PHILOSOPHY
SERVICES
RESOURCES
Buttons Book
Confident Parents Book
Monthly Column
Newsletter
Compact Discs
Parent Workbooks
EVENTS
MEDIA
CONTACT US
SITE MAP
HOME
When Your Kids Push Your Buttons:
The Newsletter
by Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed.
Issue 31 - Windows of Opportunity
Greetings!
"A riot is the language of the unheard."
- Martin Luther King, Jr. - a letter from a Birmingham jail
The problem is when we hear rioting, we throw the rioters behind bars or ground them for a month. How can we hear our children when they are rioting? Doesn't it make sense that they have something very important they are trying to say?
Discussion of Key Points: Windows of Opportunity
What can be done when a parent's intention is to connect with her child, especially a teen, a button has not been pushed, yet that intention to connect is met with disdain, attitude, and criticism? How can that not be taken personally? I think teenagers get a speed course in attitude, a language they alone know, and one that seems to disappear soon into the twenties. How can we encourage them through this phase without battle, understand their stage of development, yet take care of ourselves and our relationship as well? I would probably make a quick million if I had the answer.
In any one conversation, what a child hears is a cumulative conversation. We may be feeling patient and calm today, but the child reacts to what she expects to hear based on past experience. When we ask a simple question, it may feel like an interrogation, if there has been interrogation in the past. They become suspicious of our motives and don't want to connect because they may be afraid that what they say will be held against them. Teens especially are very sensitive to losing face. They will make us look bad before we have the chance to make them look bad. Perception is everything.
To respond neutrally, I suggest naming what it sounds like. "It sounds like you feel interrogated/You sound distant/You're not happy with what I'm saying. I wonder if you don't trust where I'm going with this. I assure you I have no ulterior motive. But maybe now is not a good time." Be respectful without engaging in the battle. "Why can't you ever be civil? I just asked you a simple question," will not do a thing to assure your child there is safety in opening up.
If your button wasn't pushed to begin with, your child's attitude in response may well push it. Remember, don't take it personally and don't engage—yet. Leave it alone. This is not the time to teach manners. Wait until you have cooled and have had time to think through and put intention into what you want to say. Be sure you are not blaming but owning your take on it. Remember it's your take, not hers. She doesn't hear attitude the way you do. Being clear, you have every right to explain how you feel or what you think when you hear her words. Tell her you would like to rewind and have the conversation again with more consideration for feelings on both your parts. Then don't expect a lot. If this seems too risky, just wait it out.
With preadolescents and adolescents, we need to find those "windows of opportunity" when sharing, cuddling, and connecting are still needed and wanted—just not nearly so often. Don't expect your rapidly developing child to want you when you are ready for her. She needs to come to you or give you cues that she is open. When you hear the attitude, know that this is not a window of opportunity and stop engaging! You will get nowhere. Sometimes walking away is infuriating to a teen. If so, say something like, "Let's not talk about this right now."
I promise you, if you have established a good foundation, if there are those wonderful times with your child, even though few and far between, the attitude will fade with time and you will have your child back. Adolescent development is very confusing-more for them than for us-and we all seem to have forgotten how we felt back then. But always remember that no matter how strong the attitude, she needs you there. When you are consistently there, she will return.
Questions and Answers
Q. My 16 yr. old son goes back and forth between his dad and I. We all live in the same town and have been divorced for 14yrs. I had to track down my son one night after he told me he was doing a sleep over at a friend's house. This was not the case. I ended up finding him at his dad's with a girlfriend and another couple. They were upstairs, his friends downstairs. I went ballistic - out of control, raging, foul language, over the top, etc. primarily that he lied to me. He knows I hate lying. His dad lied to me for over 6yrs about his involvement with other women. My son has not talked to me now in over 7wks. even over the holidays. He is with his dad, and they don't see why I was upset (mom just being crazy again). Actually, he's probably been lying to me for a while now, this is the first time I've caught him. This lying and disrespect issue is a big deal with me. I know I went overboard and have apologized for embarrassing him, leaving 2 phone messages and writing a letter but am standing my ground on this value but I also don't like this lack of communication. I expect him to have a conversation with me about the whole thing before we can get our relationship on track. Maybe it was never on track? What can you suggest I do to resolve this chasm between us?
