Creating Peaceability with Adolescents

3. Peaceability Calmness. Peacefulness. Serenity. The tendency to try to accommodate rather than argue. The understanding the differences are seldom resolved through conflict and that meanness in others is an indication of their problem or insecurity and thus of their need for your understanding. The ability to understand how others feel rather than simply reacting to them. Control of temper. Children need calmness. It gives them a kind of security. Peace and the control of temper is a powerful and important value that is largely a product of love and of the atmosphere created in a home! Understanding is the key. We seldom lose our temper when we are trying to understand. Children who are taught to try to understand why things happen and why people act the way they do will become calmer and more in control. We have used the term peaceability to mean understanding, calmness, patience, control, and accommodation – essentially the opposite of anger, losing one’s temper, impatience, and irritation. Just as there are a lot of ways to be dishonest, there are a lot of ways to be peaceable. Peaceability does not mean the elimination or ignoring of emotions. Rather it means to control them and to prevent their causing hurt to other people. Calmness and peaceability are values because they help others as well as ourselves to feel better and to function better. In addition to being values, they are contagious qualities. As you develop them within yourself, they are “caught” by others around you, particularly by your children. General Guidelines Create a peaceful atmosphere in your home. Try to enhance the setting in which you live and teach this value. Improve calmness of your home by: a) playing restful music – much classical music creates a feeling of refinement, order, and peace; b) controlling the tone and decibel level of your own voice – yelling accomplishes little and instantly punctures a peaceable atmosphere; c) touching others in your family – we talk more softly when we touch; put a hand on a shoulder or arm as you speak to someone. Set an example of and have an advance commitment to calmness. Demonstrate the practice and the benefits of peaceability to your children and take advantage of the quality’s “contagiousness.” It is natural, as a parent, to say, “I have a right to get upset,” of “They needed that.” But no matter how much “right” we have, getting upset with children simply doesn’t work very well, and children really don’t “need” to see us lose our temper. There is occasionally a place for “righteous indignation” – when children willfully and flagrantly do something they know is wrong. But too often our anger comes from our own frustration and sets negative and even dangerous precedents. Unfortunately anger, volatility, and impatience are as contagious as calmness. Children frequently exposed to it inevitably become frequent expressors of it. Teach by praise. Try to develop a “contagious calm” in yourself and to build it in children through positive praise. Besides working to stay calm within ourselves, and trying to respond in a peaceful way, parents need to learn that “praise is peaceful” while “negative is nervous. ” Methods for Adolescents The “Analytical-or-Angry” Discussion Help young teenagers conceptualize the benefits of trying to “understand” rather than trying to “win.” At dinner or some other natural conversation time make the statement that we have many situations in which there is a choice between two A words – arguing or analyzing. In other words, when someone does something to us or says something with which we disagree, we can either fight back and argue or we can try to analyze why he did or said it. Point out the second choice is better because we learn something whenever we try to figure out why, and we keep our cool and keep our friends. Story and Follow-up Discussion on the Theory of “Win-Win” Situations This exercise will help adolescents begin to see the world not as constant competition and “win-lose” but as a place where understanding can help everyone win. Tell this brief incident: Holly and Mary had been friends for years, but they were both strong-willed, so they had frequent disagreements. In their history class one day the teacher asked students to pair up and then choose one of the topics listed on the board for a dual report given by the paired students that would count for half of their grade. Holly and Mary teamed up but couldn’t agree on a topic. Holly wanted one and Mary wanted another. They began to argue about it, and then Holly, remembering something her mother had told her, decided just to listen to Mary. It turned out that Mary had a very good reason for wanting a particular topic – and that she had some special information that would help make a good report on it. As Holly listened, she thought of some ideas she could add. The girls agreed on a topic and ended up getting an A on their report. Ask what the difference is between “win-lose” and “win-win.” Define “win-win” (finding a way to agree – a way where no one is hurt and where everyone benefits). Think of others examples. Share Your Method of Prethought Flatter adolescents by suggesting that you and they adopt the same method for becoming peaceable. Discuss the “preprogram” idea (from the general methods section of this chapter). Help kids develop their own way of deciding in advance to be calm. Explain with Cander the Natural Moodiness Caused by Puberty, Hormones, and So On It’s important to help adolescents better understand and accept their moods. Young people’s ability to be peaceable is often affected not only by their physiology but by their concern over it. A candid discussion about how the hormones of adolescence can affect moods can help children better accept their own change and emotions. Explain that it is natural in adolescents to feel great one moment and lousy the next. Explain that it’s all right – and that the only thing to worry about and work on is being sure that our moods don’t hurt others unduly.