Debriefing

Good Fathers and Mothers
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Undoing Roadblocks to Co-operation

Conducting a DMP is tough when it shouldn’t be

People are naturally wired to co-operate. This is why many of us enjoy watching a well-played football or basketball game, couples ice skating, or any set of people working together to make something look easy that would otherwise be difficult.

Unfortunately, our natural capacity to co-operate has been interfered with.

This idea is not a new one. It dates as far back as Genesis in the Bible. In the story of the Tower of Babel, the Lord says,

If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this (building the tower), then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

Who “us” was referring to is something for biblical scholars to argue. Our point here is simply that this is an ancient idea.

Cut to the present and you will soon see there are a number of ‘bad programmes’ that, unless dealt with, will cause us to fight.

Bad programmes are basically bad ideas that act like a kind of computer virus that can ‘infect’ whole crowds of people they touch.

The contagion is spread in a number of ways… advertising being one of the main culprits.

Most people feel that advertising does not influence them but if this was true, why would so much money be spent on it?

Advertising works its way deep into our subconscious, with some very negative results.

If this sounds speculative, consider this:

‘Programming’ a person really just means getting them to do something.
Advertising aims at doing just that.

The whole purpose of most ads is to make us believe we urgently need to purchase a product we probably don’t need.

The first tactic advertisers use is to target our insecurity, making us believe we are inadequate without their product. The second is scarcity, urging us to buy right away by pretending the product—or time—is running out.

In this way, advertising programmes us with two very destructive beliefs, insecurity and scarcity. Often hundreds of times a day.

Insecurity promotes defensiveness, while scarcity promotes competition—and in this way advertising unwittingly programmes us to fight.

Simon Who?

The bad programmes go even deeper than advertising. Consider for instance what benefit we create for our families by playing Simon Says with our children? Isn’t this simply training them not to co-operate by getting them, through repetition, to override their natural impulse to respond to even simple commands?

If you want your family to learn to work together, you will need to work at unlearning these types of faulty programmes. Learning to identify these bad programmes and call them out, will help you stop them interfering with your family’s decision-making and plans. This may take patience and considerable time.

Don’t give up—the goal is worth it. Cooperation is our natural state and hence natural to relearn.

Deprogramming Must Come First

Before we continue our list of bad programmes, let’s get very clear on one thing—if a family member cannot let go of aggressive faulty programming, such as using anger or malicious forms of mental and emotional aggression—such as gaslighting/crazy making or guilt tripping, you may need to first work through the steps in Back From the Looking Glass—13 Steps to a Peaceful Home, before your family is able to run a successful DMP.

In brief, on this point, never continue negotiating with a family member who is intimidating you emotionally or physically.

Instead try these:-

1. Set limits, e.g. “Anger will not change my mind. If you continue intimidating me you will not be dealing with me, you will be talking to the police”.
2. Make basic offers you will not budge on, e.g. “Until you can talk to us respectfully, the most I am prepared to offer is ————, but I will not be helping with anything else”.
3. End any conversation about sharing resources or making agreements until they are ready to ‘play the game’, e.g. “Until you are ready to drop your aggression, there will be no discussion or agreements—only an offer.”
4. With strong-willed children and young adults, you may decide to set up a system where they get points for co-operating, and lose points for emotional manipulation (swearing, disrespect, whining, etc.).

We Were Not Born to Fight

Action Point: Rather than grounding children or using other punitive measures when they misbehave, consider playing…

The Co-operation Game

When a child or young adult has misbehaved, restoring privileges requires a tally of between 300 and 500 points (depending on the severity of the offending behaviour).

This game is set up to counter the negative influence of games such as Simon Says. Points can be earned very quickly working together on a project when co-operation is in full swing:

It is important that you get a good understanding of how this game works. Strong willed individuals often have a heightened sense of injustice. Because of this it is crucial the game be played in such a way that even if the child rebels against it in the beginning and tries to claim you are not being fair, you can be certain you are teaching them sound principles and not exploiting them in any way.

This is a game that includes sound scientific principles of behaviour change:

Co-operation Game Rules

This game should be played as an alternative to grounding a child when they misbehave. A score of 300 to 500 must be reached before privileges can be restored.

Chores that help parents with their own work earn money (not points), but this should be held until they reach the required score of 500.

Co-operation with requests that help the child to help themselves, on the other hand, earn co-operation points.

