I am proud to announce that I have launched a new, enhanced and expanded edition of my popular e-book:  How to Build Relationships That Stick .   The enthusiastic reception the book has received during the couple of days it has been in the marketplace has been more than gratifying.  The new version contains many new insights and practical tips,  and is spiced with entertaining stories, many of them true, to illustrate important principles.

Is this book for you?   There are surely very few people, if indeed any at all, whose quality of life will not be improved through fine-tuning their personal relationship skills in some way or other.  Even people who have good marriages (or think they do) and get on well with all and sundry are not excluded from this assessment. But particularly, you need   How to Build Relationships That Stick if you recognize yourself in one or more of the following scenarios:

• You are stuck in a shaky, conflict-ridden marriage that most of the time seems nothing but a nightmare.
• At work, you’re working as a member of a team on an important project,  but your colleagues ignore all your good  ideas, and sometimes at meetings even forget that you’re present.
• Your teenage children don’t seem to understand that you love them and only want what’s good for them.
• You have a friend who always picks an argument whenever you start what you intend to be a pleasant conversation.
• Your spouse has a good heart but can’t control his or her temper.
• You have a snooty neighbor who, much to your chagrin, always gives you the cold shoulder when you bump into each other in the street.
• You try to comfort a friend in distress, but you can’t understand why he takes everything you say the wrong way.
• You feel your family or friends don’t appreciate all the things you do for them.
• You find it hard to say no to anyone who asks a favor from you.
• You’d love to make friends with that stranger you sometimes see at the bus stop, but you don’t know how to take the first step.

Here is what prominent interpersonal communication expert Kare Anderson has to say about How to Build Relationships That Stick:
“A bountiful book of powerfully practical insights on how to make friends and cultivate deeper, satisfying relationships over time. It makes a great gift, basis for a course or team conversation – or a personal primer for a more meaningful life – with others.”

The book is written in a friendly, highly readable style and each chapter concludes with practical exercises to help the reader apply the relevant concepts in everyday life.

A responsible parent knows that it goes with the territory: the obligation to set limits, to draw a sharp defining line, when the occasion demands it, between what is permitted and what is forbidden.

But when you try to do that, do your children immediately launch into a trying negotiating process that test your endurance to the utmost?

Some kids love to respond to every little rule you want to lay down, to the most trivial request you make of them, with a challenge, a counter-proposal, or at best, a bid for a compromise. They may never stop doing this from morning to night.

If that description fits your child, or even if he or she is only an occasional offender,  it would be wise  to tread very carefully. In analyzing the dynamics at play here,  behavioral Jame Lehman, creator of the Total Transformation Program, makes an interesting analogy. He compares the mindset of the child to that of people playing the slot machines at the corner cafe or a casino.

Ultimately, the machine will take all their money. That’s what its owner put it there for. But if the machine would relieve them of everything right way, they would never go back. So what does it do?  It takes a little of their money, then gives some back, then takes more and gives a little back. Now and again,  players may even hit the jackpot, which only provides an incentive to keep on playing in the expectation of greater things to come.  A vain hope, but the machine has trained them well.

It’s the same with our kids, says Lehman.  They’re like gamblers.  Once we let them over-negotiate or wear us down (even if the end result is “no”), then our children never know if this time they’ll get lucky.  If they  don’t get their way this time, then maybe they will next time. At any rate, what have they to lose, so why not take a shot?

But the truth is, we are the one’s who train our kids to do that!

You tell your  precious son and heir,  who hasn’t the best reputation for punctuality, to be sure to be home, at least this once, by 7 pm for dinner. You have an important engagement at 8, and you want the table cleared and everything organized before you leave.

So your “little lawyer” tries his luck: “Aw, man, must I leave the game in the middle? Why not 7.30?  I’ll serve myself and wash up, I promise. I know where everything goes.”