A. I understand your outrage at being lied to however you have to consider the cost of your reaction - no relationship with your son. This doesn't mean to let it go and be fine with him lying but perhaps your perspective can change. Right now you are expecting him to come to you after you have exploded at him. Seven weeks have gone by. It's an unrealistic expectation that he will back down, lose face, and come to you with what would feel to him like an apology. You have apologized for part of it, but from his point of view (I'm not saying this is correct) you are just being crazy, so he has no reason to back down. The problem with "ballistic" explosions is that they push him further away. From his point of view, he did what he had to do (lie) to do what he wanted. Again, I am not condoning the lie, but most teens have lied to do something they knew would not be allowed. You are projecting your husband's lies about other women onto your son's lie and expecting him to see it the way you do. To him, it was not a big a deal. Your agendas are entirely different. You will uphold your value about lying more effectively if you can regain communication. I think you need to go to him, perhaps write a letter, and let him know that, no matter what, you love him and do not want this communication breakdown. Let him know that your emotions have calmed and you want to hear his side of the story so you can talk about it reasonably and get beyond this freeze.
Q. My 6 yr. old son came into my bed this a.m. carrying his clothes to have a cuddle before getting dressed. Everything was fine until the trousers felt uncomfortable and then the top was wrong and his vest didn't feel rightŠbut with encouragement and reflective listening (it is so annoying when things feel wrong etc.) we got there. Then he wanted a piggy back downstairs. I said my back was hurting but I would hold his hand. In the kitchen we got the breakfast ready but the syrup wasn't right, and he turned to rage. I said I love you and gave him a hug (which sometimes works) but he was already locked into this rage. He then kicked me. I said I was going to get Joseph dressed and once he had started his food I would come back. He was furious and I could hear him banging on his bowl while I dressed Joseph. When I came down, he rushed up saying, "I am very sorry, I thought I was banging the table but in fact I was banging the bowl." He had broken the bowl with his spoon. Unfortunately the bowl was from our wedding china set which we use all the time. Nothing had broken before so this touched an enormous nerve. I was very cross and upset. "How could you break it, my special wedding china etc." I also said things I regret like, "we will have to get help, you can't control your rage." He was VERY sorry and we all eventually calmed down. It was almost like a release for him. His rage had gone once the bowl was broken, and he desperately wanted love and hugs, which I gave but only after I calmed down. We talked about it briefly and how we might have a points system for keeping calm. He finds star charts difficult because he feels so disappointed in himself when he fails. We also discussed him contributing to a new bowl, which interestingly I think was helpful. BUT I do feel pretty desperate. How do I help him control his rage? (And not catastrophise myself).
A. Your son has a difficult temperament to manage and you have learned some good skills to help him when is in first, second, or even third gear. The bowl breaking pushed your button and you made some snap assumptions about his lack of consideration for your things, etc. and holding expectations of him that he failed to meet. I would imagine that you are getting better at anticipating his escalations so when you see the frustration build as it did with his clothes, that should be your cue to watch carefully for his gearing up. Do not leave him, even if he kicks you, because that just revs him more. He clearly loves and needs your approval and acceptance of him and relishes it when he gets it. I believe it's when he thinks he is disappointing you or others that his stress level builds and he has a hard time coping. Hopefully maturity will take care of it. But in the meantime, stay close when you can and redirect him when you catch him in 3rd or 4th gear. Get out a punching pillow, take him to a couch he can kick or jump on, get him a punching bag and gloves-something he can do to release that energy because as you saw, that is what he needs. Never belittle that energy. Let him know you understand it, ask him to give it a name, and speak of it as something outside of him that takes over when he is stressed rather than who he is. When it is perceived as external, it feels easier to gain control of it. Contributing toward a new bowl is logical and fair to him-it makes sense, that's why it works. Point charts don't do much more than point out his mistakes.
