Pat Ritter. Books

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'Closing The Gap' - Page 15:

RELAXATION:
One of the most natural responses to stress is relaxation. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It is effective regardless of the cause of stress. If you haven’t tried it before, try it now. Read through these instructions first and then give it a go. Perhaps you may like to make a recording and relax while you play the recording back.
Like any physical skill, practice makes perfect. The more you practice, the more effective this technique will be. Twice a day is more effective than once a day.
THE 8 MINUTE RELAXATION PLAN:
Minute 1:
In a quiet room and in a comfortable chair assume a restful position and a quiet, passive attitude.
Take four deep breaths. Make each one deeper than the one before. Hold the first inhalation for 4 seconds, the second one for 5 seconds, the third for 6 seconds and the fourth one for 7 seconds.
Pull the tension from all parts of your body into your lungs and exhale it with each expiration. Feel more relaxed with each breath.
Minute 2:
Count backwards from 10 to 0. Breathe naturally and with each exhalation, count one number and feel more and more relaxed as you approach 0.
With each count you descend a relaxation stairway and become more deeply relaxed until you are totally relaxed at 0.
Minutes 3-7:
In your mind go to a place that you find particularly pleasant and restful. Stay there for about four minutes. Visualise the beauty around you, listen to the sounds. Using all your senses try vividly but passively, to capture the feelings of that place and time.
Minute 8:
Bring your attention back to yourself. Count slowly from 0 to 10. Feel the energy, vitality and health flow through your body. Open your eyes. Feel alert and ready to resume your activities.
DIET:
The computer industry has a very explicit phrase. It is ‘garbage in, garbage out’. It’s simply means if you put useless data into the computer, you can only get useless data out. Our bodies work along the same lines.
The food we choose to nourish our body with can have a positive or a negative effect. It can assist us to live a long and full life or it can impair both our physical and mental performance.
Unfortunately many of us have learnt bad eating habits, and it is interesting to note that these bad habits were learnt from others. Therefore the example we set for our children could have a life-long effect on them.
We have the choice to be a positive or a negative influence on our children. By eating a sensible well-balanced diet, we will have a positive influence. We will also feel better, look better and in fact be better.
EXERCISE:
Exercise utilizes the energy that our body has built up for fight or flight. It is a constructive outlet for this energy. Your body will become fitter and better able to cope with a hectic lifestyle.
Parents who exercise regularly achieve both physical and emotional rewards. The physical rewards are to feel good, to have energy and be able to interact with your children in strenuous activities.
All this as well as the emotional rewards of being a positive influence on your children’s life habits, puts the argument for exercise in the essential class even if you have to alter your lifestyle to do it.
If you are saying that exercise just isn’t for you, then try relaxation and good dietary habits first. You will begin to feel better and exercise will become much easier for you.
Relaxation, diet and exercise actually have a combined effect greater than their individual contribution to your health. A small improvement in each area can make a big difference to you.
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY WE FEEL:
While the importance of what we have been talking about cannot be underestimated, diet, relaxation and exercise are only one side of the coin. The other side is our mental well-being. The way that we use our mind has implications for the health of our body.
Follow through this exercise. Record the following words very slowly giving yourself 30 seconds between each paragraph. Then play the recording back while you are lying on your bed or sitting in your favourite chair.
(START OF RECORDING)
Sit back and relax. Close your eyes. Let the pressures of the day fall away. Think of a favourite spot where you go to relax. Visualise yourself resting in this special place.
How does your body feel? Are you relaxed and comfortable?
Now into your idyllic scene comes someone that you care about – someone you love and trust. Someone who has given you pleasure and comfort. Visualise yourself with that special person.
How does your body feel now? Are you more comfortable and relaxed?
But then your companion moves on and a person you dislike intensely comes into your line of vision. You see that person approaching you. Closer and closer.
What is happening to your body now?
(END OF RECORDING)
After you play back the tape, relax for a minute and read on. Did you find that your pulse quickened? Were you tense? Did your muscles tighten up? If so, why did these things happen to you? Not because a person you dislike had entered into your idyllic scene. For this person isn’t actually near you. You were in no way physically threatened by this person. Then why did your body react this way?
Your body reacts this way because your mind cannot always tell the difference between what you see and experience in reality, and what you see and vividly experience in your imagination.
As far as your mind is concerned, this person actually came into your personal space. The person didn’t do anything to you and was never going to do anything to you, but his presence in your imagination was enough to trigger a stress reaction in your body.
If someone was looking at you while you were doing this exercise, they may have noticed tightening of the facial muscles. This would be evidence of an outward involuntary physical reaction to a mental picture.
Now let’s look at this logically. This person isn’t doing anything to cause your reaction. What is happening is that you are causing the changes. In other words, you are allowing your body to react in this way in this situation.
While there was no physical danger during this exercise, many of the symptoms that you experienced would occur in an actual threatened situation. Your body was on a ‘fight or flight’ footing.
