They're Not Teaching You I-Messages

Just yesterday we received a phone call from someone who was in the middle of taking an (unmentionable) communication skills course, and called us to ask for clarification on giving the I-Message. This extremely frustrated young man sounded relieved to be finally getting some real help and clarification on how this skill works. As he delicately approached his question, he began by explaining something that was actually very different from what an I-Message really is. Because just as common as the term is used, it is mis-used. Here was yet another example of it's misuse.

He proceeded to ask for reassurance on whether or not he should be following the formula: I feel______ when______ and I would like______ so can we _______.

I politely explained to him that we do not teach that formula and that unfortunately, I could not help him in his search for how to correctly deliver this four-part confrontive statement of sorts. After several more attempts to get me to answer him about this, I began to listen closer to his frustration. He told me that he was desperately trying to get this thing down right and that every time he asked for more questions in the class, he was accused of not doing his homework. Nobody was giving him the proper formula for how to fill in those four blanks and when he tried it at home, it was not working at all like they said it would.

I listened. (And by that I mean, I active listened.) After what I believed to be a minor breakthrough on his part, I offered to teach him the original, three-part I-Message by Dr. Thomas Gordon. He asked for examples and I provided them. He wrote down the formula and was pleased. "Finally," he expressed, "this is something that makes much more sense. It's like now I have the right equation to plug into."

I couldn't help but then ask him what this class had taught him about running into resistance after you give someone your I-Message. What were you supposed to do then? His answer was painful. He was advised to repeat himself, act "appropriately" and then tell the other person something along the lines of: "You don't want to talk about this now so let's set up a time when we can talk later."

I can't say I was shocked, but there was some serious head-shaking happening on my end. The poor guy! I could tell how badly he wanted to improve his communication skills and how strongly his desire for help was. To be given a set of tools that didn't work must have been like buying a bicycle without wheels. I wondered aloud: "What are you supposed to do after your second attempt to talk with them and they respond in the same way? Repeat the cycle?"

He sighed. I could hear his shrug right through the phone.

When I explained to him what shifting gears into Active Listening was, it was like a light turned on in his head. Knowing that he had written all this new information down, he sounded eager to continue his research. He thanked me graciously and we ended our conversation.

I hope the rest of the students in that class give us a call!

P.E.T. Working With Religion

One of the reasons why Parent Effectiveness Training is so widely accepted is because of its versatility in any culture or family no matter race, creed or religion. P.E.T. is adaptable in any relationship without sacrificing in its effectiveness.

In Earl Gaulke's book "You Can Have A Family Where Everybody Wins," he takes a Christian approach on utilizing the P.E.T. skills with religious teachings. Perhaps his introduction described it best, being appropriately titled "Needed: Skills for Christian Parents."

In his book, Gaulke cross references Dr. Thomas Gordon's P.E.T. with biblical scripture and explains in detail how to be a P.E.T. parent and a Christian parent synchronously. In doing so, Gaulke outlines many real-life conflicts that arise between parents and their children, like drugs and alcohol, doing homework, watching TV, decision making, etc.

To learn more about this book, click on the photo below which will take you to it's amazon.com page.

"Parents want to help their children grow up successfully, but too often end by harming them instead. This book tells how parents and children can grow together."

-Dr. Paul Popenoe

Is the PET workshop worth the time and money?

We'll let you decide.

Here's what a few recent P.E.T. graduates have said about it:

"I loved the course. Meike's presentation of the material made it easy to understand and apply immediately. I couldn't imagine parenting without it. I have so many wonderful changes in myself and in my two toddlers that I can't begin to list them all. I am very grateful to have found the course and completed it." 

"Excellent instructor. Very enthusiastic, professional, compassionate, practical and knowledgeable!" 

"Before the course my husband and I were thinking about parent counseling to resolve so many issues. We even considered separating, but this course is helping us to communicate better, not only with our child, but with each other." 

"Love it! It's working. My daughter is happier and communicating her needs more. My listening skills are better. I notice quite a few changes particularly that I am a better communicator. I'm expressing my feelings and needs more effectively." 

"This course gave me so many more tools and ideas to positively express myself and resolve conflicts in a pleasant way" 

- from graduates of P.E.T. Instructor, Meike Lemmens: http://www.parentingclassesoc.com/

To sign up for one of Meike's P.E.T. workshops (in the Los Angeles, CA area), please send an email to family@gordontraining.com for more information.

~ follow P.E.T. on Twitter and Facebook for tips, promos and giveaways ~

Want To Learn More About GTI and PET?

Who is GTI and what does GTI offer?

Gordon Training International was established in 1962 by Dr. Thomas Gordon. We are a human relations training organization and we offer workshops, trainer certification and books - all based on the Gordon Model. We are now in 48 countries. To contact us, please email us at info@gordontraining.com.

