Category Archives: >> Parent Training

My colleague, dear friend and hands down one of THE single best therapists I’ve ever known, Jason Williams, LMFT (www.associatedpsych.com) gives some great advice on how to teach your children how to handle bullies. Watch the interview here. Jason and I struggled through grad school together, commuted to and worked at Valley Mental Health together, presented many workshops together and began our dreams of private practice together. He’s a fine man and a gifted therapist. Enjoy.

Today I did a survey of local teen girls (at lunch today with my daughty and her bestie, both 15-years-old—a super small survey!) asking them, “How do you know when a relationship is healthy or unhealthy?”

See their answers below and please answer the following questions:

Q: 1. What do you tell your kids about distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy, safe/unsafe, good/bad relationships?

—OR—

Q: 2. What do you wish you knew as a teen that you know now?

—OR—

Q: 3: Do you agree with the girls’ answers? What would you add or change?

Q: 1. What do you tell your kids about distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy, safe/unsafe, good/bad relationships?

—OR—

Q: 2. What do you wish you knew as a teen that you know now?

—OR—

Q: 3: Do you agree with the girls’ answers? What would you add or change?

“Well, Jonathan, that’s easier said than done.” This is a common phrase and objection I hear from people when we talk about creating a GREAT relationship overall and/or specific strategies towards that goal. My response is, “Yep, that’s exactly why most people don’t get it done—lots of talk, little walk. Everyone says they want great relationships with spouse, children and self. However, look around. This is why most people have crap relationships, why most people complain about their children’s poor behavior and why most people don’t learn how to master their emotions. People complain about it being easy to say,  but hard to do.”

Of course, it’s easier said than done—it’s hard work. Period. Anything of great value rarely comes cheap, free or easy. Since when were great results ever easy? When did we start expecting that? Greatness, in any and every field, simply requires hard work.

Greatness Is Hard Won

Too many people buy into the pervasive, and TOTALLY unsubstantiated, myth that real/true/great love should be easy, should “just flow”, etc. Please, please, please, someone show me where this works in any part of life. Why is Google great? Did Google “just happen”? How about Apple? How about Michaelangelo’s David? How about any Super Bowl winner? Olympic gold medalists? The Cathedral of Notre Dame? Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s movements? Please show me where true and lasting greatness was not hard won?

The three areas I help people with (marriage transformation, parent training and self-mastery) all take hard work. Why should that discourage us, though? Shouldn’t we be encouraged knowing that if we work hard to learn and practice, practice, practice the best ways to create a great relationship that we’ll earn our outcomes? So, if we are going to do hard, we might as well learn the best ways to do it so our hard work is well-rewarded.

Hard and Easy or Easy and Hard?

The question then is not whether it’s hard or easy. The question is, where do you want hard and where do you want easy? We know that the convoluted and complicated habits and messes we get stuck in are actually quite easy to continue perpetuating and falling back into. Bad relationship habits are easy to continue. It’s just that the results of these patterns are really hard to live with. The work I require my clients to do is undoubtably hard to do, but boy! the results sure are easy to live with. Success story after success story keep rolling in like these two this week:

Thank you so much for helping me save my marriage! I don’t know what I’d do without my husband! He is so amazing for me in so many ways!”
—A Marriage Transformation client who loathed her husband and was ready to leave him

I can attest a LOT of very hard work went into this outcome. But the hard work is over for them. The easy part of living with what they have created, and earned, continues on and on and on.

[My wife] is amazed. You changed her life today with what you taught us about mastering strong emotions. The change in her in turn changed my life and hopefully her extended family’s lives, too. You definitely do not hide your talents under a bushel. I so appreciate you.”
—A Self-Mastery and Parent Training client

So it’s not whether the work is hard or not. It’s going to be hard. The question is where do you want the hard and where do you want the easy? Easy to keep doing, but hard to live with or hard to do, but easy to live with?

Short term: EASY to continue habits = Long term: HARD to live with

Short term: HARD to change habits = Long term: EASY to live with

Take courage. The work is hard. The results are worth it.

RELATED POST: Hard or Easy?

Ever wonder what an ADHD professional who works on his own does when he gets distracted off task? Well, naturally, he makes torches in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse. Duh!

Build Your Own!

