Tag: Calvin and Hobbes

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Dealing with Criticism: A Calvin and Hobbes Lesson

For most of us, improving our skills at dealing with criticism takes some practice. If we do this in a safe situation in which we will not expose ourselves to potential embarrassment, we can think more clearly about what is going on.  Once we become very clear about how we would like to handle various situations involving criticism, it becomes easier to apply these skills during actual critical moments.

In several previous posts, I presented ideas about recognizing when subtle forms of criticism are occurring. Let’s apply this skill as we study the following delightful comic:

Calvin and Miss Wormwood

calvin1

First Task: Here we see Miss Wormwood asking Calvin to put his stuffed tiger in his locker. As she does so, is she at the same time providing any negative criticism? Take a few seconds to answer this question and see if you can provide a defense of your position.  After you have completed your answer, I’ll provide mine.

calvin2

My Answer: In my view, Miss Wormwood does provide Calvin negative criticism when she asks him to put away his “tiger” in his locker.  It is an implied form of negative criticism, but negative criticism nevertheless.  My reason is that it seems to me that Miss Wormwood has evaluated where Calvin has placed his “tiger,” she doesn’t like it, and she has decided that she would prefer it to be placed instead in his locker.

You may recall that according to Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary “criticize” means, “1: to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly : EVALUATE”

Because “criticism” is so often associated with an unfavorable evaluation, to avoid confusion, on this blog we have been distinguishing between the various types of criticism by using the word negative criticism for unfavorable evaluations, neutral criticism for evaluations that leave the evaluator feeling neither positive nor negative about what has been evaluated, and positive criticism for favorable evaluations.

Second Task: In the next panel of the comic, Calvin responds to Miss Wormwood’s criticism.  Please take a good look at how he does so:

 calvin a

Below, I’m going to provide the first 4 levels of maturity for responding to criticism.  If you will, take a look at them and see what level best describes Calvin’s response.  After you answer, you’ll be able to compare it to mine:

Four Levels of Responding to Criticism

1.  This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

  • Weeps or sobs with tears or pouts
  • 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.

Okay, I’m hoping you will now make your decision at what level best matches Calvin’s response.

My Answer:  I think that somewhere between a level 2 and a level 3 makes sense to me.  Calvin appears to be shouting at Miss Wormwood, which is clearly in the level three description. At the same time it seems to me that he criticizes his teacher’s criticism without first fully addressing her original criticism, which is clearly in the level 2 description.  If I was rating Calvin’s response I would give him a 2.5. His response would have matched a higher level if he would have had something like the following exchange with his teacher:

“Miss Wormwood, I know you like to have everything we bring to show and tell put away after we’re done with that.  How come?

“This way people won’t be tripping over stuff and the class is more neat.”

“Oh, that makes sense.  But I don’t like to put Hobbes in the locker because he might suffocate.  Can you please make an exception today.”

If Calvin had this type of conversation with his teacher, he would have first made sure he understood his teacher’s criticism and then respond directly to what her position was.  Only after doing this, Calvin would have then moved on to respectfully make his request.  Such an approach would have done an excellent job matching the level 4 description.

Third Task:  In the above comic, when Calvin finishes up his response to Miss Wormwood’s criticism, he criticizes her polite request to put his “tiger”in his locker by crying out that “He’ll suffocate!”  Miss Wormwood then responds to this criticism.  Take a good look at her response:

calvin a

I would now like you to see if you can decide what level of responding to criticism best matches Miss Wormwood’s response.  To help you out, you can check the 4 levels that I already provided above, and, below, I’m going to also provide the description of level 5, which is the most mature level.

LEVEL FIVE.  In addition to actions consistent with level 4, people responding to criticism in a manner consistent with level 5 seek ways to use, whenever they disagree with the criticism, a technique known as steering in the direction the criticizer would prefer to go.  That is, rather than just disagreeing without being disagreeable, the criticized person seeks to find a new choice of action that creatively utilizes some aspect suggested from the criticism.  Steering cannot be incorporated into all situations, but it is an additional goal of the most mature individuals.

