Just say no! - Part 1

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Seems reasonable, too. So why is it so difficult?

This one has puzzled me for a while. Parents who say they know they should say no, and insist they want to say no, still say yes – even when the results they get aren’t the results they want.

Or are they?

Consider these two stories:

Tony's story
After a hectic week, Tony had been looking forward to a quiet Friday night at home. But instead, at his daughter’s insistence, he spent his evening driving around looking for an iPod for Becky. He returned, exhausted but victorious, some hours later – only to be told he’d bought the wrong one. Not only didn’t Becky not appreciate his efforts; she was ungrateful and critical – and he was furious. Tony realized he had found himself caught between a rock and a hard place:

• The rock: If he had chosen not to go shopping for an iPod, his daughter would have been deeply disappointed and he would have felt guilty—“bad father.”

• The hard place: Since he inconvenienced himself to do Becky’s running around for her, he got to be the “good father”—but felt angry, bitter and resentful, and said he actually hated her for what she had “made him do.”

Paula's story
Paula’s 18-year-old son David was going out of town with some friends for the weekend, and he asked her if she’d pick him up Sunday night. She said no because she’d already made plans to spend the evening with friends. Sunday evening David called to say he had no way home, and could she please come and get him? So she cancelled her plans and drove for 1½ hours (each way) to pick him up – then lectured him all the way home. Paula felt caught in the same trap as Tony:

• The rock: If she’d followed through on her plans for the evening and left David to fend for himself, she would have felt guilty – “bad mother.”

• The hard place: Instead, she gave up an enjoyable evening with friends to be a “good mother” and rescue him – but was infuriated that, despite all she does for him, he continues to be inconsiderate and to take advantage of her.

So what’s going on here? What’s the solution to their Catch-22? What are they missing? And why did they both choose anger over guilt? Post your comments, and we’ll come back to this later in the week!

The Rice Experiment

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me."

Here's an experiment to test whether or not that's true, whether our words - and perhaps even our thoughts and indifference - actually have any impact on others. Here are the instructions:

• Next time you make rice, make a bit extra, and put equal amounts of the cooked rice in three small, clean, sealed glass jars. (You can find glass jars with glass stoppers at the Dollar Store.) Place them where they're clearly visible. (I put mine on a small table in the kitchen.)
  

• Add any controls you like - e.g., for the sake of consistency, I placed them in the same location so they received equal amounts of light, heat, etc. and I was careful to put the same amount of cooked rice in each jar.
  

• Several times a day, or as often as you think of it, say "Thank you" to one of them, "You fool" to the second, and completely ignore the third. Let others in the house know what you're doing and invite them to participate. Alternately, set everyone in the house up with their own set of jars so you can all see if the results are consistent.
  

• If there are other unkind or judgemental thoughts you have about your teen, use one of those instead of "You fool" - e.g., "You'll never amount to anything, " "There's something wrong with you," "You just don't get it," etc.
  

• If you want to direct thoughts at the jars instead of actual words, go right ahead.
  

• Continue "talking" to your jars, and post your findings on the blog starting the last week in September. Let's see if there's anything to this!
  

I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you what I observed the three times I did it, but I will say that Mike, who's the ultimate scientifically-minded critic, shook his head and said, "I can't explain it - but I also can't deny what I'm seeing."

By half-way through September, it should start to become apparent what this has to do with a critical step in taming alligators: changing hearts. Watch for upcoming posts! And have fun!

Terry Dobson - On a Tokyo Subway

A few years ago I read a powerful story of peaceful resolution that left a lasting impression with me: "Aikido in Action" by Terry Dobson. If you're looking to bring about a change of heart (yours and others) and not just a change of behaviour, I urge you to check it out. Click here to read Terry's story.

Terry Dobson was a dedicated student of Morihei Ueshiba (O Sensei to aikido students), the founder of aikido, and he spent many years studying with him in Japan. His story of an incident on a Tokyo subway epitomizes principles of both aikido and choice theory.

A friend introduced me to the concepts of aikido in 1971, but I didn't have an opportunity to learn and practice it until 1998.

I was introduced to choice theory in 2003, and was struck by the similarities between aikido and choice theory:

• Both seek peaceful, win-win resolution to conflict.
• Both respect self and other.
• Both use engaging instead of passive avoidance and blending instead of aggression.

