It’s immodest to say this, but hey, it doesn’t happen that often–I’ve been included in a book about kids called “Transforming the Difficult Child: True Stories of Triumph” (link below). I studied with one of the authors, Howard Glasser, who has a wonderful approach to working with kids in classrooms and at home.

I submitted a story about a young client I had a few years ago who helped his mom figure out how to give him timeouts in an effective way. She’d see him break a rule and say, “Pause!” and he would freeze. Then, after a few seconds, she’d say, “Play!” and the timeout was over. That’s right–timeouts can last a few seconds. They don’t have to be “one year for every year of your age,” as the old rule goes. (Who thought of that rule? No one seems to know.) The “pause/play” wording that was the five-year-old child’s idea, so not only did it work, it rewarded him for being creative.

I worked with young children–and not-so-young children–for many years, and I’ve found that many of the ideas that work for them are also useful for couples. It’s not that adults in relationships are acting just like little kids–okay, sometimes it’s like that. But the true similarity is this: most of the time, when kids are acting out, they are just not getting what they need, and it’s not “attention.” It’s love, nurturing, boundaries, clear rules, a world that makes sense and has a lot of strength and companionship and kindness in it.

These sound like the basic needs of adult couples! Here’s the book:

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am and is filed under About my practice, Bookshelf, Nothin' but a Family Thing, Tools and Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.