The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Corrected transcript with paragraph breaks, spelling and grammar adjusted, and Dr. Kenner's name spelled properly throughout. No content has been removed or summarized.

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

Amanda, you have some kids that are out of control.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tell me. How many kids do you have?

I have two—a two-year-old and a three-year-old.

Okay, and tell me what you would like some help with.

They completely ignore me. They're in competition with each other. I mean, I buy them the same toys, because it's like I have twins. They always want to play with each other's toy. Now it's to the point where it doesn't matter who has which fire truck—they always want the other one, even worse, the same toy. And if I tell one to stop doing something, the other one starts doing what the first one just stopped. And I get the other one to stop, and then the first one starts doing it again.

So it's chronic frustration for you, and you're probably pulling out your hair at times and saying, by the end of the day… So you're probably like most mothers. You want them to—what? My father once said to me, I had two younger sisters, there were three of us that were very close in age, and my father once said, “If there can't be peace in this household, there can't be peace in the world.” And guess what? There was no peace in the household, because we were always fighting.

Yeah.

So most parents run into that problem. How do you engage your child's cooperation? How do you deal with sibling issues? How do you get some peace of mind as a mother and feel competent as a mother, rather than have it be a chronic frustration situation for you and the kids?

Oh, yeah. No. I mean, that's the question, right? So, yeah, you can answer it for me.

There are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful skills out there, and I'll give you a couple of examples. For one, you're buying the kids the same things all the time—they each get a fire truck, or they each get a stuffed animal, or they each get something—because you're trying to make it equal, I'm assuming, right?

Equal, and so I don't feel as frustrated when one person has one toy and the other person wants it, and I have to do the whole "you get this for five minutes and then it's his turn for five minutes."

Because that doesn't work out so well.

Okay, so the principle that you want to be able to give them is ownership. You want them to respect each other's property. There’s a title in a book—I'll give you the name of the book in a minute or so—there’s a chapter titled Equal Is Less, meaning equal makes you go crazy. And the example that's given in this book is that imagine that you're a mom, and you're making pancakes for your two-year-old and your three-year-old. You put one pancake on each of their plates, and the three-year-old says, “Hers is bigger than mine!” And so what do you do? You say, “Oh, well, then I will make you one just the same size as hers.” And when you make a pancake the same size, guess what? It might have a little bump in it or something that's a little bit more. And so the other one says, “No, it's bigger. I want more!”

You will drive yourself crazy as a parent trying to make things equal. So what you do is, instead of treating children equally—

Hey, I’ve 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.

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So what you do is, instead of treating children equally, you treat them uniquely. Very important concept. If one child says, “Mom, hers is bigger than mine,” I would say, “Oh my gosh, Tommy, you sound really hungry today. Would you like a few more pancakes?”

Notice what I’m not talking about. I’m talking about me and Tommy and his hunger. I’m not talking about how to equal things. “She got a fire engine and I didn’t.” And I’d say, “You know, it sounds like you’re interested in fire engines. Are you, honey?”

“Well, no, but she got one.”

“Oh, you’re not interested? What are you interested in?”

“Well, I’d rather have a police car.”

“Oh, fascinating!”

You learn these skills that make it so that you don’t go crazy. Let me—why don’t you give me another example of something that’s driving you crazy? Give me a scenario at home.

Like, if I tell one of them not to stand on something or walk on something—because we have a big hearth around our mantel—the other one will go and do it, because I just told the first one not to do it.

So don’t stand on the hearth?

Yeah. Like, I’ll be like, “Bryce, no, no, no, don’t walk on that,” and then Cameron will go and do it. So then I’m like…

You have two little girls?

Two boys.

Two boys, okay. So climbers?

Yeah, and I have wrestling and… partly—oh, wow.

This website that I would love to give you—if you go to my website—it’s Cornelia Lockitch’s. You could probably Google her. It’s GuideYourChild.com, I’m pretty sure that’s it. She works with very young children, and she gives some free advice on her website.

The problem with what you’re doing—if I say to you, I don’t want you to put your hand on your forehead right now—this is me, Dr. Kenner, talking to you, Amanda. Yeah. What image did I just paint in your mind?

