Have a New Teenager by Friday: How to Establish Boundaries, Gain Respect & Turn Problem Behaviors Around in 5 Days

Children sense it when the leaders they count on have lost control, and that makes them feel less safe and too powerful. Punishments create fear, resentment, and distrust. Alternatively, our reluctance to set a definitive boundary also causes discomfort, insecurity, and more testing. Our vulnerability creates guilt.

The parent-child mirror: In the days of my early parenthood, I had not learned that a relationship is always a mirror—that children cannot respect us if we do not respect them—that if we use power against our children our children will use power, sometimes in perverted forms, in return. I had not yet learned that if we treat our children as friends

I worked further with Michelle and Clark to shift the balance of their communication with Carla from a vast majority of requests with a few instructions to mainly straightforward instructions with a few requests. When everything is a request, you have another form of verbal clutter:

The CEO guides and leads others with confident efficiency. She doesn’t use an unsure, questioning tone, get angry or emotional. Our child needs to feel that we are not nervous about his behavior or ambivalent about establishing rules. He finds comfort when we are effortlessly in charge.