Creating Change In others, by rabbi shmuel gluck:
Parents, spouses, and friends, sometimes realize that there’s someone in their lives who’s in desperate need of change. In many cases those people are unwilling to discuss their issues with anyone. They’re stuck in their counter-productive lifestyles. After much pleading with them to speak to a professional or even to a friend, it becomes obvious that any change must come without their active participation.
Creating change in others is a very difficult process. To undertake such a goal, and certainly to succeed in this goal, requires that several conditions to be met. Before a person can create change in someone else, they need some confirmation that they’re not the problem. Many times it’s the person that’s worried about their “other” that’s the real problem. A typical example would be spouses who’re critical of everyone around them and insist on changing all of them.
Creating change in others assumes that the person wanting to make this well meaning attempt has above average people skills. It also assumes that the person has the time, energy, and a strong enough relationship with the other individual, to succeed.
Creating change in others, without their active participation requires that certain conditions be met. These include:
1. An assumption that that other person is healthy. This means that the person’s issues are not chemical but behavioral. Trying to help a person who has a chemical imbalance which may have led to depression, or to some other self destructive behavior, is best left for professionals.
2. It’ll take a lot of time and energy. This means that the person attempting to create the change may need to spend several hours a week, and maybe for many months. The process may be a slow and frustrating one.
3. The person must be very good at understanding people in general and specifically the person s/he is trying to help. S/he must have a very thorough understanding of all the person’s likes, dislikes, and responses to different situations.
4. The person may have to do more than just have discussions with the person in need. The person may have to help the other find a job, drive him/her around, etc.
The basis for believing that one person can change another without the second’s participation comes from the following two rules:
1) A person’s behavior is always calculated. Sometimes it’s done consciously; other times subconsciously. The person is always thinking about whether the gain of the action will exceed the loss. That decision will decide whether or not the action will happen.
For example, let’s say that a boy skips school. The parent’s find out and take away his computer game privileges for a week. Why would he skip school if he knows he’ll lose his privilege? The answer is that he’s weighed the gain of whatever he planned on doing by skipping school, against the loss of his computer game privilege. In his mind, it was a fair exchange.
A more extreme example is the following: A student of mine stole money from his father’s wallet, despite his certainty that his father would find out and beat him. (Yes, his father used to beat him.) He told me that getting his father angry was the only control he had over him and this made it worth the beating. Until I heard this I believed (like most adults) that when kids act out they’re just not thinking; however, they obviously are thinking.
These examples aren’t limited to teenagers. Many adults also act unreasonably. Some don’t hold jobs; others seem to say the wrong thing, or take pleasure in destroying relationships. Again, the question is why do they do it? If we accept that there was some decision that preceded their actions, then we need to understand what those decisions were. (I will discuss the most effective ways to “handle” these scenarios after describing several approaches.)
The importance of this rule can’t be emphasized enough. If a person does something because it’s worth doing, then to create the change, one has to intervene in a manner that makes the action worthless. However, making the action worthless comes with certain complications. Every interaction between two people creates a domino effect. Making an action worthless will not help a person improve unless the alternative action is a healthier one.
For instance, “getting” teenagers to stop smoking by threatening to throw them out of the home may succeed, but it may create very angry teenagers who may retaliate by doing something much worse. One needs to remember at all times, that creating behavioral change is a complex process that requires the ability to think three or four steps ahead of the person’s present actions.
2) People’s behaviors are dependent on two things: a) who they are; and b) with whom they’re interacting. a) Who they are refers to their strengths, weaknesses, character traits, and experiences. All of these things “make up” how they see the world, and what they feel is needed to improve their quality of his life. b) With whom they’re interacting is equally important. People that are generally nice, will often not act as nice when interacting with very difficult individuals. People with few life skills will perform better when they’re speaking with patient, caring, individuals. Most adults haven’t placed enough thought into this rule to utilize it when they interact with others.
This rule is not achieved by just being a positive role model for the person needing change. It means that those attempting to create the change must consider every one of their own actions, and how they’ll affect the other person. Every move (word and action) must be thought through before the move is made.
If the two rules mentioned in the first part of this series were understood, one is now able to create specific change. However, there are additional understandings that one must be aware of before attempting to create change in another person. These are:
1) There must be a clear understanding of the long term goals before you begin. Creating change in others will cause them to have internal stress. The more change that you create, the greater the internal stress. Obviously, it’s important to cause as little stress as possible. The less stress that you put on those that you’re trying to change, the more receptive they’ll be to further change.
People that want to change others must ask themselves, for example, whether the goal is to keep the boy in Yeshiva or to teach him to get along better with other people. If it’s to keep him in Yeshiva, then the focus should be on class attendance and school work and not on other existing issues (such as how he interacts with his siblings). If the goal is to promote the girl’s interactions with her friends, then her poor homework skills should not be discussed.
2) There must be a clear understanding of the order in which the goals should be addressed. Many well meaning people look at others, feel badly for them, and try to do what they can to make things better. Their approach is usually sporadic and impulsive. However, when you wish to undertake someone that you care about as a project, it’s not enough to do “a little here and a little there”.
Deciding what the first step should be is more complicated than most people think. Since change is stressful, it’s important to make every move count. Mistakes may be made, but the fewer mistakes the easier it’ll be to succeed.
3) There must be a clear understanding of what the person you’re trying to change is capable of doing. Often we attempt to change others without taking their abilities into consideration. Who says the boy is capable of doing what we’re asking of him? Staying in Yeshiva may seem like a normal goal, but it may be premature for this boy, and smaller steps may be more appropriate.
People trying to change others shouldn’t forget that what they’re attempting to do, is to make the others become the best people that they can. The goal isn’t, and can’t be, to create clones of yourself. That’s called manipulating. Manipulating others has a negative connotation as it assumes there’s a selfish motive. When it’s a selfless act and the manipulator’s only goal is to make the others “better”, then the proper description is influencing, not manipulating.
