The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

I did get a question from a mother who has a major parenting issue with her daughter who's 20 years old.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

I have a daughter who is 20 years old, but mentally about 12 or 13 years old. Now that's sad. This is a developmental delay. She is now thinking that her little job at McDonald's, earning $240 a month, will give her the ability to move out of our house. She considers herself and her dad, who earns money, and I, equal when we are arguing, and she blames me for not buying her an apartment. She thinks I'm supposed to pay for it. Now she's starting to throw things. She argues and she laughs when I try to discipline her. What can I do?

Okay, this is from Janine. Janine, a 12 or 13-year-old has the capacity to understand the connection between earning money and ownership, so you don’t want to let her off the hook too easily. Even though she has a developmental delay, you don’t want to excuse bad behavior. In fact, there's a book, Before It’s Too Late, by Stanton Samenow, and here’s a quote from him: "I have seen innumerable cases where a child who does not want to do something is excused because he is thought to suffer from a handicap or condition that is not his fault. Many children who are antisocial have been misdiagnosed as hyperactive." He continues, "He gets a lot of mileage out of being a victim of a condition he does not have." Now, granted, she definitely has a developmental delay, but that may be totally separate from her recognizing that she needs to be respectful of you.

Now, one question is, are you respectful of her? When you say "discipline," red flags go up in my mind because if you're screaming at her or yelling at her, maybe she’s just mirroring what you do to her. There is a book, How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk. You can go to my website, DrKenner.com, and look up that book. You don’t want to let her get away with bad behavior. If she's arguing, demanding, laughing at you, dismissing you—these are her strategies. If she's using violence by throwing things, you need to have proper methods of disciplining her. So, the two books that I would recommend are How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Before It's Too Late by Stanton Samenow. The answer is to respectfully protect yourself and her by getting good communication skills.

And speaking of kids—or more broadly, speaking of romance and how kids can mess up a romance—Dr. Ed Locke and I have written a book on romance, and the title is The Selfish Path to Romance. Now if you think by that we mean running roughshod over other people, hurting other people, taking advantage of your partner, or mutually taking advantage of everyone else in your life—think again. That’s exactly not what we mean by the word "selfish." We mean not self-sacrificial, not being a doormat—the husband not being the doormat to the wife, or the wife not being the doormat to the husband. We mean valuing one another, learning how to cherish yourself—that’s where the "selfish" comes in—and how to value one another, cherish one another in ways that are reasonable.

With that, how do you cherish one another and parent? Having kids can definitely undermine a wonderful romantic relationship, but it doesn’t have to happen. So, we have a section in our book, The Selfish Path to Romance, which you can get at SelfishRomance.com (it’s all one word), and purchase the book if that interests you. We have a section on how not to let kids undermine your romantic relationship. I’m just going to read you a section from that.

We talk about how, of course, children are beloved, irreplaceable values. Assuming that you had children for the proper reason—you wanted the joy of raising them—then it’s not a sacrifice to give up lower priority values, such as being in a time-consuming tennis tournament. Now here’s a little sidebar: You've made a tragic and emotionally costly error if you had children out of duty or to please others. But setting that aside, now I’ll go back to our text. Spending time with your children is typically a great source of pleasure. Nevertheless, partners need private time together on a regular basis. A romantic relationship should not be sacrificed on the altar of children.

That’s from our book, SelfishRomance.com.

Here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner. I am Dr. Ellen Kenner, and the show is The Rational Basis of Happiness. And that means your happiness really matters, and it depends on how you think. Now, what does that mean? We’ve got the words "rational" and "happiness" together, and rational pertains to how you think. Do you think things through clearly? When you’re planning your future, or you’re planning a party, or you’re planning who you want to date, do you just say, "Well, I kind of know what I’m doing," or do you say, "I know what I’m doing. I know what the next step is, and I know I need more thinking on the following step"?

Are you a better thinker? And you can make yourself into a better thinker if you’re not, and if you make yourself into a better thinker, then you’re much more likely to be successful in romance. You know, I had an argument with my husband today, and I don’t know how to figure that out. Oh well, it’s the same old, same old. You could just throw the towel in, or you could say, "I had an argument with my husband today. Now, what was my point of view? What was his? What’s the essence? What’s the difference here? Has this come up before? Does this stem from something in me—maybe from my own family growing up, my childhood?" You can do that type of thinking, and you can get these wonderful "Oh my God, now I understand myself, and I can see where we went off, where we diverged, and how to make things up, how to fix things." That’s a wonderful feeling, so you want to be able to think better so that you can be happier.

That’s the whole focus of my show, The Rational Basis of Happiness.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

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 Dr. Edwin Locke, who’s world-famous for his theories in goal setting.

Telling white lies can be harmful. If your spouse asks, "Am I too fat?" you can first actively listen by reflecting their thoughts: "You’re concerned about your weight." Giving your partner an opportunity to think aloud may help motivate him or her to lose weight. But if your partner actually wants your input, tell the truth tactfully: "I think you’d feel and look better and be healthier if you lost some weight. Let me know if you’d like my help—I can stop bringing home all that junk food." White lies breed distrust. If your partner lies to you, you will naturally wonder, "If my partner lied about this, what other things has he or she lied about?"

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