For instance, asking a child to wash and fold your clothes is a chore they should be paid for, while asking that they wash and fold their own clothes is a chance for them to earn cooperation points:-

• agreeing to play without arguing earns 60 points straight away
• basic cooperation, 5 to 10 points
• disrespect, – 10
• swearing at someone, name-calling, or other direct disrespectful aggression zeros the current positive tally

Points being zeroed for being rude shouldn’t mean that money being held for chores the child has already done should be zeroed. It just means it will take longer (until they reach 500) until they get paid.

This game needs to be played with grit and courage. Strong-willed children (and adults) will do just about anything to try to control the game and score points without actually co-operating. Sweet talk, emotional blackmail, and/or bribery should never be awarded points. Co-operating with basic requests should be the major way points are earned.

Both parents should make it clear that asking is not the same as nagging, but rather an opportunity to earn points.

Social incentive can be added by recording points in a group chat on messenger that includes other family and friends. Positive information about points rewarded should be shared not information about points subtracted. There should also be a chalkboard/whiteboard or sign of some kind posted in the house where progress is monitored.

Strong-willed children and rebellious young adults may need an early incentive to invest in the game. You can do this by awarding a lot of points early (up to 200) for simple things like agreeing to play, and anything big they can do right away that will help bring things back on track. This will help keep things inline when later you may need to remind them that swearing at you etc. will take their point score back to zero.”

When we started this game with my son, he had his points zeroed a number of times before he saw that we were serious and getting to 500 was the only way he was going to get paid his allowance and get his car keys back. He suddenly became better at controlling his angry outbursts once he saw we were both ready to stand firm on this.

You must stand your ground with this in the beginning. Turning the tide can feel like standing up to a cyclone. You must know that this fight is essential. Caving in to a child’s or young adult’s demands when they’re being rude, aggressive or manipulative, will only worsen the problem and kick the can further down the road. Leave this gap in your child’s development unaddressed, and generations of family dysfunction and heartache will likely result.

This is somewhat like taming a wild horse to fit in with human society. In your child’s case, however, taming them will not be taking away their freedom. Because in our society, unless a person learns they must be respectful in order to negotiate successfully, they will never be independent and free.

When playing this game, it is vital the GF&M are on the same page…

‘Good Cop Bad Cop’ Doesn’t Work in a Family

It is normal that a husband or wife who works all day will want to show their children love by giving them gifts, including money. Gifts need to be given, however, with consideration for truly empowering your child toward becoming mature and independent.

One parent cannot set the rules only to have the other parent turn around and hand their child privileges before they have earned them. 

Money is the standard reward for work and co-operation in our society. Children need to learn that they will be expected to work or offer service for money and privileges. They should also learn that there is probably never a situation where a person will be rewarded for misbehaving or being rebellious or resistant.

No one in the family should be made to play ‘bad cop’. Both parents need to show kindness and also stand firm.

If a child is resisting one parent’s authority, it is disempowering to your spouse and child alike to reward that child with gifts, including money.

Giving a teenager alcohol or drugs may win their love or compliance in the short term and make the child believe their parent is ‘cool’, but it will disempower the child in the long run. Parents lose all authority when they seek their children’s approval in this way.

Likewise, parents lose authority when they set limits they do not bother maintaining. E.g. “I said you needed to reach 500 but I feel tired now and can’t be bothered keeping score, so if you sweet-talk me I will just give you what you want.”

A parent continuing to ‘reward’ their child when they are being rude or disobedient to their spouse is a form of cowardly leadership (see chapter 1 for more details). Effectively it equals child abuse by teaching the child they can play people off against each other to get what they want, and must be dealt with separately to the child’s disobedience.

Undermining the authority of your husband or wife is a form of betrayal and is counter-productive to everyone in the family. A GForM who does this repeatedly may need their authority challenged in the organisational structure of the family.

Action Point: If a GForM is not abiding by rules that have been agreed upon, don’t allow children to divide parents by giving into anger about this. As understandably angry this situation is likely to make the unsupported parent feel, getting angry will not solve the problem and may only cause family to paint the responsible parent as the ‘bad guy’.

Instead, schedule mediation with the offending parent, with other family members, or an outside agency if necessary. This may appear expensive, but might just save your family from divorce.

GF&M’s need to be working in full co-operation, standing firm on implementing the co-operation game. If this is not happening, take it calmly and directly to the group, or some authority with influence. This can be accomplished by first gaining other family members’ support and calling a meeting where family roles are reconsidered.

A parent who hands out money and privileges without consideration of the consequences may need to have their access to resources limited.

For instance, when we first started playing this game, Steve was not good at stopping our son getting hold of car keys. After a family meeting, where our other children supported me, I locked away all keys in the house where only I had the key. This was inconvenient for Steve, who soon learned that if he wanted to play ‘key master’, he needed to stop allowing our son access to car keys!

