Welcome to from Insults to Respect. Today we seek to answer the question, If we are experiencing sadness does that mean that we are bad? We’ll begin with a little parable to see what it might reveal. Then we’ll look at the real life example of Laura, a young woman who came to think there was something wrong with her because of her sadness.
The Parable of a Mother Disciplining Her Son
It’s a Sunday night. Eight-year-old Carl is playing a computer game. Suddenly, his mom cries out, “Time to head up to bed, tomorrow’s school.”
“Let me just finish my game, Mom!”
“Take another five minutes, and then it’s off to bed!”
Five minutes later, Carl, still engrossed in his game, hears his mother cry out again, “Time to head up to bed.”
“My game isn’t over yet Mom.”
“Put the game away now.”
“But Mom!”
“Don’t ‘but mom’ me, let’s go,” and she takes Carl firmly by his arm and begins to guide him to his bedroom. Carl’s eyes tear up, which infuriates his mother, and she cries out, don’t you start with this crap or I’ll give you a real reason to cry! You’re acting like an infant!!! Now you stop this instant and get to bed!!!”
Parable Discussion
First of all, I can empathize with this mother. Perhaps she had a very trying day. Perhaps she has learned how to handle the bedtime situation from her own growing up experience, observing how her parents handled this type of situation. Much of our own parenting skills are indeed learned this way, observing how our parents raised us. This mother’s intention was good; she wanted Carl to get enough sleep so he could be ready to do his best the next day at school. I certainly respect what she was trying to do.
That said, I find myself wondering if there might be some better way to respond when Carl begins to express his sadness, instead of threatening him and saying he is acting like an infant. Here’s one alternative approach that comes to mind.
When Carl begins to shed some tears, she might have said in a caring way,
“I see you are feeling sad. That’s understandable. You were enjoying the game so much, and you’re disappointed about having to stop. You know, when we feel sad, it’s to help us figure out how to better handle what we do in the future. I wonder how we can better handle the going to bed situation in the future. Any ideas, Carl?”
“No Mom. I just want to keep playing.”
“I think, Carl, that in the future playing these computer games right before going to bed might not be a good idea. They are designed to keep you wanting to play more and more, and it doesn’t come to an end. You reach one level and there is always another more challenging level to get to. What might be a better thing to do before bedtime?
“I could watch a show that ends at bedtime.”
“That sounds like a good thing to try, as long as it’s not a scary show that will get you all wound up right before bedtime. We could also go to the library and pick out some books that have pleasant short stories, and you can read one right before bed. Short stories come to an end in a reasonable period of time, and the reader feels a sense of completion when it’s over, without making you feel like you have to read the next chapter to see what happens next. That might work also. So, in the future, why don’t we try having you each night choose one of these ideas. I’ll let you decide each night which approach feels right to you.”
From this alternative scenario you might surmise that I think it would be better to frame our sad experiences as something useful for planning our future, rather than an experience that means we are bad or that there is something wrong with us. And, actually you would be right. But there is some nuance to my thinking about this issue that I wish to bring to your attention.
Some Nuanced Thinking When It Comes to Dealing with Our Sad Feelings
Suppose a guy named Fred tends to be sad more than the average person. This might be due to some natural born tendency to experience life in a more sensitive manner than most, or because of some rough stuff going on in his life, or some trauma in the past has been leading to recurring anguishing memories. For whatever reason, Fred regularly comes to work expressing his sadness from the look on his face as he goes around doing his job. Co-workers often stop what they are doing to ask what is wrong, and offer help by taking time to listen to Fred in a caring way. This would be nice in some ways, but let’s say it happens so often, coworkers begin to find that their work at the end of the day doesn’t always get done on time and they end up having to stay late. Some resentment begins to arise. Moreover, in this scenario, the boss begins to dislike what has been going on partly because of the time being taken from the tasks that have to get done with top-notch efficiency in a competitive business environment, and she was brought up by parents who taught that there is something wrong with people who are sad more than average. In the end, Fred loses his job.
Upset about this, Fred begins to share with his friends and family members how he is feeling, but his frequent expressions of sadness over an extended period soon begins to wear on them.
The point that I am trying to make is that experiencing sadness is not something that makes us bad, but how we express sadness can increase the chances that some will view us in a bad way.
Perhaps Fred would have been better off putting on a happy face at work despite his internal experience. Perhaps Fred, if he could afford it, would be better off hiring a professionally trained personal counselor to help him work through his sad experiences in a positive manner so that he doesn’t put too much on the shoulders of friends and family members. There are, in most communities, some counselors available, and at the top of any of my blog post there is a link titled “Counseling Services” that when clicked on provides descriptions and contact information for two excellent personal counselors that I personally can recommend who conveniently provide services through Skype, Zoom, or your phone.
However, counseling services do cost money, and if it is too expensive for someone’s budget, an alternative is to set up via such internet resources like meetup.com, a support group that meets regularly for the specific purpose of sharing challenging emotional experiences. Of course, the members will be unlikely to have the expertise of a trained personal counselor, but with trial and error it is often very possible to find the right mix of caring, empathic participants.
For these types of peer run support groups, it helps to set up some ground rules at the start of such meetings. Here are the rules that make sense to me.
We’re here to emotionally support one another.
Our internal emotions are to be met by group members with empathic caring and the encouraging of self-compassion.
When sad feelings are shared, it is worth considering how such feelings might help us to figure out how to better deal with the future.
When a member thinks that the way a fellow member is expressing his or her emotions is less than ideal, rather than to use any name calling, like, “You are being stupid for acting like that,” members are to gently frame their opinions as tentative suggestions. Here’s a useful phrase to consider using at such time, “I’m wondering if you were to (state whatever the suggestion might be) if that might be worth considering.”
The Example of Laura
Sometimes, instead of interpreting our sad feelings as “we are bad,” we come to think that something is wrong with our physical make-up. If this leads to considering taking steps in the future to improve our diet, get more exercise, or spend more time in nature, that can lead to healthy outcomes. However, there is potentially a dark side to blaming the body.
Rachel Aviv, New Yorker Staff writer
In an eye opening April 8, 2019 New Yorker article by Rachel Aviv titled, “The Challenge of Going Off Psychiatric Drugs,” we learn about Laura Delano, a remarkably talented woman. Although she did have a number of problems in her youth, as most of us do, she functioned well enough to get accepted to Harvard University. Then, at one point, she was at a party where she began sobbing so hard that her escort had to put her in a cab.
Shortly afterwards, she saw a psychiatrist who declared she had a mental disorder and prescribed an antidepressant. Laura was relieved to hear the doctor say that her distress stemmed from an illness. “It was like being told, It’s not your fault. You are not lazy. You are not irresponsible.”
So, at this point, Laura has become convinced that she is not being a bad person for how she was experiencing her emotion, it was her body that was being bad in the form of an illness. Was this really an improvement?
As her story continues,
“When on the drugs,” Laura said, “I never had a baseline sense of myself.”
She began taking twenty milligrams of Prozac, an antidepressant; when she still didn’t feel better, her dose was increased to forty milligrams, and then to sixty. With each raised dose, she felt thankful to have been heard. “It was a way for me to mark to the world: this is how much pain I am in,” she said….
At parties, she flirted intently, but by the time she and a partner were together in bed, she said, “I’d kind of get hit with this realization that I was physically disconnected. And then I’d feel taken advantage of, and I would kind of flip out and start crying, and the guy would be, like, ‘What the heck is going on?’” Most antidepressants dampen sexuality—up to seventy per cent of people who take the medications report this response….
During her junior year, her pharmacologist raised her Prozac prescription to eighty milligrams, the maximum recommended dose. The Prozac made her drowsy, so he prescribed two hundred milligrams of Provigil, a drug for narcolepsy that is often taken by soldiers and truck drivers to stay awake during overnight shifts. The Provigil gave her so much energy that, she said, “I was just a machine.”….
The Provigil made it hard for Laura to sleep, so her pharmacologist prescribed Ambien, which she took every night. In the course of a year, her doctors had created what’s known as “a prescription cascade”: the side effects of one medication are diagnosed as symptoms of another condition, leading to a succession of new prescriptions.
Despite taking all of these drugs she felt so distressed that she thought every day about dying. So a new psychiatrist put her on a new combination of pills. Again, despite these drugs she experienced what John Teasdale, a research psychologist at the University of Oxford, named “depression about depression.” She interpreted each moment of lethargy or disappointment as the start of a black mood that would never end. Psychiatric diagnoses can ensnare people in circular explanations: they are depressed because they are depressed.
As Laura’s story continued, during a brief period she decided to see another psychiatrist who was also a psychoanalyst. He questioned the way that she’d framed what she had been experiencing. He doubted her early diagnosis, writing that “many depressions are given a ‘medical’ name by a psychiatrist, ascribing the problem to ‘chemistry’ and neglecting the context and specificity of why someone is having those particular life problems at that particular time.” Laura decided that “he wasn’t legit.” She stopped going to her appointments.
Soon afterwards, despite all of the drugs that she was taking, she attempted to take her life. She did manage to survive, and afterwards,
She was started on a new combination of medications: lithium, to stabilize her moods, and Ativan, a benzodiazepine, in addition to the antipsychotic Seroquel, which she had already been taking. Later, a second antipsychotic, Abilify, was added—common practice, though there was limited research justifying the use of antipsychotics in combination. “It is tempting to add a second drug just for the sake of ‘doing something,’ ” a 2004 paper in Current Medicinal Chemistry warns.
