The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

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

Michelle, you're dealing with your six-year-old who's getting angry.

Yes, I have a six-year-old daughter, and she is constantly throwing fits, hitting people, throwing things, and I'm kind of at my end with all of it, and I've tried to get advice from family and friends, and I don't know what else to do.

Okay. Was there a time when she wasn't hitting and she was a good girl, she just was your little darling, and then it switched?

Well, she kind of got... about four and a half, or around when she turned four, four and a half, she started, you know, exhibiting some of these... blowing up and the angry outbursts. And if anything went wrong, she had this immense reaction to it. But before then, she was pretty shy and withdrawn. If somebody looked at her, she would cry. And she's just, I don't know, she kind of turned a corner, I guess.

Okay, so it's a mystery to solve. If you look at that as a mom, not as pulling your hair out??When will this ever end?? or ?Will it ever end???and the answer in your subconscious is usually ?It will never end.? You know, ?She'll be 15 years old and still doing this. She?ll be having these angry outbursts.? That does not move your thinking along. That doesn't help. But if you look at it as a scientist or a detective, saying: When did it change? When did she go from a sweet, shy girl?you don't want your kids to be shy?but when did she go from a sweet, shy girl to becoming aggressive rather than assertive? That's an important switch to look at in her past. Do you have any other kids in the family?

Yes, we have three children total. We have a three-year-old girl and we have an eight-year-old boy.

An eight-year-old boy. Okay. So when it started to change she was, how old? You said she was four or four and a half.

Four and a half.

So the three-year-old was how old then? About a year old. So something might have been happening then. Anything that you can recall?

Well, you know, our routine was pretty regular. When she was five, we moved, but really not around that time. I don?t really think of anything terribly crazy that happened. The only one thing that I could think of was one time we were visiting my grandmother. She had a diabetic problem, and she gave herself two shots of insulin and she went into a diabetic coma. And we found her.

She what?

She went into a diabetic coma.

Okay.

And we found her, called the emergency people, and we rushed her to the hospital and everything, and we followed her to the hospital. And that's the only humongously large trauma I could think of in her life.

Okay, that's important. See, that's the detective work. If you think back?what changed??that sometimes can give you important clues. Sometimes it is the addition of children to the family, which is why I asked you the sibling question, because very subtle things can happen when you have a new kid in the family. And there's a wonderful book I will recommend. It's at my website, DrKenner.com, and it's Siblings Without Rivalry.

Okay.

And another thing is: is there anybody that you know in her environment?whether it's at home or in school or with extended family?that has those types of outbursts?

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

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Another thing is, is there anybody that you know in her environment?whether it's at home or in school or with extended family?that has those, those types of outbursts?

Yes, my father.

Okay.

And, you know, if that starts happening, I kind of remove them from the situation because I don't really want that influence on them. But it has... he doesn't really, he's not as bad as he was when I was a child.

Yeah.

But it did happen a lot when I was?

And do you ever slip up and occasionally become like your dad?

I try really hard not to. I mean, I'm not gonna say I never have done it, but I mean, I don't throw things and I don't hit the wall and that sort of thing. But I do, you know, yell and scream like any parent would.

Okay.

But I'm not physical with them.

And he was with you?

Yes.

Because?

Go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

You know, sometimes kids model the behavior. They're looking for a way to express emotions, and they don't know how. Kids come with a stamp on them that says ?Some assembly required,? meaning they don't know how to be civilized. So they might start by being shy?I was a very shy kid myself?and then I want to be able to speak my mind. Well, I can do it in very awkward ways. I can do it in mean ways, or I can do it in insecure ways. Kids don't have assertiveness skills. And guess what? Most adults don't either. We don't either.

So one of the things you want to help her with is to guide her. To gently tell her, ?Man, you sound so angry today.? I'll give her a name: Amy. ?You sound so angry today. Tell me what's up.? Number one, you can draw her out so you name the emotion you're hearing.

