Chapter 15 - How Parents Can Prevent Conflicts by Modifying Themselves.

The last concept that we offer parents is that they can prevent many conflicts between parent and child by changing some of their own attitudes. This idea is presented last because it can be somewhat threatening to parents to be told that sometimes they might be the ones who should change, rather than their children. It is far easier for most parents to accept new methods to change their children and new methods for modifying the environment than to accept the idea of making changes within themselves.

Parenthood in our society is considered more a way to influence the growth and development of children than the growth and development of parents. Too often parenthood means "raising" kids; they are the ones to adjust to parents. There are problem kids, but not problem parents. Supposedly there aren't even problem parent-child relationships.

Yet every parent knows that in his relationships with a spouse, a friend, a relative, a boss, or a coworker there are times when he must change in order to prevent serious conflicts or maintain the health of the relationship. Everyone has had the experience of changing his own attitude about someone else's behavior- becoming more accepting of another person's ways by changing his own attitude about the other's behavior. You may have been very upset over a friend's habitual tendency to be late for appointments. Over the years you begin to accept it, maybe chuckle about it, and kid your friend about it. Now you no longer get upset over it; you accept it as one of your friend's characteristics. His behavior has not changed. Your attitude about his behavior has. You have adjusted. You have changed.

Parents, too, can change attitudes about the behavior of children.

Donna's mother became more accepting of her daughter's need to wear her skirts short when she thought back on the period in her own life when she slavishly followed the style of miniskirts and knee boots to the dismay of her own mother.

Ricky's father became more accepting of his three-year-old son's hyperactivity after he heard in a discussion group with other parents that this kind of behavior was very typical of boys at that age. A parent would be wise to realize, then, that he can reduce the number of behaviors he finds unacceptable by modifying himself so he becomes more accepting of the behavior of his child or children in general.

This is not as difficult as it may seem. Many parents become far more accepting of children's behavior after their first child, and often even more accepting after their second or third. Parents also can become more accepting of children after reading a book about kids or after hearing a lecture on parent education or after an experience as a youth leader. Direct exposure to children, or even learning about children from the experience of others, can markedly alter a parent's attitude. There are still more significant ways for parents to change so they become more accepting of children.

CAN YOU BECOME MORE ACCEPTING OF YOURSELF?

Studies show that a direct relationship exists between how accepting people are of others and how accepting they are of themselves. A person who accepts himself as a person is likely to feel a lot of acceptance for others. People who cannot tolerate a lot of things about themselves usually find it difficult to tolerate a lot in others.

A parent needs to ask himself a penetrating question: "How much do I like who I am?"

If the honest answer indicates a lack of acceptance of himself as a person, that parent needs to reexamine his own life to find ways to become more fulfilled from his own achievements. Persons with high self-acceptance and self-regard are generally productive achievers who are using their own talents, who are actualizing their own potential, who accomplish things, who are doers.

Parents who satisfy their own needs through independent productive effort not only accept themselves but also needn't seek gratification of their needs from the way their children behave. They don't need their children to turn out in a particular way. People with high self-esteem, resting on a firm foundation of their own independent achievement, are more accepting of their children and the way they behave.

On the other hand, if a parent has few or no sources of satisfaction and self-esteem from his own life and must depend heavily on getting satisfaction from the way others evaluate his children, he is likely to be non-accepting of his children- especially those behaviors that he fears may make him look like a bad parent.

Relying upon this "indirect self-acceptance," such a parent will need to have his children behave in certain specified ways. And he is more likely to be non-accepting of them and upset with them when they deviate from his blueprint.

Producing "good children"- high achievers in school, socially successful, competent in athletics, and so on- has become a status symbol for many parents. They "need" to be proud of their children; they need their children to behave in a way that will make them look like good parents to others. In a sense, many parents are using their children to bring them a feeling of self-worth and self-esteem. If a parent has no other source of self-worth and self-esteem, which is unhappily true of many parents whose lives are limited to raising "good" children, the stage is set for a dependency on children that makes the parent overanxious and severely needful that the children behave in particular ways.

