Three Ideas All Good Parents Embrace

 

Dr. Thomas Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training is the classic text on improving your own communication skills so that the person you are talking to feels heard and respected. The August selection of the Tuesday Book Club is as helpful to parents and children today as it was back in 1970 when the first edition was released. Here are the links to listen to the past three teleconference discussions in case you missed them.

Tuesday Book Club 7/27/10

Tuesday Book Club 8/3/10

Tuesday Book Club 8/10/10

In a subsequent publication (P.E.T. in Action), research from the Gordon Training International of over 250,000 parents who attended P. E. T. training classes revealed there were three ideas a parent has to accept if they really want to improve their parenting skills.

1. Children must be respected as individual persons, not as a different species or anomalies in time.
2. How the child behaves is largely determined by what goes on in the parent-child relationship.
3. There are fundamental principles about interpersonal relationships that must be understood. The two primary principles are: all humans are inconsistent in what behaviors they find acceptable in another (it is okay for parents to be inconsistent); and the principle of problem ownership (who owns a problem determines the strategy one must use to successfully communicate at that point in time).

Start now to change the habits that hurt you as a parent and build new habits using the helping skills Dr. Gordon describes in Parent Effectiveness Training. Those helping skills are:

• four basic listening skills that communicate messages like "I won't take your problem away from you and I am here to help you find your solution"; "I have faith that you have all the ability you need to handle your problem constructively"; and "I love you for who you are and problems are a normal part of life."
• how to talk so that kids will listen
• how to change behavior by modifying the environment
• win-win conflict resolution which is helpful when a behavior is impacting both people in the relationship

Tuesday Book Club Meets live at Laura's Library, 9411 Bee Cave Road, Austin, TX 78733 next Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 6:30 PM CDT in Austin, Texas. Join us for practice of the core skills in Dr. Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training book and for fun frank discussion about the challenges of parenting.

If you are out of town, join via teleconference at 7:00 PM CDT on 8/17/10 at (512) 501-4531 and code 121014#.

Your comments and questions are welcome here as another avenue for book discussion and personal growth. Until next time, remember one idea is all it takes to change your world. Have you already fallen in love with an idea and are having trouble getting back up when someone or something knocks you down? Find your tribe and mastermind with them.

In friendship,

Lori L. Barr, M. D.

Vice President, MindTamers

Reference:

P.E.T. in Action, Thomas Gordon, General Publishing Company, Toronto, Canada, 1976

Improve Your Communication Skills before School Starts

Parent Effectiveness Training: The Proven Program for Raising Responsible Children by Dr. Thomas Gordon shocks the reader into an entirely different mindset. There are two main reasons why people fail to implement the principles of Parent Effectiveness Training. Either they feel that they cannot afford to “surrender” their position of power in the parent-child relationship or, the idea of putting so much effort into a new pattern of communication is too exhausting.

The Tuesday Book Club is spending the month of August studying Parent Effectiveness Training. There are free weekly teleconference discussions and if you are in Austin, a free live meeting on the Third Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at Laura's Library at 6:30 PM. Last week our teleconference focused on the front matter and first two chapters. Click here to listen and catch up.

Here are some discussion questions for chapters three through five
that will help you start to use the language of acceptance that is so necessary in a successful relationship.

Parent Effectiveness Training Chapter 3: How to Listen So Kids Will Talk to You: The Language of Acceptance

What example do you have of a child refusing to talk to a parent?

How is unacceptance communicated?

Name two ways to communicate acceptance non-verbally. Try these and record your results.

Write what your exact verbal response would be if your child came home and said:

“School just isn’t for me. I’ve decided not to go to college. There are so many other ways to succeed these days.”

“I wish I could figure out what is wrong with me. Susie used to like me but now she never comes to play. Every time I go to her house, she is playing with Brianna. They have fun and I just feel left out. I hate them.”

“How come I have to mow the lawn? Sam’s family has a gardener to do that stuff. You are not fair! This is child abuse! Nobody works as hard as I do!"

You are having another couple over for dinner. Your five year old burst into the room as you are enjoying the after-dinner conversation and shouts:
“You are all a bunch of stinking fish heads! I hate you and wish you never came here!”

Classify your responses according to the categories in Chapter 3. Do you tend to communicate acceptance or the opposite?

How many meanings does a typical verbal response carry?

Name three “door openers” you are willing to try. Record what happens when you try them out.

What is active listening?

Try it out on a stranger and record what happens.

Why should people learn the skill of active listening?

What are the six requirements for Active listening to be genuine?

What are the risks of active listening?

Parent Effectiveness Training Chapter 4: Putting Your Active Listening Skills to Work

What is the most important action a person must take to master active listening?

When is it most appropriate to use active listening?

What three classifications apply to any situation encountered in a relationship?

Why is it important to classify situations?

What does active listening help the child find?

Name five common mistakes to active listening.

Parent Effectiveness Training Chapter 5: How to Listen to Kids Too Young to Talk Much

What two requirements must be met to use active listening effectively in children less than 4 years old?

How do you “learn to listen accurately to non-verbal communication”?

What can a parent give a child if the parent listens accurately to non-verbal communication?

What do most parents do instead?

What is the long-term result of this choice?



An Unofficial Reader's Journal to Parent Effectiveness Training, based on the 1975 edition of this classic is available as a free resource to you. Please join us Tuesday, August 3 at 7 PM CDT (512) 501-4531 enter the code 121014# for a live discussion of some of these questions and your experience as you read this manual on communication skills that will revolutionize every single relationship in which you engage.

Your comments and questions are welcome below. Remember, all it takes is one idea to change your world.

In friendship,

Lori L. Barr, M. D.
Vice President, MindTamers