How to choose the right parenting program for you

By Linda Adams, President of Gordon Training International

When Dr. Gordon taught the first P.E.T. class in 1962, parent training was a brand-new idea. At that time, most parents felt that they didn’t need training—that the way their parents had raised them was good enough. Still the idea caught on and in 1975, the New York Times called P.E.T. “a national movement.”

Now it’s been a little more than 46 years to the day since that first P.E.T. course began. And so much has happened since that day. Like every new idea, P.E.T. attracted a lot of imitators. In addition, people with very different views about how parents should raise their children came on the scene. Today, there are literally hundreds and perhaps thousands of parent training books and courses. Clearly, it’s an idea whose time has come.

Now, we know that parent training can have a major impact on how parents raise their children. There is overwhelming evidence that ineffective parenting is the cause of many of the problems that children and adolescents develop and struggle with throughout their lives. And we know that effective parenting can prevent many, if not most of these problems. In fact, it can do much more than that—effective parenting can create family relationships in which both parents and children can thrive.

With so many choices, how does a parent choose which model to follow?

Each model offers a specific philosophy of child-rearing and some offer skill training as well. There are several parent training models within which many parent training programs loosely fit. Most of them are based on the work of well-known and respected psychologists who have written books describing their theories. In most cases, their students and/or advocates developed courses for parents based on these theories.

Some of the courses advocate that parents be in control (autocratic), though the degree of control varies. Almost none advocate permissiveness. Some, like P.E.T., show parents how to have a collaborative, cooperative relationship with their children (democratic).

To help those parents faced with the daunting task of choosing a model, I have summarized the philosophy and skill training (if any) of some of the most well-known and/or current parenting models in an article, “How P.E.T. Compares to Other Parent Training Programs.”

How P.E.T. Compares to Other Parenting Programs

Programs Included in this comparison:

Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.)

Nonviolent Communication (N.V.C.)

How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk

Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (S.T.E.P.)

Active Parenting

Love and Logic

Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)

Dare to Discipline

Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.)

Author: Dr. Thomas Gordon

Philosophy: Democratic

Applies to All Relationships: Yes

Year of Origin: 1962

Book: Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.), 1970, 2000.

Course: Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.), 1962, 1976, 1989, 2005.

Course Length: Eight 3-hour sessions

Summary of this Model:

This book and course offer a philosophy and set of communication and conflict resolution skills for helping parents develop and maintain a democratic, mutually satisfying relationships with their children and with each other. The conceptual model is the Behavior Window, a framework that Dr. Gordon developed for determining who owns the problem. Parents learn to use this window to help them to decide which skill to use depending on whose problem it is. There is heavy emphasis on learning the communication and conflict resolution skills so they can be used right away, both at home and in all relationships.

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Three types of parenting styles: Authoritarian, Permissive, Democratic

• Focus is on teaching the Democratic style

• No use of parental power; needs of both parent and child important; conflicts solved so both get their needs met

• Training is needed to learn any new skill

• Behavior Window provides a framework for dealing with all behaviors

• Problem Ownership

• Communication and Conflict Resolution skills to handle any relationship problem

• Acceptance of child as s/he is

• Acceptance demonstrated through Active Listening

• 12 Communication Roadblocks

• “Misbehavior” is the language of power

• Authentic, congruent expression of true feelings without blame

• Avoidance of labels and judgments

• Anger and what’s beneath it

• I-Messages vs. You-Messages

• Shifting gears to deal with resistance to I-Message

• Modifying the physical environment to prevent problems and conflicts

• Harmful effects of both rewards and punishments, including logical consequences and time-out

• Disadvantages of both strict and permissive parenting styles

• Win-lose conflict resolution methods as compared with the No-Lose Method

• Parents use influence, not control

• Family rule-setting; Principle of Participation

• Conflicts resolved so that the needs of both parent and child are important and both are satisfied with the solution; no one loses

• How to handle values differences through modeling, consulting, I-Messages.

Nonviolent Communication (N.V.C.)

Author: Dr. Marshall Rosenberg

Philosophy: Democratic

Applies to All Relationships: Yes

Year of Origin: 1975

Book: Nonviolent Communication: The Language of Life, 2003

Course: Nonviolent Communication

Course Length: 13 2/12hour sessions

Summary of this Model:

This book and course offers a philosophy for having more meaningful, deeper connections with children, other people and oneself. It focuses on needs—one’s own and those of the other person and makes a case for learning to communicate in ways that create harmony and peace between people instead of arguments, misunderstandings and even violence. And it demonstrates the attitudes and skills that are needed to have such relationships both in the family and with others.

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Observing behavior without evaluation

• Identifying and expressing feelings and needs without judging

• Taking responsibility for one’s feelings

• Receiving other’s communication empathically

• Reflecting back other’s feelings

• Self-counseling

• Avoiding self-judgment

• Expressing anger by connecting it with unmet needs

• Harmful effects of punishments and rewards

• Expressing appreciation vs. praise

P.E.T. as compared with N.V.C.

N.V.C. and P.E.T. are grounded in the same philosophy. They have quite different ways of presenting their models. Both Thomas Gordon and Marshall Rosenberg were students of Carl Rogers.

How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk

Authors: Elaine Mazlich and Adele Faber

Philosophy: Democratic

Applies to All Relationships: Yes

Year of Origin: 1980

Book: How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, 1980

Course: How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk

Course Length: Six sessions, six 30-minute videos or audios.

Summary of this Model:

This book and course offer parents empathic listening skills, authentic self-disclosure and problem-solving skills for raising children with high self-esteem and autonomy. It focuses on helping a child view him/herself differently by letting go of old ineffective roles or labels and as a result have freedom to develop and change.

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Helping children deal with negative feelings

• Accepting and acknowledging children’s feelings

• Avoiding typical unhelpful ways to get children to cooperate

• Gaining cooperation by being congruent (describe the problem, express feelings)

• Instead of punishment, expressing feelings, stating expectations, telling child how to make amends, giving choices, taking action, problem solving

• Setting boundaries and limits.

• Encouraging autonomy by helping children function on their own

• Praising children by describing their behavior, not evaluating it.

• Avoiding labeling, allowing freedom for children to develop and change

P.E.T. as compared with How to Listen so Kids Will Talk…..

This model is based on the work of Dr. Haim Ginott (a student of Carl Rogers) and has a philosophy with some similarities to P.E.T.

Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (S.T.E.P.)

