Tag: respect

How I Met Cool Steve

Regular readers of this blog know that to illustrate an idea, I usually utilize a comic strip or a brief parable. To fully integrate all of the ideas that appear in the blog, I’ve created a coming of age trilogy of novels that is set in Brooklyn that my students over the years have coined The Cool Steve Stories, because one of the main characters is “Cool Steve.”

Novels are perfect for illustrating subtle ideas but the vast majority of blog readers have no desire to read a post that long. And so, to deal with this challenge, from time to time I post a short story based on a chapter from one of my novels.

Today’s short story is an abbreviated version of a chapter from the second novel in the trilogy, Fights in the Streets, Tears in the Sand.

How I Met Cool Steve

When I graduated from Boody Junior High back in the sizzling summer of 1965, I had one major problem—every time I tried to get the kids to respect me I ended up making more and more enemies. If you would have asked me back then why respect was important to me, well, I guess I would have muttered a few of my choicest Brooklyn curses and then, well, I guess I would have said, “All I know is that when people treat me with respect it feels good, and when people treat me disrespectfully it feels like I ate something rotten. So there! Ya wanna make somethin’ out of it?!”

* * *

That summer, I moved to a new neighborhood and I was going to start a new school—Lincoln High. I figured no one knows me there, so this is my big chance to turn myself around.

My new neighborhood was pretty cool. It was just a few blocks from the beach and Coney Island. In ten minutes I could walk to the Cyclone, far and away the greatest roller coaster ever.

And so, I began summer vacation feeling hopeful, but as the new school year began to close in on me, I started getting pretty nervous. And when the day before school arrived I’m sitting in my room strumming my guitar while thinking about getting real sick for a few years. I wonder how long I could play up that angle to avoid school altogether. My stomach’s been out of whack for the past few days anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to take it up another level.

Each lick of my guitar is a pounding of my old enemies, and then, all of a sudden, notions of respect get thrown in as well, creating a wild, pounding drum beat in sync with my wild, pounding heart. My strumming gets louder.

Hey, maybe I can get some respect for my musical talent.

“Jeff, quiet down in there!” Mom screams. “For crying out loud, you’re giving me a headache!”

“You’re giving me a headache!” I scream back while throwing my guitar down on my bed. I storm out of my apartment and pound the elevator call button. When it arrives, I punch the lobby button and then start kicking the walls.

* * *

Once in the street, I walk aimlessly as steam hisses out of my ears. Along Ocean Parkway I pass Lincoln High and shudder. Under the Belt Parkway overpass I notice pigeons up in the beams hiding in crevices. As I continued on with my walk, slowly I begin to settle down.

* * *

Well, you can kiss that summer vacation goodbye, I say to myself while setting my alarm clock so I won’t be late for my first day at Lincoln. Within minutes of shutting my light, worries begin to invade my mind, buzzing about like flies. Man, school’s gonna suck!

Sleepless minutes go by like hours, and hours stretch out into eternities. I check my alarm clock at midnight, again at one and two.

And then, suddenly, an idea explodes upon me, followed by madly rushing thoughts. That’s it! That’s it! At Lincoln I’ll first play a real quiet type and not reveal anything about myself. And while I do that, I’ll secretly carry out a careful investigation to determine who the kids at Lincoln already respect. By keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut, I bet I can learn something useful before the kids get to know me.

But moments after this plan has rolled in with its initial high hopes, a dark cloud of doubt begins to cast its dismal shadow. Yeah, well if I carry out that stupid plan everyone’s gonna think I’m just copying the guy everyone respects. I’ll be nothing but a rotten copycat.

More tossing and turning. Three o’clock comes and goes.

And then, suddenly I sit up in bed fully awake, and my mind cries out, Wait! There was this director I worked with in a play once and I remember him saying how a great actor takes what he learns from other actors and then brings something of himself to a role, something that makes it fresh and unique. Maybe I can create something new based on someone else. Maybe.

* * *

I arrive on my first day at Lincoln at seven-twenty a.m., with a pencil, a loose-leaf notebook, and a sensationally queasy stomach. Out front students are gathered together in clusters. So far I don’t see anyone I know. Good.

Most students are dressed in outfits that appear more freshly bought than what is seen by mid-school year. The stores offering back to school sales must have had a banner year.

The first bell rings and resonates deep in my unsettled bowels. In unison, students head for their homeroom. I look down at my class schedule that I received in the mail a few weeks ago. It indicates in distinct black typewriter letters that I have to go first to HOMEROOM 324. Okay, I guess that means I better find a stairway up to the third floor. Man, I thought my junior high had big crowded hallways. They were minor league compared to this!

Here’s an up-stairway. As I traipse along, I try to listen to the conversations going on around me to see if I can find some clue about who the kids respect. There are a couple of cute girls in front of me.

“Did you see the Beatles last night on the Ed Sullivan show?” asks one.

“Definitely!”

“Who do you like better, John Lennon or Mick Jagger?”

“Oh, John’s my dreamboat!”

“Don’t you think Mick’s cuter?”

It looks like the ladies go for rockers, I think to myself. Maybe I ought to start practicing guitar more.

* * *

A couple of periods later, I’m heading to biology and some guy behind me says to someone next to him, “Hey, Cool Steve’s in my health class!”

“Cool Steve! Really?!

“Yeah! He sat right next to me.”

“Damn! Hey, tell him I say hi.”

There’s an excitement that accompanies this dialogue that somehow has me going, hmmm.

* * *

Lunchtime. I’m not really hungry, but my schedule says that’s where me and hoards of others are supposed to go so we find the down stairwell and dutifully march along.

Harsh smells of recently mopped floors, day old tuna, sour milk, low grade cheeseburgers, and the like kick my appetite for a loop.

Where should I sit? Remember to keep a quiet profile. There are some cool looking kids at this table. I start to sit down.

“Sorry, we’re saving these seats for some friends,” says one of the guys.

I nod and move on. Man, I hate school.

A few tables away, I spot an open seat next to a kid reading a story in Sports Illustrated with a great shot of Mickey Mantle. The Mick’s neck and forearms are bulging as he’s clobbering a monster home run.

“Anybody got this seat?” I ask while preparing myself for another rejection.

Looking up from his magazine, the guy looks me over for a couple of seconds, and then replies, “Sit down. I’m Cliff Schweitzer.”

“Hi Cliff, thanks. I’m Jeff Star.”

“Hi, Jeff. Say, who do you have for history?”

After checking my schedule card, I answer, “Mr. Lofton.”

“Is he any good?”

“I don’t know. I have him for the first time in a couple of periods from now.”

“I got stuck with Mr. Putzmeister,” Cliff says mournfully.

“Putzmeister!” I reply with a smile. “That his real name?”

“Yeah, and never was there a more fitting name for a teacher. I got to get out of there. He is so boring!”

“Well, it’s history, Cliff. How interesting can it be?”

“History is my favorite class, Jeff. My dad’s a history professor at New York University so that’s what we both love. And now to get stuck with Mr. Putzmeister!” This kid, Cliff, is digging his fingernails into his forehead like he’s getting ready to commit suicide.

“Try talking ta someone in the office. All you’re interested in is history?”

“Well, to me, a branch of history is ‘The world of sports,’ and I love sports. In fact, I’m writing a column for the school newspaper. It’s called the ‘Sports Scene.’ The first issue comes out on Friday. Check it out. Let me know what you think.”

While we’re talking, we hear a kid from a nearby table, yelling, “Ya wouldn’t dare do this ta Cool Steve! Why ya doing it ta me?”

I turn to Cliff. “That’s the second time I heard this name, Cool Steve. You wouldn’t happen ta know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” he answers, referring to one of the junior high schools that feed into Lincoln. “I guess most of the kids who know him, know him from there.”

“There seems to be some kind of respect thing connected to him.”

“Respect? Steve? Well, yeah.”

“You respect him?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How come?”

“Well, I guess for me it’s got something to do with the fact that he’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known. In baseball he’s got explosive power and a rocket arm, and in football he’s got lightning speed and incredible hands. He’s… he’s history in the making. He’s just incredible, I mean incredible! But, um… I got a feeling people would respect Steve even if he wasn’t so great in sports.” Then Cliff’s voice kind of trails off and he looks like he’s searching for a more complete answer, but before he gets to it, a guy sitting beside him asks to borrow his Sports Illustrated.

