critical
December 2008 
How do you respond to negative people?
Posted on Aug 6th, 2008
by 
synonym for light
synonym for light
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for August 04, 2008:
I heard several talks about various subjects this week -- 1st, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, then Melissa Block & Stefan Fatsis, then Madeleine Albright, then the prosecutor at court -- my 16 year old son was arrested for fighting and disorderly conduct last month and yesterday was his day in court. Each and every one of those persons, including the prosecutor advocated Dialogue. HH the Dalai Lama said he would like this to be the Century of Dialogue. Stefan Fatsis, the sports writer, said "you just have to quit pretending that there is an us and a them and sit down and talk". Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State of the U.S. during the Clinton years said, you have to talk to your enemies. And the prosecutor told my son that he had a responsibility to avoid the fight, to walk away or to find a way to make peace. (He also gave him a deferred sentence -- a vote of confidence that he can turn things around and learn from this experience.)
I think that's what needs to happen for all of us. We have to remember that the other, the negative person, is just like us. We have to step away from fear of the other and talk and then we will find the humanity in the other person.
For me this week -- interacting with my son is my lesson in foreign policy. Ms. Albright also said, foreign relations really boils down to getting another country to do what you want them to and then she listed the tools that diplomats use to do that. I think it is imperative for me to deal with my "negative" teen in a diplomatic way. I need to remember that he needs positive reinforcement for his positive behaviors as well as to learn new skills for his own "foreign relations" with people who he perceives as negative.
I think that's what needs to happen for all of us. We have to remember that the other, the negative person, is just like us. We have to step away from fear of the other and talk and then we will find the humanity in the other person.
For me this week -- interacting with my son is my lesson in foreign policy. Ms. Albright also said, foreign relations really boils down to getting another country to do what you want them to and then she listed the tools that diplomats use to do that. I think it is imperative for me to deal with my "negative" teen in a diplomatic way. I need to remember that he needs positive reinforcement for his positive behaviors as well as to learn new skills for his own "foreign relations" with people who he perceives as negative.
Access: Public
Sometimes it's so hard to really talk to someone instead of lashing out, but you're right - it's so important.
I'm wishing you and your son courage as you do this hard work.
I like that approach but I think you run into problems with adolescent humans kind of like the ones you run into with foreign countries, where there is an implication that your way is the right way and their point of view is just something to diplomatically convert and get them to do what you want. Even if what you want is a much much better idea, you're dealing with an entity - country or teen age human - that experiences itself as being an equal in the world and probably sees the US or any other pushy country, or parent, as a condescending, manipulative bully who thinks they know better. It doesn't matter at all if you actually DO know better, that's not real to the other party.
I personally think all adolescent males, as soon as that testosterone starts flooding, should take some kind of martial arts every day of the week. Okay, maybe not every day, but a lot. It's the best way I've ever experienced to channel aggression and energy in a disciplined and really cool way and the skills serve you forever. I think it's just as great for girls (and it's something I've done), I just think it's almost essential for males.
There's something about the positive and negative labels that bothers me, but I can't quite pinpoint it. Maybe I'll respond to this QaR later when I figure it out. And there's something about the “diplomatic” approach, I don't know. It's kind of what I do with clients actually, my job is to change their behaviors without using any negative consequences (not even time outs or time aways, nothing). I work with people with developmental disabilities but most have some level of MR and the objective is very different from growing an autonomous, intelligent, independent, completely capable budding adult.
The little girl I love working with, who's going to soon be my only client when I move to part time, is very intelligent. I don't use the “tricks” with her, the things in my diplomatic bag, even though my job is the same and even though I probably could. I've been trying to figure out how I do what I do with her, because I'm the only one who can work with her at this point. She's a different person with other staff and not in a good way. At this point I'm not yet clear on what the magic is. We have a planning meeting tomorrow and I've been trying to put all this together in my head. If I can make sense of it I'll post something.
