Practical Parenting: Chapter 1

1. Introduction

I remember clearly the incident that led, eventually, to the book you’re reading.
It occurred during an after-school counseling session on one of those snowy afternoons that artists try to capture on Christmas cards and LL Bean catalog covers. There were four of us gathered around the old kitchen table that is part of the homey feel of my office: a mom, a dad, me, and one of the most obnoxious and disagreeable little nine year old brats I’d ever encountered. The daughter’s behavior was whiney, manipulative, disruptive, and disrespectful, and as I took it all in with my counselor’s eye she seemed to me unhappy at her very core, a mini-shrew of a child intent on dragging her family down to her level of misery.

As I watched her dispute each word out of her parents’ mouths and repeatedly wrest control of the family dynamic, an image flashed before me that was at once both sad and silly. Suddenly her parents were a space-bag, those clear vinyl bags with a connection for a vacuum cleaner hose sold on infomercials in which the air is sucked out of a bag containing a dozen bulky sweaters and three fluffy down pillows until the whole outfit is about the thickness of your checkbook.

In that bag I saw her parents’ hopes and energy and joy, arranged there like folded woolen sweaters. And then I saw the child, sucking like a Hoover on steroids on the bag containing everything satisfying and desirable from her family’s life, evacuating the last cubic centimeter of their hope and energy and joy until the entire family was as flat and lifeless as a road-kill raccoon.

Watching them across the table I suddenly felt tremendous compassion for these parents. Wholesome, educated, and motivated, this mom and dad were a counselor’s ideal clients. Their difficulty was rooted in the sad reality that they were hopelessly unprepared for raising a puppy, much less a child. They did not understand parenting at any level. They lacked the big picture perspective on child-rearing. They did not understand the mechanics of their family dynamic on a minute-by-minute basis well enough to grasp what was happening to them. They knew they were getting badly beaten up, but could not see the punches coming. Their failure as parents was fore-ordained; there was no other logical outcome.

Parents Under Pressure

There are few things in the life of a parent more discouraging and draining than having to deal day in and day out with a disagreeable, disobedient child. Spending all of one’s emotional energy anticipating their next manipulative move, containing their embarrassing outbursts, and grasping for appropriate and effective consequences that fit their misdeeds is simply exhausting.

The same child who was the celebrated source of wonder at their birth, the child who held such promise and who delighted the whole family as they reached each new developmental milestone, that same child now has the capacity to suck the joy straight out of the day. They are loved, but for the wellspring of misery that flows from them there is precious little about them to like or enjoy.

There are a lot of parents dealing with these difficult kids who are well-intentioned but overwhelmed. In the excitement and anticipation of pregnancy or adoption they thought raising a child would be like going to Disneyland. Somewhere along the way, though, the bus to the magic kingdom broke down in a combat zone in a foreign land, and they are stuck there wondering what went wrong and trying to find the reset button to make life rewind to when things weren’t so difficult. They are burdened by a pervasive sense of helplessness, occasional periods of hopelessness, and a nagging threat that if there is no breakthrough soon in dealing with this child the entire family will fracture.

The Counselor’s Confession

I struggled to know what to say to this family that would, with a wave of the wand, put their train back on the tracks. Unlike the medical doctor treating a diagnosed condition, we counselors have no pills or potions to prescribe, no out-patient procedures that will, in an afternoon, painlessly take care of a condition that likely took years to develop.

That afternoon I realized that most of what I and the profession have to offer these beleaguered parents are therapeutic techniques that will likely never address the fundamental problems or result in meaningful, lasting change in behavior or relationship. Rather, we counselors offer parents like these at my table only gimmicks and tricks to restore civility in their home and gain even a modicum of control over an out-of-control kid. And as we counselors offer “first-try-this and then-try-that” suggestions from the safety of our rear-echelon offices, it is the otherwise unprepared parent who has to take the concept home and put it to use on the front lines of battle, under stress, to rein in a manipulative kid who is thinking three steps ahead of the parent and punching all the right buttons to keep the atmosphere energized.

As this new view of reality flashed before me my sense of professional pride took a big hit. Don’t misunderstand me here. We counselors do some good work as we guide meaningful change in the lives of people dragging bags full of heartache and loneliness and fear through their day. As we teach them the tools that allow them to cope – some of which are get-me-through-the-night gimmicks – we move them toward fundamental change in the way they view life and relationships. It is one of the great joys of the profession to see a client whom you’ve counseled lay that bag of heartache down and walk away from it into a new life.

But for the parents who were across the table there was no time or budget for years of therapy. They needed urgent, substantive, and practical help to restore order in their lives and put their child on the right track. To move them toward that fundamental change in the way each party functions in the parent-child relationship, these folks needed an infusion of knowledge, skill, and the wisdom that only comes from experience. What’s more, they needed it now.
Suddenly, it seemed inadequate to only offer tools, techniques, and gimmicks. In my new and enlightened understanding of my role in mending their family I would be satisfied with nothing less than helping them change the entire relationship.

Epiphany

Even while still sitting across the table from these struggling parents I began thinking of parenting as a process, and one that was simply overwhelming for many moms and dads like these two. I began squinting at the process of parenting through different lenses. If parenting with a capital P was just too great to grasp, then the whole process needed to be broken down into component parts that were understandable and manageable. What was called for, I concluded, was a structured means by which an ignorant, unprepared parent could, in short order, be taught the concepts and skills – and maybe even a bit of wisdom – needed to parent effectively. To be successful, this crash course would have to:

• Bring battle-weary parents with little or no foundational knowledge quickly up to speed.
• Be organized such that it could be easily understood and effectively implemented, yet
• Be flexible enough to be readily adapted to a variety of situations involving kids with a host of imaginative ways to impose their will and have their way.
• Be succinct and to the point, illustrated with practical examples but without a lot of fluff.
• Go back to the basics to draw on validated principles that are already time tested and widely accepted.
• Pass the parent’s common sense test and be understood intuitively.

And, finally, the book presenting this whole new approach would be a thin, unimposing volume that a parent could read in a night and begin implementing the next morning.

That all sounds like no small challenge, but I think what follows meets all the criteria and puts in your hands something you can, quite literally, read tonight and begin using tomorrow. Consistently applied in your home it has the capacity to make lasting, meaningful change in the relationship you have with your children. It will do more than get you through the night. It will change your life.

Stephen Guthrie
Charlevoix, Michigan
Winter, 2010