Authors: Dr. Don Dinkmeyer and Dr. Gary McKay

Philosophy: Democratic

Applies to all Relationships: No

Year of Origin: 1976

Book: The Parent’s Handbook: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (S.T.E.P.), 1997

Course: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (S.T.E.P.)

Course Length: Nine 2-hour sessions

Summary of this Model:

This book and course focus on how children grow and behave, on misbehavior and effective ways to deal with it, on the importance of encouraging children and how to do that effectively, on listening to children with empathy and talking to them authentically. It deals with both Natural and Logical Consequences as alternatives to rewards and punishments in disciplining children. (Natural Consequences are those which occur naturally. Logical Consequences are those created by a parent in response to a child’s misbehavior.) It advocates family meetings (to plan for fun, to express feelings, to make decisions, to resolve conflicts).

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Three types of parents: Authoritarian, Permissive, Democratic

• Focus is on teaching the Democratic style

• Democratic style helps children become responsible by setting limits and giving choices within those limits

• Why children misbehave

• How to deal with misbehavior

• Setting limits

• Giving encouragement instead of praise

• Reflective listening

• Messages vs.You-Messages

• Problem Ownership

• Problem-Solving

• Family Meetings

• Giving choices

• Disadvantages of punishment

• Applying Logical Consequences as a way to discipline

• Logical Consequences different than Punishment

P.E.T. as compared with S.T.E.P.

S.T.E.P.’s focus is on why children misbehave and how parents can deal with misbehavior effectively. The S.T.E.P. program offers many of the P.E.T. skills in a shorter version including Problem Ownership, Active Listening, I-Messages, Problem Solving. While both programs are opposed to the use of rewards and punishments as a way of disciplining children, S.T.E.P. advocates the use of Logical Consequences. In the P.E.T. philosophy, Logical Consequences are a form of punishment. S.T.E.P. is a combination of parenting methods based on the work of Alfred Adler/Rudolf Dreikurs and Thomas Gordon.

Active Parenting

Author: Dr. Michael Popkin

Philosophy: Democratic

Applies to All Relationships: No

Date of Origin: 1983

Book: Active Parenting Now, 2002

Course: Active Parenting

Course Length: Six 2-hour sessions

Summary of this Model:

This video-based program is very similar to S.T.E.P., i.e. its foundation is based on the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs and it includes a major component of P.E.T. ideas and skills in an abbreviated form.

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Three types of parents: The Doormat, The Dictator, The Active Parent

• The Active Parenting style is described as “freedom within limits” (see S.T.E.P. above for other concepts and skills)

P.E.T. as compared with Active Parenting

(see S.T.E.P. above)

Love and Logic

Authors: Dr. Foster Cline and Jim Fay

Philosophy: Autocratic

Applies to all Relationships: No

Year of Origin: 1980

Book: Parenting with Love and Logic, 1990, 2006

Course: Love and Logic

Course Length: Six modules

Summary of this Model:

This book contains two parts, the first of which explains the authors’ parenting philosophy. The focus is on teaching children to be responsible by setting limits, giving choices and encouraging the child to think for him/herself. The other part of the book deals with common discipline problems and how to handle them. These 48 “pearls” give parents advice on what to do about such issues as: “allowances, anger, bedtime, bossiness, church, discipline 101, homework, nasty looks and negative body language, pacifiers, sassing and disrespect, spanking, temper tantrums, toilet training”.

Main Concepts and Skills of This Model:

• Three types of parents: Helicopter, Drill Sergeant and Consultant

• Consultant parent is the Love and Logic type: one who gives thoughtful guidance and imposes firm, enforceable limits

• Parents in control

• Problem ownership

• Setting limits by describing what parent will do or will allow

• Applying enforceable statements (“either…or…”)

• Using empathy to help children learn from consequences of their behavior

• Importance of child having positive self-concept

• Encouraging instead of praising

• Encouraging children to think for themselves

• Logical Consequences and time-out as methods of discipline when children misbehave

• Differences between Logical Consequences and punishment

P.E.T. as compared with Love and Logic

The Love and Logic model advocates that parents use their power to get children to obey, i.e., “healthy control”. It is based on the belief that this kind of discipline will teach children responsibility. P.E.T. is a model which advocates that parents not use their power to control their children. Instead, it advocates the use of communication and conflict resolution skills to influence children and empower them to become self-reliant, make positive decisions and control their own behavior.

Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)

Author: Dr. Matthew Sanders

Philosophy: Autocratic

Applies to All Relationships: No

Year of Origin: 1992

Book: Every Parent: A positive approach to children’s behaviour, 2004

Course: Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)

Course Length: Three 1 ½-hour sessions and other formats

Summary of this Model:

This book and course offers the concept of Constructive Parenting and defines that as a way of raising children to help them become socially and emotionally competent. Parents are in control; they set the rules and enforce them. How to deal with misbehavior is a main focus. The book contains chapters with age-specific advice on how to deal with such behaviors as crying, whining, temper tantrums, disobedience, interrupting, sleeping and bedtime problems, swearing and chores.

Main Concepts and Skills of This Model:

• Helping parents learn to teach children self-control, how to follow rules, behave acceptably and respect others

• Creating a safe, secure, engaging environment, i.e. interesting, amusing, purposeful activities

• Fostering a positive learning environment, i.e. giving recognition, encouragement, acknowledgment

• Using assertive discipline; dealing with disobedience and misbehavior

• Parents deal with misbehavior quickly, decisively and consistently

• Applying appropriate Logical Consequences so that children learn to accept responsibility for their own behavior

• Difference between assertive discipline and punishment

• Using rewards and praise (when children “behave”)

• Making behavior charts

• Parents set rules; enforce them

• Taking care of self as a parent, i.e., eating well, getting enough exercise and sleep, etc.

P.E.T. as compared with Triple P

The Triple P model advocates the idea that parents exercise control over their children, expect obedience and apply discipline when children misbehave. P.E.T. views the parent/child relationship from a different frame a reference and teaches parents how to have collaborative, cooperative relationships with their children. It teaches a non-power method of raising children and offers skills of empathic listening, honest, clear and non-blameful self-disclosure and conflict resolution skills.

Dare to Discipline

Author: Dr. James Dobson

Philosophy: Autocratic

Applies to All Relationships: No

Year of Origin: 1970

Books: Dare to Discipline, 1970, 1996, The Strong-Willed Child, 2004

The Strong-Willed Child Workbook, 2005

Course: Unknown

Course Length: Unknown

Summary of this Model:

This model is based on the idea that parents need to begin teaching respect for authority starting when children are very young. The main job of parents is to teach their children to obey. When they are “defiant” and don’t obey, parents should punish the disobedient child by spanking him/her. After such confrontation in which the parent has demonstrated his/her right to lead, it’s important to explain to the child why s/he was disciplined and to let the child know how much the parent loves him/her.

