Are Your Kids in Power or Are You?
In her private work, Susan helps children and adults who are facing difficulties in focusing, planning, impulsivity. She gives usable techniques for memory and organizational challenges and coping methods for the emotional fallout resulting from endless frustrations and low self-esteem. Best of You Today was given a unique opportunity to do an exclusive interview with Susan on parenting without power struggles.
BOYT: What was your inspiration to write “Parenting Without Power Struggles”?
Susan Stiffelman: Well it was a little in the realm of not knowing what it was that I was going to do. I do lots of parenting workshops around the country and people couldn’t take notes fast enough and even when I tried to provide a handout, people were asking to take me home. That was probably the inspiration for the book; something to reinforce what they had heard and learned in the workshop and of course, to reach people that could never come and see me in person.
BOYT: Why do you find that parents try to change their children thinking that the children are the problem?
Susan Stiffelman: What causes parents to lose their cool is frustration and feeling out of control. The analogy that I use in my book is the right hand represents the parent and the left represents the child. The right hand is supposed to be above the left. Naturally when the child moves into adolescence, you become less of what I call the “captain of the ship” and more of an advisor. When the child is younger you want to be a “captain of the ship” that is confident and calm. When the child asks for something, let’s say they want to go outside and play in the rain and you decide it’s not a good idea you might say, “Sweetheart, I’m afraid not.” If your child starts to get really upset and gets escalated and starts to throw things then challenges you to come up with a great reason why they can’t, then picture the hand as being side by side. Nobody is in charge. You’re going to say “It’s raining!” and he might say, “Well I went outside last week when it was raining.” You might say, “Well, it was warm that day and today it’s fifty degrees.” Then it can escalate further with the child on top saying, “I’m going anyway!” If you start feeling desperate and panicked and your hand is below your child’s then you will bribe or threaten that child. It’s just what you’ll do because you’ll feel out of control. Many parents think that the solution is to just have more control and convince their kids through punishments that they can’t do things. My work is very much about holding a place of strength no matter what happens and exuding the kind of confidence and quiet authority that isn’t so much about being in control as much as it is about being in charge.
BOYT: What would be a good response for a parent in that type of a situation?
Susan Stiffelman: The first piece is that my work is much more about preventing problems than dealing with them on the fly. I’m much more likely to be asking the parent to play acting as the captain of the ship and see where they didn’t listen to their radar and ran into an iceberg. Could you have seen that coming and anticipate that child was going to challenge you about going outside? Could you have prevented it before it got dramatic? That would be one answer; the other could be something called “act one” and “act two.” A lot of people parent from act two, meaning that the way they appeal to a child who is upset is to try to reach their left-logical based brain. When a child is really escalated and upset, they don’t have a logical left brain that you can talk with. You have to first give them an act one, which appeals more to their right brain—their emotions and feelings. One aspect of act one is saying things the child would say yes to so that you’re giving them the sense that you hear and understand them. If the child was threatening to run outside I might say, “You really want to go outside, don’t you sweetheart?” or “You’ve been cooped up in here all day haven’t you? It looks fun outside, doesn’t it?” They’d say yes, and then you’d say something that will make them go “oh” because you’re discharging all the energy around them and you’re demonstrating that you’re capable of captaining the ship through the storm instead of leaping overboard.
BOYT: In this generation some children are really standing up and being defiant. What seems to have changed?
Susan Stiffelman: I think in some extent, it was the television. In some TV shows, especially the “tween” shows, the kids can be kind of sassy. Another thing is that parents are afraid of their children and somehow there’s some wisdom that’s saturated the culture that suggests that a parent should be a child’s friend. When you want someone to be your friend then you want them to like you. If you want someone to like you then you don’t cross them.
BOYT: Do you parent children with ADDand ADHD differently?
Susan Stiffelman: That’s a huge question and a huge answer. It’s not that you parent them differently; you still need to be right hand above left, captain of the ship. You have to anticipate different storms. You have to imagine you’re captaining a ship and when you steer your ship through certain oceans, you watch out for pirates or you watch out for more fowl weather than you might on a calmer sea. We know that ADD-ish children tend to have a shorter fuse. They then to get frustrated easier and, quite often, act more dramatically. We also know that they’re big procrastinators. It’s harder for them to override the impulse to do what they want in favor of what they’re supposed to be doing. There are certain things you just establish as lively or predictable; so you’re thinking a couple steps ahead.
BOYT: Why do you think that moms feel guilt?
Susan Stiffelman: I think we can say that society puts it on moms. A lot of times we project onto people what we think they’re thinking about our parenting skills and it causes us to feel pressure that we actually don’t need to feel. Where is the pressure actually coming from? It’s always coming from you. We can argue and build a whole case about how our neighbors think something about us for various reasons. We can project all kinds of things onto people but we can really make a case for anything. I think parents have to be careful not to buy into whatever notion might be out there that feeds their guilt and really be vigilant about not doing it.
BOYT: What happens to children with behavior problems as they grow up?
Susan Stiffelman: One thing we know about frustration is that there are only two outcomes for frustration. One is adaptation and one is aggression. If a child doesn’t have a parent who helps them learn to manage their frustration, then there will be more aggression. That aggression could come in the form of outward aggression or it could be self hatred. Children really do need parents who can help them untangle the upsets and challenges of their daily lives and make sense of life. Children don’t want to misbehave; they wanted to feel that there was some sense of security.
BOYT: Do you have any suggestions for single moms?
Susan Stiffelman: Single parents really have to band together. I don’t care if you’re shy or a hermit; you’ve really got to band together for many reasons. Children are meant to be raised in a village or a tribe. We’re meant to raise our children with the support of other aunties and uncles and all that. Even if you’re married and partnered, you still have to create that. Even if you have a partner, you still have to create that throughout the day. If you’re a single parent you must have time to be a person. You have to have someone who you swap childcare duties with so that you get to feel like you are just a parent 100 percent of the time. Your children benefit from seeing that you are a separate human being and that you’re capable of that. It will wear you down. It’s so important for kids to have a sense of comradery; that they’re part of a tribe.
BOYT: How do you create that support if your child doesn’t have grandparents, uncles and aunts?
Susan Stiffelman: Many children today don’t have families close by so what I encourage parents to do is to look for like-minded parents even if your kids really aren’t close friends. You can either try to become friends with the parents of your children’s friends or you can spot children who might be agreeable with your children, get to know their parents and create a sense of community with your child. It’s so grounding for your children and it provides them with a sense of place and value. It’s wonderful when you do have relatives nearby but when you don’t, it’s vital you step out of isolation and form a community with people that you see as stable and likely to be in the neighborhood for awhile.
About Susan Stiffelman
Susan Stiffelman is dedicated to helping parents raise kids who are joyful, resilient and authentically themselves--without power struggles, negotiations, meltdowns and the various other thieves of joy that can interfere with a parent's ability to enjoy the journey of parenthood.Susan is a licensed Marriage, Family and Child therapist, a K-9 credentialed teacher, an educational therapist and a highly regarded parenting coach. With a background in both education and clinical psychology, and training related to the brain's role in mood and behavior, Susan's private practice work is effective and solution-oriented.
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