You have several reasons why you don’t want that, and you’re not in the mood for explaining why. On the other hand, you can’t stand the whining any longer…

“OK”, you finally concede, resigning yourself to an inevitable mad dash to get to your meeting more or less on time..if you’re lucky! “Just see that you’re here at 7.15 – and not a second later!”

As Lehman points out: kids are going to test limits., that’s their job. What parents forget sometimes is that it’s their job to stand firm!

For a continually updated list of top-rate articles by James Lehman and his colleagues, see here. They represent some of the best advice on parenting and child behavior issues you’ll find anywhere.

In an article on creativity, I once wrote about the “secret weapon” of the president of a company known for its rapid growth rate, its excellent relationships with customers and suppliers, and for being a very pleasant place to work. Whenever a staff member approached him with an idea to improve the organization, smooth out the work flow or make more money, the president had a certain way of responding.

And he never deviated from this style, however impractical or ridiculous the worker’s suggestion might have appeared to him at first glance.

Instead of saying, for example, “This idea will cost too much”, the president would throw out a challenge by asking: “How might you reduce the cost?” or “How might you raise the money to develop this idea?” Instead of offering a prophecy of doom by saying: “Management will never accept this idea” he would inquire: “How might you get management’s support?”

Seems to me that the simple, yet underrated, communication concept used by our president has applications in many areas outside the world of business. Not least of these involves a class of people interacting with whom – or perhaps more accurately, attempting to interact with them – causes many older folk to almost tear out their hair in frustration.

I refer, of course, to our attempts to communicate on a deeper level with our children, especially teenagers. Adolescents, after all, have a reputation for being uncommunicative- a phenomenon most marked precisely when we badly want to get through to them!

The question is what we can do to reverse the trend, to get our older kids to open up to us – without wearing ourselves out with excessive nagging and prodding, and without counterproductive threats or bribes.

Professional counselor and columnist Azra Buksh presents some useful tips to help parents and other seniors succeed in what often appears to be a futile quest. She concludes her list with examples of two contrasting kinds of questions we can use when engaging our children in conversation.

The first type of question she calls “door openers” – non-judgmental, non-threatening, open-ended questions that invite and encourage the one being addressed to respond in kind, to “open up” and express his or her thoughts in full measure, without fear of criticism or retribution. The questions of the second type – the “door-slammers” – imply judgment, disrespect and criticism, or at best, condescension. The result, therefore, will be exactly the opposite of what should hopefully be achieved with questions of the first category.

These are Dr. Buksh’s examples of both types:

Door openers

“What do you think?”“That’s a great question”
“Would like to share more about that?”
“I don’t know, but I will try to find out.”
I am interested in what you are saying”
“Do you know what it means?”
“Are you ready to talk about it?”
“ That’s sounds important to you”
“I don’t have answer now, but I will talk to you about this tomorrow”.
“I know I did not clarify this next time I will do better.”

Door slammers

“Stop asking such questions”.
“You don’t need to know that”
““Why do you want to talk about this?
“Don’t talk to me if you mess up”
“We will talk about it when time comes; you are too young for all this”.
“That’s just not for Boys/girls”.
“ I don’t care what your friends are doing:”
‘I have no time for such foolishness.”.
“ When I was your age, I was not like you”
“It’s your entire fault.”

We either love or hate – depending, I guess, on our own status in the family – funny stories about the proverbial irritating and meddlesome mother-in-law. Well, I want to tell you a story about a mother-in-law, but one who is hardly a fitting target for ridicule. (I’ve changed some details, but this is based on events that actually occurred).

Yes, this is a tale of tension between a woman and her son-in-law, who, by all accounts, is a good husband to her daughter. Of course, there are always two sides to every story, and we’re surely in no position to say of either party that he or she is entirely free of blame. To be sure, it can rarely be appropriate for an outsider to pass judgment in a dispute involving other parties.

But what we can say with conviction is that the mother-in-law of our little saga deserves our admiration and praise,, and we’ll see why.

