We've all been there. That toddler at the store who's tired. Who wants a cookie and
is crying because he can't have one. That teenager who puts up a wall and doesn't
want to talk to you when you know there's some discussion that needs to
happen. Or maybe that child who you tell them to do something but they say, "No, I'm
not going to do that." All of those situations are power struggles. This
video is dedicated to understanding power struggles and helping you know how
to avoid them.
So, as we dive in, we're going to gain more clarity on power struggles and the
different ways that people power struggle with each other. And then we're
going to talk about the 5 steps for avoiding power struggles that are going to
be really helpful to you and your family. There are 4 different types of
communications. 3 of those four types of communications are actually power
struggles. And one isn't. So, hopefully it wouldn't be any kind of a surprise that
there's only one way we actually need to communicate or should communicate in
order to not power struggle with other people. So, the 3 types of power
struggling are aggressive communication, passive communication and then passive
aggressive communication. Aggressive communication, we're probably pretty
familiar with. It looks like bullying, it looks like loud words, Mean statements,
threats, getting physical. Passive communication though not a lot of people
recognize is actually another form of power struggling. Passive communication
is when children whine and pout and complain in order to get their way.
They act like the victim. Anyone who's acting like a victim is being passive
and they're doing it to manipulate their situation. Then the third type of power
struggle is passive aggressive communication. So, the person could look
like a victim by being silent or not talking about it. But in reality, they're
hoping to dominate as an aggressor would do just by not using words necessarily.
Or if they do use words, there's very few and they're short. And oftentimes, they
point back at the fact that you are the one doing something to them. It
oftentimes looks like an attitude problem. Just so you know, adults often
use passive aggressive power struggling more than any other form. Although any
person any age can use all 3 of these
different types of power struggling. So, what's the solution? The solution is to
be assertive. Assertive communication means planned communication. The person
has decided deliberately ahead of time. This is the way that I'm going to
communicate with another person. Well, if somebody is going to be power struggling
with you, the best thing that you can do is decide ahead of time "This is exactly
how I'm going to communicate when somebody is trying to manipulate me by
using a power struggle technique." Deciding ahead of time how you are going
to communicate is actually called self-governing. So, a lot of people know
me as the self-government lady because I teach everything through the lens of
self-government. Self-government is the process of understanding how your
actions relate to your goals and making better decisions to be able to
accomplish those goals. Self-government leads to personal freedom and greater
bonding and unity within the family. These 5 steps to avoiding power
struggles are all related to self government principles. Number 1, live
your role. You've got to know who you are in the situation. People who start power
struggling with other people or who start getting sucked in to power
struggles revert to the emotional part of their brain. And when they go to that
emotional place, everyone in the room as a child on the same page. And they're
just fighting for who gets the last cookie. It's essentially what it feels like
to everybody who goes to that place. They forget who they are. If you're the parent
then your role is to be the leader, the teacher. You have a certain amount of
authority, parental authority that is just part of who you are in the role of
the child. If you don't exercise that parental authority by calmly teaching,
nurturing, instructing correcting your child when they are in that state
of power struggle, then you've actually just allowed the power struggle to
continue, the child will think they won. And so, then that particular type of
power struggle will keep happening again and again and again. When you know who
you are and your role in the family, you won't keep your tolerances that high. In
order to be a self-governed parent and a self-governed child, the tolerances need
to be low. When somebody is trying to power struggle with you, don't take it
personally. You can't care about the manipulation tactic that they're sending
at you. Can you try to understand them a little bit better and can you care about
them as a person? Yes. But you shouldn't be worrying about what type of emotions
that they're throwing at you or attacks that they might be making. That can't
matter. When someone has moved the emotional part of their brain, they are
not thinking clearly. That prefrontal cortex is not running on full capacity.
Their bond with you is getting damaged because they're in a selfish place. You
cannot take it personally no matter what they say or do. A good leader keeps in
mind who each person is and where they're going together. And again, that
goes back to the roles. But you sometimes have to give yourself a no answer which
is one of the 4 basic skills we teach in the teaching self-government program.
You have to give yourself a no answer, No, I'm not going to think about that, I'm not
going to get emotional about that, I'm not going to take it personally. That is super
important. I know it's easier said than done. But try to develop a habit of not
taking it personally. Again, that doesn't mean you don't care. That just means that
you are not going to allow their emotional outburst to impact your
emotional logical stability. Number 3, pre-teach for success. If a person is going
to have any chance at all at overcoming their habit to power struggle with other
people, you have to give them the opportunity to analyze the situation
before it ever even occurs. Which means that you're going to pull the person aside
in a really safe environment where they feel like things are good right now
and you're going to say, "Have you notice what happens when you get frustrated
about this certain thing? Or when so-and-so tries to push your buttons in
this way? Or whatever happens in that person's life." And they might say, "Yeah."
