Raising Mentally Strong Kids #6: Notice What You Like About Your Kids

For conversation number six, the one secret to dramatically improving your relationships with your children and grandchildren is to notice what you like about them much more than what you don’t like. I first met Jesse when she was 14 because she’d run away from home, was cutting herself and failing in school. Now at 16, she was doing great. Her brain, which was initially troubled, had dramatically improved with diet and supplements. Her grades were better and she was much more stable. I was so pleased with her progress until one day she stormed into my office, sat on my couch, and told me that she hated her mother and was running away from home, and I couldn’t stop her. In the time I’d been seeing Jesse, I’d gotten to know her family really well. It was clear to me that her mother had untreated A DHD, and she tended to pick on Jesse as a way to stimulate her own brain. Conflict seeking behavior is very common among people with untreated A DHD. I tried to convince her mother to get help, but she wouldn’t have it now. She was driving her daughter away. To raise mentally strong kids, you need to take care of your own brain. In the middle of Jesse’s rant, she turned her anger on me and said, tell me Dr. A, amen. Why does a grown man collect penguins in my office? At the time, I had hundreds of penguins, pretty much any type of penguin that you could imagine from penguin pens, dolls, puppets, a penguin vacuum, even a penguin weather van. I laughed and said, I’ve been seeing you for two years and you’re just now noticing the penguins. Let me tell you this story. A long time ago when my son Anthony was seven, he was difficult for me and we did not have a good relationship. I overworked and he tended to be argumentative and oppositional. I often felt sad and was mad at him a lot. At the time, I was in my child psychiatry training program in Hawaii. When I told my supervisor about the frustrations she suggested, I spend more one-on-one time with him. So that weekend I took him to a place called Sea Life Park on Oahu. We had a great day together and watched the killer whales perform the dolphins dance and the sea lions balance balls on their noses. At the end of the day, Antony wanted to see the Fat Freddy Show, And it changed my life and his forever. Fat Freddy was a short, fat humbled penguin. When he came on stage, he looked around and then climbed the steps to a high diving board. He waddled to the end of the board and then jumped into the water. When he got out, he bowled with his nose, counted with his slipper, and then jumped through a hoop of fire. I had my arm around my son and we felt close and we’re having a good time. Toward the end of the show, the trainer asked Freddy to go get something, and Freddy went and got it and immediately brought it right back. That was when time stood still for me. I thought I asked this kid to get something for me, and he wants to have a discussion for about 20 minutes, and then he doesn’t want to do it, and I knew my son was smarter than the penguin. After the show, I went up to the trainer and asked her how she got Freddie to do all those really cool things. The trainer looked at my son and then she looked at me and said, unlike parents, whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him. I give him a hug, and then I give him a fish. And even though my son didn’t like raw fish, the light turned on in my head that whenever he did things I like, I paid no attention to him at all. Because like my own father, I was a busy guy, but when he didn’t do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a ton of attention because I didn’t wanna raise bad kids by focusing on what was wrong. I was teaching him to be bad in order to get my attention. So I collect penguins as a way to remind myself to notice what I like about the important people in my life a lot more than what I don’t like. Imagine if Freddy was having a bad day and didn’t do what the trainer wanted him to do and the trainer screamed at him, hit him, or just ignored him. Freddy’s performance would not get better. It would get worse. As I finished telling the story, I told Jesse that I had this really crazy idea that she probably didn’t wanna hear Jesse could be a little oppositional. So if I started by saying, you probably don’t wanna hear this. She will of course say just to hear it, what if we trained your mother to be less angry and less likely to pick on you? I’m listening. She said, I know this will be hard, but Whenever your mother starts in on you, I want you to not overreact. Don’t challenge her or get emotional. At that point, Jesse’s eyes got big. I don’t think I can do that, hold on. But whenever she is nice to you, listens to you is more appropriate with you, I want you to tell her how much you love and appreciate her. Jesse was starting to understand like the trainer shaped Freddy’s behavior. She could influence her mother’s behavior by noticing what she liked a lot more than what she didn’t like. I was teaching Jessie personal power. Clearly Jessie knew how to push her mother’s buttons with a look or a word. She could send her mother into orbit, but if she had that power, she also had the power to calm things down and make them better. That night, I got a text from Jessie that she decided not to run away from home. A week later, she said our plan was working. Two weeks later, when I saw her again, she said things were much better, and she brought me a penguin for my collection. I know you’ve heard the phrase, it takes two to make a relationship better. It’s just not my experience as a psychiatrist. When I teach my patients, even the kids, how powerful they are, they realize they can clearly make things better with their loved ones or they can make them worse. Notice what you like about your kids and grandkids way more than what you don’t, and teach your kids to notice what they like about others too.