Have a Plan

Dealing with a kid that throws fits when they don’t get their way?  Have a plan for the next time.

I was speaking with a parent of an autistic child the other day. Her son is a teenager and is addicted to video games. He insists his mom buy him a new game every week and when she doesn’t he throws a fit and throws things, so she gives in. Her son doesn’t care if the game is new, as long as it’s new to him. But still, it’s expensive and the mom doesn't want to do it, but she doesn't know how to stop, because whenever she says no, her son throws a fit that is pretty violent.

My response. Have a plan!!!!  You know he’s going to throw a fit, so plan for it in advance. When he is out of the house – remove everything that is breakable. Everything.  Is it an inconvenience?  Yes. Of course it is.  But what you are doing isn't working – so it’s time to try something else.

What this woman was hoping for was a magic solution. Something she could do that would make her son suddenly not throw a fit when she said no. But it doesn't work that way. To extinguish behaviors you don’t want and replace them with behaviors you do takes work.  Real work. Difficult work.

Why? Because whenever any habitual behavior is not rewarded, the animal in question will have an extinction burst. Meaning, they will try harder to get their reward.  Stopping any behavior pattern takes time and you will experience and extinction burst. And extinction bursts can be nasty. Extinction bursts are also known as blowouts because it can seem like an explosion is happening when a kid throws a fit to get their way.

So, instead of spending your time wishing you could say no and have your child accept it. Plan for the fit. You know it’s going to happen. It’s a pattern. You say no, your child throws a violent fit.  So, plan for it.  Make sure they can’t break anything when they throw their fit so that you can say no, and they can throw their fit and so that you aren't put in a position to give in to their demands.

The first time you do this is the worst. But it gets easier every time you do this. So stop wishing for a magic solution to your temper tantrum problem.  Make a plan based on what you know your child does so that they can do it and you won’t feel pressured to give in and let them throw their fit. Once it’s over, they and you will be happier if you do.

Living a Life of Passion and Laughter

What my parents taught me about living life successfully.

My parents were and continue to be huge influences on my life. They are both amazing loving people whose are wonderful role models on how to live life successfully and fully. 

When I think about the main lessons I learned from them, it is this.  My dad taught me how to laugh at myself.  My mom taught me how to live life with passion.

I was talking on the phone to a friend last night and of course, had to deal with my kid who needed my attention and who was NOT doing what I had asked him to do.  I approached the problem as I always did, by laughing and passionately making clear – he needed to do what I needed him to do or – who knows what crazy mamma will do.  I remarked to my friend, yeah – now you know – I threaten my kid. I’m a horrid parent. She said – you laugh too much to be a horrid parent.

Her comment got me thinking – she’s right. I don’t take myself of the situations I find myself in seriously. They are all transient and really, being too serious makes things unpleasant. I find that injecting a dose of humor helps my son want to comply more with my requests.   He still has to do what I need him to do, but yelling at him and getting angry doesn’t make getting him to do it fun.  Using humor helps me to not lose my cool and help him find reasons to comply that make him want to comply while laughing all the while. And that’s actually a really incredible way to approach these sorts of every day disagreements that happen in every family. This doesn’t mean I don’t lose my cool, I just try to make the humor a habit so that the family works well and isn’t unnecessarily stressed.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not passionate. I am. There is no reason why passion can’t be fun. It should be and it must be if we are to be successful. I am passionate about many things. Things that matter, like the people I love, being alive to share life with them. I am also passionate about my work, and about doing what I can to make the world a better place. I am an engaged active citizen of the world. I really don’t suffer from ennui (one of my favorite words) because, well, how could I. Life is life. I always have something I think is worth working on. Even if it is a chore, like making cookies for tomorrow night’s Monty Python film fest with some friends.

I figure I have a choice. I can be cranky about all the little things that have to be done to sustain me and my family’s life, or I can approach it with joy and passion. There are no little projects.. Doing dishes can be fun, if you decide to take pride in it. Writing my blog is fun, it’s not work, because I’m helping other people live life more successfully. I’m actively engaged with my life and with my community and with the world. What more can I ask for.

It’s an attitude really. What my mom taught me about passion is that caring matters. Its an essential ingredient to living a happy life. Caring is not a burden. It’s the essential motivation of life. Embrace it and life opens up to you.

But like everything, passion has to be balanced. I balance my passion with laughter so that when I am tempted to think things matter too much, I am able to step back and find the balance I need to keep my passions from overpowering me.

Thanks Mom and Dad – I love you both oodles!

Impatience

Five ways to relax when you least want to.

I am not a patient person, so I have to practice the art of relaxing when I don’t want to relax a lot!  I can’t say I’m perfect at it, but I have learned a few things as a result of this practice.

• It’s ok that I’m impatient.  It means something is important to me. I don’t have to feel bad about things mattering.  

• Just because things matter doesn't mean I get to act like a raving lunatic. It’s ok to be passionate about something, but acting psychotic is not a good way to make what I need to have happen happen.

• Things take time – more time than I would like, but I’m pretty sure that time is perverse. The quicker you want something to happen, the longer it will take for it to happens which is why I need to

• Find something else to do. Since I can’t make things happen when and how I want them to, and pushing on it would make it not happen or ruin my chances of it happening, the best thing I can do is go do something else totally unrelated.  It’s a good way to burn off excess energy and be productive at the same time. And finally, 

• Be open to change. I can’t tell you the number of times that the work I did while waiting for something else to happen turned out to be something worthwhile.  And sometimes, by doing this, I figure out how to work around the thing I am waiting on so I don’t need to wait for it anymore. 

As I said, I’m not a patient person. But I have figured out how to channel my nervous energy into productive behavior, even if it doesn't get me any closer to getting what I want.  And isn't that a better that spending your time fretting, not doing anything?

What do you do when you are nervous, anxious and impatient?

Life is a lot like poker

Accepting that you have to play the hand you are dealt is half the battle.

I did a podcast a while back on how life is a lot like chess. If you have a strategy and you plan, you can avoid a lot of common problems that afflict us.

My good friend DT Strain, who runs the Spiritual Naturalist Society (check them out here: http://spiritualnaturalistsociety.org/)  wrote me to say that he prefers a poker analogy to life.  Here is what he said.

“Chess seems to offer far more control than life. I prefer poker - yes, you can play your hand well and those who play it better will, on average, do better. But sometimes you just get a cruddy hand and there's nothing you could have done to prevent it. There's a random element and good planning will help mitigate much of it, but not always or perfectly. So, being able to come to terms with that which is out of our control is also important.”

DT is of course correct.  Life isn’t fair and you don’t start out even with everyone else. You have to play the hand that is dealt you and sometimes, you get a cruddy hand and you struggle and even playing a perfect strategic game won’t help you win.  I feel like my husband and I have been struggling with a cruddy hand for the past few years. I console myself by realizing, because of the economy, everyone has a cruddy hand.

Anyway – this random element is super important.  You can only control so much. The rest is random. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.  Driving drunk doesn’t guarantee you will get in an accident. Driving sober doesn’t guarantee that you will not. All your choices do, really, is change the odds in your favor or against you.

That might not seem like much, but over the course of your life, if you can continually shift the odds slightly in your favor you are going to reap more success than if you don’t. And that’s a lot of power when you think about it.