[House] What I got out of "Parent Effectiveness Training"

[Robin Lee Powell]

Parts that are especialy helpful or surprised me are marked with a *
, because apparently I can't summarize well today.

Once again, general-public self-help books, it turns out, are
directed at people of a different intellectual strata than what I'm
used to; I could compress this book into about 20 pages.  Also,
what's up with the extensive self-advertising??  I'm already reading
the book!, you don't have to convince me.  Anyways.

This book is definitely more for older kids; it has some
applicability now, but more later.

* The basic thrust is "involve your kids in solving any problems you
have with each other to your mutual benefit".  In other words,
basically treat your kids like actual human beings.  Duh.

- Be a human being, not a god or a dictator
  - * Do not try to make a united front; this is perceived by
    children as obviously manipulative bullshit; each parent should
    have their own say in any conflict
  - * *Children* own problems in their own lives.  It is *not* your
    job to own that Bob won't play with Alice anymore because he's a
    stinkyhead.  You are advisorial in that role, and ideally not
    even advising but rather letting the kid figure it out with
    emotional support
    - That's going to be hard for me.  -_-  It's an obviously good
      idea, though.
  - * You have needs and that's part of your child's life.  Rather
    than expressing arbitrary rules, express needs of yours in terms
    of your own emotions.
- Active Listening: do lots of it
  - This is basically just "take what the person says and repeat
    back the emotional content in your own words; mostly drop the
    specifics".
  - This demonstrates that you're listening and care, without
    imposing your own point of view
  - * Not trying to solve the problem show respect and acceptance of
    the other person's abilities, situation, needs, etc.
    - This still feels opposite-of-true for me, but I can accept
      intellectually that it's true.
  - * Any problem that the child has that doesn't impact your needs
    isn't your problem; stick to active listening until you have a
    reason not to.
  - * Odds are the problem the child states isn't in any way the
    actual problem; listening until you're *sure* you've found the
    root is really important.  The book gives a great example of a
    kid who couldn't sleep for [list of bullshit reasons] when the
    actual issue was that friend had said that you would die if you
    breathed through your mouth when you slept.
- * There's a brief section on active listening with very young
  children, that basically boils down to "verbalize the kid's
  emotions, even if they can't express them".  The example was a kid
  trying to find a toy truck, and the parent being all like "It
  wasn't under the couch.  You really want your truck, huh?".
- I-Messages
  - * Throughout any actual conflict discussion, talk about yourself
    and your feelings *exclusively*; value judgements of the other
    person make you a dick.  And don't play any bullshit games
    like 'I feel that you aren't being responsible".
  - Exploring the conflict starts with 3 things: What's wrong, how
    you feel about it, and how it tangibly affects you.  All of
    these should be "I" messages.
- You can solve conflicts by changing the environment, i.e. child
  proofing, reducing stimulus, etc.
  - * They particularly reccomend warning kids far in advance
    (days) about things like new babysitters

Aside: There's a *LONG* section (2 chapters) about how actively
exercising arbitrary parental authority, outside of emergencies, is
a civil rights violation in exactly the same way that having slaves
is, and that this is why teenagers rebel.

Which is *obviously true*.

It disturbs me that normal people apparently need 50+ pages to even
seriously consider this poosibility.

- Actual Conflicts
  - A real conflict with a child is between the child's needs and
    your own
  - *** The core of this book is the "no lose" method of conflict
    resolution, which is basically a rewrite of
    http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-Without/dp/0395631246
    ; basically:
    - Use active listening to figure out what the actual needs are
      (which is *NOT* the same as the stated problem!!!)
    - Non-judgementally get possible solutions from everybody
    - Pick one as a group
    - Work out implementation details
    - Check later to see how well it went
  - It turns out that if you do this, your kids will actually try to
    implement the solution, since they helped pick it.  They will
    learn more, be more responsible and, especially WRT conflicts
    with siblings, come to you less and less often to solve their
    problems for them.
    - Duh.
- Rewards, Punishments, and Praise
  - The author says that all of these things are universally bad;
    kids know when they're being manipulated and it sets up a power
    imbalance, so just don't.
    - * I think this is shitty advice WRT 2 year olds; I'm going to
      keep actively using my physical power to control them as long
      as they're doing blatantly insane things like peeing on my
      bed.  It's a good *goal*, though.
  - Replace praising "you" messages with positive "I" messages to
    the same effect; it's more honest, and less manipulative.
- Teach your values by being a role model, not by brow-beating.
- Be a consultant to your children, not a manager.
- Self Modification
  - Parents should consider that they might be the problem
  - * If you can't specify a need of yours that is being affected by
    what the child is doing, even a fairly abstract one like "I'm
    scared you're going to break the vase and I need to not be
    scared in my own home", chances are you're just reacting to your
    own programming and there's no real problem and you should drop
    it.
  - Parents should be prepared to get over some of their child's
    differences from them in exactly the same way that you'd get
    over a friend's foibles.  If you can get over the fact that
    Bob is *never* on time and still be his friend, you can probably
    get over your kid's nose ring.  Or whatever.
- No matter what you do, the teachers and camp leaders and so on in
  your kids' lives haven't read this book and are going to be
  authoritarian dicks.  You'll have to push back, hard, if you want
  your kids to not be treated like chattel all the time.
  - On the plus side, more democratic schools are a thing that
    actually does sometimes happen now.


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