Who is Dr. Thomas Gordon?

He was the founder of Gordon Training International and the author of the following books:

Parent Effectiveness Training

P.E.T. in Action

Leader Effectiveness Training

Teacher Effectiveness Training

Sales Effectiveness Training

Teaching Children Self-Discipline (renamed,"Discipline That Works")

You can learn more about him on this site by clicking here:http://www.gordontraining.com/drthomasgordon.html

To order any of these books, please visit our secure on-line store:http://www.gordontraining.com/store.html

What is the Gordon Model?

The Gordon Model consists of using all the following skills in conjunction with each other -- Active Listening, I-Messages, The Communication Roadblocks, Shifting Gears, and Method III Conflict Resolution. It was devised by Dr. Thomas Gordon in 1962. We teach this model, using The Behavior Window as a guide to use what skill at what time, in all of our workshops.

How do I buy books by Dr. Gordon?

You can purchase books written by Dr. Thomas Gordon (Founder of Gordon Training International, author of P.E.T., L.E.T., T.E.T., etc.) You can also purchase books by Linda Adams (President of Gordon Training International, author of Be Your Best and Effectiveness Training for Women) through our online store oramazon.com. Have an iPod or MP3 player? Audio versions of the L.E.T. and P.E.T. books are available on iTunes and audible.com.

Do you have a general workshop on the Gordon Model?

Absolutely! Linda Adams, President and CEO of Gordon Training International, developed "Be Your Best", a personal development program, which teaches you how to become more effective and take responsibility in both your personal and professional lives. In addition to the communication skills and conflict resolution methods taught, this course offers training in assertive skills, how to handle anxiety, and how to set goals for becoming more fulfilled. To find a Be Your Best Workshop near you, please email us at info@gordontraining.com.

Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.)

Where can I find a P.E.T. Workshop?

We train and certify independent P.E.T. Instructors who set their own scheduling, pricing and location. You can find a current P.E.T. Workshop Calendar by clicking here or by emailing us atfamily@gordontraining.com.

What will I learn in P.E.T.?

The P.E.T. workshop consists of brief lectures, demonstrations, workbook exercises, role-playing, some homework and small group discussion. You will learn the following skills based on the Gordon Model, taught by a certified P.E.T. Instructor:

- How to talk to your children so that they will listen to you.
- How to listen to your children so they feel genuinely understood.
- How to resolve conflicts and problems in your family so that no one loses and problems stay solved.
- A method for troubleshooting family problems and knowing which skills to use to solve them.

How can I become a P.E.T. Instructor?

It's easy as 1, 2, 3!

Step 1 - You can complete a P.E.T. Workshop, read the P.E.T. book or complete self-study pre-work. Contact us for more information: 800.628.1197 or email us atfamily@gordontraining.com.

Step 2 - Successfully complete the instructor training process.Click here for more information on how you can become certified to teach P.E.T!

Step 3 - Teach a P.E.T. Workshop; submit the participant evaluations to Gordon Training for review for final approval and instructor certification.

Ready to get started? Great! Please e-mail us for more information on how to enroll and to receive an application:family@gordontraining.com

Benefits You Can Look Forward To

Many young people who have learned the Gordon Model of building democratic relationships have willingly shared the benefits and rewards they have experienced.

They always begin by talking about their own family:

• "When my Mom and Dad and I don't agree on everything, it (the skills) really helps because we don't let things get out of control and everyone's feelings are less likely to get hurt."
• "I have learned not to yell as much and have learned to be patient until finding a compromise."
• "I know what to do when an argument starts."
• "I can now talk to my parents about anything, and I know they will listen without preaching--even if what I tell them might upset them or disappoint them."
• "My friends find it hard to believe that I have really good relationship with both of my parents."
• "I feel that my parents are my best friends."
• "Nobody in my family is the boss."

These young people also describe the benefits they have received in their relationships with their friends or at work:

• "All my friends know they can come to me with any kind of problem and get heard. They know I am a good Active Listener."
• "I know that any conflict that comes up with my friends can be resolved using the skills I've learned."
• "I'm able to distance myself from my friends' problems and let them be the owners of their problems."
• "The training has made me a better problem-solver when things go wrong in my life. I know how to brainstorm."

There is one final benefit you may not be aware of. Young people, like yourself, raise in a non-punitive and democratic family will themselves to create such a family when they marry and have children. Then those children will do the same, and the next generation of children will follow, and so on.

Can you see that you can make a valuable contribution to society? In successive generations there will be more and more young people like yourself and more and more democratic families. You will be helping create a whole "new species" of young people, clearly different from the typical youth of today. There will be fewer acts of injustice and violence, few juvenile delinquents, fewer divorces, and so on.