I know. I have asked her, ?Why are you angry? What's going on? What made you angry?? And she'll make this sound like grrrhh and that's how she?when she's mad, that's what she does.

You know, Amy, when I hear you upset, I hear you say grrrhh. Later on, tell me what that means. Meaning, she won?t be ready. None of us like ?why? questions when we have that very heated emotion going on. The ?why? or the ?what.? You know: who, what, when, where, why.

And there's a way of introducing a question where you're much more with your daughter, which is just to say you recognize what you see: ?Honey, you seem angry. I can see you're making a fist with your hand. If your fist could talk, what would they say? ?I am so upset with my brother!?? You know, or something like that. Whatever comes out. I don't know what would come out. But you start to help her express her anger in words so it gives you more data as the detective mom.

Then you did say that she is having outbursts. She's not hitting though.

No, she does hit.

Oh, she does hit.

She hits. And she's a bit of a perfectionist. If she?we were doing school?we were working on a paper. If it goes wrong, she'd rather throw it away and start over. And she just continues that cycle. I mean usually?my son kind of did the same thing?but he would stop eventually. She's gone through five, six, ten pieces of paper just continuously trying to correct herself. Make it perfect.

Okay, so she has very high standards and she'll never meet them, and then she'll always have that churning anger inside of her: not good enough, not good enough. So partly she needs to see examples?whether it?s with a Disney character or a movie or friends or yourself?where you say, ?Oh my gosh, you know what? I put too much salt into the bread. Let's see what happens to it.? And you just let it go. You don't throw it all out.

She needs to see examples of people being very good to themselves in the learning process rather than expecting perfectionism.

So I think those books?the book that I mentioned?will help you, and any books by those authors. But Siblings Without Rivalry will help.

The goal is to limit the hitting behavior. ?You're really angry. Draw me a picture of it, honey. People are not for hitting. When you're that angry, come over here and tell me in words what you're feeling, honey. I want to understand you.? It?s like drawing her out.

The books will give you many more skills. Okay?

So go to my website, DrKenner.com, and if you have a moment, you can let me know how it works out.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for your call.

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

What's your name? Dude Martin?

What kind of stupid name is that? I?d say he?s the runt of the litter.

Hey now boys, would you take a look-see at these pearly whites? Hell, I ain?t seen lookin? straight weren?t store-bought them moccasins. What kind of skins is them?

And that's from Back to the Future Part II. Bet you didn't guess that. And I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner on The Rational Basis of Happiness, and I'm a clinical psychologist here to take your calls and questions on anything that's bothering you?whether you have a bully in your life, or someone's bullying your kids, or you've been damaged by a bully.

You know, some of us still carry the wounds of some childhood bully. You know, we still respond the way we did then. Maybe we just close off and we don't know how to speak our minds, or we appease people and we try to lick the boots of the bully??Please don?t hurt me anymore, I?ll do whatever you want.? And we can say that verbally or nonverbally.

And you don't want to go through life like that. You don't want to feel in fear of other people's intimidation, and you don't want to become a bully yourself in response to that. You want to be able to be assertive, to be true to yourself, to state the facts and to not be vulnerable to intimidation. And that takes a lot of thinking and that takes a lot of skills. And it's an enormous accomplishment even if you can approximate that, even if you can get close to that.

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 by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner:

When a person does something irrational, thoughtless or immoral in relation to a romantic partner and is asked, ?Why did you do that?? a common answer is: ?I don?t know.? Often this really means, ?I don?t want to know,? which means ?I don?t want to introspect because I do not want to face up to what I might find.? Such evasion not only puts you out of control of your actions, it undermines any romantic potential. If you don't know why you act as you do?and thus can't trust yourself?how can any partner trust you? Introspection is essential for making yourself lovable. Be objective about yourself. Living in a subjective fantasy world or playing a role to gain the illusion of self-esteem is self-destructive and destroys romance. Acknowledging your flaws is the first step towards self-improvement.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.