Let’s develop this example further. Imagine the person you dislike is in reality someone you often come in contact with or think about reasonably often, because as we’re just determined, you don’t have to be in contact with someone for that person to have an impact on your body.
Previously we mentioned three stages of stress. First was the alarm stage, and then came the resistance stage and finally the exhaustion stage. It’s entirely logical that if you hate someone badly enough, then that person will frequently come into your thoughts.
If he occupies your thoughts, then your body will react as if you’re in physical danger. If you continue to hate that person, your body will continue to react. You will go through the alarm stage, the resistance stage and perhaps the exhaustion stage. Remember that this last step is where the body actually begins to wear out.
If you hate someone badly enough, for long enough, you will injure yourself both mentally and physically. This hate that you feel for someone is something that is inside you. Something you have control over.
If we choose to hate, we are actually causing ourselves a disservice. Note that you would hurt yourself, not that he would hurt you, because you have control over your thoughts, you have choices. You can choose to hate and therefore hurt yourself, or you can choose not to hate and consequently not hurt yourself.
John’s experience when he was a youth is an example of being responsible for the way you feel. John was brought up in the bush and managed to accumulate an amazingly large number of enemies in a short space of time.
His reaction to his enemies was to fight; in fact, he had more fights than he had hot meals. He made enemies out of everyone he met because he thought everyone hated him. He was probably right.
He walked around as tense as a loaded spring, ready to fight at a moment’s notice over real or imagined provocations. If people were friendly, John wondered about how they would betray him.
Then he would look out for any signs that would back up his suspicions. He would then interpret their actions (whatever they were) as confirming his suspicions. His health began to show the effects of his body’s constant tension, caused by the hate he carried. He was like a time bomb ready to go off at any time.
John began to realise that if he was to have a future, he must change. What choices did he have?
He had two choices. He could change his enemies or he could change himself. Obviously he couldn’t change his enemies. He realised that to change any relationship, you have to change yourself. So this is what he did.
He decided he wasn’t going to hate his enemies anymore and that they were now going to be his friends. He was determined to be friends no matter what their reactions were. So the next time a situation arose where he usually would have fought, he simply smiled, slapped them on the back, joked and walked away.
Imagine the confusion! Someone that you’re used to fighting with, suddenly acts differently and not only that, but is friendly as well. John said, ‘the boot was now on the other foot.’ As far as he was concerned, they were his friends and he would always treat them as such.
How they reacted to this was their problem. If they still hated him, that was up to them but he would look to find evidence of friendship in all that they did.
What he did, was to do himself a favour. Instead of carrying around a hate, he carried around forgiveness. He didn’t know if the others were any happier from his change of attitude, but he did know that he was certainly happier and healthier.
Giving up hate worked for him. If you hate or have negative feelings for someone, it doesn’t hurt that person. The only person who gets hurt is you.
Forgiving others is a necessary step in helping yourself.
You are simply happier and healthier when you don’t hate anyone. Think back on the times when you’ve been happy. Weren’t these times when you felt neither hate nor distrust? One of the objectives of this guide is for you to be happier and more comfortable with yourself.
It can’t happen all the time, because after all, we are human. When you are feeling off-side with someone analyse what is happening and why, and take the appropriate corrective action. People who are able to do this will be noted for their good humour and their friendliness. It simply makes better sense to be friends rather than enemies. You gain more personally from being a friend, even when others let you down.
To lead a healthy lifestyle, not only does the body have to be healthy, but the mind has to be healthy as well. If you have negative thoughts, release them now. Examine what is happening around you and learn from it. If events are not going your way perhaps you can still learn from them.
One of the reasons why we give ourselves negative feelings about other people is because we expect them to think like us. We then misinterpret their actions as John did and say to ourselves ‘OK, you don’t like me so I don’t like you’, and proceed to act in a negative way towards them. This in turn draws a negative reaction from them and of course thereafter we feel justified in disliking them.
One of the reasons why we fall for this cycle of events is that deep down we’re unsure of how we feel about ourselves. If we don’t feel that we are confident, lovable individuals, then it is very difficult for us to realise that someone else can love us or have a positive relationship with us. So if we’re not positive about our own self-worth, these sorts of situations tend to occur.
One of the causes of this behaviour lies in each person’s perception of the other. You can do your part to improve relationships by changing your perception of the other person. Then you will tend to change your actions and this will then have an impact on the other person.
We can all learn from Will Rogers, a famous American comedian who once said, ‘I have never met a man I didn’t like’.
I don’t think this quite reflects upon the type of people Will Rogers mixed with, as much as if it reflects his own personal philosophy and his positive approach to life in general.
Sometime during his lifetime, he would have experienced something unpleasant for him personally but he still managed to say this statement and believe it. We can all learn from this. We may not be able to make the same statement but certainly we can forgive others and go on to build a better life for ourselves.