“Let me just finish this story,” Cliff responds, and he quickly buries his nose in his magazine.

* * *

After school lets out, I walk to Rocco’s Pizzeria over on Brighton Beach Avenue. Rocco is fixing up a new pie. I take in deeply the familiar aroma of baking dough, oregano, cheese, and Rocco’s underarms.

With two slices in hand, I discover none of the tables are empty. At one of them is this guy Brainy George sitting by himself with his blond hair looking like it hasn’t been combed in months. I had met him earlier in the day in my gym class and noticed he sat at the same lunch table as Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer. “How come they call him Brainy George?” I had asked one of the guys in gym.

“Da guy’s a freakin’ genius,” came the reply.

With nowhere else to sit, I ask if he’d mind if I sat across from him.

He looks up with these large thick glasses and nods his okay. “You were in gym today,” he says as I sit down.

“Yeah.”

“I hate gym.”

“You do?”

“Can’t stand it—all the idiots trying to prove they’re Mr. Atlas.”

“Hmmmm.” Personally, to me gym is a whole lot better than the rest of the garbage we gotta take at school. Rather than saying this I maintain my quiet portrayal. The pizza is still a bit hot so I blow on it and take my first bite. Mmmmm! “What junior high did you go to?” I ask.

“Cunningham.”

“That’s the same junior high as this kid Cool Steve. I guess ya think he’s an idiot since he’s into sports.”

“Steve? Naaa. Steve’s different than the guys I’m talking about.”

“Izzat so?”

“Yeah. I like Steve because, well first of all, he’s not one of those idiots who pick on me because I can’t run as fast as the other guys. And I like the way Steve’s gutsy. He’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. And it’s the way he carries himself… the way he moves. I don’t know… I… I just have a lot of respect for Steve.”

There’s that word again—‘respect.’ Well, being gutsy shouldn’t be too hard, I think to myself. Hell, I was gutsy enough to get into lots of fights in my old school. But I don’t quite know what to make of this stuff about the way Steve moves.

* * *

My second day at Lincoln—the wide-eyed exuberance of students on day one has turned into a ‘Do I really have to be here?’ look.

After finishing my lunch, I go sit on the steps of Lincoln’s main entrance. It’s warm and the sun is shining. Several students including Cliff Schweitzer, the sports writer, and Brainy George, the genius, come by and sit down next to me. With them are these two attractive girls.

I find myself magnetically pulled toward the girls. How can I get introduced? Be careful. You don’t want to blow the quiet image.

I nudge George and conspicuously look at each of the girls.

First, he points to the one closest to him, “She’s Sandy.” Sandy’s cute, with apricot-tan shoulders, a peachy complexion, and long, wavy, sandy-blond hair. She glances at me and smiles.

Then George, he points to the girl sitting next to Sandy. “That’s Mysterious Jane.”

“Mysterious Jane?” I ask.

“Well, they call Mysterious Jane, Mysterious Jane, because she’s strange,” George explains.

She might be strange, I think to myself, but she’s gorgeous. She has long, straight, glossy black hair that slightly covers her prominent cheekbones, and falls freely upon her voluptuous shoulders and breasts. Her green, almond shaped eyes have a thin line of black mascara and perhaps within these glimmering eyes there is a hint of some sort of mysteriousness.

Jane looks at me, gives me a slight nod, and resumes a conversation that she is having with George.

All of a sudden something catches Sandy’s attention and she cries, “Who’s that gorgeous guy?”

Mysterious Jane turns with her large green eyes in the direction that Sandy is looking—down the steps and off to the right. She lets out a long sigh. “Oh, that’s Cool Steve.”

“Ain’t he built!” Sandy squeals. “You know him?”

“Yeah, from Cunningham,” Jane replies. “All the girls were nuts about him because, well, a lot of the girls say it’s because he’s so cute. And he is cute, especially his eyes. I l-o-o-v-e his eyes.” This is followed by a moan and she then drifts off into another dimension.

Sandy pokes Mysterious Jane, returning her back to Earth. Jane looks over to Sandy, lowers her voice to an eerie whisper and says, “If you want to know the truth, the real reason all the girls are crazy about Steve is because he moves with the grace and power of a large panther, but he has far more power than any panther you’ve ever seen.”

I think to myself, that Mysterious Jane, she’s strange!

Watching Steve down the steps, I can’t notice him moving in any special way. I do notice that he’s tall with dark eyes and hair, like me. But compared to me, Steve is broader and has more of a Paul Newman nose.

Well, I refuse to get my nose fixed, but if I put on a few pounds and start lifting weights, I bet it might help. I’m way too skinny.

“Aaaaa, he’s nothing special,” I declare, feeling a little jealous of the way the girls are looking at him.

“All of the students sitting on the steps turn to me. “Nothing special,” says Mysterious Jane with a smile, and with that, everyone around me laughs.

* * *

A couple of hours later I’m walking out the south side exit of Lincoln heading home for the day. Man, I’m pissed! I can’t believe how much homework that stupid biology teacher gave me! Suddenly I hear, “Hey, Jeff Star!”

I turn to my left and spot Cliff calling after me. “Jeff, that guy Steve you were asking about,” Cliff calls out, “well, here he is.”

There, standing by Cliff is Cool Steve with a smile on his face. As I walk over, I’m feeling a completely unfamiliar nervousness. What’s he smiling about? I think to myself. Cool Steve! Cool Idiot if you ask me. And then, when I open my mouth, I find myself saying in a loud tough voice, “So you’re Steve. I’ve been hearing about you. The word is you’re a Jerk!”

As I glare at Steve, with his Mack Truck shoulders, my heart pounds furiously. From the corner of my eye I notice Steve’s friend, Cliff, watching on, his mouth closed so tight he seems to have no lips. His words from yesterday come to mind—“Steve’s the best athlete I’ve ever personally known.”

Big deal! I’m ready to go at him.

I’m waiting for an angry come on, or a quick jab from his right. My muscles are as tight as a hangman’s noose.

I notice several students who were walking home from school have put on their brakes, and their eyes are flashing back and forth between me and Steve.

Steve’s eyes lower, his forehead creases. Then his eyes look into mine and I see, instead of fury, sadness. “I guess,” he begins to say haltingly, “well… I was hoping… you know… starting a new school here… well, I was hoping the guys would like me.”

Those dark, glimmering eyes of his….

“Jeff,” says Cliff, “why did you say that?”

My eyes dart to him and back to Steve. Cold perspiration beads up on my forehead. The students looking on are almost drooling. What should I do?

Uncomfortably, I find myself shifting my stance as I look into Steve’s eyes…the sadness there…eyebrows down. They look like they are on the verge of becoming watery as he looks directly into my eyes, then down, and then back up into mine. My fury begins to turn into a feeling of downright stupidity. “Listen Steve, I… I don’t know why I said that… everyone I talked wit’ said you were okay.” I take a quick glance at Cliff and the other students watching on…and then hurry away.

* * *

A few minutes later, I’m pushing the elevator button in my apartment lobby. Jeez, I just made a great impression, I think to myself, a wonderful great impression. Steve’s eyes… man, who is this guy?

In junior high, whenever I started to put someone down, I got returned insults and fistfights. Such reactions would turn me into a raving lunatic. Now, with the way Steve acted, I don’t know how to respond to his quiet sadness.

——————————-

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.

Tags anger, bully, conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, Cool Steve, criticism, disrespectful, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Mickey Mantle, psychological maturity, respect, The Beatles, violence, wisdom

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TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 20, 2013
12 Comments on TOUCHING WHILE TRYING TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS: IS THERE A PLACE FOR IT?

The chief executive officer (CEO) in the Dilbert comic strip is the bald-headed guy. He has been having quite a few conflicts with his workers. After trying some new approaches to resolve these conflicts, he decides to see if touching might help:

Apparently, one of the CEO’s workers likes the way it feels when he is patted on his head. I don’t think I would like my boss to pat me on my head. Nevertheless, I do wonder if touching someone in certain ways during a conflict may be helpful at times.

When I was growing up, my mother and some of my male acquaintances would use physical contact during a conflict with me in the form of hitting. They did this to try to force me to do whatever they wanted me to do. But in this post, I’m not going to discuss that type of physical contact.

