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The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast
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Unreachable Parents
Make your kids feel listened to.
The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com and@amazon.com
Those were awful. Those family driving vacations. Dad insisting on covering as many miles as possible in a day, the two of us tiny hostages in the back seat straining to see something out the windows, the landscape whizzed by. I was 13 before I realized cows aren't blurry,
and that's Niles on Frazier. And if you've ever been in that situation as a kid where your parents are thinking, we're doing the best thing for them, we're taking them to, I don't know, see, see the sights in pick a place in Washington, DC, and the kids are just sitting in the back seat. They're totally bored. They're fidgeting there. When are we going to get there? Are we going shopping at all? When are we going to eat? We stop at a McDonald's daddy? And you're saying, and here's the Jefferson Memorial, and here's the the capital, and the kids just aren't focused. They don't care. You know, how do you deal with that as a parent? Because you're thinking, Oh, well, I'm giving them an education. Isn't this fabulous, and that's not what real what's really going on? Well, seeing things from the kids point of view is not always easy for us as parents, and when parents get divorced, that becomes a lot trickier coming up, we have a phone call from a woman who has that situation. Let's hear from her. Hi, Dr Kenner, my name is Rebecca. Had some questions regarding children and schedules, even middle school kids, divorced. Parents, erratic schedule, erratic visitation. Okay, if you're a mom and you're divorced and you've got kids in medical Middle School, meaning they're in the middle of their development of their younger years, and these are very important years for them, and they just feel like it's not just an erratic schedule, but it's an erratic life. I go from Mom's house to dad's house. Oh no, this week, it's dad's house. And where, you know, there used to be a movie, or there was a movie a long time ago that I saw, if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium. It's like, if it's Tuesday, it must be mom's house, but not this Tuesday, this Tuesday, it's grandma's house because dad's out of town and and the kids think of how they are experiencing their lives. If you've got middle school kids, try to see the world through their eyes. Listen to what they say to you. If they say, my Not again. Do I have to go to dads now? Try to see what's at the core of that for them. Draw them out more. Say what's going on for you. Why are you feeling this way? What would you prefer? Of course, they may not be able to have what they prefer. They may be able to prefer, prefer, to stay with you all the time, and that's not what the courts have said. In short, kids can feel like tennis balls being bounced back and forth from one court to the other, and they never know when they're going to be slam dunked, when they're going to be jarred out of court, and nobody asks them which court they want to be in on a particular day. And that can leave them feeling powerless, hurt, angry. Of course, tennis balls can't fight back very well. So instead of them drawing very bad conclusions, that can be permanent, can be lifelong, unless they go into therapy or challenge them independently, it's they may draw such conclusions. I'll go through those conclusions and then give you a solution. I'm not important, I'm not worthy, I'm excess baggage in mom and dad's life. I'm a nuisance. I'm not good enough, I'm powerless, or I'm angry. I hate my parents. I hate what they did. These are not good conclusions. They could have views about other people, not just hating you, but to say others are always stressed, others are hassled, others are controlling. Others call all the shots, or others are unavailable. If a parent's unavailable, they'll feel real, loved out they may have a view about the world. The world is erratic and chaotic. That's their world and my future. They may have a view about the future. My future is stressful, and they could end up depressed, angry, anxious, rebellious or withdrawn. That's not if you see those. Those are warning signs for you as a parent to sit down at the table and listen to your kids, maybe even have therapy, if it's gotten out of hand. Here's the best case scenario. Let's say that your husband travels and you work and you really can't be with the kids. Look for opportunities to help the kids feel important, listen to them, acknowledge something. That's important in their lives, if they like the grades they're getting, encourage that or see that in there. Don't push them, but just encourage it. Be real nurturing. If, if they are enjoying a sport, get involved. Maybe don't be the soccer mom or dad who's screaming at them and yelling at it, finding every floor, every blemish that they have, but gently encourage, gently acknowledge what they like in themselves. Look at their view of others. You want them to see that you're reachable. It'll help their view of others that you are nurturing and that you can listen. And the view of the world give them a sense of adventure, even if you're not available all the time, the times you are available, don't make it be chore laden. Okay, now we're getting down to business. Now you have to do X, Y, Z. Think, yeah, you want kids to be able to have good sense of responsibility, but you don't want to get to the end of your parenting years and say, My daughter had a clean room. You want to be able to get there and say, Boy, I love the adventure of raising my kids and their good kids, so you can make it more exciting for them, and you want their future to seem open to the possibilities in their lives, just real, fun things that they can look forward to. So you can build on their dreams for their future, assuming that they're healthy, so hope that helps. And here is the question I got from somebody who's looking forward to getting into a career, and I didn't tell you at the beginning when I mentioned this, but this is a kid in junior high school. He says, I'm really interested in the field of psychology. So the first thing