In May, 2010, Laura wandered into a bookstore.
Robert Whitaker
On the table of new releases was “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” by Robert Whitaker. The book explained to her that as more and more Americans have taken to psychiatric drugs to deal with their emotions, the number of Americans disabled by mental illness has risen. Whitaker argues that psychiatric medications, taken over the course of a lifetime, may be turning some episodic emotional experiences into chronic disabilities. As Whitaker explains what people like Laura are going through, they have “been prescribed one drug, and then a second, and a third, and they are put on this other trajectory where their self-identity changes from being normal to abnormal—they are told that, basically, there is something wrong with their brain, and it isn’t temporary—and it changes their sense of resilience and the way they present themselves to others.”
It was at this point that Laura decided to see what would happen if she stopped taking the drugs, and found that the process was an excruciating experience because of the medication withdrawal reactions. It took her many extremely rough months before her goal was achieved.
Internal records of pharmaceutical manufacturers show that the companies have been aware of this withdrawal problem for many years, and many doctors mislead their patients suggesting to them that the prescribed drugs were either not addictive, or withdrawal symptoms are mild.
Now off the psychiatric drugs, Laura began a relationship with a guy named Rob Wipond. Both of them became emotional when discussing Laura’s sexuality. “I felt like a newborn,” Laura confided. “I hadn’t ever figured out what my body was meant to be.” Rob said, “She was open and awake. Everything was new to her. We were, like, ‘Well, gee, what is this sexuality thing—what shall we do?’ ”
Prior to coming off the psychiatric drugs, Laura had been unable to have stable relationships. “I honestly thought that, because I was mentally ill, the numbness was just part of me.” Now she wondered about the other effects of the many medications she had been taking. “On this very sensory, somatic level, I couldn’t bond with another human being,” she said. “It never felt real. It felt synthetic.”
Laura felt as if she were learning the contours of her adult self for the first time. When she felt dread or despair, she tried to accept the sensation without interpreting it as a sign that she was defective and would remain that way forever, until she committed suicide or took a new pill. It felt like a revelation, she said, to realize that “the objective in being alive isn’t the absence of pain.” She remembered identifying with a sad little bubble pictured in a popular advertisement for Zoloft—the bubble is moping around, crying and groaning, until it takes the medication and starts to bounce while birds sing—and became increasingly aware that her faith in the drugs’ potential had been misplaced. “I never felt helped by the drugs in the sense that I have meaning, I have purpose, I have relationships that matter to me,” she said.
Perhaps we can all learn something essential from Laura’s experience.
Final Thoughts
From today’s post, I hope that you will consider the value of giving up any belief that you may have that feeling sad means you are bad. If, when you experience sadness, you find yourself saying such words like, “I can’t believe I’m feeling sad again, what an idiot I am,” consider how it may be far more helpful to view your sadness as a useful tool for helping us to better plan our future. If you are a parent, consider the value of teaching your children this “sadness is a helpful tool” idea.
Also worth considering is that there are ways in which to express our emotions publicly that can either hurt our reputation or enhance it. Over a half million people have been using this blog as a no financial cost method to learn skills that can enhance their reputation whenever they find themselves in various emotionally arousing situations. I’m hoping you consider the value of joining them.
Finally, the pharmaceutical industry, along with its allied psychiatrists, have enormous resources to convince people that the best way to deal with sadness is to take pills. Laura’s story provides us a cautionary sign to all those who are tempted to go down that road.
Well, that’s my post for today. Here’s hoping you’ll soon join us again right here at From Insults to Respect.
My Best,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
William James (1842-1910) became one of the leading thinkers of his day, and through his writings he remains one of the most influential psychologists and philosophers the United States has ever produced. There is a certain wisdom and kindness that runs through his work that I particularly admire. So, in an earlier post when I wanted to come up with ideas on how parents can best teach their children how to respectfully deal with criticism, I naturally turned to him. In that post (see HERE) I mentioned a few of his ideas. For example, I explained how he advocated dealing with a child that has a “balky will.”
Dealing with the Balky Will Child
William James explained that certain children, if they do not succeed immediately in doing something just right and are then criticized, flare up in anger and refuse to cooperate. Such children are oftentimes treated as sinful and are punished; or else the parent pits his or her will against the child’s will.
John Wesley
William James
At such times some have argued that children should be forced to do as they are told, even if one has to whip them ten times running. “Break its will, in order that his soul may live!” exclaimed John Wesley, an eighteenth century theologian. But William James disagreed. “Such will breaking is always a scene with a great deal of nervous wear and tear on both sides, a bad state of feeling left behind it, and the victory not always with the would-be will breaker.”
When a situation of this kind occurs, and the child is all tense and excited, James believed that it is best to drop the subject for awhile. Direct the child’s mind to something else, and then, a little later on, bring it up again. As likely as not, the child will go over it now without any difficulty.
“It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness in a horse,” said James. “We divert his attention, do something to his nose or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him over a place where flogging would only have made him more invincible.”
I personally have tried this approach many times when my wife, Andrea, and I were raising our two sons. It worked beautifully. So, whenever I taught a course called “How to Discipline Your Children and Have Them Still Like You,” I would offer it as one of my suggestions. Interestingly, some parents felt very uncomfortable with this. They would say something like,
“If you let your kids get away with doing wrong, you will end up reinforcing their balky behavior. The children will come to think they have won, and begin to think that to get out of behaving appropriately, they just have to throw a tantrum.”
Well, it just so happens that if you use the William James approach consistently, you really don’t reinforce balkiness because children soon realize that they have not won. They simply come to the understanding that “dropping the subject” does not mean that anyone has won. Instead, they soon connect the “dropping the subject” fact with the “bringing the topic up again later” fact. Dropping the subject, comes to mean their parents will be returning to the subject after they and their parents have some time to calm down and think about the issues in a more calm state.
Children typically are excellent observers of their parents’ routines, so in this type of situation there really is no need to say anything. However, for parents who are particularly anxious about reinforcing their child’s balky behavior if they were to just drop the subject, they can simply add a few simple words to this technique. Thus, when they decide to drop the subject, they might say something like, “Let’s take a little time out and we’ll discuss this more later.”
If this is shouted, rather than said in a pleasant tone, some children will have an added motivation to resist changing the attitude they initially took. So, if you find you can’t really control your tone, perhaps keeping silent makes the best sense.
Okay, so dealing with the “balky will” is one suggestion derived from my reading of William James. Let’s move on to a related approach.
Teach Kids to Choose to Act Rightfully Because It Leads to Something Good, Rather Than Because It Avoids Something Bad
William James tells us that anything people can avoid under the notion that it is bad they may also avoid under the notion that something is good. Those of us who act under the negative notion, was viewed by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, as slaves. Those of us who act under the notion of good are free.
With this in mind, William James, in a lecture to teachers, said:
See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy. And, in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol, lay less stress than the books on the drunkard’s stomach, kidneys, nerves, and social miseries, and more on the blessings of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its full youthful elasticity by a sweet, sound blood, to which stimulants and narcotics are unknown, and to which the morning sun and air and dew comes as sufficiently powerful intoxicants.
The general idea here is that in the arena of the moral life, whenever a positive ideal is aroused, it is as if the whole scale of values change its equilibrium. As James makes this point, he declares that at such times, “The force of old temptations vanishes, and what a moment ago was impossible is now not only possible, but easy.”
To this end, James liked to tell stories of people illustrating the ideals he most valued. Abraham Lincoln was one of his favorites because the former president “accomplished results under the most intricate possible conditions.”
Using this idea, I have created a series of novelsdesigned to present a hero that generally acts for the good, although he makes his share of mistakes along the way. The first of these novels, A Hero Grows in Brooklyn, is suitable for children as young as 7 or 8 if read together with their parents. This type of reading provides parents a great opportunity to pleasantly discuss a number of issues well before something awful suddenly springs up.
Middle school students can read A Hero Grows in Brooklyn on their own, and it can be downloaded on a computer or any of the popular electronic readers for free HERE. The other novels are more suitable for high school students and mature readers because sexual feelings begin to be explored.
Interestingly, I originally wrote the novels to encourage youth to think more deeply about certain issues before they became embroiled in situations they had not given deep thought to. However, when I taught graduate courses at the University of Minnesota I learned that when I told these same stories to my students, they loved them just as much as my original target audience. So, I encourage anyone who is interested in these ideas to see what the novels have to offer.
In closing today’s From Insults to Respect post, let me add one more point. Sometimes we parents have kids who don’t seem to be learning what we want to teach them as quickly as we would like. Frustration begins to mount. At such time, I recommend meditating on the following William James quote:
“Be patient, then, and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination which life sets us, come out in the end in better shape than the glib and ready reproducer, its passions being deeper, its purposes more worthy, its combining powers less commonplace, and its total mental output consequently more important.”
Have a great week, and I hope you’ll soon join us once again,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
This week I want to discuss a story about some parents who are trying a different approach to addressing the bullying problem. According to a June 18, 2014 story by NBC Chicago, a fourth-grader is suing another fourth grader for bullying him.