Someone who is confident about their own self-worth will have fewer enemies and negative feelings than someone who isn’t. This may be because they feel that they can deal with any problem more easily than a person with little confidence feels they can.
In other words, they are more confident and possess a more positive attitude. We must be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with others.
The two important issues that have been raised here in terms of mental health are:
* We must develop and maintain a positive image of ourselves.
* We must be capable of forgiving ourselves and others.
These issues go hand in hand. They are inseparable.
AFFIRMATIONS (Positive Self Talk)
The most powerful force for self change that we have available to us is our self talk, that is, what we say to ourselves. Our self-talk directly influences our self-esteem. Therefore one way in which you can build your self-esteem is by using your self-talk constructively. This is done by sending yourself positive messages that your mind will eventually come to believe in.
If you tell yourself something long enough, your subconscious will accept it and you will begin to act that way. If you act as though you like a person you might build a friendship. You certainly will lose an enemy. After all, it takes two to fight.
John Lennon sang an affirmation in one of his songs: ‘Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better’. Those simple words are important and if you repeat them frequently, you will find yourself believing them. Used as part of an overall program for change, affirmations can be very effective in raising your self-esteem.
When your self-esteem rises, it is easier to apply the other techniques of relaxation, a balanced diet, sensible exercise and rational emotive therapy.
Here is a good mental diet that is relevant to all of us.
* Carry no grudges.
* Put the best possible interpretation upon everyone’s actions.
* Send out a kindly thought towards any person who is being antagonistic.
* Think hopefully at all times.
* See only the best happening.
Once you become aware that you are the ‘captain of your ship’, you begin to realise that you need only experience stress when you choose to do so.
TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK: CLICK HERE: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52861.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'LL BE ABSENT UNTIL 19TH MAY 2018. SHORT BREAK!

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'Closing The Gap' - Page 16:

CHAPTER 4
HOW TO REACH YOUR CHILDREN AND HOW TO LET THEM REACH YOU
Without communication, no family can function well. In fact, one of the main characteristics of a successful family unit is good communication.
Unfortunately many families fail to communicate effectively. There may have been times when you said something which was interpreted differently from what you meant.
There may also have been times when you wanted to say something but couldn’t bring yourself to do so. People fail to communicate effectively not for lack of trying, but through lack of skill.
Some people need to improve on their technical communication skills. By this I mean those skills which involve formulating the message you want to send, how you send it and how you go about checking to see if the message was received correctly. These skills are relatively easy to master and will be dealt with later in this chapter.
Most people need to improve their emotional communication skills. These can be harder for us to master. For example, we can talk very eloquently to ourselves. We can mentally rehearse exactly the right words, but when we do say them, they either don’t come out the right way or they don’t have the effect we think they should have had.
This is mainly because we got over-emotionally involved in important conversations and our good intentions fly out the window as our anxiety rises. This anxiety leads to an emotional breakdown in the communication process.
For example, think back to the last time you had an argument within your family. Can you recall what the other person was saying? Think carefully before you answer ‘yes’.
When we are in an emotional situation, we tend to be thinking of what we want to say next. We are full of the self righteousness of our position.
Because we believe we are right, we tend to want to prove it, rather than listen to see if we could be wrong. If the other person feels exactly the same way then he also wants to prove he is right.
When this happens both people are wasting their breath, as neither is listening to the other. They read the other’s body language and come to the same conclusion: ‘I can’t talk to him – he doesn’t understand me.’
Effective communication simply doesn’t take place. Not only that, but because of the emotional messages, future attempts are also less likely to succeed.
However it is not only when we are in an argument that our emotional communication skills let us down. When was the last time you quietly told someone how important they are to you and of the positive feelings you have towards them?
This is sometimes so difficult that we simply don’t do it. We can rationalise our failure to do so, by saying to ourselves ‘that sort of thing is just not for me’ or ‘she really knows that I love her, I don’t need to tell her so’. Both these statements are fallacies.
You do need to tell her or she won’t know. We were all made to give and receive affection but some of us have learnt not to do so. If you wish to, you can relearn to show the affection you feel.
We often send and receive distorted messages which inevitably cause misunderstanding in our families. If we don’t take the opportunity to correct these misunderstandings, then relationships can deteriorate and if this happens, problems will occur. These problems inevitably have an effect on all members of a family even though it may start with only two members.
If bad communication can be the disease then good communication can be the cure. Let us learn from Janet’s experience. Janet was 14 years old at the time. Her mother, a nurse, telephoned Pat (co-author of Closing The Gap – his position at the time was Detective Sergeant in-charge of the Juvenile Aid Bureau at Petrie a Brisbane northern suburb in the Queensland Police Service) and asked for his advice concerning Janet who had run away from home but had since returned.
Janet and her mother decided to come to the Pat’s office to discuss their problems. Janet’s mother started to explain how she and her husband had tried to give their child a sound education at great expense and personal sacrifice. She spoke of how hard they had worked on her behalf and of the feelings of anger and disappointment she now bore.
