Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

  5. Your child is not “out to get you.” Every challenging behavior is fueled by a feeling or need. You can discover that feeling or need and help your child address it respectfully. Listening to your child does not mean spoiling her. Working with your child doesn’t mean giving in. You are modeling the kind of respectful interaction you want your child to have with you and others. And as you do it, you change the physical structure of your child’s brain.

  6. Repeating lessons is normal. Emotion coaching involves teaching essential life skills. It can take months, even years for your child to learn the lessons well. When you get frustrated, take a break, don’t give up. Practice is necessary and normal. Celebrate your successes—the little steps—and allow your child and yourself to be learners.

  7. You can learn about yourself as well as your child. The exciting thing about emotional intelligence is that it’s predominantly learned behavior. The lessons don’t stop in early childhood. They continue throughout our entire lives, and we get to reap the benefits in all of our relationships—at home and at work.

  8. Your dream can be a reality. You don’t have to fight with your kids every day. Your dream of harmony, peace, and mutual respect can be a reality!

  Our Journey Together

  As we go along together, there will be good days and not so good ones. My hope is that this book will be your guide and your friend—helping you to understand yourself and your child, easing the tough times, offering you support when you get frustrated, and encouraging you to celebrate your successes. It is divided into three sections.

  Part II, “Building the Connections,” will help you to build the relationship that keeps your child working with you because he wants to. It begins with a vision of where you want to go in the long run and explores the kind of relationship you want to have with your child in adolescence and adulthood. It also addresses the realities of how difficult it is to make that connection. So this section also includes strategies for keeping your cool, enforcing standards for your kids, and teaching them how to soothe and calm themselves.

  Part III, “Caring: Knowing Yourself and Your Child,” will help you identify those emotions that fuel the power struggles. An understanding of temperament triggers, and how stress and medical factors impact behavior, can help you predict your triggers and your child’s. This section is chock full of practical tips to help you diffuse and manage those triggers before they can hook you and pull you and your child into power struggles.

  Part IV, “Developing Competence: Teaching Life’s Essential Skills,” explains the normal stages of emotional development. Teaching your child how to motivate and to stop himself, how to be assertive rather than a little bulldozer, and how to negotiate are all essential skills that your child will need for success in life. Practical kid-and parent-tested techniques for learning these skills are included in this section.

  Keep the Vision

  The lessons of emotion coaching are powerful. Relationships once shadowed by anger and hostility can change to joy and cooperation. The teen years can actually be a time of reaping benefits of lessons well learned rather than a time to “bear.” That’s why I’d like to provide you with a vision of what can happen when you are your child’s emotion coach, her guide to an understanding of emotions, her teacher of respectful responses.

  Imagine for a moment you’re lying in bed, just coming to consciousness. There’s music playing in the distance. You realize it’s your child’s alarm clock going off before yours. She’s fifteen now. Before the morning news rouses you, she’s in the shower. Twenty minutes later you meet her in the kitchen. She’s sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal, drinking juice, reading yesterday’s paper. Today’s hasn’t yet arrived. You ask her about her schedule for the day. She asks if you can pick her up from practice at five P.M. She’s got a test she needs to study for and would like to avoid the thirty-minute bus ride home if at all possible. “No problem,” you reply.

  At seven o’clock she’s out the door, hair combed, teeth brushed, just a touch of makeup adding highlights to her eyes, homework done and in the backpack. She’s vibrant, healthy, and laughing. You watch as she stops in the driveway to toss today’s just-delivered paper to the door stoop, so that all you have to do is reach out to pick it up. It’s her “gift” to you this morning.

  You’re off to work then, able to focus, elated by the morning, realizing not every morning goes quite this well, yet the good days are far outnumbering the tough ones. Your dream of connecting with your child isn’t a pipe dream. There is respect, cooperation, and harmony in your home. You and your child really have found ways to work together. The tugs of war are more infrequent and the frustration level lower. There’s more laughter than tears, more problems solved than fights erupting. But what really keeps you going is the realization that you are winning—and so is your child. Emotion coaching is allowing you and your child to be more caring, competent, and connected, and together you are winning for a lifetime!

  PART TWO

  Building the Connections

  TWO

  Emotion Coaching

  The Decision to Connect

  “The best antidote to U.S. teenagers’ major health problems—bad habits such as drinking, smoking, promiscuity—turns out to be a close connection with caring parents.”

  —The Journal of the American Medical Association

  From my office window I watched the kids across the street pulling with all their might on opposite ends of a jump rope. Their heels dug trenches in the dirt and muscles strained before they collapsed in a heap of laughter. Minutes later, two of them were on the ends of the rope twirling it, while the third jumped. The words of their chant, along with their giggles, filtered through my window. In and out they went taking turns twirling, then jumping. Twenty minutes later they stopped to rest, downed glasses of lemonade, and chatted. The energy of their words rose to a challenge. “Beat you to a hundred!” one shouted as she leapt up and started jumping. The next thing I knew all three of them were swinging their own ropes. Faces grew red, lips moved, but no words escaped.