Joaquin Del Core
Contending he has been the victim of bullying which spanned his entire third-grade year, Matthew and Deveri Del Core filed the suit Tuesday on behalf of their son Joaquin, naming a classmate identified only as “C.A.”, along with the boy’s parents, the school district, and Jeffrey Brusso, principal of Robert Frost Elementary.
The lawsuit alleges that Joaquin had been the victim of almost weekly attacks, ranging from hitting, punching, and kicking, to more violent threats. He would wake up at night screaming and crying, terrified, and did not want to go to school.
Joaquin’s parents filed repeated police reports and met with the school, to no avail. In one of those reports, an investigating officer notes that the alleged assailant’s parent said he had “anger issues.”
“The school said they were taking action and assured us it wouldn’t happen again, and it would just keep happening,” Joaquin’s father said. “(They would say) ‘Yes, we’ll handle it, rest assured…’ and then it would happen again a week later!”
So far the case is not going too well from the perspective of Joaquin’s parents:
Within hours of filing the complaint in Cook County Circuit Court, Ms. Del Core said she was fired from her job in the Robert Frost Elementary cafeteria. A termination letter from the school’s cafeteria contractor, said she was being fired ‘at the request of the client,’ because actions she had taken ‘have been detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of students and staff.’
The family’s attorney, Joel Handler, said he would now amend the complaint, to include a charge of retaliatory discharge against the school, for firing the boy’s mother. For their part, the parents said they hoped the lawsuit sends a message.
“Kids, all kids, need to be in a safe and healthy environment to learn in, because learning fuels the rest of your life,” Matthew Del Core said. His wife suggested that the suit might actually help the alleged assailant. “This isn’t just about our son any more,” she said. “This is about the child that’s been bullying our son, that he gets the help that he needs, and that the school provides it for him.”
Commentary
In the above example, I am relying solely on the NBC Chicago story. I have no first-hand knowledge about what has actually taken place. And of course the story is still unfolding. But I have no doubt that incidences such as the one I just described occur regularly in our schools.
Bullying stories have been in the news a couple of times this month alone. The Inquisitr, for example, reported on June 21, 2014 that 14-year-old Noel Estevez, who was bullied by the same kid for months, recently snapped and stabbed his tormentor to death. In that case, witnesses stated that the boy who was stabbed was part of a group that bullied Noel so relentlessly that the eighth-grader even tried suicide, causing him to miss several months of school.
In a previous post, I made several suggestions for schools to address these types of problems. But what can parents do if they see their child being treated in this awful manner after trying as hard as possible to work effectively with the school and police and the tormenting just continues?
Judging from the comments that have been coming in on the story about Joaquin filing his lawsuit, there is a great deal of support for this type of action. For example, one person wrote:
Kudos to the family. My child attended a Catholic Jr. High and was subject to similar attacks by classmates. While the school acknowledged the issue, nothing was done until a lawyer friend of mine sent a letter to the school indicating one more occurrence and we would file suit. Low and behold, the administration addressed the matter with suspensions and other disciplinary actions immediately following. Hated to take such extreme measures but my child’s grades hit rock bottom, became extremely withdrawn and no longer wished to socialize with “real” friends. Good luck to the family and hopefully these actions will prevent another child from having to endure the same.
Another wrote:
Good for you – one of the few parents that are willing to ferociously advocate for your child and do what is necessary to protect your child. This happens more frequently than many people realize throughout the country. Brilliant bringing the media into it – now that this story is gaining national attention, perhaps many more parents with children subjected to this type of bullying while the district tries to brush it under the rug will now be willing to step in and confront those in authority who fail miserably in protecting their charges. It happened to my child, also, and I had to do the same thing before our school district caved and took care of the problem after almost two years of discounting/ignoring it.
Please join the discussion by leaving a comment in the reply box below.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
If you have been following this blog, you know that from time to time I have been discussing insults and criticism. In earlier posts, we looked at situations in which people end up feeling insulted because someone provided negative criticism.
I have argued that rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism, as well as words that might come off as insulting. When we learn to respond skillfully to negative criticism and insults, we develop a confidence in these types of situations. This dramatically reduces our defensiveness.
An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring.If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t be able to know when to apply the brakes on the car, and you are likely to end up in a serious accident.
Illustration by Lois Hubertz
Similarly, if you can’t identify when criticism is occurring, you won’t be able to know when to begin to put in place the plans that effectively deal with criticism.
Although some forms of criticism are as easy to recognize as a red light, some forms of criticism are far more subtle and therefore often go unrecognized as criticism. I therefore have presented posts that discuss dealing with direct and implied forms of criticism. I’ve noted that when someone makes a suggestion, this usually implies some negative criticism.
We also took a good hard look at certain forms of levity, in which negative criticism is designed to be charmingly provocative. It seeks to get people to think more deeply about an issue. As George Bernard Shaw put it in his provocative book, Back to Methuselah:
“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
Shaw, to ward off defensive reactions to his quips, often created fictional plays and had the characters in the plays say them. Great examples are:
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.“
“The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.”
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
Today we will spend a little more time practicing enhancing our skills for recognizing subtle forms of criticism. This will help to improve our ability to know when to start using our dealing-with-criticism skills.
More Examples of Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism
As we move forward, please keep in mind that for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as negative the evaluator has made a negative criticism.
FIRST EXAMPLE
In the above Calvin and Hobbes scenario, Miss Wormwood politely asks Calvin to put his tiger, Hobbes, in his locker. Calvin objects to this request by crying out—“In my locker?! He’ll suffocate!”
Calvin’s response to Miss Wormwood’s request is an example of indirect negative criticism. He doesn’t directly state he has evaluated her request and found that there is something wrong with it, or that it is bad, or something of that sort. Nevertheless, he indicates that if he did what she asked, his tiger would suffocate. To recognize this as a form of negative criticism, it helps to notice that in addition to Calvin’s statement there are other indications that he thinks there is something wrong with Miss Wormwood’s request. The exclamation marks after Calvin’s statement, the drawing of Calvin with his mouth being wide open as if he is shouting, and the fact that he is practically flying out of his seat while he is shouting, all add up to indicate that Calvin’s reply is rightfully classified as a form of negative criticism of Miss Wormwood’s request.
Although Miss Wormwood takes Calvin’s negative criticism in stride, other teachers might become defensive, and yell something like, “Don’t you talk back to me, young man!” This might silence students, but leave them seething with anger that is expressed by a rejection of the school enterprise; or it might lead to shouting back at the teacher, creating an escalation of conflict that takes valuable learning time away from the class.
If Miss Wormwood would have become defensive and started to yell at Calvin in response to his negative criticism, this would, according the the DIG Conflict Model, be rated an immature level of responding (see Responding to Criticism: Four Levels of Maturity). Instead, she steers in the direction of Calvin’s criticism by offering the compromise of putting his “tiger” under his desk where it will be at least out of the way. This, according to the DIG Conflict Model, is one of the most mature responses (see Responding to Criticism: The Most Mature Level). We see, in this example, that Calvin quickly complies and his teacher can now go on with her lesson without any further delay.
SECOND EXAMPLE
Here’s a Sally Forth comic that illustrates that whenever there is a transaction involving a request or demand, we would be wise to anticipate negative criticism will be present as well.
In this comic, because Sally is visiting her mother for a few days, Ted is left on his own to deal with his nine-year-old daughter, Hil. When Ted tells Hil it’s time for bed, she begins to reject his demand. Is Hil’s rejection of the demand a form of criticism?
Well, consider her reply to her dad: “But Mom’s not here! We don’t need a bedtime!” Hil has negatively evaluated her dad’s demand by expressing her disagreement with it. If you tell someone you disagree with what he or she has done, you have negatively criticized the person’s act.
If Ted was skillful at first recognizing that Hil was providing him criticism, he would be in a better position to say to himself, “From what I’ve learned about the different levels of maturity, let me see if I can design a mature response.” What if he came up with something like this?
“Hil, I admire the way you seek to defend your freedom. I want to encourage that. And you know I’m crazy about you. At the same time, I also love your mom, as I know you do. It seems to me that we don’t want to break her rules behind her back. The bedtime schedule is designed for you to get enough rest so you will do well in school. Both of us have seen what happens to you when you don’t get enough rest. When your mom gets home, if you want to discuss the rules, we can do it with her, you and me all altogether. That would be the fair thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
These Examples are Designed to Encourage Deeper Thought
Above, I provided two examples of someone providing negative criticism. For each example, a response was described that I think is pretty mature. Please note, however, that I am NOT claiming that they are the ideal responses. Nor am I trying to make the case that the responses portrayed in the above examples are the only mature responses that can be made. There is a great deal of flexibility that we have for coming up with high level responses. I present the above examples in an effort to challenge you to think more deeply about what mature levels of responding look like according to your own lights.
Well, that’s my post for this week. To all of you who celebrate the beautiful Christmas season, I wish you good cheer, peace on Earth, and good will toward all of our fellow human beings!
With Warmest Regards,
Jeff
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
If you follow the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, you know that Calvin, from time to time, does some things that upset his Dad. And it is often not hard to understand why his father might become angry at some of Calvin’s actions.
Here we see Calvin’s dad blowing up in anger. My wife and I raised two sons, and I wouldn’t be honest if I claimed that I never lost my temper with them. And so, I can certainly sympathize with Calvin’s dad in the above comic.