Alice Alexander and her daughter, Tessa, had always been very close. Alice and her husband had been thrilled when Tessa found Jake, the young man of her dreams. After the wedding, the close relationship between mother and daughter continued. At the same time, Alice, by nature a person sensitive to the needs of others, tried to be careful to respect her daughter’s new status as a married woman, to give her husband the honor due to him, and not to say or do anything that might cause offence to either of them.

Imagine Alice’s shock when Jake and Tessa paid an unexpected visit one evening, and after the usual exchange of pleasantries, suddenly announced:

“Look Mom, there’s something that’s been bothering both Tessa and I for some time, and we decided together to come straight out and tell you: you’re coming to visit a little too much and it’s disturbing us. No doubt you mean well and want to help, but we can manage just fine on our own. Our request is this: please don’t ever visit our house again unless we ask you to come…”

Alice turned a deathly white and barely managed to glance at Tessa, who nodded meekly in assent but averted her eyes. Her mother wasn’t fooled. Clearly Tessa was not really in agreement with her husband’s biting comments and bizarre demand.

Turning to Jake, Alice said simply: “I really don’t understand. But I’ve always respected you and will respect your wishes now.”

From that point on, things were never quite the same in the Alexander family. Alice tried as best she could to adjust to the new reality. Mother and daughter remained in frequent contact, but with rare exceptions, only by telephone, and Alice would call only when Jake wasn’t likely to be at home.

One morning, a very anxious Tessa called her mother. She wasn’t feeling well at all, she explained, and especially since a baby was on the way, she didn’t want to take any chances. She knew Jake had a very important business meeting that day and he wouldn’t like to be disturbed. Would her mother have time to accompany her to the doctor?

Late that evening, the phone rang in the Alexander household. Jake was on the line.

“Mom, what’s the matter with you?” he ranted. “A guy’s wife gets sick, and her own husband isn’t entitled to know? What right have you to go with my wife to the doctor, leaving me completely in the dark? Whoever heard of such a crazy thing!”

Alice opened her mouth momentarily and was about to let loose with heaps of pent-up rage. But instead, she bit her lip. And kept quiet.

Things hardly got better when the baby finally arrived. Who asked Alice to give instructions to the nursing home staff? Why did she bring Tessa’s younger sisters to see the baby without clearing with the baby’s father first? How dare she do this, but why didn’t she do that? And she calls herself a mother! What is the world coming to!

Shortly after Tessa arrived home with her baby, Alice paid the two of them a visit – this time , without the required permit from you-know-who!

“Tell me,” asked Alice, ” and be honest with me. Does your husband ever talk to you the way he talks to me?”

“No, never” was the emphatic reply. “Mom, of course I’m sorry that we don’t see each other more often, but you can believe me, I’m happy…”

Alice knew her daughter well enough to understand she was telling the truth. And as far as Alice was concerned, that’s all she needed to know.

True, Jake’s relentless tongue-lashings had hurt her deeply, but her personal feelings were of no consequence. if Jake and Tessa’s relationship, the peace and harmony in the family, were at stake, she was happy to remain quiet. She wasn’t about to rock the boat if there was any chance it might be at the expense of that harmony. Nothing else really mattered.

Did Alice do the right thing? One could argue both ways. But although it took a long time, Jake ultimately came round to showing some remorse for his treatment of his devoted mother-in-law. He eventually apologized for humiliating her by his impulsive outbursts over the years, which, he explained, were only caused by his highly-strung temperament and acute concern for the welfare his beloved wife.

What can we learn from all this? Self-control and the exercise of restraint even in the face of extreme provocation is usually a sign of strength, not weakness. And a wise person is one pulls back from responding impulsively in any situation, but rather carefully weighs up the consequences of his or her actions.

They tell a story about a small boy whose father is a high-powered executive. One morning he calls up the fancy corporate headquarters and asks to speak to his father.

“Sorry,” apologizes the gatekeeper, “your Daddy’s busy at a very important meeting right now, try later.” The kid does try later, in fact several times “later”, but on each occasion he gets a similar response.