I also received some forms of physical contact in a few non-conflict situations. Affectionate close relatives would hug me when saying hello. In my early days my friends and male cousins would roughhouse in a fun manner. These occurred without any real conflict. Today, I have something very different in mind.

One of the ways I recall someone touching me during a conflict occurred when I was sixteen years old. I was on the Lincoln High baseball team and I happened to show up a little late for practice.

Soon after I arrived, my coach took me off to the side so we could talk in semi-privacy. The other players could still see us, but they were far enough away so that what my coach had to say was just for my ears.

He first looked down at the ground for a long 30 seconds or so, and then he looked squarely into my eyes while putting his hand softly on the back of my shoulder. In a soft voice, he said, “Jeff, I see you as one of the leaders on this team. I’m hoping this is the last time you come late for practice. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Coach,” I replied. “I’m real sorry about being late.”

He then patted me on my back and said, “OK, Jeff, now go take some fielding practice, and I want to see you hustling out there.”

“You bet, Coach!”

Now, at the time, it never even crossed my mind that my coach had done anything that anyone could possibly think of as wrong. When I was growing up, in sports touching occurred all the time. A coach might put his arm around you while he gave you some instructions.

If you made a nice play, the coach and your team mates might pat you on the arm or back, or even on your rear end.

And both male and female athletes and coaches would give each other enthusiastic hugs.

My baseball coach had done something a little different when he touched me. Usually touching in sports occurred during the rough and tumble of a game or as a sign that you did something good. My baseball coach had touched me, not for any of those two reasons, but because he was trying to work out a conflict he was having with me. And it worked. I never came late again, and not only did I not think he did anything wrong, I found that I had an increased amount of respect for him because of the way he handled the situation.

Soon after, I found myself reflecting upon what he did. He spoke to me in relative privacy. When he began, he looked down in a way that I could tell that what I did led to him feeling unhappy. And then, when he looked into my eyes and said that he felt that I was viewed as one of the team leaders, there was something about what he said and how he said it that led me to feel that he genuinely liked me. At the same time, he told me what he wanted me to do in the future in very clear terms–to be on time for practice.

After that incident, I found myself often using a similar approach, and I found it very helpful. As a result, I didn’t think there could be any problem with it. But as the years went on, from time to time I have heard individuals complain about someone touching them in similar situations and not liking it. And so, I began to ask some questions to see if I could come to understand the reasons for our experiences being so very different.

One teenager whom we will call Judy told me that a guy at school made a suggestion to her that made her very angry.

“Then what happened,” I asked.

“How did you feel about the way the guy handled the situation?” I asked.

“I didn’t like the way he touched me,” Judy replied. “He squeezed my shoulder and it felt threatening.”

“Hmmm,” I replied. “Something about the way he squeezed your shoulder felt uncomfortable. I see. What if he just touched you gently in the back of your shoulder while saying what he said? Would you have felt more comfortable with that?”

Judy thought about this for a few seconds and then looked up at me and smiled. “That would have been okay,” she replied. “There was something about the way he actually touched me that felt creepy, and I didn’t like it at all.”

Although Judy said that if the boy would have touched her gently on the back, she would have felt okay about that, I have heard some other folks say that they don’t like to be touched at all.

So what do we do about this? Do we stop touching everyone in these types of situations because some people feel uncomfortable with being touched? Do we begin to think about what kinds of touching might be okay, and what types of touching is not okay?

I really can’t answer this type of question for everyone. It would be very helpful if readers over the next few weeks share with us their thoughts about this, so we have more information to judge. In the meantime, I will say this. If you do try the touching approach with someone, I think you would be wise to watch carefully how the other person is reacting. If the person begins to appear tense, with a crinkling of the forehead, a stiffening of the body or by pulling away from the touch, I encourage you to back off and offer an apology. Perhaps saying something like this might be helpful, “I sense that you don’t like me to touch you. I’ll keep that in mind in the future and respect your feelings. I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable.” Then, a gentle smile might ease some of the tension.

Well, I hope this post gives you some ideas to think about, and, as always, I hope to be reading your comments real soon.

Have a great week,

Jeff

——————————-

Tags coach, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, insults, psychological maturity, respect, touching, wisdom

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

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 6, 2013
1 Comment on 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.

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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Tags alternatives, anger, Benjamin Franklin, Calvin and Hobbes, challenge, comic strip, conflict management, conflict resolution, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, respect, wisdom

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ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 1, 2013
7 Comments on ANGER SUPPRESSION VERSUS CHALLENGE

Despite the ample evidence that anger is fraught with danger, human debasement, and ineffective functioning, many people seem reluctant to put their heart and soul into learning more effective alternatives. Why is this? One of the biggest reasons is that our culture presents in both direct and subtle ways the theory that suppressing anger can be harmful. Here we will explore this theory. As we do so, we will learn that we can, if we so choose, sail from the region of Anger to Challenge—and thereby improve our chances for survival and a safer and more pleasant ride on the great Sea of Conflict.

SUPPRESSING ANGER

According to Sigmund Freud, if anger reactions are inhibited, they are replaced by substitutes, some of which may lead to harm. In The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud, (Strachey, 1974), the clearest statement about this appears below:

When Bismarck had to suppress his angry feelings in the King’s presence, he relieved himself afterwards by smashing a valuable vase on the floor. This deliberate replacement of one motor act by another corresponds exactly to the replacement of natural pain-reflexes by other muscular contractions….(p. 202)

We transpose the excitement of anger from the adequate reaction to another one, and we feel relieved provided it is used up by any strong motor innervations.

If, however, the affect can find no discharge of excitement of any kind along these lines, then the situation is the same with anger as with fright and anxiety. The intracerebral excitation is powerfully increased, but is employed neither in associative nor motor activity…. The excitement arising from the affective idea is “converted” into a somatic phenomenon. ( p. 206)

Freud believed that some of these somatic phenomenons were undesirable. After Freud, others promoted this idea. For example, Dr. Albert Ellis, one of the most popular psychologists of the twentieth century, stated that anger suppression “can easily result in psychosomatic reactions, including high blood pressure, heart problems, ulcers, and various other physical conditions.”[1]

In an effort to test this hypothesis, scientific individuals began to carry out some systematic studies. Some seemed to find support for this notion that suppression can be harmful. For example, Hokanson,[2] Baker & Schaie,[3] and Gambaro & Rabin[4] (1969) found that angered adults often achieved a faster decrease in blood pressure to baseline levels if they counteraggressed toward their antagonist than if they were given no opportunities to respond. In other studies carried out by Holmes[5] and Kahn[6] however, counteraggression was found to sustain elevated arousal, whereas nonaggressive activities reduced it.

Dr. Albert Bandura,[7] attempting to make sense of these apparently contradictory findings, carefully examined this body of research and finally concluded that the physiological tension of angry individuals is determined by what they do, the perceived consequences of what they do, and also what they think. People who believe that freely expressing their anger will discourage future negative responding from their antagonist experience relief after anger outbursts. Those who believe that freely expressing their anger will spur even more severe threatening responses from their antagonists maintain their elevated blood pressure subsequent to angry outbursts. Those who believe kindly responses to provocation will discourage future negative responding from the antagonist experience relief after providing a kind response. Those who believe kindly responses to a provocation will lead their antagonist to take advantage of them will maintain their elevated blood pressure after providing a kind response.

James J. Gross has reviewed more recent research on suppression in his fine article titled, “Emotion Regulation: Taking Stock and Moving Forward” (Emotion, Volume 13, June 2013, pp 359-365).

“Affectively, suppression leads to decreased positive but not negative emotion experience, increased sympathetic nervous system responses, and greater activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala. By contrast, reappraisal leads to decreased levels of negative emotion experience and increased positive emotion experience, has no impact on or even decreases sympathetic nervous system responses, and leads to lesser activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala and ventral striatum (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitively, suppression leads to worse memory. By contrast, reappraisal either has no impact on subsequent memory, or actually improves it, and can enhance exam performance (Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & Schmader, 2010; Richards & Gross, 2000). Socially, suppression leads to less liking from partners, and to an increase in partners’ blood pressure levels. Reappraisal, by contrast, has no detectable adverse consequences for social affiliation in the laboratory (Butler et al.,2003).”

