The PSST meeting was very informative and productive today. It was lead by Intensive Aftercare Probation Officer - Lloyd W. and Family Therapist - Cathy C. from Wesley Spectrum Services. Rocco and I have been attending these awesome meetings for over a year now. We have become close to the leaders as well as the fellow parents who attend these meetings. The leaders give all attending parents very valuable information which is helping all of our teens recover. We are all most thankful of this.
The other parents give us support and encouragement, wisdom and understanding and even some much appreciated humor. They are our comrades in this tough journey.
The meeting was attended by ten parents, who will remain anonomous: alias' Max and Mel, Candy, Ralph and Alice, Rocco and Sally and three other concerned parents who I will call Rose, Daisy and Hyacinth until they come up with a better a.k.a. for themselves.
We varied from our usual format. Instead of starting the meeting by having each parent tell in detail, where in the recovery process their teen is; each parent gave a very brief introduction and then Lloyd explained the highlights of contract writing. The most pertinent information that Lloyd gave us were the following points:
1. Prioritize and write the most important things down on the contract.
Try not to be over controlling. Leave trivial things off of the contract.
2. Only put items on the contract in which you can and will enforce.
3. When motivating your teen to follow the rules of the contract it is most effective to take the time to use the 'now technique' vs. the 'let's wait 'til you screw up and I'll blast you' method.
Getting them to follow the rules now may take some prompting. For example: "Please, clean your room now". If they don't move, step in a tad bit closer to them and say in the same firm but moderate voice, "Clean your room now. I will not let up until you get out of that chair and clean your room." Continue this until you get them to do the chore.
At first, this will be difficult for the parent and it is very important that if you start the 'now technique' you must keep prompting them until they do get up and follow the rule. You need to be successful the first time. When you use the 'now technique' make sure you have the time, stamina and enough creative humor to follow through. The process will get easier each time you use it. Your child becomes more self motivated by internalizing that they need to do it 'now' than if you punish them later for not doing something or if you reinforce their good behavior when they do follow the rules.
4. Another very important point is that people are motivated when they are given a challenge.
When a teen is presented with a list of rules in which they are to follow, they will most likely crinkle up the piece of paper and toss it across the floor and say "This is Bull S.... I can't do all of this". The most powerful words you can say in response are: "YOU ARE RIGHT, this is a lot of stuff that we expect from you. With your present attitude this may be too much, never the less, we expect you to follow these rules. We can talk about the rules and some of them can be negotiable now and some may be negotiable in the future."
Agree with them and then give them the challenge to try their best to abide by the rules.
5. When a rule is broken follow through with a consequence.
Use the smallest and most appropriate consequence which you can think of. Save the other consequences for the next time. The most important thing is not the consequence or if the chore is done perfectly or not. The most important thing is the message you are sending them. I think the message is: Mom and Dad have changed. We are in control and we call the shots in this home.
After Lloyd instructed us on how to write a contract we broke off into three groups. Each group was given a scenerio of a recovering teen, the contracts were discussed and then written. Each group then did a role-play on presenting the contract to their teen. Everyone was enthusiastic and seemed to learn a lot.
We even found time for a break with some hot coffee and delicious sweets. We ended up with enough time to allow Candy to go into some detail about her teen and we offered her some advice from our collective experience.
I would like to end by saying that I glanced around the room while Lloyd was giving advice on writing contracts. I saw nine sets of concerned eyes staring and at full attention. Each parent was leaning forward in their chair and intent on the speaker. I realized that we all want the same thing. We all love our troubled teens and passionately want them to recover. It brought to mind the following words of wisdom that Lloyd wrote in the post titled Who Moved the Cheese. It speaks about the importance of patience. Here is the excerpt from that post:
"Once again, it’s ironic, but as Cisco senses that you are prepared to patiently wait for the change, and that you aren’t going to return to enabling him while you are waiting, that tends to speed up his time-table for change. When (if) he senses that you just have to have him make all these changes, and make them now, then he senses the power-shift coming back to him and that feeling of a power-shift is toxic to an addict."
Hope to see you all and anyone else who will benefit from PSST at the next meeting.
I'm not sure if I covered everything completely so please feel free to interject comments and corrections.