Main Concepts and Skills of this Model:

• Parents’ job is to shape the child’s will without breaking the spirit

• Parents in control; expect children to be obedient

• Children are willfully defiant

• Immediate proper response (punitive discipline) required when they’re defiant

• Compliant child is the goal

• Encourage normal curiosity; valuable means for learning

• Difference between crushing the will of a child and teaching the child to rein it in for his/her own good

• Logical Consequences

• Love and control present in balanced proportions.

• Anger is an ineffective tool

• Physical punishment

P.E.T. as compared with Dare to Discipline

Dare to Discipline comes from the point of view that the parent/child relationship is a contest of wills and that the parent must always win at all costs. It is imperative that a child be taught to obey. Dobson advocates the use of corporal punishment as the way of dealing with “defiance” and disobedience. This is the only model in this comparison that advocates physical punishment. P.E.T. shows parents how to have a relationship with their children that is based on mutual respect as opposed to obedience. It offers evidence about the harmful effects of punishment on children and on the relationship between parent and child. And it offers communication and conflict resolutions skills that make punishment (and rewards) unnecessary.

Do Parents Who Have Learned the Skills for Creating Democratic Family Environments Also Foster Good Health and Well-being in Their Children?

YES!

In a study that combined the findings from 26 independent studies produced these findings:

• P.E.T. trained parents showed improved scores on tests measuring "democratic ideals", acceptance and understanding of their children.

• The greatest effect of P.E.T. training was an increase in child self-esteem (Cedar, 1985).

In a classic study done many years ago, three types of families were compared: autocratic, permissive and democratic. Children of these families were tested periodically until they reached adolescence. The findings were:

• The IQ's of children decreased slightly in autocratic families, remained the same in permissive families, and increased on the average of eight IQ points in democratic families.

• Children in the democratic families were given higher ratings by their teachers in originality, planfulness, patience, curiosity and fancifulness.

• They held more leadership positions in school and scored higher in emotional adjustment and maturity (Baldwin, Kalhorn and Breese, 1945).

The idea that parents can actually make their children physically sick is not really surprising considering the intricate relationships between emotional stress and illness. Parental domination, punishment, criticism, restrictiveness, and rejection typically produce in children, fear, anger and frustration--behavioral manifestations of physiological stress. Certainly it is logical to assume that in families in which parents are less dominating and restrictive and more accepting, children would have a greater chance of growing up physically healthy and more resistive to physical illness.

Clinical evidence has shown that the feeling of losing control of one's life, of one's destiny, can be a cause of poor mental health--particularly depression, anxiety and stress. At the core of the F.E.T. blueprint is the value of promoting children's self-control versus adult control, inner control versus external control. Social scientist have recently become very interested in this issue, using the term "fate control." Autocratic teachers and parents who rely heavily on external control of children produce students with feelings of dependence and lack of fate control. Democratic teachers and parents who give children a lot of freedom and responsibility make children feel they are the ones responsible for the control of their destiny (Baumrind, 1971).

Are There Benefits To a Democratic Relationship?

Long-range Benefits of Democratic Relationships

Over the years I have come to believe more and more strongly that democratic relationships make people healthier--both physically and emotionally. They foster well-being, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-discipline.

On the other hand non-democratic relationships make people unhealthy. They produce both physical and emotional illness, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, aggression, rebellion, violence and lack of self-discipline. They produce delinquent, violent youth.

We see it in organizations. One study found that managers who use a democratic leadership style and practice "participative management" develop workers with high productivity and morale, low turnover, fewer grievances and low absenteeism. They feel better about themselves, like to go to work, have more self-esteem and self-confidence, less sense of powerlessness and fewer illnesses (Simmons and Mares, 1983).

We also see it in schools. In a study involving 600 teachers and 10,000 students from kindergarten through grade 12, the students whose teachers were trained in the skill of communicating empathic understanding (i.e. Active Listening) respect and regard for students as persons were compared with students whose teachers were not trained in those skills (Aspy and Roebuck, 1983). Students of the trained teachers were found to:

• Miss fewer days of school during the year (four fewer days per child)

• Make greater gains on academic achievement measures, including both math and reading scores

• Be more spontaneous and use higher levels of thinking

• Increase their scores on IQ tests (from kindergarten through fifth grade)

• Make gains in creativity scores from September to May

• Show increased scores on self-esteem measures

• Commit fewer acts of vandalism to school property

• Present fewer disciplinary problems

The study also found that teachers who were trained in the helping skills had classrooms in which there was:

• More student talk
• More student problem solving
• More student verbal initiation
• More verbal response to the teacher
• More student asking of questions
• More student involvement in learning
• More eye contact with teacher
• More physical movement
• Higher levels of cognitive thinking
• Greater creativity

Do parents who have learned the skills for creating democratic family environments also foster good health and well-being in their children?

Find out on tomorrow's post!

What is the Difference in Self-Discipline and Imposed Discipline?

Self-Discipline versus Imposed Discipline

Almost everyone wants children who are capable of self-discipline--self-regulation, self-control. But where does it come from? Unfortunately, most parents believe that children will eventually develop self-control as a direct result of adults controlling and disciplining them. They think that outer-control will produce self-control and self-discipline.

The evidence is to the contrary. Children who have been extensively controlled and disciplined by parents and other adults often become rebellious and defiant to all adult authority. So disciplining kids does not produce self-disciplined kids.

Unfortunately, discipline by adults does produce some children who are obedient, fearful, shy and submissive, very different from self-disciplined children.

Studies show that self-disciplined children are those who were given a lot of freedom to make many of their own choices and decisions.*

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

What is the Nature of Conflict?

A conflict is the moment of truth in a relationship—a test of its health, a crisis that can weaken or strengthen it, a critical event that may bring lasting resentment, smoldering hostility, psychological scars. Conflicts can push people away from each other or pull them into a closer and more intimate union; they contain the seeds of destruction and the seeds of greater unity; they may bring about armed warfare or deeper mutual understanding.

How conflicts are resolved is probably the most critical factor in all relationships. Unfortunately, most people try to resolve them by using only two basic approaches in which someone wins and someone loses, both of which outcomes are ineffective and harmful to the relationship.

