want it hotter. It is very hard to adjust if you get to much of salt or jalepeños. The perceived heat increases over the half hour.

Putting Together and Cooking
Place tortillas on a large cookie sheet. Half of the tortilla can be hanging off for this part if you are short on space. Place a couple tablespoons of the greens salsa on half the tortilla and spread around. Add enough of the cheese to cover the green salsa (just a bit more than you would on a pizza). Don't get too close to the edges or the cheese will melt out of the tortilla. Sprinkle the cooked chicken on the cheese and sprinke a bit of the green onions and cilantro over all the ingredients. Fold the tortilla over the ingredents. Bake or broil at 500. If you broil, turn the quesadilla over as soon as the cheese is half melted. When mostly melted remove, place on a cutting board and cut into 4 pieces like a pizza. It will continue to melt for a couple minutes. Serve with the Pico de gallo and avocado in a mound on the other half of the plate or in a ramekin (little glass or metal cup). You may also serve with a dollop of sour cream.

If you have pico de gallo in a restaurant that isn't all that good, you'll now know some of the secret ingredients that might be missing. Common culprits are olive oil, lime juice, fresh garlic, low on the cilantro or under seasoned.

In a pinch you can just use store bought salsa and guacamole (preferably good ones from a nice grocery store). Later I'll have to toss in one of my authentic guac recipes. That is even easier than the pico and is always a hit. I never have leftovers after social gatherings.

Enjoy.

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Alter Your Information Diet

2008-06-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

I just came across a blog with all sorts of useful information called the Positivity Blog by Henrik Edberg. I like the way that most of the articles are along the the lines of lists of practical tips, usually with the number of items in the list included in the title. An example is this article that I first came across linked from Merlin Mann's 43 Folders site: 5 Compelling Reasons to Adjust Your Information Diet. It is worth linking to here as one of the themes I am coming across frequently in my work with individuals and families is that information clamors for our attention 24/7. The amount of it available is vast, but only certain bits of it are worth our time to sift out, much like panning for gold. One television show flows into another, and each web page links to several others, so it is easy to just keep following the information on rabbit trails that may or may not lead anywhere. With that in mind, check out the links.
Image above from a second story (License)

A Catterpillar, a Butterfly and Swarms of Contractors

2008-05-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

With the help of a couple of new inhalers, I've finally broken through to the other side. With the weather turning and being able to breath more freely—not having a fever is always nice too—I feel a bit like a butterfly crawling out of my cocoon.

And speaking of insects, just outside my cocoon is the remainder of the swarm of contractors that have been doing everything from replacing old galvanized plumbing that looks like the arteries of someone who really loved bacon and mayonnaise, to replacing a dangerously outdated electrical panel, to pruning some giant walnut trees that were shedding more branches than leaves throughout the year. The latest swarm just wrapped up putting in some countertops. They let us know just as they began the installation that we would have to wait 24 hours before the plumbers to come and hook things back up (the plumbers we already had scheduled a week out to come and hook our sink fixtures and disposal back up that afternoon). I always enjoy hearing that sort of thing at the last minute. Luckily my plumbers are good guys and aren't going to charge us for leaving them hanging for the 1 o'clock that we'd blocked out early in the week.

One unfortunate side effect of my bout with the flu is that my meeting with my web designer got pushed out 3 weeks, which puts it in the last week of May. It is driving me nuts to see my site falling further and further out of date. But I am grateful to have this blog. And at least I can keep those of you who check in here up to date til the site in humming along again.

I continue to be very excited about the effect that the effect that the Getting Things Done approach is having on my stress level. This is by far the most organized, and comfortably so, that I've been in my lifetime. I'm finding the approach helpful enough that when I'm able to update the site again, I am going to be describing some coaching focused on dealing with the email and "To Do" flood, and the treadmill that so many people feel like they are on that is going just a few notches faster than they can comfortably keep up with.

What I'm finding in my practice is that as skilled as people are in their interpersonal relationships, and no matter how dedicated they are to them, it is hard to enjoy them when the taking care of business aspects of life continually feel out of control. The idea is that in conjunction with parent coaching or individual counseling, many clients would enjoy having the option of learning some practical, proven methods of dealing with the pile of information they have to mine for the nuggets that can be found throughout.

Well only a couple more weeks until my meeting with the web designer. So check the blog in the meantime and watch for site improvements and new coaching offerings toward the beginning of June.

I Had it Coming, Apparently

2008-05-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

If I'm recalling correctly I got through the entire fall and winter without a single cold or flu incident this year. Now that it is spring time I'm on my third round, and this last one has been a real doozy. This one I guess you call a cold because of all the nasal and cough symptoms, but the fever that won't stay down, the chills, the sweats and all that make me want to call it the flu. Whatever it is I feel like I haven't slid by this year after all. I've made up for it this spring, and the bulk of it this round.

I have to remain grateful though. When I was teaching I used to get this knock you on your back for the good part of a week kind of flu stuff at least a couple times per year. I haven't had anything like this in several years, and I never get it with the regularity I did when teaching. So I guess when I look at the long haul my immune system is likely doing its job. So I hope those of you outside soaking up the springtime sun enjoy it a bit more than usual on my behalf.

Merlin Mann and the 43 Folders

2008-04-27T10:59:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that I'm writing more on Merlin. I am fascinated with his site 43 Folders. I am growing to really love this guy's nerdy, offbeat and tenacious approach to getting organized. I've posted before about finding the ideas that David Allen outlines in his book Getting Things Done very useful. But there is a formality about it that seems to be aimed at business folks that just isn't nearly as fun as Merlin Mann's quirky take on productivity.

What's to Love

He talks about all the struggles and foibles of chasing after the latest "hacks" (shortcuts or approaches). He is a quirky guy who uses catchy slang and has a predilection for wearing gas station coats and hip glasses.
Merlin has a young daughter, which makes his quest for a reasonably organized life all the more realistic for all of us who are parents.
His goal is not productivity for productivity's sake or aimed at the common theme in the productivity literature on getting wealthy or becoming powerful. He does talk about how to make more money more easily and how to become more influential, but it is not because money is the priority. Any focus on money is in service of living a full, meaningful, enjoyable life where you can focus on the things that matter most to you.
It is productivity in service of living a meaningful, enjoyable life.
Humor is sprinkled liberally throughout the site. For some, this could be a downside if your sense of humor is not a match with his. But I think for most folks, it makes his site approachable. You learn about how to be more productive, but it feels like you're playing when you're learning about it.
There are tons of very practical recommendations on everything from filing accouterments to the best pens to easy to use software that fits in with his approach. We even bought a little flip video camera based on his recommendation.
There are multiple ways to enjoy the content. Throughout the site you can find links to other useful sites, to books that look at things more in depth, to The Merlin Show, where Merlin interviews different folks about their approaches to creativity and productivity. There are also videos of full blown presentation. Some of those I wish showed a little more of him, and a bit less of his presentation slides, but they are still good.
He has All Time Most Popular Posts and Classics links right at the top of the home page, so that new visitors can immediately dive in to the most powerful concepts (or the funniest stuff).

What's Not to Love

About my only gripe really isn't much of a gripe. I just wish there were even more content being added since I'm getting so much out of it. This seems a bit like criticizing a delicious meal because it makes you want to eat more.

PS I hate the way this Blogger software messes up the spacing after you make a bulleted or numbered list. Not sure if this is a Mac only problem. I am on Fire Fox. Anyone else run into this problem? I'll have to check on our PC to see if it looks the same there. Anyway, I am hoping that this is one of the things that gets taken care of with my site refresh, getting a blog hosted on my own domain. Don't worry I'll make sure there are links from the current site so you can keep in touch.

Enjoy Parenting Again, Again

2008-04-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe, but it has been about seven years since my friends Amy and Reese designed my Enjoy Parenting Again logo and my website. They did it back when I started up teaching parenting classes again, toward the end of my graduate work at Lewis & Clark in Counseling Psychology. Over the years since Amy and Reese first got me launched Erin did the maintenance on the site for me, attaching new PDFs to the resources page and updating the speaking events page periodically to show what was coming up and where I had completed events. She even created new navigation buttons when I added new pages or links (for this blog for instance). Maybe not so hard for web design folks, but working 50 hour plus at the time, and doing that site maintenance for me after wrapping work in the evenings was challenging and appreciated.

