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Communication Tip:
Are you raising
your child to be a bully's victim?
One test is to ask your child, "What would you change about me?"
However, this is tricky because you've already trained
him/her to monitor what he/she says around you. You must have an
intention to get to the truth or you'll unconsciously intimidate your child into responding
politely with nothing significant. I.e. "Nuthin."
For example: Couples attending a Relationship
Communication Workshop pair off and ask each other that
question ten times in a row, with the intention of eliciting a different
answer each time.
Another test is to ask your spouse, "Regarding our child, what would you
change about me?" Again, you must intend to be a safe space for the
truth to be told.
Actually, it's not necessary to do any tests. You already know the
answer. Your child is either out-going and spontaneous (a question
generating machine) or he/she is
shut-down (timid, shy, fearful, clumsy, accident-prone, socially
awkward, perhaps speaks only when spoken to with
one-word answers).* In other
words, you, using your leadership-communication skills, have either
inspired your child to be open, confident, and spontaneous or,
relatively shut down. Perhaps you have self-righteously enabled your spouse in
verballly abusing your child (always for reasons). If
you are addicted to
withholding then you have trained your
spouse and your child to withhold certain thoughts
and to put up with
abuse.
Children who have been shut down are ripe for bullying; they are so used
to being intimidated and abused (physically, verbally, or psychically)
that they carry themselves in a way that broadcasts,
"Pick on me. My
parents bully me all the time so I'm used to it. I probably deserve it.
I have no self-respect. I lack the courage to speak up for myself." It further communicates, non-verbally of
course, "If you hit me hard enough it might cause authorities to
intervene and restore communication in my family; nothing I've done with
them has worked so far." Misbehaving/failing in school and life is one
way of drawing attention to the fact that ones parents have lapsed in
doing their
imitation of communication.
If you sense that your child is somewhat shut-down not to worry, it's
possible to recall the very first time he/she shut down and to clean up
(acknowledge) the incomplete, (in communication-coaching lingo any
communication that did not end mutually satisfyingly is referred to as
an
incomplete). You're looking for the
first time this happened, assuming your child was once a typical
spontaneous, question-asking-machine; there was an incident, after which
things were never the same.**
You yelled, communicated condescendingly, invalidated him/her, or you
made him/her wrong (in short, you were abusive) or, you
the enabler, have been blaming your spouse for being more abusive than
you.
Ironically, unconscious, accidental verbal abuse is not what causes the
change from spontaneous to "quiet" and submissive to persist; it's that
you didn't acknowledge to him/her afterwards (or to date) that you knew
you were abusive. That incident will continue to have undesirable
effects on your child until you clean it up with him/her, or, he/she
gets support later in life in recalling the incident and then
acknowledging to themselves that that was the turning point. By
consistently acknowledging your abuses you will train your child to
immediately recognize abuse—therefore he/she won't unconsciously marry
someone addicted to abusing and being abused.
BTW:
What's exciting is that within a single 3-hour sit-down session with a communication-skills
coach you can create a new communication model (a way of
interacting/behaving) that will inspire accurate and respectful
spontaneity. Or, you can do
The Clearing Process and then invite your child to do
The Clearing
Process for Parent and Child with you.
Note: Gay adopters and divorced child-rearing parents are typically ignorant about the
necessity of daily male and female influences that are in fact
essential when rearing a child to be whole and complete. Such arrogance,
"I/we can do it better" begs to be humbled; usually such a parent
has yet to acknowledged that their leadership-communication skills
caused (unconsciously intended) the divorce and so they unconsciously
teach their child to blame.
The child of gay parents who home-school is missing an equal number of
interactions with the opposite sex. With single-mothers certain
communications (especially those delivered non-verbally via male
vibrations) produce different results when it comes to confidence in
relating with mature males (leaders) later in life.
* As
oppose to gregarious, energetic, precocious, spontaneous, funny,
thoughtful, generous and kind.
** Things to look for: The very first time you were upset and yelled,
"That was stupid." "What the hell are you doing?" "Don't be a smart
ass." "Be quiet!!!" "SHUT UP." "Stop asking stupid questions." or, if
you have "punished" your child by sending him/her to bed, or, if you
haven't acknowledged an abuse earlier in the day. I.e. "I get that I was
abusive to you earlier today." Remember, it's not the abuse but the
absence of the follow-up acknowledgment of the abuse shortly thereafter,
thereby completing the incident through to mutual satisfaction.
It's
important to keep in mind an acknowledgment is not an apology, it's a
simple statement acknowledging what's so.
Use this Comment form for comments/feedback (Free-no registration)
To ask a question please go to
Dear Gabby's Message Board (free -
registration required).
Last edited 10/11/21
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