Few persons accept the fact that conflict is part of life and not necessarily bad. We look on conflict as something to avoid at all costs. We often hear husbands and wives boast that they have never had a serious disagreement—as if that means theirs has been a good relationship.

Parents tell their children, “All right, there is to be no arguing tonight at the dinner table—we don’t want to spoil our dinner.” Or they yell, “Stop that arguing, right now!” Parents of teenagers can be heard lamenting that now that their children are older there are many more disagreements and conflicts in the family. “We used to see eye to eye on most things.” Or, “My daughter was always so cooperative and easy to handle, but now we don’t see things her way and she can’t see things our way.”

At home or at work, most of us hate to experience conflict, are deeply trouble when it occurs, and are quite confused about how to handle it constructively. Actually, it would be a rare relationship if, over a period of time, one person’s needs did not conflict with the other’s. When any two people (or groups) coexist, conflict is bound to occur just because people are different, think differently, and have needs and wants that sometimes do not match.

Conflict, therefore, is not necessarily bad—it exists as a reality of any relationship. As a matter of fact, a relationship with no apparent conflict may be unhealthier than one with frequent conflict. A good example is a marriage where the wife is always subservient to a dominating husband or vice versa, or a boss-subordinate relationship in which the subordinate is so deathly afraid of the boss that s/he does not dare cross him/her in any way.

Most people have known families, especially large families, where conflict crops up constantly and yet these families are wonderfully happy and healthy. Conversely, we often see newspaper accounts of youthful criminals whose parents indicate complete astonishment that their boy could do such a thing. They say they never had any trouble with him; he had always been so “cooperative” which is usually a euphemism of “obedient.”

Conflict in a family or a work group, openly expressed and accepted as a natural phenomenon, can be far healthier than most people think. Members have the opportunity to experience conflict, learn how to cope with it, and be better prepared to deal with it in later life. And family conflict may actually be beneficial, provided that the conflict in the home gets resolved constructively.

This is the critical factor in any relationship: how their conflicts get resolved, not how many conflicts occur. It is the most critical factor in determining whether a relationship will be healthy or unhealthy, mutually satisfying or unsatisfying, friendly or unfriendly, deep or shallow, intimate or cold, peaceful or violent.

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.

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

Should You Be A Strict or Lenient Parent?

To be strict or not to be strict, that is the question - in fact, it's the number-one question among child-rearing and education authorities, among teachers and, of course, parents. It's doubtful that there is a parent who hasn't at one time or another agonized over this.

There is a widespread uncertainty on how to be at home (or how to come across in the classroom) - tough or soft, to be a strict disciplinarian or a permissivist. Have you noticed, however, that you seldom hear a parent or teacher admit "I am authoritarian" or "I am permissive"? These are terms reserved for those with whom you disagree.

The question, whether to be strict or lenient, never ceases to be debated in books and articles, or at conferences and conventions. Dr. Gordon points out that this question is what social scientists call a "pseudo problem" and how it also is a clear case of "either-or thinking". Let's take a look at what he means by that.

Seldom parents or teachers seem to recognize that it is not necessary to make a choice between these two leadership styles. Few adults know it, but there is an alternative to being at either end of the strictness-leniency scale. There is the choice of a third style.

This alternative is being neither authoritarian nor permissive, neither strict nor lenient. Does that mean being somewhere near the middle of the scale--moderately strict or moderately lenient? Not at all. The alternative is not being on the scale at all! How so?

Authoritarian leadership--whether at home or in the classroom--means that the control is in the hands of the adult leader. It has been researched and proven for decades how ineffective maintaining control through power is. Authoritarianism often creates fearful and subservient children and/or rebellion.

Still, no parent or teacher really wants to suffer the chaotic consequences of unrestricted freedom and lawless permissiveness either. It's also true that most children are uncomfortable with the consequences of permissiveness. Permissive leadership means that control has been "permitted" to be in the hands of the youngsters. Children of permissive parents usually feel guilty about always getting their way. They also feel insecure about being loved, because their inconsiderate behaviors make them feel unlovable.

So what is that third viable alternative to both, authoritarian and permissive adult leadership? It's what Dr. Gordon in detail describes in his model of parenting, a set of skills and methods known as Parent Effectiveness Training that are geared toward rearing self-disciplined children in a harmonious family climate.

For now, let's just emphasize that this new approach to relating to youngsters requires a transformation in the way adults perceive children, as well as a shift in the way they treat them. This transformation can be accomplished by learning a few new skills and methods that are applied in everyday life.

This newsletter will describe and examine each of these skills and methods in its future editions and hopefully contribute to you having a more harmonious and peaceful home.

Why Parents Should Learn Active Listening

Active Listening facilitates problem-solving by the child.

We know that people do a better job of thinking a problem through and toward a solution when they can "talk it out" as opposed to merely thinking about it. Because Active Listening is so effective in facilitating talking, it helps a person in his search for solutions to his problems. Everybody had heard such expressions as "Let me use you as a sounding board" or "I'd like to kick this problem around with you" or "Maybe it would help me to talk it out with you."

Active Listening influences the child to be more willing to listen to parents' thoughts and ideas.

It is a universal experience that when someone will listen to one's own point of view, it is then easier to listen to his. Children are more likely to open themselves up to receive their parents' messages if their parents first hear them out. When parents complain that their kids don't listen to them, it's a good bet that the parents are not doing an effective job of listening to the kids.

Active Listening "keeps the ball with the child."

When parents respond to their kids' problems by Active Listening, they will observe how often kids start thinking for themselves. A child will start to analyze his problem on his own, eventually arriving at some constructive solutions. Active Listening encourages the child to think for himself, to find his own diagnosis of his problem, to discover his own solutions. Active Listening conveys trust, while messages of advice, logic, instruction, and the like convey distrust by taking over the problem-solving responsibility from the child. Active Listening is therefore one of the most effective ways of helping a child become more self-directing, self-responsible, and independent.

Remember to always be Active Listening!

What are the Advantages to Active Listening?

Active Listening helps children become less afraid of negative feelings.

"Feelings are friendly" is an expression we use in our classes to help parents come to realize feelings are not "bad". When a parent shows by Active Listening that he accepts a child's feelings, the child is also helped to accept them. He learns from the parent's response that feelings are friendly.

Active Listening promotes a relationship of warmth between parent and child.