Well Erin recently got a new job, and the software she had used to maintain the site is gone along with her commute to Hillsboro (thankfully) and her old laptop. The inability to keep my site up to date is about the only downside of her new job. So I explored some web design software options to see if I could maintain the site as it is. After making my way through more trials than you can shake a stick at, none of them look like they'll do what I'm looking for properly. The template based ones like iWeb and RapidWeaver just don't have a look that fits with the feel I'm after for the site. The more powerful ones that can create the sort of look I'm after, like Dreamweaver, are more complicated than I'm able to allocate time for to learn the software.

So the next step is meeting with a web designer next week to explore options to make the changes needed to give me control of the maintenance, while at least keeping up the current look, and maybe giving it a refresh.

So keep checking back. In a few weeks, there will definitely be new info on the site—I'm looking forward to being able to post pieces as soon as I've written them—and there just might be a new look if the price seems reasonable. I'm hoping that Chigo over at Dogpaw is going to be able to help me out.

Useful Site / Email Ninja Skills

2008-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Time for a next installment on Getting Things Done (GTD). It is becoming increasingly clear that one of the top challenges of our age is sifting through information to mine out what we need. How do you sort through all the junk and marginally useful info to get to the handful of gold? How do you face all piles of paper, or the heap in your inbox to end up with practical, useful information that you can find at the moment it is required?

There are many sites that discuss the GTD principles and share tips and tricks for making life's stuff * easier to handle. But the one I've come across that is the most fun and that is most useful for me so far is 43folders.com. What I like in addition to keen advice by Merlin Mann, a productivity expert in his own right, is that the site takes a community approach where people chime in and share their personal takes on how to implement the principles. The great thing is that though people are able to post, the site still is nice to look at, unlike a lot of bulletin board themed sites. It also appears that there must be some sort of editing process, because I've not yet run into anything that seems off topic or distracting. There is a lot of humor used to keep things light and playful, but be warned, at times it can be a bit crass, if funny. Nothing beyond what you'd see at a PG movie though.

Email is one topic that gets a lot of play on 43folders since it has become a primary means of communication, and a source of a huge amount of our information. So how do you become an email Ninja who can effectively take care of business, and not end up with a very organized maze of folders where your need info gets placed, never to be seen again? This article Five Fast Email Productivity Tips is a good place to begin. My guess is that many of you will end up following links until you've bumped into the areas you most want to go more smoothly. Don't forget to come back and visit Awareness * Connection. In fact, go ahead and put that on your "Soon" next action list.

* David Allen defines "stuff" in GTD as anything that you have allowed into your physical or psychological world that you haven't yet figured out how and when to take action on, or with.

Setting up for Sleep Success

2008-04-09T16:01:00.001-07:00

Time Magazine has a nice little article on children and sleep that touches on the results of a few studies. It starts off with the results of a new study by Valérie Simard of Hôpital de Sacré-Coeur in Montréal, which looked at the link between parent bedtime behaviors and sleep disturbances in children during infancy and early childhood. The study was published by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The gist of it is that you should be wary of of doing things to help your child fall asleep, or fall back asleep, that require your presence for more than several minutes.

If kids begin to rely on you being there in order to fall asleep, they never quite get the hang of what it is like to drift off to sleep on their own. Once the sleep associations are formed they can be challenging to alter, as many parents have found. Dr. Taveras of Harvard Medical School put it this way, "Parents and pediatricians should keep in mind that children have to develop the capacity to regulate their own sleep early in life and self-soothe themselves during the night." The article goes on to discuss the relationship of too little sleep with obesity and also touches on other night time practices that work against you and your child in the long run.

This makes sense to me. My experience as a clinician who works with families is that sleeping with the child to get them to sleep can be very pleasant and can promote bonding. The problem is that it doesn't solve, and actually merely postpones the issue of when the child will master the skill of transitioning from drowsy to asleep when on their own. Parents who do choose a family sleeping arrangement should prepare themselves for the eventuality that they will need to help their child clear this hurdle.

One argument for the family sleeping arrangement that I often hear presented is that in many societies past and present everyone slept in the same bed or in the same very small sleeping quarters. The missing piece from the argument, in my mind though, is that in those societies, that sort of sleeping arrangement continues throughout the entirety of childhood. And there's the rub. Parents in those cultures and societies don't/didn't face having to train a young child to sleep on their own after years of being used to the company of their parents and siblings in close proximity. Parents in our society almost always eventually do have to face that developmental challenge. There are many other factors to consider and I think both arrangements have their pros and cons. I do know though that I've had many parents in my office who wish they'd been advised about this downside before they'd made their decision.

Here is a link to a previous post on the link between adequate sleep and not only cognitive abilities in the short run, but to IQ.

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Getting Things Done: Taxes & Root Canals

2008-03-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

Taxes are finally complete, sent off through cyberspace and satisfyingly checked off my Getting Things Done (GTD) list**. Getting tax stuff done with a lot less stress is one of many examples of how tedious chore type stuff has gone more smoothly for me since I've been using the system...and I have to say, I don't tend to be much of a personal organization "system" type of guy. If I'm able to use it productively, that means that most people would be successful with it. Anyway, getting taxes for the season wrapped up and turned in always feels good no matter what the news turns out to be. Completing taxes happens to be one of the year's bigger "closed loops" for me, as David Allen would put it. And I know from what clients and friends report that I am not the only one who finds it a biggie. Allen describes "loops" as those unfinished tasks, chores, plans, etc. that take up our mental RAM when we haven't taken the time to mentally download them into our system, with the next physical action to be taken identified (the key to having your mental RAM free for creativity, better decision making, and just enjoying yourself).

A couple days ago Erin, my wife, told me that she ended up with both our accountant appointment and her root canal slated for the same day. Instead of Ben Franklin's familiar quip "death and taxes" being the only certainties in life, it's "dental work and taxes". Seems equally true, doesn't it? And maybe one notch less depressing. Anyway, her day was not one most of us would be looking forward to on own calendars. She ended up having a pretty good day all in all, though she did say there was a bit of shoe shopping toward the end of the day for self-soothing purposes. Though I'm sure that the shoes helped, I think something else was going on with her good mood after a day of serious dentistry and reckoning with Uncle Sam. And I think it illustrates a truth that's worth reflecting on. It's based on a tidbit I learned about years ago from from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (there will be a spelling test at the end of this post) the expert on the major part that flow experiences contribute to our overall happiness. The tidbit is that getting an unpleasant chore done tends to leave us relaxed and with a sense of happiness, whereas engaging in some sort of passive entertainment like watching television leaves us on average in a lower mood by the time we're done. In fact with television (again, on average) the more of it we watch, the worse we feel. Getting something out of the way on the other hand just feels good. By the way, Csikszentmihalyi's info is based, among other sources, on his now famous study where he hooked grad students up with beepers and paged them throughout the day reminding them to record their moods in real time during their normal activities.

Somehow this post that was just supposed to be a quick quip on "dental work and taxes" has become my intro post for Getting Things Done as well, as a tidbit about flow. I guess it is good to get it out there since I think most of my clients, as well as the small contingency of readers of Awareness * Connection around the globe, would find that GTD helps with making life a bit smoother right away. And "a bit smoother right away", is a phrase that is pretty central to the work I do with most clients. If you often find yourself feel stressed out about what you have coming up, I think you stand a good chance of reducing your stress level a good deal by experimenting with GTD and adopting the pieces that fit for you.***

Extras
**I do my work on a Mac so I use an Omni Group version of Getting Things Done called Omni Focus, but on David Allen's site, he sells Windows compatible versions of his system on software. The same version is also compatible with Macs. It is worth noting that Getting Things Done can be done in any medium. You could do it on 4 x 6 cards, in a Moleskine notebook or on a fridge with sticky notes. But as with many other tasks the computer lends itself to your system being a bit more lean and clean. The only downside being that you'll want to back up your data regularly. I just visited Allen's website and he now has detailed tips available (whitepapers) about using Outlook, Entourage and Lotus Notes effectively with the Getting Things Done system. His empire seems to be steadily growing. Looks like his system is working for him anyway.
***I don't work for or with David Allen. I'm genuinely enthusiastic about the effectiveness of the system. No kickbacks. Wouldn't be ethical to combine an arrangement like that with therapy...not that Mr. Allen has ever had such an arrangement with me on his GTD list.
****Okay, quick. How do you spell the name of the author of Flow? 'Told ya it'd be here.