  I don’t know if they made it to one hundred, but I do know that I made an important realization while watching them: When we’re in those tugs of war with our kids, it’s much easier to see those struggles as an opportunity once we realize we have the same options the kids across the street did. We always have control of our end of the rope! We can decide that this is the time to hang on tight, stand firm, and insist, “In our family this is the rule!” Other times we may decide to step in and work with our child, enjoying together what we couldn’t do alone. And then there are occasions when we realize it is time to let go of our end of the rope, to hand the whole thing over to our child, and say, “You’re ready. Take it. You can make this decision. You can handle it on your own.”

  The challenge, of course, is to know when to make which decision. A vision of where you’re going in the long run can help.

  Begin with the End in Mind

  I was dusting and halfheartedly listening to a national talk show. A renowned psychologist was discussing power struggles. His advice to the host was, “If your three-year-old wants you to sit with him at bedtime, let me just say, don’t start habits you don’t want to continue until graduation.”

  I stopped dusting and turned to the screen. I couldn’t help thinking of Stephen Covey’s words, “Begin with the end in mind.” “How many parents wish their teenager would trust them enough to talk with them,” I wondered out loud. How many parents wish their kids would see them as someone who could help them answer their questions or make decisions. Is sitting with your three-year-old a bad habit, a waste of time? Or could it be the beginning of a strong, healthy communication system with your child?

  Whether or not you choose to sit with your child is your decision, but as you make it, begin with the end in mind. Hold a clear understanding of your destination—the kind of relationship you want to have with your child in the long run.

  Imagine f
or a moment your child is graduating from high school. How do you want him to feel about himself? How do you want her to feel about you? Are the words and actions you’re using today taking you in that direction? A look at your own experience may help you answer these questions. Your answer will be unique, but let me take you to one of my classes and allow you to hear what others have to say.

  Meet the Group

  It’s the movements and sounds you notice first as the parents and children enter the family center. A jaunty pace highlighted with a big smile indicates a good week. “I’ve got a success story!” a parent may call as she holds open the door for her children, who squeal in delight and dash for the climber.

  Quick, sharp, rushed steps, accented with heavy sighs, unzipped coats, missing mittens, and crying children, tell me it’s been a tough one. My intuition is often confirmed by a curt announcement of “We need to be here!”

  No matter what the tenor of the moment, the parents know that in the next two hours they’ll get forty-five minutes to play with their kids without the interruptions of telephones or televisions, and the staff will clean up the mess! They’ll also get a chance to separate from their kids, sit down with a hot cup of coffee, and talk with other adults who really understand the struggles they are facing. While they relax and share stories, they can even watch through the one-way mirrors while their kids continue activities with the staff.

  Where Do You Want to Go?

  Today on the whiteboard I have written: “Think about a significant adult in your life, someone who has helped you to understand yourself and to develop your strengths. What were his or her characteristics?”

  Each parent is given an index card on which to write an answer.

  Smiles begin to light faces as they remember those special individuals in their lives. Voices rise and fall, and laughter intermixes with the chatter. Suddenly I notice a furtive glance from Kate; her eyes are moving from side to side, attempting to catch what others have written on their cards.

  I realize I need to say, “If you haven’t had someone like this in your life, imagine that you do. What would he or she be like?” Kate looks relieved and begins to write.

  Waiting until the pens have stopped moving, I ask, “Who would like to share your description?” Hands shoot into the air, eyes sparkle, each individual appears eager to share fond memories.

  Jim, an outgoing father of four, volunteers to begin. “A great listener,” he says. “I don’t know how he did it, but my dad always made you feel like he had time for you. I remember family dinners. He always knew what we were doing and asked about classes and games. If we needed help or support, he was there. He liked to listen to public radio on the way home. He was always telling us stories, some hilarious, others challenged us to think about an issue.”

  Kate, who was sitting across the table from Jim, was incredulous. “My father wasn’t anything like yours. Do you do that?” she wanted to know.

  “I try,” he admitted, “but I can’t say I’m perfect.” Debbie held up her card. “I’ve got one,” she said. “She was my sophomore history teacher. What I appreciated most about her was how dependable she was. You always knew where she stood. She wasn’t a pushover, but she was gentle and calm. No matter who you were, she saw the good in you, and I really think she believed we wanted to do our best.”

  They continued sharing descriptions and heartwarming stories. Cushioned in the glow of fond memories, the atmosphere of the room was light.