that I would say to you this is from Joe. The first thing I would say Joe is figure out what fascinates you in psychology, what drives you. He says, I look forward to the day of finally being a true psychologist. I'm in junior high school, and I feel like it's not too early to begin learning about my career. My major issue is, where do I start? I Where do I begin studying other books I can read. Do some can I study under another psychologist? Do some psychologists actually let people like myself study under them. If you could answer some of my questions, it would be great. Should I be reading a college textbook? How do I begin? And I would say, especially with the field of psychology, you begin by studying yourself and the people around you. You learn about emotions. You learn about introspection. What makes you tick. It's like what I talked about earlier. You need to be able to lead yourself, to be able to be a psychologist. You want to get gain a lot of skills. Cognitive therapy has great skills. I would go right to my website and look at the books that I've recommended changing for good mind over mood. They're all at my website, Dr kenner.com I'd also read two fiction books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, because you will see what will make a person happy in life and what will destroy them, what character traits they need to feel proud, a genuine, earned pride, and what character traits may look make them look good on the surface to everyone else, but really they're psychologically dependent. They feel like they're always trying to please other people and live in the shadows, and they become very resentful of other people. So that those two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, will help you see those dynamics played out. And I know when I read it, I could relate it to people in my own life, and you can try to get a volunteer position at a psychiatric hospital. I worked at a psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island, and I gave tours around the hospital. I sat with the patients in the day room, and I was able to sit in on some therapy group sessions and even some individual sessions. I was a little more advanced, but you may be able to find some opportunities in your area. A college textbook on Intro to Psychology is a good place to start also. So that's a lot, but I would start by studying the people around you and maybe reading the novels.
Dr Kenner podcast, go to Dr kenner.com and please listen to this.
And here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr Edwin Locke:
If you're interested in finding a potential soulmate, be on the lookout for and eliminate anyone who you consciously know is a poor match for you on the deepest value level. For example, one partner is openly anti-intellectual, and the other loves reading and learning and discussing new ideas, or one is unquestioningly religious and a homebody, and the other is uncompromisingly pro-reason, anti-mysticism, and adventurous. Abuse is another deal-breaker. Be aware of the warning signs of an abusive partner or a controlling personality, a person who tries to control you through fear and destroy you by attacking your self-esteem.
You can download chapter one for free by going to Dr kenner.com and you can buy the book at amazon.com.
Those were awful. Those family driving vacations. Dad insisting on covering as many miles as possible in a day, the two of us tiny hostages in the back seat straining to see something out the windows, the landscape whizzed by. I was 13 before I realized cows aren't blurry,
and that's Niles on Frazier. And if you've ever been in that situation as a kid where your parents are thinking, we're doing the best thing for them, we're taking them to, I don't know, see, see the sights in pick a place in Washington, DC, and the kids are just sitting in the back seat. They're totally bored. They're fidgeting there. When are we going to get there? Are we going shopping at all? When are we going to eat? We stop at a McDonald's daddy? And you're saying, and here's the Jefferson Memorial, and here's the the capital, and the kids just aren't focused. They don't care. You know, how do you deal with that as a parent? Because you're thinking, Oh, well, I'm giving them an education. Isn't this fabulous, and that's not what real what's really going on? Well, seeing things from the kids point of view is not always easy for us as parents, and when parents get divorced, that becomes a lot trickier coming up, we have a phone call from a woman who has that situation. Let's hear from her. Hi, Dr Kenner, my name is Rebecca. Had some questions regarding children and schedules, even middle school kids, divorced. Parents, erratic schedule, erratic visitation. Okay, if you're a mom and you're divorced and you've got kids in medical Middle School, meaning they're in the middle of their development of their younger years, and these are very important years for them, and they just feel like it's not just an erratic schedule, but it's an erratic life. I go from Mom's house to dad's house. Oh no, this week, it's dad's house. And where, you know, there used to be a movie, or there was a movie a long time ago that I saw, if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium. It's like, if it's Tuesday, it must be mom's house, but not this Tuesday, this Tuesday, it's grandma's house because dad's out of town and and the kids think of how they are experiencing their lives. If you've got middle school kids, try to see the world through their eyes. Listen to what they say to you. If they say, my Not again. Do I have to go to dads now? Try to see what's at the core of that for them. Draw them out more. Say what's going on for you. Why are you feeling this way? What would you prefer? Of course, they may not be able to have what they prefer. They may be able to prefer, prefer, to stay with you all the time, and that's not what the courts have said. In short, kids can feel like tennis balls being bounced back and forth from one court to the other, and they never know when they're going to be slam dunked, when they're going to be jarred out of court, and nobody asks them which court they want to be in on a particular day. And that can leave them feeling powerless, hurt, angry. Of course, tennis