4) There must be a clear understanding of the root of the behavior that one is trying to change. Once the root is understood, the focus should be on changing the symptoms, or, to be more specific, the behavior. For instance, in the case of a boy who Davens Shacharis at home instead of in the Yeshiva, the focus should be on his actually going to Shacharis, not on explaining to him the importance of going to Shacharis.
The reason one must focus on the behavior is because of the boys’ unwillingness to be proactive in their own lives. Since we’re unable to force them to change their actions by command, the goal is to orchestrate their surroundings so that they repeatedly make the right choice (in this case, Daven Shacharis in Yeshiva). Repetitions of this positive behavior, can make it become second nature to them. If necessary this behavioral change can be followed up with related conversations, with the goal of internalizing these behaviors even further.
For example, you know a boy who goes to Yeshiva but generally Davens Shacharis at home. He tells me that no one seems to notice when he doesn’t come, and that many other boys also Daven at home.
However, his parent’s attitude is different. They believe that he should go to Shacharis because it’s the right thing to do. They know that when he doesn’t Daven in the Yeshiva but Davens at home, it only takes him only five minutes. In addition, since they’re busy, they find it difficult to keep adjusting their schedules to their son’s ever changing “wake up” times.
In order to resolve the situation, they must understand why he’s reluctant to go to Shacharis in Yeshiva. Is it the long Davening, the long day, his unhappiness with the school in general, or that he’s the only one of the family not home during that time? One, or a combination, of these reasons makes the advantages of staying home exceed the disadvantages. Any additional information they can gather about the boy and his motives is important, even if in the end, it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the approach. It’s important, even if it only makes the parents realize that the situation is more difficult than they imagined.
These types of questions and answers will often challenge the assumption that it’s worth attempting to create change in the other person. For some boys, the willingness to go to Yeshiva is enough of a “gift” to the family, that it’s not worth risking this by insisting on his going to Shacharis.
If the day is too long for him, or he’s not happy in Yeshiva, and the Hanhalla is willing to overlook his lack of attendance at Shacharis, then let him Daven at home. Limit any attempts to create change in areas that may increase the risk of a ripple effect if the change isn’t made. Forcing him to Daven Shacharis in the Yeshiva may create a negative ripple effect by making him unwilling to go to Yeshiva.
If the boy doesn’t want to attend Shacharis because he wants to be home with the rest of the family, then behavioral change is an appropriate step. He believes that staying home offers an advantage that is worth more to him than going to Shacharis. By staying home he’s not getting what everyone else is enjoying.
The fact that he doesn’t want to attend Shacharis because of a need for attention, and offering him individual attention, may take care of his “feeling left out”. One suggestion may be to have one of the parents drive him to school instead of making him take the bus. (This is something that I’ve done for my children). Offering such a privilege (when not forced to do it) is a sign of friendship and should not be considered as blackmail from the boy to the parent.
If he misses eating a homemade breakfast, giving him something special to take to school to eat may help him want to Daven Shacharis in Yeshiva. Don’t be afraid to keep the solution simple. Although I believe in promoting an in depth understanding of each circumstance combined with a thorough approach, I still believe that the simplest explanation should be the first one tried. An additional thought for parents to keep in mind is not to become resentful of the time and burden required for them to facilitate behavioral change.
These two suggestions (driving him to Daven or giving him something special to eat) will promote positive feelings within him. However, there’ll be situations where the change may have to focus on the negative. Keep in mind that the boy believes that the advantages of staying home exceed the disadvantages. Instead of increasing the advantages for going to Shacharis in the Yeshiva, parents may have to increase the disadvantages of staying home.
One approach may be to not drive him to Yeshiva thereby forcing him to walk, or take the bus, every day. However, for his siblings the parents will inconvenience themselves and drive them to school. Anyone attempting to change others should understand that this approach should only be considered when creating positive advantages have failed.
Positive motivators are mostly individual based; things that a person will appreciate. There are several standard, negative “motivators” that can be applied. Although they’re negative, they aren’t extreme, and can therefore be used somewhat liberally. Their goals are to make the other person (in this case the boy) realize that the advantages of changing his behavior exceed those of continuing it.
1) In a healthy relationship, persons attempting to change others can show their disappointment of the others in a focused, logical, manner. Most emotionally, healthy, children will understand that their relationships with their parents offers them advantages and they won’t risk losing that relationship by, for instance, missing Shacharis in Yeshiva. However, parents shouldn’t be naive and automatically assume that their children actually respect the value of a relationship.
Sometimes children decide to give their parents a “cold shoulder”, and speak to them only in short, curt, sentences, and only when necessary. How can parents make this behavior seem worthless? In most cases it’s best to let it “play out”. Asking for forgiveness from children when it’s not deserving offers them advantages. They learn that by being cold, they can get their parents to “give in”. Retaliating, by becoming angry, allows the children to feel empowered, knowing that they can control their parents by making them angry.
Instead, let the children become angry, wondering when you’ll react. When it becomes obvious that you aren’t going to react, they’ll have no choice but to make “the next move” .Usually they’ll begin by speaking nicely to the parents. When that happens, remember to be gracious in victory. Don’t comment on their actions and let them (on their own) realize that it’s now a week later (that’s how long they gave the cold shoulder), and they haven’t gained any ground. What you’ve done is to make their actions (not speaking to you) have more disadvantages than advantages.
2) Parents can (and this approach is something I often use) explain to their boy that his staying home inconveniences them. However, this should only be said if he’ll appreciate that it’s true. They can say, “You need to keep in mind that your missing Shacharis causes me to lose 10 – 15 minutes of my time and I’ll have to “make it up”. I may not be able to go to the library for you, buy you what you asked for, or do any of the other things I offered to do for you.