When Janet was asked how she felt about her parent’s disappointment, her reply was, ‘I don’t care. They don’t care about me, so I don’t care what I do to them.’ Back at home after having run away, Janet had decided not to return to school. She just wanted to watch television.
Here was a proud and angry mother and a non-motivated, stubborn, daughter. It seemed to be an impasse which would be difficult to bridge. The interview began badly when Pat also became emotionally involved.
Pat started telling Janet that if she was his daughter, he would flog her to within an inch of her life. Janet’s mother nodded in agreement while Janet’s facial expression and resolve stiffened.
Fortunately Pat read Janet’s body language. He realised that by becoming emotionally involved himself he was worsening this family’s problem rather than assisting them to solve it.
He knew that to reach Janet he must encourage her to talk and listen to what she said. After apologising to Janet he tried another approach. He asked her what she wanted to be when she left school. She replied that she wanted to be a hairdresser. It was then that the barriers came down. They were able to discuss how she could reach her goal.
Real communication was taking place. Janet came to realise that the only way to achieve her ambition was to repeat grade 10 and this she decided to do. Both mother and daughter came to realise the importance of good communication in order to avoid future misunderstanding.
The act of volunteering to meet a goal is critical. If Janet’s parents had forced her to repeat grade 10, she would very likely have failed. Instead of trying to prove that she could succeed, she would have been trying to prove that she couldn’t. Janet needed her family’s help, but despite their good intentions, there simply was no effective communication.
Whenever her parents thought they were communicating with Janet, the emotional content of their words produced the opposite result to the one that they intended.
We must realise that communication does fail in many instances. It seems that in many critical situations our reactions are on automatic pilot and we tend to say things that we regret later. Yet when we think about it, communication is the life blood of our relationships – at school, at home and in the work place.
There is a world of difference between talking and communicating.
Just because there is a conversation doesn’t mean that there is communication as well. For effective communication to take place, the message sent by one person has to be understood, but not necessarily agreed with, by the other person.
In other words, if someone has an idea which you don’t agree with, but to which you listen and understand, then communication has been successful. You don’t have to agree with what is being said in order to communicate.
For families to work effectively as a team there must be good communication between the members. Let’s look at 15 ways we can improve our technical communication skills.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 17:

1.LISTEN INTENTLY
One of the most important skills in communication is the skill of listening. This vital skill is one which parents frequently forget to practise.
You simply cannot listen if you are talking and you cannot listen if you are not giving your full attention to the person who is talking. You cannot listen effectively if you’re thinking of something else or if you’re thinking of what you are going to say next.
When you’re actually listening, not only do you hear the words, you also hear the tone of voice, you see their body position and facial expressions. A lot of messages that we send to each other are communicated through our body language.
In fact, a person’s body language can often tell us much more than his actual words do. This means that it is very important for your body language to be consistent with your words.
Nothing gets people more frustrated than to communicate with someone whose whole behaviour is saying one thing while his words are saying something else. If anyone has praised you while their facial expression was severe or criticised you while they smiled, you will know how uncomfortable this can be. It is not conductive to good communication.
2.SHOW YOU WANT TO LISTEN
Look and act interested. Listen to understand rather than listen to oppose. This skill is not difficult to master but it does require your full attention. This means always having time to talk to your child.
Whether you really want to listen or not will be obvious to the other person.
3.PUT THE SPEAKER AT EASE
In order to put the speaker at ease, it is important for your body language to communicate openness and friendship. You can put someone at ease by smiling, or general light conversation.
Putting your child at ease and showing him that you are always ready to talk to him is very important. If you take up a defensive, closed posture, then your child may not feel comfortable talking to you.
This is particularly relevant when talking to children who have a problem. No one likes to come out and say they’ve done something wrong. Neither do they want to start a conversation that might lead to some type of punishment.
4.USE EMPATHY
Empathy is an aid to communicate that deserves your attention. You use empathy when you try to put yourself in your child’s place to see a problem from his point of view.
A good manager tried to empathise with his subordinates before he communicates with them. For example, if a manager has some potentially unpleasant news to tell his workers, he could use empathy to assist him to get his message across.
He would imagine himself as one of the workers and then he would imagine how he would feel when he heard the news. After assessing how the worker would react, the manager is then in a position to determine the most effective way to communicate his news.
The same principle can be applied in your home when you are communicating with your family. Perhaps you can recall doing something in your childhood which your parents disapproved of. Do you remember how you felt? If you do, then you should be able to put yourself in your child’s place. You will then be able to communicate with him more effectively.
By using empathy, we are in a better position to understand the way our children react to us
It is easy to assume that your child shares your knowledge and experience and, because you know that you are right, that he will know that also. However, he judges from his knowledge and experience. He sees things through his own eyes, not yours. He acts on his perceptions, not yours.