Anger Management Training without Suppression

The association of anger suppression with anger management training is understandable, for when one has spent many years acting one way, learning alternative behaviors can be frustrating. This uncomfortable sensation may be seen as the suppression of one’s “natural” mode of behavior. It’s a similar experience to how actors might feel when first learning a new role or golfers a new swing. At first the skill to be learned feels awkward, and the early phase of learning can leave them to observe their heart racing and their blood pressure skyrocketing.

However, by designing a program in small incremental steps and heeding the following suggestions, the feeling of suppressing one’s natural behavior can be largely reduced or even completely eliminated.

First of all, expect occasional missteps. By studying the posts on this blog, it is likely that several situations will occur that you now find yourself handling much better than before. If the response by others you are engaged with ends up being favorable, this will encourage you to utilize the same approach again and again until it begins to feel natural, that is, second nature to you. Other skills will come off a bit awkward or you will get a less than favorable response, and you may experience frustration. When you try the skill again, you may now feel unsure and your effort may lead you to interpret this as suppressing a more “natural” way to respond. You may, therefore, give up and conclude that you are helpless to make a meaningful change in this type of skill.

The solution here is to reread the section that discusses the skill, and then practice over and over in your mind a narrative that has you envisioning utilizing the skill. When you can smoothly imagine in detail carrying out the skill, try it out again in real life. You may have to do this a few times until you get it right.

As you increase your skill to deal with anger arousing situations, your confidence in handling them will increase. Because anger arises when we experience a threat, with your increase in confidence you will then find you are less likely to experience situations that use to feel threatening as threatening. Consequently, you will be less likely to suppress anger because you won’t experience anger as often.

For more difficult to change behavior, form a small group of two to four people who agree to work together on the skill. Then assign a leader on a rotating basis. Conflicts in which the group members typically experience anger are identified. Then a video recording is created with the group members serving as the actors. One scenario is acted out demonstrating what actually occurred. Then a non-angry approach to dealing with the conflict that has the support of the group as being more effective than the angry approach is created. Video recording devices are readily available these days because of apps on many phones.

Keep in mind that the acting doesn’t have to be an Academy Award winning portrayal. Just a fun process is encouraged. By participating in this acting process and then viewing the video recordings displaying alternative behaviors, some will find they will adopt the skills in an effortless manner.

In the next part of this group process, competent behaviors are further encouraged by creating another set of video recordings using slightly different scenarios. Concrete examples are thus repeatedly affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally rehearsed while clear audiovisual feedback is provided. Observers can ask to pause at a little section that worked particularly well and review it a few more times until it becomes more and more familiar.

Throughout this process, some of the group participants’ suggestions may begin to feel uncomfortable to one or more of the other participants. This can interfere with the training process if poorly handled. I have found it useful from time to time to preface my recommendations with the same gentle admonishment that the famous physicist Niels Bohr used to give his students: “Every sentence I utter should be regarded by you not as an assertion but as a question.” This tends to disarm those who find that they are resisting suggestions, sets the stage for a helpful collaboration, and fosters interest from the satisfaction derived from fulfilling one’s own internal standards.

As you go through this process several times, you will find more and more that your behavior will begin to change in real life situations. At such times, you will often find people reacting very positively to your new style, and this will further encourage you to continue to utilize it. You won’t feel like you are suppressing anger, but rather, comfortably learning a new set of skills that works better than anger.

At other times, even a skilled real life response to a situation that had previously led to anger arousal will be met with someone acting in an undesirable manner. The group you have formed will provide you the opportunity to have some support to address this type of experience. Together, you can continue the problem solving required for addressing a wider and wider range of situations until you feel sufficiently confident to go it alone. It is important to keep in mind that even the most skilled techniques will not produce a perfect result on every occasion. The best we can hope for is to increase the probability that we will obtain a favorable outcome.

If you find it difficult to identify a small group of individuals to do the video recording skill development just described, consider hiring a professional counselor who will go through the process with you. Most professional counselors and psychologists that I’ve met are particularly skilled at modeling empathic understanding, a crucial skill that is necessary for working through anger arousing situations.

[1] A. Ellis, 1977, How to Live with—and without—Anger, New York: Reader’s Guide Press, page 200.

[2] J. E. Hokanson, 1970, “Psychophysiological Evaluation of the Catharsis Hypothesis,” In E. I. Megargee & J. E. Hohanson (Eds.), The Dynamics of Aggression (pp. 74-86), New York: Harper & Row.

[3] J. W. Baker & K. W. Schaie, 1969, “Effects of Aggressing ‘Alone’ or ‘with another’ on Physiological and Psychological Arousal, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 80-96.

[4] S. Gambaro & A. I. Rabin, 1969, “Diastolic Blood Pressure Responses Following Direct and Displaced Aggression after Anger Arousal in High- and Low-Guilt Subjects,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12, 87-94.

[5] D. S. Holmes, 1966, “Effects of Overt Aggression on Level of Physiological Arousal,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 189-194.

[6] M. Kahn, 1966, “The Physiology of Catharsis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 278-286.

[7] A. Bandura, 1973, Aggression: A Social Learning Analysis, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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Tags anger, angry feelings, challenge, conflict management, free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum, frustration, insults, psychological maturity, respect, sigmund freud, wisdom, works of sigmund freud

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“BULLY” AND BEYOND

Although the deeply disturbing documentary, “Bully,” has been out for over a year, I just got to view it as a rental a few days ago. It grabbed my guts and gave them a wrenching twist.

The documentary focuses on the struggles of five families. Two students end up killing themselves, others seriously consider it, while one young lady attempts to discourage her persecutors from continuing their bullying by bringing a loaded gun on a school bus and screaming threats.

Each of the family stories is brought vividly to life. For example, Alex, a 14-year old, is teased, humiliated and assaulted daily.

Here we see him getting abused on the school bus.

Trying to make sense of it all, at one point he sticks up for his tormentors, saying they are “just messing around” when they stab him with pencils and call him vile names. At another point, he asks his deeply troubled mother, “If not for them, what friends do I have?”

It is not only boys who are humiliated regularly at school.

Many are berated about their sexuality.

Others, because of the color of their skin.

It happens on school buses.

In school hallways.

And more and more, on the internet.

Often groups of children band together to pick on others.

The educators that we see in the film come across as needing some sound advice on handling bullying. A. O. Scott, in his review of the movie for the New York Times, refers to them as well-meaning but clueless. Particularly irksome to Scott is the scene in which an assistant principal tries to settle a conflict between two boys who apparently had been fighting at recess.

“When she insists that they shake hands, one eagerly obliges, with a smile and an apology. The other sullenly resists, and as she scolds him for his noncooperation (letting his antagonist go), it becomes clear that this boy is the victim, and that the assistant principal’s rushed attempt to be fair is in fact perpetuating a terrible and continuing injustice.”

At first, I was very disappointed that the movie offers very little constructive suggestions about what can be done to turn this dismal problem around. But its emotional impact has been an important part of the emergence of a coalition working toward altering intolerable conditions too often regarded as “just kids being kids.”

The movie has spawned The Bully Project, an online site where people can learn more about dealing with bullying. There, kids who are bullied can learn that they are not alone. And educators can learn about how to set up a viewing of the movie for their entire school and to follow up the viewing with classroom discussions.

In one video that we can access at the site, we see one entire school going to the movie and then getting the reactions from students. One kid reports that there was not a dry eye in the auditorium. Others admitted that they had bullied, but now realized it was wrong.

Also available on line, as my regular readers know, is this blog, From Insults To Respect. The blog can be used as a free curriculum that teaches the social skills to deal with these challenging experiences.

For those of you who are first getting familiar with this blog and want to help others to learn how to deal with problems involving insults, I recommend starting with my post titled:

INSULTS: A COMIC STRIP LOVER’S GUIDE

There, readers can learn about eight different reasons why people insult others and get some suggestions about how to deal with each of them.

If you are a parent or educator, in my post titled, TEACHING CHILDREN HOW TO DEAL WITH CRITICISM, I recommend a fun game that teaches kids how to respond to criticism in a manner that enhances their reputation.

