The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com.

Linda, you have an eight-year-old nephew who's having some tantrums.

Yes, ma'am. Yeah, tell me what's going on.

I'm just going to use today for instance. He had a friend over, and he was playing in the living room, and my husband asked him to move out of the room, and he came out into the kitchen area, and he was really loud, so I asked him to take it outside, and he gets up, and he runs to the other room, and he starts crying. So I go and have a talk with him, and I try to calm him down, and then he gets really angry, and he gets in his mother's face, like—

almost like a little man—

yeah, and says, "What? What words?"

He didn't say any bad words, but he tells her to be quiet. He tells her he calls her fat. He's really hurting her feelings. I took him outside, and I sat down and had a little talk with him, and he apologized. He started crying and apologizing to me, but when I asked him to apologize to his mom, he just says, "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Really rude.

Okay, that's called a cheap apology, right?

Yeah.

And you go ahead.

I'm sorry. No, I'm just saying, I don't know what to do. I'm trying to help her, because she—she's got her... he spends a lot of time with me, yeah, because he's in my school that we have him in, is really good, yeah, and she just wrote her—she's bipolar. She has her own issues, but she's trying really hard, and she's blaming herself for this. I just want to try and help her and to help him.

Okay, so he's eight years old. He's already, as you said, acting like a little man at times, and the words that are coming out of his mouth, I wonder where they're coming from. Is your—is she married? Is his mom married?

No, his father is in prison.

Oh, tell me about that.

He was, he's a drug person. He's got, I guess, two strikes against him now, and we moved from San Diego up to the Visalia area, and he got out, and he was real good with him for two weeks. And then all of a sudden he quit coming around again, and he got put back in prison. And then his grandmother on his father's side took him to visit him a few times, but he hasn't seen him since January or February. And I don't like the dad, yeah, but I will, actually, I don't accept calls from him when he calls, okay? Because when we do get calls, then he acts up.

So this little eight-year-old, he's only eight years old, has had what type of experience growing up in childhood?

Yes, really rough time, I have to say. He is an honor student at school.

That's to his credit.

Yes, and there is probably a lot bottled up, and he has no one to talk to about it, I'm assuming, unless he chats with you about what's it been like to live with mom, who's bipolar? What have you observed? How do you feel about the fact that dad's in prison? You know, what can a kid say to you? Do they, you know, drawing him out? Does he have anybody to share that in a world with?

He does talk to me sometimes, but he doesn't—he has my mother, who is up here as my grandmother. I mean, his grandmother, I'm sorry, yeah, and she actually, one day he did call his mother B-I-T-C-H, and grandma had a talk with him. She didn't do it that day. She waited a few days, and he did talk to her calmly about it, and he understood that he's not to do that. But I just, my sister's so distraught, and he's with me, I would say 85% of the time.

So he might have some abandonment issues from mom.

Pardon me, do you think that if he's with you 85% of the time, you are his functional mom?

Yes, I am. I have to say he's with me, but she is here also.

Oh, she lives there too?

She lives with me, but she has her own home, but she comes over like four days out of the week because she's going to classes and stuff to try to take care of her bipolarism and stuff.

Okay, I see. Here's what I'm hearing when I hear little kids mouth words that typically don't come out of little kids' mouths.

Hey, I got to interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is, the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Hmm, the selfish path to romance. That is interesting.

Okay, I see. Here's what I'm hearing when I hear little kids mouth words that typically don't come out of a little kid's mouth unless they're watching some raunchy cartoons on TV, right? Like the batch or the—well, fat kids call each other fat. That's more common at the age of eight, but I wonder what they're hearing at home, because many times I worked with highly abused kids, and many times I heard things come out of those kids' mouths that sounded like I was in a prostitute's.

Oh, yes, I've heard that. My husband and I, we try not to swear in front of him at all. Yeah, we really do make an effort.

Well, I wasn't thinking of you. I'm thinking that if dad was in prison and he's in the drug world, and mom is bipolar, that that's really tough.

So it could come from before.

So, well—

Yeah, one of the things I want to understand him, I want to be able to be an ear for him. He's probably heard so much, you know, "You're bad," you know, "go out." You know, "Take that noise elsewhere." I know that's something you say, "Take it outside," or "Can you move out? You're too noisy." Now, in those moments, he's going to feel like he's pushed away. So if he's crying, crying comes from feeling a loss. So if he's feeling a loss of connection, you know, you're not taking a toy away, so it's not a loss of a toy. But if he's feeling a loss of emotional connection, maybe some rejection, I don't know. I'm guessing, then it may dovetail with dad being gone, you know, going to prison, to see dad, maybe being pushed away by mom at times if she's in a manic state.

You know, it's not easier in a depressed state. She's on medication, so she doesn't really go into those manic states right now. She also just started seeing somebody new, so he's mad at her about that.

Okay, so he's got a lot that's going on in his mind. And you and I know that when we have a lot of issues going on, our mind is so good to have a best friend or someone to talk to.

Okay, it's really hard for an eight-year-old who doesn't even grasp the adult world fully and is immersed in some really sticky issues for himself. So I would recommend either that maybe either one, somebody that's real close to him, such as yourself, be a good listener for him. There's a wonderful book on my website, "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk."

Okay, phenomenal book. It's an older book, but to me, it's the gold standard, and that's on my website, DrKenner.com there. And if the UK could even have some family counseling, maybe you could go in with him, or mom could go in with him. But if you have a good counselor who does some play therapy or helps draw him out, some of those issues can get out in the open too, and then he might learn some skills.

That's what mom was thinking today, that he needs to get some counseling. But one of us needs to do it with him. Is that, is that what I'm hearing?

It depends on the parent. If parents are very invasive and intrusive and get in the way of a child expressing themselves, then no, the parent might be the issue. Okay, if a parent can listen and work with a counselor, and both mom and son can learn the skills at the same time, or you and your nephew could learn the skills, okay, then that works beautifully.

Listen, we're right at the end of time. I thank you so much for calling, and I hope that book helps, and I thank you so much for your help.

Oh, thank you, Linda.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner: Why is it so easy to love our families yet so hard to like them?

Well, that is one of those questions that makes life so rich and psychiatrists richer.

And think about that in your own family. Why is it so easy to just sit at times in your life just to focus on your family and say, "Oh, I love Mom, I love Dad, I love my sister, I love my brother," and then you're in close quarters with them, you're on a vacation together, or you're visiting and living under the same roof with them. And yeah, it's very hard to love them, and it's hard to like them, because you're—what? What happens? You're just frustrated with them, or all of the old patterns come back, and you just feel like, "What did I ever see in this person?" You just really get frustrated.

And that just brings out the point that people have many layers to them. And it's important to realize that sometimes you respond to something wonderful in your mom or your dad or your sister or brother, and you just feel on top of the world. You feel like there's a wonderful bond there. And sometimes that's not the case. You respond to aspects of their character that you don't like or that don't mesh with yours, and then you feel like they're enemy number one.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance," the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who's world-famous for his theories in goal setting.

Self-sacrifice doesn't lead to happiness in romance. But what is the alternative? Would it be doing whatever you feel like doing and treating your partner and others as servants? Is a me-only policy any better than a them-only policy? Aren't these two sides of the same sacrificial coin? In both cases, someone plays the role of victim.

Me-only people are no better off than them-only people. Neither approach leads to happiness; neither approach leads to an enduring, flourishing, and resentment-free romantic relationship.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy "The Selfish Path to Romance" at Amazon.com.