  The Person You Disliked

  And then I changed things. “Now tell me about an influential adult you disliked. Someone who to this day the mere thought of can make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.” The mood in the room immediately shifted. Sinister laughter erupted. Peter’s jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumped. But it was Jim’s eyes that caught my attention. They slammed into me, blazing with anger. “Mean,” he spit out. “Rotten, low-down, self-centered, two-faced.” He paused. “You don’t want me to finish this,” he remarked, and his voice trailed off.

  Peter stepped into the void. “Untrustworthy, judgmental, pessimistic, pushy, never listened, rigid, and quick-tempered,” he read from his card. “High school geometry teacher,” he explained, the cords in his neck continuing to pulse. “And I was dreaming of being an engineer.” He shook his head and looked away.

  Debbie blurted into the silence, her voice vehement, the words sharp. “Inflexible, punitive, sarcastic, critical, rough,” she snapped. “He didn’t have time to help, he was too busy.” Her hands trembled as she set down her coffee cup.

  The passion of their emotions crackled in the room. Bodies tightened and shuddered as they remembered. I completed a chart on the board as the words were whipped at me.

  * * *

  Characteristics of the Person You Liked

  Characteristics of the Person You Disliked

  good listener

  lousy listener

  patient

  self-centered

  funny

  sarcastic

  flexible

  rigid

  challenging

  punitive

  dependable

  untrustworthy

  gentle

  rough

  positive

  pessimistic

  encouraging

  critical

  calm

  quick-tempered

  fair

  played favorites

  * * *

  The contrasts were stark. Each of us silently realized there were moments when we could fall on either side of the list. The awareness made us squirm.

  What Happens to Us

  “How did the person you liked make you feel about yourself?” I asked.

  Smiles returned. “Great!” Peter confirmed

  “Energized and motivated,” Donna added.

  “Confident, competent, and capable,” Jim offered, grinning to let us know he enjoyed his alliteration.

  “Worthwhile,” Kate whispered.

  And then I did it again. I dashed those good feelings by asking, “How did the person you disliked make you feel?”

  Kate slumped in her chair. “Worthless,” she replied.

  Peter’s eyes glinted. “Angry and rebellious.”

  “Incompetent, incapable, and inadequate.” Jim sighed. This time the joy of his alliteration was lost in a frown. I added their answers to my chart.

  * * *

  How the Person You

  Liked Made You

  Feel About Yourself

  How the Person You

  Disliked Made You

  Feel About Yourself

  great

  angry

  worthwhile

  worthless

  competent

  incompetent

  capable

  incapable

  confident

  inadequate

  * * *

  Pointing to the left side of the chart, I asked, “How willing would you be to work with the person you liked?”

  “Anytime,” Peter stated confidently. “I’d love to.” The others agreed.

  “And this person,” I continued, pointing to the right column, “the one you disliked, how willing would you be to work with him?”

  “Never,” Jim retorted.

  Kate huffed, “I divorced him!”

  The Emotion Coach vs. the Intimidator

  The people who truly made a positive difference in your life were what I now call emotional intelligence coaches. They built a relationship with you. They were able to help you understand who you were, what you were feeling, and how to respond respectfully. The base of their power and influence lay in the emotional bond they held with you. As a result you wanted to work with them.

  The people you disliked are what I refer to as the intimidators. It’s likely that they not only rejected your feelings but may have even punished you for experiencing them. Many intimidators view a child’s tears as a form of manipulation and react with anger and fear
. John Gottman writes in The Heart of Parenting, “He doesn’t ask how do you feel, because he believes that focusing on uncomfortable feelings is like watering weeds. It makes them grow bigger and more noxious.” The base of the intimidator’s power lies in humiliation and domination. As a result you do not want to work with him. You want to rebel or withdraw.

  It’s very likely that you’ve experienced an intimidator in your life. In fact she may be your only parent role model. But a recent study of twelve thousand adolescents nationwide, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, states, “Parent connectedness is the single healthiest force in the lives of U.S. teenagers.” Emotion coaches connect with kids.

  Starting today, you can choose to stop using strategies that distance you from your children. It really isn’t that difficult to be an emotion coach. You can begin simply by choosing to discipline in a manner that builds a relationship with your child and connects you rather than disconnects.

  Redesigning Your Role

  Research completed at the University of Minnesota by Ruth Thomas, Ph.D., and Betty Cooke, Ph.D., has found that the most effective parents, those I call emotion coaches, are:

  Sensitive.

  They pick up the cues of their children and sense how they are feeling. They listen and empathize.

  Responsive.

  They respond in ways that fit their child’s cues. If the child is frightened, they comfort him. If he’s intense, they calm him. But they don’t excuse disrespectful behavior. Their limits are clear and enforced.