Steve soon learned to stand firm with our son, and Steve is ‘key master’ now.

The Co-operation Game may take time to initiate and to get both parents onside, but once the GF&M are on the same page, it can work like a near miracle to heal a family broken by conflict.

Overcoming resistance to co-operation leads us naturally to a common faulty programme, which is that resistance equals freedom.

Resistance Does Not Equal Freedom

Passive or nonviolent resistance was made famous by anti-war and civil rights activists such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Passive or nonviolent resistance advocates resistance against the oppressive or abusive misuse of power.

I would suggest misuse of power could be defined as a person’s or group’s needs not being considered or included in the process when decisions are being made that affect them.

Resistance is generally regarded as a last-ditch method in negotiation, and would lead one to presume all other attempts at negotiation have failed.

While sometimes effective, resistance against a true oppressor (not open to negotiation) usually involves severe hardship, and even loss of life, for those who engage in it.

Violent (non-passive) resistance, on the other hand, has now become a synonym for the protagonists—or heroes—in war. Star Wars and other media legends have effectively programmed us to understand ‘The Resistance’ (or rebellion) as the good guys.

The effects on children of romanticising resistance in this way are all too obvious. Gandhi leading a nation to stand up to its British oppressors may be noble, but can hardly be compared to a child having a tantrum because they are being required to eat their broccoli. It is interesting that Princess Leia and Han Solo’s son in the Star Wars movies grew up to become the worst kind of spoilt tyrant, resisting all appeals for him to consider anyone except himself.

The faulty programme which says resistance equals freedom means anyone trying to bring order to a household is likely to be criticised as being controlling.

Playing GF&M’s will require you to deal with this faulty programme effectively. Children and adults alike need structure and rules at home, which will also help open doors for them to function more freely in society. The rules and structure offered in this ‘game’ (GF&M’s) will empower children to become independent of their parents and have the greatest number of opportunities in their lives; in other words, to be as free as any human in our society can be.

A father needs to be especially vigilant that they are not fooled into believing that resisting their wife’s authority equals freedom.

^{Why strong women are portrayed negatively.}

^{Steve discusses men being duped into an attitude of resistance to their wives authority}

Reconnect – Appreciation and Respect

A child (or adult for that matter) who is resisting negotiating fairly by throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way, may feel they are fighting for their freedom but in reality they are acting in a way that is very dependent and immature.

Sticking by the rules of the co-operation game, on the other hand (which teaches your family co-operation, respect and negotiation skills), may appear controlling in the short term but will empower your family in the long term.

Action Point: Resistance needs to be countered with education and clear communication.

Define your terms clearly. Make sure each parental act is clearly defined in terms of whether it is empowering or disempowering the child to become an independent (free) and mature adult. Here are some examples:

“The request your mother is making is not controlling, she is empowering you to become an independent and responsible adult.”

“No, I cannot provide you with funds until you get to 500. That would disempower you by teaching you the wrong lessons about life.”

“Rebelling against our rules equals you waging war on us… not freedom. If you want my help you will need to learn to co-operate.”

“Co-operation will not only earn you privileges but also a seat at the negotiation table. Otherwise all I can offer is meals on the table.”

“Your mother’s rules are not overbearing, she is empowering you by teaching you independence.”

Likewise, parental requests when playing the co-operation game should be empowering and not disempowering (or what psychologists sometimes call enmeshing). Some examples of this:

Do say, “Please show me that you are organised and ready for school tomorrow.” And give points if they comply.

Don’t say, “Get me a drink and come give me some sugar (sweet talk), and I might give you what you’re asking for.”

Most disputes can be resolved by better defining roles and responsibilities. Children need to be able to talk respectfully first, however, to engage in this process.

Children need to be taught that co-operation and negotiation regarding boundaries (clearly defined procedures and roles) will win far more concessions than resistance.*

Still having trouble with resistance? Although these tactics may feel a bit manipulative at first they work, especially when the situation has become desperate:

Hostage Negotiation Tactics for Overcoming Resistance

We will identify more personal faulty programming in a moment, but first let’s look at ones that influence our society as a whole…

The Failure of Democracy

The obvious importance of a fair decision-making process is the reason we have been educated to hold a reverence for democracy.

We need only to witness the ongoing conflict in the world, however, to see that democracy does not create peace and prosperity. ‘Majority rules’ (democracy) in fact always ensures a large portion of the community will be left disenfranchised and disgruntled.

Rather than producing unity, our current political system guarantees an ongoing war between at least two factions.