At the same time that I sympathize with Calvin’s dad, I do want to encourage people to consider the value of an alternative to reacting by screaming in fury. I want to advocate considering transforming the anger into challenge (see post titled “Anger Suppression Versus Challenge”).
Let’s suppose that you are Calvin’s dad and just before you blow up in anger, you pause because you realize you are becoming angry. You had practiced several times over the past week using a special skill to handle this type of situation, and you find that now you can smoothly and comfortably use that skill. You quickly summarize for Calvin the conflict by saying in a warm, friendly voice, “Calvin, yesterday you desired to have dessert, and I interfered with your desire because I didn’t let you have any. You feel that I am guilty of being unfair for punishing you for flooding the house. In the future, you would like me to handle this type of situation in a better way. Is that right?”
After summarizing the conflict in this way, you listen to Calvin’s reply. Then you explain in a pleasant voice that you will think about his concern over the next few days.
Over the course of the next few hours you take a few minutes to allow yourself to experience the anger within your body, just observing how it feels. By the next day, you have probably calmed down. You begin to try to come up with at least two alternatives to deal with Calvin then shouting. Then you carefully weigh whatever you can think of about the costs and risks of negative consequences, as well as positive consequences, that could flow from each alternative. You discuss this with your wife and some others that you respect. Once you come up with an alternative with which you feel comfortable, you close your eyes and imagine carrying out the alternative with charm, courage, and determination. You practice this again in your mind on two other occasions. Finally, you go back to Calvin and give your plan a try.
This, in brief is an example of transforming anger into challenge.
Now, when we start to consider alternatives to our angry outbursts, sometimes people will discourage any consideration of alternatives other than the one they believe is best.
Not only do we find that some people with whom we discuss alternatives insist that only one is good and all others are a ridiculous waste of time to even consider, sometimes we, too, will start with the bias that there really is only one alternative that is best even before we first take a good hard look at the pros and cons of other alternatives. This attitude is viewed as being “closed-minded.” Challenge requires a more “open-minded” attitude.
When we utilize challenge, we don’t make a decision by simply adding up the gains and then subtracting the losses for each alternative. Some gains are far more important than others. A young woman contemplating having a baby might list on the negative side the pain of childbirth, cost of adding the baby to her health plan, cost to feed the baby, loss of quiet personal time, and nastiness of changing diapers, but just the single positive of having a sweet loving baby as part of the family might far outweigh all of these negatives. And so, the best we can do is to use an approach similar to what Benjamin Franklin proposed back in 1772. After listing the pros and cons of each alternative during three or four days, he explained that,
…I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I find a reason pro equal to some two reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two reasons con, equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the balance lies; and if, after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly. And, though the weight of reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities, yet when each is thus considered, separately and comparatively, and the whole lies before me, I think I can judge better, and am less liable to make a rash step, and in fact I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra. (Letter dated September 19, 1772, to the British scientist, Joseph Priestly.)
Franklin’s approach seems to suggest that once the alternatives are identified our task is to simply decide which is best by weighing the pros and cons. But I often find myself, after looking over the pros and cons of each alternative, tweaking one or more of the alternatives depending on the circumstances with which I am dealing.
Thus, I am not tied to the alternatives I first come up with. Those alternatives can be modified as I think more deeply about their pros and cons. For example, once a teacher referred a 14-year old boy to me because he was being very disrespectful to her whenever she criticized him. Let’s call him Carl.
In some such cases, just developing a pleasant relationship with the student for a few minutes, and then asking him to treat his teacher with more respect is enough to see a marked improvement. And sometimes it is not enough.
As I worked with Carl, it soon became apparent that even if he tried to be more friendly and respectful, he would end up botching the attempt. And so I set myself on teaching him some specific skills.
After I went over the five levels of responding to criticism with Carl and he showed me in role plays that he had mastered the ability to act the highest two levels, we filled out a balance sheet together for him to consider the positives and negatives for each of two alternatives:
Use at least a level four response whenever the teacher criticizes him
Continue doing what he had been doing.
After filling out the balance sheet, Carl very quickly pointed out that one of the negatives for choosing the first alternative was that his two friends in the class would lose respect for him. That single negative was enough for him to completely discount any of its positives and he let me know that he therefore decided to continue to be disrespectful to his teacher whenever she criticized him. I could have left it at that, but I tried to figure out if there was a way to tweak the more mature responding alternative so that the single negative would no longer be the deciding factor.
We ended up modifying the first alternative. If he chose it, Carl would first have a discussion with his two friends about the five levels of responding to criticism. Carl would begin by explaining the five levels and then asking his friends how they would want him to respond when they criticized him. Then this alternative called for Carl to explain to his friends that he was in a tough spot because if he kept acting disrespectfully to the teacher, his parent would be called, he would go to in-school suspension after each disrespectful act, and if he still didn’t stop, he would be referred to a committee that would consider placing him in a special education class. This plan also called for Carl to let his friends know that after trying to help Carl work through his disrespectful behavior, the teacher intends to put both of Carl’s friends through the same process he is going through unless they stopped their disrespectful behavior on their own. Finally, he was to ask his friends what they thought he should do.
Before Carl decided on whether or not he should choose this alternative or the one that had him continue to be disrespectful to his teacher, I had him act out some role-plays. First, he acted himself discussing with his friends the alternatives he was facing and I acted the part of his friends. Then we reversed roles with Carl playing the part of his friends while I took a shot at being Carl. We switched these roles back and forth several times over the course of an hour meeting.
Once Carl found he was able to get comfortable having this type of discussion with his friends, he came to agree the tweaked alternative was worth a try. And it turned out that his friends agreed that Carl could be respectful to his teacher when she criticized him, but that he couldn’t be too “lovey-dovey” with her or it would make them throw-up.
Interestingly, once he and his friends began to treat the teacher with more respect, she began to treat them with more respect, and the boys’ initial dislike for the teacher changed, and she became one of their favorite teachers.
This example illustrates that we need not simply reject an alternative when one or more of its negatives lead us to reject it. We can instead consider whether or not we can make some changes to the alternative that would make one of the negatives less problematic. Similarly, we may seek to find ways to make one of the positives of an alternative more positive. And so, there is no single way to use this type of tool. Feel free to experiment with it as you deem fits the current circumstances.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
For the past few weeks I have been discussing personal power. Power is the skill to achieve your desires. To help people to come up with plans to achieve their desires, we have been constructing a list, in alphabetical order, of sources of power. We are calling this list the ABCs of Power. So far, the list looks like this:
Each of these sources of power do not instantly provide us with a plan that is specific enough to achieve our desires. Rather, when we feel stuck in coming up with a specific plan, these sources of power can guide us along a path that leads us to discover a specific plan.
As I have already mentioned, the best way to learn how to use the sources of power is to look at a variety of examples of people using the ABCs of Power. To that end, we have recently looked at an example of someone who had a desire to feel less lonely, and found utilizing the sources of power led to a plan that successfully achieved his desire. We also looked at an example of someone who was being bullied when he went for a drink at a water fountain.
Today we will look at a fresh new example.
Eugene and Doreen (Illustrations by Eric Sailer)
Eugene and Doreen recently divorced after ten years of marriage. They have three children. Doreen takes care of them during weekdays, and then, according to a legal agreement, she is to bring them on Saturday morning at 10 to Eugene’s house. Eugene is supposed to return them by eight PM on Sunday evening. Over the past two months, Eugene was late in returning the children to Doreen’s house on three different occasions. After the first time that Eugene was late, Doreen said nothing. “Better to keep things cool for the sake of the kids,” she thought. After the second time, she still kept quiet, but inside she was fuming. On the third occasion, Doreen blew up at Eugene as he was retuning the kids.
“How dare you bring the kids back an hour late? Can’t you tell time? You’re always late. It’s just like you!”
“You dropped them off late in the first place!” he yells back. “You can’t take my time with the kids and then not expect me to bring them back late. I already see them way less than you!”
“The kind of father you’ve been to the kids you shouldn’t get to see them at all!”
The two end up storming away from each other, leaving the children distressed.
Eugene recognizes that this conflict is not good for the kids, and it’s not doing him a whole lot of good either. But he has been unable to come up with a resolution that he likes. Even by focusing first on the desire component of the conflict and then on the interference component, he has met with absolutely no success. His mind keeps thinking about all of the wrongs that he believes Doreen has done during their relationship, and he ends up obsessing on all of these wrongs. Now he decides to spend some time focusing on the guilt component, which is kind of what he has been doing when he spends time obsessing over these wrongs. However, when he decides to focus on the guilt component, he understands he is to do this in a very specific manner.
To focus on this component, like focusing on any of the other two components, he must first use the DIG pattern to describe the conflict. The letters in the word DIG remind him to describe first the desire, then the interference, and then the guilt. He says to himself, “I desire to have a full weekend with the kids, and interfering with this, Doreen has been regularly bringing them to me on Saturday morning over an hour late. I believe she is guilty of being wrong for being angry when I bring them back on Sunday at a time that makes up for her lateness.”
After describing the conflict from his perspective, Eugene tries to describe it, as best he can, from Doreen’s perspective. “Doreen,” he says to himself, “desires that I always bring the kids back at 8 PM Sunday evening, but interfering with this, she perceives that there are times when I will bring them back late. She believes I am guilty of being wrong for bringing the kids back late even when she has been late dropping them off on Saturday.”
