Chapter 14 - How to Avoid Being Fired as a Parent.

More and more often, children fire their parents. As they move into adolescence kids dismiss their mothers and fathers, write them off, sever their relationship with them. It is happening today in thousands of families, irrespective of social and economic class. By the droves, youngsters are leaving their parents, physically or psychologically, to find more satisfying relationships elsewhere, usually with groups of their peers.

Why is this happening? I am convinced by my experience in working with thousands of parents in P.E.T. that these kids have been driven out of their families by the behavior of their parents- a certain specific kind of behavior. Parents get fired by their kids when they hassle and harangue them to change cherished beliefs and values. Adolescents dismiss their parents when they feel they are being denied their basic civil rights.

Parents lose their opportunity to have a constructive influence on their children by too desperately and too persistently trying to influence them where kids are the most eager to determine their own beliefs and their own destiny. Here I will examine this critical problem and offer specific methods for avoiding being fired as parents over these issues.

While the no-lose method can be dramatically effective when parents acquire the skills to put it to work, there are certain inevitable conflicts that parents should not expect to be resolved, even with skillful use of this method, because they are often not amenable to Method 3 problem-solving. We refer to these conflicts as value collisions.

If parents try to involve their youngsters in conflict resolution for these values collisions, they will more than likely fail. Getting parents to understand and accept this is a difficult task in P.E.T., because it requires giving up some age-old ideas and beliefs about the role of the parent in our society.

When family conflicts occur over issues involving cherished values, beliefs, and personal tastes, parents may have to handle these differently, because frequently kids are not willing to put these issues on the bargaining table or enter into problem-solving. This does not mean parents need to give up trying to influence their children by teaching them values. But to be effective, they will have to use a different approach.

A QUESTION OF VALUES

Conflicts inevitably arise between a parent and child over behaviors that are intricately related to a child's beliefs, values, style, preferences, philosophy of life. Take hairstyles as an initial example. For a lot of kids today, hairstyles have important symbolic meaning. It is not necessary for a parent to understand all components of the symbolic meaning of the hairstyle; it is essential to recognize how important it is for a child to have a certain hairstyle. He values it. It means something very important to him. He prefers it- in a sense, he needs to wear his hair that way; he doesn't just want to.

Attempts by parents to frustrate this need, or strong efforts to take away from him what has strong value for him, will almost inevitably be met with tenacious resistance. His hairstyle is an expression of the youngster doing his own thing, living his own life, acting out his own values and beliefs.

Try to influence your son to cut his hair your way, and he will most likely tell you:

• "It's my hair."
• "I like it this way."
• "Get off my back."
• "I have a right to wear my hair the way I want it."
• "It's not affecting you in any way."
• "I don't tell you how to wear your hair, so don't tell me how to wear mine."

These messages, properly decoded, communicate to the parent "I feel I have a right to my value as long as I cannot see how it affects you in any tangible or concrete way." Assuming it were my own son, I would have to say he is right. How he wears his hair in no conceivable way tangibly or concretely interferes with my meeting my own needs: it won't get me fired, it won't reduce my income, it won't stop me from having friends or making new ones, it won't make me a worse golfer, it won't prevent me from writing this book or practicing my profession, and it certainly will not prevent me from wearing my hair the way I prefer. It won't even cost me money.

Yet, many behaviors, such as the way a boy wears his hair, are taken over by most parents and made into problems they feel they "own." Here is how it worked out for one parent who came to a P.E.T. class.

Obviously, this boy is not willing to enter into conflict-resolution about his hair because, as he puts it, "It's my hair." The final outcome, if the parent persists in pursuing the hair problem, is that the boy will withdraw- he will turn his parent off, walk away, get out of the house, or go to his room.

Parents nevertheless move in persistently to modify such behavior and this intervention almost invariably causes fights, resistance, and resentment from the children, and usually a serious deterioration of the parent-child relationship.