If we were rebellious when our parents acted in a certain way towards us and we now find ourselves acting in a similar manner (with the best intentions of course), then it is quite likely that our children will react in the same way as we did. The use of empathy is a very effective method of improving your communication success rate.
However, be careful not to confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is when we feel sorry for someone. Parents, feeling sorry for their children, may withhold information from them to protect their feelings. However the rest of the world is unlikely to be so charitable and children quite naturally will become angry if they feel that their parents have withheld information which is important to them.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 18:

5.AVOID ARGUMENT
When we are arguing, the natural reflex action in all of us is to go on the defensive, whether the criticism of us is warranted or not. When we go on the defensive we don’t listen because we are thinking about what we want to say next. We do this even if we are not allowed to answer back.
Naturally if you’re continually negative towards your family, the situation becomes even worse. If you keep telling someone that they are stupid, then they will come to believe it and so act accordingly. The way you communicate with your children has a direct bearing on their self-esteem and motivation.
Criticise the act, not the child
Think about the words and the posture that you use when you criticise your child. Are the words and posture used always (or nearly always) the same? The way you criticise your child is behaviour that you have learnt.
If you are not happy with the way your child responds to your criticism then change the way you do it. Constantly make the effort to be constructive. After a while this new approach can become a habit. You can effectively change a bad habit for a good one. Both you and your family will be pleased with the results.
Be constructive, not destructive, with all criticism. This of course is easier said than done but it is possible. Practise this skill whenever you can.
6.HOLD YOUR TEMPER
It is extremely important to hold your temper because if you’re angry, you are not listening. If the other person is angry, then he is not listening to you. So no meaningful communication is taking place.
When your emotions rise, you stop thinking logically. The only thing that is taking place is the sharing of anger and hostility and this is not the way to build stronger family relationships.
7.BE PATIENT
Do not rush anyone while they are speaking. If you rush them, you will demonstrate that they are not worth listening to and if you don’t listen, you may never get the real message.
Try not to interrupt or finish someone else’s sentences and never start to walk away before the conversation is over. If you do you may find at some future stage that that person rarely talks to you anymore. After all, why should he talk to you if you don’t listen?
Allow plenty of time for regular family discussions. These discussions can take the form of family meetings or just ‘quality’ time with each child.
8.REMOVE DISTRACTIONS
Take time off from whatever you’re doing and give your undivided attention to the person you want to communicate with. If you’re watching television and your child wants your attention, turn the T.V. off. By doing this, you’re sending a message to your child about his self-worth. The message he receives is that he is worth listening to.
If you can’t give your undivided attention when asked, suggest an alternative time which would be both suitable for both yourself and your child. If you continue to watch television while your child is talking, then the message you are sending is that your child is not important enough to listen to and your child will act on that understanding.
That may not be the message that you want to convey, but it will become the child’s perception and this in turn will influence his behaviour.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 19:

9.ASK QUESTIONS
Asking questions encourages your child and shows that you are listening. Ask ‘open’ questions, and by this I mean questions such as ‘how did you feel when this happened to you?’ Open questions have to be answered with words rather than with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ statements. This encourages a child to give an explanation which may not have been given if the answer could have been simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Open questions are very useful where feelings are concerned. Don’t be afraid to ask questions which deal with the feelings of someone else, as feelings are the cornerstone of relationships.
10.USE FEEDBACK
Another technique we can use to ensure that our message has been understood is to ask for ‘feedback’.
Feedback is simply the obtaining of evidence from your child that he has understood your message correctly. This is done most effectively by asking ‘open’ questions based on the message you are communicating.
So if you are asking a child to change his study timetable because of some family activity, one way to ensure that he understands this is to ask him a question such as ‘how are you going to arrange your timetable?’ If you don’t ask, you will never know if your intended message was received accurately.
When messages are passed from one person to another, slight changes can often be made, so the message the recipient gets may be distorted. By receiving the right feedback, you will be assured that your message has been received correctly.
11.USE APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE
Just as listening is vital to communication, so too is the language that you use. When talking to a child make sure the language you use is readily understood by him.
By using language that children understand, you are better able to communicate with them.
12.TIME YOUR COMMUNICATION FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT
If you want to discuss something with your child, you have to pick a time that fits in with the child and of course, yourself.
If your child is starting out for a game of cricket or if he is studying, then wait until he returns from his game or until he has finished his homework, so that effective communication can occur. If our minds are on another activity, communication breakdowns are likely.
Communication requires the attention of both parties. If either one is actually thinking about something else, then the attempted communication will not be successful.
13.SAY ‘I’ RATHER THAN ‘YOU’
Communicate your feelings by using sentences starting with ‘I’ rather than ‘you’. This way you will be assisting your child to develop responsibility for his actions.