One approach that I have used in a school setting to deal with these types of issues is to have kids create brief TV shows that illustrate each of the four levels of responding to criticism that I discuss regularly on my blog (see, for example, RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY). The kids loved doing this. When the kids were done acting out these video role-plays, I had the parents of the kids in my group come, and it created a dialogue about these issues that was very well received.

After the parents saw the TV shows, I made another set of these four-level role-play videos with the same group of kids, and again, the parents showed up. By now, the kids had learned this set of skills like it was the back of their hands, and were using them in settings outside the group.

A particularly powerful way to teach skills that deal with bullying is through narratives that are designed to change the valuation of bullying to make it signify ineptitude rather than manliness. We can change the culture by telling stories in which kids, out of fear, act nice to a bully when face to face with them but speak negatively about them as soon as the bully’s back is turned. “Is that the type of respect you are after?” is a question to ask the students after each story is told.

I’ve published a trilogy of three novels that not only addresses this question, but presents a character who rejects bullying and yet learns to achieve respect.

In my view, it is vitally important that we raise the awareness that something that is viewed as “normal” is terribly wrong. The film, “Bully,” does an excellent job of doing this. But we must go beyond this crucial step. We must also raise the awareness that there are very specific actions that people can take to alter the awful injustice we find in and around our schools, and to teach students, parents and educators alike what those actions are.

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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.

Tags "Bully" the Movie, bullies, bully, bullying, conflict, conflict management, criticism, emotional intelligence, insults, psychological maturity, respect, school buses, school hallways, wisdom

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DEALING WITH INSULTS: LESSONS FROM THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date April 20, 2013
4 Comments on DEALING WITH INSULTS: LESSONS FROM THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

Today, to get us to think more deeply about dealing with insults, let’s discuss for few minutes what Jackie Robinson went through when he became the first black major leaguer.

Just before Mr. Robinson began to play in the majors for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Dodgers’ general manager, Branch Rickey, made it clear to him that he would face criticism in the form of the most vile insults. If he was to play, Robinson had to show the courage to not return insults with insults or to lose his temper and jeopardize the chances of all the blacks who would follow him if he could help break down the race barriers.

If Mr. Robinson couldn’t return the insults, could nothing be done? On one particular day when fans were being particularly insulting to Mr. Robinson, the smallest ballplayer on his team, Pee Wee Reese, stepped out of the dugout. Mr. Reese was a beloved player with the fans for his hustling play. He stepped over to Mr. Robinson, put his arm around him and stood by his side.

This gesture was discussed around the country, and even today. And a monument honoring this moment stands tall and strong in Brooklyn.

If you go by it some day and watch for a while, from time to time you’ll see a grandfather describing to his grandson how the statue symbolizes what can be done even by two men who responded to insults without returning insults. I must admit that I’m no kid anymore, and yet, whenever I walk by that statue, I get all misty inside.

A few years ago, the movie, “42” came out.

The film beautifully develops the relationship between Reese and Robinson. At first, most of Robinson’s teammates reject him. “I’m not playing with any niggers!” cries one teammate. “If we let him play, pretty soon the team owners will be bringing up more of them, and they’ll be all taking our jobs!”

“But,” says Pee Wee Reese, “we always knew that if the owners could find someone who could do our jobs better than us then we’d be sent down to the minors. We always accepted that as fair when it was white guys who might take our jobs. Why is it any different just because of the color of a guy’s skin?”

“It just is,” came the reply, but with a voice a little less self-assured.

In time, Robinson’s approach to dealing with insults on the field acquired for him more and more sympathy. Of course there were times when the insults began to get to Robinson, but he would seek to deal with his anguish either in private, with Branch Rickey, or with his lovely wife. On the field he was all about showing what he could do, and it was sometimes disappointing and sometimes magnificent. There are always heroes in baseball, and Robinson glistened in that role on more than a few occasions.

Perhaps the finest moments in the movie come about just after we meet a father and son sitting in the seats of a Brooklyn Dodger game. When Pee Wee Reese is announced as the captain of the Dodgers, the fans in the seats, including this father and son duo, begin to cheer. The boy, a bit of a pee wee himself, tells his father that Reese is his favorite, all-time greatest player ever!

Then Jackie Robinson’s name is called, and he jogs on to the field with some supportive cries, but many, many insulting cries as well.

We then see a close-up of the father and son. The father cries out, “Get off the field you lousy nigger.” Others in the crowd cry out similar sentiments. And before long, the father’s son begins to shout, “Get off the field you lousy nigger!”

But it is at this moment, Reese, who was fielding ground balls at shortstop, pauses, then trots over to Robinson at first base. “How’s it going?” Reese says to Robinson, with a friendly smile.

We see the young boy in the stands, watching on, looking confused, as Reese continues to shoot the breeze in a friendly exchange with Robinson. When a wave of insults for Robinson comes from a portion of the stands, Reese puts his arm around Robinson, and continues to chat with him, smiling, patting him on the shoulder.

Then the umpire calls out to Reese, “This isn’t a social club, let’s play ball.” Reese again pats Robinson on his back, and then trots back to his position at shortstop.

Once again, we see the young boy, and he has now stopped calling Robinson insulting names.

And we see that soon afterwards most of his teammates begin to change their minds and to treat Robinson like a fellow human being.

In my recent blog posts, I’ve been discussing the ABCs of Power (see for example, (The ABCs of Power: The Letter “A”). In the movie, “42”, we don’t see how Robinson worked to employ the very first source of power on The ABCs of Power list–Advancing skill. But there is no doubt that Robinson worked for years on becoming the star athlete that he became.

His skill at projecting the highest levels of maturity when criticized enormously increased the respect that he garnered during his day to day performance. History teaches us that it was Robinson’s use of these skills that secured for him the source of power known as Coalition, as he united with Branch Rickey, Pee Wee Reese, and ultimately, with his many fans, that turned a dream into a magnificent achievement.

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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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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “C”

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date April 1, 2013
7 Comments on THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “C”

On this blog I often discuss mature ways to handle situations in which we feel that we are being insulted (see for example, RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY).

Many people after reading several of these posts find that situations that previously gave them difficulty can now be handled with great confidence. As a result, they find that people have begun to treat them with an increased level of respect.

Although this is a major step in the right direction, some find that although they can apply the skills discussed in this blog with people whom they perceive as having either equal or less power over them, when they face people whom they perceive as having more power, they suddenly lose their nerve.

They end up remaining silent on the outside and quivering on the inside. Or they get defensive and find themselves overreacting to some innocent comment. What can be done to help people to deal better with these types of situations?

When people learn the ABCs of power, they come to realize that they have far more power than they ever thought they had. And once they come to realize this, they enter into many more types of situations in which they previously felt powerless with a level of confidence that commands respect.

It is for this reason that we have begun to construct a list of sources of power. The list is arranged in alphabetical order. So far we have introduced the source of power that begins with the letter “A” (see the ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “A”) and the source of power that begins with the letter “B” (see the ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “B”). Today, we turn our attention to the letter “C.”

C is for Coalition

A coalition occurs when two or more people form an alliance to better achieve a goal.

In this Peanuts comic, the simplest example of forming a coalition is illustrated. Sally believes she can better achieve her goal of doing well in school if she can get Charlie Brown to help her. She requests Charlie’s assistance in her own sweet style and within a matter of moments he has agreed.

It is oftentimes amazing that just by asking people for help on a project how often some people will agree.

If you are having difficulty coming up with a way to achieve one of your desires, consider asking yourself, “Is there a way I can form a coalition with one or more people so that I can achieve the desire?”

Some Examples of Utilizing the “Coalition” Source of Power

As an example, let’s say Charlie Brown sometimes feels lonely and some people begin to tease him about having no friends.

At first, he feels he is helpless to do anything about this. He becomes alienated at life, and when he has insults thrown at him about this, he begins to imagine getting revenge. But then he begins to learn how coalitions can increase his power.

Because Charlie Brown likes to play baseball, he decides to invite people he knows to play on his team. Before long, he gets the neighborhood kids together to participate on a team he manages. As a result, Charlie Brown becomes less lonely and he gets to play more baseball.

When you form a coalition, you may still get criticized. If you learn the skills taught on this blog to handle criticism, your coalition may lead to more positives than negatives.