When children strongly resist attempts to modify behavior that they feel won't interfere with the parents' needs, their behavior is no different from that of adults. No adult wants to modify her behavior when she is convinced that it is not hurting someone else. Adults as well as children will fight vigorously to maintain their freedom when they feel someone is pushing them to change behavior that is not interfering with the other person.

This is one of the most serious mistakes parents make and one of the most frequent reasons for their ineffectiveness. If parents would limit their attempts to modify behavior to what interferes with the parents' needs, there would be far less rebellion, fewer conflicts, and fewer parent-child relationships that go sour. Most parents unwisely criticize, cajole, and harass their children to modify behaviors that have no tangible or concrete effect on the parent. In defense, children fight back, resist, rebel, or break away.

Not infrequently, kids react by overdoing the very things their parents are pressuring them not to do, as so often happens in the case of hair or clothing styles, tattoos, or body piercing. Other children, out of fear of parental authority, may give in to their parent's pressures but harbor deep resentment or hatred toward the parent for making them change.

Much of the rebellion of today's adolescents can be attributed to parents and other adults who put pressure on them to modify behavior that the kids feel is their own business.

Children do not rebel against adults- they rebel against adults' attempts to take away their freedom. They rebel against efforts to change them or mold them in the adults' image, against adults' harassment, against adults' forcing them to act according to what the adults think is right or wrong.

Tragically, when parents use their influence to try to modify behavior that does not interfere with the parents' own lives, they lose their influence to modify behavior that does interfere. My experience with children of all ages is that they are usually quite willing to modify their behavior when it is clear to them that what they are doing does in fact interfere with someone else's meeting her needs. When parents limit their attempts to modify children's behavior to what tangibly and concretely affects them, they generally find children quite open to change, willing to respect the needs of their parents, and agreeable to "problem-solve."

Styles of dress- like hairstyles- have tremendous symbolic value for kids. In my day it was faded yellow corduroy pants and dirty (always very dirty) saddle shoes. I remember it was a ritual for me, on buying new saddle shoes, to rub them with dirt before I would even consider wearing them. Nowadays, it might be anything from baggy jeans, tattoos, body piercing, expensive basketball shoes, and anything with a logo on it.

How I fought for my right to wear those corduroys and saddle shoes! I needed those symbols very much. Most importantly, my parents could not make a logical case that my wearing them tangibly and concretely affected them.

There are times when a child will understand and accept the fact that her way of dressing will have a tangible and concrete effect on her parents. An example is that of Jane and the "ugly" coat problem, which I have cited repeatedly. In this situation it was clear to Jane that if she walked the several blocks to the bus without suitable protection from the rain, she might get a cold that her dad might catch, causing him to miss work.

A second example of a problem amenable to no-lose problem-solving was the conflict over my daughter's wish to go to Newport Beach unchaperoned over the Easter week end. In this case it was clear to her that we might lose sleep worrying or that we might be called out in the middle of the night if she happened to be in a group of kids that got hauled into Juvenile Court.

Even conflict over a son's hair in rare instances might be amenable to problem-solving, as in one family I know. The father was a school principal. He felt that his job might be jeopardized in this conservative community, if people took his son's hairstyle as evidence that the father was too liberal for the job. In this family the son accepted this as a tangible and concrete effect of his hair on his father's life. He agreed to change his hairstyle out of a genuine concern for his father's needs.

This might not have been the outcome in another family in the same circumstances. The point is, the child must accept the logic that her behavior is having a tangible and concrete effect on the parent. Only then will she be willing to enter into no-lose problem-solving. The lesson for parents is that they had better be able to make a good case for some particular behavior having a tangible or concrete effect on their lives, or the child may not be willing to negotiate.

Sometimes kids will be willing to limit their unacceptable behavior to times or places where the parent doesn't have to see it or hear it. And in return the parent agrees not to make any further influence attempts.