The experience of being heard and understood by another person is so satisfying that it invariably makes the sender feel warm toward the listener. Children, particularly, respond with loving ideas and feelings. Similar feelings are evoked within the listener--he begins to feel warmer and closer to the sender. When one listens empathically and accurately to another, he gets to understand that person, to appreciate his way of looking at the world--in a sense, he becomes that person during the period of putting himself in his shoes. Invariably, by allowing oneself to "get inside" the other person, one produces feelings of closeness, caring and love. To empathize with another is to see him as a separate person, yet be willing to join with him or be with him. It means "becoming a companion" to him for a brief period in his journey through life. Such an act involves deep caring and love. Parents who learn empathic Active Listening discover a new kind of appreciation and respect, a deeper feeling of caring; in turn, the child responds to the parent with similar feelings.

More tomorrow on a few more reasons why Active Listening is important.

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's book, Parent Effectiveness Training, P.E.T.

Why Should Parents Learn Active Listening?

Some parents who are introduced to this skill in our P.E.T. course say:

"It seems so unnatural to me."

"That isn't the way people talk."

"What's the purpose of Active Listening?"

"I'd feel like a dork responding to my kid that way."

"My daughter would think I flipped my lid if I started to use

Active Listening with her."

These are understandable reactions because parents are so accustomed to telling, preaching, questioning, judging, threatening, admonishing, or reassuring. IT is certainly natural for them to ask if it will be worth the trouble to change and learn Active Listening?

One of the more skeptical fathers in a P.E.T. class became convinced after an experience with his daughter, aged fifteen, during the week following the class session in which he was introduced to this new way of listening.

"I want to report to the class an amazing experienced I had this week. My daughter, Roxanne, and I haven't said a civil word to each other for about two years, except maybe, 'Pass the bread', or 'Can I have the salt and pepper?' The other night she and her boyfriend were sitting at the table in the kitchen when I came home. I overheard my daughter telling her boyfriend how much she hated school and how she was disgusted with most of her girlfriends. I decided right then and there I would sit down and do nothing but active listen, even if it killed me. Now, I"m not going to say I did a perfect job, but I surprised myself. I wasn't too bad. Well, will you believe it, they both started talking to me and never stopped for two hours. I learned more about my daughter and what she is like in those two hours than I had in the past five years. On top of that, the rest of the week she was downright friendly to me. What a change!"

This amazed father is not unique. Many parents have immediate success when they try out this listening skill. Even before they acquire a reasonable level of competence at Active Listening, they often report some startling results.

Many people think that they can get rid of their feelings by suppressing them, forgetting them, or thinking about something else. Actually, people free themselves of troublesome feelings when they are encouraged to express them openly. Active Listening fosters this kind of catharsis. It helps children to find out exactly what they are feeling. After they express their feelings, the feelings often seem to disappear almost like magic.

Find out tomorrow other reasons why parents should learn Active Listening.

Do Families Need Rules?

All groups, of whatever size or nature, need laws, regulations, rules, policies, and standard operating procedures. Without them, groups may very well fall into confusion, chaos and conflict. The functions that rules and policies can serve are indispensable. They can prevent misunderstandings and conflicts between people; define rights and privileges; legislate what is considered appropriate, fair and equitable in human relationships; and provide guidelines to help people know what limits they must set on their own behavior.

The issue is not whether groups need rules. They do need them. The real issue is how to motivate all group members to comply with them.

At some time in our lives we all have felt unmotivated to comply with some rule or policy that we had no voice in making. Denied the opportunity to participate in establishing a rule, most people feel imposed upon and resentful of the new rule. But when people actively participate in setting a rule or making a decision that will affect them, they are more highly motivated to comply with it. We call this the Principle of Participation, and it has proven its effectiveness in numerous research studies.

When children are given the opportunity to participate in setting rules or making decisions that will affect them, several good things happen. Children feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem and self-confidence. Most important, they feel they have gained more "fate control"--more personal control over their own lives. They also feel they are equal members of the family with an equal voice in making decisions and establishing rules--they're part of a team, not second-class citizens. This means that families that function collaboratively and democratically will have closer and warmer relationships than those in which the adults act as bosses or authorities expecting the children to obey the rules made for them.

Another important reason for encouraging the full participation of family members in decision making is that it often produces higher-quality solutions to problems. Two heads (or three, or four) are better than one; shared decisions will be based not only on the knowledge and experience of the adults but also on the knowledge and experience of the children.

The admonition "Father knows best", which implies that father knows better than son or daughter, should be challenged with the more reasonable, "Yes, but does father know better than father and children?"

Enlisting the participation of children in rule-setting results in important benefits:

• A higher motivation on the part of all family members to implement or comply with the rules
• Decisions of higher quality
• Closer, warmer relationships between family members
• Higher self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of control over fate on the part of the children
• More personal responsibility and self-discipline
• Less need for parents to enforce compliance

Obviously, not all decisions that affect the family are open for participative rule-setting and decision-making. These will be issues that don't affect all the family members or issues that are not negotiable (because they're against the law, etc.). In other words, some issues will be outside the Area of Freedom for family rule-setting and decision-making. For example, how the family income gets spent, whether one of the parents looks for another job or if and what kind of exercise family members get are probably outside the Area of Freedom of other family members to decide.

The most important rule of thumb is that family rule-setting and decision-making meetings should include all the members who will be affected by the rule or decision, and only those members.

It's important that your family agree on which issues, situations and tasks are within the Area of Freedom of the family members.

The list of items that potentially can be handled by participative rule-setting or decision making are many and vary from family to family.

Here's a list of just some of the issues that lend themselves to family rule-setting and decision-making:

• Bedtime
• Household chores
• Ownership and care of pets
• Yard work
• How to spend family vacation time, holidays or other free time
• Use of car/s, bicycles, etc.
• Allowances
• TV watching
• Use of computer

Please Note: Participative Rule-Setting requires some communication skills that you will can learn in the P.E.T. program. These skills are:

• Expressing your needs and problems
• Hearing others when they have needs or problems
• Solving problems and conflicts

Why are I-Messages More Effective?

I-Messages are more effective in influencing a child to modify behavior that is unacceptable to the parent as well as healthier for the child and the parent-child relationship.

The I-Message is much less apt to provoke resistance and rebellion. To communicate to a child honestly the effect of her behavior on you is far less threatening than to suggest that there is something bad about her because she engaged in that behavior. Think of the significant difference in a child's reaction to these two messages, sent by a parent after a child kicks her in the shins:

"Ouch! That really hurt me--I don't like to be kicked."

"That's being a very bad girl. Don't you ever kick anybody like that!"