"Aikido," literally translated, means "the way of harmony with universal energy":

• AI - harmony
• KI - spirit, mind or universal energy (the Japanese equivalent of "chi"), and
• DO - the Way.

Like its sister martial art, t'ai chi, aikido is an internal martial art. The focus is on mastery of self, not on harming or defeating an opponent.

O Sensei was a devout student of martial arts who, in 1919, met and was profoundly influenced by a spiritual teacher, Onisaburo Deguchi. According to Wikipedia:

"This was a great influence in Ueshiba's martial arts philosophy of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker."

One of the best definitions I've found for aikido comes from www.massagetherapy.com:

"This non-competitive Japanese martial art aims to harmonize energy with that of a partner or opponent in order to achieve both physical and emotional mastery through peaceful resolution."

Here are some quotes by O Sensei:

"To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace."

"As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with and criticizing others weaken and defeat you."

"Aikido is the principle of non-resistance. Because it is non-resistant, it is victorious from the beginning. Those with evil intentions or contentious thoughts are instantly vanquished. Aikido is invinsible because it contends with nothing."

"There are no contests in the Art of Peace. A true warrior is invinsible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within."

"True victory does not come from defeating an enemy. True victory comes from giving love and changing an enemy's heart."

"Aikido is the art of reconciliation. To use it to enhance one's ego, to dominate other people, is to betray totally the purpose for which it is practiced. Our mission is to resolve conflict, not to generate it."

So what does this have to do with raising difficult teens? Everything! By applying aikido principles to parenting, we can learn to deflect psychological and physical attacks in a way that prevents harm to ourselves, to our teen, and to our relationship. We can change our focus from doing to to doing with, from mastery over others to mastery over self. Instead of asking, "What can I do to get this person to do what I want?" we can ask, "How can I help - myself, the other, and the situation?"

Terry Dobson's story introduces us to a true life whisperer, and demonstrates the power of leading with the heart instead of the head!

"I'm sorry!" - Part 2

So what’s a sincere apology? A sincere apology has three components:

• empathy – recognizing the impact of their actions on others (not just regretting getting caught!)
• amends – making up for the damage done, where possible
• resolve – having a plan to prevent it from happening again.
  

A sincere apology is demonstrated by change – even if that change is small at first.

We as a society have a mistaken belief that people must feel bad before they will behave better. This belief has resulted in four common strategies:

• Criticizing. Have you ever been on the receiving end of criticism? What was your response? If you’re like most of us, you became defensive and started explaining or justifying – even if only to yourself. Instead of bringing about the desired change, criticism further entrenches others in their behaviour.
  

• Blaming. Blame is designed to bring about change through guilt. The problem is that guilt doesn’t bring about a change of heart – or behaviour.
  

• Threatening. This is a “promise” of retaliation, and is designed to bring about change through fear. But fear doesn’t bring about a change of heart either.
  

• Punishing. “Punishment is a clever device that allows good people to do bad things without seeing themselves as evil.” (Albert J. Bernstein, Emotional Vampires) “Beatings will continue until morale improves.” ‘Nough said.
  

In fact, teens (and everyone else) will change when they feel safe, not when they feel bad. So if you use any of these four strategies–

• your teen will feel less empathetic,
• he’ll resent making restitution (if he does it at all), and
• his resolve will be around figuring out how not to get caught next time.
  

Here are some questions you can ask to help your teen feel safe enough to transform self-serving and meaningless apologies into sincere apologies:

• Empathy: What exactly are you apologizing for? What do you think you did that requires an apology? What was the result? Who was impacted?
  

• Amends: Now that it’s done, what (if anything) can you do to fix it? Is there something you can do to make up the damage? If that had been done to you, what would you want to have happen next?
  

• Resolve: If you had it to do over, is there anything you’d do differently? If a similar situation comes up in the future, how will you handle it?

"I'm sorry!" - What to say when they don't mean it

Apologies. They're as Canadian as saying, "Eh?" (Do we really do that?!) We're forever saying, "Sorry!" - even when someone runs into us with their shopping cart at the grocery store.

