When Kids Call the Shots: How to Seize Control from Your Darling Bully -- and Enjoy Being a Parent Again
224
When Kids Call the Shots: How to Seize Control from Your Darling Bully -- and Enjoy Being a Parent Again
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Overview
If you want to fix your rebellious and disrespectful child, you need to start by fixing yourself.
Are your kids pummeling you with demands and bossing you around with impunity? Have your once-precious preschoolers become rebellious, entitled, and disrespectful to authority? While there are plenty of so-called experts who might try to validate your convictions that you have done all you can to “fix” your “difficult” children, the hard truth is, they’re not doing you any favors by placing the responsibility solely on your children. Parenting struggles rarely originate from just one side. Instead, they erupt at the volatile intersection of a child's personality with a parent's own insecurities and behaviors.
In When Kids Call the Shots, therapist and parenting expert Sean Grover untangles the forces driving family dysfunction, and helps parents assume their leadership roles once again. Parents will discover:
- Three common bullying styles used by kids
- Parenting styles that contribute to power balances
- Critical testing periods in a child’s development
- Coping mechanisms that backfire
- Personalized plans for calmly exerting authority in any scenario
The solution to any problem begins with learning to control what you can control. In parenting, you’ve already learned how impossible it is to control your kids. Begin by controlling you!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780814436011 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AMACOM |
| Publication date: | 06/03/2015 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 494 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
When Kids Call The Shots
How to Seize Control From Your Darling Bullyâ"And Enjoy Being A Parent Again
By Sean Grover
AMACOM
Copyright © 2015 Sean GroverAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8144-3601-1
CHAPTER 1
Escape the suffering parents club
Welcome! If you bought this book, chances are, your kid has bullied you. I'm not talking about occasional backtalk that comes along with every phase of child development. I'm talking about children actually abusing their parents.
How on earth does this happen?
A generation or two ago, it would have been unthinkable for children to bully their parents. Chances are, you would never have attempted to push around your mother or father. In fact, many parents are quick to tell me that they feared challenging their parent's authority.
Yet today, everyone knows a parent who is bullied. Pay a visit to your local playground or stroll through a shopping mall, and you're bound to see the bullied parent dynamic in action—a child yelling, cursing, or even hitting his parent. For bullied parents, the terrible twos never end; they simply morph into the terrible tween, the terrible teen, the terrible college student, and beyond.
For relief, we may turn to blame. We can point a finger at genetics or family history; perhaps we fault society, our partner (or ex-partners), or even ourselves. But such tactics rarely produce value. They provide no guidelines for repairing our relationship and only reinforce our sense of being victimized by our kids.
Bullying at home is a symptom of imbalance within the entire family. Perhaps there has been some disruptive event, such as a divorce, illness, or financial hardship. Maybe your child is going through a difficult developmental phase. There may have been an upsetting transition, such as relocating or starting at a new school. Trials like these can raise overwhelming insecurities in kids and fuel bullying behaviors.
On Being a Parent
Once, parenting was an afterthought, something to be checked off your things-grownups-do list on your way to retirement. To make matters worse, we had lots of lousy proverbs to screw up our view of childrearing:
"Children should be seen and not heard."
"Spare the rod, spoil the child."
"Do as I say, not as I do."
Is it any surprise that these phrases were coined in medieval times? No doubt, we pay a heavy price for such unenlightened views of parenting.
So before we delve into the complex world of the bullied parent, I'd like to applaud you for taking the work of parenting so seriously.
If you're reading this now, you are a member a new generation of parents who recognize the importance of self-awareness and mindfulness when it comes to raising an emotionally healthy child.
Becoming a parent is a life-altering event, one that initiates a profound transformation on every level of your consciousness. It's impossible to become a parent without your identity going through a startling overhaul.
While the joys of parenting are frequently highlighted, its anxieties are often overlooked. Becoming a parent has an enormous effect on our relationships, personalities, and behaviors. It also introduces new pressures that we never saw coming, such as monetary challenges, time management issues, or health problems. Parents find themselves sleeping less, worrying more, and struggling with feelings that they don't understand.