In short, you can now contribute to our society by being one of the people who makes democracy a way of life.*

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's F.E.T. Young Adult Resource Book

The "Apparent Magic" of the Gordon Model

By Linda Adams, President of GTI

As we recall the many things for which we are thankful, we feel especially grateful to and appreciative of all the people around the world who teach, who advocate for, who use the Gordon Model in their own lives and relationships. Ever since 1962 when Dr. Gordon taught the first PET class in a Pasadena, California cafeteria until August of this year when Sister Estelle Fontaine taught a group in Mauritius (Indian Ocean), we have heard stories of "apparent magic"--stories that are made possible by our representatives and instructors throughout the world. Here are some we'd like to share with you that illustrate the universal applicability and relevance of this model to all relationships.

Married Couple Find Themselves On A Date In Tokyo:

Situation: After dinner. Children are already in bed. A husband and wife are in the living room. The wife took a PET course and is ready to practice a Positive I-Message.

W: Dad.
H: Yeah...?
W: I suppose you must have lots of disagreeable frustration at work.
H: Oh yes, I do--lots of them.
W: You work for such a long time every day, but you know, you've never come home in a bad mood.
H: Maybe so. I let it go out while I work, you know.
W: I appreciate to see you in a good mood when you come back home. I feel happy to see you like that at home even after your long work.
H: Well, today, too--I had a quarrel with some colleagues.
W: Oh, yeah?
H: (Then he talked about what happened that day and said there were colleagues whom he trusted so much that we could even quarrel with them).

The wife comments--"There was not so strong a reaction from him that day, but what was surprising was what happened the next day. At around 10:00 that night, he called me on the phone on this way from work and invited me to go to a noodle shop near our apartment. 'Come down. I'm almost in front of our apartment'. For many years, we had not done something like this. On our way back from the noodle shop, we bought some ice cream cones and went home licking them. I knew what I had wanted to convey to him the day before was understood and accepted by him. The next morning, my husband was telling our children with a big grin: 'Hey, mom and I had a date yesterday'."

Sister Estelle Inspires Nuns:

"I went to Mauritius and La Reunion to give some Gordon trainings to Carmelite convent order nuns and to some nuns who take a very active responsibility for older people and children with problems or abandoned ones. It is to be noted that there is no Training Centre there and all of the people whom we have met were delighted with these trainings--their regret is that they did know earlier that such things could exist. Some people told me that it was personal therapy for them, opened them to other ways of living their relationships and made them look to life with much more hope."

Pickle-Packing Plant Pleased With Productivity In Maryland, USA:

Recently a plant manager shared this about LET Trainer Rob Harris who trained many of their managers, supervisors, and line-leads in the LET skills: "He was able to make a real difference in how the entire plant acted toward one another. I have seen a change in our supervision and leads that we have trying to accomplish for four years. The result is what is most impressive. We have gone the last seven months with lower consumer complaints than the previous year. We have reduced the amount of rework in the plant by $120,000 from last year. We have spent $170,000 less in overtime than the year before. Our cost per case is down by $.07. The intangible change is probably the biggest whereas stress levels are at an all time low and our teams are working together better than they ever have."

PET Behind Prison Bars:

In December of last year, an inmate at Soledad Prison, a maximum security prison in California, wrote to us letting us know that he had read the PET book in the prison library and that he would like to take a course to learn the skills. We then sent him FET (Family Effectiveness Training, the video version of PET) and received a letter from him several months later sharing this with us: "I must tell you how impressed I was with Dr. Gordon's program--it has helped me better understand how to interact not only with my own children but with my fellow inmates as well. This is a program that would help all inmates who have the willingness and desire to prepare themselves to successfully reenter their communities." He then approached the prison administration with the idea of offering the course for groups of inmates preparing for parole. FET was so well-received that there are now three ongoing courses, one of which the prison chaplain facilitates. It has become one of the most popular courses ever offered at Soledad and there are now 300 inmates on the waiting list. Recently, David shared a conversation with a fellow inmate named Albert. "Albert shook my hand and thanked me and said that before he took the FET course, he had never really known how to properly communicate with people. He felt alienated from his own children, his parents, even from his wife. He said he have acted like a drill instructor issuing orders rather than a father, son, husband. It was his way or the highway. Albert said that FET was the best thing he had done in a very long time--'it changed my life and has given it new meaning'."

And finally, this from Azza Abul-Fadl in Egypt:

"I enjoy doing these courses and cannot tell you how much I appreciate having the opportunity to work with you on this really wonderful and peace-loving mission. When I was using an I-Message with my nephew the other day to help him resolve a conflict with his fiancee, my sister told her son: "'Your aunt is speaking the words of God'--isn't this wonderful!"