As he comes up with this description, Eugene realizes that Doreen has other unresolved conflicts with him that involve her angry memories about mistakes he has made in the past, and he has additional unresolved conflicts with her. By using the DIG pattern of describing his conflict, he has come to better understand this. He had seen all the other conflicts with her as all one big amorphous conflict. This made it much harder to figure out any reasonable resolution. He now realizes that perhaps it will be much better if he focuses just on one conflict at a time, a conflict that can be clearly stated.
“Now, not only am I going to just focus on this one conflict, but I’m also going to just focus on the guilt component of the conflict. This requires that I ask myself the following question— Can I do something so that the guilt part of the conflict will be reduced or eliminated?”
As Eugene ponders this question, he finds himself saying, “What can I do so that I don’t view Doreen as guilty of being wrong in this situation, and what can I do to convince Doreen that I am not guilty of being wrong?” Suddenly, Eugene remembers that the issue Doreen felt he was most guilty of throughout their marriage was that he didn’t listen to her. “Whatever I do to resolve this conflict, it would be best if Doreen ends up feeling that I really listened to her. Otherwise she will remain so angry that she will refuse to do anything to resolve the conflict.”
As Eugene crafts his plan, he realizes that when he calls her to discuss this issue, she will view it as a situation in which he is providing criticism to her. “I better review the providing criticism level 5 description. And at some point in our conversation, Doreen will be criticizing me. To prepare for our conversation, I better review the level 5 description for responding to criticism.”
After studying those two descriptions, he starts to imagine different ways he can respond to Doreen so that she clearly feels he is listening to her and that he is using skills consistent with the highest levels of maturity. Some of the comments he imagines Doreen will make anger him so much that he has to spend a few days utilizing the anger techniques that we discussed earlier. Finally, he believes he has come up with a plan that’s worth a try.
RING!
“Hello,” says Doreen answering her phone.
“Hello Doreen, it’s me, Eugene.” He had to practice making sure he could say this without bitterness in his voice.
“What do you want, Eugene?”
“First, I want to say I’m sorry about how I spoke to you in front of the children last Sunday. I know that wasn’t helpful at all. I would like to get together with you sometime this week without the kids around so that we can discuss how we can better deal with the lateness problem we’ve been having.”
“Is that Daddy?” their daughter asks Doreen. Eugene can hear this on his end of the phone line.
“Yes,” answers Doreen. “Now be quiet. I’m trying to talk.”
“I hear the kids are in the room,” says Eugene. “Let’s set up a time when we can talk without the kids overhearing us. I don’t think it’s good for them to hear us quarreling.”
“I don’t know what there is to talk about!” says Doreen sharply. “Just bring the kids back when you’re supposed to. I can’t believe you have the nerve to complain about my being a little late on a few occasions when you didn’t even show up half the time for the kids’ big events when we were married. There was Judy’s play, Mark’s little league games, I can go on and on.”
This is extremely hard for Eugene to hear, especially because he knows the kids are in earshot. But he has prepared himself well, and he manages to keep listening to Doreen without interrupting. When he is sure she has finished with all that she wants to say, he summarizes her key points, agrees that there is much merit in what she has to say, and then he adds, “You are right that I was far from an ideal dad in the past. I’m sorry that I disappointed you, myself, and most of all, the kids. I really do want to try to do better. That’s why I’m asking you to meet without the kids to discuss our latest problem. Please tell me a good time for us to do this.”
“I think it’s a waste of time, but how about next Sunday, when you bring the kids back. I’ll have my mom here to watch the kids and we can go for a walk. Is that okay?”
“Thank you, Doreen. I’ll see you then.”
That Sunday, Eugene returns the kids a few minutes early in an effort to make certain he would not be late.
“Thank you for setting this up with your mom,” Eugene says in a pleasant tone as he and Doreen begin their walk. He is making an effort to start their conversation on a positive note. “I know how busy you are.”
“A full time job and raising kids is pretty exhausting,” she replies sounding a bit harried.
“Yes it is, Doreen.”
Doreen then launches into her outrage that Eugene has the nerve to make a big thing about her coming late a few times. “If you bring them home late, it messes up our whole routine and the kids don’t get the sleep they need, and the next day at school they’re wild.”
“I can see your argument is a good one, Doreen. If you bring the kids to me late on Saturday morning it’s just me that loses out. If I bring the kids home late on Sunday, not only are you put out, but the kids get messed up too. What I did without discussing it with you clearly isn’t an acceptable solution to my problem. I should have discussed this with you first. I know I was wrong and I apologize.”
“Well I’m glad you understand,” Doreen replies, her tone beginning to sound a little less angry.
“I do treasure my time with the kids, Doreen. Is there anything you can come up with that you think would be fair when you come late on Saturday morning?”
Doreen again goes into how often he was late in the past. “If I’m late a few times it serves you right for how many times you were late in the past!” she concludes.
As Doreen speaks, Eugene makes sure he does not interrupt her and that he makes it clear he is listening and trying to see the merits and legitimacy in her point of view. He attempts to communicate his understanding of her viewpoint by checking his understanding every few minutes. This involves summarizing what he has heard her say and then pausing to see if she is satisfied with his summary.
As he listens to her list of criticisms, he is tempted to say that she deserves to be punished for all the things she’s done wrong, but he realizes that providing negative criticism to her now would not be a productive approach. Doreen would start to go down her list of all the things he did wrong in the past once again, which he is already well aware of. He could then go down all the things she has done wrong over the years, something he’s already done with her on numerous occasions. In the end, they would end up getting nowhere on the conflict he came to discuss.
“Doreen, I understand why you feel I should be punished for the many mistakes I made over the years. In my mind, I am being punished for them. For example, you got the house, and you know how much I love that place. And I only get to see the children two days a week. Going through the divorce was hard on both of us. Please suggest another way we can work out this lateness problem.”
“Don’t you understand, bringing them back late on Sunday is out of the question.”
“I understand that, Doreen. Can we make up the time some other way?”
“Well, how about this? If you feel I’m dropping them off too late on Saturday morning, tell me and we’ll figure out together when you can make up the time. The kids have some Monday’s off from school every now and then, like Presidents day. Maybe you can make up the time on a Sunday when there’s no school on Monday.”
“I like that idea, Doreen. So, when I feel that I want to make up some lost time I should contact you and arrange a time to make up the time.”
After this issue is agreed upon, Doreen talks a little more about some difficulties she’s having with the kids of late, and Eugene uses his best listening skills. As they return to the house, Eugene again thanks Doreen for agreeing to discuss this problem.
Afterwards, Doreen is much less likely to bring the kids late on Saturday mornings, and when she is late, it’s just a few minutes. Eugene never bothers to ask to make up the time, for it really hasn’t amounted to anything significant. He too, on occasion, has brought the kids back a little late but Doreen understands that this will happen from time to time. Both he and Doreen are pleased with how this conflict had been resolved.
Notice that Eugene, upon focusing on the guilt component of the conflict, came to realize that Doreen not only thought he was wrong for bringing the kids home late on Sunday evening, but also about not listening to her whenever she spoke to him. By improving his listening skills and by apologizing for his mistakes in the past, including bringing the kids home late on a Sunday evening, this helped to reduce the intensity of the conflict. Once this occurred, Doreen became more open to working out a resolution with which both parties felt comfortable.
In sum, the source of power that we have been discussing encourages you to break down the conflict into its three conditions, then to come up with an idea to make a change in just one of them, and then to see if the change might lead to the rest of the conflict becoming easier to manage.
To be an effective source of power, we found that it must be coordinated with the other skills we learned. For example, utilizing the knowledge about the Responding to Criticism Rating System and the Providing Negative Criticism Rating System helped Eugene resolve his conflict with Doreen.
The source of power that has you breakingdown a conflict into its three conditions, like all sources of power, cannot immediately provide a specific plan that will resolve a conflict. Nevertheless, when you are having difficulty resolving a conflict, the perspective that occurs when you focus on just one of the three conditions will often help you to create a valuable plan that might have otherwise been overlooked.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Power, in one sense, is the ability to achieve your desires. In another sense, it is the feeling you get when you have mastered a skill that increases the probability that some desire of yours will be fulfilled. And in yet another sense, it is the feeling that you get when you come to believe that you have the ability to master any skill that will be necessary to achieve your desires as you go along your life path. When people feel confident, they feel powerful. When Lucy steps up on the mound in spring, perhaps she feels that she can take on anything and achieve greatness!
Power and its Connection with Name Calling, Insults and Teasing
Illustration by Deanna Martinez
The reason that people use name calling, insults and teasing is to try to achieve their desires. In my blog post titled “Insults: A Comic Strip Lover’s Guide,” I provide readers with eight typical desires that people seek to achieve by using name calling, insults and teasing. One example that we covered is the desire to get someone to improve. Consider a mother who sees her young boy misbehaving. She desires to get him to improve, so she yells at him, “You little brat, stop that right now!” If the plans that she uses typically achieve her desires, we say that she is a powerful person, or she has a great deal of power. If the plans that she uses make it harder for her to achieve her desires, we picture her as weak and ineffective. Readers of this blog have been learning plans to increase their skill when they are tempted to launch insults at others or when they find that someone is trying to insult them. Learning the sources of power will greatly enhance these skills.
Power and Plans
People who are powerful at achieving their desires create effective plans. They consider multiple options and how each option would impact the achieving of not only the most pressing desire, but their other desires. They consider not only the short term effects of the plan, but the longer term effects as well.