My Response: As I go about considering what level I would assign her response, first I notice that Miss Wormwood has not hit Calvin or put him down in any way and has heard out what Calvin had to say. Her response makes it pretty clear that she understands Calvin’s concern because she is no longer asking him to put Hobbes in his locker and has instead made a request that may be more agreeable to Calvin. This turns out to be a modified request Calvin can live with. Miss Wormwood has offered this change in her request even though she is unlikely to have agreed with Calvin that his stuffed tiger will suffocate if he is put in a locker.

Miss Wormwood uses steering in the direction the criticizer would prefer to go in coming up with her response. I’m rating her response pretty close to a 5.

Well, I hope you had some fun with this little practice session.  Until next time, may you find all of your criticism experiences a window to wisdom.

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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.

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LEARNING TO HANDLE CRITICISM MATURELY: A PRACTICE SESSION UTILIZING COMIC STRIP EXAMPLES

In an earlier post, eight reasons were given for why someone might criticize or insult you. Becoming familiar with the various reasons is helpful because once you identify the reason, it becomes easier to choose a plan to maturely deal with the criticism.  If you see that someone is just playfully teasing you, just a smile may be all that is needed as a response.  If someone is criticizing you because he or she is in a bad mood, all that might be needed is a gentle, sympathetic response such as, “Is everything okay?”

One of the most frequent reasons why people might criticize you is to encourage you to make some type of improvement.  For example, let’s say we’re going out to dinner at a fancy restaurant. I see that you have a stain on your shirt.  I might say, “Your shirt has a stain on it.”  In this example, I criticized your shirt because I want to encourage you to change your shirt for something that I think would be an improvement.

When we discussed handling this type of criticism, I proposed that there were:

Five levels of maturity for responding to this type of criticism (see posts titled RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY and RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: THE MOST MATURE LEVEL).

and

Five levels of maturity for providing this type of criticism (see post titled PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY).

Today we will have some fun practicing identifying what level of maturity is being displayed by a comic strip character and then describing what the character would have to do to earn a more mature rating.  By diligently working on the following exercises, you will find that you will be far better at applying these skills to real life situations.

Exercises with Comics

These exercises require that you read a comic and then respond to one or more questions.  After you create each of your answers, you will have the opportunity to compare it to how I would go about analyzing the situation.

Here’s an interesting one.  Linus criticizes his sister, Lucy, in the hope that this will encourage her to make an improvement. How would you rate Lucy’s response to Linus’s criticism?

Linus and Lucy MY ANSWER:Of the FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY FOR RESPONDING TO CRITICISM, the lowest level is described as follows:

1.  This level requires displaying one or more of the following:

  • Weeps or sobs with tears or pouts
  • Physically attacks the criticizer
  • Damages property

Because Lucy hits Linus, she deserves a rating of 1, the lowest level of maturity.

It is interesting that after she hits Linus, Lucy does begin to ask for more information about the criticism he had provided.  This is encouraging from a developmental point of view.  It suggests that Lucy is at least trying to come to some understanding about the criticism.  Mature individuals do process the criticism they receive rather than just ignore it.  But once Lucy has shown Linus that she is likely to slug him when he provides her criticism, he is unlikely to be willing to provide her even more criticism out of fear he would get slugged again.  And so, even though Lucy is interested in learning more about this “talking too much” issue, she may not get a fair and accurate report.  The fact that we silence people from providing important information to us when we hit them is one of the reasons hitting leads to a very low rating.  Wise people encourage criticism rather that discourage it.

Although Lucy’s interest in the criticism does suggest that maturity is beginning to blossom within her, the rating system calls for a rating of 1 if she hits someone regardless of what else she does.  However, if you would like to give her a little higher rating because she shows some real interest in the criticism, that’s fine with me.

In the next comic, Charlie Brown is provided two types of criticism, first positive and then negative.  How would you rate each of Charlie’s two responses?

Charlie and patty
My Answer: As Patty is telling Charlie what’s on her mind, he seems to be smiling, and then he says, “Well, thank you, Patty…I appreciate the compliment.”  This seems to be very consistent with a level 4 response.

Patty then replies, “Don’t mention it…I think that’s the least a person can say about you…”  Charlie appears to be offended by this.  There is a hint of a lowered eyebrow in the final picture (Mr. Shultz often used a lowered eyebrow to convey anger).  Also, Charlie’s mouth is wide open, and the word, “LEAST” is in bold letters, followed by an exclamation mark.  I’m going to give Charlie’s second response a 3 because it matches the level 3 description, which states:

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. 