The other parents give us support and encouragement, wisdom and understanding and even some much appreciated humor. They are our comrades in this tough journey.
The meeting was attended by ten parents, who will remain anonomous: alias' Max and Mel, Candy, Ralph and Alice, Rocco and Sally and three other concerned parents who I will call Rose, Daisy and Hyacinth until they come up with a better a.k.a. for themselves.
We varied from our usual format. Instead of starting the meeting by having each parent tell in detail, where in the recovery process their teen is; each parent gave a very brief introduction and then Lloyd explained the highlights of contract writing. The most pertinent information that Lloyd gave us were the following points:
1. Prioritize and write the most important things down on the contract.
Try not to be over controlling. Leave trivial things off of the contract.
2. Only put items on the contract in which you can and will enforce.
3. When motivating your teen to follow the rules of the contract it is most effective to take the time to use the 'now technique' vs. the 'let's wait 'til you screw up and I'll blast you' method.
Getting them to follow the rules now may take some prompting. For example: "Please, clean your room now". If they don't move, step in a tad bit closer to them and say in the same firm but moderate voice, "Clean your room now. I will not let up until you get out of that chair and clean your room." Continue this until you get them to do the chore.
At first, this will be difficult for the parent and it is very important that if you start the 'now technique' you must keep prompting them until they do get up and follow the rule. You need to be successful the first time. When you use the 'now technique' make sure you have the time, stamina and enough creative humor to follow through. The process will get easier each time you use it. Your child becomes more self motivated by internalizing that they need to do it 'now' than if you punish them later for not doing something or if you reinforce their good behavior when they do follow the rules.
4. Another very important point is that people are motivated when they are given a challenge.
When a teen is presented with a list of rules in which they are to follow, they will most likely crinkle up the piece of paper and toss it across the floor and say "This is Bull S.... I can't do all of this". The most powerful words you can say in response are: "YOU ARE RIGHT, this is a lot of stuff that we expect from you. With your present attitude this may be too much, never the less, we expect you to follow these rules. We can talk about the rules and some of them can be negotiable now and some may be negotiable in the future."
Agree with them and then give them the challenge to try their best to abide by the rules.
5. When a rule is broken follow through with a consequence.
Use the smallest and most appropriate consequence which you can think of. Save the other consequences for the next time. The most important thing is not the consequence or if the chore is done perfectly or not. The most important thing is the message you are sending them. I think the message is: Mom and Dad have changed. We are in control and we call the shots in this home.
After Lloyd instructed us on how to write a contract we broke off into three groups. Each group was given a scenerio of a recovering teen, the contracts were discussed and then written. Each group then did a role-play on presenting the contract to their teen. Everyone was enthusiastic and seemed to learn a lot.
We even found time for a break with some hot coffee and delicious sweets. We ended up with enough time to allow Candy to go into some detail about her teen and we offered her some advice from our collective experience.
I would like to end by saying that I glanced around the room while Lloyd was giving advice on writing contracts. I saw nine sets of concerned eyes staring and at full attention. Each parent was leaning forward in their chair and intent on the speaker. I realized that we all want the same thing. We all love our troubled teens and passionately want them to recover. It brought to mind the following words of wisdom that Lloyd wrote in the post titled Who Moved the Cheese. It speaks about the importance of patience. Here is the excerpt from that post:
"Once again, it’s ironic, but as Cisco senses that you are prepared to patiently wait for the change, and that you aren’t going to return to enabling him while you are waiting, that tends to speed up his time-table for change. When (if) he senses that you just have to have him make all these changes, and make them now, then he senses the power-shift coming back to him and that feeling of a power-shift is toxic to an addict."
Hope to see you all and anyone else who will benefit from PSST at the next meeting.
I'm not sure if I covered everything completely so please feel free to interject comments and corrections.
1 comment:
Great summary of our meeting. Thanks a million for writing all this up.
I liked Roco's idea to have one meeting a month focus on skills-building more than on sharing. Our next two meetings will be standard where our focus is more on sharing with a little role-play squeezed in during the last half hour.
In August we might try another skills building, with a different focus, at either our Wexford location or our Mt. Lebanon one.
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