A mother who brutally beats her son to get him to do as he is told may find that in the short term this plan works, but as the boy becomes older, counter to the mother’s long term desires, he rebels, turns violent towards her, and then runs away, never to be heard from again. The mother comes to feel that what she thought was a powerful way to bring up children was her biggest mistake.
Power Plans versus Sources of Power
The term, “plan,” when used here refers to a series of steps that are described in enough detail so that any reasonable person can immediately implement them. Because there are so many different types of situations in which you find your desires popping up, at times you will feel stuck in coming up with a plan.
A “source of power,” as used here, refers to an idea that can help you to come up with a plan even when you feel stuck. Such sources of power, although not specific enough to implement without some creative problem solving, are helpful in fulfilling a wider range of desires than specific plans. Knowledge of the sources of power can turn a feeling of hopelessness into a feeling of challenge.
The “ABCs of Power” List
In the following weeks, we will begin to build a list of sources of power. They will be placed in alphabetical order, beginning with the letter “A.” Once we are done, by keeping the list readily available whenever you feel stuck about how to achieve your desire, you will be able to retrieve the list, and as you go through it, you will find that it can often serve as an aid for creating a promising plan. By spending time familiarizing yourself with the list, you will find that even when you don’t have the list at your fingertips its alphabetical arrangement will aid your recall.
Today, we will cover the first source of power on our list.
“A” is for Advancing Skills
Consider the following Peanuts comic:
Here we see that Charlie Brown insults himself by stating “Rats! Nobody is ever going to like me.” When he says this, he has three related desires—not being lonely during each lunch hour, getting the little red-haired girl to come over and join him for lunch, and getting people to like him.
Charlie Brown, in this example, tries to come up with a plan to fulfill his desires but the only ones that come to him is to insult himself, and going over to the red-haired girl and trying to talk to her. The first of these two plans doesn’t seem to be much help, and the other seems to Charlie Brown to be too likely to make a bad situation even worse. He seems to have fallen into a state of hopelessness.
But let’s pretend Charlie Brown has a list of the ABCs of Power. The list doesn’t supply him instantly with a specific plan, but he can use it to help create a plan. Today he looks at the first item on such a list, and sees it is Advancing Skills. Next to the item is a little description of how it can be used. Thus, it says:
“Advancing skills” as a source of power will refer here to working toward developing a talent that people you care about value. For example, consider the following comic.
Dagwood seems to recognize that making something with his own hands for Blondie has the potential to fulfill his desire that his wife will appreciate him. But we can see from Blondie’s reaction that his current skill level is far from what it will need to be before his desire will be fulfilled.
In contrast to Dagwood’s failed efforts, in the comic below Linus has figured out a way to fulfill his desire that his teacher appreciates his work.
It’s important to recognize that “advancing skill” as a source of power does not require that you have some inborn talent. In most domains many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of individuals’ prolonged efforts to improve performance.
Dagwood’s efforts to create woodworks of art by going into his basement once a year and sloppily throwing something together for Blondie, is not what I’m referring to here. The results of such efforts are unlikely to be truly appreciated.
Spending at least fifteen minutes a few times a week may enable you to develop a set of skills that can help to position yourself as being respected for that skill among the people you know.
Now how might we apply “advancing skills,” as a source of power, to Charlie Brown’s problem?
Well, when I was about Charlie Brown’s age, my family moved in January and I had to start a new school in the middle of the year. Everyone there had already formed into groups of friends and I felt lonely not only during the lunch period, but during much of the rest of my days as well. One day, just so that I would have something to do during the lunch period, I brought three balls with me. I had been practicing the art of juggling for a weeks and had managed to reach a point at which I could get three balls going pretty good, but after a few seconds, I’d usually drop one. I felt that with a little more practice, my performance might become smoother.
Very shortly after I began to practice during the lunch period, some kids came over and watched. Before long they asked if they could give it a try. I obliged. A few began to bring some balls with them to school and during the lunch period we began to practice together. As we did, we began to talk about other things as well and I learned their names, and the place began to feel less lonely.
At the same time, I noticed that quite a few kids liked to play basketball in the schoolyard as soon as they finished their lunch. Up to that point, I hadn’t developed my basketball skills.
Rather than to dive right in and ask to play with the other kids during the lunch period, I began to practice after school at a nearby playground. And even before I was ready to get chosen into games, the fact that I felt I was heading in the right direction by working on a plan made these days far more tolerable than if I believed that I was doomed to be lonely for the rest of my life. It gave me a sense of power, in contrast to a sense of feeling powerless.
When I did venture into some basketball games during lunch, I found that because of the way sides were chosen, I didn’t have to be the best player on the court to be a valued contributor to the team. The players just wanted to be challenged enough so that they had to work to get a basket and to win a game.
“Advancing skill” as a source of power can be used in many ways to achieve your desires. If juggling and basketball don’t interest you, maybe acrobatics, chess or something artistic will.
In addition to helping people who find themselves dealing with the kinds of problems Charlie Brown faces in our example, “Advancing Skills” can be enormously important in other settings. Millions of people in the workforce, for example, have had desires to improve their salaries or the type of work they do and found that advancing their skills led to their desires being fulfilled. And whether you are in a school setting or in the workforce, if you have a desire to improve your interpersonal relationships or your intrapersonal relationship, you can advance your skills for free by following this blog.
In our next blog post, we will look at the second item on the list of the ABCs of Power. Until then, have a great week.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
In my previous post, I offered some suggestions for dealing with criticism. There, I mentioned that in difficult situations I have found it helpful before providing criticism to pause. Because people want to be liked and to be free to make their own decisions, during my pause I think about how to minimize any perceived threat to these two desires.
To practice this skill, I then presented the following Dennis The Menace comic strip:
In my previous post, I pointed out that Gina, the socially clever girl in the comic, noticing a conflict has popped up in her neighborhood, helps out by letting Dennis know how much he is loved at home. I also mentioned that while criticizing Dennis about his room, his mom could have said something like this: “Dennis, I sure love you. It’s so much fun to have you around. It’s getting about that time to clean up your room. Do you want to do it now, or in an hour from now?” By letting Dennis know that she loves him and then giving him a choice, Dennis’s mom could have come off as more loving and less bossy.
A master at dealing with criticism must become highly skilled at addressing concerns about the desire to be loved and to maintain freedom. For this reason, we will be going over many examples of how to address these concerns in coming weeks. As for today, let’s dig a little deeper into the situation illustrated in the above comic.
Digging Deeper
Please take an especially good look at the following panels from the above comic:
It appears to me that Dennis has a conflict with his mother about her desire that he pick up his room. Judging from the expression on Dennis’s mom and dad, they seem to be turning angry over Dennis’s response.
When this type of situation happens in Dennis The Menace comic strips, his parents usually end up responding by making Dennis sit in a corner.
Other parents in this type of situation feel that Dennis should be told that he should not answer back, and that he should be forced to do what he is told to do. If Dennis does not comply, such parents believe Dennis’s parents should beat some sense into him. This type of parenting has been referred to as an authoritarian approach. Critics of an authoritarian approach say that it leads sons and daughters to feel like they are pawns rather than origins.
Illustration by Deanna Martinez
When people feel like pawns, they feel pushed around, and they feel that they are like puppets with someone else pulling the strings. This leads to resentment and recurring conflicts. We get a sense of this resentment in the following comic:
Notice the angry expression on Dennis’s face and his hands balled up into fists.
Feeling like a pawn may be contrasted with feeling like I have an influence over what I do—that I have played at least a part in originating my behavior. We say that when people feel this way they feel like an origin. Parents who help their children to feel like origins, instead of using an authoritarian style of leadership, use an authoritative style of leadership. When we become skillful at using the DIG Conflict Model to deal with criticism and to resolve conflicts, we become authoritative leaders.
So, if Dennis’s parents, Henry and Alice, were skillful at using the DIG Conflict Model, what might that look like?
First, They Would Summarize and Delay.
Henry, realizing that he and Alice have become angry at Dennis’s comment, would very quickly respectfully summarize Dennis’s perspective (See blog post titled Summarize and Delay for a complete description of this approach).
To do this, Henry uses the word DIG to remind him to dig for what Dennis desires in this situation, what Dennis views as interfering with his desire, and what Dennis thinks his mother isguilty of doing wrong. Because he is so well-practiced at this, even though he is angry, Henry does this rather easily.
“Dennis,” says Henry, I think I understand how you are feeling. It looks to me like you desire that Mom will stop telling you to pick up your room. You feel she is interfering with this desire when she tells you that you have to do it. You feel she is guilty of treating you unfairly because I pay her to pick up your room. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Dennis replies, “you pay her to clean up, and it’s not fair that she wants me to do it!”
“Okay, Dennis,” I understand. “Your Mom and I are always interested in what you have to say. We’re going to think about this for a little while, and then Mom and I will discuss this with you some more.”
During this calming-down period, Dennis is not pressured to pick up his room. The topic is dropped.
Second, They Are a Wise Friend to Their Angry Self.
As Henry and Alice leave Dennis, they keep in mind that their angry self does not have to seek to suppress any anger to reach a state of relative calm (see BEING A WISE FRIEND TO YOUR ANGRY SELF). They are confident this will occur naturally without any effort at all. They just listen to what is going on inside of themselves in a caring manner, just like a good friend would, and they are confident that their calm will return.
