Parenting With Love

Long time P.E.T. Instructor, Kathryn, explains the difference between authoritarian parenting styles versus parenting with P.E.T. Watch this touching video to hear about her experience:

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What Makes A Happy & Loving Home?

Recently, I spoke with a P.E.T. Instructor who says that she has been coming across more parents these days who claim to already have a well-balanced and happy lifestyle with their children and therefore are not in need of Parent Effectiveness Training. This of course, is great news to be heard, although it leaves some skepticism.

When elaborating more upon what it meant to them to have this loving family dynamic, parents explain that their kids are kept extremely busy with multiple sports, music lessons, college prep., etc. Not only are the kids busy with their own extracurricular activities, but so are the parents. In fact, everyone was so preoccupied with other things, that their schedules left little time to even have meals together, let alone get into any arguments. Their case stands that a happy home is one in which there is no conflict at all.

I couldn't help but wonder: If there is no time for conflict, how is there any time for intimacy?

This left me feeling sympathetic for those parents and children who were so busy that they had no time left for each other.

In all close relationships, conflict is inevitable. Never have I heard anyone in a marriage, long-term friendship, a sibling, or the like who could honestly say, "We have never gotten into an argument." Yet at the same time, many of these people would also say that they these very same relationships have been fulfilling, loving and rewarding.

With this in mind, the conclusion that I came to is that the true test of any good relationship isn't whether or not conflict arises, but it is how the conflict is handled.

P.E.T. not only provides ways for families to deal with conflict, but teaches ways to prevent conflict from happening in the first place, when at all possible. This is the reason why we don't offer the P.E.T. skills to be taught "a la carte." Just as you would need more than a hammer to build a home, P.E.T. is an entire set of tools that can be used everyday in every personal interaction. And that's the other beautiful thing about P.E.T. - the principles that P.E.T. teaches can be used in ALL relationships in our lives.

By: Selena Cruz George, Program Manager

Confrontive I-Messages in Action

More free

"It seems to me (a mother that before P.E.T. I had to play certain roles--be a certain way. I don't think I have to be that way anymore. I'm free to be me. And to risk that I'll still be loved and accepted, and if not, well that's all right...And it's freed my husband to be more open, more willing to talk about things and not hold feelings in...The whole thing about sending an honest I-Message about how you feel...I feel now it's OK for me to say, "I don't have time for it or I can't do it right now."

Breaking habits

"My son, four years old at the time, had developed the habit of sliding on his rear down the carpeted stairs. I had used power messages--everything, including spanking. In my need to stop the behavior, I had forgotten all about I-Messages. One day, when he had slid down the steps again I remembered and said, "Mark, when you slide down the steps on your rear, I get very aggravated because I'm afraid the carpet will get torn loose from the steps and then the hall area will look like a mess." Mark turned to me and said simply, "I didn't know you felt that way." He has never slid down the steps since that day."

Going to church

"When our grandson, eleven years old, was visiting us recently and attended church with myself and my husband, we sat in a front pew. He repeatedly stretched his arms over his head, much to my concern that he was distracting those behind us. So I wrote him this message. "When I see your arms stretched over your head, I think you disturb others behind us and it makes me feel embarrassed." he wrote back, "I'm sorry, Grandma," and then stretched his arms in front of himself instead of over his head. Later, he wrote me a note, "Am I embarrassing you, Grandma, when I wrote on the paper?" Upon which, I wrote back, "Of course not, and I'm so happy to have you sitting in church with us."

Expressing feelings

"I (a mother) used to give out my feelings, but I would camouflage them to protect myself...I would always worry how the other person felt--how it would affect them. And now I guess I'm putting the emphasis on myself...I have a lot of resentment built up because I don't share myself. But the formula for stating the I-Message (the three parts) helps me state a negative feeling in a positive way, without hurting the other person."*

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

Is Punishment Acceptable if It's Mild?

Advocates of punishing children never fail to rationalize that their punishment is mild, benign, loving. They use such terms as: discipline with love, behavior management, behavior modification, discipline with dignity. Severe punishment, they maintain, would be cruel and inhumane (non-loving). There is good reason to question the wisdom of such advice.