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Other Therapists Respond to In Treatment

2008-03-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

A comment on the original post provided a link to an L.A. Times article where therapists respond to the content of the In Treatment that is worth sharing here. Along with some positive responses in the article there are a number of complaints about the way that psychotherapy is portrayed. Prominent examples of what they dislike are lack of professional boundaries and the therapist's life being as stereotypically chaotic as the lives of his patients. My take is that this is to be expected. Whether in the ER, the coroner's lab or on the beat with a cop, portrayals of any field are going to be more dramatic by definition. If real life were just as interesting as the stories (in this case in the form of television) we turn to for entertainment, television, movies and plays would be pulling in a lot less business. Admittedly they are condensed and spiced up a bit. Whether it is jazzed up to the point of being less than worthwhile viewing, I'll leave to readers to decide for themselves.

I will agree with some of the therapists in the article below, that my clinical supervisor, whom I pay out of pocket since I'm in private practice, I find infinitely more helpful than the supervisor is portrayed in the first Friday episode. Though again our sessions probably would not make for very good cable TV. Not without a good amount of editing anyway.

In any case here is the link to the LA Times article on In Treatment.

Some Very Good Television

2008-03-20T15:05:00.001-07:00

I've had a good friend hounding me for 6 weeks now to watch some clips from an HBO show called In Treatment. It is a show that has been adapted from a popular Israeli series. It is a clever arrangement. Each day of the week Dr. Paul Weston sees a different client. On Monday he sees a distraught young anesthesiologist struggling with partner. Tuesday he sees an egotistical young navy pilot whose eventual death puts Dr. Weston in touch with his father. Wednesday his patient is a precocious teen gymnast who has come to see him for an evaluation for insurance to determine if injuries she's sustained have been self-inflicted or accidental. Thurs is a couple that has been trying for years to get pregnant and now are in struggling over the wife's unexpectedly exploring the option of abortion. And Friday he has supervision sessions with a retired therapist, with whom he has a complex past.

My friend that recommended this show has seldom steered me wrong, so when I was down with a cold this week, I took some time to check it out the show. HBO has a page where you can view the first three episodes of each character's story.

As a therapist it strikes me overall as being authentic. The patients seem like real people with some of the real problems that they come in with, both as far as current problems and in the longer term issues they find themselves coming up against. Like any movie or television show the drama is much more compressed and the everyday mundane aspects are filtered out.

The initial 3 episodes of In Treatment have been very interesting for me to watch, among other reasons, because Dr. Paul Weston does therapy quite differently than I do. A lot of this is accounted for by the fact that his character is doing psychoanalysis, a sort of therapy where the therapist tends to remain for the most part completely neutral in his demeanor, a blank screen where the patient play out the sort of relationships and attachments they have in their lives, represented in their mind. He makes very frequent interpretations of what they client is really saying, asking or thinking, because the assumption of psychoanalysis is that we are largely unaware of why we behave as we do, as the vast majority of our life is driven by unconscious motives, of which we have little to no awareness. The goal of psychoanalysis is to make the patient more aware of some of these unconscious motives. Because of this view he also frequently confronts his patients questioning their motives and asking them to do the same.

My approach to therapy is much more collaborative. On the front end of therapy, I am much more concerned with establishing a working alliance with the client than I am with remaining neutral as Dr. Weston does. That translates to my being warmer with clients. I also strongly encourage clients to be much more involved in selecting along with me what it is that we are going to spend our time doing...what topics from their lives they'll be exploring and what sort of approaches or exercises we might use to address the topics in a manner that fits who they are and what they're preferences are. I may express my professional opinion, even strongly at times, but the client gets the final say on where we head and how we proceed. Dr. Weston's character does say something similar about the client doing the steering, but this only seems to go so far. He always sticks to the same model, even if the client says they aren't finding it helpful.

I am generally much more free with the expression of empathy, letting the client know that I'm getting a sense of how they're seeing things and how they're feeling. I'm also much more apt to invite clients to look at something in a different way than I am to confront, as confrontation implies that I know what is actually going on, and that they do not. Finally, clients are much more apt to hear me ask, "How is this going?", or "Are we headed in the right direction here?" because I know that research shows that the client's opinion of whether we're making progress is very strongly correlated with clients actually succeeding in making the changes that they want to. All of this is not to knock a more traditional psychoanalytic approach. All types of psychotherapy, just as with anything else in life, have their benefits and their drawbacks.

The main question though is: Is this show realistic enough to tap into many of the complexities, joys and challenges of what work in the consulting room is like? For me that answer has been absolutely.

Working with Parts of Us

2008-03-17T10:07:00.001-07:00

The conference was very worthwhile. It was nice because it was actually led the the creator of the model, Dr. Richard Schwartz—in my mind it is always best to get it straight from the horse's mouth when you can.

I continue to see this model as being very promising for working with a number of issues that clients commonly face. One of the things that I like about it is that it evolved out of clinical practice, and clients were very involved in letting Dr. Scwartz know how their inner lives functioned.

Likely because of how the model was created it seems to align very well with most people's experience of their problems. It fits well with experiences like when you are having a conflict with your spouse or partner and you know that the way that you are behaving is making things worse, and yet you find yourself unable to pull out of the way you are interacting. Another example would be settling on a certain course of action after working hard to make a difficult decision, being sure that this is how you are determined to proceed, and then suddenly finding yourself seeing the other option as making a lot more sense.

These experiences make a lot more sense to me when looked at in the way that the IFS model sees them. In fact, I think that Dr. Schwartz makes a convincing argument that many of our problems are made worse when we are unwilling to look at the different "parts" of us, and instead insist on seeing ourselves as a unified, "monolithic" whole.

The website associated with this work is the Center for Self Leadership. The link will direct you to the "About" page if you are interested in learning more. If you are a current client or you come in to work on any problem from depression, to couples issues, to parenting difficulties this is a powerful framework that we can draw on. Of course, I plan to keep with my collaborative approach to therapy, so my clients will always have the primary say in what approach that we take. But it is nice to have access to the array of opportunities that this model seems to provide.

Allergies Affect Kids In Multiple Contexts

2008-03-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a Reuters story (pic from them as well) that certainly matches my own childhood experiences. I remember years of miserable days and nights in the spring and early summer. The gist of the story is that allergies don't just make kids uncomfortable. Allergies affect their sleep, concentration in school and even physical activity like on the playground. My bet would be that the interrupted sleep would be a huge piece that leads to some of the other problems, especially school performance. And we already know from other studies that sleep deprivation can actually take a toll on IQ over time. It's a good thing the medications available are better than the ones I had access to as a kid.

Kelso Helps Kids Practice Problem Solving Skills

2008-03-10T19:22:00.001-07:00

When I was teaching elementary school out in Hillsoboro I ran across a copy of a handout that I found very helpful with young kids. It was a black line drawing of the choice wheel above. On it are eight options that visually illustrate what kids can do when they run into problems interacting with other children. I could tell immediately that it was going to be helpful so I did what many new elementary school teachers would do in such a situation: I laminated it. When kids would come in from recess upset about an interaction they experienced on the playground, that they weren't included in a game they wanted to play, that someone had called them a name or an older kid took their ball, rather than me telling them about possible options, I often would have them take a look at the Kelso's Choice wheel. Suggestions, like "Walk away" or "Apologize" were illustrated, which left kids able to choose an option that seemed to fit. If you've read much of my other stuff, you know that I'm a big advocate of shared control with children and of collaborative problem solving to give kids practice making decisions. Often we'd talk about how they might "experiment" with the option they chose, which took the pressure off from kids feeling like the suggestion had to work. The experience left the kids feeling good about the choices they made about how to go about getting recess to be a more enjoyable experience for themselves rather than walking away feeling that the teacher had solved their problem. You know the saying about teaching to fish rather than simply giving a fish.

Often in my work with parents and children playground, neighborhood or these days, playdate interactions come up fairly often. I found myself wishing I had that old laminated Kelso's Wheel. After a little looking around on Google I found that Kelso is alive and thriving. He is now available in color and can come along with a complete curriculum and materials package for schools. I got in touch with Diane Hipp, one of Kelso's co-creators (the other is Barbara Clark), and she was kind enough to allow let me use Kelso's Choice wheel with permission as a handout in my work with parents and children. I'm glad to have Kelso officially available. He's helped me assist a good number of kids to master social skills that can otherwise be might have been much more challenging to learn.

