Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (14 page)

Suni:  “Well, I think it’s good we have aired these issues. I think we need to take time to discuss them further. On the issue of socks, I’ll try to remember to put them in the laundry bin. I’m often in a hurry to get to work and forget, but I will try and do better. But maybe we should spend some time together tomorrow discussing where our lives are at more generally.”

Reconciliation

•
Remember Golden Rule 10
: Maybe your partner is being unreasonable or making a demand you think of as petty. Still, your relationship matters much more than a trivial issue. If your partner feels something is important, you should respect that, even if to you it’s a trivial issue. In our situation, is Suni so desperate to be allowed to leave her socks on the floor that she’s willing to endanger her relationship with Shamrita? If taking that little bit of extra effort with the socks means the relationship continues, isn’t that worth it? Don’t get misled into thinking about “my rights”: your rights may be important in grand political debates, but with relationships it’s about what makes you work as a couple.

•
Be forgiving
: When you’re with someone all the time you’ll see them at their weakest and most vulnerable. You’ll see them when they’re exhausted and frustrated. We all need times when we can let our guard down and not put up pretenses. Partners will see each other when they do that. So you can’t expect perfection from yourself or from your partner. You must be forgiving and understanding.

•
Be ready to apologize
: As we have just seen, you can’t expect your partner to be perfect and you can’t be expected to be perfect. Be very ready to apologize. It’s amazing how a quick “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said that” can change a situation that could have led to a major argument into a pleasant evening. It costs nothing to apologize. A failure to apologize will leave your partner feeling that you haven’t understood their feelings and you don’t care. Note that an apology for hurting someone’s feelings or saying something cruel doesn’t mean you are losing the argument. The issue that caused you to misspeak can be returned to once the tension has abated.

•
Be positive
: If you have had an argument, try to make sure good comes from it. Otherwise you will have the same argument repeatedly. Having a positive outcome will nearly always involve both parties agreeing to change their behavior. Suni needs to learn to put her socks away and perhaps
Shamrita needs to learn not to criticize every time Suni forgets. And if you have made an agreement, do your best to stick to it.

Getting it right

Shamrita:  “You’ve left your socks lying around again.”

Suni:        “Look, I’m really sorry about that. I was in a real hurry this morning. Sorry you’ve had to tell me about that. That must be really annoying.”

Shamrita:  “OK, then.”

Suni:        “It seems I’m often doing things that annoy you. I wonder if it would help if we spent some time tomorrow evening talking about this?”

Shamrita:  “That would be good. Do I tell you off that often?”

Suni:        “Well, it does seem like that sometimes. We can talk about it tomorrow. Let’s go out for a nice meal and have some quality time.”

Summary

It’s crucial that you get arguments in relationships right. Arguing well is a good part of a healthy relationship. Treat your partner with respect and listen carefully. Remember that matters that seem trivial to you may matter a lot to your partner. Talk through issues together and work out a solution that will work well for you as a couple.

In practice

Here are some useful phrases:

• “I’m really sorry I’ve upset you. I love you very much and never want to hurt you. I think we need to take some time to talk this through. Let’s go for a walk tomorrow by the river and talk about this.”

• “I know you don’t mean to upset me, but when you say things like that it makes me feel you don’t really respect me.”

• “Look, I think we have a problem here. I realize that your football is really important to you and it gives you great fun. But it means I’m left with the children most of Saturday and I end up feeling I get no time to myself. Can we talk about a way we can deal with this?”

Chapter 12. How to argue with your children

Why is it that children can be more exasperating than anyone else? Most parents will have despaired of their children at some point:

“They just don’t listen. I can’t get them to do anything. It’s non-stop arguing.”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Parents inevitably have to treat children in a way they wouldn’t dare treat anyone else. Have you ever tried telling an adult they really ought to go to bed, or that their clothes don’t match? We don’t like being told what to do and it’s no surprise that children don’t either. Remember, children have their rights too. The ten golden rules apply just as well to children as they do to adults.

Getting it wrong

Dad:    “Steve, you’re not going out until you’ve done your homework.”

Steve:   “Look, Dad, I’m 15, not 7. I’ll do it later.”

Dad:    “Listen. I’m your Dad and you do what I say.”

Steve:   “OK, I’ll do my homework tomorrow morning. I have to go now or I’m going to miss the party.”

Dad:    “You go to the party and there’s no allowance for the rest of the month.”

Steve:   “Yeah. There’s no way you’ll do that. OK, I’m off.”

Dad (grabbing Steve’s arm and shouting): “You do what I say. You’re not going anywhere.”

Steve (pushing Dad away): “Let go, Dad.”

(Steve pushes Dad away and leaves)

This is typical of all too many interactions between teenagers and parents. We’ll come back at the end of the chapter to see how this argument might have gone so much better.

Tactics

Here are some of the tactics that parents commonly use in arguments with children:

1.
Threats
: “Do your homework or there will be no allowance this week.”

2.
Rewards/bribes
: “Do your homework and you’ll get an extra $2 allowance this week.”

3.
Logic
: “Do your homework and you’ll get better marks in your exams.”

4.
Power
: “Do your homework because I say so.”

5.
Guilt
: “We have done so much for you, surely the least you can do is do your homework.”

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these tactics. But they need to be treated with care. We’ll look at them one by one.