At least with a coalition you get to decide if the criticism that you have to deal with is worth being part of the group or not. Having some choice can often be better then having none at all.

In our example, although Charlie Brown’s managerial skills are often criticized, there is no one who seems to want to replace him as the manager. The kids have been showing up and participating in a shared activity, and he is thus less lonely than he would be if he were sitting home all alone. In the end, Charlie Brown feels his use of the source of power known as “coalitions” was a great benefit to him.

Consider another example:

In my novel, A Hero Grows in Brooklyn, Steve Marino is one of the main characters. As he is growing up, Steve observes how his father uses his fists to try to bully people into doing what he wants. Eventually, Steve’s dad ends up in prison.

At one point, a friend asks Steve whom he respects most in this world:

“My Uncle Ricky.”

“How come?”

“I guess it’s because instead of trying to beat you up to get you to do something, he has a way of doing fun things with you and forming bonds like that. He used to take me to Yankee games and hit fly balls to me, and man, whenever he asked me to do something, I’d do it in an instant—not because I was afraid of him, but because I loved him.

“My Uncle Ricky has a group of friends who call themselves the Brooklyn Barons. He goes bowling with them and they play softball also. Doing these things together somehow made a bond between these guys, and if any one of them needs help all they need to do is ask and the rest of the guys are there in a split second. These guys aren’t congressmen or people well connected, just regular Joes. But, when Uncle Ricky let out word I needed a job on the docks after school, they went and figured out how to arrange it. And whenever Uncle Ricky needs help loading some wood on his truck, he has all the help he can use. They do it because they want to. I like that. My Uncle Ricky, he’s just a good guy.”

There are several ways to go about forming a coalition. One of the easiest ways is to join a group that already exists. We discussed earlier how advancing skills can increase your power. Many groups currently exist for people who have an interest in one particular set of skills. If a particular sport is the skill you have been developing, you can call the local “Y” and ask if there are teams forming for the sport you are interested in.

Coed volleyball teams are a great way to meet people. Oftentimes, after a game someone begins to ask if any of the players want to get some pizza or have a drink. In this way people begin to bond with one another.

The local “Art Council” oftentimes has information about groups that have been formed around a particular art. I know people who, over the years, have treasured their quilting club or pottery classes.

Joining a volunteer group is a particularly wise way to increase your power. Members of the community tend to increase their respect for people who help out in this way. Moreover, people who join such groups are oftentimes, by nature, individuals who like to help others.

When you join a group, it’s probably not a great idea to immediately begin to ask for members to help you out. Take a few weeks to be helpful to others and to give the natural process of forming bonds time to develop. After a month or two, when you do need some assistance, make your request in a manner consistent with encouraging caring. For example, you might say something like, “I’m having a problem with my landlord. I’m hoping that some of you might be willing for me to describe it and then let me know if you have any ideas about what I can do about it. I know all of you are really busy and if you don’t have the time for this, I’ll understand.” Then you would wait to see if you get one or more volunteers. For those who don’t volunteer, it is crucial to remain supportive.

On the internet, there are a host of groups that have been formed with the purpose of achieving a common goal. Meetup.com and websites like it include national groups and tons of local ones as well. You type in your area code and a list of the meet-up groups in your area come up. You can also search by activity.

Sometimes the groups in your area do not deal with the exact thing you are interested in. You can still meet with one that comes closest, take some time to get to know the people, and then propose setting up another group that addresses more directly your specific interest.

Belonging to a group fulfills a basic need of people for social interaction. If you learn to utilize this basic need, you will find that in addition to increasing your own personal power, great rewards come from helping others to increase their personal power.

Remember that power is the skill to achieve your desires. When you learn to use the source of power known as “coalitions,” you will find that you will become far better at achieving many of your desires. When you come to recognize this, you will find that your confidence has increased. Then, if someone attempts to insult you, you will feel less threatened. This will allow you to keep your cool and to respond in a wise manner.

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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.

Tags ABCs of Power, anger, bullying, coalitions, conflict, criticism, disrespectful, insults, maturity, maturity levels, respect, wisdom

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PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: A LESSON FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date March 10, 2013
5 Comments on PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: A LESSON FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON

Regular readers of this blog know that in the past I’ve written quite a bit about the five levels of maturity for providing negative criticism (see HERE). In fact, I had written so much about it that I had come to believe that perhaps I had said all that was needed to be said on the subject. To my pleasant surprise, while reading Jon Meacham’s fine Thomas Jefferson biography, The Art of Power, I’ve identified a new valuable principle to consider. With that in mind, let’s briefly review what we previously covered on providing negative criticism. Then we’ll take a look at this new Jeffersonian idea.

Providing Negative Criticism: Summarizing the Highest Levels of Maturity

As we discussed in earlier posts on this blog, the two highest levels of maturity for providing negative criticism (levels 4 and 5) can be summarized as follows:

Level 4. The criticizer states the criticism without bodily attacks, damaging property, glares, insults, threats, or shouts, and with enough details so that the criticized person, if he or she wills, can improve the behavior, idea, or appearance. If the person receiving the criticism becomes defensive or angry, the criticizer empathizes without returning glares, insults, threats, or shouts.

Level 5. When the criticizer provides criticism, he or she does so in a manner very similar to a level 4 response, but beforehand, the criticizer considers the person who is the target of the criticism and the situation that he or she is in. As a result of such considerations, the criticizer may decide to alter the criticism.

Person variables that are considered: From observing how the person to be criticized handled criticism in the past, he or she determines which of the five levels of responding to criticism is most characteristic of the individual. (For example, if someone tends to physically attack the criticizer when criticized and is big enough to cause real bodily harm, then a decision is made either to not provide the criticism or to provide it only when there is sufficient security, or else someone else is employed to provide the criticism who is capable of dealing safely with the attack prone person.) Other person variables considered are how sensitive the person is when criticized, is the person to be criticized currently in an angry or sad mood, is the criticism likely to be perceived as particularly difficult to bear, versus something likely to be viewed as a relatively minor matter, and if the criticizer’s relationship with the person to be criticized is less than ideal. Depending on such variables, consideration is given to waiting until the person is in a pleasant mood and enlisting someone else to provide the criticism such as a more neutral person, a friend, or someone who is admired by the person who will be criticized. When the person to be criticized is particularly sensitive about an issue, a fictionalized story with a character who displays the offending behavior may be presented, and then the character’s behavior is discussed.
Situation characteristics that are considered: Are there other people around that will lead to face saving behavior coming into play? Is there enough time set aside to process the criticism? Has the person who is to provide the criticism been providing too much negative criticism in too short a period of time? (In this case, consideration is given to waiting until some time goes by in which some positive things are said over the course of several days before hitting the person to be criticized over the head yet again!)

The Jeffersonian Principle for Providing Negative Criticism

If you study carefully the level 5 description that I provided above, you will see that an important person variable to consider before providing criticism is whether or not the criticizer’s relationship with the person to be criticized is less than ideal. Whenever I presented that idea in the past, I suggested that if Jack does not have a good relationship with Judy and he wants to provide some criticism to Judy, he might be wise to consider whether or not it would be better to see if he could get someone who does have a good relationship with Judy to provide the criticism. This remains sound advice. But upon reading Meacham’s biography on Jefferson, I now have something to add.

To introduce this new idea, I think it is useful to understand that Jefferson, himself, was very sensitive when others provided him negative criticism. We see this in several existing documents. For example, in a letter to James Monroe, Jefferson said that the criticism he received while war governor of Virgina “had inflicted a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by the all-healing grave.”

In another letter, this one sent while serving as an American ambassador in Paris to Francis Hopkinson, Jefferson wrote:

“My great wish is to go on in a strict but silent performance of my duty: to avoid attracting notice and to keep my name out of newspapers, because I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.”

Perhaps because of this sensitivity to criticism, early in a relationship Jefferson, rather than seeking ways to find fault in his new companion, used a more supportive style. As his biographer describes this style, people often talk too much and listen too little, which can be self-defeating, for in many instances the surer route to winning a friend is not to convince them that you are right but that you care what they think. Everyone wants to believe that what they have to say is fascinating, illuminating, and possibly even epochal.