Check out their website. If your child's school doesn't have a conflict management curriculum, you might send them Kelso's way at KelsosChoice.Net http://enjoyparenting.blogspot.com/2008/03/kelso-helps-kids-with-decision-making.html

Multiplicity: I'm Talking to All of You

2008-03-07T09:29:00.001-08:00

I'm off to a family therapy conference in Washington to learn about Internal Family Systems Therapy. It is an approach that I was recently exposed to and that makes a great deal of sense to me. The idea is that we all experience ourselves as having different parts to us. An easy illustration is how you can be yourself and feel comfortable visiting with your grandmother and you can feel comfortable and very much yourself, acting in very different ways while hanging out with with close friends you've known a long time. You interact in very different ways in these different contexts, yet both ways of being are somehow you. I need to head out the door to run some errands before heading out, but the basic idea is that when we aren't doing well, these different "parts" of ourselves can become polarized and extreme, and end up at odds with one another. When we are doing well, our parts seem to make themselves available for the contexts which they are best suited to help out. This method of therapy is all about restoring a sense of internal balance and harmony. It is also a way of looking at systems on multiple levels so that you address the parts within the individual, the family system and larger cultural systems that affect the family. Fascinating stuff. I'll give an update when I return from the conference.

"The Medicated Child" on FRONTLINE

2008-01-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

Frontline is a show I enjoy as an info resource, especially in today's sound byte world because it attempts to stick to the facts and presents more or less evenhanded portrayals of whatever topic it takes on. It's been called "...the last best hope for broadcast documentaries." Coming up on Tuesday, January 8th at 9 pm on PBS they are going to examine the issue of the increase in psychiatric medications being prescribed for children. Their excerpt follows:

Ten years ago, stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall were the drugs of choice to treat behavioral issues in children. Today, children as young as four years old are being prescribed more powerful anti-psychotic medications that are much less understood. The drugs can cause serious side effects and virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact.
The increase in the use of anti-psychotics is directly tied to the rising incidence of one particular diagnosis — bipolar disorder. Experts estimate that the number of kids with the diagnosis is now over a million and rising.

As the debate over medicating children continues to grow, FRONTLINE producer Marcela Gaviria confronts psychiatrists, researchers, and big pharma about the risks and benefits of prescription drugs for troubled children in "The Medicated Child."

Local listings for your area can be found on this page.

A Factor to Consider with ADHD Treatment

2007-12-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

I see parents frequently who are wondering whether to have their child assessed, believing he/she might have ADHD. The parents who do go on to have their child assessed and discover their child does meet criteria for the diagnosis of ADHD also wonder about whether to treat it primarily with behavioral approaches or whether to consider stimulant medication. This headline was all over the place recently and is worth considering when weighing all the important variables in an important decision. Study Finds Slower Brain Maturity in ADHD Kids

Crucial Confrontations

2007-10-31T13:51:00.001-07:00

I'm in the middle of a book called Crucial Confrontations about how to directly confront peers, supervisors, spouses, anyone when agreements aren't upheld, promises are broken, etc. I'm about half way through with it. I'm finding it quite good, the recommendations specific and realistic and the authors well versed in both psychology and social psychology. I'm already playing with a couple of the ideas. I'll provide a more thorough review soon. The tag line on the cover is "Never walk away from another conflict again."

Happy Halloween. Have fun and be safe out there tonight.

WILD Adventures in the Portland Area

2007-10-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

My friend Ronan McCann has been working over the past eight months on launching an innovative non-profit called WILD Inc. (Wilderness Introductions for Learning and Development). The mission is getting city kids out into the wilderness, especially those who don't often have the opportunity. Check out this page to learn a bit more about WILDs goals and what had already been accomplished by the six-month mark—getting kids out in the wilderness, initial partnerships with Portland businesses and organizations, etc.

WILD's website is also a handy resource for Portland families. Practical Adventure Reviews of local hikes rate their difficulty level, provide a photo or two and tips for how you might want to be dressed and prepared. For those hikes that are close enough to bike to or ride Tri-Met to there are links that will take you to ByCycle or Tri-Met trip planning sites that work like MapQuest. There are also links to Google Maps for each of the hikes. The Tri-Met links are a nice touch for making it more practical for families that have transportation challenges to get their kids out to have an adventure once in a while not to mention for families that just like to leave the car behind when they can.

There is also an Adventure Map that has been set up through Google Maps so you can take a quick look at where the reviewed hikes are located. WILD's site really is nice if you find some time where you want to get in a weekend hike and you want to use the internet to plan a trip. Take a moment to bookmark it at ChildrenOutside.com and check out the features when you have some time or as soon as you get the urge to get the family out on a path. WILD will undoubtedly enrich the lives of all sorts of Portland families.

While We're At It: Praise that Doesn't Help

2007-10-10T08:56:00.001-07:00

Since that sleep article of Po Bronson's was so good I checked out some more of his pieces. This previous one from New York Magazine on "How Not to Talk to Kids " is very solid as well. I have a lot more thoughts on what sort ways of talking to kids are helpful and which are counter productive that will show up on here eventually. But for now Bronson's piece nicely takes us through how our attempts to praise often end up getting in the way of our kids succeeding. For those of you who don't have time to read this now, I'll just say that it focuses on being specific and on praising effort rather than "being smart". There are measurable differences in the way kids respond to these ways of interacting with them. A focus on effort rather than on "innate intelligence" equips kids to keep at it when things get difficult. Kids who hear a focus on how "smart" they are rather on how hard they worked tend to give up when faced with a task that is challenging. This is even true of very intelligent kids. They are more apt to conclude that if they don't succeed right off the bat, it is evidence that they aren't all that smart, and it becomes too risky for them to persevere.

I recall an article from years ago that highlighted this difference between American and Japanese students. American students who ran into challenges were more likely to conclude they weren't smart enough, whereas Japanese students tended much more often to come to the conclusion that they needed to roll up their sleeves and work harder. And their tendency to move toward harder work translated into more academic success.

Photo by Phillip Toledano is from the New York Magazine article.

How to Help Kids Get The Sleep They Need

2007-10-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

Both this side bar and the recent New York Magazine article are worth checking out. If your time is limited just take a look the sidebar for the practical tips on helping your kids to get enough quality sleep. If you've got some time to read the feature article by Po Bronson you can get the gist of some recent research that shows some of the more severe effects of kids getting too little sleep. It turns out that not only problem behaviors can result from being under rested, but even significant cognitive declines that really add up.

Thanks to Heather Decker for passing this article along.

Beyond Lectures, Part 2

2007-10-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

We looked last time at how lecturing, though it comes to us easily, isn't all that helpful to helping kids along the path to responsibility. In fact, I would agree with several folks in the business of working with families that kids who receive a lot of lectures actually tend to be less responsible. We also looked one of the best ways to avoid lecturing when we're frustrated with our kids' behavior, which is to wait until a time when we're both feeling calmer. Jim Fay's mnemonic suggestion for this is "Save the words for the happy times." I would add that just going for a more neutral time is often enough. Once you've used a little shared control to set up a time to talk, there are lots of alternatives on how to have a helpful conversation.

We know that it usually helps and almost never hurts to use some empathy. When someone has demonstrated that he can see our situation the way that we experience it, it is a human tendency to be more open to accepting influence from that person. This makes a good deal of sense. When we're pretty sure that someone has next to no idea what an experience is like for us, it simply wouldn't make a lot of sense to take advice from that person. Some empathy might sound something like this:

I'm guessing that getting chores done isn't one of the things that you look forward to when you get up...not one of the highlights of your day.

It probably isn't much fun having me getting cranky with you about your not getting them done.

Initially when we think about using empathy as a parent, it can arouse some resistance on our part. "Why should I be empathetic? He's being whiny and irresponsible. I work all day, and I get my share of the housework done. Why should I be having to come up with empathy?" My main response is that it is important to keep your goal in sight. If the goal is to get the chores done, equip your child with the skills to be responsible, and to maintain a sense of connection with your child, it is useful to begin with empathy. If Dr. Phil agreed with my suggestion on empathy and he were to respond to our natural resistance to this idea, I could just hear him say in his drawl, "Look someone's got to be the adult around here. Looks like you're the only likely candidate"

In addition to empathy, something else that can be helpful is to use questions that elicit how our kid sees the situation. "So what are some of the challenges in getting your chores done?" This can help kids to become involved in the conversation. Instead of feeling criticized for their lack of responsibility they might be more likely to help identify what they problem is, which by itself will make it more likely that you'll be able to come up with some sort of workable solution.