balls can't fight back very well. So instead of them drawing very bad conclusions, that can be permanent, can be lifelong, unless they go into therapy or challenge them independently, it's they may draw such conclusions. I'll go through those conclusions and then give you a solution. I'm not important, I'm not worthy, I'm excess baggage in mom and dad's life. I'm a nuisance. I'm not good enough, I'm powerless, or I'm angry. I hate my parents. I hate what they did. These are not good conclusions. They could have views about other people, not just hating you, but to say others are always stressed, others are hassled, others are controlling. Others call all the shots, or others are unavailable. If a parent's unavailable, they'll feel real, loved out they may have a view about the world. The world is erratic and chaotic. That's their world and my future. They may have a view about the future. My future is stressful, and they could end up depressed, angry, anxious, rebellious or withdrawn. That's not if you see those. Those are warning signs for you as a parent to sit down at the table and listen to your kids, maybe even have therapy, if it's gotten out of hand. Here's the best case scenario. Let's say that your husband travels and you work and you really can't be with the kids. Look for opportunities to help the kids feel important, listen to them, acknowledge something. That's important in their lives, if they like the grades they're getting, encourage that or see that in there. Don't push them, but just encourage it. Be real nurturing. If, if they are enjoying a sport, get involved. Maybe don't be the soccer mom or dad who's screaming at them and yelling at it, finding every floor, every blemish that they have, but gently encourage, gently acknowledge what they like in themselves. Look at their view of others. You want them to see that you're reachable. It'll help their view of others that you are nurturing and that you can listen. And the view of the world give them a sense of adventure, even if you're not available all the time, the times you are available, don't make it be chore laden. Okay, now we're getting down to business. Now you have to do X, Y, Z. Think, yeah, you want kids to be able to have good sense of responsibility, but you don't want to get to the end of your parenting years and say, My daughter had a clean room. You want to be able to get there and say, Boy, I love the adventure of raising my kids and their good kids, so you can make it more exciting for them, and you want their future to seem open to the possibilities in their lives, just real, fun things that they can look forward to. So you can build on their dreams for their future, assuming that they're healthy, so hope that helps. And here is the question I got from somebody who's looking forward to getting into a career, and I didn't tell you at the beginning when I mentioned this, but this is a kid in junior high school. He says, I'm really interested in the field of psychology. So the first thing that I would say to you this is from Joe. The first thing I would say Joe is figure out what fascinates you in psychology, what drives you. He says, I look forward to the day of finally being a true psychologist. I'm in junior high school, and I feel like it's not too early to begin learning about my career. My major issue is, where do I start? I Where do I begin studying other books I can read. Do some can I study under another psychologist? Do some psychologists actually let people like myself study under them. If you could answer some of my questions, it would be great. Should I be reading a college textbook? How do I begin? And I would say, especially with the field of psychology, you begin by studying yourself and the people around you. You learn about emotions. You learn about introspection. What makes you tick. It's like what I talked about earlier. You need to be able to lead yourself, to be able to be a psychologist. You want to get gain a lot of skills. Cognitive therapy has great skills. I would go right to my website and look at the books that I've recommended changing for good mind over mood. They're all at my website, Dr kenner.com I'd also read two fiction books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, because you will see what will make a person happy in life and what will destroy them, what character traits they need to feel proud, a genuine, earned pride, and what character traits may look make them look good on the surface to everyone else, but really they're psychologically dependent. They feel like they're always trying to please other people and live in the shadows, and they become very resentful of other people. So that those two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, will help you see those dynamics played out. And I know when I read it, I could relate it to people in my own life, and you can try to get a volunteer position at a psychiatric hospital. I worked at a psychiatric hospital in Rhode Island, and I gave tours around the hospital. I sat with the patients in the day room, and I was able to sit in on some therapy group sessions and even some individual sessions. I was a little more advanced, but you may be able to find some opportunities in your area. A college textbook on Intro to Psychology is a good place to start also. So that's a lot, but I would start by studying the people around you and maybe reading the novels.
Dr Kenner podcast, go to Dr kenner.com and please listen to this.
And here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr Edwin Locke:
If you're interested in finding a potential soulmate, be on the lookout for and eliminate anyone who you consciously know is a poor match for you on the deepest value level. For example, one partner is openly anti-intellectual, and the other loves reading and learning and discussing new ideas, or one is unquestioningly religious and a homebody, and the other is uncompromisingly pro-reason, anti-mysticism, and adventurous. Abuse is another deal-breaker. Be aware of the warning signs of an abusive partner or a controlling personality, a person who tries to control you through fear and destroy you by attacking your self-esteem.
You can download chapter one for free by going to Dr kenner.com and you can buy the book at amazon.com.
