Crucial Confrontations

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.

Beyond Lectures, Part 2

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.

Quote: On Shared Control

"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.

When in Doubt...Empathy

One thing that is clear in doing a lot of parent coaching and counseling with parents is that it is hard to figure out when to respond in what way with your child. Should I empathize? Should I set a limit? Should I offer a choice? Certainly we can find books that would advice any of the three, and dozens more. As parents we can’t be blamed for feeling baffled, especially at the end of a long day (whether at work or at home) when it feels like we'd be lucky to have two brain cells to rub together.

Rather than several approaches to sort through, it can be nice to have a single fall back option. One that can almost always draw on, and one that would very rarely cause more of a problem. Lots of parents find it helpful in these situations to go back to having/showing empathy for the child. Keep in mind that empathy is not an all or nothing proposal. If something has happened that is big, our child flunking a test, hearing that a friend is really peeved at them (and for good reason), it is important in those circumstances to dig deep and come up with some actual heart-felt empathy. But we don’t need to do this for smaller everyday sorts of occurrences. For these run of the mill issues, a simple, “Bummer,” seasoned with bit of empathy can suffice. In other words, the empathy is most helpful when it is commensurate with the context.

Sometimes our gut tells us that it isn't a good time to say anything. Empathy can even come in handy during these times. We can do this just by doing nothing more than noting that we need to come back to the situation. And before we do that'll give us a bit of time to give it some consideration from the child’s point of view. I’ve yet to see a situation where the parent took the time to consider how the situation might look from the child’s viewpoint (through their temperament, preferences, developmental abilities, and areas of challenge) that this hasn’t proven helpful to the parent or to the relationship in the longrun.

The author of Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion, George Thompson, made the statement that empathy is the most important word in the English language. And this is a guy whose gig is helping to train police officers around the country how to handle the aftermath of burglaries, and the guy who is refusing to step out of the car for the breathalyser. Situations where people aren't known to be their most flexible. I thought when I first read Thompson's book back when I was teaching that he was onto something important. Knowing how whomever we are working with sees the situation, whether an angry driver who is being verbally combative with a police officer or with our 11-year-old whose attitude we’re finding hard to tolerate. After a bit of practice, on our better days, getting there can come relatively easily. On other days…not so easy. I'll have plenty of posts coming up to address how to deal with ourselves on these more difficult days.