Now that you've got your kid closer to being on the same wavelength, one way to proceed is to use collaborative problem solving. This sort of approach to finding solutions actually works much better if it is done visually on paper, or ideally on a big white board or butcher paper up on the wall. Step 1) Define the problem. Step 2) Brainstorm a lot of possible solutions to the problem, with everyone involved contributing ideas. It important at this stage not to edit ideas. We come up with much more creative ideas when we aren't simultaneously editing or critiquing thoughts as we're coming up with them. Step 3) Circle the solutions that seem most helpful. Step 4) Identify one or more possible solutions and give them a road test. Finally, Step 5) evaluate how it went and revisit the process as necessary.

So when you're tempted to lecture, wait to have the conversation until you're calmer, use some empathy and give collaborative problem solving a try. This is certainly not the only way to avoid the erosion that lectures can have on responsible behavior and on your relationship with your child, but it can be one effective route.

Beyond Lectures, Part 1

2007-09-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

We often find ourselves talking most to our kids when things are going poorly.

Why can't you remember to do your chores on your own. You're 12 years old now. You've got to start taking some responsibility. Do you think that a boss would put up with always having to remind you what you're supposed to be doing? It's about time you start pulling your own weight around here.

The words have a way of flowing right off our tongues in these situations, don't they? Charles Fay of the Love and Logic Institute has quipped that there is a part of the brain that contains lectures that lies dormant until we either become parents or teachers. Suddenly the words come just like magic.

But in the chores example above just how much of that lecture is the kid likely to retain? Practically nothing. Do kids ever respond by saying, "Hey Dad, thanks for the wisdom. I was getting a little lazy, but now I can see that I do need to take on a little more responsibility for my own good. Not to mention that I need to be doing more of my share around here out of respect for the family"?

If that paragraph makes you chuckle it's because it is so unlikely. After delivering that lecture you're more likely to see are a frustrated, resentful or hurt look coming over your kid's face.

You can think of it this way. Any positive effects we hope that our lectures are going to have tend to ricochet off our child's cranium, but any potentially negative effects of having a way of seeping their way right through to the brain. Some of these negative effects include poor self-concept and less connection with the adult giving the lecture.

Another way of remembering this is to bring to mind the words of the wonderful child psychologist Haim Ginott, "When a person is drowning, that is not the time to try to give them swimming lessons."

So realizing that lectures don't work very well, and are even counter productive, what is it that we can do instead? The main thing is to talk at a time when we're feeling pretty calm, and when we're not in the middle of the problem. Right when we come across the problem is almost never the time to either talk about it or to invite our child to talk. Take some time until you have a sense of what you want to say, and until you have some perspective (this may involve some breathing).

Once you're ready, a good way to start off is to give your child some say in when you're going to talk. "Hey Chris, I'm going to need to talk with you a minute. When would be a good time for you?"

Now that we have a bit of a sense of the downside of lectures and how to get a conversation set up, we'd better take a look next time at how we might go about this sort of conversation.

Couples, Part 2, Inside Look at the Way a Top Couples Therapist Works

2007-09-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

In Part I of this post, I looked last time briefly at the work of couples counselor Dan Wile, whom John Gottman has said he believes is the most effective marital therapist on the planet. What I want to do in Part II of this post here is to get across the essence of the statements that Wile uses in his work..

Wiles statements on behalf of his clients tend to communicate two pieces. The first is describing something with positive intent. It could be what you would like to do, or what you hope for that would support your partner or that would show that your connection with them is important to you.

I really wish we did more things together like we did before the kids were born. We used to go for walks, get coffee together, go to movies. I miss that...

The second part is about why it is that you feel stuck, what your worry is about how things will go if you make yourself vulnerable and go for what you identified in the first part of the statement.

...and I'm reluctant to bring up that I want to, because when I do it seems that you experience it like I'm nagging you or blaming you that we don't do it more often.

Again, the first part (positive intent):

I have something that is bothering me, and I want to talk about it, because I want us to enjoy the time we spend together, and instead I'm tense and probably not much fun to be around...

And the second part (the worry):

... but I feel like if I do bring it up, we're just going to get into a fight, which feels even worse than feeling annoyed at what I want to talk with you about.

In describing his method, Wile says that he tries to say something on behalf of one member of the couple (at a time) that gets everyone in the room empathizing.

From looking at the examples above it is probably easy to see how just altering them a little can throw change their character altogether. The second part of the statement (the worry) can easily shift into blaming the other. "But I feel like if I do bring it up, we're just going to get into a fight," can easily shift into, "But I know you're not going to listen. You always just get defensive," which is unlikely to get anyone empathizing and more likely to backfire.

Wile's strategy is to get your partner to see your positive intention, and put into words how despite your intention for things to go well for you as a couple, you're in an uncomfortable position. He tries to do this in such a way that your partner can picture what it is like for you, to get them empathizing. And then, of course, he moves to the other side and tries to do the same on behalf of your partner.

It is worth pointing out that Wile is the first to say and understand that most of the time, as a member of a couple, we're not going to come up with this sort of statement in the heat of the moment, and he's right. We're not, which is why he does this in therapy sessions. On the other hand, there are times when we've got something on our mind that we'd like to get across and we give it thought before we raise it. It is at these times that I'm proposing that thinking about how you could form your concern in the manner described in this article that might make the difference between just another evening of mutual irritation (or worse) and getting your partner to see what it is that you are getting at that is important to you.

Also note that Wile's work is not the common version of "teaching communication skills". It involves communication skills, but is more subtle than simply teaching "I messages" for instance. So next time you find that you've got something that is bothering you about your spouse, boyfriend, etc., instead of swallowing it, which usually ends up coming out in some other manner anyway, give one of Wile's statements a try. You might be pleasantly surprised by how your partner responds differently.

Couples, Part 1: Inside Look at the Way a Top Couples Therapist Works

2007-09-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

It goes without saying that being part of a couple is hard work at times. Even when things are going smoothly, studies show that each member of the couple will estimate that their success as a pair is due to their doing relatively more for the relationship than their partner. How about when things are going less smoothly? John Gottman, the kingpin of research on couple interactions and author of Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work has found that of the problems that are a source of continuing disagreement for couples, 69% of them fall into the category of irresolvable problems. That is a sobering statistic. While Gottman is the premiere researcher on couples, one of only two couples therapists whose work Gottman gives a nod of approval to, is Dan Wile, the author of After the Fight: Using Your Disagreements to Build a Stronger Relationship. Wile's take on these perpetual problems is that it is not having the problem that is the problem, but rather each member of the couples inability, when things aren't going well, to recruit the other as a resource for dealing with that problem. Gottman is in complete agreement with Wile on this. One factor that makes a big difference between couples whose relationship is headed for the rocks, and ones that end up together years down the road is their ability to talk about those problems that aren't ever going to be completely resolved.

Dan Wile believes that the key to dealing with these problems is very elusive for us in those times when things aren't going smoothly. His entire approach to couples therapy is about helping each person to express what it is that is eating at them in a way that enables their partner to experience empathy for them. Wile's approach is similar to other couples therapists in taking turns trying to understand each person. Where his approach becomes unusual is that he then tries to speak to the other partner on their behalf, putting their concern, and their dilemma into words that might help the other see the difficult position their partner is in.

His version of speaking for them varies greatly but it might sound something like this. Picture Wile kneeling beside one partner speaking to the other on their behalf, saying, "There is a big part of me right now that wants to reach out to you and comfort you, but I'm afraid if I do, you're going to push me away again, and I just don't think that I can risk that right now." He then checks in with the person he's speaking for and asks how close he was, and what they might add or delete from what he said. When Wile does this with his clients, on those occasions that he gets it right, clients experience this as being very powerful, really capturing how it is that they are feeling stuck and misunderstood. When they have something to clarify, to add or something that they'd would take out altogether, they end up bringing the discussion closer to what the issues really are. One way to put this together is to say that Wile sees the goal as connecting around the difficulty rather than focusing therapy on solving the problem. Given Gottman's finding that 69% of ongoing couple problems are irresolvable, this makes a lot of sense.