From the start, parenting stirs up our own childhood experiences, which can shake us to the core. We may find ourselves saying things our parents said, escalating conflicts with our children, or recreating problematic aspects of our relationships with our own parents.
Let's go back to the bullying child in the playground or the mall. From a distance, it looks like an angry child pushing around a parent. Perhaps the parent appears too tired to say no. Maybe the kid appears spoiled or entitled.
But underneath, there's much more going on.
This book will take you on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way, you'll come face to face with the fears and insecurities that affect your parenting choices. You'll begin to recognize old, ineffective parenting methods and forge new ones that are right for your family and child. You'll learn why you became a bullied parent, and how to stop it once and for all.
My Own Journey
Before we get down to the nitty-gritty about bullied parents, I think its best that I make a confession:
I was a bullied parent.
Yes, it's true. Like you, I stumbled into parenting with the best intentions—open-hearted and naïve. I was going to be the best parent I could be. I was going to out-parent my own parents. I was going to show the whole world what amazing children I could produce. (That's right, me!) After all, I am a psychotherapist who works with kids and families. Who's better prepared to be a parent than I?
Boy, did I have a lot to learn.
By the time my first daughter was six years old and my second was crawling around our home, I was stumbling about in a sleep-deprived haze, exhausted, brooding, and longing for my old life.
My oldest daughter's behavior dismayed and saddened me. She was rude, demanding, and mean; she spoke to me in ways that I would never have dared to speak to my parents. And yet whenever I tried to remedy the situation, I only made it worse.
I wasn't raising a well-adjusted child, but a first-class bully.
Soon, I found myself dodging conflicts with her. I couldn't take another meltdown or temper tantrum, particularly in public, where an audience seemed to boost her bullying powers. So, for a moment of peace I would give in to her demands. But those moments of peace were becoming shorter and shorter.
Why did she talk to me in such disrespectful ways?
Questions haunted and poked at me as I tossed and turned in bed at night:
Where did I go wrong?
Why am I afraid of her?
Am I being too permissive?
The one thing that I did know: whatever I was doing, it wasn't working.
A Turning Point
Every New Year's Day, I attend a celebration at the Buddhist center in my neighborhood. One of my favorite gatherings, it's filled with music, dancing, art, and poetry. Children giggle and run through the halls, old friends discover one another, hugs and kisses abound. What better way to start the New Year?
When it's time to leave, however, my daughter decides she wants to stay. She dashes away into the crowd, her arms flailing and hands waving as she darts between legs and under tables. "I don't want to go home, Papa!" she shrieks. "Leave me alone!"
I'm trying to stay calm, but inside I'm boiling. I have the creeping awareness that I'm being scrutinized. I begin to feel dizzy. My head throbs. Get me the hell out of here,I think. I receive a few sympatric looks from other parents—the ones who know my struggle. Members of the SPC (Suffering Parent Club) have an immediate identification—and an instant empathy—with one another. (Whenever I pass by a father with a screaming kid in a stroller, I know exactly what he's going through. Immediately, our eyes meet and we share a silent exchange. "I feel your pain, brother." "Thank you, brother." And we go our separate ways.)
Back to my screaming, flailing daughter: It's the judgmental stares of nonparents that cut me to the quick. What the heck do they know about the challenges of being a parent? They live in a world of quiet dinners and sleep-filled nights, while I live in a prison crammed full of stuffed animals, princess dresses, and glitter.
As I chase my daughter around the Buddhist Center, I felt my temperature rising. Here I am, a therapist who works with children, who leads parenting workshops, publishes parenting articles—and I don't have a clue what to do with my own kid!
As the eyes of others bore into me, a phrase of my father's springs from my lips, charged with menace and threat.
"Enough is enough!"
I scoop her up and head for the exit; she wiggles like a greased monkey in my arms. Once I find my car, I strap her in her car seat and slam the car door.
I think about how this must look like a kidnapping.
While driving home, all I can think about is revenge. Payback and punishments are the order of the day, and it's an order I can't wait to fill. I'll show her who's the boss.
I'm going to take away her stuffed animals and her favorite pillow.
I'll take away her bed, her bedroom door, and her mattress.
She'll be living in a prison cell begging me for forgiveness!