Here are other behaviors that some parents told us were not accepted as negotiable because their kids could not be convinced that their behavior would affect their parents in any tangible or concrete way:

• Teenage daughter liking tattoos.
• Teenage son wearing over-sized jeans and beat-up shoes.
• Adolescent who preferred a group of friends his parents did not like.
• A child who dawdled when he did homework. Child wanting to quit college and become a rap artist.
• Four-year-old who still carried around his blanket. Daughter who wanted to get her nose or navel pierced.
• Daughter who liked low-cut shirts and very short skirts.
• Youngster who refused to go to church.

Method 3 is obviously not a method for molding children to suit parents. If parents try to use the method for this purpose, it is a sure bet that the children will see through it and resist. Parents then run the risk of killing any chance to use it on problems that do affect them- such as the children not doing chores, making excessive noise, destroying property, driving the car too fast, leaving their clothes around the house, not wiping their dirty feet before coming into the house, monopolizing the TV set or the computer, not cleaning up the kitchen after making snacks, not putting tools back in the tool box, trampling through the flower garden, and countless other behaviors.

A QUESTION OF CIVIL RIGHTS

Parent-child battles over hair and other behaviors that kids feel do not tangibly or concretely affect their parents involve a question of youth's civil rights. They feel they have a right to wear their hair their own way, choose their own friends, wear their own kind of clothes, and so on. And youth today, as in other times, will defend this right tenaciously.

Youths, like adults or groups or nations, will fight to preserve their own rights. They will resist with all the resources they can muster any attempt to take away their freedom or their autonomy. These are important things to them, not to be negotiated or compromised or problem-solved away.

Why don't parents see this? Why don't parents understand that their sons and daughters are human beings and that it is human nature to fight for freedom whenever it is threatened by another? Why do parents fail to understand that we are dealing with something very basic and fundamental here- a person's need to preserve her freedom? Why don't parents comprehend that civil rights must begin at home?

One reason why parents seldom think of their children as having civil rights is the widespread attitude that parents "own" their children. Holding this attitude, parents justify their efforts to mold their children, shape them, indoctrinate them, modify them, control them, brainwash them. Granting children civil rights or certain inalienable freedoms presupposes viewing children as separate human beings or independent persons, having a life of their own. Not many parents see their children this way when they first learn P.E.T. They have difficulty accepting the principle of allowing their children freedom to become what they want to become, provided their behavior does not tangibly and concretely interfere with the parent's becoming what he or she wants to become.

"CAN'T I TEACH MY VALUES?"

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in P.E.T., for most parents have a strong need to transmit their most cherished values to their offspring. Our answer is: "Of course- not only can you teach your values but inevitably you will." Parents cannot help but teach kids their values, simply because children are bound to learn their parents' values by observing what their mothers and fathers do, and hearing what they say.

The Parent as a Model

Parents, like many other adults with whom children will come into contact as they grow up, will be models for them. Parents are continuously modeling for their offspring- demonstrating by their actions, even louder than by their words, what they value or believe.

Parents can teach their values by actually living them. If they want their children to value honesty, parents must daily demonstrate their own honesty. If they want their children to value generosity, they must behave generously. If they want their children to adopt "Christian" values, they must behave like Christians themselves. This is the best way, perhaps the only way, for parents to "teach" children their values.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is not an effective approach in teaching kids their parents' values. "Do as I do," however, may have a high probability of modifying or influencing a child.

Parents who want children to be honest will defeat their purposes if, when receiving an unwanted invitation over the phone, they lie in front of the children: "Oh, we'd love to come but we're expecting out-of-town guests." Or if Dad mentions at the dinner table how clever he was in padding his deductible expenses on the income-tax return. Or if Mother cautions her teenage son, "Now let's not say anything to Dad about how much I paid for the new DVD player." Or if both parents do not tell their kids the whole truth about life, about sex, about religion.

Parents who want children to value nonviolence in human relations will seem like hypocrites when they use physical punishment to "discipline." I recall a poignant cartoon depicting a father paddling his son over his knee, shouting, "I hope this teaches you not to go around hitting your baby brother!"