I love the story that Meacham tells about a Virginia matron of the old school who often hosted Jefferson at her table. She liked to boast that Jefferson never failed to inquire with great particularity how her best dishes were cooked. Though she suspected that charm was at work–even flattery–she was also convinced by the apparent sincerity of Jefferson’s manner of listening. “I know this was half to please me,” she allowed, “but he’s a nice judge of things, and you may depend upon it, he won’t throw away anything he learns worth knowing.”

Now, there are times in a new relationship when you find that you disagree with your new companion. Should you confront the person? If not, what should you do if you say something that was not meant to be critical but you find that your companion takes offense and is now in an angry state?

Jefferson advised a daughter: “Much better…if our companion views a thing in a light different from what we do, to leave him in quiet possession of his view. What is the use of rectifying him if the thing be unimportant; and if important let it pass for the present, and wait a softer moment and more conciliatory occasion of revising the subject together.”

One of the main desires that people have is to be liked. If we criticize people before we establish that we like them, they are much more likely to feel that we will not like them. This dramatically increases the likelihood of heightened levels of defensiveness. If, instead, we seek first to establish that we do esteem our new companions, and then show a willingness to drop discussions that are beginning to turn angry until a later, more peaceful time, perhaps this would be a wiser course of action.

Jefferson Writing Declaration of Independence

Now, to be sure, there were situations in which Jefferson did not wait until he had established a warm, friendly relationship with a person before providing negative criticism. When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, for example, he knew it would end up reaching the eyes of the King of England. And there is no question that the document flings direct negative criticism at the King’s conduct. In this situation, despite not having first established a warm, friendly relationship with the King, Jefferson fully supported publicly publishing this obviously inflammatory document.

A teacher monitoring the hallways at school, upon hearing a student insulting another student with the ‘n’ word may feel compelled in that situation to firmly intervene in a manner that will come across as negative criticism. There are public internet forums in which disagreements can be fruitfully aired among individuals who know practically nothing of one another. And so, we still have to consider each individual situation before deciding the best way to deal with criticism. But at the highest levels of maturity, Jefferson offers us a wise option.

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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.

Tags criticism, negative criticism, respect, Thomas Jefferson, wisdom

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IMPLIED CRITICISM: ADVANCED LESSON

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date March 2, 2013
2 Comments on IMPLIED CRITICISM: ADVANCED LESSON

In last week’s post I began to discuss some forms of implied criticism.

In this Dilbert comic that we first looked at in last week’s post, we see that complimenting someone in front of another person can lead to an experience that feels like a subtle form of negative criticism. Learning to recognize not only the most obvious types of negative criticism, but the more subtle forms as well, can improve our ability to handle difficult anger arousing situations.

A single lesson on identifying the more subtle forms of negative criticism is really not sufficient for most of us to actually begin to utilize this skill in a helpful manner. Therefore, today we will practice this skill some more. Then we will look at an example of a woman who is dealing with a challenging interpersonal interaction. We will see that by combining her knowledge of subtle forms of negative criticism with some of the other skills that she has learned from following this blog, a difficult anger arousing situation can have a positive outcome.

Last week, I mentioned that making a suggestion is one form of indirect negative criticism. Let’s take a second look at this.

Suggestions

Often when someone offers a suggestion, a criticism is lurking within the suggestion—sometimes the direct kind and sometimes the implied kind. When Lucy suggests to Charlie Brown that “we just sort of slip away,” it implies that she has evaluated the team’s performance and she does not like it.

In the workplace, terms like “providing feedback” and “input” are often used as alternative terms to “offering a suggestion.”

In addition to complimenting someone in front of another person and making suggestions, another indirect, implied type of negative criticism is making educational recommendations.

Recommending Education

Like the word “suggestion,” whenever you hear the word “instruction,” you would be wise to think that some criticism is most likely close about. In order to make this point concrete, let’s go back to the scenario we used last week that involves Katrina and Betty, but let’s change it a bit.

In this example, instead of looking over to Betty’s wilting tomato plants and then making a suggestion to move the plants to a sunnier area in the garden, Katrina offers to give some “instruction” on how to plant tomatoes. Although Katrina doesn’t directly say she thinks Betty’s skills can use some improvement, why else would she offer to provide her the instruction? When people say, “I think your skills can use some improvement,” it is a form of criticism.

An Example that Utilizes the Skill to Recognize Subtle Forms of Negative Criticism

Let’s go back, once again, to the example we used in last week’s blog post. Betty has invited Katrina over for some tea in her backyard. The sun is shining and the birds are singing a pleasant song. As the two friends chat, Katrina glances over at Betty’s tomato plants.

“Betty,” says Katrina, “let me make a suggestion. Perhaps it would be better if you moved your plants to that sunny patch over there a few yards from your hedge. They’ll get lots of sun there.”

“Listen, Katrina, I don’t care for your coming over here criticizing my gardening skills?”

“Criticize!” yells Katrina. “I didn’t criticize anything! All I did was offer a suggestion!”

Notice that in this example when Katrina provides Betty her “suggestion,” Katrina doesn’t recognize that she has indeed provided Betty negative criticism. And then, when Betty responds to Katrina’s criticism by criticizing Katrina for criticizing her, Katrina gets defensive, shouting at Betty that she didn’t criticize anything!

This example illustrates the problems that can occur when both parties in a conflict are unskilled at dealing with criticism.

Let’s once again change this Katrina-Betty scenario a bit. This time, let’s pretend that Katrina has been reading my blog and therefore she has been getting more and more familiar with some of its basic ideas.

Katrina looks over to Betty’s wilting tomato plants. Betty,” she says, “let me make a suggestion. Perhaps it would be better if you moved your plants to that sunny patch over there a few yards from your hedge. They’ll get lots of sun there.”

“Listen, Katrina, I don’t care for your coming over here criticizing my gardening skills.”

When Katrina hears this, because she has been reading my blog, she quickly recognizes that Betty is now criticizing her. Immediately, the image of a woman comes to her mind:

Then Katrina pauses. She thinks about how she is about to respond to Betty, and notices that she is feeling defensive, and she is about to start shouting at Betty, denying that she has provided any criticism. Katrina then thinks about my blog post titled RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY. She ends up saying to herself, “That response I was getting ready to give to Betty would be rated a fairly immature level–something like level 2 or 3. What would a more mature level look like?”

Katrina then tries to come up with a response to Betty that would be more like level 4. Katrina also thinks about what she learned about implied criticism from my blog and from this she comes to recognize that Betty is correct.

After a few more seconds of thought, Katrina feels pretty comfortable with the new response that she has come up with and decides to give it a try. She recognizes that if her response doesn’t lead to something positive, she can always summarize in a caring way Betty’s concern and then say that she will think more about this over the next few days (see blog post Summarize and Delay).

And so, Katrina begins to respond to Betty’s angry reply:

“Betty” says Katrina, “you say that you don’t like that I criticized your gardening skills. When I said what I said, I thought I was just offering you a suggestion. But after some thought, I see you are right. My suggestion does imply that I criticized your gardening skills.”

“It certainly did!” Betty says.

“I also see, Betty, that you don’t like to be criticized. I really like you a lot, so now that I know this, I’ll try to be more sensitive about that.”

“No one likes to be criticized, Katrina? Do you?”

“Well, Betty, actually I used to have a lot of difficulty dealing with criticism, but now I’m much more comfortable with it. I feel that I can handle it in a warm, friendly way that helps me to understand what others are thinking about me and I learn wisdom from it. There’s still some times when I find that it can be pretty painful to hear, and sometimes my husband gives me so much criticism all at one time that I end up asking him to back off for awhile.”

“That reminds me of today’s Sally Forth comic,” says Betty. And after digging through her newspaper that was sitting on her patio table, Betty shows the comic to Katrina.

Smiling, Katrina says, “Yes, Betty, that comic does captures how I sometimes begin to feel when my husband, Frank, keeps giving me one criticism after another in a real short period of time and I do get so I want to clobber him. Instead, we once discussed it when we weren’t all worked up and angry about something, and we made an agreement. Whenever he begins to criticize me and I’ve had enough, instead of ruining one of his shirts, I just tell him in a loving manner that I’ve had enough for now. He’s agreed to back off whenever I say that, and I do the same thing for him when he asks me to back off for awhile. It’s less expensive then buying a new shirt.”

