After 25 years of practicing family psychology. I've learned a few things
about how to deal with family members who put you down. This might be happening
to you. By the time you finish this video, you'll know exactly what to do about it.
2 specific ideas for you today about how to deal with family members who put
you down. And the first one comes from all of the work that I've done with
little kids over the years. I sometimes work with children who are being bullied
or teased or otherwise tormented. Not severe abuse but you know, the kind of
stuff that just is irritating and annoying. And I came up with this idea
that really works well for little kids. It occurred to me this is probably going to
work really well for all of us. It's called the tickle factor. Have you ever
done this? Where you're tickling someone right? Maybe one of your kids or sibling
or grandkids even. And the tickling is fun, why? Because they freak out. You
tickle someone and they're like, "Ahh!" And they freak out. And it's fun. It's a little
rush of power that you have that kind of control over another person. Tickling.
Have you ever tickled someone or tried to tickle someone who is not ticklish
at all? Yeah. You've tried this too haven't you?
So, am I. How does that fly? Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle. And they look at
you like, "What are you doing?" Tickle, tickle, tickle. "Ew."
And it's so awkward that you stop tickling them. Do you continue to tickle
someone who's not ticklish? No. Why? Because it's no fun. You don't get any
kind of a reaction. Think about what we're applying this to today. Family
members who put you down. Why would they do that? Probably because of the rush
they get. The false sense of power that happens when they see you freak out. Or
even if you're not freaking out. It's just that false sense of power or
control that they get when they do that. And it's probably pathological. But we're
not talking about them, we're talking about you. What can you do about this
thing? The first thing that I would encourage you to do is think about the
tickle factor and let's see if we can disconnect the reaction from it. We take
away the response. And that has them feeling awkward. To do this you're going
to need to take a little inventory of how you've been responding to that
family member who's been putting you down. Here's a quick example from one of
my clients. This is a full-grown adult mother of 3 who is having a problem
with her own mother putting her down and judging her parenting skills. I don't
know if you can relate to that or not. But this is the position my client was
in. As she took an inventory of her own behavior, she could see that when mom
criticized her parenting, her response typically was defensiveness. She'd try to
explain, "Well, I'm doing that because..." Or "I read in this book that it's really good
to..." And she was defending her position as a parent. Well, that didn't have mom
stopping in her criticism. She continued to do it. So, my client chose to change
her own response and disconnect the tickle factor.
She no longer was ticklish, so to speak to her mother's criticism. And it had a
profound effect on how her mother treated her after that. She simply
disconnected the response. Mom would criticize her parenting and she would
just not respond. I call this the strategic non-response. It's a powerful
idea. Think about the tickle factor and how
that might serve you in this situation. The second idea that I promised to share
with you I got from Pamela Jett. She is a friend of mine who is a communication
specialist. And she works with people all the time on how to interact with people
in a healthier way. Pamela suggested to me that we can
handle this the same way we would handle a sniper. Wait a minute? A sniper? Yeah.
Because a sniper takes potshots at you, right? So, this is kind of what we're
dealing with. It's an emotional sniper. And Pam gave 3 steps that you can
use in your communication with that person that will put you in a very
different position. Here's what they are. Identify verify and accept. Identify,
verify and accept. Let's go back to the same example I shared with you earlier
about my client whose mother was criticizing her parenting. Identify is
when you reflect back to the person who's taking potshots at you what's
happening. And you do it in this format: "When this happens, I feel..." Okay? "When this
happens I feel..." Whatever. So, in the example. "Mom, when I hear criticisms about
my parenting, I feel betrayed and unloved and unsupported." Okay, you pick whatever
feeling words match for you. That's not an accusation. She's not saying, "Mom,
you're making me feel this way." No. "Mom, when I hear criticism about my
parenting, I feel betrayed, unloved unsupported." Okay, that's step one,
Identify. Here's step 2, this one is brilliant. And I love that Pam teaches it
this way because it is a powerful intervention. Verify. "Is that what you
were going for? Is that what you were after? Is that what you intended?" Pick one
of those sentences and throw it in right after the identify sentence. "Mom,
when I hear criticism about my parenting I feel unloved and unsupported. Is that
what you were going for?" Now, don't say it in an accusatory way. It's simply to put
the ball back in their court. Now, 99% of the time when you go to that step,
whoever is in that interaction with you is going to backtrack. They're going to
backpedal. "Oh, no, no, no, no. No. That's not what..." Or
they might try to turn it back on you. "Oh, you're so sensitive." Whatever. Whatever
their response, even if they validate it. "Yeah, that's what I was going for." Wow!
Wouldn't that be interesting. Most people won't say that. Whatever their response
is you simply go to step 3. Accept. Sounds like this, "Okay." That's it.
You simply say okay no matter what their response was. This is so powerful because
it puts people on notice that the way they're treating you has an impact and
that you are willing to set some limits around it. Powerful stuff. Relationships
can be tricky. There's a whole positive relationship resources playlist here on
the channel. And as you weren't watching this, I bet you had some ideas about how
to apply it. Share some of your ideas down
below in the comments. Let's get some discussion going about how to do this
better.