The first message only tells the child how her kick made you feel, a fact with which she can hardly argue. The second tells the child that she was "bad" and warns her not to do it again, both of which she can argue against and probably resist strongly.

I-Messages are also infinitely more effective because they place responsibility within the child for modifying her behavior. "Ouch! That really hurt me" and "I don't like to be kicked" tell the child how you feel, yet leave her to be responsible for doing something about it.

Consequently, I-Messages help a child grow, help her learn to assume responsibility for her own behavior. An I-Message tells a child that you are leaving the responsibility with her, trusting her to handle the situation constructively, trusting her to respect your needs, giving her a chance to start behaving constructively.

Because I-Messages are honest, they tend to influence children to send similar honest messages whenever they have a feeling. I-Messages from one person in a relationship promote I-Messages from the other.

What is a Suitable Code?

In yesterday's post, we discussed the difference from a You-Message and an I-Message. Today, we determine what this looks like as a suitable code.

Here's an example:

For the parent who is tired and does not feel like playing with her five-year-old child, the encoding process is--

PARENT - Tired - (Encoding process) = (Code) "I am tired"

But if this parent selects a code that is "you" - oriented, she would not be coding her "feeling tired" accurately:

CHILD - Parent being Tired - (Encoding process) = (Code) "You are being a pest"

"You are being a pest" is a very poor code for the parent's tired feeling. A code that is clear and accurate would always be an I-Message: "I am tired," "I don't feel up to playing," "I want to rest." This communicates the feeling the parent is experiencing. A You-Message code does not send the feeling. It refers much more to the child than to the parent. A You-Message is child-oriented, not parent-oriented.

Remember to always use I-Messages!

*Excerpt from Dr. Gordon's book, Parent Effectiveness Training, P.E.T.

Do You Use I-Messages?

You-Messages and I-Messages

An easy way for parents to see the difference between ineffective and effective confrontation is to think sending either You-Messages or I-Messages. When we ask parents to examine the previously noted ineffective messages, they are surprised to discover that almost all begin with the word "You" or contain that word. All these messages are "You" - oriented:

You stop that.

You shouldn't do that.

Don't you ever...

If you don't stop that, then...

Why don't you do this?

You are naught.

You are acting like a baby.

You want attention.

Why don't you be good?

You should know better.

But when a parent simply tells a child how some unacceptable behavior is making the parent feel, the message generally turns out to be an I-Message.

"I don't feel like playing when I'm tired."

"I feel frustrated when I come to pick you up and you're not there."

"I sure get discouraged when I see the mess in the kitchen after I just cleaned it up."

Parents readily understand the difference between I-Messages and You-Messages, but its full significance is appreciated only after we return to the diagram of the communication process, first introduced to explain Active Listening. It helps parents appreciate the importance of I-Messages.

When a child's behavior is unacceptable to a parent because in some tangible way it interferes with the parent's enjoyment of life or her right to satisfy her own needs, the parent clearly "owns" the problem. She is upset, disappointed, tired, worried, harassed, burdened, etc., and to let the child know what is inside her, the parent must select a suitable code.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, which explains what a "suitable code" is and how to decipher them.

Do You Plan Ahead?

Here is a quick re-cap of the first seven methods of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment:

1. Enriching the environment.
2. Impoverishing it.
3. Simplifying it.
4. Restricting it.
5. Child-proofing it.
6. Substituting one activity for another.
7. Preparing the child for changes in her environment.

Now, we have reached the eighth and final method:

Planning Ahead With Other Children

Conflicts can be prevented by thoughtfully arranging the environment of teenagers, too. They also need adequate space for their personal belongings, privacy, opportunity for independent activity. Here are suggestions for "enlarging your area of acceptance" for older children:

• Provide the child with her own alarm clock.
• Provide adequate closet space with numerous hooks.
• Establish a message center in the home.
• Provide a child with her own personal calendar for recording commitments.
• Go over instructions on new appliances together.
• Inform children ahead of time when you expect guests, so that they know when to clean up their rooms.
• Provide a house key on a fun key ring the choose.
• Give allowance monthly, instead of weekly, and agree ahead of time what things a child is not expected to purchase out of her allowance.
• Discuss in advance such complicated matters as the curfew, auto liability insurance, responsibility in case of auto accidents, use of alcohol and drugs, and so on.
• When a teenager is doing her own laundry, make the job easier by having all necessary equipment and supplies readily available.
• Suggest that a child always carry a phone card for an emergency telephone call.
• Tell a child what foods in the refrigerator are earmarked for guests.
• Have a child write out a list of friends and their telephone numbers, in case the child has to be located unexpectedly.
• Give a child advance notice whenever special work needs to be done to prepare for company.
• Encourage a child to work out a personal list and time schedule for things to do to prepare for a family trip.
• Encourage a child to read the morning weather forecast in the paper (or listen on TV or radio) as a guide for what to wear to school.
• Tell a child ahead of time that bathtime and bedtime will be earlier than normal because you need to work at home on a project without interruption.
• Tell children well in advance when you are going out of town so they can make their own plans for activities.
• Teach a child how to take phone messages.
• Always knock before entering a child's room.
• Include children in discussions involving family plans that will affect them.

Most parents can think of many other examples in each of these categories. The more parents use environmental modification, the more enjoyable living with their children can be and the less parents need to confront the kids.

Are there other suggestions for "enlarging your area of acceptance" for your child(ren)? If so, please share with all of us!

We love to hear your feedback!

Are You Prepared?

The seventh method of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment is:

Preparing The Child For Changes In The Environment

Many unacceptable behaviors can be prevented by preparing the child ahead of time for changes in her environment. If her usual baby-sitter is unable to come on Friday, start talking with the child on Wednesday about the new babysitter who is going to come. If you are going to spend your vacation at the beach, prepare the child weeks ahead for some of the things she is going to encounter--sleeping in a strange bed, meeting new friends, not having her bicycle with her, the big waves, proper behavior in a boat, and so on.

Children have an amazing capacity to adjust comfortably to changes, if parents would only discuss these things ahead of time. This holds true even when children may have to suffer some pain or discomfort, as in the case of going to the doctor to get shots. Discussing hurt for a second, can do wonders to help them cope with such a situation when it occurs.

Remember to always prepare!

Tomorrow's post is the eight and final method of changing the environment:

Planning Ahead With Other Children

May I Trade With You?

The sixth method of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment is:

Substituting One Activity For Another

If a child is playing with a sharp knife, offer her a dull one. If she is bent on examining the contents of your cosmetic drawer, give her some empty bottles or cartons to play with on the floor. If she is about to rip out pages in a magazine you wish to keep, give her one you don't want. If she wants to draw with a crayon on your wallpaper, get her a large piece of wrapping paper to draw on.