Parents teach children values by living their own lives accordingly, not by pressuring kids to live by certain rules. I firmly believe that one of the principal reasons why adolescents today are protestingly rejecting many of the values of adult society is that they have detected how adults in so many ways fail to practice what they preach. To their dismay, kids discover that their high-school textbooks do not tell the whole truth about our government and its history or that their teachers lie by omission of some of the facts of life. They cannot help feeling angry at adults who preach certain principles of sexual morality when they have been exposed on TV to movies and sitcoms portraying adult sexual behavior that is inconsistent with the morality they espouse for their children.

Yes, parents can teach their values, if they live them. But how many parents do? Teach your values, yes you may, but by example, not by verbal persuasion or by parental authority. Teach whatever you have valued for yourself, but by being a model who practices her values.

What troubles parents is that their offspring might not buy their values. This is true- they may not. They may not like some values of the parents, or they may correctly see that some values held by parents produce results that kids don't like (as in the case of some of today's youth, who reject the fast-paced, high stress jobs their parents have because they see them as "values" that produce heart disease and burnout).

When they fear that youth might not buy their values, parents always fall back on the rationalization that they are justified in using their power to impose their values on their children. "They are too young to judge for themselves" is the most frequently expressed justification for imposing values on children.

Is it even possible to impose values on another healthy person by power and authority? I think not. More likely, the result is that those whose minds one wishes to influence will resist even more strongly such domination, often defending their beliefs and values all the more tenaciously. Power and authority may control the actions of others; they seldom control their thoughts, ideas, beliefs.

The Parent as a Consultant

In addition to influencing children's values by modeling, parents can use one other approach to teach what they feel is "right or wrong." They may share with their offspring their ideas, their knowledge, and their experience, much as a consultant does when her services are requested by a client. There is a catch here. The successful consultant shares rather than preaches, offers rather than imposes, suggests rather than demands. Even more critical, the successful consultant shares, offers, and suggests usually no more than once. The effective consultant offers her clients the benefit of her knowledge and experience, yes, but does not hassle them week after week, does not shame them if they don't buy her ideas, does not keep pushing her point of view when she detects resistance on the part of her client. The successful consultant offers her ideas, then leaves responsibility with the client for buying or rejecting them. If a consultant behaved as most parents do, her client would inform her that her services were no longer desired.

Today's youth are discharging their parents- informing them that their services are no longer desired- because few parents are effective consultants to their kids. They lecture, cajole, threaten, warn, persuade, implore, preach, moralize, and shame their kids, all in an effort to force them to do what they feel is right. Parents go back to their kids day after day after day with their instructional or moralizing messages. They do not allow the child the responsibility for buying or rejecting, but assume responsibility themselves for the learning of their children. As consultants, most parents' attitude is that their clients must buy; if the clients don't, they feel they have failed.

Parents are guilty of the "hard sell." No wonder that in most families kids are desperately saying to their parents, "Get off my back," "Stop hassling me," "I know what you think, you don't need to keep telling me every day," "Stop lecturing me," "Too much." "Goodbye."

The lesson for parents is that they can be helpful consultants to their children- they can share their ideas, experience, wisdom- if they remember to act like an effective consultant so they do not get fired by the clients whom they wish to help.

If you believe you have some useful knowledge about the effects of cigarettes on the health of humans, tell your kids about it. If you feel religion has been an important influence in your life, share that with your kids. If you run across a good article about the effects of drugs on young people's lives, hand the magazine to your kids or read it out loud to the family. If you have data about the value of going to college, share it with the kids. If you learned in your youth how to make homework less irksome, offer your method to your kids. If you think you are an expert on the problem of premarital sex, report your findings to your kids at an appropriate time.