Stories from Readers
I was dealing with two deaths in our family and was very upset and crying a lot, even screaming at times. My almost 5 yr. old suddenly did not want to be around me. She didn't want me to touch her, put her to bed or have anything to do with her. I was lying down with her one night, and she said to me "I don't want you to put me to bed. I don't like you. I hate your clothes. I don't want your clothes to touch me." I said, "It sounds like you are feeling upset and frustrated with me because I have been acting differently. I have been upset and have not been able to be the kind of Mom that I want to be." Before I had a chance to say more, she said, "I just want things to go back to being normal." I then expressed my desire for things to return to our "normal" routine and explained that they would in time, but that when people die, things change and can be hard. She asked a few more questions about things going back to normal, like if I would start taking and picking her up at school again and if I would be at home at night more. After I answered yes she asked me to rub her back and cuddle with her! This was the first time she showed any affection towards me in over a week.
I had a parenting challenge on Christmas. My daughter was out with her boyfriend and went down a dead end isolated street. A cop was at the end of the road and followed them back out and stopped them. Long story short, he was arrested for "transporting" marijuana and drug paraphernalia. His mother called me at 11:30pm upset that my daughter had not called her when he was arrested. Of course, she had not come home yet, so I knew nothing about it! I had a calm talk with her when she arrived home, using words like "disappointed, concerned, worried, upset and angry", understanding that our conversation was about poor choices on HER part not mine! I asked her to consider overnight, what she had learned and how she would handle the situation differently next time. We had a CALM conversation the next day, including words like trust and concern....not "your grounded." We had rational talks about drugs, drinking, driving, police, her friends, court, and legal ramifications of a "drug" arrest. Actually it went well (I think). And she has agreed to try counseling, which I am encouraging. It is amazing how I can be understanding, loving and nurturing when it is not about ME!!!
More questions and stories, please!
News
Our readership is about to hit 1,000. Help us make that mark this month. Can we double that by the end of the year? If the messages in this newsletter resonate with you, if you would like more and more for the world to understand children this way, please spread the word. We have readers from all over the world. We can have a great influence on our children's lives by talking about and sharing these ideas. Pass the newsletter on, encourage friends to subscribe.
Thursday Jan. 25, I will be speaking in Wilton, NH at the Florence Rideout School on When Your Kids Push Your Buttons at 7:00 pm. Email Karen Bourne krb@tellink.net.
. The 8 week evening When Your Kids Push Your Buttons class in Peterborough, NH has been postponed for 2 weeks. It is scheduled to begin Feb. 7 from 6:30-8:30. Call The Family Center 924-6306 for information and registration. A Buttons Revisited class, a follow-up for anyone who has taken a Buttons class, will run the first four Thursday mornings in February from 9:30-11:30 at The Family Center in Peterborough, NH. Call 924-6306 for information and registration. 6-CD sets of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons And What You Can Do About It (read by me) are available by contacting kristin@bonnieharris.com or by sending $29.95 plus $2.30 postage (for Continental US addresses) to Bonnie Harris Core Parenting, 152 Windy Row Peterborough, NH 03458. Includes a 7th bonus disk with printable pdf files of the exercises from the book.
This newsletter focuses on some of the key points in my book with new thoughts and practical applications. Hopefully it will help the "swimming upstream" struggle we face in changing our parenting from what many of our friends, relatives, teachers and a good deal society expect from us.
What I ask in return is your help in spreading this message. Please forward this to any friends or family you think might benefit, encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter and to buy the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, 2003).
In order for this newsletter to be rich and interesting, I need your questions and stories. You can ask a question from your daily parenting life or you can ask me to elaborate on certain ideas from the book or any previous newsletter. Depending on the number of questions, I may or may not be able to get to all of them in the following newsletter. Your question might be the basis of the discussion of key points or might be in the question and answer section. Please make it as short and succinct as possible and give your children's ages. Many readers assume I have more questions than I can answer, so they don't ask — this is not true unless I tell you otherwise. Ask away!
Fondly,
Bonnie
Bonnie Harris Core Parenting
Click here to Read Previous Newsletters.
Email Bonnie with questions or comments at bh@bonnieharris.com.
^ Top
© 2008 Bonnie Harris, LLC | P : 603.924.6639 | E : bh@bonnieharris.com
