海角大神

Ever wonder why you yell at your kids, take away privileges and put them in time out and nothing seems to change? It鈥檚 because you are spinning the endless cycle of action and reaction instead of stopping it. You are expecting your child to make the change and be the grown-up first.

A father I am working with has established a deep cycle of resistance with his eight year old daughter, who is a very strong-willed child and says things to her father like, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 love me鈥�, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e mean鈥�, and 鈥淚t鈥檚 unfair鈥�. She has a little brother who is easy and flexible and gets his parents approval because of it.

Dad complains, 鈥淪he says no to everything, even something she knows is coming up and she is supposed to do. For instance, I told her when we got home it was time to go up to bed 鈥� twice. Calmly. But when we walked in the door, she went directly over to the table and started to draw. That started it.鈥�

When this dad, like so many parents, is faced with a child who doesn鈥檛 do what she is told, what is expected of her鈥攅ven the simplest no-brainers鈥攈e feels disrespected and ignored and therefore reacts accordingly. The key is in changing his perception of his daughter from, 鈥淪he鈥檚 doing this on purpose to disrespect me鈥� to something like, 鈥淪he鈥檚 being resistant to what I have asked which means she鈥檚 probably feeling unheard.鈥� But to get to this type of understanding, he must first unload his baggage and defuse his buttons.

As a child, this dad was in a divorced, highly dysfunctional family where he felt like 鈥渘othing鈥�. Feeling disrespected was not even in his vocabulary because respect wasn鈥檛. He was nothing.聽His Appreciation Button聽reminds him of that every time his daughter resists him. His old, yet very alive, belief that he is worth nothing gets triggered when his daughter ignores any of his requests. Logically he then feels ignored, worthless, dismissed and disrespected. Which in turn provokes him to resistance, to control, to anger, thus unintentionally sending his daughter the message that she is bad, unappreciative, a disappointment, and not good enough鈥攈is baggage comes full circle.

His daughter naturally resists what she聽perceives聽her father thinks of her, and her integrity fights back鈥攁t anytime she thinks she can take control鈥攅specially around no-brainers. To stop the cycle, this dad needs to be willing to see that his daughter is not calling him a nothing like his mother did. She just doesn鈥檛 like being told what to do鈥攕omething her brother has very little difficulty with (a huge thorn in her side). But Dad thinks it鈥檚 about him and reacts. His reaction causes his daughter to feel unloved and wrong and thus she resists him. It鈥檚 in his court to stop the cycle. He must first grapple with the old messages he has about himself from long ago and understand they had nothing to do with him and all to do with his parents. Just as his daughter鈥檚 initial resistance has nothing to do with him and all to do with her temperament. To empty our baggage, we have to let go of our perceptions.

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