In an attempt to teach toddlers good manners, parents insist on these three sets of "magic words":

• "Say please."
• "Say thank you."
• "You say 'Sorry' right now!"

The problem arises when we don't teach them what it means to be sorry, not just say "Sorry."

There are two main types of apologies: sincere and insincere.

An insincere apology is a substitute for a conscience. The person apologizing may want to placate (e.g., get off the hook without being held accountable) or be absolved so they can feel better about behaving badly.

So what do you do with an insincere apology? Are you required to accept it, to forgive and forget, even though you know it's just empty words and there's been no change of heart?

You are not required to acept an insincere apology
or forgive anyone just because they ask you to!

Here's a true story:

A friend of mine, recently married, was struggling with an errant husband. Oh, he wasn't getting into any trouble. He was just a free spirit. So he would disappear after work, sometimes for hours, and was often absent when my friend returned home at the end of the day.

She asked him to take his cell phone with him. She asked him to at least leave a note letting her know what time he would be home. She begged. She pleaded. She reasoned. She argued. What if there was an emergency? What if something happened and she had to get hold of him? All to no avail.

Her husband had been raised to be polite, and so, when she would become upset with him, he would apologize. After all, that was the right thing to do.

Until the time it didn't work. Once again she berated him, and once again he apologized. Only this time, without even thinking about her response, she said, "I don't forgive you."

He was flabbergasted. "But you have to!" he insisted.

"No, I don't. You've been apologizing for months, but then you go and do the same thing again. I won't believe you mean it until I see it."

From that day forward, he left a note. And then, three months later, my friend approached him and said, "Now I accept your apology, because now I know you mean it!"

Next time your teen approaches you with crocodile tears of remorse (can I actually say that?!), try this: "Oh, that's okay. I don't need an apology. I'll know by what you do, not by what you say."

In the next instalment, we'll look at what constitutes a sincere apology, and how to help your teen experience a change of heart.

Disengage - Part 2

Some parents have commented that backing off and disengaging feels like giving up. But giving up and disengaging are two very different things. When you disengage, you're not surrendering. You're simply calling a truce.

If you're ever going to be successful at ending the war in your home, you'll need to disengage for long enough to get some perspective and let your thinking determine your actions instead of your feelings. But before that happens, you'll need to become aware of your thinking, and this tool is designed to help you do just that!

So the next step is managing your anxiety by learning to control your thinking.

What's your favourite way to worry?

• Do you stay up half the night pacing the floor, checking the clock, and listening for the door to open?
• Do you jump in your car and hit the road in the middle of the night on the off chance that you'll find your teen roaming the streets?
• Do you wake up other parents to see if your teen is there?
• Do you wake up your spouse and insist that he/she stay up and worry with you?
• Do you call hospitals and police stations to see if your teen's there?
• Or have you quit your job and given up your social life so you can stay home and worry more thoroughly?

There are two things that make worry difficult to manage:

• We think it's something that happens to us, not something we're doing.
• We think we're supposed to worry. ("What kind of parent would I be if I didn't worry?!")

Here's a technique that has worked well for many parents - and others - to get control of their worry and anxiety.

Schedule worry time.

1. First, you'll have to make a couple of decisions:

• When you want to worry.
• How long you want to worry for.

2. Write it in your daytimer or on your calendar. Be sure it's a time - and length of time - that you can commit to, and be sure you schedule it in every day.

3. Stick to it! If you catch yourself worrying at a time that is not your scheduled worry time, postpone it! Remind yourself that this isn't your worry time, and that you'll be able to worry to your heart's content as soon as your scheduled time arrives.

If it ever feels like you just can't put off worrying a moment longer, here are some questions you can ask yourself:

• "Is there anything I can do right now to improve the situation?" If yes, "Have I done that in the past? What result did I get?" If it's something new or something that's worked before, then stop worrying and just do it!
• "Has my worrying ever kept my alligator safe?"
• "What am I afraid will happen if I don't worry right now?"
• "I'm worried because I'm imaging the worst case scenario. But how likely is it that that's true? Could it be just as possible that my alligator is fine?"

Note: The purpose of this exercise is to help you take control of your thinking. It sounds simple, and it is. But it requires some work and diligence on your part!

Check in later in the week and let us know how you're doing!