Every day I hear this nonsense.  “You cannot change someone”, they say, “You have to wait until they are ready.”  It is bizarre and cowardly and yet another way of getting out of taking action.  My favorite mind screw is, “They have to hit bottom first and then they will be ready to change.”

What if they are traveling at 100 mph when they hit bottom?  Will they bounce?  So here’s the terrifying question for all you parents out there that want to do the wait and see crap or it will get better with time or they’ll grow out of it.  How will that sound when you bury them?

What will you do after the tragedy when you find out that you could have done something?  What if I’m right and the conventional wisdom is wrong?  Shouldn’t you at least consider the possibility?  And the downside of taking change-producing action is what?  You are going to make the situation worse?  Give me a break.  Have some guts.  Change the kids for the better.  They will not bounce.

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.

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.

It is reported that Karl Menninger was very tough on his new medical students at the Menninger Clinic. He would ask them repeatedly, “what is the most important thing you will ever do as a physician?” His young students came up with all kinds of answers about therapeutic relationships, understanding new procedures, staying current with the science. So he asked them again, “what is the most important thing you will ever do?” And there was silence. He continued, “you must make the right diagnosis. If you make the wrong diagnosis, everything you do after that will make the situation worse.” I am convinced that most parents know what is going on in their family. But we have been schooled to not trust our instincts and intuition and told that the experts know better. It is not true. And we are the experts for our families.