Preventing frustration

I've never yet met a parent who welcomed frustration - not theirs, and not their child's or teen's.

In fact, most of us would rather do whatever it takes to prevent our kids from experiencing frustration.
 
And why is that? Because we're uncomfortable with others' frustration, whether it be crying, pleading, sulking, threatening, or tantrums.

And let's be clear: What we do in those moments we do for ourselves. It's our best attempt to neutralize someone else's pain so we can feel better. It's our best attempt to get rid of our own discomfort.

There seem to be two standard ways of dealing with frustration:

• Trying to cheer them up - perhaps by minimizing how bad it is or by distracting them with something more pleasant.

• Pointing out how this is their fault and advising them to do something differently next time.

When we say, "No," we don't just want them to respect that. We want them to be happy about it - or at least okay with it. And when they're not, we may use a variety of strategies to "help" them be okay with it - criticizing, blaming, cajoling, lecturing, holding out false hope, threatening, punishing.

What we haven't been taught is the importance of frustration in our children's development:

Frustration helps our kids (and likely us) develop resilience and adaptability.

In his book Hold Onto Your Kids, Gordon Neufeld spends some time discussing the value of frustration and teaching a better, more useful way to deal with it.

He talks about the Wall of Futility - that point when a person (adult or child) realizes that reality is what it is and that it can't be changed. Time has run out. Parents have divorced. The family has moved. Poor choices were made. People got hurt. People died. No is no.

And he defines the parent's role this way:

Parents must be the agents of frustration and the angels of comfort.

So what does that mean? It means being clear with reality, not whitewashing it to make it more palatable. Not mean; just clear.

And then, when the child hit the Wall of Futility, to be the angel of comfort, to let them find their tears and grieve the loss of whatever it is. For some, you can wrap your arms around them and just hold them. For others, you may be able to sit with them. For others, you may have to let them go off on their own for a bit, secure in the knowledge that you'll be there when they resurface.

The benefit to them of being allowed to hit the wall of futility is that, once they've found their tears and grieved, they're ready to move on without any coaxing from you.

I had a profound experience with this a couple of years ago when I had a chance to practice what I was learning.

The whole family was visiting for the weekend (there were 17 of us here), and 7 of the 8 children had gone to watch a movie with friends. Aidyn, aged 7, had opted to stay behind and play video games.

I'd been out for a bit, and when I got back Chloe was beside herself. At some point after all the other children had left, Aidyn decided he should have gone, too. From what I understood, she tried to cheer him up, to no avail, and had finally sent him to bed. She was distraught and he was crying.

Just with that Aidyn walked in the room, face tear stained. I gathered him up wordlessly, carried him to the living room, and sat with him in the rocking chair. I offered nothing. I just held him and rocked him. Our conversation went something like this:

"I really wanted to go to Donny and Michelle's!"

"I know you did."

"I really wanted to watch a movie with the kids!"

"I know you did."

"I should have gone with them!"

"I know."

"But nobody would drive me!"

"I know."

And then, after a pause, "This was my own fault. I could have gone, but I decided to stay here."

"Aah." Pause. "So what would you do next time?"

"I'd go with them."

"Aah."

He heaved a big sigh, stopped crying, and said, "I'm okay now." And he was. And I was amazed how easy it had been. But what surprised me most was his comment as he was leaving the next day. He said good-bye and gave me a hug, then said, with great sincerity, "And thank you for cheering me up last night." I said, "You're welcome!" But what I might have said was, "Oh, honey, you did that yourself!" - because he did.

The truth about control

When parents are first introduced to Choice Theory, they are often confused about ideas around control:

• They understand that they can't control what others do (or think or say or feel or want or perceive), but it's a while before they realize that others can't control them either.

• They start to believe that all control is a "bad" thing. Yikes!

This post is about the latter.

First things first: control is not a "bad" thing. Control is a necessary thing. If you're driving a car, it's vital: if you're not controlling it, who is?!

Here's a short list of what it might be in your best interests to control:

• Yourself (your actions, your thoughts, your choices, your values - your temper!)
• Your environment (home, car, finances, personal belongings, resources)

Bemused parents will say, "I told my son he couldn't have the car, and he told me to stop trying to control him." Now they're confused. What's the deal? That's when I ask, "Well, were you trying to control your son, or were you controlling your keys, your car - your personal belongings? Whose car is it? Who do you think should have control of it?"

Some parenting models are very democratic, but most are still hierarchical. Someone with knowledge and life experience still has to be in charge. Someone still has to have the final say. Someone needs to be the adult - especially when it's not smooth sailing.