3) Parents (and spouses) can use a cause and effect approach. Many parents shelter their children from some of the reactions they’ll face as adults. In the real world, if one treats another with a lack of respect, the first person will not befriend or offer favors to the second. If one person lies to another, the second person will not trust the first.
This is how (to a degree) parents should react to their children. In areas that the children are trustworthy, such as when money is left in the house and it remains there, the parents should trust them. However, in areas in which they are untrustworthy, such as badly behaving when left alone at night, they shouldn’t be trusted. Cause and effect is taught to these children by what they do right (not take money that doesn’t belong to them) and by what they do wrong (behaving badly when home alone at night).
Overlapping the two by not trusting them with money because of their bad behavior at night is not cause and effect. It’s a reaction from angry parents. A focused and direct response to a specific behavior will teach them that their actions will cause reactions. If they’re not happy with the reactions, they’ll (after some time) adjust their actions accordingly.
Parents can apply this third motivator even when dealing with rebellious children, but more patience and focus will be required. Such children will challenge the cause and effect reaction. Their approach will be to “up the ante” until the parents are forced to back down.
Before beginning the process of creating change in their children, parents must be aware of this. Since the “up the ante” response exists, parents shouldn’t begin the cause and effect process unless they’re prepared to not back down, regardless of how extreme they anticipate their son will react. (This doesn’t mean that parent’s must respond to every incident. Sometimes it’s better to “look away”, as I’ll discuss in the next article). If they begin to react and are forced to back down, the children will see their victory as proof of their being able to do what they want. Don’t begin any of these processes unless you’re confident that you can follow through to the end.
How should parents react to their children’s “upping the ante”. Parents must remember that their children have two goals. The first is to get the parents to “give in” by bombarding them with abusive and, if necessary, escalating, bad behaviors. The second (in case the first one doesn’t succeed), is to get the parents angry. Both allow the children to control their parents.
In last week’s article I described how a cause and effect approach should work for rebellious children. Parents will find that these children often respond by “upping the ante”. When children “up the ante” parents must respond in a manner that negates their children’s two anticipated goals.
These are: 1) Get the parents to “give” in by bombarding them with negative and, if necessary, escalating, bad behaviors. 2) (If the first one doesn’t succeed), Get the parents angry, thereby allowing the children to feel good about themselves by exercising control over their parents.
Parents must remember that children are very aware that they have little or no control of their lives. Money, transportation, style of clothing, and permission to go to friends, are all dependent on their parents’ decisions. When children have a good relationship with their parents, they welcome such control. When they don’t have this warm relationship they resent their parents control tremendously. Anything that they can do to exercise some level of control and undermine their parents, is important to them.
To insure that the children don’t accomplish either of the two goals, (thereby removing any advantages from their decision to “up the ante”), parents should respond calmly to every incident. If the children are angry, but don’t direct the anger to a specific incident, the parents should ignore their anger. If the children’s anger is so extreme that it can’t be ignored, the parents should calmly comment, “We’re sorry that you’re angry. If we can do anything to help you w will. If we can’t, then we‘d appreciate your calming down. Your anger doesn’t mean that you have the right to make others angry.” The key, as always, is in the wording, tone, and body language. The parents must be calm, caring, and not project weakness.
When children scream at their parents in response to specific incidents, e.g. not letting them go to friends, their response should be, “We’re sorry you’re upset, but screaming won’t make us want to be any more agreeable the next time”. When the parents don’t “give in”, and don’t become hysterical, the children’s reactions don’t affect them, and therefore the children have no advantages. Remember that the first several incidents may be uncomfortable for the parents and there may not be any indication that this approach is working. It’s only after this happens several times, and the children realize that not only haven’t they gained any “ground”, but they’ve probably lost some ground, that they’ll reassess their responses for the next time.
Therefore, during the first few incidents, the children may “give up” on their parents and “start up” with their siblings, break furniture, slam doors, etc. The parents should acknowledge what happened, not become upset, and respond by telling them “You may be upset, but throwing things on to the floor to get us upset is not going to make us appreciate you or fulfill your request”.
Parents must be prepared to deal with the ripple effect of these children’s behavior, such as the resentment their behavior will cause their other siblings. These siblings may become resentful at the parents’ patience with their difficult siblings, and for not “sticking up” for the good sibling’s rights more aggressively. The siblings should be compensated with extra time and love. In addition the parents should explain to the siblings that are old enough to understand, that what they’re doing is a thought through approach, requiring their patience.
The cause and effect approach should continue even after the children calm down. Even though they want their parents to immediately treat them better, the parents should say to them: “Although we didn’t get angry at you, that doesn’t mean that you can expect us to ignore what took place in the last hour.” If, on the other hand, the children wait and “cool off” before talking to their parents, the parents should treat them better. This will highlight to the children that when they act better, they’re treated better. After a while the children will see that the respect and privileges they receive is consistent with their own performance.
In last week’s articles I indicated that when parents respond to their children’s negative actions, they shouldn’t feel that it’s necessary to react to every incident. Creating change in others should be a thought through process and therefore there’ll be more than enough incidents to which to respond. Applying cause and effect each time can create resentment in children, increasing their resistance (which is so important to avoid). In addition, by choosing those incidents at which to react, parents can wait for those incidents which are less complex, and times when everyone can be more patient, in a better mood, and more capable of dealing with any ripple effects.
The message that should be given to children is simple. The parents should describe to them how they behaved and what just took place. It should be done clearly, and without emotion. Such a cause and effect approach must be genuine and make sense to anyone who would have observed the incident. Most importantly, the reaction of the parents’ must be understood by the children to be a direct result of their actions and not just a form of punishment. Sometimes children, as defense mechanisms, will claim that they don’t understand the connection between what they did and why their parents won’t do them favors. The parents must determine whether the children really understand.
Explaining to the children that making a mess in the kitchen “cost” the parents 20 minutes, leaving them 20 minutes less time to buy them something, is a simple example of cause and effect. However, explaining to children that the parents are reassessing their relationship with them because of the way they’ve treated the parents, is more difficult. The children’s maturity and honesty will decide what will be understood as a valid cause and effect.
4) Personal behavior is probably the easiest form of behavior to change in others. Children don’t notice changes in personal behavior as much as peers and, especially, spouses. The basis for creating change through personal behavior is because individuals don’t want to be different from those around them. They certainly don’t want to feel inferior to those around them. If one individual, as a result of his behavior, has created a standard, many others, will attempt to keep up with that standard in order not to feel inferior.
If a husband is careful when he puts things away in the home, it will be more difficult for a wife to be careless. I’ve deliberately chosen a case in which a wife learns from a husband (and not the other way around). People who have faults that are typical for their gender, age, upbringing, etc., may not learn from those in the other gender, of different ages or upbringings, who demonstrate strengths in these areas. Those with faults will see these strengths as those expected from the other groups. Men, for instance, may say, “men are supposed to be messy, wives are supposed to be clean”.
When a husband puts things away carefully, his wife, to avoid being embarrassed, will be more careful when she puts things away. This is a perfect way to create change through personal behavior. However, in this scenario it would be natural for the husband to have an urge to become angry or condescending, but doing this will ruin any chance of changing his wife’s behavior.
5) The approach of using personal behavior to create change in others, isn’t limited to tangible goals, such as cleaning houses. It’s more difficult, for instance, for a spouse to become frustrated if the other spouse has a calming effect. However, being calm alone may not be enough. Creating a calming effect requires more than just relieving nervousness. It requires people to actively promote calmness to stressful situations. This is done by calm people, in their conversations with others, highlighting their own behavior and the advantages that being calm brings to them.
If calm people don’t actively promote calmness in the life of other’s who need it, one of two things may happen:
a) The people who aren’t calm may learn to “coast along”, shifting some of their responsibilities to calmer people and may not even attempt to become calm. Many people, certainly the more flustered ones, don’t take note of their surroundings and how those around them act. They’re actually unaware that those around them deal with the same situations as they do, but more effectively. If they do notice the behavior of others, they don’t notice how those behaviors are the result of the other’s decisions to live a calmer, more effective, life. They rationalize that, “it just didn’t bother them” or, “they had it easier than we do”.
b) Some people notice their surroundings and the people around them, but choose to avoid thinking about them. If they would, they’d see that the others are much more effective in what they do than they are, and therefore they may feel badly and, possibly, even guilty. The problem becomes one of how to handle this guilt. Some people will turn their guilt feelings into positive motivators. They’ll strive to emulate a calming person’s responses. For others, the guilt has a negative effect, reinforcing their negative behaviors.
Other people don’t even notice the positive behaviors of those around them and therefore, it becomes important to bring to their attention the effective behavior of others. However, if one mentions it to them in a critical manner, they may focus their energies on being angry. What one should do (similar to cause and effect), is to “highlight” what’s taking place without offering any complaints or punishments.
Let’s assume that a husband becomes unnerved very quickly in crisis, while the wife remains calm. If the husband is unaware of how the wife effectively reacts to crisis, his wife should say to him, “I know that you’re stressing out and I understand it, but I’ve found that dealing calmly with this situation always makes things better.”
If the husband is aware that the wife is calm but takes advantage of the wife’s calmness, then her response should be, “Please consider that I’ll do my best to handle the situation, but I can’t help you if you become stressed out. Things may become better, but you’ll still be stressed.” People can usually help others with anything or anyone besides themselves.
6) Creating change in others can also happen through the lessons of life. Many parents want their children to wake up on time for school and they’ll try a wide range of approaches. They’ll reward, punish, and beg. What may work better is to let the children wake up late, come to school late, and realize that, in the real world, if you don’t wake up on time, you’ll miss school and suffer the consequences. Such an approach assumes that the children enjoy school (to whatever degree possible).
However, there are other situations in which parents will intervene (since they aren’t confident that their children will do the right thing), even though allowing life to take its course would more effectively create change in the children. For example, if teenagers don’t get haircuts before job interviews because they’ve met the potential bosses and “knows that the bosses likes them”. Or, a teenager arranges a ski trip for a group, “lays out” the money for the entire group, and “ends up” having paid for some of the group who aren’t in a rush to pay back the money.
7) The last point I want to discuss is the concept of creating “momentum” for the change. When people are in “growing” modes, they’re more receptive to further growth even in unrelated areas. When they’re in “down modes”, it’s more difficult to get them to do anything.
Therefore, before creating change, the ones attempting to create the changes, should focus their energies on creating the proper momentum. Good will and minimizing resistance should already be obvious to the reader. However, there are two more important guidelines:
a) It’s much easier to increase existing patterns than to create new ones. For example, if children don’t help with household chores and the parents would like them to help, they should do the following. Instead of asking the children to help in an area that may take time, effort, or require them to do something that they really don’t want to do, get them to help for five minutes with something that they don’t mind doing. Whether those five minutes will, or will not, help is not important. Getting them to help for those five minutes will begin to set a pattern; the children will help. Once the pattern is set, it’s just a matter of increasing the existing pattern, not of creating a new one.
This type of approach may require a great amount of time before the help (the change) becomes significant. However, the change will have become internalized and not superficial, making it well worth any possible delay.
b) Since creating positive momentum is so important, it’s better to start with “easier” areas of change, even if they aren’t the most important areas.
Although this series of articles focused primarily on parents and spouses attempting to create change, this approach is just as effective with co-workers and even bosses. The readers must keep in mind that creating change in others requires patience, creativity, and knowledge of that person’s personal database. (described in a previous article). Any previous article will be sent to you upon your request.