You sound like a very wise parent. I don't care what age kids are. they live up to–or down to–our genuine expectations. My number one rule of parenting was to remember the inherent worth and dignity of each of my children and to treat them with respect. I loved your foreign relations analogy. You and your son will be all right.
not much time to post response this moment - getting ready for yoga WITH MY SON. Jordan has agreed to try coming to Bikram yoga with me 5 days a week for a month. Today is his first day. I've been meditating on peace in our family and peace on earth every day and my own yoga practice has become a 90 minute open eyed meditation on peace day in and day out.
it goes like this – first I feel / imagine / find peace in my own heart.
then peace in the family, the neighborhood, the state, the continent, the hemisphere, the earth, the universe, the multi-verses.
I pray for peace in each heart because that's where it starts for each and every one of us.
I've been practicing breathing in and breathing out peace every minute, because that's what I have to do in my interactions with Jordan. I have to be peace to make peace.
jeannie— I think what you may be doing is a much subtler and the most effective form of diplomacy and that is leading by example– modeling the behavior you want to see – being you and she is responding to your authenticity, your sincerity, your love. :-) I'm reading “the kadzin method or the kazdin method – sorry the book isn't right here and I have to hurry and get ready, but I'll post more in the wee hours of the morning from work.
mamakat, emma – hi. more later. :-)
xoxo
-d
I promised more later and now it is later, but I'm feeling very quiet and peaceful and not many words are coming to me.
Thanks for the wonderful well wishes. They are much, much appreciated.
dawn, in some earlier post, the great and powerful oz (jeannie) recommended “learned optimism” by martin seligman. as i'd recently been experiencing some backpeddaling in my own optimism levels, i went right over to the library. this is some seriously good stuff. you don't strike me as someone who needs much advice in this area, but i wonder if it might be helpful to read in terms of jordan? obviously i don't know him at all, but i just thought i'd reiterate jeannie's recommendation of this book.
cyber-sending you good-heart vibes! Lil'
DO NOT LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
You've got me off in the corner now, thinking about the whole ball of wax that is dialogue, conversation, communication. How do we talk to our enemies? To our own loved ones sometimes? How do we talk to relate live in camaraderie with our own bodies ferpetessake, and at 16??? I can only remember the incessant wars and sniper shooting and fisticuffs that went on within my own 16-year body.
I hope your son's experience of bikram was good! I saw a posting yesterday on Bikram yoga a male perspective, a first-time experience of bikram that ultimately became transcendent. May all of life's challenges be so for us!
rapunzel PLEASE let down your hair and give us some pixy dust so we can fly to oz with you and I am too going to look behind the curtain, the curtains even. Jeannie!!! I got the book - Neverwhere! THANK YOU!! what a great mailbox surprise. I tried to read it this morning after work, but only made it to page 2 before I fell asleep. It was waiting for me when I awakened, but I had to jump right out of bed and get to day 5 in a row of yoga. yum!!
I can't believe what a lucky girl I am in terms of friends! and YES! Lil' I'll be reading that Learned Optimism too, soon as I can. I'm trying to teach myself to speed read, but I like to read slowly too and savour the words, so I'm not sure if I'll ever get to be a super fast reader which means I'll never, ever, ever run out of reading material. Isn't the libary the coolest, best most awesome building you could ever go into? thank you for the good heart vibes. I can't say how much they are appreciated.
willow– exactly. exactly. and I am going to follow your bikram yoga link right now and come back to comment again here after I've read it. thank you for your thoughtfulness.
-d
willow/jeannie and rapunzel/jeannie – look here….
all_i_know_about_child_rearing_i_learned_from_siddhartha
willow thank you for linking to that bikram yoga blog post because I went from there and read some more of kicksave/gerry's blogs and it was really good that I did.
rapunzel – I think that is a little of what you are often trying to say when we talk about teens maybe?
oof.
xo
:-)
-d