Instructions

1. Wick: Find some old clothes that you would normally throw away. This is how it all started–I was on task with putting laundry away when I found a tattered pair of jeans and a ripped dress shirt… The torches above use one half of a pair of jeans and one full dress shirt.
2. Handle: Get 2′ to 3′ long sticks (save old broom handles as any handyman/tinkerer can tell you they are handy for many projects). The ones pictured are 3′ long. I prefer the longer length for the following reasons: a. Keeps fire (and dripping torch pieces) away from my hands; b. Ability to wave in a cool arc from side to side for greater visibility as well as for the cool whooshing torch on fire sound; and c. The better to whack away zombies with.
3. Fastener: I wrapped these with bailing wire so when they burn down the criss-crossing wire will act like a cage to hold the torch together as long as possible. I then wrap the ends of the wire around a small nail so as I’m whipping the torch to and fro the torch head won’t fly off. Yeah, smart thinking, I know.
4. Fuel: Either soak them in melted wax ahead of time or douse them in kerosine or gasoline when the time comes. The wax method is preferable as they are completely ready before hand and won’t use valuable fuel. Also, the wax method makes them waterproof.
5. Voila! Defend your home, light the way, have fun.

You can ‘dis ADHD as being a “deficit” and a “disorder” all you like, but when the zombies attack you’ll be calling on me for extra torches! People often feel bad about having ADHD. Not me. They ask, what are the upsides of ADHD. Plenty and many. There are as many (and more) upsides to ADHD than there are downsides in both my personal and professional experience. I’ll address this later in a more serious-minded post… Stay tuned…

All joking and fun aside, torches are a simple and practical emergency preparedness item. However, preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse is more funner than preparing for a temporary power outage.

Today begins the 2011-2012 Hookey Dates. Today it’s just Matthew (10) and me. I began these with my children several years ago during a time when I was working a LOT (full time job as a therapist, weekly 8-10 hour commute, and starting a private practice and speaking business on the side) and my kids and I were missing each other.

What is a Hookey Date?

Well, hookey, of course, is the old term for ditching school. So Hookey Dates are where from 8 am to 3 pm I and one of my children completely blow off work and school. Each child gets to do this with dad one time each school year.

Benefits of Hookey Dates

• They think it’s a blast (its permission-based ditching!)
• No one else they know does this with their dads so they feel special
• “It’s fun because you get to spend time with your dad,” Matthew just said.
• They look forward to it for weeks
• We both get to spend a lot of completely uninterrupted one on one time with each other which we both love
• They get to pick whatever they want to do with me during that time (within budgetary limits that is). They get to be completely in charge. It’s their day.

It’s more than the one day, though, experience-wise. We talk about it and plan for it weeks in advance and towards the day itself. Also, as each child plans their date the other kids are reminded of their own past or upcoming ones.

A typical Hookey Date:

• Breakfast at One Man Band (50′s retro diner where they get to pick songs from the jukebox, “Which is really cool because it’s the only place I’ve seen with a jukebox!” Matthew just informed me.
• Activity: Some have been either Nickelcade, bowling, shopping (clothes or toys with a limited amount of money $10-20), playing at “the big park”, slick track racing, etc
• Lunch wherever they want
• Movie of their choosing.
• And all throughout LOTS of laughing, talking, sharing and most important just being with each other.

I no longer work that crazy schedule and gratefully have much more time now with my family. But we have continued this treasured tradition.

Any other silly fathers out there besides me? I bet there are plenty. What funny, silly, ridiculous, self-abasing things do you do to make your kids laugh?

Any other silly fathers out there besides me? Let’s hear the lengths you go to get a laugh from your mini minions…

It may be obvious that I love my family madly, crazy, nutso, gonzo, but I like to make it even more so.

It’s just hard hard to make anyone feel too loved or appreciated. I like to flood my family with as many subtle and obvious messages that they are noticed, loved and wonderful.

How do YOU appreciate your family? Please share your ideas.

— For more tips, strategies and resources for creating truly GREAT relationships with self and others visit http://JonathanSherman.net —

Great question. 

SHORT ANSWER:
Basic rule: If we don’t use that language in our home we don’t invite it in our home, either.

LONG ANSWER:
We don’t want content (language, images, materials, etc) in our home that we don’t speak, hold value to or wouldn’t appreciate a guest in our home saying or doing. Just as we would expect a polite guest in our home to respect our values (even if they don’t agree with those values) we expect the musicians and actors that we invite into our homes (in a virtual manner via the doors of media) to respect our “house rules”. So if we don’t use the sh** word in our home we ask the kids to self-censor their own music to respect our home.

Without lecturing, discuss what is appropriate in your home and why.
Generally, they do respect that rule, however, naturally kids want to try their own thing and there have been times when our teens have had inappropriate music in the home. When that happens, and when I notice it, I’ll point out the inappropriate content and why it’s inappropriate. Sometimes they just listen without paying attention and are genuinely surprised at the content when it’s shown to them. Other times they just “say” they didn’t know, when in reality they liked the edgy content. Sometimes honestly they didn’t understand the reference, context, innuendo, implications or meaning of a phrase. In those cases I’ll explain it to them and appeal to their sense of decency and ask what they think about listening to a song that has a great beat, is artistically done, but is conveying a violent, foul, misogynistic, overly sexualized, etc message. Either way, I point it out and re-establish the house rule (see short answer above).

