How I got here

I came to Choice Theory and Reality Therapy unexpectedly, and out of desperation. I didn't know that's what I was looking for. I just needed help.

I was a single mom with six kids when my household spiralled sickeningly out of control. My 16-year-old wasn’t even bothering to show up at school and was heavily involved in drugs. My 15-year-old was violent and out of control, skipping classes, punching holes in walls, breaking furniture, and terrorizing his siblings and myself. And my 14-year-old was taking notes for future reference. Oh, and they were all robbing me blind.

Every other parent I knew was doing fine. They all had well-behaved kids who did their chores, were responsible and respectful, followed the house rules, attended school, did their homework, and didn’t smoke, drink or do drugs. What was wrong with me? What was I doing wrong?

I concluded that I was too permissive, and so the pendulum swung the other way: I became a dictator, a tyrant. I made lists of house rules and tried (in vain) to enforce them. I dragged my son into school by the scruff of the neck, determined to accompany him to all his classes if that’s what it took to break him of being truant, but he shrugged out of his jacket and bolted out the back door of the school. I yelled. I threatened. I stomped my feet and broke things. I fired a cast-iron frying pan through the kitchen wall and threw a heavy rocking chair across the room, breaking it in several places. I cried and screamed. And the chaos escalated.

I called the police. I called Children’s Aid. I called every agency under the sun. An agency worker came in and did an evaluation. What was lacking was respect for personal space, so we were given an exercise to do to help each of us recognize our own and each others’ personal space. Interesting – but ineffective. A few days before Christmas 2001, I sat with the supervisor at Children’s Aid, hysterical and sobbing uncontrollably, begging her to take my son before I killed him. She patted me on the shoulder and said, “There’s nothing we can do. Our job is to protect children, and he’s not in any danger from you.”

Everything I did seemed to make things worse. And what really stumped me was how I – a relatively intelligent and loving human being – could be such a hopeless failure when it came to restoring order in my home and raising my kids to be responsible and decent human beings.

I was frantic, desperate – and acutely embarrassed, afraid to have anyone over, diligently avoiding conversations about my kids and my home life, deftly dodging and deflecting innocent questions from family and friends like, “So how are the kids doing?” What in the world could I tell them?! Not the truth!

Here’s what well-meaning friends, family and professionals said:

• “Your son has ADD and conduct disorder. Here’s a prescription.” (psychiatrist)
• “We appreciate your situation, ma’am, but there’s nothing we can do.” (police)
• “Ms Kranz, this is the school calling about your daughter – again. We need to schedule an appointment as soon as possible.” (teacher)
• “What are you doing to improve his self-esteem?” (psychologist)
• “She’s depressed. Here’s a prescription for Celexa.” (doctor)
• “Everyone needs to learn to respect each others’ personal space.” (social worker)
• “Have you tried grounding him?” (well-meaning friend)
• “She just needs a good smack up side the head.” (well-meaning acquaintance)
• “You wouldn’t have this problem if parents were still allowed to slap their kids around, but our hands are tied. The kids have all the rights and we have none.” (another acquaintance)
• “You need to get them under control!” (my Dad)
• “Just keep taking things away from him until he gets the idea.” (Dr. Laura)
• “Why do you let her do that?”
• “I’d never let my kid talk to me like that!”
• “I can’t believe you let her get away with that!”
• “I don’t allow that kind of behaviour in my home.”
• “You just need house rules. Everyone should follow house rules.”
• “Maybe if you got him to sign a contract with you...”
• “Throw her out. She’s 16. You don’t have to put up with that.”
• “I’d be mortified if my kid did that! Doesn’t that embarrass you? You must feel awful.”

Want to guess how helpful and useful all this “good advice” was? Every one of them was caring, concerned and compassionate – but none of them knew what would work for me. Every one of them was dealing with their reality, not my reality.

Finally, in the fall of 2002, with drug dealers showing up at the door regularly for her, I threw my 16-year-old daughter out. A short while later, the police arrested my 15-year-old son for assault, and I pleaded with the court to give Children’s Aid (CAS) temporary custody of him and send him for a psychiatric assessment, where he was diagnosed with various disorders. I was relieved. This was proof that none of this was my fault! He went into the custody of CAS in mid-October.