It is better to say ‘I am not happy with you leaving this room in such a mess’ than it is to shout ‘you never tidy up after yourself – do you?’ The latter statement generally gets the unspoken answer: ‘so what!’ and it generally isn’t effective in changing the child’s behaviour.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 20:

14.USE ONLY CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Part of the skill in being specific when criticising is the use of neutral or non-explosive language. This type of language helps to stop people becoming defensive. If the way we speak causes other people to react defensively, then we seldom achieve our goals. Defensive people are more interested in justifying their actions than communicating effectively or solving a problem.
It is easy to use explosive, emotive words when we’re upset. These words then trigger emotional reactions in the other person, which generally means both people lose interest in what is best for themselves and others. Always be open and receptive to others.
Part of being open is the desire to listen and if we listen effectively, we could find out things that otherwise we wouldn’t have found out.
We can find knowledge in all sorts of unlikely places if only we allow ourselves to do so. Do you really know how your children see you or how they see the world they live in? You can find out by communicating effectively. That will assist you to reach them.
It will also allow them to reach you. It will help to promote a better understanding of each other’s problems, hopes and fears. This leads to a stronger relationship.
The way we feel about ourselves is largely determined by the way others relate to us.
A lot of criticism in our society tends to be personal criticism which doesn’t help anyone to grow and therefore doesn’t help them to avoid the same mistakes. Sending the message ‘you did a lousy job’ is nowhere near as effective as saying ‘I think that this was done well but this could have been done better’.
This way the criticism becomes more impersonal. You’re not attacking the person’s self-worth, only the unacceptable behaviour.
Constant negative criticism can destroy our self-worth and lead to negative self-fulfilling prophecies coming true. After all, the intention behind the criticism is to help the person grow so that they won’t make the same mistake again. It should not be used to reinforce a negative self-image.
15.TALK LESS
If you are talking all the time then you simply cannot be listening and if you’re not listening, then there is no way you can communicate effectively.
PRACTISING YOUR SKILLS
These skills, like all other skills, need to be practised. I am not advocating that you go around consciously thinking of these techniques all of the time. If you do you will lose the spontaneity which is essential in close human contact.
Instead you could concentrate on one point, such as good listening and practise that. Then you could take another point, such as sharing your feelings with ‘I’ statements and practise that. Eventually your communication effectiveness will improve and, as a result, people will get positive messages from you.
It is also important to try and relive in your mind past communication attempts to see how you could have been more effective. This is worth the effort, as mastering these skills is vital when discussing matters important to you and other members of your family.
Developing these skills is similar to learning to drive a car. You don’t just hop in and enter a Grand Prix event after your first lesson. You practise, you experiment, you learn gradually and then when you’re ready to take the test, you have the confidence to do it well.
Learn these simple skills and practise them, because with practise they will be available when you need them. Communication skills are like any other skills. If they are not used, they’ll get rusty.
Communication skills can be learnt. They are effective and using them will enrich your life and enrich the lives of those around you. They will help to strengthen your relationships with other family members.
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CHAPTER 5
HOW TO MOTIVATE YOUR CHILDREN CONSTRUCTIVELY
How parents throughout the ages have wished that they could wave a magic wand and motivate their children to achieve what they wanted them to achieve?
My parents tried to motivate me to study during my school days but to no avail. It wasn’t through lack of effort on their part that I wasn’t motivated, but through lack of skill. What they didn’t realise was that effective motivation comes from within the person.
EFFECTIVE MOTIVATION COMES FROM WITHIN
Motivation cannot be transferred from one person to another, no matter how well intentioned the attempt may be.
Parents who rely on force to motivate their children are treading on shaky ground. They can force outward compliance such as forcing the child to sit and study for 2 hours a day, but they cannot control the quality of work that the child does during this time.
They can make sure their child does his assignments on time but they cannot make him do his best. He has to want to do that. Parents simply can’t force their children to do quality work, however they can influence them so that they want to do quality work. This is effective motivation for it is self motivation.
The emphasis in this chapter will be on creating a climate where the child is encouraged to motivate himself.
The single most important part of successful motivation is to realize that it is a personal force. It springs from the needs and desires of an individual. A need or desire cannot forcibly be imposed by another person. Therefore to succeed in motivating another person, you have to encourage or create the desire and then let that person motivate themselves. Let me give you a personal example.
My wife and I gave our daughter her first bicycle on her fifth birthday. It was a very exciting time and as I look back at it now, all the excitement was ours. In the following few weeks we ‘motivated’ her and ‘taught’ her how to ride. But despite all our efforts, she continually fell off, got hurt and cried her eyes out.
We couldn’t understand her behaviour as she was well co-ordinated in other physical activities. I even remember threatening (or should I say motivating) her by saying I would give her bike to someone else who could ride it. The bike eventually went to the shed and we gave up ‘motivating’ her.
Some months later, my daughter came to me and asked if she could learn to ride her bike again. In a state of mild shock, I agreed and in less than 10 minutes she had learnt to ride. She had made the decision herself that she wanted to learn, and she did. She still fell off her bike but this time she wanted to get back on.