One further suggestion is based on my own experience as a consultant, when I learned that my most valuable tool in working with my clients was Active Listening. As I offered new ideas, my clients almost always reacted initially with resistance and defensiveness, in part because my ideas sometimes ran contrary to their own beliefs or habit patterns. When I could listen actively to these feelings, they generally disappeared and the new ideas were eventually adopted. Parents who want to teach kids their beliefs and values must be alert to resistance to their teaching, sensitive to objections to their ideas. When you hear resistance, don't forget Active Listening. It will come in handy when you are being a consultant to your kids.

So to parents in P.E.T. and parents reading this book, we say, "Sure, you can try to teach kids your values, but stop selling so hard!" State them clearly, but stop hammering! Share them generously, but no preaching. Offer them confidently, but don't impose them. Then retire gracefully and allow your "clients" to decide whether they will buy or reject your ideas. And don't forget to use Active Listening! If you do these things, your children might ask for your services again. They might put you on a retainer, convinced that you can be a helpful consultant for them. They just might not want to fire you.

"To Accept What I Cannot Change"

Readers may remember Reinhold Niebuhr's prayer that has been quoted often. I think it goes like this:

• God, grant me the courage to change what I can change; The serenity to accept what I cannot change; And the wisdom to know the difference.

"The serenity to accept what I cannot change" is relevant to what I have just been dealing with. For there are many behaviors of children that parents simply may not be able to change. The only alternative is to accept this fact. Many parents strongly resist our idea of being just consultants to their children. They say:

• "But I have a responsibility to see to it that my child does not smoke cigarettes.
• "I must use my authority to prevent my child from having premarital sex."
• "I'm not willing to act only as a consultant on smoking pot. I must make sure my son doesn't do it."
• "I will not be satisfied letting my child not do her homework every night."

It is understandable that many parents feel so strongly about certain behaviors that they do not want to give up trying to influence their children, but a more objective view usually convinces them that they have no other feasible alternative except to give up- to accept what they cannot change.

Take cigarette smoking as an example. Assume that the parents have given their teenager all the facts (their own bad experience with the habit, the U.S. Surgeon General's Report, magazine articles). Now, suppose the youngster still chooses to smoke. What can the parents do? If they try prohibiting her from smoking in the house, she will undoubtedly smoke when she is away from the house (and possibly smoke at home, too, when the parents are not there). Obviously they cannot accompany the child whenever she leaves the house, nor stay at home whenever she is at home. Even if they catch her smoking, what can they possibly do? If they ground her, she will simply wait until the grounding period is over and start smoking again. Theoretically, they might try threatening expulsion from the family, but few parents are willing to try such an extreme measure, realizing that they could end up having to follow through on their threat. So, in fact, parents have no feasible alternative than to accept their inability to make their teenager stop smoking. One parent stated her dilemma accurately when she said, "The only way I could stop my daughter from smoking would be to chain her to the bedpost."

Homework, a problem that brings conflict in many families, is another example. What can parents do if the child won't do her homework? If they make her go to her room she will probably play her radio or mess around doing anything but homework. The point is, you just cannot make someone study or learn. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" applies equally to making a child do her homework.

Well, what about premarital sex? The same principle applies here. It is impossible for parents to supervise their children all the time. A father in one of my P.E.T. classes admitted, "I might as well stop trying to prevent my daughter from having premarital sex, because I sure can't 'ride shotgun' in the backseat of the car every time she has a date."

Other behaviors can be added to our list of things that parents may have no power to change. Provocative clothing, drinking, getting into trouble at school, associating with certain kids, smoking marijuana, and so on. All a parent can do is to try to influence by being a model, being an effective consultant, and developing a "therapeutic" relationship with the kids. After that, what else? As I see it, a parent can only accept the fact that she ultimately has no power to prevent such behaviors, if the child is bent on doing them.

Maybe this is one of the prices for being a parent. You can do your best, then hope for the best, but in the long run you run the risk that your best efforts might not be good enough. Ultimately you, too, may then ask, "Lord, grant me ... the serenity to accept what I cannot change."