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Reactivity
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Entitled, spoilt son (17) — please help: my response / see May 24th, 2006
13 Jun 2006 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
To the father of the entitled teenager (17) who lives rather ungratefully under his parent’s generous roof?
You son is popular with others and therefore he has it within him to have a fulfilling child/parent relationship. At 17 he can enter a meaningful discussion about what’s bothering you. When addressing him, reflect on your experiences as the parent rather than on how unwise or ungrateful you perceive him to be.
It is not too late to refuse to do for him the things he appears to take for granted. Make such a stand understanding he is resourceful enough to get what he needs without you.
Be sure to establish what it is that you want before you try to correct his errant ways. If you really want a meaningful father/son relationship, first establish what that means to you.
“I’d like some time on a weekly basis to talk with you face-to-face,” is reasonable. “You are never home so you can go out once a month,” is probably unreasonable.
Do not fall for the lie that your son’s difficulties are somehow directly related to your failings. Your son is talented and young enough to make his own mistakes. The last thing he needs is a dad who feels responsible for his every error.
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Reactive people tend to damage relationships….
31 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 3 Comments
Are you a reactive person or a responsive person?
Get out of the middle!
Reactive behavior is characterized by:
1. Rash, knee-jerk decisions; being anger-driven, living with a “short fuse.”
2. Getting other people rallying for a cause, stampeding to get your way.
3. Being highly subjective and self-protective.
4. Running in the other direction.
5. Being easily hurt, insulted, or damaged.
6. Being humorless or seeing humor as a waste of time.
7. Developing a conspiratorial tone with others.
8. Saying, “People are saying…… about you.”
9. Over-functioning (doing things beyond your responsibilities).
10. Under-functioning (avoiding your responsibilities).
11. Giving unsought advice and expecting it to be followed.
12. Doing things for others that they can do for themselves.
13. Remaining surprised and innocent after causing much disruption.
14. Being vindictive.
15. Trying to get people to take sides.
16. Being unable to see beyond survival, feeling threatened at every turn.
17. Feeling overly responsible for others.
18. Feeling no other person, except you, knows what is right or good.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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