WHOSE CHILDREN ARE THEY?

Many parents justify strong attempts to mold their children into a preconceived pattern by saying, "After all, they are my children, aren't they?" or "Don't parents have the right to influence their own children in whatever way they think best?"

A parent who feels possessive of a child, and therefore feels a right to mold the child in a certain way, will be much more inclined to feel non-accepting of the child's behavior when that behavior deviates from the prescribed mold. A parent who sees a child as someone quite separate and even quite different- not at all "owned" by the parent- is bound to feel accepting toward more of the child's behavior because there is no mold, no preconceived pattern for the child. Such a parent can more readily accept the uniqueness of a child, is more capable of permitting the child to become what he is genetically capable of becoming.

An accepting parent is willing to let a child develop his own "program" for life; a less accepting parent feels a need to program the child's life for him.

Many parents see their children as "extensions of themselves." This often causes a parent to try very hard to influence a child to be what the parent defines as a good child or to become what the parent regretfully failed to become himself. Humanistic psychologists these days talk a lot about "separateness." Evidence is accumulating that in healthy human relationships each person can permit the other to be "separate" from him. The more this attitude of separateness exists, the less the need to change the other, to be intolerant of his uniqueness and non-accepting of differences in his behavior.

In my clinical work with families and with P.E.T. classes, it frequently is necessary to remind parents: "You have created a life, now let the child have it. Let him decide what he wants to do with the life you gave him." Gibran has phrased this principle beautifully in The Prophet:

• Your children are not your children.

  They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

  They come through you but not from you,

  And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

  You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts ...

  You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Parents can modify themselves, and reduce the number of behaviors that are unacceptable to them, by coming to see that their children are not their children, not extensions of themselves, but separate, unique. A child has the right to become what he is capable of becoming, no matter how different from the parent or the parent's blueprint for the child. This is his inalienable right.

Do you really like children, or just a certain type of child?

I have known parents who profess a liking for children, but who by their behavior clearly demonstrate that they like only certain kinds of children. Fathers who value athletes often tragically reject a son whose interests and talents are nonathletic. Mothers who value physical beauty can reject a daughter who does not fit the cultural stereotype of female beauty. Parents whose lives have been enriched by music often show a non-musical child how deeply disappointed in him they are. Parents who value academic and scholastic competence can cause irreparable emotional damage in a child who does not have this special type of intelligence.

Fewer behaviors will be unacceptable to parents if they realize that there is an infinite variety of children brought into this world and an infinite variety of ways in life for them to go. The beauty in nature, and the miracle of life, is this vast variety in the living forms.

I often tell parents, "Don't want your child to become something in particular; just want him to become." With such an attitude parents will inevitably find themselves feeling more and more accepting of each child and experiencing joy and excitement watching each become.

ARE YOUR VALUES AND BELIEFS THE ONLY TRUE ONES?

While parents are obviously older and more experienced than their children, it is frequently less obvious that their particular experience or knowledge has given them exclusive access to the truth or provided them with sufficient wisdom to judge always what is right and wrong. "Experience is a good teacher," but it does not always teach what is right; knowledge is better than ignorance, but a knowledgeable person is not always wise.

It has impressed me to see how many parents in deep trouble in their relationships with their children are persons with very strong and very rigid concepts of what is right and wrong. It follows that the more certain parents are that their own values and beliefs are right, the more they tend to impose them on their children (and usually on others, too). It also follows that such parents are apt to be non-accepting of behaviors that appear to deviate from their own values and beliefs.

