The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at drkenner.com.

Sarah, you?re dealing with a four-year-old. You have a four-year-old?

Yes, yeah.

What?s going on?

Well, me and my ex-husband separated about a year and a half ago, and she?s a daddy?s girl, okay? And I?m having a lot of issues as far as when I say to do something or ask her to do something, I don?t have to. ?I?ll just call my daddy,? or ?I?ll call my grandma,? or, you know, she always has an extra person that says, ?Oh, you don?t have to do it.? So she?s?and I?m trying to figure out how I can get through to her to say, look, I?m Mom. I?m, you know, the main person you need to be listening to. And you know, if you don?t, you know there?s going to be consequences. And every time I try to do the consequences, you know, she has something to say. She tells me she hates me. She doesn?t want to live with me anymore. All that good stuff.

Okay, see, you?re laughing, and I?m sure there?s a lot of pain behind that laughter. So what I?m hearing is she?s learned a method at a very young age that splitting the two parents, or splitting you??they?re better than you are??and that?s been effective with you. And you need a way to be able to answer her, and a way to be able to give her much, much more than just in that moment being able to answer her, being able to give her a principle that this is not a good game to play, to try to split people.

So one of the things?you can?t?when you try to force a kid to listen to you, parents become desperate. Here?s what they do, typically, and this comes right out of a parenting book. I will give you the name of it at the end. There are two books I want to recommend to you. But one of them?parents become desperate. They try to be nice. ?Well, just listen to me. This is what I need you to do. I need you to clean your room,? or ?We have to get in the car right now.?

?I don?t have to. You can?t tell me what to do. I?m telling Daddy. Daddy says I don?t?? Who knows what Daddy said? Does Daddy feed into this? ?You don?t have to listen to Mom.?

Yeah.

Okay, so if she?s doing things like that, you need a way to reach her mind. And parents, typically?this is what I started with?parents typically say, they?ll be sweet, and then they?ll say, ?Now listen. I?m the mother. You listen to me. Get in the car right now. I don?t want to hear anything about Daddy. Get in the car right now.? And so she could try to get in. She?s starting to get in the car. She crosses her arms and says, ?I don?t have to.?

And here you are, a grown adult, with a little four-year-old pushing you around.

Yeah.

And then you?re thinking, ?What? Oh, I love my daughter,? in that moment?

Hey, I?ve got to interrupt this because we?ve got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that?s it. A very quick ad, and then I?ll be back.

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And so she?s starting to get in the car. She crosses her arms and says, ?I don?t have to.?

And here you are, a grown adult, with a little four-year-old pushing you around.

Yeah.

And then you?re thinking, ?What? Oh, I love my daughter.? In that moment, it?s amazing how much I can love her and be mad at her all at the same time.

Okay, so you can hold the full context. So she is not probably feeling very warm and cuddly and fuzzy toward you at that moment.

And I?m gone most of the time because I?m currently in nursing school full-time. So I?m gone four or five days out of the week. And then I come home and I?m home for a couple days, and then I go back.

And so she gets you for how long?

A couple hours a night.

Okay. So what?s the laughter? What?s behind your laughter?

It?s just that I have no control, and I haven?t figured out a way to figure it out, I guess.

What?s your best?describe one of your best moments with her.

Watching movies, of her just sitting there and talking about the movie and dancing with the movie and listening to the words, and her telling me all about the movie, and her telling me about her day. You know, every?catching up. When we?re watching the movie, she?ll catch up with me. And that?s the best time.

That?s going to make you incredibly high value in her life if you?re somebody who gets on her wavelength and enjoys one of her values with her?assuming you need to pick one that you like. If my kids pick a value that I don?t like, I?m sitting there bored to tears. So try to find some mutual ground where you both share a similar hobby or interest.

Watching movies?with me it was reading books to my kids and teaching them?and you?re just sitting there and she?s dancing, and you?re dancing with her, and she?s having such a good time. That is doing much more to help her connect to you than telling her, ?I?m the mom. You?re going to listen to me right now.?