A 17-year-old girl lay on the bathroom floor. It was 5 AM. She was vomiting and running a high fever and was a bit delirious. Her aunt was with her and said, "I'm taking you to the hospital." The girl said, "No, no! Don't make me go! I can't do it. Leave me alone."

So what would Choice Theory advise? Respect her wishes? Or make sure she's safe?

Her aunt lifted her off the floor, wrapped her in a blanket, and almost carried her to the car. When they arrived at the hospital, the doctors immediately did a spinal tap and started IV antibiotics. She had meningococcal meningitis. They assured her aunt that it had hit hard and fast, and if she'd waited even another hour or two, they would have lost her.

That girl is my daughter. Her aunt is my sister. It all ended well, and I thank God every day for my sister's commitment to keeping her safe.

The fact is not everything is negotiable.

3 things your kids need most

The things our children need to be happy and to become well-adjusted, responsible citizens aren't necessarily the things we think they need - or what they tell us they need.

So what do they need most?

Safety and security

You may be thinking a roof over their head, food on the table, a warm bed to sleep in, and clean clothes to wear.

Those are important when they're young, but become increasingly less important as they grow. What I'm talking about is feeling safe and secure with us.

I'm talking about trust. I'm talking about being the kind of people that our children can look up to and lean on and depend on. I'm talking about being trustworthy and reliable.

So what does this look like?

Children need to know that we're in charge - not that we're micromanaging their lives, but that we're in control of ourselves.

They need to know we're calmly and confidently in charge so they can see that life isn't too much for us to handle. Mainly they need to know that they aren't too much for us to handle - because if they are, then what hope is there for them?

In Parenting without Power Struggles, Susan Stiffelman uses the analogy of the captain of the ship. It's lovely if he strolls the decks, chatting with passengers, or joins you for dinner. But that's not what you count on him for. You count on him to get you safely to port - no matter what happens.

They also need to observe us going about our day - not being the object of our attention - because this is how they learn. What do they learn by watching us? They learn what our values are. They learn how to make a bed, how to cook, how to pay bills, how to drive a car, how to interact with others. They learn how to be happy, well-adjusted, responsible citizens. If they don't see it, they'll never know.

Connection

Our children also need a deep and meaningful connection with us - attachment. They need to know that they're welcome to exist in our presence. They need a smile, a greeting when they walk in the room. They need to know we're happy to see them and that we enjoy having them near us. As Gordon Neufeld points out, they must never have to work for our love. They must be able to rest in it.

They also need to know that we have things in common, that apart from our differences, there are things about us that are the same. Celebrate that sameness, whether it's in food, music, movies, or books.

As the attachment deepens, they need to know that we're on their side and that they're significant, that they matter, that their opinions count for something. Ask them what they think about a news story. Ask them to teach you how to do something.

Truly deep and meaningful  attachment comes from being known. It's that sense of feeling so safe with someone, so connected with them, that you want them to know everything about you.

Think they get this from their peers? Think again! Appearances to the contrary, you are the most important, most influential person in their lives. Peers may be fun to hang around with, but they can never provide the meaningful connection your kids can experience with you.

Trust

If your child or teen is particularly difficult, you may be tempted to stop here. Please don't. The payoff is too great!

I'm not talking about whether you can trust your son to tell you the truth or trust your daughter not to steal from you. I'm talking about something much deeper than that.

I'm talking about trusting them to be able to figure things out, to learn from their mistakes. I'm talking about trusting that they've been watching you all these years and learning from you - not from what you've said to them, but from what they've observed. I'm talking about trusting that they want to cooperate with you, that they want to contribute, to be part of the tribe.

I won't go into this at length here because it's already covered in the post on Expectations - Why they're always being met. And there will be lots more to come!

How do you define your child?

In 2003, some months after joining a parent support group, I attended a workshop by Helen Jones. And in that workshop, she said something that has stayed with me all these years:

I'll take acting-out teens any day. They're much more interesting.

I wondered, Could that be true? And I concluded it was! I had plenty to deal with at the time. As a single mom, I was dealing with a job and 5 children still at home, ages 16 to 10. It was chaos. It was bedlam. It was out of control. And yet that one offhanded comment forever changed the way I saw my teens.

I came home from that workshop with a very different perspective of my children than I had left with.

I began to notice things about them that I'd never seen before. They were all indepent thinkers, with good minds and valid opinions. They all had a strong sense of fair play, and were unafraid to stand up to injustice, whether it involved them or someone else. They were loyal and helpful to their friends. They were funny and engaging and had good street smarts.