Parents whose system of values and beliefs is more flexible, more permeable, more amenable to change, less black-or-white, are inclined to be far more accepting of behavior that would appear to deviate from their values and beliefs. Again, it is my observation that such parents are far less likely to impose blueprints or try to mold their children into preconceived patterns. These are the parents who find it easier to accept their son's shaving his head even though they would not value that choice for themselves; who find it easier to accept changing patterns of sexual behavior, different styles of clothing, or rebellion against school authority. These are the parents who somehow seem to accept that change is inevitable, "that life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday," that the beliefs and values of one generation are not necessarily those of the next, that our society does need improvements, that some things should be vigorously protested, and that irrational and repressive authority often deserves to be strongly resisted. Parents with such attitudes find much more of the behavior of youth understandable, justified, and genuinely acceptable.

IS YOUR PRIMARY RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SPOUSE?

Many American parents look to their children for their primary relationship, rather than to their spouse. Mothers, particularly, rely heavily on their children to give them satisfactions and pleasures that more appropriately should come from the marriage relationship. Frequently this leads to "putting the children first," "sacrificing for the children," or counting heavily on the children "turning out well," because of the parents' heavy investment in the parent-child relationship. Their children's behavior means far too much to these parents. How the kids behave is too crucial. These parents feel that children must be constantly watched, directed, guided, monitored, judged, evaluated. It is very difficult for such parents to allow their children to make mistakes or stumble in their lives. They feel their children must be protected against failure experiences, shielded against all possible danger.

Effective parents are able to have a more casual relationship with their children. Their marriage relationship is primary: Their children have a significant place in their lives, but it is almost a secondary place- if not secondary, at least no more important than the place of the spouse. Such parents seem to allow their children much more freedom and independence. These parents enjoy being with their children but only for limited times; they also like to spend time alone with their marriage partner. Their investment is not solely in their children; it is also in their marriage. How their children behave or how much they achieve, therefore, is not so critical to them. They are more apt to feel that the children have their own lives to live and should be given more freedom to shape themselves. Such parents seem to correct their children less frequently and monitor their activities less intensely. They can be there when the children need them, but they do not feel strong needs to intervene or push into the lives of the children without being asked. They generally do not neglect their children. They certainly are concerned about them but not anxious. They are interested, but not smothering. "Children are children" is their attitude, so they can be more accepting of what they are- children. Effective parents more often feel amused at their children's immaturity or their foibles, rather than devastated.

The parents in this latter group obviously are inclined to be much more accepting- fewer behaviors will upset them. They will have less need to control, limit, direct, re strict, admonish, preach. They can allow their children more freedom- more separateness. Parents in the first group are inclined to be less accepting. They need to control, limit, direct, restrict, and so on. Because their relationship with the children is the primary one, these parents have strong needs to monitor their behavior and program their lives.

I have come to see more clearly why parents who have an unsatisfactory relationship with their spouse find it so difficult to be accepting of their children: They are too needful of their children bringing them the joys and satisfactions that are missing in the marital relationship.

CAN PARENTS CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDES?

Can this book- or a P.E.T. course (now available on video as a self-study program through F.E.T., Family Effectiveness Training)- bring about a change in such parental attitudes? Can parents learn to become more accepting of their children? Before I would have been skeptical. Like most practitioners in the helping professions, I had certain biases carried over from my formal training. Most of us were taught that people don't change much unless they go through intensive psychotherapy under the guidance of a professional therapist, usually lasting from six months to a year or even longer.

In recent years, however, there has been a radical shift in the thinking of professional "change agents." Most of us have watched people make significant changes in attitudes and behaviors as a result of having an experience with individual and family counseling or therapy, self-help seminars, books, video tapes, and audio tapes. Most professionals (and many parents) now accept the idea that people can change significantly when they get the opportunity to learn and practice communication and conflict resolution skills.

Almost all the parents who have participated in our P.E.T. program (both in the classroom and through self-study) realize that their present attitudes and methods as parents leave much to be desired. Many know they already have been ineffective with one or more of their children; others are scared about what their present methods might ultimately do to the children; all are acutely aware of how many kids are getting into trouble and how many parent-child relationships deteriorate when the children move into adolescence.