Now, as Alice and Henry go through this calming period, they notice their angry selves chattering away, saying things like, “That Dennis is acting like an idiot! He is a stupid jerk for making me angry.” Other derogatory statements about the source of their anger come to mind. They realize this is just part of the anger process.
At such times, they simply observe their angry self in a nonjudgmental manner as this is happening. They are as kind to their angry selves as they can be throughout this process—just like a good, compassionate friend would.
Third, After They Calm Down They Map out a Plan.
Once they are in a state of relative calm, Henry and Alice begin to respond to the conditions that led to anger in a more reasonable manner. They calmly discuss the issue with each other, and Alice calls a couple of friends whom she respects to get their take on how this situation can best be handled. Soon they feel comfortable with a plan that they have created.
Fourth, They Carry Out the Plan.
Alice and Henry call Dennis in for a discussion and quickly summarize for him what had happened. Then Alice says, “Dennis, from what happened, I can see that you are starting to get some ideas about Dad giving me money and what I have to do for it. That’s good. Let me explain a little more about how this works.
“When Dad goes to work, he does some things for his boss, and his boss does some things in return for Dad. One thing the boss does is pay Dad some money for the work that Dad does for him. At home, I do some things for Dad, and he, in return, does some things for me. For example, I cook dinner most of the time and wash the dishes. In return, Dad gives me some money, and sometimes he goes to the store to pick up some things I need, or he goes with me to a party. So, you see how it works, Dad does some things for me, and in return, I do things for him.
“Now, your Dad and I do lots of things for you, so it seems to us that it’s only fair that you do some things for us. Here’s some things that Dad and I do for you–we make you meals, we wash your dishes, we take you to parties, we buy you toys, and do lots of other things for you. What do you do in return for us?”
“I go to school,” says Dennis.
“Dennis,” says Henry, “we don’t think that when you go to school it is for us. When you go to school, that helps you to learn to read, count, and stuff like that. Mom and I do things for you. What do you do for us in return?”
After thinking about this, Dennis appears stuck.
“One thing I want you to do for us,” says Alice, “is to pick up your room when I ask you to do it. When it gets messy in your room, I can trip and hurt myself, or I might step on something and break it. I also like the way it looks when the room is all picked up. When I ask you to pick up your room, you don’t have to do it right away if you feel you are busy with something else, but after I ask you, before the end of the day, I want it picked up. Is that fair?”
“I guess so, Mom,” Dennis replies.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
In a recent post (Dealing with Criticism by Digging Deeper) I discussed some difficult situations that may occur when we deal with criticism. There, I mentioned that in these types of situations, it can be helpful to do our best to describe what the criticizer’s most obvious desire is for providing the criticism and then to look to see if there are any other desires that might be involved. To help us to dig a little deeper to find any of the other important desires in a difficult situation, I provided readers with two types of tools to dig, two types of shovels to dig, if you will.
a. look for the desire to be liked or loved.
b. look for the desire to be free to make one’s own decision.
Today, we begin to get some practice utilizing these two shovels.
PRACTICE
Consider the following Dennis the Menace comic:
In this comic, obviously, Dennis’s mother desires that he straighten up his room. What other desires are important to consider? It appears to me that Dennis’s mother is glaring at him. Hmmm?
When a boy hears his mom criticizing him in this way, there’s a chance his desire to be liked will feel threatened. Is there also a chance that there is another important desire in this challenging situation?
As criticism is being provided to us, we often begin to think something like, “I’m not going to let this person push me into doing something I don’t want to do. I’ll do whatever I want, and I don’t need anyone pushing me around.” This stance is part of what we call defensiveness.
EASING THE LIKING PROBLEM
When the desire to be liked and loved raises its mischievous head, we can let the person who has been criticized know that he is liked. This is what Dennis’s friend, Gina, does to lower the intensity of Dennis’s anger in the comic.
When Gina tells Dennis that his mom will cry if he leaves, Dennis is reminded that his mom really does love him.
Then Gina explains to Dennis that not only will his mom miss him, so too will his dad and dog. Dennis ends up deciding to resolve his conflict and go back home. Gina helped to resolve the conflict by focusing on easing the “liking” problem in this conflict.
Now let’s consider what we can do to help to resolve the problems in this situation by focusing on easing the “freedom” problem.
EASING THE FREEDOM PROBLEM
In the Dennis the Menace comic, while criticizing him, his mom could have offered Dennis the freedom to choose between two times to pick up his room. More specifically, she could have said something like this: “Dennis, I sure love you. It’s so much fun to have you around. It’s getting about that time to clean up your room. Do you want to do it now, or in an hour from now?” By giving a child a choice, a parent can come off as less bossy.
To help to come up with these types of ideas, the one thing I tend to do before providing criticism is to pause. Recognizing that I am about to provide criticism, and knowing that people tend to get defensive about not being liked and having their freedom threatened, I think about how to ease any perceived threat to these two desires.
SUMMARY
Many people associate criticism with not being liked.
Many people associate criticism with an attempt to reduce their freedom to make their own decisions.
Once we learn to be skillful at recognizing these types of conflicts, we are in a better position to come up with plans to either resolve them or to lower their intensity. Therefore, in future posts I will be frequently providing examples that allows the reader to practice this skill.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
For the past few weeks we have been discussing how to deal with criticism. As I have noted, because criticism is often accompanied by name calling, insults, threats, and even violence, it can be very hard to handle. Even when criticism is provided in a more supportive manner, threats to our desires to be liked and to be free to do whatever we want can arise, bringing with them feelings of frustration, defensiveness and anger (see post titled WHY IS CRITICISM SO HARD TO BEAR?).
Because these feeling can be so very strong, simply reading about mature ways to respond to criticism, although oftentimes helpful, is not enough to become a master at dealing with criticism. I have therefore been encouraging exercises that lead us to practice the skills sufficiently so that they become so second-nature to us that even in the most stressful situations we can expertly carry them out. One of the best ways to practice these skills is to teach them to children.
Teaching Children to Handle Criticism
You notice your five-year old is not making his “B” correctly. “That’s not quite right,” you say. “Here, watch me.”
As you begin to demonstrate, your child becomes defensive, crumbles up the paper, and shouts, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you.”
“How dare you speak that way to me!” you respond. And the conflict escalates from here.
A parent is often confronted with what William James liked to call the “balky will.” Certain children, if they do not succeed immediately in doing something just right and are then criticized, flare up in anger and refuse to cooperate. Such children are oftentimes treated as sinful and are punished; or else the parent pits his or her will against the child’s will.
John WesleyWilliam James
Some have argued that children should be forced to do as they are told, even if one has to whip them ten times running. “Break its will, in order that his soul may live!” exclaimed John Wesley, an eighteenth century theologian. But William James disagreed. “Such will breaking is always a scene with a great deal of nervous wear and tear on both sides, a bad state of feeling left behind it, and the victory not always with the would-be will breaker.”
When a situation of this kind occurs, and the child is all tense and excited, James believed that it is best to drop the subject for awhile. Direct the child’s mind to something else, and then, a little later on, bring it up again. As likely as not, the child will go over it now without any difficulty.
“It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness in a horse,” said James. “We divert his attention, do something to his nose or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him over a place where flogging would only have made him more invincible.”
Of course, nothing works perfectly all the time, and this technique is no exception. I have found that I can greatly increase the success rate of James’s approach by playing a game with children called “Criticism.” It can be played during car rides, walks in the neighborhood, and waiting for the food to come in a restaurant. To teach your children the game you first have to go over the first four levels of responding to criticism. Let’s take a look at these levels:
Four Levels of Responding to Criticism
Level 1 is viewed as the most immature, and each higher level is viewed as more mature (see HERE and HERE for an explanation of how this model was developed as well as the evidence that utilizing the higher levels lead to more respect by others.
1. This level requires displaying one or more of the following:
Weeps or sobs with tears or pouts without also using level 4 responses
Physically attacks the criticizer
Damages property
2. This level requires displaying one or more of the following:
Insults the criticizer (either with words, hand gestures, the sticking out of a tongue, the rolling of the eyes, or smirks)
Glares at the criticizer
Threatens the criticizer
Punches, kicks, or throws an object without physically hurting someone or damaging anything
Criticizes the criticizer without first fully addressing the original criticism.
3. This level requires displaying one or both of the following:
Displays defensiveness without directly insulting the criticizer (raising voice’s volume or pitch)
Displays a lack of interest either by verbally indicating this, or with nonverbal cues, or complete silence.
4. Level 4 individuals listen to the criticizer in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then make it clear that they fully understand what was said. Moreover, they put the criticizer at ease by making statements that indicate that the wise learn from criticism. Some time is spent on showing that they are thinking about the criticism. If, after thinking about the criticism the criticism is deemed to be correct, they make a statement frankly indicating, “I can see your ideas have merit and I intend to use them in the future.” If they are not sure if they agree, they make a statement indicating that they are very interested in what was said, plan to think a little more about this over the next few days and then they will be ready to discuss this further. If, after thinking about the criticism, the criticism is deemed to be incorrect, a statement is made designed to disagree without being disagreeable. More specifically, a sense of humor, some listening in a caring way and a few smiles help to traverse rough terrain. As the episode winds down, the criticizer is encouraged to feel comfortable communicating suggestions in the future.