In the first place, researchers consistently have found that mild punishment most often fails as a deterrent. Every parent has had the experience of giving a mild punishment most often fails as a deterrent. Every parent has had the experience of giving a mild punishment to a child, only to watch in exasperation as the child repeats the unacceptable behavior as if nothing had happened. Consider this example: When Laurie grabs her brother's toy out of his hands, her mother responds by slapping her on the wrist and recovering the toy for her brother. Laurie looks startled, but then proceeds to snatch the truck away once more, giving her mother a guilty little grin in passing.

With regards to spanking which most parents consider to be mild punishment, Dr. Murray Straus, a well-known researcher, conducted a study of 900 mothers of children between the ages of 6 and 9. He found that when the parents attempted to correct the child's behavior by spanking, the more they spanked the worse the child behaved two and four years later in spite of how much love, attention and affection the parents gave the child.*

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

Do Families Need Dialogue?

Families Need Dialogue

Dialogue is to love what blood is to your body. When dialogue stops, love dies and resentment is born.

Dialogue has risks, unfortunately. However, when two or more people decide to do it and accept their fear of the risks, dialogue will bring important rewards.

This is the miracle of dialogue: it can bring relationships into being, and it can bring into being once again a relationship that has died (Howe, 1963).

Newborn infants and their parents begin a lifesaving series of dialogues. The infant communicates his/her needs and Mom or Dad responds by feeding, bathing, cuddling, talking or singing. These behaviors communicate the message that the parent loves him/her. Should the parent be rough, irritable, or neglectful, the child will feel unloved and unaccepted. To speak the words of love in a dialogue, is to be loved as well as to love.

The relationship between a man and a woman can communicate such mutual love by means of dialogue. The marriage vows are a first commitment to this kind of love-producing dialogue. In fact, Dr. Gordon's Credo promises that each will share their needs "openly and honestly, trusting you will listen with empathy and understanding." And every aspect of the marriage relationship needs dialogue: planning together, sharing individual experiences, choosing agreed upon responsibilities, discussing their sexual relations, conveying both their joys and their problems.

Both must try to speak honestly out of their own conviction, seek patiently to keep aware of the partner as another person, and try to keep open to the meaning of everything that happens in the relationship.

*Excerpt from Family Effectiveness Training (F.E.T.) Adult Resource Book

The Power of the Language of Acceptance

By Thomas Gordon, Ph.D. (author of P.E.T., founder of Gordon Training International)

When people are able to feel and communicate genuine acceptance of another, they possess a capacity for being an effective helping agent for the other. Acceptance of the other, as s/he is, fosters a relationship in which the other person can grow, develop, make constructive changes, learn to solve problems, move in the direction of psychological health, become more productive and creative. It is one of those simple but beautiful paradoxes of life: When a person feels truly accepted by another, then that person is freed to move from there and to begin to think about how to change, how to grow, how to become different, how to become more of what s/he is capable of being.

Acceptance is like the fertile soil that permits a tiny seed to develop into the lovely flower it is capable of becoming. The soil only enables the seed to become the flower. It releases the capacity of the seed to grow, but the capacity is entirely within the seed. As with the seed, a child contains the capacity to develop. Acceptance is like the soil--it merely enables the child to actualize his/her potential.

Why is parental acceptance such a significant positive influence on children? This is not generally understood by parents. Most people have been brought up to believe that if you accept children they will remain just the way they are; and the best way to help children become something better in the future is to tell them what you don't accept about them now.

Therefore, most parents rely heavily on the language of unacceptance in rearing children, believing this is the best way to help them. The soil that most parents provide for their children's growth is heavy with evaluation, judgment, criticism, preaching, moralizing, admonishing, commanding and punishing--messages that convey unacceptance of their children.

The language of acceptance opens kids up. It frees them to share their feelings and problems. Professional therapists and counselors have shown just how powerful such acceptance can be. Those therapists and counselors who are most effective are the ones who can convey to the people who come to them for help that they are truly accepted. This is why one often hears people say that in counseling or therapy they felt totally free of the counselor's judgment. They report that they experienced a freedom to share the worst about themselves because they felt their counselor would accept them no matter what they said or felt. Such acceptance is one of the most important elements contributing to the growth and change that takes place in people through counseling and therapy.

Of all the effects of acceptance none is as important as the feeling of being loved. For to accept others as they are is truly an act of love; to feel accepted is to feel loved. And in psychology, we have only begun to realize the tremendous power of feeling loved: It can promote the growth of mind and body, and is probably the most effective therapeutic force we know for repairing both psychological and physical damage. Your use of Active Listening and the other helping skills can communicate your acceptance and understanding of the significant people in your life