Now hiring Dan Wile as a therapist would be a nice luxury that hopefully some Awareness * Connection readers will experience. But what about those of us who won't be able to, or who might not even have the opportunity to see a therapist trained in his approach? In the next installment of this post, I'll break down how and why Wile's statements work, and I'll show how in our better moments we can tap into them to connect with our partner when a perpetual problem comes up and those familiar feelings of tension creep back into our lives.

Coming Soon: On Couples

2007-09-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

When things are going less than smoothly in your relationship, it can be even harder than usual to put your concerns into words that your partner might be able to hear. It is human nature to get caught in a cycle of feeling stung and stinging back, or of withdrawing and acting like you don't really care about something that is actually sticking in your craw. My upcoming post on couples will look at one way to up the odds that your partner will be able to "get" what it is that is "getting to" you. Check back soon.

Pause and Breathe, Part II

2007-09-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote a while back about the power of tapping into the simple practice pausing and breathing. This is a topic worth coming back to a few times to fill in details, because it can be so essential to living in today's world.

Our autonomic nervous system is divided into two branches. One of the branches, the sympathetic nervous system, is basically the accelerator for the fight or flight response. When we encounter stressful situations this portion of our nervous system is engaged. Parts of our brain out of our conscious control begin the chemical cascades that pour adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream preparing us for action, as if we were going to be doing actual fighting or running for our lives. This is exactly what is needed to either fight off an attacker or run until we're out of immediate danger. It is far less helpful when our sympathetic nervous system is aroused by a looming deadline or by the frustration of arguing with your child over chores that aren't done. In fact our sympathetic nervous system being "on" over time, as in unmanaged stress, is a known slow but predictable killer.

Fortunately we have another part to our autonomic nervous. If you have an accelerator to propel the car you've got to have brakes to slow or stop it. Just like the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system has connections all over the body (pupils, blood vessels, heart, lungs, etc), but its function is to slow our body systems down. So when you're really relaxed, your parasympathetic nervous system is the one running the show.

Pausing and breathing deeply and slowly can be like our secret dimmer switch to the autonomic nervous system. Whenever you find yourself edgy, nervous, cranky or anxious that can be your cue to do some breathing. You might want to road test it right now. Get comfortable where you are sitting, and take some nice slow, deep breaths through your nose. As you settle in to the breathing, each breath will tend to come a bit more slowly and last longer. You can put one hand on your chest and one on your belly to monitor which area is moving most. You want your belly to be moving at least as much as your chest if not more. Chest breathing is like pressing on the accelerator where belly breathing the way to ease on the brakes.

This is worth experimenting with for two reasons. First it is good to try this out and actually experience how your nervous system, and your body is able to slow itself down. There is no replacement for actually feeling yourself what it is like to breathe your way from a state of agitation to calmness. Second, by getting experience with deep breathing, you also train your body to get to a calm state more reliably, and more quickly. The main point is that you don't want to wait until you are in the middle of a very stressful situation to think about using that dimmer switch. You want to have some experience with it ahead of time.

Many find that breathing combined with mindfulness practices can be an even more effective route to becoming calmer, but if that's not your cup of tea, the breathing works fine on its own for purely physiological reasons. You don't have to buy into any particular world view to enjoy the benefits of pausing and breathing.

Thought: Learning How to Make Decisions is Like Learning a Language

2007-09-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

Learning how to think about choices and make decisions is also a lot like learning to play a musical instrument, like learning how to do woodworking or how to ride a bicycle. The common connection with all of these is that we don't learn them primarily by having someone lecture us or tell us about them. We learn decision making skills by actually doing the messy work of making decisions...and then by enjoying, or coping with the results.

Mark Twain wisely said, "Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions."

It can be hard for us to let our kids have experiences that result from us supporting their developmentally appropriate decision making. We badly want our kids to do well. This can be a very tough world. We have tons more experience than our kids do. It is hard not to want to jump in and do the decision making for them so we can ensure that it gets done right.

The trick is to find things that our kids can handle making decisions about on their own and can handle living with the consequences of. We, of course, can't in good conscience give kids decisions about whether or not to go to school or whether to have vegetables or Skittles as a side dish. An appropriate decision for a four year old might be, "Would you like to wear your coat or carry it?" For a teen it could be "Would it better for you to have your chores done by Wednesday night or by Friday night each week? For all kids above four years old, it can be about how they spend their weekly allowance. Allowance is a wonderful teacher about decision making. You can see how this concept overlaps nicely with shared control.

Another important piece is how we respond when they've gotten themselves into a problem with a decision they've made. Here we can link back to a previous idea. This is a great time for us to show some empathy. The bigger the problem, the more important that our empathy has some depth. A big help here is reminding ourselves that even though the better decision looked like a no-brainer to us, our kids have at least a couple decades less of life experience. Also they are different people with their own profiles of strengths and challenges. So things that might have been easy for us to decide when we were our kids' age might be tougher for them.

Give it a try. Make sure to begin with choices that are going to be easier for you to let your child live with. If we give them the power to make the decision, and then swoop in and rescue them, we send a powerful message that we don't believe that they are capable. And these unstated messages have a way of being far more persuasive than the ones we say directly. The good news is that whenever we are able to provide empathy and support to help them cope with the results of their decision, we send an equally powerful message that they are the sort of kids who can handle making decisions and who can learn from their mistakes. That is one of the irreplaceable gifts that we can give to our kids.

Apple Updates iPod Line

2007-09-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, now this post definitely gets filed under "miscellany", but I couldn't resist. It appears that the iconic classic white iPod has now gone the way of the dinosaurs. As one blog suggested, it seems appropriate to bow our heads for just a moment.

There is a lot for iPod fans to be happy about today. I'm not a huge gadget person across the board, though my wife might argue with me on this, but I do have to say that I have a weakness for Apple products. Today Steve Jobs did one of his over-hyped press conferences. I was impressed with the number of changes to the iPod line that some of the apple gossip sites had predicted that actually became reality today.

The basic changes are the Shuffle has a bunch of new colors. No changes in memory. The Nano has a new format for viewing cover art and can now play video. To make the viewing feasible the shape of the Nano has changed to shorter and wider with a larger 2" screen. It also has increased pixilation so the screen is not only larger, but more vivid than the one on the previous Nano. It is available in 4 and 8 GB sizes. The Nano as well as the larger iPod, now called the "iPod classic", both have a split screen feature now that previews cover art on the right side of the screen as you navigate the familiar menu on the left. Both also now can be navigated via "cover flow", which uses animated cover art that looks like flipping through an old juke box. Most iTunes users will already be familiar with the look of Cover Flow. The iPod classic is now encased in aluminum and is available in 80 and a whopping 160 G sizes.

Finally one of the bigger rumors fulfilled is the "iPod touch", which turns out to be essentially an iPhone without the phone service (or contract). It is very close to the same dimensions as the iPhone. The iPod touch comes with WiFi that allows users to download music as they walk around, so long as they're within range of a hot spot, rather than needing to be at the computer. Apple has started a partnership with Starbucks to make those hot spots more predictable. iPod touch users will be able to instantly download any music they hear at Starbucks with the press of a touchscreen button (this can also be done with laptops). iPod touch also has web browsing capability. The storage is only at 8 and 16 GB, which some are saying is too small for the price, and is not a good match for the beautiful wide screen and touchscreen experience. Presumably users would want to use the widescreen for video, but the memory won't allow for much storage. I've heard speculation, which seems plausible, that Jobs will announce larger storage sizes for the iPod touch just prior to Christmas. The touchscreen interface truly is remarkable. If you haven't had a chance yet, it is worth stopping by the Apple store to experience it even if you're not remotely interested in buying one.

On a related note Apple dropped the price of the 8 GB iPhone to $399, $200 lower than it debuted, and discontinued the 4 GB model. I will leave the more detailed analysis to the folks at Macworld and other gadget sites. Here is the lineup at Apple . I can't be held responsible for any impulse purchases you might make. Please weigh in on the the poll over to the right.

First Day of School

2007-09-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

Quote: On Shared Control

2007-09-04T15:21:00.001-07:00

"Control is a basic human need. We can either proactively share control on our terms, or we can force the child to take control from us on their terms."