Failure to offer a child an alternative before taking something away from her will generally produce frustration and tears. But children frequently accept a substitute without fuss, provided the parent offers it gently and calmly.

Let's trade!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, the seventh method:

Preparing the Child for Changes in the Environment

*An excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's book, PE.T., Parent Effectiveness Training

Is Your Child's Environment Child-Proof?

There are eight methods of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment. We have discussed four of the methods thus far:

1. Enriching the environment.
2. Impoverishing it.
3. Simplifying it.
4. Restricting it.

Now, we move on to the fifth method:

Child-proofing it

Child-Proofing the Environment

Although most parents remove medicines, sharp knives, and dangerous chemicals from the reach of children, a more thorough job of child-proofing might include such things as:

• Turning pot handles to the back of the stove when cooking.
• Buying unbreakable cups and glasses
• Putting matches out of reach.
• Repairing frayed electric cords and plugs.
• Keeping the basement door locked.
• Removing expensive breakable objects.
• Locking up sharp tools.
• Putting a rubber mat in the bathtub.
• Making upstairs screens secure.
• Storing slippery throw rugs.

Each family should conduct its own child-proofing inspection. With very little trouble most parents can find many ways to child-proof the home more thoroughly to prevent behaviors that would be unacceptable to them.

Happy child-proofing!

What is "Limiting the Child's Life Space" mean?

The fourth method of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment is:

Restricting it

Limiting the Child's Life Space

Placing an unacceptably behaving child in a playpen, is an attempt to limit the child's "life space" so that her subsequent behaviors will be acceptable to the parent. Fenced-in backyards are effective in preventing such behavior as running out into the street, walking through the neighbor's flower garden, getting lost, and so on.

Some parents designate a special area in the house where the child is permitted to play with clay, to paint, to cut up paper, or to glue, limiting such messy activities to that special area. Special areas can also be designated as places for children to be noisy, roughhouse, dig in the mud, and so on.

Children generally accept such limitations of their life space, provided they seem reasonable and leave children considerable freedom to meet their own needs. Sometimes a child will resist the limitation and cause conflict with the parent.

*Excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's P.E.T., Parent Effectiveness Training book

How Do I Simplify the Environment?

Let's do a quick re-cap on the first two methods of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment:

1. Enriching the environment
2. Impoverishing the environment

Which, leads us to the third method:

Simplifying the Environment

Children often engage in "unacceptable behavior because their environment is too difficult and complex for them; they pester the parent for help, give up an activity entirely, show aggression, throw things on the floor, whine, run away, cry.

The home environment needs to be modified in many ways to make it easier for a child to do things for herself, to manipulate objects safely, and to avoid frustration that comes when she cannot control her own environment. Many parents consciously make an effort to simplify the child's environment by:

• Buying clothes that are for the child to put on by herself.
• Providing a stool or box the child can stand on to reach her clothes in the closet and the bathroom faucet.
• Purchasing child-sized eating implements.
• Putting closet hooks at a low level.
• Buying unbreakable cups and glasses.
• Nailing a door handle on screen doors low enough for the child to reach.
• Putting washable paint or wall covering on the walls of the child's room.

Easy enough! Let's simplify the environment for our child(ren)!

What is the Second Method of Changing the Environment?

To continue with the different methods of changing unacceptable behavior by changing the environment, we move on to the second method:

Impoverishing the Environment

At times children need an environment with few stimuli--for example just before bedtime. Parents, especially fathers, sometimes overstimulate their children before bedtime or mealtime and then expect them suddenly to become quiet and controlled. These are times when the child's environment should be impoverished, not enriched. Much of the storm and stress that occurs at these times could be avoided if parents made an effort to reduce the stimulation of the child's environment.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post--The third method of changing the environment:

Simplifying the Environment

*An excerpt from Dr. Thomas Gordon's book, P.E.T., Parent Effectiveness Training

What is the First Method of Changing the Environment?

As we briefly discussed on yesterday's post, it is essential to change unacceptable behavior by changing the environment. The first method of changing the environment:

Enriching the Environment

Every good nursery school teacher knows that one effective way of stopping or preventing unacceptable behavior is to provide children with a great many interesting things to do--enrich their environment with play materials, reading materials, games, clay, dolls, puzzles, and so on. Effective parents, too, make use of this principle: if children are involved in something interesting, they are likely to "get into things" or pester parents.

Some of our parents in training have reported excellent results from setting up a special area in the garage or in a corner of the backyard and designating it as a place where the child is free to dig, pound, build, paint, mess, and create. The parents select a place where the child can do almost anything she wants to do without damaging anything.

Car trips are times when kids especially "bug" their parents. Some families make certain that their children have play materials, games, and puzzles that will keep them from becoming bored or restless.

Most parents know that their children are less likely to behave unacceptable if arrangements are made to have friends and playmates come over to the house. Frequently, two or three children will find it easier to find "acceptable" things to do than will a child alone.

Easels for painting, clay for modeling, puppet theaters for putting on shows, a doll family and a dollhouse, Play-Doh, finger paints for smearing, fun card games--all these can greatly reduce aggressive, restless, or troublesome behavior. Too often parents forget that children need interesting and challenging activities to keep them occupied, just as adults do.

Tomorrow, we discuss the second method of changing the environment: Impoverishing the environment

Do You Need to Change Your Environment?

Changing Unacceptable Behavior by Changing the Environment

Not enough parents try to change the behavior of their children by changing their children's surroundings.

Environmental modification is used more with infants and small children than with older children because, as kids get older, parents start relying more on verbal methods, especially those that "put down" a child or threaten her with parental power; they neglect environmental modification and try to talk the child out of unacceptable behavior. This is unfortunate, since environmental modication is often very simple and extremely effective with children of all ages.

Parents begin using this method more extensively once they become aware of its wide range of possibilities:

1. Enriching the environment.
2. Impoverishing it.
3. Simplifying it.
4. Restricting it.
5. Child-proofing it.
6. Substituting one activity for another.
7. Preparing the child for changes in her environment.
8. Planning ahead with older children.

More tomorrow on the first method: Enriching the environment

Stay tuned!

Does a Parent Run Out of Power?