Me putting my hand on my forehead.

Fascinating. So if I really don’t want you to put your hand on your forehead, what would be better for me to say?

Put your hand on your head.

Yeah, put your hand on top of your head, right? Or put your hand on your elbow.

When we give kids negative commands—it’s called the don’t command, “Don’t do this”—we actually paint the picture in their minds of what they’re not supposed to do. And many times, they do it just because that’s the picture that’s in their mind.

For example, you tell a kid when they’re at a swimming pool, “Don’t run, Johnny,” instead of, “Hey Johnny, when we go around the pool we walk.” What image are you now painting?

Yeah.

And if you say, “Don’t run across the street,” instead of, “Honey, stay on the sidewalk with me,” or “Hold my hand,” or “See how hard you can squeeze my hand,” and then they’re staying on the sidewalk with you.

You tell them what you want them to do, rather than what not to do. If you don’t want them on the hearth, you’d say, “You know, let’s put little rugs in front of the hearth. Which rug would you like today?”

Okay, like in the Walmart cart though?

Oh, there are wonderful skills for that too! I want to give you the… In the Walmart cart—you’ve come prepared—what do they do in Walmart?

I mean, most of the time I try to have food with me, and then what happens is, either I’m not done shopping, and they’re talking and screaming and crawling out of the cart and switching spots, and I’m just trying to look at like, maybe something to figure out what I need—or even at the grocery store, you know, what stuff I need to make for dinner.

Yeah, and they’re going on and on, and I forget so much stuff because—

Plan that in advance. Then have your list in advance.

I do, and then just like, I get there, and then there’s like… okay, but also—

What you’ll learn at GuideYourChild.com is they’re not necessarily being bad kids. They’re being little scientists. They’re excited and enthusiastic.

I went to the gym the other day and a mom was yelling at her kid because the little kid was opening up all the empty gym lockers, and she’s saying, “There are four corners!” The mother’s saying to the kid, “There are four corners in this room!” And I’m thinking, what’s going on? She was punishing this two-year-old kid, and I’m thinking, “The kid’s just a little scientist investigating the lockers. Let her do it!” There’s no harm done. Nobody has clothes in these empty lockers.

Yeah, yeah.

So listen. The book is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. And stay on the line. I’ll talk with you. You can go to my website, DrKenner.com. But stay on the line, and I’ll talk with you right during the break.

And here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

What a pleasure to see you again. You look more beautiful than ever. Tell me, what do you think of this building? I’ve been trying to take a poll about the guests.

What—a poll of opinion about it? What for?

In order to find out what you think of it yourself.

And have you ever been with somebody who—you ask, “What did you think of this movie?” and instead of giving you their raw opinion or what they really think, they’d say, “Well, what do you think about it? And what does everyone else think about it?” And then they state their opinion, which isn’t their opinion—it’s just the “safe answer,” in quotes—safe answer, you know, that nobody will disagree with.

Well, when you do that, you abandon your own mind. And so you don’t want to do that.

That drop was actually from The Fountainhead, which was written by my favorite author—the author that actually had the biggest impact on my life. I read her books and then went out and got a life. I became a clinical psychologist.

Her name is Ayn Rand—A-Y-N R-A-N-D—and I read The Fountainhead, and then I read Atlas Shrugged, and then I read The Virtue of—get this—Selfishness. And it’s not selfishness the way you’ve ever, ever experienced it or understood it in the past. It’s not “I-me-only” view of the world. It’s a rational, reality-based perspective where you can genuinely pursue your own happiness without ever stepping on other people or taking advantage of them—and not letting them step on you. That’s key. Too many people let others step on them.

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 Ellen Kenner and co-author Edwin Locke:

Unreasonable resistance involves manufacturing ploys to avoid thinking or evading the subject. “I’m right. You’re wrong. Period.” Unreasonable resistance means your partner is not simply misunderstanding you, but also refusing to understand you, refusing to grant validity to your carefully reasoned arguments, refusing to acknowledge relevant facts, refusing to consider alternatives, refusing to focus on solving the problem at all, refusing to use ways to rationally compromise. It means your partner is beyond reason, is evading the facts, and is acting on the basis of some irrational emotion—such as fear.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com.