The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

On the selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free. Dr. Kenner.com, and now let's go to the phone and speak with Steve. You have a question about being asked to subsidize your grandchild's education?

Yes. Dr. Kenner, thank you for taking my call. I've been offering to subsidize his education. Yes. I met my wife when her kids were teenagers, so I never had children of my own. Yeah, now one of those kids has absolutely wonderfully included me in the life and the grandson, and I have a special connection. I feel about him the way I just never believed I could feel about anybody, yeah, and I'm watching him get just torn apart by the public education system. Went through it myself. I didn't start my life until I was close to 40, and studied philosophy of education, taught myself how to think, went back to school after being quite literally expelled, and went through, and it was a total breeze. And I have a fantastic career. Now, I couldn't help my kids because her kids when, because it was too late. Now I have a chance with my grandson. Yeah, they don't see the value of a good education, or they don't see the difference between private and public. I'm entirely clear. So to try to get him something better after watching him go in with skills that he lost over the course of the year, yeah, they saw this happening. They saw him deteriorate.

How old is he?

He's entering third grade, okay, and he went into kindergarten with some rudimentary reading, writing skills that came out unable to do either. Summary, went to first grade, and came out again, unable to do either. And now he's testing at well above average intelligence below first-grade level in the basic achievement test going into third grade. So they're starting to be open to private education. And one of the schools just opened and right near them, yes, and I'm trying to get him in there, yeah, because it just turned my life from manual.

I know the difference. Yes, I am. Yeah. You have seen, if you live in the Western world, you have seen my work. I guarantee you know television. You may not know my name, but you've seen what I do, from manual labor to that. It's spectacular, but I cannot communicate it to them. There's, there's nothing in their world that. So they're bad. They tend to see that. So I've been trying to get them going. And when they thought it was low test scores and his achievement tests, they decided they were open to it. And that was, but when I was looking at it, when I made the offers, yeah, it was within my financial reach. Now, with my age, my late start, yeah, and the cost of the education having gone up, it's a stretch, and I've still been willing to do it, but now they're only willing to cover up to about 20% of the cost, and they're telling me that if I want to do this for him, I've got to take on the rest.

So partly, it sounds like they partially see the value of this alternative education. But they're not fully sold on it. They're not fully married to investing in it for their son. And they see the ups and downs that he's gone through, the deterioration after having made some pretty phenomenal gains, the reading and writing and the roller coaster ride he's been on of learning and then having it destroyed in the public school he was in. And so for you, what would be a great outcome for you if they’d be willing to go a little higher and split this and bring it back into a range that's affordable, and I'd still be able to retire and not have to sell the house? Okay?

So, yeah, you don't want to sacrifice, because they could pull him out and then put him someplace else. And I mean, he's outside of your control. You can be a wonderful force of influence and support, and you want to keep this all in the positive. You know, you don't want to make it a power struggle with them. So I would go back to the negotiation table with them lovingly. And you could say, "Hey, I gotta 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. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, 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 huh? The Selfish path to romance, that is interesting, so I would go back to the negotiation table with them lovingly, and you could say, I'm tormented by this because I would actually have to sell the house to afford this. And can we do some more thinking around this to see if there are any other sources of income, or if you'd be willing to put in half?

That's what I'm hearing you say they've already shut. Shut down. How did they?

Well, sometimes people shut it down and then open it up again. Are they?

I hope so.

Yeah, sometimes you don't have to take no for an answer. You can just go back, because it's such an important value. Just say, I would just love for him to go to this school. I'm assuming it's a him. Yes. And have they seen the school? Have they seen what's possible?

They've taken them over there, and they've had them evaluated. The school wants them. They're even offering 30%. I was gonna ask that after this price, which is, you know, very nice. And I do a lot of public outreach in my job, and I can't tell that to my own kid.

I know. I know. And with your own children. They love their independence. And if there's a way to work collaboratively with them and say, we've got to make this work, you know, this is what I can afford. The school will give us a 30% scholarship. You can even talk to the school. The School, if they're just starting, they may be willing to give you even a bigger break. Or maybe you could contribute if you do museum work, maybe there's some way that you could contribute in a way that could be bothering with them a bit, or writing and art, you know, whatever your expertise is, if, if you could bring.

