Hi busymind79,
Sorry for the long post! This is a topic dear to my heart. My son has a tendency for learned helplessness, and gets very upset over small things. A book that has been changing so much in my dynamic with S13 is "You Don't Have to Make It All Better" -- there is whole section on validating questions that gave me some language about how I can get S13 to help himself. This allows me to get out of the cross hairs, while setting him up for success.
When I help him do the thing that's frustrating him, I become the target of his frustration. I think he feels overwhelmed by genuine shame when he can't do something -- he sabotages himself with negative talk, flooding him with shame and critical comments. In these moments, he feels useless. If I come and fix something for him, it makes him feel worse. It's proof that he truly cannot do something. So I'm learning to ask validating questions.
Here are a sample of validating questions from the book:
Oh?
How did you feel about that?
What did you do?
And then what did you do?
What would you like to do?
When do you think it could be done?
What do you think the outcome will be?
What do you think might work?
What do you think would work next time?
Are there other options?
What happened?
How did it happen?
Where did it happen?
When did it happen?
What did you think when it happened?
How could you stand that?
How did you stand that?
And then what did you say?
What do you think caused the problem?
What's wrong?
What went wrong?
What was that like?
Did you enjoy that?
Did that hurt your feelings?
What does that mean?
What would you like me to do?
Is there anything I can do to help you?
Would it help if I (name something you can do)?
And this is for teens specifically:
They can make wise choices
Teens need our expressions of confidence in their ability to think a problem through and make a wise choice. Get in the habit of asking "what do you think?". :)on't slip and tell your teen what you believe the wisest choice to make will be. That will almost always push your child back into defending an unwise choice. The values and lessons you have taught through the years are inside. Your teen just needs a chance to think about them and even challenge them. Most likely, if your child is not forced by you into defending his or her thinking, he or she will be able to process the pros and cons and make better choices.
Teenagers are intelligent people, and given the chance, they can come up with good ways to solve their own problems. The process of validation offers them the chance to think a problem through by talking about it freely without interruption, criticism, or lectures. It is interesting to see what good ideas and solutions they can come up with when they don't have to defend their position because a parent is interfering in their thinking process. Allowing them the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills will go a long way toward helping them become responsible adults.
I find with my son that it isn't just the big stuff that gets him stuck, it's the little stuff. He doesn't know where his jacket is, and then he's slumped in a ball on the stairs, telling himself he can't do anything right, he forgets everything, he can't even keep track of his jacket, no one likes him. All over a jacket. For the better part of a year, I had to ask him how he would like me to respond, because showing I cared triggered an outburst, and smoothing over things triggered an outburst, ignoring him triggering an outburst. So I started to ask him how he wanted me to respond, and begrudgingly, he started to answer. I didn't know about validating questions until lbjnltx pointed me to this material, and I'm using it all the time. I no longer care if we are late for school, it's more important to slow the world down and do it right. This morning, he had an outburst because he forgot to collect twigs for theater, his favorite class, favorite teacher would be disappointed, he will lose his job doing tech theater for the school musical, he can't do anything right, the whole thing.
We calmly sat on the stairs together and I validated how he felt. And then silence for a while. And darned if that kid didn't just come up with an answer without me even asking. "I guess what I want is be on time for school. I don't even know how many twigs I need, and I don't want to carry them through school." Then a long period of silence again. He got up and still mad at himself, walked to the car. Then in the car he said, "I'm going to ask him if I can bring them tomorrow. It's not like he needs them today."
It has taken so much to get to this point. And it doesn't always work out so smoothly. I also had to learn to not praise him in these moments, because that made him feel bad Although there have been times when it is fully warranted.
In the old days, S13 would cry, claim he was going to be sick to his stomach, get furious with me, I would get upset, feel useless and helpless and often angry to be targeted for trying to help. Bleh.
And about your T -- I have found that my son's T does not do a great job of helping me figure out how to interact with S13. I think it's a weakness in general.
