There is a lot of cliché advice out there but most of it is sanitized pabulum.  It is the empty feel good stuff.  You don’t have to think too much, you don’t have to do anything differently, you don’t have to do any heavy lifting.  Apparently, it tells parents and societal helpers what they want to hear free of controversy, conflict or the need to change the status quo.

A great example of this is when we are told that it is a good idea for families to have meal time together.  And then the authors cite all the benefits of sitting down together.  Or the big push for mentors and how just hanging out with kids can turn their lives around.

The fact is that a number of large studies on mentoring conclude that mentoring in and of itself isn’t all that effective.  It is much more than the relationship and simply being ourselves.  If mentors are not active change agents, engaging kids in a new way of thinking, provoking them to relish the exploration of the unknown, motivating them to question the suffocation of their own little boxes, teaching them to welcome and thrive in the unpredictable, then what’s the point?

The family sitting down to eat together and perpetuating all the negative patterns of behavior is useful how?  If I have a captive audience and I don’t use the precious time for something extraordinary, then it is just another notch on the belt of mediocrity.  Sis-boom-bah.

Are we really that frightened of mixing it up with the kids?  We need someone to let us off the hook with the emptiness of “why can’t we all just get along?”  It is not always about taking the path of least resistance.  Sometimes it is about cooking up something unforseen, experimental, pioneering and outside our own limited, protective little shells.  Bon appétit.

Worth another look…

If I dress my dog up to look like a duck and try to get everyone to believe it’s a duck, it would be foolish.  But every single day I work with kids who talk about how they have changed when in fact they have only temporarily modified their “appearance” and soon they will return to the same self-defeating behavior that caused the problems in the first place.  I remind them that the definition of behavior change is: when old behavior is gone forever and replaced with new behavior.  I tell them that when this has happened they won’t have to sell me or anyone.  We will all know…

Thousands of times I have heard these words: “If I knew what to do (to change), I would do it.”  This is not true.  There are many times we know exactly what to do and we do not do it.  Families (like individuals) are programmed to resist change.  The family thermostat is set at the “comfort zone”.  Any action, no matter how well intentioned, that pushes the family outside the zone is met with all kinds of elaborate defense systems, offensive weapons and plain and simple opposition.  “I cannot do what you suggest.  I am not powerful enough to change my kid’s behavior.  I’ve tried everything.  It must be a chemical imbalance.  You can’t just do things differently because someone tells you to.  His father and I just see it differently.  They will grow out of it.  It’s because of the divorce.”

If you could step outside the situation, just for a moment, you would see how nonsensical this is but at ground level it seems sort of reasonable.  All these well practiced assertions are designed to keep families in the comfort zone and justify the inability to change.  So family members are left to modify and then return to the same old self-defeating behavior.  At least it’s comfortable, right?

When parents finally get to parentwarrior, they have, more than likely, run the gamut of therapy for the children and themselves, medication trials, school interventions, self-help books and an assortment of other attempts and nothing has worked.  Nothing has changed the bad situation at home.  Their kids are still being pains in the ass and now they have run out of options or ideas about what to do next.  So, unfortunately, parentwarrior is like a last resort.  Did I mention that nothing had previously worked.

But even with all this on their plate, parents still want me to say things to them in some “normal way”.  Not only am I supposed to tell them what they want to hear, I am supposed to tell them in a way that is acceptable to them (so they are not offended, upset, confronted, forced to examine, made to switch gears, etc.).  And this is how family situations stay virus-ridden and sick.  Even though all the nonsense that came before did not work, parents still want the nonsense in some form or another that they can recognize.  Garbage recycling.

When I don’t give them what they want then they manipulate even harder to have the same crap recycled or they run away.  They feign commitment to change saying they will do anything.  I tell them it is a lie and they won’t just do anything.  They might try a few things that make sense to them while rejecting anything that is confusing, ambivalence-producing, outside their basic mindset or god-forbid might actually work.  Parents, who by their own admission have no answers, are still trying to dictate how the process will go.

The process of change is often just down and dirty and you get your nose figuratively bloodied and you are forced to deal with issues that you have avoided your whole life and you get shaken to your core.  Without rocking your world, how do you think someone could be of use to you?  That is what you need.

And if you are going to take on the kids - who are better manipulators than you will ever be - you damn well better be better prepared then you are now.  Welcome to my world.

You have this vision for how you want your family to be doing.  But you wake up one day and it hits you in the face that the family is off course.  The patterns may have shifted gradually and the changes were subtle.  One child is doing well and another, not so great.  The marriage is lukewarm and you want it to be hot!  You search for explanations and ask yourself “why” the vision is not being fulfilled?

We have this built-in mechanism that makes us look back as if we missed something and it can be discovered and then we can fix it.  It may be, though, that going back is a trap and sets us up for repeating the old stuff once again.

I know it is a lot of responsibility but I have always believed that mothers are the true North.  They are the fixed point by which we set our course.  Yikes, you say, another one of those blaming mothers.  If it sounds that way, I’m sorry.  It is really quite the opposite.  It is a statement about how much power you have.

Forget looking back.  Trust the vision.  Settle for nothing less.  Lead us into a new future…

1) I admit that I am dependent on my children for love and acceptance and the consequences are unhealthy for the family.

2) I accept that in order to cure myself I need to refrain from dependent and self-defeating behavior by seeking new ways to get my needs met.

3) I admit that I may require help in identifying the seemingly innocent, addictive behaviors because I have been unsuccessful in resisting my desire to engage in self-defeating patterns with my children.

4)While I may have personal problems that feed my addiction, I do have the capacity to change my behavior and establish an effective parenting relationship.

5) I reject the idea that I must accumulate endless amounts of information and seek out multiple experts to tell me what to do, recognizing that this can become another addictive process and create more dependency.

