The Why

Negotiation is a valuable tool to use with your kids because helps them develop some important skills. Most notable are:

• Increased capacity to express thoughts and feelings verbally
• Enhanced ability to think objectively and discriminatively
• Skills in cooperative problem-solving
• Self-awareness
• Consideration of other’s needs as well as their own
• Coming up with creative solutions

I have recently seen several teens in therapy whose main complaint is that their parents don’t listen to them. Here’s some of their statements:

Every moment is a teaching moment with my mom. It drives me crazy! I can hardly get the words out before she starts correcting me.

If I’m upset, my mom ends up getting more upset than me! She cries harder than me, and then I end up trying to make her feel better.

My mom feels guilty about anything I do wrong as though it’s all her fault, so I can’t tell her anything.

My dad just tells me to get over it!

My parents are always telling me I shouldn’t feel how I feel. That’s it. I can’t talk to them at all.

I live in Gainesville, Florida which is the home of the University of Florida, and I see a lot of college students in therapy. They come in with many different issues, but there is an overriding issue that has surfaced a lot over the last five years which propels me to write this blog.

The issue is:

An inability to accept less than perfection when it comes to academic achievement, and subsequent anxiety and depression in the face of less than perfect performance.

Kids have off days just like we do. I'm sure you've had that experience. A day of moodiness, whining, irritability, meltdowns . . . nothing goes right.

An occasional off day can be dealt with fairly easily, but sometimes these trends extend into many days or even weeks. A six-year-old who has been getting herself dressed and tying her own shoes for some time all of the sudden can't seem to get her clothes on in the morning and is whiny and teary when you try to get her ready for school. Your 4-year-old starts sucking his thumb and wants you to hold him like a baby in your lap. Your teen who is for the most part cooperative and takes care care of himself begins lying around the house, leaving stuff everywhere, avoiding homework, playing video games and watching TV all afternoon into the evening. [Side note: If your teen always acts this way, then that is a whole other problem for another blog.]

This week's blog isn't about how to parent. Most of my blogs do focus on that in one way or another, but this week I just want to remind parents of how important they are, and to give them some props. It's a job that gets so little in the way of public affirmation, and all to often, plenty of criticism when things go wrong.

Here's what we should all remember: