I was working with a dad who was beside himself struggling to set limits with his 14-year-old daughter. He and his daughter’s mother were divorced, and his former wife had a very laissez-faire attitude towards raising kids.
While Dad wanted his daughter to do her homework, come home at a decent time, have dinner with him and go to sleep at a reasonable hour, she’d have none of it.
When he tried to withhold privileges, Mom simply reinstated them.
Dad tried to explain to his daughter that Mom’s permissiveness was destructive to her and to him, yet his daughter simply ignored him. She said that Mom cared about her being happy, and all Dad was interested in was controlling her.
Dad and daughter got to a breaking point, where daughter was simply not going to his house, and only stayed with her mother.
She’d go to Dad’s when she wanted something, and usually he’d buy it for her. But things would quickly devolve into fighting and arguing about daughter’s lack of responsibility and accountability.
Dad tried to deal with things in family court and that proved futile.
He tried talking with Mom, threatening Mom, and lecturing daughter about her behavior, her lack of values, telling her how much he loved her and how much he’s done for her, only to end up feeling helpless and hopeless.
When I dug deeper into the family history, it turned out that Dad was very positively involved with his daughter and Mom was chaotic and distracted.
Dad reported that he had to not only make a living to support the family financially, but keep the house together, and make sure their daughter was enrolled in and taken to activities.
Because of all this, her rejection of him was deeply disturbing and concerning while he knew what a bright talented kid she was.
What could Dad possibly say or do that would get through to his daughter? That was his question to me.
And here was my answer:
The tone of voice, the emotional envelope that the message is sent in, is the largest part of a message. As much as words matter, tone matters even more.
I explained this to Dad. Now, in adolescence, there was a lot he couldn’t directly control. particularly with his daughter’s mother actively undermining his parental authority.
But his tone, his demeanor, the way he truly feels for her was something he could control.
He can’t control how she responds or what she does. Only how he communicates with her.
I reminded Dad of the powerful bond that he and his daughter have and to have faith in that.
I then encouraged Dad to be clear about his standards and expectations, but not to allow himself to get caught up in a fight over her attitude or behavior. I encouraged Dad to go ahead and monitor how well, or actually how poorly his daughter was doing in school and to ask her about it, offer help and support, and then leave it alone and talk with her about other things. To be curious about her areas of interest, her music, her friends.
I encouraged him to have her and her friends over for pizza and movies, and to avoid judgment of their dress or other issues. I encouraged Dad to take her and her friends to events in the area that they would enjoy. I encouraged him to talk with her about different careers, lifestyles, colleges, and to look for ways to validate her, anything to compliment and at all costs, to avoid getting sucked into an argument.
In precarious situations like these, getting sucked into arguments only validates a young teen’s attitude that, “my parents are hostile and don’t understand me.”
I knew from experience that the situation with his daughter could go one of two ways.
One way is very negative, based on having a chaotic, disorganized immature mother and a hostile, disapproving father.
The second way is far more promising: having a chaotic, disorganized mother, yet a caring, healthy positive father ‘who stands by me in good times and bad.’ ‘A father who knows enough not to take my immature behavior and words personally and remains caring while setting appropriate limits.’
Dad stayed in contact with the school, and they worked to keep his daughter engaged, supported and motivated. Little by little, she outgrew her young adolescent attitude and accepted his limits along with his support.
Situations like these, where a parent actively works to undermine a child’s other parent, are horrible. Yet they create a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that when a parent feels that they have no control, control over the tone of the communication is the one thing that can’t be taken away.
And the tone of our communication is far more powerful than we ever give it credit for.
