You are not powerless to change your behavior.  I talk to parents every day who tell me the 7 year-old or the 11 year-old or the 15 year-old is running the family.  My first question is: If they are running the family, what’s your job?  It is not sarcasm.  It’s confrontation with the ridiculous notion that kids can actually run the family without accomplices.

So here’s a resolution: stop engaging in or aiding and abetting this kind of dysfunctional behavior.  Happy New Year!

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%.

How did it happen?  Did we do this to them or can we blame someone or something else?  “It’s all about me”, they say, because that is what you taught me.  You made me the center of your universe and now I believe I am the center of the universe.  And you can’t take it back because the experts say that would injure my self-esteem.  And then you would have to take care of me some more.  See, it is a never ending circle that surrounds me.  I am wrapped up tight and snug inside my own little world.  I would say thank you but that might imply some empathy and you have taught me not to care about anyone else but me.

Many parents ask, “How will I know when my family is changing?”

Here are some benchmarks:

• A new perception creates a new reality for the family. For example, in most families where there is a lot of acting out behavior, parents and kids will say that the differences they have are the cause. The reality is that personalities clash because of the similarities.
• Family members verbalize they will never go back to the way they were living.
• Action then becomes more important than words and there is a clear recognition of new behavior versus old.
• Parents are in control and managing and leading the family.
• New “tools” are being used to identify and solve problems before they become crises.
• Kids are having success with changing patterns and there are fewer consequences and more rewards.
• Adults are working on their relationships.
• Negotiation is happening on a regular basis and kids are offering something of value to get something in return.
• The family literally creates obstacles to going backwards - developing the ability to switch gears, think differently, anticipate and get creative when things get tough.
• There are frequent real life tests to see whether it is change or simply behavior modification.
• Ultimately, all family members agree to blow up the bridge to the past.

Three things strike me about kids and the information they absorb from their parents: 1) How much information they can absorb without ever appearing to be listening. 2) How frequently the information is then taken out of context and misinterpreted. 3) How often the misinformation is used as ammunition to get what they want. It seems that in the quest for self-gratification they have no problem with extortion, blackmail and emotional hostage-taking. Ouch!

It was three years after my brother was killed. I had enrolled in a masters program and was taking a Psychological Interventions course. I had written a paper about the last three years. One day my professor pulled me aside and asked if we could talk about my writings. He started the conversation with: “If your brother were alive, what would he think about you using his death as an excuse for being so angry?” Caught off guard, I spontaneously answered, “He would probably kick my ass.”

There are pivotal events in our lives. And more times than not, we get stuck there. Flash forward. We encounter a situation that may be stressful, conflictual, unpredictable and we know how we should be responding but something else is happening.

Last Friday, a mother dropped her 14 year-old son off at my office and said she was done. There had been a blow-up about going to school. When this young man was 7 years-old, he had a life threatening illness and was not expected to live. It rocked the family and he naturally became the center of everyone’s attention. Now, when he doesn’t get his way, his actions are much more like a 7 year-old than a 14 year-old. Should his parents intervene with the second-grader or the high school student?

Families get stuck too. Current events take us back to behavior we thought was long gone. Couples in their thirties and forties are fighting like the teenagers they once were with the same jealousies and insecurities even though the life they have built is strong and sure. Our kids trigger in us the intensity that we experienced once upon a time and our responses seem out of context with what is really going on.

Change can’t happen until I become aware of what is taking place. Before awareness, I’m on automatic pilot. After awareness, I have choices. Stuck is sometimes a useful and necessary place to be. When it starts jeopardizing the quality of now, maybe not so much. My professor ended our first of many conversations with a gentle but insistent suggestion: “Maybe it’s time to move on.”

All the gas pedal can do is more or less. You push down and you let up. You get trapped into that either-or mindset. It is predictable. One of the things that keeps a lousy situation going at home is the same old, same old parental behavior. Usually verbal and repetitive.

Time to shift gears. Move to a different level of interaction. Connect those neurons in new ways. Go a little wild. Use all five senses to communicate with the kids. There are a thousand ways to inspire, praise, enchant and invigorate that can be done in multi-color, surround sound with new tastes, textures and smells. A cornucopia of opportunity. It might work better.