I worked at my kids' school. I volunteered at the Montessori school when they were very young. Now, I didn't get paid for it, but I did get paid in learning, but there could be a butter, you know, I just think it's worth negotiating, because the stakes are so great, and I think that if they can see the value and the contrast, what it contrasts with. I had kids in therapy, teenagers in therapy, who would hand me, they had to pay the copay. They would hand me the change, and say, can you tell me what 17 cents is? And I'm thinking, oh my God, they've been through. They were in high school, and they're asking me to figure out their change. You know that that's sick.

Could you get an educational loan, or just try it for a year? Would that be? Have you thought of things like that?

Could they get an educational loan?

That's an interesting thought.

That is one of the complications. Their income is about the same as mine, yeah, 30s, and I'm 60. Yeah, I got a late start, so I really have retirement savings.

Okay, so you have to be number one with yourself. You cannot sacrifice. I definitely go back to lovingly, supportively negotiating, getting them a little more information about the school or student, you know, maybe some testimonials or something from parents who've been there, speaking to parents who have been through the system and loved it, because it really dramatically can change your life at that young age.

Oh, sure can. And then I'm going to be calling you where after I see my daughter, and asking you for some advice on how can I get her to go to these schools?

So thank you so much for the call, and I wish you the best with this. Thank you for your help.

Yeah, and never sacrifice your own happiness. You know you have to be number one priority with yourself, but I also hear kind of mine.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Steve.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. You can't believe the entity. Well, the doctor said it takes 48 hours to get that stuff out of your system. I wonder how long it takes to get someone you're stuck on out of your sister.

I know how you feel. Miss Kubik. You think it's the end of the world, but it's not. I went through exactly the same thing myself, and I was mad about it, but I knew it was hopeless, and I decided to end it all. You know when I finally shot myself, where? Here in the knee, it was a year before I could bend the knee, but I got over the girl in three weeks, still lives in Cincinnati, has four kids and gained 20 pounds, sends me a fruitcake every Christmas, and that's from the movie The Apartment.

And it's very difficult if someone rejects you and you're you just have the hearts for them. How do you get over that quicker? That is not easy. First, you need to recognize that you lost a lot of value. You didn't connect with this person because they were a scoundrel. There was something in that person that you admired and loved and had the feeling that it would go on for a longer time than you thought. You're stuck on them. How do you get that out of your system? Well, you need to recognize that loss. You need to mourn the loss. The second thing is that you need to be very supportive of yourself, because you might have had a self-esteem injury. You might be thinking, I'm no good, I'm not smart enough, I'm not pretty enough. I'll never find anybody. These are all catastrophic thoughts that many of us have when someone jilts us, or someone says like a kid said to me when I was really young, he said, you know, you're nice, Ellen, but Blondes have more fun. I like Gail better.

What do you say? You know, I'm a in grade school, and this guy that I had a mini crush on is telling me that, you know, if I were only blonde, he would like me better. How do you get over this? Is to be very good to yourself. If you hear yourself beating up on yourself, you need to re-examine that and treat yourself as if you're your own best friend and say, listen, I know I'm smart, I know I'm a nice person, and also remind yourself that if this person wasn't that into me, then it's really good that we're not together anymore, because it wouldn't work.

I want someone who's into me, and I want someone that I'm stuck on. So there is a grieving period, and there is a getting on with your life too.

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

Here's an excerpt from the selfish path to romance by Dr. Ellen Kenner, what practical steps can you take to make sure that intimacy is a priority and not a duty? Start by always promoting strong emotional intimacy and visibility. Find ways to reduce fatigue, discover the best ways to create a romantic mood, set aside private time. Make sure you and your partner both experience pleasure, so that intimacy will be something to look forward to share fantasies if both of you feel safe doing so.

Of course, as you age, your body still needs to be able to cooperate. Some factors are more controllable. You cannot control your actual age, but you can have some influence on how well your body functions as you get older, regular exercise, a healthy diet, stress reduction, and getting enough sleep are all important to your physical and emotional well-being.

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