“Well, Katrina, maybe I am a little too sensitive about being criticized. I think it’s because of how some people in my family criticize me. I have a younger sister, and whenever she criticizes me, she starts to shout and call me an idiot. And I know she knows how to criticize in a nice way because when she’s with her boyfriend, she’s so sweet when she criticizes him. Maybe I should talk with her when we’re not in the middle of a quarrel about it.”

“That’s a great idea, Betty.”

Well, that’s today’s lesson. I hope you found it helpful.

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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.

Tags anger, challenge, conflict, conflict management, criticism, emotions, insults, maturity levels, name calling, negative criticism, respect, types of criticism, wisdom

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DIRECT AND IMPLIED NEGATIVE CRITICISM

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date February 23, 2013
3 Comments on DIRECT AND IMPLIED NEGATIVE CRITICISM

One major situation in which people end up feeling insulted is when someone provides negative criticism.

Rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism in a warm, friendly and helpful manner.

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.

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. Today’s lesson will help all of us learn to recognize very quickly when some of the more subtle forms of criticism occur.

WHAT IS CRITICISM?

A Dictionary’s Definition of Criticism

My handy Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary tells us that “criticize” means, “1: to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly : EVALUATE 2: to find fault with : point out the faults of.”

My Definition of Criticism

You may have noticed that in Webster’s definition of “criticize,” the word “EVALUATE” is in capital letters. This is the main idea regarding this concept. Therefore, for the purposes of this blog, if someone evaluates something as positive, negative, neutral, or any point in between, the evaluator has made a criticism.

Because “criticism” is so often associated with an unfavorable evaluation, to avoid confusion, let’s distinguish 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. Today’s blog post will focus on negative criticism.

Direct and Implied Forms of Negative Criticism

Some forms of negative criticism are fairly obvious.

When individuals indicate that they don’t like something, they are clearly providing a negative evaluative statement. These types of evaluative statements are forms of direct negative criticism.

When the word “dislike” is used describing one’s reaction to something, it clearly indicates to us that a direct form of negative criticism has occurred. There are several other words that are so clearly associated with “disliking” that they also signal a direct, obvious form of negative criticism has occurred. The words “bad,” “ugly,” “nasty,” “rotten,” “ridiculous,” “stupid, ”or any other adjective that is generally understood to be not liked, indicate direct, obvious, negative criticism has occurred.

In the above Dilbert comic, none of the characters actually use any form of the word “dislike,” but in the last frame, it’s pretty clear that referring to Alice’s plan as “lame” is a form of negative criticism.

Some forms of criticism are not quite as obvious as the direct kind.

In the above comic’s last panel, Dilbert provides positive criticism to Wally while, at the same time, provides indirect or implied criticism to the woman. In the first panel of the comic, Dilbert hadn’t realized he had provided any negative criticism to the woman and only discovers this clearly by the second frame. This comic illustrates that sometimes we provide indirect negative criticism without realizing it. Under some sets of circumstances, this can lead to unintended problems. It is therefore wise to learn to better recognize negative criticism in all of its guises. Three forms of indirect criticism that often go unrecognized as negative criticism are making a request, making a suggestion, and providing levity.

Making a Request

A request is a type of criticism that is not always recognized as criticism. If I request that you change your shirt before we go out, I’m implying that I think that there is something wrong with it. Thus, it implies negative criticism. If I request that you join me for dinner and a show, it implies that I would like to spend an evening with you. Thus, it implies positive criticism.

To get a better sense of this type of implied criticism, consider a scenario in which a dad, mom, and son are preparing for supper. The son’s dinner job is to set the table. Noticing the butter container is almost empty, he decides to take out a new container and place it on the table alongside the almost empty one.

After everyone sits down to have a pleasant meal, the dad, while buttering his bread, finishes the old container. Not noticing the new container is easily within his reach, he says to his son, “Do you mind getting a fresh container out from the refrigerator? I just finished this one.”

Now let’s say that his son responds in a matter-of-fact tone, “A fresh container is right here, Dad.” The dad glances at the new container of butter, nods his head at his son, thus indicating he recognizes his son is correct, and the family then continues on with the conversation.

Most people will not see the dad’s request containing any criticism of his son. The dad is criticizing the table’s condition; that is, he evaluated the condition of the table, and found that it was missing a sufficient amount of butter. Under this set of circumstance, if the dad did not view this as an example of criticism, in all likelihood it’d be no big deal.

But consider a slightly different scenario. This time the dad, in requesting that his son get out a fresh container, although using the exact same words as the first scenario, now has a slight tone of annoyance in his voice? His son interprets this as meaning that his dad thinks he should have anticipated that the almost empty butter container would not be enough for tonight’s dinner, and therefore he should have taken out, along with the old container, a new container. The son, therefore experiences his dad’s slight tone of annoyance as criticism, not just of the table’s lack of butter, but of something he has done. The son replies using the exact same words as he used in the first scenario. However, when he says,—“A fresh container is right here, Dad,”— draws out the word “Dad” to, “D-a-a-d.” And, instead of a matter-of-fact tone, we notice just a hint of straining in his vocal cords. With these two slight changes, the son more clearly indicates that he is becoming defensive and is now criticizing his dad for not noticing the new butter container. At this point, the dad shouts, “Don’t you dare talk to me in that tone of voice!” All of a sudden, the table blows up in an argument.

As I noted earlier, we would do well to learn to recognize all forms of criticism because there are a variety of effective techniques to draw upon, all specifically designed to address conflicts that involve criticism. It is for this reason that the skill to identify indirect, less obvious, forms of criticism can be helpful. To that end, let’s take a look at another type of criticism that often goes unrecognized as criticism.

Suggestions

As with requests, often when someone offers a suggestion, a criticism is lurking within the suggestion.

Betty has invited Katrina over for some tea in her back yard. The sun is shining and the birds are singing a pleasant song. As the two friends chat, Katrina glances over at Betty’s tomato plants.

“Listen, Katrina, I don’t care for you coming over here criticizing my gardening skills?”

“Criticize!” exclaims Katrina. “I didn’t criticize anything! All I did was offer a suggestion!”

Apparently Katrina has a different definition of a suggestion than I do. Given that we have defined “criticism” as evaluating, Katrina, as she provided her suggestion, also provided criticism. She looked over to the plants, evaluated where they were and what shape they were in, and then presented her judgment to Betty.

On this blog, when I use the word “suggestion” in a description of some scenario, it always indicates that the person to whom the suggestion is made is being criticized.

Levity

Tom Greening writes charmingly provocative poems (see for example his wonderful book titled, Words Against the Void). Recently there was an exchange on the internet among a group of folks who are interested in promoting peace in the world. At one point, Tom sent out the following email:

To Milt,
I’m sorry, but I have sold out.
The money and prestige were too hard to resist.
=======================
KILL

A really cool way to have fun
is solving problems with a gun.
Our government has shown the way
and slaughters bad guys ev’ry day.
It’s patriotic, brave and easy,
so don’t be cowardly or queasy.
There is no reason you should wait
to kill the enemies you hate.
A lot of evil folks must die—
don’t waste your time by asking why.

Tom Greening

Now, at one point there was a discussion about whether this was a type of criticism, or was it levity. Sandra Rafman’s comment on this issue eloquently captured my own view. She wrote:

Intrinsic to its humour, Tom Greening’s poetry is implicitly and/or explicitly critical and gives us a critical perspective on important contemporary issues. He also gently invites us to be self-critical. He reminds me to not take myself too seriously but not to not take important issues seriously, Thanks Tom.
Sandra Rafman, Ph.D.
Professeure honoraire
Université du Québec à Montréal
Senior Psychologist
McGill University Health Centre-Montreal Children’s Hospital

Okay! This concludes the introduction to the notion of direct and implied forms of criticism. Whenever requests, suggestions, and providing levity come up in intrapersonal and interpersonal situations, I am suggesting here that you learn to flash a red light in your mind signaling you to stop and to start considering some of the options we have been discussing in this blog.

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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.

Tags anger, bullied, bullying, conflict, criticism, Dilbert comics, disrespectful, insults, Luann comics, name calling, negative criticism, Peanuts comics, psychological maturity, respect, types of criticism, violence, wisdom