And then say, "Do you think maybe we could come up with another way so that you
don't have to go to that place that emotionally wears you out that makes you
feel disconnected from the family and all of these things?" They might be
intrigued at that point. Even if they say, "No, I don't care." You still say, "I think we
can come up with something else." And then you're going to teach them skills. One of
the most important skills that you're going to teach them is a skill called
disagreeing appropriately. That brings us to step 4 which is teaching them the
skills they need to stay in the logical part of their brains. So, we teach
children 4 basic skills. They are following instructions, accepting no
answers, accepting consequences and disagreeing appropriately. If a person
learns all 4 of these four basic skills, that takes care of 99% of their
behavioral problems. Trust me on this. After doing foster care for troubled
teens for many years and now teaching this for 20 years, I know this takes care
of nearly everything that you could think of. So, did you hear that last skill
--disagreeing appropriately? That is usually a child's favorite skill. Because
that skill helps them get understood when they feel like they're maybe not
being understood. And helps them get their way which makes
them happy. They know that somebody is listening to them. Well, your child needs
to know how to get his or her way without arguing. That means they need the
skill disagreeing appropriately. This book, Paije Takes The Stage teaches
children how to disagree appropriately. We also talked about the skill in my
other courses and things on teachingselfgovernment.com. But the steps to
this skill are truly liberating. First, you look at the person so you establish
a bond and a connection with that person. That actually keeps you in the
prefrontal cortex because you're thinking about connecting and looking at
that person. Step number 2, you keep a calm face, voice and body. When a person
thinks about keeping a calm face, voice and body, their feelings are transformed
from anxiety (which is midbrain) to comfort and safety, which is more of a
front brain thing to feel, actually. The third step is to say that you understand
the other person's point of view. That's important because when you're an
emotional place you're only thinking about yourself. Self, self, self. "How do I
feel? How do I feel?" When you go to front brain, you have to think about how
everybody might be interpreting this interaction, what they feel like other
people need to understand not just yourself. So, this is a great thing to
bring a person to front brain. So, you would say, "I know that you don't want me
to go out and play after dinner." That's seeking to understand another person.
Then the next step step 4 is to share your point of view so you would say, "But
I told Jonathan that I would come back out and play after dinner and I think
he's waiting for me. I feel like it might be rude to leave him staying out there.
Could I just go out for a few minutes." Then Step 5 is that you wait to
listen to what the other person has to say. And you say "Okay" to whatever it is
if it's your parent of course or teacher or something like that, a person in
authority. You would say okay and then you drop the
subject is the final step. So, maybe the person says, "No, you still
can't go out and play after dinner." Then you would say, "Okay." And you would drop
the subject. But hopefully probably a parent would say, "Oh, yeah. You can go out
with Jonathan for 10 minutes. But then when I call you in that's going to be an
instruction and you need to say okay and come." And remember following instructions
is one of those other four basic skills. The fifth step for avoiding power
struggles is to consistently correct. People will contact me all the time. I do
these support group calls weekly. And probably on almost every third support
call, somebody will ask me some questions that sounds like this, "Nicholeen, I have a
child who they just keep having so much attitude. I tell them to do stuff but
they just won't do it. They just don't care. I don't know how to get over this
hump. They know the 4 basic skills but they just don't seem to care about it.
And so I feel like I'm just nagging them all the time." You know, something to that
effect. And the first thing that pops into my mind is, "Ah, you're not being
consistent." It's very easy to see you're not being consistent. If you have to nag
your children, you're not being consistent. And by the way, nagging leads
to excuse making and wiggling out of problems which then leads to power
struggling. It's actually already part of the manipulative power struggling
process. But that really kicks off the other 3 power struggling ways. So, you
have to consistently correct. Which means you have to keep your tolerances low. You
have to decide "I won't tolerate this type of behavior, I can't. In the best
interest of the child, I have to correct it." We don't have time in this video to
go into the steps of how to correct problems. But I do have a free gift for
you that will help you with correcting your children more calmly. This free gift
is called the Calm Parenting Toolbox. And if you go in the
description below, you'll see a link to it. Go check that out. It's going to bless
you with more calmness in your family and in your communications so that these
power struggles don't need to happen. Everything that we do when we teach our
children should be pointing toward calmness. Calmness is the opposite of
power struggle. Calmness is being secure. So, go ahead and click that link below
and get the calmness help you need. So, that your family can thrive, be united
and feel more secure.