Changing Your Mind Set from the Negative Perspective to the Positive

"In the marital ecosystem, negativity is the predator." -John Gottman

The same is true for parent-child relationships. Many parents are aware that if their little kids keeps acting up, they are likely doing it for attention. Kids crave any attention even when it's negative. And, many teens feel like they can't talk to their parents because when they do it always turns into a conversation about what that teen could be doing better. In both these scenarios, parents and their children are interacting in and from the negative perspective. Negativity breeds more negativity and before you know it; you have a kid who is always acting up and an exhausted parent, or a parent and teen who just can't connect.

As I said in an earlier post, it is great to begin to practice catching your kids/teens doing things right. That will help significantly, and your kid will begin to have the behavior that you want because they will prefer the positive attention to the negative attention. Catching your teen doing things right will provide more opportunities to connect with each other.

Through my work at The Gottman Institute and in my private practice, I have been using Dr. Gottman's tools not just with couples but with families as well. Dr. Gottman has been researching the way couples interact for 40 years and he and his wife Dr. Julie Gottman now teach couples, through products and workshops, the skills learned through his research. I have taken those same tools and used them with families.

Tip for the day:

Increase the positive interactions in your family. Dr. Gottman suggests that couples build Love Maps of each other’s lives in order to learn more about each other and increase positive interactions in their relationships. You can and should do the same thing with your kids. Driving in the car between practice or sitting down for a meal is a great time to do this.

The premise behind this exercise is to have your child ask you a question about themselves and have you answer it. If you don't know the answer, that's ok, ask more questions and learn about your kid. And then reverse roles.

Example:

Kid: Who am I not getting along with right now?

Parent: I think it's Jacob.

Kid: No, that was last week. But Ben has been a real jerk.

Parent: I'm sorry to hear that, is there anything I can do to help?

Now reverse it:

Parent: What is my favorite color?

Kid: Blue?

Parent: I like blue, but I like green a lot too.

Another great exercise is to ask each other open ended questions. An open ended question is any question that cannot be answered with a yes or no.

Example:

Parent: What was your favorite thing at school today?

Kid: Lunch, maybe recess.

Parent: What did you do that made it fun or different?

If your kid answers, I don't know. Ask them, “if you did know, what would you tell me?”

Have fun with this and learn more about each other. Increasing positive interactions in your relationship will make the difficult ones easier to manage.