Threats

Threats are a major weapon in the parental arsenal! Parents can easily control children’s access to things they want. In the case of smaller children, parents can even physically impose their will (e.g. by carrying them to their rooms). However, threats need to be used carefully and can be misused:

• Don’t make threats you don’t intend to carry out. Your child will soon learn that you don’t carry out your threats. Indeed, older children will readily see you don’t intend to carry them out.

• Start with lesser threats before increasing the level of threat. Start with, “I’ll have to consider whether to cut your allowance ...”

• Be proportionate. Don’t make threats that are all out of proportion to the wrong being committed. Most children have a strong sense of what is fair.

In many cases it’s better to put the threat in terms of a choice for the child.

Useful example

“You can either choose to tidy your room and get your allowance, or choose not to tidy your room and get no allowance.”

One of the benefits of expressing threats in terms of choices is that it teaches children that there are consequences for their actions. This is a lesson they must learn in life. It also empowers them to choose between the consequences. Of course, such a tactic is only sensible if you’re prepared for them not to tidy their room and to withdraw their allowance as a result.

Rewards/bribes

This is perhaps the favorite among parents. It always feels better to give a reward rather than a punishment. Again, there are dangers:

• Try not to get into the habit of using bribes all the time. There should be some things that children do as a matter of course. Keep bribes for dealing with unusual situations (when the train is cancelled, or the child is screaming in the restaurant).

• If you are offering a bribe or a benefit make sure it’s close in time. A promise of a benefit next week is unlikely to be as effective as a benefit when the task is performed.

• Make sure your bribe is proportionate. Don’t use big bribes to get a child to do something straightforward.

The main disadvantage of bribes is that a child can easily learn that the best way to get nice things is to be badly behaved. That way you are given a bribe to be good. It’s very important therefore to use rewards more than bribes. If a child has behaved well and tidied their room as requested, give them a reward afterward. As many experts say, if you pay attention to bad behavior and ignore the good, you’re in trouble! Yet if the child is behaving well the temptation as parents is to ignore them and get on with your own things.

The other benefit from using rewards is that it reinforces the lesson that actions have consequences. As we have said already, a crucial lesson for children to learn is that what feels good now might not be the best thing to do. Doing something less pleasant now may lead to benefits later. And doing what is pleasant now (eating a whole tub of ice cream, say) may be regretted later. Mind you, that is a lesson some of us are still learning!

Logic

Of course, not every child or every situation can be dealt with by logic. Younger children or children who are very upset cannot appreciate a carefully honed argument. And there may just not be time. But where possible use logic and sound arguments with your child, if for no other reason than it will be cheaper and less exhausting than using bribes or threats. More importantly, using logic will teach your child how to make decisions and how to think for themselves.

Use arguments that will fit in with the way the child sees the world. Telling a 7-year-old to do her homework so that she will get a place at a good university is unlikely to work. The same argument for a 17-year-old who is desperate to get to a particular university might well be successful. Don’t assume that the arguments that are persuasive to you will be persuasive to your child. You might think “You will get really cold wearing that outfit” is an overwhelming argument, but for the child it might not be. Similarly, “That’s what all my friends do” sounds like a terrible argument to an adult, but is very powerful for children.

This is where listening is important.

Useful example

“Why do you think that’s a good idea?”

You have to find out what is motivating the child to make their decision. Can you work within that way of thinking to get what you want? So the child who wants to wear the skimpy outfit because they want to look trendy might agree to wear a coat until they get close to the party.

Power

This is rarely an effective way to win an argument. The older the child the less likely it is to work. In any event, it’s not educational. The only lesson it teaches is that if you are stronger than someone else you can and should impose your will on them. Preaching at children, even if you get them to do what you want, might in the long run alienate the child. It’s so much more effective to persuade the child to think for him or herself and thereby reach a sensible conclusion.

All of that said, there are times when there is no choice but to exercise power. If the child has to get to a doctor’s appointment and is refusing to go out of the door, there may be no time to do anything other than pick them up and put them in the car. But when that’s done, discuss the issue with the child afterward. Talk about why you had to pick them up.

Guilt

Guilt is an argument commonly used by parents. All parents make great sacrifices for their children and some children seem particularly ungrateful. What parent has not thought that their child has no idea how lucky they are?

But using guilt is not productive. Remember Golden Rule 10: the long-term relationship is key. A relationship that is built on guilt and a sense of obligation is not likely to be a beneficial one in the long term. There is a place for reminding children
how much more advantaged they are than others. But reminding them about all that you’ve done for them is not normally a good idea. Anyway, we all know what they will grow up to say: “I didn’t choose to be born!” Reminding a child of all you have done for them may just create resentment and ignores the real issue at hand. If a child simply does what you say due to feelings of guilt that will not be the basis of a beneficial relationship.