Since that time, I've asked parents to tell me what they like about their sons and daughters. And I've watched them struggle to come up with something - anything - that meets with their approval.

What must it be like to live with people - the most important people in your life - who see no good in you, who believe there's something wrong with you, that you need "fixing", who can find nothing about you to like or admire, who find you wanting in every respect?

Just sit with that for a minute. Put yourself in their shoes, and just sit with that for a minute.

Would you be willing to cooperate with someone who held such a dim view of you? I can't think of anything more discouraging.

At the end of the last post, I suggested this exercise:

Make a list of all those things you think about your son or daughter that may not be helpful,

all those labels you attach to her, everything you think is wrong with him.

This is a good place to start - keeping in mind that the purpose of this exercise is not to make an inventory of everything your child or teen does wrong, but to become more intimately aware of your own perceptions, your own internal dialogue regarding them. This isn't about them. This is about you.

So what words do you use to define your son or daughter? Lazy? Unmotivated? Disrespectful? Dishonest? Untrustworthy? Argumentative? Good for nothing? Under-achiever? Irresponsible? How about ADHD or some other disorder?

Now you can start reframing. So what language could you use instead? Funny? Insightful? Loyal? Fair minded? Energetic? Passionate? Unique? One of a kind?

As long as we believe that our child's or teen's behaviour is the problem, all our energy will go into changing it - despite the fact that that's only ever made matters worse. If we're ever going to help them live up to our expectations, we must let them know that we value them, enjoy their company, and think they're fine just the way they are!

Cautionary note: When looking for what we like and admire in our children and teens, it's important to focus on character rather than achievement.  What qualities do we like and admire? It's not helpful to admire children for being smart because they have no control over that. Equally, it's not helpful to admire them for getting an A on a test because they really have no control over that either. But it would be helpful to notice how hard they worked to prepare for the test (regardless of the outcome) because that they have control over.

Expectations - Why they're always being met

Thirteen years ago, I joined a parent support group and read Choice Theory by Dr. Glasser, and I learned two revolutionary concepts: (1) the only behaviour I can control is my own - and the only person who can control my behaviour is me; and (2) the solution is never in the problem, the solution is always in the relationship.

This set off a chain reaction of "Aha!" moments. It transformed the way I parented and enabled me to help other parents do the same. It was the single most useful piece of knowledge I had acquired in all my years as a parent.

I've read and incorporated ideas from many other sources since then, parenting and otherwise, and they're useful to me and to those I coach because they add texture and colour to these two key concepts. (Most are listed in the right-hand column of this blog!)

But what I'm about to share with you in this post was (at least for me) the most startling and significant insight I've come across since reading Dr. Glasser's book 13 years ago.

As both a parent and a parent coach, I've struggled with the idea of expectations. When I would encourage parents to work on themselves and focus less on their teens, they would invariably ask, "But aren't I allowed to have expectations?!" And I was frankly unclear how to answer that.

Of course, there's the Buddhist saying that if you don't have expectations, you won't be disappointed. But somehow that wasn't helpful.

Although I would skirt the issue of expectations, we discussed "raising the bar" and learning to trust our teens - which for most parents seemed an insurmountable challenge. They didn't believe they could trust them!

Many attached unhelpful labels to their teens and described them in ways that made me wince. And while this dismayed me, and while I knew that this perception was somehow at the root of all their problems, I was at a loss as to how to explain it.

And then, a month ago, a friend introduced me to a YouTube video of Jean Liedloff discussing the continuum concept. Jean has a lovely, easy, open, friendly style, and her parenting message echoed that. As I watched, I smiled and nodded and smiled and nodded - and then she knocked the wind out of me.

She was talking about expectations. And what she said was so obvious, so crystal clear, so unexpected, and so at odds with everything I'd ever thought that I couldn't take it in. I replayed it five more times until it began to gel. It was beyond, "Aha!" It was, "Oh, good grief! Why did I never see that before?!"

According to Liedloff, children and teens, because they are human beings, are social and want to meet the expectations of their elders. What does this mean? It means that they will imitate and emulate, that they will do what you do and try to contribute and cooperate in order to "fit in", to have a sense that they belong, to participate in and be part of the tribe. And if attachment theory is correct, their need to belong far surpasses any other need - including survival.

So why don't our expectations seem to be producing the desired results? Because we misunderstand what expectations are. Here's what "everybody knows" about expectations:

An expectation is a clear statement of what I want to happen.

For example, "I expect you to go to school," or "I expect you to have a job by the end of the week," or "I expect you to be nice to your sister." In fact, those are not expectations. Those are wants. According to the dictionary:

An expectation is what I believe will happen.