Consequently, most parents in P.E.T. have a readiness and willingness to change- to learn new, more effective methods, to avoid mistakes of other parents (or their own), and to discover any technique that might make their job easier. We have yet to meet a parent who does not want to do a better job of raising his children.

With all these things going for us in P.E.T., it is not surprising that the training experience brings about significant changes in parents' attitudes and behavior. Here is a small sample of statements taken from letters or from the evaluation forms that we have received from parents:

• "We only wish we had been able to take this course years ago before our kids were teenagers."
"We now treat our kids with the same kind of respect we show our friends."
"I feel fortunate to have been one of the parents who have taken the course. More than that, I feel my outlook toward the whole human race has broadened, and I have become much more accepting of others as they are, not as I used to see them."
"I have always liked children, but now I am learning to respect them as well. P.E.T. is not just a class in child-rearing. To me, it seems a way of life."
"It made me realize how much I had underestimated my children and weakened them through my over-protectiveness and over-conscientiousness. I had been a member of a really fine child study group, but it had only reinforced my guilt feelings and kept me trying to be a 'perfect Mommy.' "
"I was so skeptical and had such little faith in my children I can hardly believe it. When I found out that they coped with their feelings and problems much better than I ever had, I felt the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I started living for myself. I went back to school, and I was a much happier, self-fulfilled person, therefore, a better parent."

Not all parents are able to make the changes in attitudes required to become more accepting of their children. Some come to realize that their marriage is not mutually fulfilling, so that one or both cannot be effective with the children. Either they seldom find the time and energy because so much of it goes into their own marital conflicts, or they find that they cannot be accepting of their children because they are not feeling accepting of themselves as husband and wife.

Other parents find it difficult to throw off the oppressive value system, acquired from their own parents and now causing them to be excessively judgmental and non-accepting of their children. Still others have trouble modifying their attitude of "owning" their children or their deep commitment to a goal of making their children fit a preconceived mold: this attitude is found mostly in parents who have been strongly influenced by the dogmas of a few religious sects that teach parents to have a moral obligation to make converts out of their children, even though it may mean using the power and authority of the parent or using methods of influence not too dissimilar from brainwashing and thought control.

For some parents whose own basic attitudes they find hard to modify, the P.E.T. experience, for whatever reason, opens the door to seek other kinds of help- group therapy, marital counseling, family therapy, or even individual therapy. Quite a few of these parents have said that before P.E.T. they never would have consulted a psychologist or psychiatrist for help. Apparently, P.E.T. creates greater self-awareness and the motivation and desire for people to change, even when P.E.T. itself may not be enough to bring about significant change.

After the P.E.T. course some parents ask to continue meeting with a smaller group of mothers and fathers so they may be helped to work through the attitudes and problems that prevent them from effectively employing the new methods they have learned. In these "advanced groups" parents deal mainly with their marriage relationship, their relationship with their own parents, or basic attitudes about themselves as persons. Only after their experience in these deeper therapeutic groups do these parents acquire the insight and bring about the changes in attitudes that then permit them to use P.E.T. methods effectively. So for some parents P.E.T. may not in itself produce enough change in attitudes, but it does start a process of change or encourages them to start down the road to greater effectiveness as a person and parent.

Reading this book is usually not the same as taking a P.E.T. course or F.E.T. video program. Nevertheless, I feel that most parents will be able to obtain a sound under standing of this new philosophy of raising children by reading and conscientiously studying this book. Many parents will be able to acquire from this book a reasonable level of competence in the specific skills required to put the philosophy to work at home. These skills can be practiced by the reader frequently and long after they have finished reading the book- not only in your relationship with your children but also in your relationship with your spouse, your business associates, your parents, your friends.

Our experiences tell us that becoming more effective in raising responsible children will take work- diligent work- whether the exposure comes from the P.E.T. pro gram or reading this book, or both. But after all, what job doesn't take work?