My daughter learnt to ride her bike when she had a desire to do so. She didn’t learn when we had a desire for her to learn.
If your child has no desire to do his best at school, you can’t motivate him to do so. You can increase his need to do well by showing him that he will achieve something that he values, if he puts more effort into his school work.
He will then motivate himself to remove the obstacles which lie in his path. To motivate him this way, you have to know what excites or challenges him. This takes time and communication skills but if students really want to achieve their goals, they can do so even in spite of bad teachers and poor conditions.
Did you know that there are available over 100 different books in the English language from which students could learn effective study techniques? Yet most students, even some who know how to study effectively, choose to study in an inefficient manner. These students then blame either these study techniques, their parents, their teachers or even their school for their lack of success.
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Desire + Belief = Success
A self-motivated student who desperately wants to achieve a goal and believes that he can, will do so in spite of obstacles. The major difference lies within the student and not in his surroundings.
The words ‘and believes that he can’ are very important because it illustrates a fundamental concept for effective motivation. This is the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Henry Ford’s famous quote illustrates his belief in this concept.
He said, ‘If you think you can do it, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right again’.
We all achieve according to the limits which we have placed upon ourselves. If your child really believes that he can never achieve good results in social maths, then he will prove himself right, irrespective of the amount of help that you or his teacher gives him.
However, if he believes that he will achieve good results then he is likely to do so even if he gets no help from you or his teacher. It is what he believes in, that is critical.
SELF-ESTEEM IS VITAL
A child’s expectations come from his view of himself and this view is called self-esteem or self-image.
Initially our self-esteem is largely determined by the way significant adults (such as parents and teachers) react to us. From a very early stage in life we get an idea of whether we are valued or not.
We interpret this value from the messages we receive. If a child is often scolded then he may decide that he isn’t worth very much. This may in fact be an incorrect interpretation of the way other people value him but it is his interpretation that counts.
Any child who has a low opinion of himself will expect to fail in most things that he does. When he fails, his lack of worth is reinforced by both his own acknowledgement of his failure the comments from the significant people in his life.
He then has further reasons to believe he will not succeed in a similar situation; therefore he will not be motivated to try and do well in the future.
If a child is successful in some endeavour, then his opinion of himself is quite different. He will expect to be successful in similar activities and the significant people in his life will expect this also. Therefore this child will be motivated to try and do well in the future.
This is a simple yet powerful concept for parents because all parents have a big impact upon the positive or negative self-esteem of their children.
YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR CHILDREN’S SELF-ESTEEM
All parents send messages to their children about their self-worth every time they interact with them. If we criticise them, as distinct from criticising their behaviour, they will believe us e.g. if you say that they are clumsy, they will act that way and begin to think themselves as clumsy. Then they will tell themselves and others that they are clumsy.
When we praise them, the same process applies. They know that they are good so their self-esteem and potential performance level goes up.
Let me demonstrate the relationship between positive comments and performance by describing a class exercise which I have conducted with adult students called Penny Pitching.
The class is divided into three groups and each group goes to a different room well away from the other groups. The object of this exercise revolves around each student throwing a 20 cent coin against the wall so that it rebounds off the wall and lands on a strip of tape that has been placed on the floor. The members of the groups are randomly selected and all are given identical instructions. Each group has a scorer whose job it is to record each ‘hit’.
Special instructions are issued to these scorers without the knowledge of the rest of the students. One scorer is to do nothing but praise the efforts of the students in his group. The second scorer is to do nothing but criticise the efforts of his group. The third scorer is told not to react in any way to anything that happens in the group.
While the students are throwing their coins, I visit each group. I praise the ‘positive’ group. I criticise the ‘negative’ group and I remain silent in the ‘no response’ group. As I visit each group, the power of this simple exercise always amazes me.
The ‘positive’ group always have a great time, with clapping and cheering going on constantly. These groups create their own supportive environment. The ‘negative’ groups don’t know what hit them. Some of the participants try to rebel while others just take the criticism. Whatever the reaction, their performance is impaired. In the ‘no response’ groups, the students wonder why they are wasting their time. They become bored. They don’t interact with each other but just drift along waiting for the exercise to finish.
At the completion of the exercise, the scores are totalled and compared with the other groups. The ‘positive’ group scores the highest points, the ‘negative group’ generally scores the second place and the ‘no response’ group usually scores third place. These results have been consistently achieved every time I have run this exercise, even though the groups are selected on a random basis and the task does not require any special skill.
During the discussion which follows this exercise, the participants agree that positive comments are tied to performance through self-esteem. They agree that negative comments are destructive over a long-term but that negative comments are better than being ignored. It is apparent that some recognition, whether positive or negative, is better than none at all. Your children will look to you for an indication of their self-worth. They will judge their worth by the way you react to them.