The author can be contacted at shmuelgluck@areivim.com
Creating change in others is a very difficult process. To undertake such a goal, and certainly to succeed in this goal, requires that several conditions to be met. Before a person can create change in someone else, they need some confirmation that they’re not the problem. Many times it’s the person that’s worried about their “other” that’s the real problem. A typical example would be spouses who’re critical of everyone around them and insist on changing all of them.
Creating change in others assumes that the person wanting to make this well meaning attempt has above average people skills. It also assumes that the person has the time, energy, and a strong enough relationship with the other individual, to succeed.
Creating change in others, without their active participation requires that certain conditions be met. These include:
1. An assumption that that other person is healthy. This means that the person’s issues are not chemical but behavioral. Trying to help a person who has a chemical imbalance which may have led to depression, or to some other self destructive behavior, is best left for professionals.
2. It’ll take a lot of time and energy. This means that the person attempting to create the change may need to spend several hours a week, and maybe for many months. The process may be a slow and frustrating one.
3. The person must be very good at understanding people in general and specifically the person s/he is trying to help. S/he must have a very thorough understanding of all the person’s likes, dislikes, and responses to different situations.
4. The person may have to do more than just have discussions with the person in need. The person may have to help the other find a job, drive him/her around, etc.
The basis for believing that one person can change another without the second’s participation comes from the following two rules:
1) A person’s behavior is always calculated. Sometimes it’s done consciously; other times subconsciously. The person is always thinking about whether the gain of the action will exceed the loss. That decision will decide whether or not the action will happen.
For example, let’s say that a boy skips school. The parent’s find out and take away his computer game privileges for a week. Why would he skip school if he knows he’ll lose his privilege? The answer is that he’s weighed the gain of whatever he planned on doing by skipping school, against the loss of his computer game privilege. In his mind, it was a fair exchange.
A more extreme example is the following: A student of mine stole money from his father’s wallet, despite his certainty that his father would find out and beat him. (Yes, his father used to beat him.) He told me that getting his father angry was the only control he had over him and this made it worth the beating. Until I heard this I believed (like most adults) that when kids act out they’re just not thinking; however, they obviously are thinking.
These examples aren’t limited to teenagers. Many adults also act unreasonably. Some don’t hold jobs; others seem to say the wrong thing, or take pleasure in destroying relationships. Again, the question is why do they do it? If we accept that there was some decision that preceded their actions, then we need to understand what those decisions were. (I will discuss the most effective ways to “handle” these scenarios after describing several approaches.)
The importance of this rule can’t be emphasized enough. If a person does something because it’s worth doing, then to create the change, one has to intervene in a manner that makes the action worthless. However, making the action worthless comes with certain complications. Every interaction between two people creates a domino effect. Making an action worthless will not help a person improve unless the alternative action is a healthier one.
For instance, “getting” teenagers to stop smoking by threatening to throw them out of the home may succeed, but it may create very angry teenagers who may retaliate by doing something much worse. One needs to remember at all times, that creating behavioral change is a complex process that requires the ability to think three or four steps ahead of the person’s present actions.
2) People’s behaviors are dependent on two things: a) who they are; and b) with whom they’re interacting. a) Who they are refers to their strengths, weaknesses, character traits, and experiences. All of these things “make up” how they see the world, and what they feel is needed to improve their quality of his life. b) With whom they’re interacting is equally important. People that are generally nice, will often not act as nice when interacting with very difficult individuals. People with few life skills will perform better when they’re speaking with patient, caring, individuals. Most adults haven’t placed enough thought into this rule to utilize it when they interact with others.
This rule is not achieved by just being a positive role model for the person needing change. It means that those attempting to create the change must consider every one of their own actions, and how they’ll affect the other person. Every move (word and action) must be thought through before the move is made.
If the two rules mentioned in the first part of this series were understood, one is now able to create specific change. However, there are additional understandings that one must be aware of before attempting to create change in another person. These are:
1) There must be a clear understanding of the long term goals before you begin. Creating change in others will cause them to have internal stress. The more change that you create, the greater the internal stress. Obviously, it’s important to cause as little stress as possible. The less stress that you put on those that you’re trying to change, the more receptive they’ll be to further change.
People that want to change others must ask themselves, for example, whether the goal is to keep the boy in Yeshiva or to teach him to get along better with other people. If it’s to keep him in Yeshiva, then the focus should be on class attendance and school work and not on other existing issues (such as how he interacts with his siblings). If the goal is to promote the girl’s interactions with her friends, then her poor homework skills should not be discussed.
2) There must be a clear understanding of the order in which the goals should be addressed. Many well meaning people look at others, feel badly for them, and try to do what they can to make things better. Their approach is usually sporadic and impulsive. However, when you wish to undertake someone that you care about as a project, it’s not enough to do “a little here and a little there”.
Deciding what the first step should be is more complicated than most people think. Since change is stressful, it’s important to make every move count. Mistakes may be made, but the fewer mistakes the easier it’ll be to succeed.
3) There must be a clear understanding of what the person you’re trying to change is capable of doing. Often we attempt to change others without taking their abilities into consideration. Who says the boy is capable of doing what we’re asking of him? Staying in Yeshiva may seem like a normal goal, but it may be premature for this boy, and smaller steps may be more appropriate.
People trying to change others shouldn’t forget that what they’re attempting to do, is to make the others become the best people that they can. The goal isn’t, and can’t be, to create clones of yourself. That’s called manipulating. Manipulating others has a negative connotation as it assumes there’s a selfish motive. When it’s a selfless act and the manipulator’s only goal is to make the others “better”, then the proper description is influencing, not manipulating.
