Thank You PSST - Summary of the Sept. 18 Meeting Posted by:Rocco--Sunday, September 19, 2010

Thanks PSST!

We had a nice turnout for this week’s PSST Meeting at OUTREACH TEEN AND FAMILY SERVICES in Mt Lebanon.

There was a nice mix of regular PSST parents a couple of veteran PSST Parents.
Our PSST Pros, Lloyd, Val, Kathie and Jocelyn led the meeting. We had 7 parents representing 6 families ~ On the blog they are known to us, as Lori, June, Alice, Hyacinth, Ruth and Rocco & Sally.

We were glad that they all could make it to our meeting and to our

First Annual PSST Appreciation Day.

This week we wanted to take a little time out to say how much we appreciate all those involved with Parent Survival Skills Training (PSST).

First we want to say a special thanks to our PSST Pro’s; Val and Lloyd from The Allegheny County Juvenile Probation Office and to our counselors from Wesley Spectrum, Kathie T, Jocelyn and Cathy C. They continue to make the effort to advise, understand, support and to guide parents of troubled teens in the right direction.

We would also like to extend our appreciation to all of the PSST Parents, Past and Present, who over the years have reached out, listened, empathized, encouraged and passed on some of their wisdom, as well as a few hugs as needed.

PSST is here to counsel parents on how to strengthen themselves mentally, spiritually and physically in order to enable them to take back the power and control in their homes and their families. They provide the tools we parents need to help our teens save their lives.

Thanks!

We tried something a little different this week.

We opened up the meeting with an exercise designed to break the ice and let us have a little fun we referred to as a Round Robin. We circled the room and gave each person a chance to be The Robin and The Bluebird.

The Robin sang (or acted out a teenager's manipulation) to the parent on his/ her left, whom we referred to as The Bluebird. The manipulation could be anything The Robin knew that teenagers actually use on parents (we have much expertise in this department at our meetings.)

The Bluebird’s role was to pick out a morsel of something that they could agree with that The Robin had said. The Bluebird was encouraged to really agree by using strong body language, good eye contact and by not throwing in a "but" right away to ruin it.

The Robin continued singing to attempt another variation of the same manipulation at least two more times.

The Bluebird then attempted to find at least two more crumbs of something to agree with.

Once The Bluebird had collected two or three nuggets of agreement, and had The Robin’s attention, they were then free to explain to The Robin why they did not agree with their attempt to manipulate.

The Bluebird was encouraged to use our PSST Power words, "Nevertheless, I'm NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT".

The Bluebird then became The Robin and turned to the next willing participant who became The Bluebird.

We continued around the room and we all had the chance to contribute and talk over our opinions and ideas. We had a few laughs and a few eye opening moments.

We not only had the chance to use "Nevertheless, I'm NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT” but we also used “We will talk about that later” and “Ask me again.” One of our moms pointed out how she likes to inject a little humor into their discussions by using a wee bit of exaggeration.

“You would like me to loan you money to buy a dump truck? Why stop there? Why don’t we buy the whole construction company?”

Humor can be a great tool (from our PSST Tool Box) in the right situation. If we can show our teen the hollowness of their attempted manipulation and get a genuine laugh out of them then we have made some real progress. Be careful not to cross over into sarcasm.

We also had an interesting case where The Robin realizing that The Bluebird was not allowing herself to be manipulated resorted to turning to rudeness (another common manipulation tactic). The Bluebird, at first, was caught off guard and started to respond in a similar way. After some discussion we tried the same tactic but this time The Bluebird responded in a firm and clear manner and was able to get the message across that she would not be manipulated.

Following our break for some coffee, tea, cake and some other goodies each of us had a chance to talk over our own issues with our children in various stages of recovery.

We talked about our teens that are currently in an inpatient recovery program, how they are doing and where they can go when they complete the program. Some teens in recovery cannot return home directly. The people and places may be too strong of a trigger for them to relapse.

We had some thoughts on our teens’ recovery and their goal to complete high school. A School will frequently turn into a strong trigger for an addicted teen and is a serious issue that has to be carefully thought out. There are alternatives out there and this is often a subject of discussion at our meetings.

Our Thanks again to all at PSST, and of course our thanks to OUTREACH TEEN AND FAMILY SERVICES for the use of their space.

The next Parent Survival Skills Training (PSST) meeting is

Saturday October 2 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the

Allegheny County Eastern Probation Office in Wilkinsburg.