Just then my daughter grounds my flight of fantasy.
"Papa, why are you so mad?"
I'm stunned by the question. "Why am I so mad?" I sputter and puff. Her sincerity immobilizes me. Before I can respond, she states what is obvious to her, but not to me: "This is a happy day, Papa. You're making it a sad one."
I fumble for a defense. Deep down, I have the uncomfortable feeling that she's right. I'm acting out in ways that violate all my advice to parents. I'm vindictive, mean, and—worst of all—humorless. I feel like a complete failure. In the heat of the moment, all of my strategies, my training, schooling, and degrees: useless. What good is scholarly dissertation or self-help advice when my own parenting springs from such a low state of life?
When we arrive at home, I collapse in a chair and my eyes fall upon the parenting books that stock my bookshelves. I consider opening a window and tossing them out, one at a time. I imagine all the authors strolling down the street below my window. The books I hurl hit them in their heads with a delicious thump, and they collapse on the sidewalk.
Why had my training failed me?
Starting Over
After weeks of self-reflection and deep contemplation, I came to a painful realization: I had to jump off the blame train. Any satisfaction from blame was short-lived and left me feeling hopeless and bitter. Worse, the empty calories of blame made me a martyr, forever broadcasting my victimhood to the world. It was time to take responsibility for my daughter's behavior. After all, I am her parent. I raised her, didn't I? She came into the world with certain personality traits and temperaments, but ultimately, I must take responsibility for how she behaves.
In business, when a company falters, management comes under scrutiny. It's no different with parenting.
My daughter had every right to bully. She's a kid, and that's what kids do. The problem was my reaction to her bullying.
Rather than helping her to manage her feelings and impulses, I was busy blaming her and trying to control her. Worse, I was responding to her bullying with my own bullying. When she got mad, I got madder. Instead of trying to understand her, I oppressed her, which only brought out greater defiance and bullying.
As a parent, I wasn't leading. I was reacting.
To paraphrase Gandhi, I had to be the change I wanted to see in my child. If I wanted her to be more patient, I had to be more patient. If I wanted her to be less bullying, I had to be less bullying. If I wanted her to be more mindful, I had to lead the way.
It was time for me to ditch my textbook knowledge of child psychology, my analytic training and psychobabble. My only escape from the Suffering Parent Club was to dig deep into my own past and uncover why I allowed my daughter to bully me.
Self-help advice without self-knowledge is rarely effective. It was time to stop blaming my child and take a good look in the mirror.
The New Deal
After a grueling period of self-analysis and introspection, I had a revelation.
Actually, I had three:
1. My kid's behavior was a reflection of my own. If I wanted her to change her ways, I had to change mine.
2. My personal history—everything that made me me—lived and breathed in my parenting. I had to recognize and address the fears or insecurities that constantly influenced my parenting choices and allowed my daughter's bullying to flourish.
3. Learning to better manage my own feelings and impulses was central to turning around my relationship with my child and putting an end to bullying.
Purifying and understanding my internal world was the most important action I could take to improve my relationship with my daughter.
Parenting: The Ultimate Private Practice
Lawyers practice law, doctors practice medicine, and mothers and fathers practice parenting. Practiceis the key word. It indicates an ongoing process of learning. Being a parent is not an identity; it's a part of who you are. To be a better parent, you have to consider all aspects of yourself—everything that makes you you.
Parenting offers us the chance to grow, to close gaps in our own maturity and become more complete. We all have immaturities, and they come to the surface when we become parents. Parenting is a relationship like no other. But there's at least one way in which our relationship with our kids is no different from any other relationship in our lives: It takes practice to make it better.
The Pancake Cure
After I hit rock bottom with my daughter, I decided to seek professional advice. It was a tough pill to swallow, but I was at my wit's end. Picking up the phone and making an appointment was a great education in itself. It helped me to recognize how difficult it can be for a parent to ask for help. It stirred so many uncomfortable feelings in me.
Am I failing as a parent?
Why do I sound like my own father?
What kind of therapist can't manage his own kid?