Moms and dads, but especially in a divorce situation, you?re in a difficult situation in that you have to tell her to do things she doesn?t want to do, such as eat your food, finish your food before you eat your dessert, brush your teeth now, get into bed now, get up now, it?s time to get dressed now. You have to tell her what to do, and you have to tell her things she can?t do. ?No, you can?t watch TV now. No, you can?t have dessert now.? So you become, in one of my favorite parenting books, the enemy. You?re a ready-made enemy as a parent already.

So how does any parent get around that, especially if you?ve got the added complication of your ex possibly saying mean things against you? ?You don?t have to listen to Mommy. Just call me if Mommy?s giving you any problems.? And here you are trying to be a nurse in the helping profession, and you can?t deal with your own four-year-old.

Right.

So one of the things that you can do is to?as I said?the dancing, the playing with her, listening to her day is absolutely phenomenal. And then what to do to engage her cooperation is to say?and give me an example of something that she does that you?re having problems with.

If I tell her that she needs to get ready to go to bed, she says, ?Well, I?m not sleeping in??okay??I?m not sleeping in the same room you are. So I?ll just go hang out with my grandma.?

Okay. ?No, we need to get ready to go to bed.?

The minute you say ?no,? you become an enemy. So here?s what you do. You can use a skill called granting her wish in fantasy.

?Honey, I can hear how much you want to stay up with Grandma, and I wish for your sake that I could say yes, you guys can stay up all through the night. Tonight?s not a good night to do that. Would you like to go to bed in 10 minutes or in 15 minutes? Tell me which is best for you.?

I used two skills there. I used granting her wish in fantasy, and I gave her a choice?a choice between 10 and 15 minutes. So kids like the experience of choice, and that?s very helpful.

So the books I want to tell you?one of them is Dinosaurs Divorce. And you can go to my website. It will be up there probably within a day or two, but you can just Google it. And there?s a page where it says, ?Don?t let one parent tell you to say things to the other parent.? It has, in cartoonish form, the very principle that you need to teach her, but it?s in a book, so you guys can talk about it. You know, you can slow down on that frame.

The other is the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, and that is on my website. That is a phenomenal book.

So listen, I wish you wonderful success, Sarah, with your four-year-old.

And here?s a little more from Dr. Kenner.

You?ve had quite a life, I suppose. I bet I know just what you?re thinking. This is only the beginning. It?s only going to get worse from here.

Let me tell you something. I?m 81 now, and every morning I open my eyes and I see the sun streaming through the window. I hear the birds chirping. I smell the coffee brewing down the hall. And I walk into the bathroom and I look into the mirror, and do you know what I say to myself?

What?

?The point is, it is only going to get worse from where you are right now.?

Well, what did you want me to say? Life gets better with every passing year?

Well, you?re not making me feel any better.

Moira, it?s because I can?t. Nobody likes to get older, but it doesn?t mean you can?t enjoy yourself. Look, you?re way too young to be concerned about all this. Don?t waste the best years of your life worrying about something you can?t control.

I know. I know you?re right.

And if that voice sounded familiar, it was Roz from Frasier.

And how are you dealing with getting older? Are you embracing it? I have a relative?I have two relatives?one who windsurfs at the age of, I guess he?s in his 80s now, and the other one?I mean, really windsurfs and rides for about 14 miles. I ride for about three miles. And another relative who travels all over in his mid-80s.

So really, if you have good health, and if you can keep your health?and that?s somewhat out of our control, somewhat in our control?you can really enjoy your life.

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

Here?s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and Dr. Edwin Locke.

Encourage your partner to pursue his or her values. You do not want your partner to ever give up important values, assuming they are not irrational values, such as taking illicit drugs, being abusive, or having an affair. Neither partner should ask the other to give up valued activities or valued friends, assuming the friends are not unpleasant or dishonest people. This principle applies to all important values held by your partner, but especially the most essential ones, such as a career. Encouraging your partner to act to achieve important values, but also helping your loved one to maintain the proper attitude toward those values, is part of living up to this principle.

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