6) I reject the idea that I must be perfect but accept the reality that I must be more effective in how I raise my children.

7) I place a high value on being creative and daring in learning how to start new patterns of communication.

8) I accept that I am responsible for my thoughts, emotions and actions and will not blame others for my situation.

9) I recognize that stopping negative dependency is better than attempting to control it.  Too much is at stake to risk further addiction.

10) While there are no perfect solutions, I will take strategic risks to achieve my goal of ending all self-defeating patterns with my children.

11) I choose to give up ideas of guilt, blame and worthlessness as a matter of principle and as a personal demonstration that I am committed to a new way.

12) I accept the fact that mentally and emotionally healthy adults are not inclined to be dependent on their children.  I will complete my recovery and be free of the addiction to my children and as a result my family will be healthier.

I read an article in a St. Louis paper about parenting oppositional kids written by an accomplished therapist and educator.  It was great advice about basic ways parents could intervene with oppositional defiant kids.  What the article missed, what most articles miss, is how this behavior gets set up in the first place.  It missed the complexity of families, the subterranean happenings, the unspoken communications that overshadow whatever is being said and done on the surface.  It missed the essence of what is really going on and the fact that those behaviors are weaved into the fabric of the family.  So all the great intervention strategies will work for awhile and then they will stop working.  The situation will become worse than before the interventions were tried.

Here is what is going on in the underbelly: 1) Parents who need to be loved by their children and the children who know this.  The kids know that by giving their parents the love they so desperately need they will have a special place.  Parents end up as willing victims of extortion with the kids demanding more and more by holding love hostage.  When parents finally wake up and say “no” to this bizarre arrangement, usually for the wrong reason (like the price is too high), they are told by their entitled children that there is no escape or rescue.  If parents hold their ground and stop fulfilling demands, it is then that the oppositional defiant behavior begins.  2) Parents who sabotage each other by giving kids mixed communications.  It could be that one parent is the disciplinarian and the other is the “nice one” who never follows through with enforcing any consequences.  Or it could happen with grandparents usurping parents; misguided professionals taking the side of kids without knowing the whole story; the media telling kids that parents are idiots.  This breeds mutiny where oppositional behavior escalates and can turn violent.  3) Emotional incest where parents literally become friends with their children thereby breaking down all boundaries, the natural order of parents raising their kids and ending any possibility of effective parenting.  Friends do not have authority over each other and if, by chance, a parent decides to be the parent the kid-friend says this is not going to happen.  It is a small step to outright anarchy.

Suggestions for interventions are sometimes useful but they are just band-aids that do not address what is going on below.  It is the malignancies that we must face, sooner or later.  That is the true test of wanting a healthy family.

Parents often ask, “How long will it take to change?”  My response: “Add up the number of weeks it took to get like this.  Divide by ten and that is the shortest time.  Multiply by ten and that is the longest time.”

Behind the question is the desire for a quick and speedy recovery.  A natural byproduct of our current society, I suppose, that expects immediate relief and has no patience for process and incremental progress.  Never mind that the family situation is sometimes a reflection of generations of unsolved problems.  We just want it to be different - now.

Often the current life of the family is presented as if family members just woke up one day and there it was.  Patterns of dysfunction, anger, depression, scattered thoughts, impulsivity, disengagement, upside down hierarchy, addiction, distress and all manner of unhealthy interactions.

When family members are asked how they arranged all this, they look confused, even insulted.  “What do you mean?”, they say, with a huffiness that is almost aggressive.  What I mean is, “How did you all arrange for it to be like this?”

It is not an accusation.  It is a question that asks family members to consider the possibility that the current mess is something they are responsible for and capable of fixing.  It didn’t just happen.  And it is not going to just get better.

You want to teach the kids the skills of time management, prioritizing, negotiation, anticipation, problem-solving, constructively getting their needs met and so on and so on.  It might be quicker and easier this way.

Parents tell their kids they will no longer respond to impulsive requests to do anything, go anywhere, buy things.   They tell the kids that without a reasonable request at least 24 hours in advance then the answer is “No” and will always be No.  And they mean it.  Rocket science, it’s not.  Simply and dramatically changing family patterns, it is.

You walk in the door after a long, hard day and you are greeted by the kids, “We’re glad you’re home.”  They tell you to relax and that dinner will be ready shortly.  And they made your favorite meal.  You are a little stunned and wondering what the catch is but it turns out there isn’t one.  The dinner is wonderful and the kids are curious about how your day went.  After dinner, they tell you to go take it easy; they’ve got the cleanup covered.  Before you go to bed, they stop by and say, “Thanks for all you do for us.  Get a good night’s sleep.”

15 year-old Chris throws himself in a chair in my office and announces he hates his (biological) parents.  “Dude, I just can’t stand them.  They’re so lame.”  First of all, I say, “Don’t call me dude.”  Next I tell him that he is lamer than his parents.  We have a simple biology lesson.  If we look at our biological parents, we can predict with 70% (or so) accuracy how we are going to be.  He says, “No way.”  I say, “Way.”  Good luck, bad luck, who knows?  But it is what it is.  It was suggested to Chris that rather than disliking his parents (and himself - at least the 70% that was like them), he ought to get to know them and in turn himself.  He wasn’t quite sure about that.

This is akin to parents having love-hate relationships with their parents and acting as if their kids don’t know this.  Hey, guess what?  There are no secrets in families.  On some level, everyone knows what is going on.  How about if we just own it or make it clear that we are choosing to do nothing.  This dressing things up is really destructive and eventually it leads to everyone doubting their own perceptions.  So here’s to biology and getting to know each other and a little more open communication and, oh, that other 30%.