4) There must be a clear understanding of the root of the behavior that one is trying to change. Once the root is understood, the focus should be on changing the symptoms, or, to be more specific, the behavior. For instance, in the case of a boy who Davens Shacharis at home instead of in the Yeshiva, the focus should be on his actually going to Shacharis, not on explaining to him the importance of going to Shacharis.
The reason one must focus on the behavior is because of the boys’ unwillingness to be proactive in their own lives. Since we’re unable to force them to change their actions by command, the goal is to orchestrate their surroundings so that they repeatedly make the right choice (in this case, Daven Shacharis in Yeshiva). Repetitions of this positive behavior, can make it become second nature to them. If necessary this behavioral change can be followed up with related conversations, with the goal of internalizing these behaviors even further.
For example, you know a boy who goes to Yeshiva but generally Davens Shacharis at home. He tells me that no one seems to notice when he doesn’t come, and that many other boys also Daven at home.
However, his parent’s attitude is different. They believe that he should go to Shacharis because it’s the right thing to do. They know that when he doesn’t Daven in the Yeshiva but Davens at home, it only takes him only five minutes. In addition, since they’re busy, they find it difficult to keep adjusting their schedules to their son’s ever changing “wake up” times.
In order to resolve the situation, they must understand why he’s reluctant to go to Shacharis in Yeshiva. Is it the long Davening, the long day, his unhappiness with the school in general, or that he’s the only one of the family not home during that time? One, or a combination, of these reasons makes the advantages of staying home exceed the disadvantages. Any additional information they can gather about the boy and his motives is important, even if in the end, it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the approach. It’s important, even if it only makes the parents realize that the situation is more difficult than they imagined.
These types of questions and answers will often challenge the assumption that it’s worth attempting to create change in the other person. For some boys, the willingness to go to Yeshiva is enough of a “gift” to the family, that it’s not worth risking this by insisting on his going to Shacharis.
If the day is too long for him, or he’s not happy in Yeshiva, and the Hanhalla is willing to overlook his lack of attendance at Shacharis, then let him Daven at home. Limit any attempts to create change in areas that may increase the risk of a ripple effect if the change isn’t made. Forcing him to Daven Shacharis in the Yeshiva may create a negative ripple effect by making him unwilling to go to Yeshiva.
If the boy doesn’t want to attend Shacharis because he wants to be home with the rest of the family, then behavioral change is an appropriate step. He believes that staying home offers an advantage that is worth more to him than going to Shacharis. By staying home he’s not getting what everyone else is enjoying.
The fact that he doesn’t want to attend Shacharis because of a need for attention, and offering him individual attention, may take care of his “feeling left out”. One suggestion may be to have one of the parents drive him to school instead of making him take the bus. (This is something that I’ve done for my children). Offering such a privilege (when not forced to do it) is a sign of friendship and should not be considered as blackmail from the boy to the parent.
If he misses eating a homemade breakfast, giving him something special to take to school to eat may help him want to Daven Shacharis in Yeshiva. Don’t be afraid to keep the solution simple. Although I believe in promoting an in depth understanding of each circumstance combined with a thorough approach, I still believe that the simplest explanation should be the first one tried. An additional thought for parents to keep in mind is not to become resentful of the time and burden required for them to facilitate behavioral change.
These two suggestions (driving him to Daven or giving him something special to eat) will promote positive feelings within him. However, there’ll be situations where the change may have to focus on the negative. Keep in mind that the boy believes that the advantages of staying home exceed the disadvantages. Instead of increasing the advantages for going to Shacharis in the Yeshiva, parents may have to increase the disadvantages of staying home.
One approach may be to not drive him to Yeshiva thereby forcing him to walk, or take the bus, every day. However, for his siblings the parents will inconvenience themselves and drive them to school. Anyone attempting to change others should understand that this approach should only be considered when creating positive advantages have failed.
Positive motivators are mostly individual based; things that a person will appreciate. There are several standard, negative “motivators” that can be applied. Although they’re negative, they aren’t extreme, and can therefore be used somewhat liberally. Their goals are to make the other person (in this case the boy) realize that the advantages of changing his behavior exceed those of continuing it.
1) In a healthy relationship, persons attempting to change others can show their disappointment of the others in a focused, logical, manner. Most emotionally, healthy, children will understand that their relationships with their parents offers them advantages and they won’t risk losing that relationship by, for instance, missing Shacharis in Yeshiva. However, parents shouldn’t be naive and automatically assume that their children actually respect the value of a relationship.
Sometimes children decide to give their parents a “cold shoulder”, and speak to them only in short, curt, sentences, and only when necessary. How can parents make this behavior seem worthless? In most cases it’s best to let it “play out”. Asking for forgiveness from children when it’s not deserving offers them advantages. They learn that by being cold, they can get their parents to “give in”. Retaliating, by becoming angry, allows the children to feel empowered, knowing that they can control their parents by making them angry.
Instead, let the children become angry, wondering when you’ll react. When it becomes obvious that you aren’t going to react, they’ll have no choice but to make “the next move” .Usually they’ll begin by speaking nicely to the parents. When that happens, remember to be gracious in victory. Don’t comment on their actions and let them (on their own) realize that it’s now a week later (that’s how long they gave the cold shoulder), and they haven’t gained any ground. What you’ve done is to make their actions (not speaking to you) have more disadvantages than advantages.
2) Parents can (and this approach is something I often use) explain to their boy that his staying home inconveniences them. However, this should only be said if he’ll appreciate that it’s true. They can say, “You need to keep in mind that your missing Shacharis causes me to lose 10 – 15 minutes of my time and I’ll have to “make it up”. I may not be able to go to the library for you, buy you what you asked for, or do any of the other things I offered to do for you.
