how to get him to stop criticizing and name calling

[six]

So I have done a lot of reading and thinking this summer.  Worked on setting some boundaries with NPDS26, worked on trying to see and understand his pain, and not take his comments so personally.  all in all, I feel like I have made progress with feeling more loving and sympathetic to him.  he has also made some progress in taking certain responsibilities at home such as mowing the lawn and watering the flowers.  he seems to understand that he has a responsibility to give something back to the household and not just be a taker.

as the summer is coming to a close, I need to set a boundary because it is painful to live in the same house with him and our other children.  During the sumer, most of the younger kids were away at various programs and traveling.  now they are all coming home.

he basically sits on the couch and passes judgment on the kids and me.  whatever we do does not measure up and we are all a bunch of losers who are headed for disaster. he barely leaves the house (lives on a graduate student stipend) has no social life and his entertainment seems to be to critique the rest of us. he claims that he is going to find an aptmt in october and move out but i dont really believe that it will happen. 

my problem is this.  I do not want to throw him out of the house because I believe that would be bad for him and by extension bad for the rest of us.  However, no matter how many boundaries I place , he always finds a way to get his agenda done, namely to heap criticism, and name calling on all of us.  When I go to work, I basically tell the other kids to stay in thier rooms and stay out of his way.  This seems ridiculous to me.  The rest of the family can not live in peace because he is a tyrant.  but when I explain to him the kind of behavior that i will no longer toleate, he just finds a way to do it differently.  I feel like his goal is simply to outwit me and he is in a power struggle with me.  it is all about power, and not about wanting to live peacefully together. 

I guess I am looking for guidance from the goup.  what could work here?  as a last result, i will kick him out of the house but this  would be very costly in many diferent ways.  I was thinking of requiring him to pay rent which would at least communicate that it is not a given that he lives here.  but rent is not really my issue.  i want to have some peace and i want the other kids to feel safe in the house.(not physically safe, but emotionally safe). any ideas welcome

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[griz]

I don't know if this will help at all but I was thinking, what if you tried to turn his criticism into constructive criticism.  Could you say something in response to a criticism like... . "you know you have some really good ideas but it is hard for people to accept them when they feel like they are being attacked, I wish you could share your ideas in a kinder way so that people will listen more".  You are right, your other children should not have to go to their rooms and stay out of his way, it is not fair to the rest of the family.  Could you even find somethings that he thinks could be better done in the house and allow him to formulate a plan on how to do it.  Maybe make him in charge of a particular project.

It sounds like he really has self esteem issues and he is projecting this on to others.  Making himself feel like he is better than others.  I think when people do this it is because they need to.  I/m sorry if I forgot, but how old are your other children.

Griz

[six]

Thanks Griz

what youre saying actually makes a lot of sense.

I am going to brainstorm with my husband what he coujld be in charge of.

his big gripe is that the kids (ages 8, 14 and 24) are wasting their lives by spending so much time on the computer.  he thinks they should be reading and spending time with friends (he reads for about 15 hrs per day and he has no friends)

I actually don't completely disagree with him bec some of the kids, especially the 8 year old, spend too much time on the computer.  so he is not wrong, but his solution is to pull the computer out of her hands or stand over her and harass her.  then my cell phone starts ringing while I am at work , . . .I would love to give him a project that he could be in charge of but he uses everything as a whip to beat people with.

I also feel that as soon as we solve the computer problem he will just come up with something else to beat us up about. 

the 24 year old works full time, goes out with friends and I think she should be able to use the computer as much as she wants.  I am tired of being in a power struggle over the rules of the house.  he never accepts my authority

[Dibdob59]

Hi Six

I am somewhat new to the concept of BPD and to these boards.

However I wonder if your son is voicing his criticisms of others because he feels 'the odd one out'. He knows he is 'different' to your other children but of course cannot admit that there is anything 'wrong' (I hate that judgemental term) with him .  Therefore the fault must lie with everyone else.

I see this with my son. He used to speak well and use a level of language that indicated a good education and upbringing (I don't mean to sound like a snob here, but am trying to make a point).  However he now likes to pretend that he does not understand us when his sister and I use certain phrases or words and accuses us of 'trying to sound clever' by using 'big words'.  He wants us to stop talking the way we have done all our lives and criticises us for it.

My D thinks her brother is projecting his low self esteem as he fully understands what we are saying and strangely enough expects his own children to speak well. 

I truly feel what your son is doing is exhibiting a form of insecurity and lack of self esteem.  As Griz suggests, giving him a task or project to take responsibility for (for which he could feel a sense of achievement and receive positive feedback) could be a positive move.  My son likes to do well, he is just concerned he will mess up and be criticised.

D

[vivekananda]

Hi six,

Good to hear from you.

I will want to take another tack. You say he is engaged in a power struggle with you. This I totally understand. My dd is like that too. This is how I explain it to myself: she feels anxious because she feels insecure so she has to prove her superiority. This sense of superiority is a personality trait that I see all too often, I don't like it. I used to think that I could just withdraw from the power struggle and it would be ok. And, now it doesn't matter overly to me, but I know that this is not a helpful way for my dd to think. For you it is different though, you have children to 'protect'.

It's interesting that he criticises others for what he does. Have you ever suggested to him that if this bothers him, that he show by example. For example, has he ever discussed a book he has read at the dinner table? ohoh, I am now wondering do you share your meals at the table? This is a good place for you to assert your authority. The rules of behaviour at the table especially are based on mutual respect - no abusive language, no disrespect, no negativity etc... . hmm if you don't sit at table this would be hard to do. See, if you sat at table, you could prepare a topic of discussion with questions you could ask up your sleeve. You know, practise 'civilised behaviour'.

Have you read: "Boundaries - when to say yes, how to say no to take control of your life" by H. Cloud and J. Townsend and the Lundsbergs: "I don't have to make everything all better"? I think these books could help set you on track.

As for getting him out. I think he needs a transition program... . you know: "dear son we want to help you achieve your independence. We have set aside the next 3 Saturdays to help you find a place. We will contribute to helping you get set up and will pay $... . towards you getting onto your feet. If you want we can do that. Otherwise, if you wish to stay at home, we think that it would be helpful for you to be more independent and that will mean paying rent and taking more responsibility around the house. Because you are our son we may consider putting your rent money aside to help you get a nest egg together to help you find your own place later. These are the terms under which we will agree that you can stay here... . "

I do think it would help to read that boundaries book before you started the 'moving out' phase, because you need to be solid in that area. I know the Lundsberg book will help enormously in your conversations with your kids.

Take care,

Vivek    

[Kate4queen]

My BPD son was hyper-critical of my parenting skills and would make a point of lying in wait for his younger sister, (11) and insisting on interrogating her about her day at school, even though I would have already had a chat with her about it. He intimated that my dh and I were bad people and bad parents who had ruined all their older children's lives and education and that HE was the only one who could save his sister from the same fate.

It was horrible and just like you mention like some kind of power struggle. He even convinced his younger brother (20) that his way was the right way and that poor kid is trying to live his life according to the dictates of his bro and I sense he is deeply unhappy but doesn't have the ability or the desire to step away and see the problem (we've tried, god knows we've tried)

And yet BPD son himself doesn't keep goals, wastes academic opportunities, gives up on everything and isn't exactly being a role model himself.

I'd think about transitioning your son out of your house, I really would. For me it became like a sinking ship and I had to start saving a) myself, b) my husband and c) my youngest most vulnerable child. To do that, I had to let go of my son being with us. We support him in an apartment with his brother (the 20 yr old one) and pay him just enough to pay his basic bills, without any obligation on his part to do anything to get that $ or pay it back. That agreement ends in a year when he's 23. That's the point., I'm not trying to correct or control his behavior anymore and we only give what we are willing to never see again.

[six]

What you're saying Dibdob about him feeling that he is the odd one out is so true.  he feels that way in our family and also in the larger world, bec he sees his peers and sibs succeeding where he is failing. 

last night we had a friend over, she has a lovely family and a good career and she is a few years older than my son.  he was so sweet with her children, playing games with them.  when she left, he said "why is life so much easier for other people? she has everything I want."  I felt really sorry for him.  for so many years, I have felt only anger at the way he treats us.  now, more often, I am seeing his deep pain and his isolation.  of course, I want to shake him and say "if you would stop behaving so insanely, you could have what she has!" but of course this is not one of my options.

Vivek , I agree about the boundaries book.  it is so helpful.  it has helped me to see that I can have boundaries, although it is still not always clear to me how to enforce them.  for now, I am developing a plan.  one of the maddening qualities that I  deal with is his lack of consistency.  as soon as I decide, that's it, he needs to move out, he will become charming, pleasant, helpful and cooperative.  then I start thinking maybe things are going to change, but they never stay that way for long.

Kate4Q I have been critiqued for years bec of my bad parenting skills.  accdg to him, he is the only one who can save the family from destruction.  I also have a younger son (18) who is influenced by him and wants to look up to him and admire him.  my younger son (nonBPD) will often take sides with NPDS26 against me or one of my daughters.  this concerns me.  I think the criticism is all about the narcissim.  NPDS26 is on a crusade to fix the whole world bec he is the only one who really knows how things should be.  so why not start by fixing everyone in our house (Except himself of course, he needs no fixing).

he asked me whether I would go look at apartments with him (YES!) so I am hoping he is going to transition out.  in the meantime, I spend a lot of time processing thru with him what he thinks and why he thinks it.  there is a certain kind of weird logic to his system, although he is missing the crucial point that other people don't have to look at the world the  way he does and there is value in things that he does not value such as feelings, pleasure, relationships.  he has become obsessed with the writings of karl marx, freud erich fromm and psychoanalysts.  because everything in his world is black and white with no gray areas, he cannot understand why we do not all embrace the truth as he is explaining it to us.

[vivekananda]

... one of the maddening qualities that I  deal with is his lack of consistency.  as soon as I decide, that's it, he needs to move out, he will become charming, pleasant, helpful and cooperative.  then I start thinking maybe things are going to change, but they never stay that way for long.

My girl can be like that. As soon as she realises she has gone too far or when she wants something... . I think that without treatment they will always have BPD. Some people think they can improve with age (I don't), but if these people are true, then perhaps in time things will stay good for longer periods. The thing we need to consider I believe is whether we are enabling them in their BPD or supporting change. I am glad you are developing a plan. You could tell us about it if you liked.

... .   he has become obsessed with the writings of karl marx, freud erich fromm and psychoanalysts.  because everything in his world is black and white with no gray areas, he cannot understand why we do not all embrace the truth as he is explaining it to us.

I have read Marx and Fromm etc. You could point out to him that Marx was a brilliant mind and a genius in political economy but his personal life was not so very nice... . research it a little. He submitted his wife to terrible humiliations with a mistress in his own home, ugly poverty etc (from memory), lots of kids, no responsibility. You could point out that in his writing he has to be persuasive and authoritative - but in his personal life he should have been responsible and compassionate and caring and respectful... . 'when you have your own family, you will see how important that is' you could say... . Fromm great ideas but not as much a genius as Marx and I know nothing of him really. Freud though, he was a genius and a woman hater I believe, like Marx a man of his times.

Anyway, I reckon that's him trying to do that 'power' thing. He believes he has superior insight and knowledge - he knows Marx! And of course, that is controversial too, esp in USA I believe. So he can lord it over you dumbo parents. Maybe you could hit him with the phrase 'the personal is political' (a feminist slogan) ... . ie how you treat others defines your politics. And follow it with 'treat me with respect please not scorn.'

Sorry, just rambling along here. I just know how it feels, that's all   

Vivek    

[Kate4queen]

Six, you just described my son exactly. It's a crusade for him. He cannot allow anyone to be right except him, he just can't conceive of why anyone wouldn't believe his worldview, or understand that we don't all have to believe the same thing.

[six]

with the holidays coming up in the Fall  I don't feel like I can tolerate his belittling and criticizing.  I am at a stage of my life where I work really hard and I need to be able to relax when I am home. but I cant really do that with him around, bec of the way he treats all of us and because the things he says are so provocative.  it is impossible to be relaxed with him around.

at first, I thought maybe we should go away (without him), but I would prefer to be in my own home. 

so here is my plan,

I am going to have a chat with him, and say:  "I recognize you are on a crusade to change the world, and that you have a lot of good ideas about the way people should be, but  on the other hand, it is hard for me to be on the receiving end of your criticism especially when I am trying to relax and enjoy the holiday with the family.   what do you think would be a possible solution?"

he will probably respond, "I don't know if you would just do things the right way, there would be no reason for me to criticize"

then I am going to suggest that he not join us for some of the holiday meals.  this is hard for me to do bec as hard as it is to be with him, it is also hard for me to tell him he is not welcome at home. we have had a pretty productive summer with a lot of good open conversations, and I don't want to ruin the rapport we have, but I also feel like I have to take care of myself and I will be a basket case if I have to spend the whole holiday with him around and his barbs.

as a last resort, if I can not make any headway with him, I will go away without him but with my husband and other children  and spend the holiday at a house we use for our summer vacation.  it is not ideal, but better than being his victim

[vivekananda]

good start six 

here's what I am thinking... . others may see it differently though.

"ds, dad and I have been thinking about our preparations for the holidays coming up. I thought maybe you might have some ideas about what you want to do. How about we talk about it later?" the idea here is plant the thought that he can give some thought to the hols and what he wants and give him notice that you have been thinking about it too.

I am going to have a chat with him, and say:  "I recognize you are on a crusade to change the world, and that you have a lot of good ideas about the way people should be, but  on the other hand, it is hard for me to be on the receiving end of your criticism especially when I am trying to relax and enjoy the holiday with the family.   what do you think would be a possible solution?"

"I recognize you are on a crusade to change the world" this sounds judgemental. I don't think it will be helpful to say this, it will encourage him to be defensive and you do want an open conversation.

"OK, have you thought about what you would like to do? Is there any way you think we can help you?" say he answers: 'I have always wanted to go to the mountains and rent a log cabin and hunt bears. I would need you to pay for it.' Your answer could then be "That might be a bit difficult, but give dad and I a chance to talk and I'll get back to you." say he says 'I want to go with all the family like we have always done.' Your answer could be, "ad and I were thinking that now you are 26, it's time for you to step out into the world a bit more. We were considering staying home these holidays. Have you thought of taking advantage of the summer to do something you would like to do?" (here you might need to be a little creative - if he likes his 'deep reading' why not take a night class in a subject that would interest him... . he would probably say no to anything you suggested anyway, but it might plant an idea. If there were any pamphlets you could give it/them to him to decide... . ).

Maybe this would be the third time you have now discussed the subject. You have listened to what he has said and validated his emotions. He knows you are listening and should feel appeased with that. He still doesn't know what to do and won't take on a class probably. Now you say. "Your dad and I have discussed this at length. On these days/nights, we want you to find something else to do. We are too much in each others' pockets, you are old enough to lead your own life. We expect you to respect our decision. We are willing to help you find alternative things to do, but the decision for what you do is yours of course. We all need a break from each other. We have discussed this enough, this is our final decision."

You would then need to have already decided what you will do if he ignores all this. This will be your boundary. This you can negotiate with him if necessary. Maybe he can visit another family member and stay with them for a short while? If he refuses to move, call him out on being disrespectful in your house (not his house). Have a follow up plan B, plan C and plan D.

Can you see the structure?

1) give him a warning of the topic and a chance to come up with ideas of his own.

2) listen to him, validate. Let it be all about him and what he wants. You don't have to make any decisions. You don't have to do anything. Say he says he wants to go to that log cabin - you can say, how will you pay for it? At 26 you should not be expected to pay for a son's holidays.

3) give him choices, but let him make his decision freely. It is an opportunity to let him appreciate the consequences of his decisions a learning experience.

4) communicate your decision to him ... if appropriate spell out the boundaries related to your decision. Call for his respect for your decision. If he argues etc, he is not respecting you and you can call this to his attention. Enter into no argument but be calm, open authentic and at ease with yourself all the way.

5) take into account all possible consequences and have a number of plans up your sleeve that you and your dh have agreed to.

6) cross you fingers, legs and anything else   

Are you familiar with this?

TOOLS: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth

You will know best what to do and how to do it. There are just some ideas for you to consider. Before you do it, really hone up on your validation and boundaries skills though. 

Vivek    

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[six]

Vivek , thanks for stopping me from saying "I know you are on a crusade to change the world" you're right, very judgmental, would not have gone over well

I started the conversation with him yesterday.  I said, have you thought about plans for the holidays?  he said, No, did you ask DD24 whether she had thought about her plans?  I said, I am going to ask everyone to think about their plans.  He immediately assumed I was asking him to leave the house for the duration of the holidays.  I said, I am not asking you to leave, I am wondering how we can all live together in peace in a confined space for days at a time.

He decided to go spend a few weeks at his grandparents and to come back to our house once a week.  In the past when he has done this he ends up sending me abusive texts and emails bec he hates driving in traffic and the grandparents live 2 hours away from us.  so I will see how this goes.  still begs the question of how we will manage the holidays together bec he plans to be with us.  My other kids want to go away and leave him at home, so that might happen.  I feel like it is progress to be having the conversation instead of stumbling into the holidays without any planning and then being miserable.

[pessim-optimist]

He decided to go spend a few weeks at his grandparents and to come back to our house once a week.  In the past when he has done this he ends up sending me abusive texts and emails bec he hates driving in traffic and the grandparents live 2 hours away from us.  so I will see how this goes.  still begs the question of how we will manage the holidays together bec he plans to be with us.  My other kids want to go away and leave him at home, so that might happen.  I feel like it is progress to be having the conversation instead of stumbling into the holidays without any planning and then being miserable.

Hi six,

This seems like a good start! I had been reading your thread and was thinking about it... .

You ask a good question, and there's a short answer and a long answer for that.

The short answer - you cannot really get anyone to do anything. You only have control over your own actions.

The longer answer - boundaries.

As we determine for ourselves, what we value and want in our life, and on the other hand what we don't want in our life, we can then start protecting our values by placing appropriate boundaries in place, so that others do not willingly/or unknowingly trample our values.

In other words, you cannot stop your son from criticizing and name-calling. But you can protect your time and space from your son's criticizing and name-calling.

I think that you having that conversation presented you with a good opportunity. It is easier to deal with e-mail and texts than face-to-face conversations. By setting boundaries on abusive texts/e-mails you can start the process of protecting yourself.

And in the meantime, you have an opportunity to work on your validating and boundary setting skills in the peace of your home and plan for the holidays. (Let's hope for the best, but like you said - if worst comes to worst, you could go to your vacation house).

You have options. That might make you more at peace and more effective in using with your skills.

All the best!   

[vivekananda]

a really good start eh six? Well done! Bummer I didn't see the importance of starting with the dd first - just goes to show eh?

I reckon pessi-O has some wise words there - let us know what you think, ok?

Vivek