Parents Inevitably Run Out of Power

Using power to control children works only under special conditions. The parent must be sure to possess the power--the rewards have to be attractive enough to be wanted by the child and the punishments have to be potent enough to warrant avoidance. The child must be dependent upon the parent; the more the child depends on what the parent possesses (rewards), the more power the parent has.

This is true in all human relationships. If I need something very badly--say money to buy food for my children--and I must depend solely on another person for money--probably my employer, then obviously he will have a great deal of power over me. If I am dependent on this one employer, I will be inclined to do almost anything he wants in order to insure getting what I need so desperately. But a person has power over another only as long as the second is in a position of weakness, want, need, deprivation, helplessness, dependency.

As a child becomes less helpless, less dependent upon the parent for what she needs, the parent gradually loses power. This is why parents discover to their dismay that rewards and punishment that worked when their child was younger, become less effective as she grows older.

Parents express feelings that most parents experience as their children begin to grow out of their dependency. This inevitably occurs as children approach adolescence. Now they can acquire many rewards from their own activities (school, sports, friends, achievements). They also begin to figure out ways to avoid their parents' punishments. In those families where the parents have relied principally on power to control and direct their children throughout their early years, the parents inevitably come in for a rude shock when their power runs out and they are left with little or no influence.

The Parent-Child Power Struggle: Who Wins, Who Loses?

Rarely do we find a parent in our classes who does not think of conflict resolution in terms of someone winning and someone losing. This "win-lose" orientation is at the very root of the dilemma of today's parents--whether to be strict (parent wins) or to be lenient (child wins).

Most parents see the whole problem of discipline in child-rearing as a question of being either strict or lenient, tough or soft, authoritarian or permissive. Because they are locked into this either-or approach to discipline, they see their relationship with their children as a power struggle, a contest of wills, a fight to see who wins--a war. Today's parents and their children are literally at war, each thinking in terms of someone winning and someone losing. They even talk about their struggle in much the same way as two nations at war.

When conflict arises between parents and children, most parents try to resolve it in their favor so that the parent wins and the child loses. Others, somewhat fewer in number than the "winners," consistently give in to their children out of fear of conflict of frustrating their children's needs. In these families the child wins and the parent loses. The major dilemma of parents today is that they see only these win-lose approaches.

Are You Listening without Empathy?

A real danger for parents who try to learn Active Listening solely from a book's printed page is their inability to hear the warmth and empathy that must accompany their efforts. Empathy means a quality of communication that conveys to the sender of a message that the listener is feeling with her, putting herself in the shoes of the sender, living, for a moment, inside the sender.

Everyone wants others to understand how she feels when she talks, not just what she is saying. Children, especially, are feeling people. Therefore, much of what they communicate is accompanied by feelings: joy, hate, disappointment, fear, love, worry, anger, pride, frustration, sadness, and so on. When they communicate with parents, they expect empathy with such feelings. When parents don't empathize, children naturally feel that the essential part of them at that moment--their feeling--is not being understood.

Probably, the most common mistake parents make when they first try out Active Listening is to feed back a response devoid of the feeling component of the child's message. Here's an example:

Little Carey, aged six, pleads with his father, who has been trying to encourage him to come into the water while the family is enjoying a day at the beach:

CAREY: I don't want to go in. It's too deep! And I'm afraid of the waves.

FATHER: The water is too deep for you.

CAREY: I'm scared! Please don't make me go in!

This father is completely missing the child's feelings, and his attempt at feedback shows it. Carey is not sending an intellectual evaluation of the depth of the water. He is sending an urgent plea to his father: "Don't make me come in because I'm scared stiff!" The father should have acknowledged this with, "You're scared and don't want me to force you into the water."

Some parents find out they are very uncomfortable with feelings--their own as well as their child's. It is as if they are compelled to ignore a child's feelings because they cannot tolerate her having them. Or they want quickly to push her feelings out of the picture, and therefore deliberately avoid acknowledging them. Some parents are so frightened of feelings that they actually fail to detect them in their child's messages.

So, please reflect and ask yourself, "are you listening without empathy?"

What happens when Method III doesn't work?

Need a quick refresher on what Method III is?

The Six Steps of Method III

I. Define Needs

II. Brainstorm Solutions

III. Evaluate Solutions

IV. Choose Solution

V. Implement Solution

VI. Check Results

Now that we have quickly went over the Six Steps of Method III, what happens if these steps don't work?

Your success with Method III will increase with time as you become more and more skillfull with the process and your Active Listening, I-Messages and Gear Shifting skills become more natural.

When Method III does not work, it is usually related to one of these factors:

• The skill, experience and comfort level of the parent is lacking.

WHAT TO DO - continue to develop your skills; use Method III in No Problem Area decision making, e.g. planning for a fun weekend and use it first on small problems before taking on big ones.

• There are clear limits of time and/or resources or the chance for physical harm is imminent.

WHAT TO DO - explain the situation, e.g. must leave now because there are only 30 minutes before your flight leaves, etc., take action but make the commitment to use the process when time or resources are more plentiful.

• The child or other person is not ready because they are "flooded" by built up mistrust, anger, resentment or other strong feelings.

WHAT TO DO - before you try Method III, invest time in Active Listening to the child and in sending I-Messages to improve the relationship.

These are just a few factors when Method III doesn't work. Learn more of these tips from Dr. Thomas Gordon's, Parent Effectiveness Training book.

Acceptance Must Be Demonstrated

It is one thing for a parent to feel acceptance toward a child; it is another thing to make that acceptance felt. Unless a parent's acceptance comes through to the child, it can have no influence on him. A parent must learn how to demonstrate his acceptance so that the child feels it.

Specific skills are required to be able to do this. Most parents, however, tend to think of acceptance as a passive thing--a state of mind, an attitude, a feeling. True, acceptance does originate from within, but to be an effective force in influencing another, it must be actively communicated or demonstrated. I can never be certain that I am accepted by another until he demonstrates it in some active way.

The professional psychological counselor or psychotherapist, whose effectiveness as a helping agent is so greatly dependent on his being able to demonstrate his acceptance of the client, spends years learning ways to implement this attitude through his own habits of communication. Through formal training and long experience, professional counselors acquire specific skills in communicating acceptance. They learn that what they say makes the difference between their being helpful or not.

Talk can cure, and talk can foster constructive change. But it must be the right kind of talk.

The same is true for parents. How they talk to their children will determine whether they will be helpful or destructive. The effective parent, like the effective counselor, must learn how to communicate his acceptance and acquire the same communication skills.

*Excerpted from the P.E.T., Parent Effectiveness Training, book by Dr. Thomas Gordon