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Our deepest thanks to each of you who make a unique and valued contribution to making apparent magic like this possible.
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What Else is Unique About Family Effectiveness Training?

How the Marital Relationship Affects Children

This training program is unique in emphasizing the profound effect on children of the quality of their parents' marriage relationship. The way husbands and wives relate to each other becomes perhaps the strongest model for the behavior of their children.

Unless parents learn how to build a loving, stable, and peaceful relationship with each other, they are unlikely to build such a relationship with their children.

This training will provide family members with an easy-to-use step-by-step procedure they can quickly learn to peacefully resolve their conflicts. Recent research evidence shows that marital conflicts are inevitable, but they are less likely to lead to unhappiness or divorce when the partners have good conflict-resolution skills, good listening skills and good self-disclosure skills.

Parenting Made Much Easier

You'll find, as many other parents have, that parenting need not be as complex, difficult, exasperating and time-consuming as so many other books and parent education programs make it seem.

When you learn and use the skills in the Gordon Model for effective parenting, here are some of the things you'll discover:

• You won't have to be "an all-knowing super-parent" with answers to each of the countless problems every child experiences. Why? Because you will learn a single communication skill that will influence your children to come up with their own best solutions. We call that "empowering your child" of "fostering independence and self-confidence."

• You won't have to spend your valuable time reminding and nagging your child (or your spouse) to do what they said they would do. Why? Because you will learn a procedure that greatly increases peoples' motivation to keep their promises and commitments.

• You won't have to experience the pain and frustration of arguments that never get settled or serious conflicts that lead to anger and tears. Why? Because you will learn a communication skill that effectively prevents a lot of conflicts. And then you'll learn that certain conflicts are still inevitable in marriages, but there is a procedure you can use to resolve those conflicts peacefully--so nobody loses, both win.

Skills Not Solutions

This training is unique in deliberately refraining from giving family members solutions to their innumerable and various problems. Now you are probably thinking, "What in the world do we get in this training we can't use your expertise to give us good solutions?" The answer is that Family Effectiveness Training will teach a few learnable skills and procedures that will then enable family members to find their own unique solutions to their unique problems. It will empower you and other family members to be problem-solvers. You may have heard the following principle that describes empowerment:

"Give people a fish and you'll feed them for one day; teach them how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime."

That is what the Gordon Training skills will do.

Besides that, because families and their members are so very different there is seldom one best solution for the same problem in every family. So don't expect advice about how to handle money, relate with in-laws, spend more time together or any of the hundreds of problems families experience.

What is Unique About Family Effectiveness Training?

Focus on Relationships

The Gordon Model focuses on relationships as opposed to single individuals.

In the last 50 years we have seen the development of a new technology--a New Science of Interpersonal Relationships.

This new focus on relationships is a welcome one because relationships with others are important in every person's life. Each of us conceived as a result of an intimate relationship, each of was born into a relationship, and then lived most of our lives in relationships. All of these relationships greatly influence the kind of person each of us becomes.

Dr. Gordon has contributed to this new science of relationships by identifying the components of good relationships and developing training programs to teach them to others.

This family-focused training program is his most recent contribution to this new science.

Research-Based Facts, Not Opinions

People have been forming opinions and giving advice about family relationships long before there was any kind of "science". Today one can easily read or hear all manner of opinions about how to have a loving and lasting marriage or what is the best way to raise children. Much of it, however, has not been confirmed scientifically until recently.

Thousands of scientific research studies have built this new science, particularly studies focused on relationships in families, in schools, and in organizations.

We now have greater understanding of what makes these relationships healthy, strong, desirable, and lasting. Throughout this training program you will find many references to research studies that have proven what makes good relationships and what breaks them.

One exciting discovery of this new science of relationships is that there are common skills for making all your relationships sound and satisfying.

One Blueprint for All Relationships

This is another unique feature of Gordon Training: the skills you'll learn in this program will also strengthen and enrich all your relationships outside the family as well. "One set of skills fit all." This program will definitely teach the same skills taught in Dr. Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.), the course that launched the parent training movement in the U.S. in 1962 and has now trained well over a million parents in 50 countries. The same skills have been show to strengthen marriages, teacher-student relationships, and manager-worker relationships.

Clear Thinking About Words and Important Ideas

This training program is unique in explaining some of the knotty and confusing words and ideas your hear about families and parenting. Understanding the different meanings of these terms will help you understand why there is widespread disagreement about the "best way" to keep marriages intact or to raise good children. Did you know there are four entirely different meanings of the word "authority?" Also, there are two very different meanings for "discipline".

More tomorrow on what is so unique about F.E.T.