Research and many phone calls led me to a well-known, respected parenting specialist. After waiting weeks for an appointment and recovering from sticker shock (don't ask how much it cost), I made my way to his wood-paneled office, prepared to devour sage advice from across his great mahogany desk.
He listened to my sad story, closing his eyes and nodding knowingly.
When I finished, he didn't say a word. For a moment I thought that he'd fallen asleep.
But then he opened his eyes, folded his hands on his lap, and signed knowingly. "Take your daughter to breakfast three times a week."
I waited for more.
"That's it?" I asked.
"Let her talk, listen very closely to what she has to say. No advice, no opinions or guidance, just listen. Do that for a week or two, and things will turn around."
He rose from his chair. "And remember," he said, "children have temper tantrums; parents do not."
What the hell did that mean?
Before I could shout, "Refund!" I was out of the office and back in my car, grumbling all the way home.
Was he serious?
Listening was going to fix everything?
And what was that crack about temper tantrums?
I would follow his advice—but my expectations were very low.
That weekend when I told my daughter we were going to breakfast together, she smiled broadly. I figured anything involving pancakes would get a green light, but this was different. She was really excited. She grabbed her fancy hat and her favorite stuffed animal, and she raced for the door.
"Bye, Momma! Papa and I are going to breakfast!" she shouted cheerfully.
Once in our local diner, she chatted on and on about her favorite cartoons and movies, her last play date, and her special new friend at school. In the midst of it all, I began to realize how much she enjoyed having my full attention. She positively glowed. I tried not to talk, except to ask questions. She loved that even more.
We were sitting in a booth next to the window, enjoying our pancakes, when a woman outside on the street looked in on us. At first glance, I thought she was trying to see what we were eating, but then realized she was fixing her make-up in the reflection of the glass. As she applied eyeliner, she flared her nostrils most unattractively. My daughter giggled. "Look Papa. She's making a silly face."
We enjoyed a hearty laugh. A small moment perhaps, but for me, it was monumental. We were enjoying each other's company for the first time in a very long while.
That moment, and the breakfasts that followed, marked a turning point in our relationship, a start of an entirely new way of being together. I felt close to her, enjoyed her more. I began to ask myself what fears and insecurities caused her bullying behavior.
Then I recalled a conversation we had a few days after her sister arrived home. My daughter, clearly irritated, took me aside and whispered heatedly: "When's the baby going back to the hospital?"
I thought that she was joking. "The baby is staying with us," I assured her. "We're keeping her."
Her eyes widened and she put her hands on her hips. "You mean ... like ... forever?"
It had been right in front of me the whole time: The birth of her baby sister had rocked her world and pushed her out of the spotlight.
She felt replaced by the new baby, and she didn't like it one bit.
Bullying was her way of expressing her upset. She felt discarded, tossed aside, and abandoned while we pampered and cooed over the new baby.
She wasn't feeling loved, she was feeling ignored. When children experience this kind of emotional neglect from their parents, it triggers profound fears of abandonment that can become a driving force of bullying behaviors.
No fear is more devastating to children than the loss of their parents' love; nothing undermines their sense of security quicker or destabilizes their emotional core faster.
Armed with my new understanding of her anxieties and my determination not to react to her bullying, I set out to make things right.
The next time she bullied, I hit the pause button. Rather than react, I asked myself:
What feelings have been stirred up in her?
Why is she bullying at this moment?
What's driving this behavior?
Rather than admonish her, I poured all my energy into trying to understand her and become empathically attuned to her feelings.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from When Kids Call The Shots by Sean Grover. Copyright © 2015 Sean Grover. Excerpted by permission of AMACOM.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments, XI,Introduction, 1,
1 Escape the Suffering Parents Club, 7,
2 What Happened to My Sweet, Adorable Child?, 27,
3 How We Become Our Kids' Victims— and Strategies to Prevent Parent Burnout, 51,
4 Understanding Your Kid's Bullying Behavior Style, 77,
5 Your Parenting Style—and How Good Parents Fall into Bad Habits, 107,
6 Tools to Give You Both Just the Right Amount of Power, 131,
7 How to Assemble Your Anti-Bullying Support Team, 157,
8 Navigating the Seven Parenting Crises That Can Trigger Bullying, 181,
Index, 209,