If you believed a child would go to school or get a job or be nice to his sister, why would you say it? And so when you do say it, your child gets the message loud and clear: "This is what I want you to do, but I don't believe you're the kind of person who will actually do it."

The Catch-22 for our children and teens is that we say one thing but expect the opposite. In fact, we expect the worst. And because our children are unable to break away from their evolutionary impulse to meet our expectations, they don't do what we want them to do. They do what they know we expect them to do.

And this is reflected not only in what we say to them, but in what we do for them and to them. Every time we rescue them or do for them what they can and should do for themselves, we send the message, "You're not competent. I can't trust you to take care of yourself." Every time we lecture, we're letting them know, "I can't trust you to figure it out for yourself."

And so we perpetuate those very things that we're trying to cure because the bald truth is:

Our sons and daughters always live up to our expectations of them.

This in and of itself may not be enough to turn things around in your home. But in the next few posts, I'll incorporate this into concepts around the 6 levels of attachment, why principles are more effective than rules, why what we do is more powerful than what we say, the advantages of focusing on character rather than achievement, and how to replace the 7 disconnecting habits with the 7 connecting habits.

If you want to do some homework in the meantime, make a list of all those things you think about your son or daughter that may not be helpful, all those labels you attach to her, everything you think is wrong with him, and let's see if we can bring about some meaningful, lasting change. And feel free to post comments or ask questions. After all, we're all in this together!

Amish Wisdom: Shunning

As my friendship with Martha has deepened over the last couple of years, I've come to know her values and what she stands for. And this has made it easier to ask what might otherwise be awkward questions.

I haven't had a TV in my home since June 2000, but even I have heard of Breaking Amish. And I have city friends who know I have Amish friends, and they wanted to know what the scoop was with this.

I know at least one of Martha and Isaac's kids left the Amish church and the Amish way of life. And from what I'd seen, it made no difference. They were as close as ever. So one day when Martha and I were out running errands, I asked her about it.

"Martha, I've heard that, if the kids leave the Amish way of life, their families and communities won't have anything to do with them. Is that true?"

"No. I don't know what they do in the States, but that doesn't happen much  here. Oh, some do, but most don't. Some people have this idea that if they disown them, the kids will come back, but from what I've seen, that just backfires. The kids feel hurt and dig in their heels and never come back. But the only people who seem to go that way are the ones who are trying to prove they're right."

There are degrees of leaving the Amish life. All Martha's kids are grown now and most are elsewhere (but relatively close by) raising families of their own. And not all have remained Old Order Amish. Most hold fast to many of the Amish traditions, beliefs, values, and dress, but have incorporated hydro, cell phones, and a car into their lives. Barns are still raised by a team of friends and neighbours. Laundry is still hung on the line to dry. And fields are still ploughed with horses.

One son has left the Amish ways completely. He runs his own business, and his household uses an electric stove and washer and dryer and has a TV. He also lives right next door to Martha and Isaac. In fact, their houses are attached. He's attentive and respectful with them, and still goes to Isaac for advice.

It's clear, from everything Martha has said and from everything I've observed, that, for them, the relationship is paramount and is the root of everything.

Amish Wisdom: What Amish kids (seem to) know

I am not an authority on the Amish way of life or Amish children. And I'm sure my Amish friends aren't representative of all Amish everywhere. But I have observed their family at work and at play, as well as their grown children's families, and I was struck by how calm, cheerful, and present the children were. Based on interactions I've seen over the past two years and on discussions I've had with Martha about their values, here's what I've surmised:

• Amish children know that they belong, that they're valued, and that they're welcome in their families and their community.

• Amish children know that the adults are in charge - of day-to-day situations and of themselves.

• Amish children know how to play and have fun.

• Amish children know they're useful and can make meaningful contributions.

• Amish children know how to cooperate because everyone in their community cooperates.

• Amish children know how to be friendly because everyone is friendly with them.

• Amish children know the sun doesn't revolve around them.

• Amish children know what's expected from them. Unlike most children, there's no disconnect between what they're told is expected from them and what's actually expected from them. (This will be covered in a separate post!)

• Amish children know their parents say what they mean and mean what they say, so they trust them.

• Amish children know how to get along in the world by watching their parents.

• Amish children know they can develop mastery and competence.

• Amish children know that the adults in their lives will teach them what they need to learn.

• Amish children know their parents will always be on their side.

• Amish children know their parents won't do for them what they can do for themselves.

• Amish children know that "what the situation requires" trumps "what I want".

What if their happiness is a by-product of all of these?