Have rules that appeal to reason.
I think most kids understand and can respect the congruity and logic behind this approach, instead of the weaker, specious reason of the parental stand-by of, “Because I said so”. They especially respect it when they know that’s “just the way it’s always been in our home” from a young age, like you’re doing now. Then when they are teens the rule’s not challenged that much. Why not? Teens generally don’t feel a need to rebel much against rules and systems that make sense and are fair.

Music is more than music: It’s exploration.
All that being said, Kara and I, like you, don’t want to stifle their musical tastes and so allow a lot of lee-way with the kids choices in music as we understand the importance of music with expression and identity. So basically, pretty much anything is okay so long as it doesn’t violate our basics. I believe firmly in the importance of kids, especially teens, to be able to experiment and try our different musical styles, clothes, ideas, etc as external means of exploring what resonates with them and what doesn’t. As such, I keep an open mind to music and have pleasantly been exposed to several bands they like that I have come to like, too, such as Death Cab for Cutie, Mayday Parade, Arcade Fire, Weezer, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park. In turn have been able to turn them on to some of my music such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Wolfmother, Band of Horse, Bob Marley, Enya, Jimmy Eat World, The White Stripes, Norah Jones, George Winston, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and peaceful Zen-esque bamboo flute music. There’s still plenty of their music I can’t get into and vice-versa, but the message is that musical differences are encouraged and respected. Further, because musical variety is respected I think it makes it easier for them to share their favorites with them and vice-versa which expands all of our awareness. The basic message in our house is that “We love good music” meaning that it’s music we enjoy, is well done/creative, speaks to us, and that abides by our basic standards. That leaves the house open to enjoy a broad range of eclectic musical tastes from classical, opera, country, alternative rock, pop, classic rock, punk, folk, funk, rockabilly, hard rock, rap, etc.


Be okay taking a stand with your standard.
Sometimes kids will say, “What’s the big deal, I hear that at school all the time?” My response, “I agree, you do hear it at school. How often do you hear it here?” I want them to know that standards are standards (meaning they stand/stay) and that ours don’t get watered down, blown over or become value-neutral just because other people have different or no standards.

Balance openness with boundaries.
There is definitely a balance between being open and not  having clear boundaries. I think when it comes to music we’ve done well in this area. They kids know they have tremendous freedom with their musical choice and expression within fair and reasonable limits. The limits are based in reasonable expectations to basically listen to music that is respectful of our home specifically and of people in general. 

Musical preference is instructive and informative.
Kids music is often diagnotist/informative to me. Not in a sense that I use their music to limit them by labeling or pigeon-holing them. But, as a means of understanding what they are drawn to and find interesting. It’s also a great medium to connect and discuss what’s important to them. I invite them to tell me who’s playing, what they like about it, interesting facts about the band/song, etc. It’s interesting to find out what they value, feel and think that I might not otherwise learn without the medium of discussing what’s important to them about their music and it’s meaning to them.

Here’s a simple activity:
Unless it’s blatantly inappropriate, take a moment to really listen to your kids music. Pick some that you generally don’t enjoy. Don’t limit your perception based on whether you like it or not, but consider fully why it might appeal to your child. Sit with the music for a while. Get up and dance to it. Get into the “groove” and experience it as it is. You still  might not like it, but you may find you’ve learned something about it and more importanly about your child. Surprise your child with, “You know I listened to (band name) that you like so much, and I have to say I really like (song name). I was surprised because I didn’t think I would like it, but I did, and here’s why…. What do you like about (band name)?”

Whew! That may be more than you asked, but it’s a great question that I’ve thought about a lot and it was fun for me to be able to put the thoughts down.

Your thoughts?
This is what works in our home. Please share with us what works in your home. Readers, where do YOU draw the musical line with your kids?

Taught 11-year-old daughter learning to control her anger is as learnable as controlling a car via the speedometer, steering wheel, gas/brakes of emotion regulation. She felt bad before about not being able to control her anger and was crying, poor thing.

I’ll post the copies of the worksheets she and I came up with together and sometime I’ll describe the process in greater depth. For now, let me just share: She felt empowered! I love being able to help my children navigate the tricky waters of life.

Any dads relate?

“I stand outside this woman’s work.”

“Now starts the craft of the father.”

Please honor the mother of your children. Work your craft to be a father of honor.