Jim Fay

We'll be talking a lot about this one. Shared control is one of four central principles of Love and Logic. I don't always agree with the Love and Logic folks on each particular intervention that they might recommend for a given situation, but I do have to say that their four central principles, after more than well over a decade using them with children, hold up better, and more broadly than any others I've come across. It also turns out that they can be implemented in lots of different ways, which means that I'm not stuck with offering "Off the Rack" parenting advice. Instead, using the four principles along with other parts of my training, I am able to help parents tailor an approach that fits their child's temperament, each parent's temperament and personality, and the family's unique values, strengths and challenges.

Shared control often takes the form of using enforceable statements or choices within limits, which we'll cover on another occasion. Kids who feel like they have a reasonable amount of control tend to spend a lot less time fighting adults for control. Remember we're talking here about choices that affect the kids, not the adults. We don't give a kid the option to throw a big fit right in the middle of a family gathering, but we might give him choices about "Would it be better for you to get calmed down so you can be here with us, or would it better for you to have a bit of time on your own in your room?" Master this principle and you'll experience a nice shift in your ability to positively influence your kids.

Back to School, Temperament and Emotion Coaching

2007-09-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

After today, only one day of summer left for my daughter. Hard to believe it's already slipped by. New beginnings are always a bit of a challenge for her, as they were for me. I've done much better as an adult with work that fluctuates according to the seasons than I did with an on/off schedule like school was. So for me seeing what going back to school is like for Hannah isn't all that big a jump empathy wise. Any of us with two kids, or who've closely observed kids, understands what the research has to say. Children are very different from one another from day one on at least nine different measures of how they react to stimuli and how they regulate their emotions (before learning or parenting has a chance to affect the measures). When our kids have temperaments profiles that are quite a bit different from ours, it can take a bit more work to see things from their perspective.

Having someone "get" who we are and what we are experiencing is one of the most important things to us in life. If we are surrounded by people who "get" us, our lives tend to be much happier. We also need at least one supportive relationship in our history in order for us to be relatively psychologically healthy.

It can be a good exercise to think back to a time when we went through something emotionally difficult as a child where our parents or caregivers weren't able to give us the empathy that would have been helpful. Can you remember what that was like? Experiencing a difficult emotion and feeling like you were on your own with it? What could the adult in your life have done or said that might have been helpful? All of us had those experiences where the adult was unable to be as helpful as we could have used. Fortunately, children don't need perfect parenting to do well in life. It is about what the pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnecott called good enough parenting. Our children don't need a completely supportive environment to turn out okay, just enough of one.

On the practical side, what we can do if our child expresses some reservation about school is 1) Listen, 2) Clarify and 3) Run by them your understanding of their experience. Then repeat steps one and two until they feel like you've more or less got it. The easy mistake for us to make is to respond to our children's reservations or distress by giving advice right off the bat. "You don't need to worry. After the first couple days you'll be used to your new teacher." Even if the advice is good advice, if our kids don't sense that we understand how they're feeling, the advice can feel dismissive.

If you've ever had a friend do this to you, you know that's usually not what we hunger for when we're having a hard time with something in life. If you do run through those three steps with your child though, when you do have any practical suggestions for how they might cope, they will be much more able to hear the suggestions and maybe even use a couple of them. What it boils down to often is our being able to be with them in their distress for a moment. See Our Most Important Job post a couple of posts back about this being one of our central challenges as parents.

Remember we don't always need to get this right, but it is worth shooting for an increase in how often we can meet our kids emotionally this way. It is one way to keep the connection open with them that at times can their lifeline.

Pause and Breathe

2007-09-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

Pausing for just a bit and combining that pause with a slow, deep breath can make all the difference. If home life is hectic you can try pulling over a block or two before your house, turning off the ignition and just taking a moment for yourself. Just a few slow deep breaths can lower your blood pressure, give you a sense of calm, and smooth the transition from work to home. John Kabat-Zinn is a Professor of Medicine Emeritis at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and founder of clinic that focuses on equipping patients with skills to improve their ability to heal from, prevent and cope with medical conditions ranging from psoriasis to cancer. He suggests that we use anytime we put the keys into the ignition as a cue to pause and breathe. Richard Carlson, PhD, the author of the Don't Sweat the Small Stuff series of books, suggests that we do this for a few minutes for every hour that we work. He makes a convincing case that when we cut down the harried pace and take the time to pause and breathe that our productivity as well as the quality of our work is likely to increase.

As someone who works regularly with parents, I notice that simply pausing before responding to something that our children do or say decreases problematic interactions and increases parent effectiveness. In conversation in our culture we tend to rush in to have our say, often thinking about our response as we try to listen. I'm familiar with this one because I can have a tendency to jump in too quickly. Experiment with pausing and taking a breath after the person you're talking with finishes their thought.

For more information on breathing to reduce stress (and on mindfulness) you might begin with one of Richard Carlson's books from hisDon't Sweat the Small Stuff series. To explore the link of breathing and mindfulness with medicine and health, John Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living can be a nice place to start. In...and...out. Slow and easy. Once you've experimented with that and maybe put up a couple of post its to remind yourself to use these skills (bathroom mirrors, closet door jamb, on the fridge), you can check out Pause and Breathe part II

Demotivation Posters

2007-09-02T10:39:00.002-07:00

Despair.com has a whole series of these "Demotivational" posters. If you've ever had the feeling that your boss hung one of the "legit" versions of this sort of motivational poster in your office to squeeze extra work out of you, you'll likely enjoy these. If you find this one funny, check out their site. They have a whole series. Check out their Pessimist's Coffee Mug while you're there. You can probably already guess what it says. Once you've seen a couple of these posters you'll probably never be able to see a "legit" one of these again without laughing inside.

Thought: Our Most Important Job

2007-09-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

One of the most crucial jobs that we have as parents, as I see it anyway, is to help our children learn to tolerate and manage their emotions. Do you know any adults who don't understand their own feelings? Any that have difficulty managing their temper or their sarcasm? How well do they do in their relationships? You get the idea.

Guess what our biggest obstacle to helping our children to learn to tolerate and manage their emotions is?

Correct!

Tolerating and managing our own emotions. Maybe it should give us a bit of empathy for our kids. Even having at least a couple of decades on them, it is still difficult, when we're honest with ourselves, to manage all the feelings that parenting and simply living in today's society brings, not to mention that simply being a human being brings.

Whether we're talking about a four year old, a twelve year old or a college sophomore, we have a lot more experience in life than our kids do. Try to imagine what it is like having the powerful sorts of emotions that we have at our worst moments, with a good deal fewer skills for managing them.

Block Party!

2007-09-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again...the annual block party. Usually a really nice array of potluck food, a fire after dark, and a chance to catch up with all those neighbors that we usually only wave to on our way to school, work and the grocery store. The last neighborhood we lived in didn't have these. One more reason we're glad we moved to more community oriented neighborhood. And it is not raining this year. These are a lot more fun when you're not hunkered under collapsible shelters watching the drizzle. I hear the music going already. Cheers.

Hypnosis Improves Surgery and Recovery

2007-09-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Women who had a 15 minute experience with hypnosis prior to breast cancer surgery experienced less pain and their recovery went more smoothly. The comparison group, who received supportive conversation with a psychologist, but none of the guided relaxation, pleasant visual imagery or soothing techniques of the group receiving hypnosis helps sift out that the way hypnosis helped these patients. The positive effects are evidently not solely due a positive interaction or distraction.

The WebMD article on this study concluded:

The study adds to other research that demonstrate that hypnosis "substantially reduces pain and anxiety during surgical procedures while decreasing medication use, procedure time, and cost," says an editorial published with the study.

"If a drug were to do that, everyone would be using it by now," writes editorialist David Spiegel, MD, of the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Stanford University's medical school.

Hypnotherapy has definite, measurable benefits that are well worth tapping into. The difficulty with hypnosis is that there are a lot of providers that have little education beyond a certificate program who have a tendency to smuggle in all sorts of untested nonsense and mix it in with what has been established as effective practice with clinical hypnotherapy. Your best bet is to find someone who is a member of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis to ensure that you are going to have a professional experience and not be exposed to all manner of quackery.

Book: The Sociopath Next Door

2007-09-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what it would be like to live without a conscience? We often think of sociopaths or psychopaths in terms of serial killers, but they have much more of a range than that. They can be successful business people, politicians, deadbeat dads and petty criminals. The one trait that ties them all together is that they function without a conscience. This can be surprisingly hard to detect because they can be impressive emotion decoders even though they lack any felt empathy that you and I experience like fish experiences water. This means that they can read others well and that they can often portray exactly the emotion that will push your buttons, which will serve their selfish ends.

