The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com and at amazon.com

Gene, you're having difficulty with your 12-year-old?

Yes, I do. He's a gifted child. He's very intelligent and extremely intuitive, but he's also very manipulative.

Not a good combination, huh?

Oh, yeah. It's very frustrating. He's a wonderful, loving soul, though, and probably a lot older than what he should be in a lot of ways. But still, his maturity hasn't caught up to him. My main goal is just to have him grow up to be a wonderful young man and take care of his responsibilities, I guess.

Okay, where do you find him?

Give me a problem that you recently had that triggered you to make this phone call.

I have asked him to do the dishes consistently for, oh, it's been six months, eight months, I don't know. That's his duty. He has frogs, and we pay about $30 per month for frogs for their crickets. And that's one of his chores, and it is a constant reminder, please do the dishes. Please do the dishes. And this evening, I've spent about two hours arguing with him over the dishes.

What does he say?

He doesn't really say that. He doesn't feel like he needs to do all the dishes. He only needs to do part of the dishes.

Why?

If the dishwasher's full, the rest of them have to wait until the next time.

Oh, see, you can do them by hand.

Yeah, he doesn't want to do that. He doesn't. He can think of a million ways to try to manipulate it. And then he's just distracted and he wants to, you know, he's throwing out, he sent my seven-year-old little girl, and, he just wants to do anything to get away from it.

How many children do you have?

Four. And my husband leaves on a third tour.

Oh my gosh. Oh, thank you for his service. A third tour?

Yes, yeah.

So you have a lot more on your mind.

Yeah, and, you know, we've got the flow of how to try to do both mom and dad, but I don't have that big, authoritative voice, and, you know, I'm the mom. I'm usually the one that—

He takes full advantage of that one.

Yeah.

What do you typically try?

We ground. We take away TVs. We take away PlayStation.

Mom, not again.

Oh, yeah.

What does he say?

Okay, whatever. Like, "Okay, well, let’s just sell the frogs and we solve that solution."

"Okay, fine. We’ll go to the Petco." Like, "No, I want my frog. Let’s go get more crickets."

"Your money, you pay for them this time."

Okay, so it’s kind of like he catches me all the time, like, "Okay, he paid for the crickets, so what do I do now?"

Okay, so your goal is to engage his cooperation, rather than—when I think of discipline, I think of you punishing him, being that, like you mentioned, having a very strong, powerful voice, "Go do the dishes now." And you don’t dare, you don’t dare buck the system because whatever is contained in that tone of voice, that "Go do the dishes now."

Well, I can do that, and I can yell it. I don’t want to be a screamer.

Well, I'm saying that that backfires. Because even if you have—even if the child says, "Oh my God, what are they going to do next?" Because there’s an implied huge threat. What's the parent going to do? Hit them or take away their guitar or do something—not let them go out with their friends anymore, you know, forever, or when they're older, take away the car. Whatever their values are, are currently being threatened, implicitly in the parent's tone. And typically, kids will adopt several attitudes. Sometimes they’ll become very compliant. And then you get a kid that just is afraid of authority figures or just buckles under to them, which is not the strong kid that you want. But then another type of kid will just say, "You can’t hurt me; give me whatever punishment you want, and it’s not going to hurt me at all." And they'll detach from their own values, because the greater value is "You can’t force my mind, mom or dad." And so that’s not working. And you get into a mutual frustration society. And you said, he's got a kind soul. You love your child, and you've got your hands full. It is amazing if your husband is on his third tour of duty, and you have four children at home.

What ages?

We have 12, soon to be 13, and then 11. He's almost 12, and we have seven and four.

Okay, so he's got siblings. You've got sibling girls. He's the only boy?

Three girls.

Okay. And the fact that he's throwing ice cubes at the seven-year-old tells me that there could be some sibling issues going on here too, that there may be some favorite kids, or maybe he—

Yeah, I don't know what’s going through his head.

He's a seven-year-old.

They get along very well. They’re very humorous together.

Okay.

They're kind of like buddies, yeah.

I want to give you, I know because we’re down to three minutes here, I want to give you some advice.

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. Thirty 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? Ah, 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.

I want to give you some advice, so, and what I’m telling you is that when your child either takes the wimpy route, and they say, "Whatever you want, mom," and they become the compliant kid, that’s not good for them long range, because you want a kid that has his independent mind intact, but you also don’t want a rebellious kid, a kid that just detaches from his own values and that you start to see as manipulative. You want to break that cycle and see more of the good soul in him. So when you start to see the better aspects of your child, you can grow them. When he does do the dishes on time, you catch a kid doing something right, and it may not even be the dishes. You can talk about the whole situation, you know, "Tell me, we both get so frustrated, honey." Instead of "I'm frustrated with you," you work to engage his cooperation. "We both get so frustrated. Daddy’s away for a long time. It’s hard on everybody. Let’s try to figure out a way that makes dinner times or meal times easier for both of us. What suggestions do you have, honey?"

"Well, I hate doing the dishes."

"Well, tell me, any other ideas?"

"Do you have any other ideas?"

"Well, I don’t mind taking out the garbage, mom."

And you may get some play. You may, because if a child chooses within limits—I mean, he’s not going to say, "Well, I’ll watch TV while you do the dishes." But if a child has input into some choice making, they buy into it more, and they take a sense of pride in it. And then you catch him doing whatever he’s doing—the garbage—and you say, "Thank you so much. I so appreciate that." Rather than "It’s about time." I want you to go to my website when we’re done, if you’re not there now, drkenner.com, and I recommend these books all the time, and I wish there were even more that I could recommend, but these are my gold standard books. How to Talk So Teens Will Listen, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, How to Talk So Kids Will Learn, Siblings Without Rivalry. But the first one I would get would be either the How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, because you still have a four- and a seven-year-old and an 11-year-old, and then the teens one. And the siblings one too. They’re all easy reads, and they’re all by the same authors—Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. So those will help you. There is a chapter on engaging cooperation. There's a chapter on, instead of punishment, what does work? And it doesn't mean you're the wimp. And the last one is, there's a chapter on how to help your child break out of a bad role. They could be the shy kid, the bratty kid, the manipulative kid—how to break them out of that role, and they give you specific skills on how to do that. And it's a fabulous book, so you need all, all of the support you can get.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to drkenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

Love is an emotion, and all emotions have consciously identifiable causes, but certain factors make the causes of emotions, such as love, joy, and sadness, especially difficult to identify. Emotions occur automatically and instantly based on how we appraise people or situations. Emotions don’t develop in slow motion. You catch your boyfriend in bed with your best friend, and you are instantly flooded with anger. You reunite with your husband after he's returned from his military tour of duty, and you immediately feel overjoyed. The appraisals causing our emotions are not only automatic, but also subconscious, outside of our immediate awareness. You feel irritated with your wife, but may not be able to easily put into words what’s specifically causing your irritation.

You can download chapter one for free at drkenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.com.