3) Parents (and spouses) can use a cause and effect approach. Many parents shelter their children from some of the reactions they’ll face as adults. In the real world, if one treats another with a lack of respect, the first person will not befriend or offer favors to the second. If one person lies to another, the second person will not trust the first.
This is how (to a degree) parents should react to their children. In areas that the children are trustworthy, such as when money is left in the house and it remains there, the parents should trust them. However, in areas in which they are untrustworthy, such as badly behaving when left alone at night, they shouldn’t be trusted. Cause and effect is taught to these children by what they do right (not take money that doesn’t belong to them) and by what they do wrong (behaving badly when home alone at night).
Overlapping the two by not trusting them with money because of their bad behavior at night is not cause and effect. It’s a reaction from angry parents. A focused and direct response to a specific behavior will teach them that their actions will cause reactions. If they’re not happy with the reactions, they’ll (after some time) adjust their actions accordingly.
Parents can apply this third motivator even when dealing with rebellious children, but more patience and focus will be required. Such children will challenge the cause and effect reaction. Their approach will be to “up the ante” until the parents are forced to back down.
Before beginning the process of creating change in their children, parents must be aware of this. Since the “up the ante” response exists, parents shouldn’t begin the cause and effect process unless they’re prepared to not back down, regardless of how extreme they anticipate their son will react. (This doesn’t mean that parent’s must respond to every incident. Sometimes it’s better to “look away”, as I’ll discuss in the next article). If they begin to react and are forced to back down, the children will see their victory as proof of their being able to do what they want. Don’t begin any of these processes unless you’re confident that you can follow through to the end.
How should parents react to their children’s “upping the ante”. Parents must remember that their children have two goals. The first is to get the parents to “give in” by bombarding them with abusive and, if necessary, escalating, bad behaviors. The second (in case the first one doesn’t succeed), is to get the parents angry. Both allow the children to control their parents.
In last week’s article I described how a cause and effect approach should work for rebellious children. Parents will find that these children often respond by “upping the ante”. When children “up the ante” parents must respond in a manner that negates their children’s two anticipated goals.
These are: 1) Get the parents to “give” in by bombarding them with negative and, if necessary, escalating, bad behaviors. 2) (If the first one doesn’t succeed), Get the parents angry, thereby allowing the children to feel good about themselves by exercising control over their parents.
Parents must remember that children are very aware that they have little or no control of their lives. Money, transportation, style of clothing, and permission to go to friends, are all dependent on their parents’ decisions. When children have a good relationship with their parents, they welcome such control. When they don’t have this warm relationship they resent their parents control tremendously. Anything that they can do to exercise some level of control and undermine their parents, is important to them.
To insure that the children don’t accomplish either of the two goals, (thereby removing any advantages from their decision to “up the ante”), parents should respond calmly to every incident. If the children are angry, but don’t direct the anger to a specific incident, the parents should ignore their anger. If the children’s anger is so extreme that it can’t be ignored, the parents should calmly comment, “We’re sorry that you’re angry. If we can do anything to help you w will. If we can’t, then we‘d appreciate your calming down. Your anger doesn’t mean that you have the right to make others angry.” The key, as always, is in the wording, tone, and body language. The parents must be calm, caring, and not project weakness.
When children scream at their parents in response to specific incidents, e.g. not letting them go to friends, their response should be, “We’re sorry you’re upset, but screaming won’t make us want to be any more agreeable the next time”. When the parents don’t “give in”, and don’t become hysterical, the children’s reactions don’t affect them, and therefore the children have no advantages. Remember that the first several incidents may be uncomfortable for the parents and there may not be any indication that this approach is working. It’s only after this happens several times, and the children realize that not only haven’t they gained any “ground”, but they’ve probably lost some ground, that they’ll reassess their responses for the next time.
Therefore, during the first few incidents, the children may “give up” on their parents and “start up” with their siblings, break furniture, slam doors, etc. The parents should acknowledge what happened, not become upset, and respond by telling them “You may be upset, but throwing things on to the floor to get us upset is not going to make us appreciate you or fulfill your request”.
Parents must be prepared to deal with the ripple effect of these children’s behavior, such as the resentment their behavior will cause their other siblings. These siblings may become resentful at the parents’ patience with their difficult siblings, and for not “sticking up” for the good sibling’s rights more aggressively. The siblings should be compensated with extra time and love. In addition the parents should explain to the siblings that are old enough to understand, that what they’re doing is a thought through approach, requiring their patience.
The cause and effect approach should continue even after the children calm down. Even though they want their parents to immediately treat them better, the parents should say to them: “Although we didn’t get angry at you, that doesn’t mean that you can expect us to ignore what took place in the last hour.” If, on the other hand, the children wait and “cool off” before talking to their parents, the parents should treat them better. This will highlight to the children that when they act better, they’re treated better. After a while the children will see that the respect and privileges they receive is consistent with their own performance.
In last week’s articles I indicated that when parents respond to their children’s negative actions, they shouldn’t feel that it’s necessary to react to every incident. Creating change in others should be a thought through process and therefore there’ll be more than enough incidents to which to respond. Applying cause and effect each time can create resentment in children, increasing their resistance (which is so important to avoid). In addition, by choosing those incidents at which to react, parents can wait for those incidents which are less complex, and times when everyone can be more patient, in a better mood, and more capable of dealing with any ripple effects.
The message that should be given to children is simple. The parents should describe to them how they behaved and what just took place. It should be done clearly, and without emotion. Such a cause and effect approach must be genuine and make sense to anyone who would have observed the incident. Most importantly, the reaction of the parents’ must be understood by the children to be a direct result of their actions and not just a form of punishment. Sometimes children, as defense mechanisms, will claim that they don’t understand the connection between what they did and why their parents won’t do them favors. The parents must determine whether the children really understand.