If I recall correctly it was Robert Hare in his book Without Conscience, who compares the sociopath with the color blind person. Watching a color blind person at a traffic light, if we didn't know ahead of time about their color blindness, their deficit would be invisible to us. They apparently saw the light turn green when they drove off. The sociopath has learned tricks similar to the color blind person watching the relative position of the traffic light rather than the color. They similarly learn to deal in emotions that convey empathy without ever experiencing empathy themselves. Because of all this they can and do frequently wreck havoc in the lives of others.

Martha Stout's Sociopath Next Door sold well for good reason. It acquaints us with what it is like to live in their world and explores the tragic effect that they have on the lives of others with straight forward analysis and stories that will draw you in. Have you ever wanted to do something that your conscience would not permit you to...but you still wished you could if only your conscience would let you alone? She also entertains this intriguing question, would it be worth it to be able to pursue your own ends without a conscience to pester you if you had the choice?

I think this question gets at why we find ourselves drawn in by the Sopranos, Showtime's Dexter, Dirty Harry films, American Psycho and so on. It is intriguing to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who can live without a shred of genuine concern for others. But most of us only entertain that fantasy for the duration of the movie or book and then go back to genuinely connecting with others, loving our spouses, kids and families, feeling for others to one degree or another when they hurt. For the true sociopath when the lights come on, the movie doesn't end.

Gottman: Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

2007-08-31T14:31:00.001-07:00

One school of thought in parenting is that there are often times where we need to be wary of engaging a child's emotions. If we do, this approach says we'll end up making the situation worse, much like trying to put out a fire with spray bottle full of gasoline. Another camp focuses on the fact that children genuinely need help navigating their emotional experiences. These two camps often point fingers at one another saying that the other side doesn't "get it" about what is most important about working with or parenting children.

Of course with a very young child, things start off with no real setting of limits of any sort. The second camp I think is certainly on the right track in this regard. The relationship at that point is primarily about connection and the meeting of needs. But as a child grows older, becomes mobile, starts hitting, pinching and insisting on having things their way, the first way of looking a things begins to look a bit more appealing to many of us. I think both of these ways of looking at parent-child relationships have some wisdom to offer.

That's why I try to stay in the habit of thinking about relationships in terms of continuums. Thinking in terms of either/or gets us in trouble. Just placing the issue on a continuum and pretending you have a slider (like a volume adjustment) can help us to see lots of alternatives that would have been invisible when viewed through an either/or lens. The discussion of this book takes both camps into account, and tries to use the "slider" or continuum approach.

The last book I featured was Daniel Siegel's Parenting From the Inside Out, which also delves into the emotions involved in being a parent. Siegel's book homes in on discovering what the parent brings to the relationship from his/her own past and their inner experience. John Gottman's Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child gets a bit more practical as it looks at the "how to" of ways parents can interact with their children to support their emotional development during difficult interactions. In doing this, Gottman builds on Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence which shows that ability in knowing and handling one's emotions has much more to do with how far we get in life and with how happy we are than IQ does.

John Gottman is today's premiere researcher on couple interactions. He's the researcher/therapist that can identify with just a brief, minutes long sample of behavior whether a couple will still be married in 15 years. His accuracy in doing this is impressive. In Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child he applies some of the concepts of his research to how parents can support their youngsters emotionally and help them become emotionally intelligent. Here is the general approach which he calls Emotion Coaching in a nutshell:

1. become aware of the child's emotions.
2. recognize the emotion as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching.
3. listen empathetically, validating the child's feelings.
4. help the child find words to label the emotion he is having; and
5. set limits while exploring strategies to solve the problem at hand.

Love and Logic, which I draw on in my parent coaching work, is very practical in its focus. It is strong on the "how to" of step five above of Gottman's Emotion Coaching approach, "setting limits and exploring strategies to solve the problem at hand," whereas it relatively glosses over the first four of these steps, calling what they are getting at simply "offering empathy". Cline and Fay's identifying empathy as being important and as something that is very helpful even when setting reasonable limits with children is an original and important contribution. Where their expertise lies is in how to carry out the limit setting and maintaining of boundaries.

One place Gottman's book can be nicely integrated with some of the boundaries and limits of Love and Logic's focus is in the details of just how that empathy might look in different circumstances. It goes further than that, of course, and helps children to become more emotionally literate, teaching them something about how both they and others respond to different events in life.

All approaches to therapy and to raising children have implicit assumptions. These assumptions both give them their strength and determine where the limits of their effectiveness lie. If you are aware of what those assumptions are, it becomes easier to know when to draw on which approach, and that awareness will help you decide what might fit best with each specific situation. Gottman's Emotion Coaching approach definitely deserves to be in the range of skills that you can draw on as a parent. It probably also describes things that you are already doing. Isn't it nice to hear a bit about why certain things that you are doing are working once in a while?

Forgotten Car Roof Items & the Cycle of Luck

2007-08-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

When I was 14 years old I had my first boom box, earned with what was then the boyhood rite of mowing lawns in the neighborhood. They weren't cheap when the first came out. My friend placed it on top of his grandfather's Plymouth Barracuda, with an on-dash push button shifter, as we were packing up for home from a fishing trip. After seeing and hearing several other motorists pointing and waving at us and yelling things we couldn't make out, we finally stopped and got out. We were amazed to see my treasured Toshiba boom box still sitting up there several blocks later. If you recall the design on the early boom boxes was much more upright and flat than the more recent lower profile design, so it was remarkably impressive that it stayed upright on the ride. It probably helped that my friend's grandfather was no speed demon, despite the hi-tech push button shifting. My luck with forgotten items on the roof has grown increasingly worse over the years. Maybe 15 years ago, I left a Nissan stainless thermos cup on the roof, which functioned amazingly like one of those twirling lawn sprinklers as it tumbled off my Toyota pickup. Despite the impressive random coffee streaks on my truck and the parking lot my thermos cup thankfully only suffered cosmetic dents.

Last night my wife and I were taking our 7-year-old daughter and her friend out to dinner. While my wife was getting the booster seats situated, she placed her keys on top of the car. When we were just about to be seated at Red Robin, my wife noticed her keys weren't with her. We went out to the car and looked for them. She recalled that she had put them on the roof of the car. We called a neighbor who was nice enough to look around on the street by our house to see if they were there. We didn't want to wait until after dinner for someone to pick them up that would have no way of knowing whose they were. No luck. We did a small exercise in the physical sciences as we tried to figure out where they would have been most likely to have gained enough momentum to slide free of the car's roof. After much deliberation and calculation of possible trajectories we concluded it must be somewhere between our house and Red Robin. Lots of driving around. No keys.

After talking with a local homeless man, who was kind enough to offer to keep his eye out for us, and posting an ad on Craigslist, the implications began to dawn on us. With the electronic entry key fobs, if the keys had fallen off closer to the house, all it would take is a drive down the street at night for any less-than-scrupulous person to locate the car in front of the house with no problem, and voila, noiseless entry into to two cars and to the house. So to cover the possibility of the keys having been lost nearby, we are now out a couple of car clubs, four re-keyed house locks and the two lost key fobs. Don't those those fobs seem a bit overpriced? So the question is, have I used up all my forgotten roof item luck...or am I now finally due to restart another cycle where I'll be as lucky as I was with the boom box Barracuda experience? I'd better not push it.

What's With The Name?

2007-08-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've had quite a few clients mention that it was the name of my web site, Enjoy Parenting Again, that got them to initially contact me. For them the name just made sense. Presumably they had times earlier in their relationship with their children where they really felt some connection, when things were going more smoothly, and they contacted me because of concerns about how things have been going more recently.

For others the first two words make sense, but back when I was doing more health fair appearances, I would not infrequently be asked, "Again? Is it really, again?" I think I get what these folks mean. Lots of times parenting feels like an uphill climb from the first days. The way I responded to people who asked me this is something along he lines of this, which I actually really believe, "Even if it's been rough going since birth and it hasn't seemed to get any better, my assumption is that there are at least fleeting times where, if only for fractions of a minute, things really felt good, they were going smoothly."

That's is what getting into this line of work was all about for me, the satisfaction of seeing things go a bit more smoothly. It is amazing how little time that often takes, and it is hopeful to see for a lot of families things end up going quite a bit more smoothly a lot more often.