But being, after all, the son of a highly successful executive, he’s not one to give up on a challenge so easily. Eventually, he manages to reach his father on his car phone, as he’s speeding along, already fifteen minutes late, to an urgent rendezvous with a business associate. As he drives, Dad is making all kinds of intricate calculations in his head in preparation for the meeting ahead.

“Oh, it’s you, Ricky,” exclaims an irritated and impatient father. “Don’t you know I’m busy? I’ll be home later….”

“Dad, I won’t keep you. Can I just ask a quick question? How much do you earn?”

“Oh, I don’t know…perhaps $120 an hour..”

“Thanks, Dad.” Click!

As a worn and weary executive walks in the door around 9 that evening, Ricky thrusts a little plastic bag into his hand. The bag contains a bunch of assorted notes and coins totaling about $30.

“This is the money I’ve been saving up, Dad. Can I buy 15 minutes of your time?”

In an earlier post, I discussed an interesting social paradox: as the economies of developed countries grow stronger, the income of the average citizen grows as well. But for the most part, people aren’t any happier than they were before. Why?

I elaborated on one economics professor’s very plausible theory, which is supported by some telling experiments by social psychologists. The real problem is that people are in the habit of comparing their lot with others. If I have a million but you have two million, I have to be feeling miserable. My million is almost worthless to me.

That’s a fine explanation as far as adults are concerned, but what about our children? Why are so many children in affluent countries so darn miserable?

Sue Palmer, a British consultant on early childhood education and author of the best selling “Toxic Childhood”,  cited in a feature in the Daily Mail last year a UNICEF report on “childhood well-being”  that found  that out of 21 nations across the developed world, British children are the unhappiest.

And of course, although the British may technically be winners of this contest that no one  would want to  win,  we have  no reason to believe  that  most other civilized  nations are very  far behind.

Palmer tries  to understand why this should be so.  “Our homes are crammed with labour-saving devices and electronic entertainment that previous generations couldn’t even dream of.  Surely our children should be growing happier every year?” she asks.

She  quotes a  damning survey by the National Consumer Council, which  revealed that children who watch too much television and spend hours on the internet are “greedy and unhappy…These children argue more with their families, have a lower opinion of their parents, and lower self-esteem than other children.”

That explains a little of course, but why are these kids sitting all day in front of the electronic media  in the  first  instance?

Palmer gets to the heart of the matter:  “After researching the state of modern childhood for over five years, I’m convinced that, as our country has grown richer and more “advanced”, we’ve lost sight of certain fundamental truths about child-rearing.

“We’ve come to believe that 21st century children are different from children in the past – that they can get by with less parental time and attention, skip stages in their development and cope with pressures and emotional burdens children shouldn’t have to cope with.

“The brutal truth is that they can’t. Life may have changed enormously over the past few decades, but the human brain evolves much more slowly – in fact, it hasn’t changed since Cro-Magnon times.

“All babies are born as little Stone Age babies, and it’s up to their parents – supported by their wider community – to help them towards maturity, gradually equipping them with the inner strength, skills and knowledge they need to live in a complex technological culture…”

Significantly, Palmer also stresses the  natural obligation of parents to help their children  get a  early start in the mastery of communication skills,  so crucial for successful  emotional and social development.

“As parents sing and talk to their babies, they awaken the language instinct wired deep in the human brain and provide the data through which children will learn to speak their mother tongue.

“But if adults don’t spend time with their children, communication skills won’t develop as they should – and, in a busy modern world, many parents aren’t available to play their part in this process.

“Many children now spend the majority of their day in institutional care.

“At home, babies often sit in front of an electronic babysitter and, as they grow older, there is that problem of older children having TVs in their rooms, which means that even when the family is in the same building, its members are splintered off from each other.

The more than ironic bottom line: in a world where there are more ways to communicate than ever before, parents communicate less and less with their own children!

We will be talking more about  some implications of these heartrending  facts and various issues arising from them in upcoming posts.