The How to Get things Chart
(That is the most official and creative title that we were able to come up with.)
So. The teenage years have been reminding me of the toddler years...only louder and more emotional. You might not believe that is possible, but trust me, it is. Ethan has especially been on a crazy hormonal roller-coaster lately and the side-effect has been a complete loss verbal communication skills. Everything has started to come out in a bit of a aggressive, demanding wail. It got to the point that every interaction ended in the same way; Ethan yelling, Robert or myself yelling back or getting upset and absolutely nobody getting what they wanted. Now, I've been reading a lot from a book called The Shut Down Learner, by Richard Selznick. Part of it focuses on how visual learners, like Ethan, don't learn well from verbal direction. So all of those many, many carefully thought-out lectures have really done very little in helping him change his behavior. Bummer. I know that I have spent the last 14 years telling Ethan how to act, but this time, I decided to try and show him how to act. This was what I came up with.
I prefaced this chart by telling Ethan that I knew a great way for him to get almost anything he wanted. I reminded him that he really wants a whole lot of things, all the time, and so, this might actually be really beneficial to him. Then I showed him this "How to Get Things" chart.
These are the steps:
1. Stop. Hold your breathe for 5 seconds. Put you hands up in a non-aggressive way while stepping back. (Ethan's fall back is to point at you while walking forward to get into your face.) This way, before anything is even said, he can put the other person into a calmer place instead of being instantly defensive.
2. Next he has to find middle ground...something that both he and the person he is talking to agree on. This step is mostly used to let the other person know that s/he is being heard. If they feel this way, they will be open to conversation instead of what might have been just another lecture trying to make the kid 'hear' what they wanted to say. Starting this way stops that cycle and starts a conversation. I gave him key words that could help him with one of these sentences. I hear you..., I understand that... I remember when..., It's true that..., I see that..., and Yes, I agree... An examples of this could be, I understand that you wanted me to get my chore done and I want to get it done as well.
3. The next step is to butter the person up. Before you ask something from them, it sure does help to let them know they are already appreciated. His key words for this are, Thank you for... I appreciate... I'm sorry for... In our example he could say, "Thank you for helping me out with my chore all this week, even though you have been really busy. That is really nice."
4. Step four is to give choices. Everyone likes it better if they are in the position to make a choice, even if it is between two sides of the same coin. It's just human nature. If we are given one choice, it feels too much like a demand. His key words for this are, How about..., or What if.... In our example he could say, "How about I get my chore done now and then I can watch movie or maybe I could do my chore and then watch a T.V. show?" He is still asking for basically the same thing but he is trying to give some options. The main difference here is the time in front of the tube.
5. He now can put the ball in the other person's court. I realize this is a tennis term, however, my Ethan is crazy about basketball right now, and so that is the court I chose to draw. :) This step is one that Ethan always wants to skip. He throws out a demand and before you can even think it through, he starts telling you how unfair life is and that I never let him do anything and that nobody else has done their chore, etc, etc.... The child loves to shoot himself in the foot. So step five makes him ask, "How do you feel?" or "What do you think?" and this one goes directly into step 6...
6. Which is to STOP. WAIT. LISTEN. It's amazing how little this one is used, but I feel like it is the most powerful step in the whole process. Letting the other person think for a second and know that they are being listened to is such a gift to give in communicating.
7. Once the other person has processed this whole, rare, type of conversation, they are ready to either agree or disagree. If they agree with you...you can shake on it and the deal has been made. If they disagree, it doesn't mean that all is lost. Another pitfall for Ethan is that he immediately gives up if he hears a 'no.' He doesn't understand that people can still be persuaded with the right deal. So, he must then reapeat the process, but giving new options reflecting what the other person said after he asked "How do you feel." For example, if they said, "Well, I need more help than just you doing your chore. I still have to make dinner and give the kids a bath, etc." Then the next time through the process he can first acknowledge how busy and stressed out Mom is, tell her how much he appreciates what she does and then adjust the choices, making them more tempting to a stressed out mother. For example, the second time through he can say, "How about I do my chore and put the kids in a bath when I'm done, or maybe I could do my chore and help make dinner and after the kids are in bed, could I watch a show/movie?"
The End
That's the chart in a nut shell, and I bet you think that my teenage son took one look at that and said "What Evs, Mom. I'm not doing that!" But he did not. We have used this chart about 10 times so far. He'll often bring the chart with him to help him through the conversation. We've also discovered that this chart helps to diffuse an arguement (replacing the choices with reasons he believes his specific situation is unfair.) and it is also very handy when making an apology (replacing the choices with first a sincere apology and second, with how the behavior will change in the future...because an apology is worthless if the behavior doesn't change.) I'm telling you, Ethan wrote a very impressive apology to his Sunday School teacher using this chart and all of his own words.
Will this chart continue to help us? Probably not forever. Possibly, not even another month or two. I've found that we are constantly changing our approach with our kids. Nothing has ever stood the test of time, but since it has worked better than I thought it would and for longer than I thought it would, I thought I'd post it.