Explaining to the children that making a mess in the kitchen “cost” the parents 20 minutes, leaving them 20 minutes less time to buy them something, is a simple example of cause and effect. However, explaining to children that the parents are reassessing their relationship with them because of the way they’ve treated the parents, is more difficult. The children’s maturity and honesty will decide what will be understood as a valid cause and effect.
4) Personal behavior is probably the easiest form of behavior to change in others. Children don’t notice changes in personal behavior as much as peers and, especially, spouses. The basis for creating change through personal behavior is because individuals don’t want to be different from those around them. They certainly don’t want to feel inferior to those around them. If one individual, as a result of his behavior, has created a standard, many others, will attempt to keep up with that standard in order not to feel inferior.
If a husband is careful when he puts things away in the home, it will be more difficult for a wife to be careless. I’ve deliberately chosen a case in which a wife learns from a husband (and not the other way around). People who have faults that are typical for their gender, age, upbringing, etc., may not learn from those in the other gender, of different ages or upbringings, who demonstrate strengths in these areas. Those with faults will see these strengths as those expected from the other groups. Men, for instance, may say, “men are supposed to be messy, wives are supposed to be clean”.
When a husband puts things away carefully, his wife, to avoid being embarrassed, will be more careful when she puts things away. This is a perfect way to create change through personal behavior. However, in this scenario it would be natural for the husband to have an urge to become angry or condescending, but doing this will ruin any chance of changing his wife’s behavior.
5) The approach of using personal behavior to create change in others, isn’t limited to tangible goals, such as cleaning houses. It’s more difficult, for instance, for a spouse to become frustrated if the other spouse has a calming effect. However, being calm alone may not be enough. Creating a calming effect requires more than just relieving nervousness. It requires people to actively promote calmness to stressful situations. This is done by calm people, in their conversations with others, highlighting their own behavior and the advantages that being calm brings to them.
If calm people don’t actively promote calmness in the life of other’s who need it, one of two things may happen:
a) The people who aren’t calm may learn to “coast along”, shifting some of their responsibilities to calmer people and may not even attempt to become calm. Many people, certainly the more flustered ones, don’t take note of their surroundings and how those around them act. They’re actually unaware that those around them deal with the same situations as they do, but more effectively. If they do notice the behavior of others, they don’t notice how those behaviors are the result of the other’s decisions to live a calmer, more effective, life. They rationalize that, “it just didn’t bother them” or, “they had it easier than we do”.
b) Some people notice their surroundings and the people around them, but choose to avoid thinking about them. If they would, they’d see that the others are much more effective in what they do than they are, and therefore they may feel badly and, possibly, even guilty. The problem becomes one of how to handle this guilt. Some people will turn their guilt feelings into positive motivators. They’ll strive to emulate a calming person’s responses. For others, the guilt has a negative effect, reinforcing their negative behaviors.
Other people don’t even notice the positive behaviors of those around them and therefore, it becomes important to bring to their attention the effective behavior of others. However, if one mentions it to them in a critical manner, they may focus their energies on being angry. What one should do (similar to cause and effect), is to “highlight” what’s taking place without offering any complaints or punishments.
Let’s assume that a husband becomes unnerved very quickly in crisis, while the wife remains calm. If the husband is unaware of how the wife effectively reacts to crisis, his wife should say to him, “I know that you’re stressing out and I understand it, but I’ve found that dealing calmly with this situation always makes things better.”
If the husband is aware that the wife is calm but takes advantage of the wife’s calmness, then her response should be, “Please consider that I’ll do my best to handle the situation, but I can’t help you if you become stressed out. Things may become better, but you’ll still be stressed.” People can usually help others with anything or anyone besides themselves.
6) Creating change in others can also happen through the lessons of life. Many parents want their children to wake up on time for school and they’ll try a wide range of approaches. They’ll reward, punish, and beg. What may work better is to let the children wake up late, come to school late, and realize that, in the real world, if you don’t wake up on time, you’ll miss school and suffer the consequences. Such an approach assumes that the children enjoy school (to whatever degree possible).
However, there are other situations in which parents will intervene (since they aren’t confident that their children will do the right thing), even though allowing life to take its course would more effectively create change in the children. For example, if teenagers don’t get haircuts before job interviews because they’ve met the potential bosses and “knows that the bosses likes them”. Or, a teenager arranges a ski trip for a group, “lays out” the money for the entire group, and “ends up” having paid for some of the group who aren’t in a rush to pay back the money.
7) The last point I want to discuss is the concept of creating “momentum” for the change. When people are in “growing” modes, they’re more receptive to further growth even in unrelated areas. When they’re in “down modes”, it’s more difficult to get them to do anything.
Therefore, before creating change, the ones attempting to create the changes, should focus their energies on creating the proper momentum. Good will and minimizing resistance should already be obvious to the reader. However, there are two more important guidelines:
a) It’s much easier to increase existing patterns than to create new ones. For example, if children don’t help with household chores and the parents would like them to help, they should do the following. Instead of asking the children to help in an area that may take time, effort, or require them to do something that they really don’t want to do, get them to help for five minutes with something that they don’t mind doing. Whether those five minutes will, or will not, help is not important. Getting them to help for those five minutes will begin to set a pattern; the children will help. Once the pattern is set, it’s just a matter of increasing the existing pattern, not of creating a new one.
This type of approach may require a great amount of time before the help (the change) becomes significant. However, the change will have become internalized and not superficial, making it well worth any possible delay.
b) Since creating positive momentum is so important, it’s better to start with “easier” areas of change, even if they aren’t the most important areas.
Although this series of articles focused primarily on parents and spouses attempting to create change, this approach is just as effective with co-workers and even bosses. The readers must keep in mind that creating change in others requires patience, creativity, and knowledge of that person’s personal database. (described in a previous article). Any previous article will be sent to you upon your request.
The author can be contacted at shmuelgluck@areivim.com
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