I think Charlie’s response matches level 3 because he made it pretty clear to Patty, without hitting her or calling her any names, that he has become defensive as a result of her second criticism.  If Charlie had said the same words, but with a twinkle in his eyes, followed by a friendly smile, I would have given his response pretty close to a level 4.

Let’s do a Calvin and Hobbes comic; they’re so much fun.  As you read it, please take a look to see how Susie handles Calvin’s criticism and then give her response your rating.

Calvin1My Answer: After Calvin criticizes Susie’s statement about Hobbes looking cuddly by saying, “HA!”she does not cry, hit Calvin, destroy any property, insult or glare at him, nor does she indicate that she is uninterested in his criticism, so she doesn’t deserve to get a 1, 2, or 3 rating for her response.  She begins by saying, “Ferocious?”  This indicates to me that she has heard at least a part of the criticism and is giving it some thought.  Summarizing the criticism is one way to show that whatever was said by the criticizer has been heard, and this is an important part of a level 4 response (“…the person criticized makes it clear that he or she fully understands what was said.”).

Later in her response, Susie indicates that she disagrees with Calvin’s criticism by saying, “No, he’s not.  He’s a big cutie.”  Then she hugs Hobbes and smiles sweetly.

Level 4 responses permit people to disagree, but it must be done without being disagreeable.  I’m not sure if Calvin completely sees Susie’s style of disagreeing with him as not being disagreeable, but it strikes me as rather sweet.

In the last scene, Calvin and Hobbes argue and Hobbes says, “I was beguiled by her feminine charms, yow.”  Because we, the readers, know Hobbes is really a stuffed animal, the words of Hobbes really are designed to capture a little of how Calvin feels inside.  Thus Calvin recognizes at some level that Susie’s responses in the interaction he had with her were somewhat beguiling.  I guess I’m leaning toward giving Susie a rating pretty close to a level 4.  She could have been a little warmer to Calvin and showed some empathy for his desire to have a stuffed tiger that looks ferocious, so I’ll remove some fraction of one off her level 4 rating and give her a 3.8.  If Susie was a student of mine, I’d provide her rating in the following format—“I gave you 4 points because your plan best matches the level 4 description, and then I subtracted .2 points because you didn’t show you fully understood Calvin’s criticism.  Therefore you earned a 3.8.”

In the following Baby Blues comic the wife is angry about something.

cluelessIt looks pretty obvious to me that the wife is angry because her husband is relaxing while she is doing one chore after another.  Pretend that you are her and you decide to criticize your husband.  This leads you to pause to consider how you are inclined to do this.  You see within yourself that you plan to act nasty to him.  Please rate that plan and then see if you can come up with something more mature.

My Answer: If I was imagining I was the wife in this situation, I would rate the plan that is used in the comic a 2 because it best matches the level 2 description:

This level requires displaying one or both of the following:

  • The criticizer does not explain what the offending behavior is, but instead expresses displeasure with glares, insults, shouting, silence, or threats that do not involve bodily harm
  • Threatens bodily harm regardless of what else is said

In seeking to figure out a more mature response, I think I might end up creating something like this— I’d say to my husband, “When I’m cleaning around the house and you are relaxing, I prefer that you get up and get your own drink.  Are you okay with that?”  Then I would listen to his response in a caring manner, show him that I heard what he said, and then, if I wanted to provide some additional negative criticism to him because I disagreed with his response, I would pause to rate the response I am inclined to make, and try to create something more mature.

Well, this concludes our little practice session for today.  I hope you had some fun.

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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.

 

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A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE FOR TRANSFORMING ANGER INTO CHALLENGE

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.

Calvin flood2Here 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”).

clavin dadLet’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.positives and negatives  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.

dilbert alternativesNot 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.  open mindThis 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.  FranklinAnd 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.

LUANN Tweek 1LUANN Tweek 2Thus, 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.

nate teacherAs 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:

  1. Use at least a level four response whenever the teacher criticizes him
  2. Continue doing what he had been doing.

positives-negatives-12575202After 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.  changeCarl 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.

role playBefore 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.

classroomInterestingly, 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.