Using This Model to Teach Children To Deal With Criticism
It’s important to tell the children first not to worry if they remember everything you are about to tell them because once you start to play, they will catch on before long.
To introduce this game, I like to use the Peanuts comic that has Charlie Brown criticizing Sally’s swirls and Sally getting defensive.
In this comic, when Sally hears Charlie Brown’s criticism of her swirls, it’s not long before Snoopy’s shades are sent flying.
Once you explain what criticism is and then go over the four levels of responding to criticism, you describe a situation in which Charlie criticizes Sally and Sally responds. Then the child guesses what level Sally’s response was at. So, in addition to the example depicted in the above comic, I could say, “Charlie says to Sally, ‘Those sneakers you’re wearing are ugly.’ Sally responds by saying, ‘Oh yeah?! Well what do you know about sneakers? You’re the worst dresser around here, you jerk!’ What level is Sally at?”
After you discuss the child’s answer, then role-play with the child the situation so that you provide the criticism and the child acts out a level four response. If the child fails to do this correctly, reverse the roles by having the child criticize you and you provide the level four response. Then let the child try to imitate your level four response.
I have found that kids, rather quickly, get a thorough understanding of the four levels by playing this game. Once they do, during a typical day I catch them responding to criticism. When I do, I ask them to rate the level of their response. I also try to catch them using a level four response, and then I play up like it’s a big deal that such a young kid can be so mature.
One way to come up with fun descriptions of a character being criticized and another character responding, is to cut out newspaper comics that depict these kinds of scenarios.
Or you can go to the top of this page where it says “Free Book: Dealing with Insults, Teasing, and Criticism” and click on it. This will permit you to download a free PDF book that utilizes, to teach these skills, many of the comics kids of all ages love.
In addition to James’s approach of dropping the subject for awhile and my approach of playing the “Criticism” game, there is one more crucial point I shall make here about teaching children to handle criticism. Children are very dependent on their parents. There is a theory that in the back of the minds of children they are aware of their dependence. They somehow realize that without their parent’s support they would be in big trouble and this is associated with anxiety and even terror. Each time children are criticized by their parents, it brings this fear to the fore of their thoughts, and they can only take so much of it without attempting to banish this fear, either by running away, dreaming magical thoughts, or screaming to drown out the feeling of terror. As a rule of thumb, parents would be wise to say at least ten supportive comments for every one negative critical comment that they make. And if more than two or three negative criticisms have been made in a single day, perhaps it would be wise to put off the next one until the morrow.
Be patient then, and don’t be afraid to drop a subject until a more suitable time. This will make you, not weaker, but a stronger parent. During fun times, teach your children how you expect them to act when criticized. Be on guard against too much negative criticism all at once. And above all, let your children know you love them.
——————————— Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
It’s a Sunday night. Eight-year-old Carl is playing a computer game. Suddenly, his mom cries out, “Time to head up to bed, tomorrow’s school.”
“Don’t ‘but mom’ me, let’s go,” and she takes Carl firmly by his arm and begins to guide him to his bedroom. Carl’s eyes tear up, which infuriates his mother, and she cries out, don’t you start with this crap or I’ll give you a real reason to cry! You’re acting like an infant!!! Now you stop this instant and get to bed!!!”
“I see you are feeling sad. That’s understandable. You were enjoying the game so much, and you’re disappointed about having to stop. You know, when we feel sad, it’s to help us figure out how to better handle what we do in the future. I wonder how we can better handle the going to bed situation in the future. Any ideas, Carl?”
We could also go to the library and pick out some books that have pleasant short stories, and you can read one right before bed. Short stories come to an end in a reasonable period of time, and the reader feels a sense of completion when it’s over, without making you feel like you have to read the next chapter to see what happens next. That might work also. So, in the future, why don’t we try having you each night choose one of these ideas. I’ll let you decide each night which approach feels right to you.”
Suppose a guy named Fred tends to be sad more than the average person. This might be due to some natural born tendency to experience life in a more sensitive manner than most, or because of some rough stuff going on in his life, or some trauma in the past has been leading to recurring anguishing memories. For whatever reason, Fred regularly comes to work expressing his sadness from the look on his face as he goes around doing his job. Co-workers often stop what they are doing to ask what is wrong, and offer help by taking time to listen to Fred in a caring way. This would be nice in some ways, but let’s say it happens so often, coworkers begin to find that their work at the end of the day doesn’t always get done on time and they end up having to stay late. 
Some resentment begins to arise. Moreover, in this scenario, the boss begins to dislike what has been going on partly because of the time being taken from the tasks that have to get done with top-notch efficiency in a competitive business environment, and she was brought up by parents who taught that there is something wrong with people who are sad more than average. In the end, Fred loses his job.
Perhaps Fred, if he could afford it, would be better off hiring a professionally trained personal counselor to help him work through his sad experiences in a positive manner so that he doesn’t put too much on the shoulders of friends and family members. There are, in most communities, some counselors available, and at the top of any of my blog post there is a link titled “Counseling Services” that when clicked on provides descriptions and contact information for two excellent personal counselors that I personally can recommend who conveniently provide services through Skype, Zoom, or your phone.
However, counseling services do cost money, and if it is too expensive for someone’s budget, an alternative is to set up via such internet resources like meetup.com, a support group that meets regularly for the specific purpose of sharing challenging emotional experiences. Of course, the members will be unlikely to have the expertise of a trained personal counselor, but with trial and error it is often very possible to find the right mix of caring, empathic participants.
We’re here to emotionally support one another.
The Provigil made it hard for Laura to sleep, so her pharmacologist prescribed Ambien, which she took every night. In the course of a year, her doctors had created what’s known as “a prescription cascade”: the side effects of one medication are diagnosed as symptoms of another condition, leading to a succession of new prescriptions.
It was at this point that Laura decided to see what would happen if she stopped taking the drugs, and found that the process was an excruciating experience because of the medication withdrawal reactions. It took her many extremely rough months before her goal was achieved.
Prior to coming off the psychiatric drugs, Laura had been unable to have stable relationships. “I honestly thought that, because I was mentally ill, the numbness was just part of me.” Now she wondered about the other effects of the many medications she had been taking. “On this very sensory, somatic level, I couldn’t bond with another human being,” she said. “It never felt real. It felt synthetic.”
From today’s post, I hope that you will consider the value of giving up any belief that you may have that feeling sad means you are bad. If, when you experience sadness, you find yourself saying such words like, “I can’t believe I’m feeling sad again, what an idiot I am,” consider how it may be far more helpful to view your sadness as a useful tool for helping us to better plan our future. If you are a parent, consider the value of teaching your children this “sadness is a helpful tool” idea.
William James explained that certain children, if they do not succeed immediately in doing something just right and are then criticized, flare up in anger and refuse to cooperate. Such children are oftentimes treated as sinful and are punished; or else the parent pits his or her will against the child’s will.
“It is in no other way that we overcome balkiness in a horse,” said James. “We divert his attention, do something to his nose or ear, lead him around in a circle, and thus get him over a place where flogging would only have made him more invincible.”
Well, it just so happens that if you use the William James approach consistently, you really don’t reinforce balkiness because children soon realize that they have not won. They simply come to the understanding that “dropping the subject” does not mean that anyone has won. Instead, they soon connect the “dropping the subject” fact with the “bringing the topic up again later” fact. Dropping the subject, comes to mean their parents will be returning to the subject after they and their parents have some time to calm down and think about the issues in a more calm state.
See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good. Get them habitually to tell the truth, not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honor and veracity. Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy. And, in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol, lay less stress than the books on the drunkard’s stomach, kidneys, nerves, and social miseries, and more on the blessings of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its full youthful elasticity by a sweet, sound blood, to which stimulants and narcotics are unknown, and to which the morning sun and air and dew comes as sufficiently powerful intoxicants. 
The general idea here is that in the arena of the moral life, whenever a positive ideal is aroused, it is as if the whole scale of values change its equilibrium. As James makes this point, he declares that at such times, “The force of old temptations vanishes, and what a moment ago was impossible is now not only possible, but easy.”
Middle school students can read A Hero Grows in Brooklyn on their own, and it can be downloaded on a computer or any of the popular electronic readers for free 
“Be patient, then, and sympathetic with the type of mind that cuts a poor figure in examinations. It may, in the long examination which life sets us, come out in the end in better shape than the glib and ready reproducer, its passions being deeper, its purposes more worthy, its combining powers less commonplace, and its total mental output consequently more important.” 
4. Level 4 individuals listen to the criticizer in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then make it clear that they fully understand what was said. Moreover, they put the criticizer at ease by making statements that indicate that the wise learn from criticism. Some time is spent on showing that they are thinking about the criticism. If, after thinking about the criticism the criticism is deemed to be correct, they make a statement frankly indicating, “I can see your ideas have merit and I intend to use them in the future.” If they are not sure if they agree, they make a statement indicating that they are very interested in what was said, plan to think a little more about this over the next few days and then they will be ready to discuss this further. If, after thinking about the criticism, the criticism is deemed to be incorrect, a statement is made designed to disagree without being disagreeable. More specifically, a sense of humor, some listening in a caring way and a few smiles help to traverse rough terrain. As the episode winds down, the criticizer is encouraged to feel comfortable communicating suggestions in the future.