Children who have a healthy self-image will not only be more successful but they will also be less dominated by peer group influence. This is an important point because parents of teenage children are not the only significant people in their children’s lives. Friends in the child’s ‘social’ circle also have an impact. In some cases this impact, or peer group influence, can be quite devastating to the child and his parents.
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PEER GROUP INFLUENCE
Peer group influence is a very powerful force in our lives both for adults and children. Be careful to praise all aspects of desirable behaviour. A child who is regularly praised for intellectual, emotional, compassionate and physical activities will have a healthy self-image and a healthy respect for others.
A school bully praised only for his ability to use his fists is likely to become a more effective bully. For example Adolf Hitler had a very strong self-image but his parents would not have been proud of his achievements. He lacked that essential quality of respect for others.
Many people today feel that our youth are more easily influenced by their friends. If this is true then perhaps it is because of the way we, as parents, react to our children, rather than due to the changing times.
In earlier times, tougher economic conditions meant that many children were motivated to work early in life to assist their family. They saw the value of their work whether it was milking cows or growing vegetables. They were used to doing things by themselves and were given responsibilities and most importantly, recognition from their parents at an early age. They felt good about themselves as they could see their contribution to the security and physical needs of their family. This contributed to a healthy self-esteem.
Today, most children do not have to work in any meaningful way to help support their families. Many children are now reliant upon social contacts to reinforce their self-image.
This is logical when you consider that they have more free time than their grandparents did at their age and many have less worthwhile things to do with this extra time.
Therefore most children quite rightly regard their circle of friends as vital to their well-being. They strive to fit in with group values and behaviours. Peer group influence is very hard if not impossible to resist because a large proportion of their self-esteem is determined by what their friends think about them.
Numerous children have broken the law even though they knew that what they were doing was wrong. They feared losing their place in the group more than the consequences of being caught or the possibility of injury. To demonstrate this point here is a factual example of what happened to a teenage girl.
A group of Grade 9 students (boys and girls) were truanting. They began to drink alcohol and sniff petrol. Not surprisingly one of the girls became seriously ill, so her ‘friends’ carried her unconscious body back to their school and left her where they thought she would be found. Fortunately for her she was found in time. This girl clinically died three times while being driven in the ambulance to hospital. The doctor who attended her managed to revive her each time and the experience deeply moved him.
When he returned to see her in hospital, he told her how close she came to death. But instead of finding that the girl was shocked and sorry at what had happened to her, he found that she was pleased with her experience. To her it meant that her social standing in the group had risen – she was now a celebrity. In short, she had no intention of reforming at all because she had no reason to change.
Peer group influence is not a new phenomenon but because of the wide availability of many types of drugs today, it can be more damaging than in earlier years, even fatal. However it should also be noted that peer group influence can have a positive effect if the group values are similar to the values of their parents. For example, if a child wants to be accepted into a group of athletes who don’t smoke, then he is less likely to smoke.
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HELP YOUR CHILDREN TO BE ABLE TO COPE SUCCESSFULLY WITH PEER GROUP INFLUENCE
Rather than saying something like ‘kids today are just plain stupid’, perhaps it would be helpful if we look at children who are strong enough to resist undesirable peer group influence. The lessons we learnt may assist us to help our children to cope with this influence for not all children allow their social needs to rule their lives.
Children with high self-esteem who are used to experiencing success, in any field, are able to cope more effectively with peer pressure. Therefore parents can help their children by encouraging them to be interested in some activity in which they can be successful. The actual activity is not important. It could be physical, cultural or intellectual.
The important thing to consider is your children’s need to feel good about themselves and confident in their relationships with other people. It is particularly important that they are confident of a good relationship with their parents. This means that parents should make a habit of spending quality time with each of their children while utilizing the good communication skills discussed in Chapter 4.
Succeeding in an activity is critical. By succeeding, I do not necessarily mean winning by beating everyone else. What is important is the setting of achievable goals within the activity and rewarding your child when that goal is reached.
In this way your child will associate reaching a goal with self-satisfaction. He will then be able to set out and achieve goals in other areas and be on the road to becoming an independent person.
He will be able to think logically about the consequences of his actions and ascertain whether it moves him closer or further away from his goals. Then when confronted with peer group influence, as everyone is, he will be more likely to make sound decisions.
This can only work if the child (not you) sets his goals. It we set a goal to which our child is not committed, than failure is likely to follow. The result would be a drop in self-esteem which is the opposite of what we were aiming for.
Positive results will come when your child works towards a goal which is important to him. It is also important to give praise and encouragement to your children when they are working to achieve their goals. Do not withhold your praise until they have reached it. The fact that they are working towards a goal is more important than the goal itself, for it is this goal-seeking behaviour that you wish to encourage.
This continuous praise also helps to build self-esteem. If they have decided to give up a loved activity such as playing football or watching television in order to achieve their goal, then the fact that they are doing this should be praised. This will encourage greater commitment and a very positive attitude. However, your praise should be natural and spontaneous. If it is forced or insincere, it will be damaging indeed.
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