Let’s define behavior change again. It is when old behavior is gone (forever) and replaced with new behavior. It is actually a pretty cool thing to play a major role in kids making positive changes. But it can be disorienting too. Kids often grieve the loss of old behavior even though it was self-defeating, damaging and in some cases life-threatening. The negative behavior filled a lot of time and space and now there is a void. They are “down”, a little depressed, even more oppositional and defiant, angry. And here is where we let our guard down and screw up the process. Instead of recognizing it for what it is we want to make it all better and before we know it they are right back to all the old stuff. We fill their void with our sympathy, feelings of inadequacy or guilt. They just need to sit with the emptiness and uncertainty for awhile and contemplate the loss and then continue forward. A brief time of grief can pave the way for amazing changes. Don’t mess it up.

You ask your healthy, able-bodied kid to complete one of their responsibilities and they become oppositional and tell you they have more important things to do. You press the point that it needs to get done now and they get more defiant. Before you know it, they are angrily telling you that you never listen to them and you cannot possibly understand them (because they are too complex). So they are playing victim and being aggressive, at the same time. Huh. You tell them that while it’s been fun you are not going to play today. And they can’t be victim and aggressor simultaneously — it’s too weird. They will need to pick one and you will respond accordingly. And by the way, they need to fulfill their responsibility either way. Have a nice day.

I am often out beating the drum for family change and promoting the need for a parent revolution where parents control the home front and dispel the notion that kids are the center of the universe. (I’m still waiting for the National Geographic special where baby bear tells mommy or daddy bear what to do because baby bear knows how to do it so much better). I am frequently asked about the motivation for the parentwarrior Starter Kit. The original idea came from parents (former clients) who wanted a condensed, refresher for when they got off course. The metaphors, paradoxes and change strategies hit a chord with teachers, counselors and social workers who wanted a different approach in their work with families. Virus like behavior patterns can make for fascinating discussions. The Starter Kit has some bark and bite and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. But I find it insulting to dumb things down, dilute them just to find an audience and play to their delicate sensibilities. Parents are leaders and the change agents for their children. They need powerful ideas in order to move their kids and stop the self-defeating behavior that is unhealthy for everyone. A few shots of espresso just might be the needed wake-up call.

There are a bunch of them out there. They can’t admit they are scared but boy can they be angry. It is not a cry for help (that is ridiculous). It is a need. They need, first of all, to be told that raging at parents (or anyone else) is unacceptable no matter how scared they are. Learning the finer points of distinguishing one emotion from another can be useful but that will take time and they need some clues. It takes fearless parents to teach their scared kids how to be less angry when they are afraid.

You find yourself in the middle of a situation with the kids — could be a confrontation, important discussion, awesome teaching opportunity. You don’t particularly like where it is going at ground level. So you head to the sky box for a better view where you can see everything on the field. You see a more effective way to accomplish what you want. You’re back at ground level switching the strategy, tone or approach and lo and behold it turns out great. And it all took place in the blink of an eye. This, I think, is the highest level skill a parent can develop. Call it the ability to transcend the situation, Super-Vision, meta-parenting or give it some other name that makes sense to you. Think of how this could change the course of how it goes at home.

Last Thursday I was at a meeting with an almost 18 year-old and his parents. He was asked what I thought was a complicated question. Spontaneously, he looked across the table at his mother and she nodded. But she was not nodding to tell him to say “yes” to the question. She was communicating to her son that it was okay for him to make up his own mind. She was giving him permission to be his own person and to assert himself. Later in the day, I attended an Open House. The new home was the eleventh one built by a group of “at-risk” youth. Among the guests was a 3 year-old and her mother. At one point she was doing something iffy and I watched her glance over her shoulder to see if mom was watching. She was. Without movement or words or anything perceptible, the little girl received the message that she needed and continued on with what she was doing. Even though I see it every day I still get amazed by the power of parents and the need we have (no matter what our age) for their permission to go forward… my own mother died nineteen years ago almost to the day. Thank you Mom for letting me know, on a regular basis and in a thousand different ways, that it is okay to follow my passion, establish my own way and be loyal to a set of principles no matter what the situation. It serves me well in my quest to make history every day.

Remember the character, Radar, from the M.A.S.H. TV show. He did an interesting thing that is a great metaphor for how parents can change their kids without all the power struggles and conflict. While in Korea, he took apart an entire jeep and shipped it piece by piece to Nebraska so he could assemble it when he came home after the war… Sometimes the powerful messages (the life-changing ones) that we want to give our kids are just too big for them to digest and maybe too big for us to deliver all at once. We need to break them down into small, seemingly insignificant parts through casual conversations and family activities. In essence, we are going to fly under the radar of disagreement, discounting and resisting. Once the pieces have been placed in the minds of our kids, we are going to assemble them from within. It may be that one day they come to us and say, “I just had this great idea.” We could tell them that we have been building it for a long time. But that would wreck it. Instead we say, “That’s pretty cool. Tell me about it.”

A mom said to me yesterday, “The myths I built my life around just exploded.” She was referring to her son, an almost straight ‘A’ student, who was expelled from school for drug possession. I expected the next sentence to be, “Now what do I do?” Instead she said, “Now I know what to do.” I asked her, “What do you want from me?” She said, “I want you to push me to relearn what I already know.” We are all so programmed to believe we don’t know enough and especially in the midst of crisis it is so easy to doubt. But it is exactly at this point that we need to trust ourselves and move forward without the prop of “someone else knowing more than I do about my family”. Sometimes life pushes us outside the comfort zone. It is risky out there but I think it is a lot riskier inside where safety may just be an illusion.

So, you’re locked away safe and sound inside the comfort zone and it’s not so good. You’re bombarded with the advice givers, talking heads, helpers of all persuasions and websites that promise the easy way if only you arm yourself with enough facts and information. You want the situation to change. You want everyone around you to change. It may be that even you are ready. Interesting… Here are the three states of being that I believe motivate people to change: survival, curiosity and confusion. Most of you are not in life and death mode (although it is possible that some of your kids might be). We will rule that one out as the primary motivator. We are left with curiosity and confusion. So as not to be accused of implying anything, here is what I am telling you. Get outside the comfort zone and stay outside even if it initially is worse than inside. The solutions for you and the family are outside the zone. There are no solutions inside the zone. Anyone who tells you that you can just keep doing what you are doing and the light bulb will go on and you will understand it all and then you will change is wrong. That is not how people change…

“Recognizing quickly that these people were blind, Nunez thought to find himself at great advantage. Instead he found that they soon came to consider him handicapped. They moved through the darkness with grace and confidence along paths on which he stumbled uncertainly and sometimes fell. With patronizing concern their leader asked, “Must you be led like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?” Nunez laughed, “I can see it.” “There is no such word as see”, said the blind man. “Cease this folly and follow the sound of my feet.” “Has no one told you, in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king?” “What is blind?”, asked the blind man carelessly over his shoulder…”