Now the “busy work” began: a parade of agencies, psychologists, therapists, counsellors and social workers rolled up their sleeves and got to work, intent on figuring out what had gone wrong, whose fault this was, and how it could be corrected. I was hopeful.

The therapists wanted to do a few sessions of family counselling. Since they’d already spoken with me at length, they asked that I attend but allow the children to speak. I did – and in their report they suggested that my silence was evidence of my unwillingness to participate in the process.

Throughout this period, CAS workers expressed their bewilderment: whereas my son had been a holy terror at home, he was an upstanding citizen in the group home, a role model for his peers. I thought, “Oh, yeah. Just wait!” But the other shoe never fell, and I became equally baffled. Maybe this did have something to do with me.

I began to question the “professional opinion” of the powers that be, which made me very unpopular. And when I began to challenge the wisdom of continuing to do what observably wasn’t working, the Children’s Aid worker implied in her report that I was passive-aggressive and uncooperative. There was no way for me to win.

They were thorough, though, in determining where to lay blame: It was my fault for being permissive and ineffective; it was my ex-husband’s fault for being angry and abusive; it was the fault of genetics (both sides of the family had a history of alcoholism and drug abuse); it was the fault of “mental illness.” How can teens be held accountable in the face of all that?! And, of course, they weren’t held accountable; I was.

I was no closer to a solution, but at least for the moment my house was calmer – and so was I. There was some semblance of sanity in my life. But it was to be a brief respite.

In March 2003, CAS informed me that, because my son was turning 16 at the end of August, either he would return home at the end of his temporary care agreement in mid-July or he would become a ward of Children’s Aid and I would lose all parental rights. At the same time, my daughter had been couch hopping for six months and I had reason to believe she would end up on the street (which in fact she did). I felt like I was living in a pressure cooker.

In late March, a friend introduced me to APSGO – The Association of Parent Support Groups in Ontario Inc. It was here that I was introduced to choice theory, and it was here that I began to regain control of my life one small step at a time.

I learned two things that none of the “experts” had taught me:

• The only behaviour I can control is my own (and the only one who can control my behaviour is me).
• Never do anything to damage my relationship with anyone.

I came to regard these weekly sessions as deprogramming —

• I learned to first question and then change deeply held beliefs about parenting,
• I learned to challenge the conditioning and “conventional wisdom” of family, friends, professionals and society at large,
• I learned to think for myself, and
• I learned how to be the expert in my own life by observing my own life and asking: “Is what I’m doing getting me what I want? Is this working? What could I do differently?”

I struggled through the next few months, wondering how I would know whether my son had changed enough for me to be able to trust him. But as the process unfolded, I came to realize that that was the wrong question. The real question was: Had I changed enough and become self-confident enough in and of myself to know that, no matter what he did, I could deal with it? And when I was finally able to answer with a resounding YES!, I brought him home – and my daughter, too.

The next few years were action-packed. Smooth sailing? Sometimes, but it didn’t seem to matter so much any more, because we were all working on ourselves and finding our own directions in life – me included. There were still occasional bursts of strife and tension and conflict, but now there was also joy and laughter and hope. And I found I didn’t just love my kids (because I had to), but I actually liked them and enjoyed having them around.

And now? People who meet my kids for the first time are clearly sceptical that things were ever as bad as I claim. And why should they? These kids are polite, respectful – and outspoken. They're fun to be around. The same kids who stole from me in their teens are conscientious now about paying their bills and staying out of debt. The same kids who beat each other up now spend time together discussing books, movies, and world events, working on jigsaw puzzles, and planning trips together. The same kids who wouldn't lift a finger to help out around the house now have admirable work ethics and derive great satisfaction from a job well done.

The beauty of this path is that the learning never ends, and it can be applied to any relationship – difficult or otherwise – to improve that relationship and give you more effective control in your life.

We never change until the heat and pressure become too great to bear. So I owe my kids a huge debt of gratitude for providing me with the challenges I needed to break the mould and learn a new way of parenting.

Post Script

I was so impressed with the changes in my own life and in my relationship with my kids when I started practising Choice Theory that I went to the Glasser Institute and got trained – first in Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, and then as a practicum supervisor. Since then, I've worked with parents, teens, and frontline workers to improve their relationships with difficult people.