Following the Good King mythology, regents who allowed such internal conflict to dominate the life and workings of the kingdom would soon after be overthrown or even sacrificed.

Imagine running a household divided by a two-party government system (e.g. Democrats versus Republicans).

It only takes a moment to realise this would make life within your family unpleasant and co-operation nearly impossible.

What if the majority vote would see baby left out in the cold to go hungry?

‘Majority rules’ cannot produce peace and prosperity in a family.

True leadership requires solutions be found that satisfy every member’s needs, not just the needs of the majority.

‘Father (or Mother) Knows Best’ Was Likewise a Failure

Traditional values often stated that man had more natural authority than his wife to make decisions within the family. This type of ‘kingship’ is sometimes still considered a solution to family conflict.

Feminism is often blamed for women contesting male authority, causing an increase in conflict around decision-making. Men sometimes feel there has been an intense interpersonal and psychological attack on them, aimed at destabilising their individual sense of self in order to promote compliance with women’s wishes.

Women, on the other hand, sometimes feel that men have become a conspiratorial and organised peer group, selfishly and irresponsibly encouraging and pressuring each other to abandon their adult responsibilities as husbands and fathers. This, coupled with a decline in moral standards, has been identified by many women as the home-wrecking force.

Traditional values generally saw women as the chief authority over the home and of children under the age of twelve. Men on the other hand had authority in the den/yard/garage/workplace and of male-only children twelve years of age and older.

Power struggles have in fact arisen from a whole range of societal changes that have created the need for women and men to share authority in many of these areas.

Advertising is the underlying driver for just about all popular culture now, and seeks to encourage needs in people more than to satisfy them. Its influence (including brand identification and placement) has now created a total environment in and outside the home. Women and men in the advertiser’s world are rarely presented as stable and happily governing their individual yet complementary family responsibilities.

Men in the advertiser’s world are encouraged to passively participate in immature and selfish interests. Charismatic male leaders create intense peer group pressure insisting a man’s life should never be dominated by domestic activities or influenced too heavily by his wife’s needs. Sport, gambling, drinking and male-focussed recreational pursuits (including womanising and porn) dominate the airwaves and environment in and outside our homes.

Broadcast to the world from the protected cocoons of their TV studios, these leaders’ cult of selfish male immaturity can never be meaningfully questioned or contradicted.

Meanwhile, women on TV are generally seen treating their husbands as overgrown children rather than co-regents. Although a universal sign of disrespect and precursor for divorce in real life, wives rolling their eyes at their husbands is standard TV choreography.

Nothing is private in a woman’s world any longer. Angry and distraught women line up making detailed confessions on TV about their personal lives, leaving them vulnerable and 100 per cent disenfranchised from their role as co-regent in their homes.

One complaint from a wife about her husband’s selfishness or immaturity, and an equally large female peer group will respond in chorus, “If you had any self-respect you would change the locks and not speak to him again!”.

Rather than offering families operational structures and tools for better self-governance (including a fair decision-making process), marriage counsellors join the chorus, “Don’t waste your life—you will never change him!”.

Our family has come to see these external forces very clearly. We see neither men nor women as culprits in the war which now rages in our homes.

Dividing women and men against each other serves governments and corporations, while destroying the individual in the process. Men and women cannot survive long on their own and people wanting to sell us anything from joy to protection know this and use it cruelly to their advantage.

Divide the family, and at the very least they will be needing to buy at least two of everything.

The truth is most of us still want a stable love relationship more than we want just about anything. The sad fact is, however, fewer and fewer of us feel safe enough to even admit this, let alone know how to make it a reality.

As these opposing arguments go, either men (because of their natural authority) or women (because they are more moral or responsible), having the final say in any negotiation is the undisputed solution to family conflict.

The truth is, however, that power struggles arise when there is this same type of power imbalance between individuals at approximately the same level in the family hierarchy.

Rivalries flourish in households where there is perceived favouritism between children or where one parent has control of more of the family resources (time, attention, money). Children are also more likely to struggle against parents’ authority in the home if either parent does not feel strong in their role and supported by their partner. Children can play one parent off against the other.

Most importantly: If one party has more power, they generally will not take the time to talk things through to a mutually acceptable outcome for everyone.

In this way a power imbalance can eventually cause the entire system to break down. In a family, this equates to passive and overt aggression, violence, divorce, mental illness or suicide.

Action Point: Strengthening the position of weaker members and ensuring an adequate amount of time is given to the process, is the best way of helping ease conflict (by bringing balance).

GF&M’s should ensure everyone has an important role in the family and everyone is on equal footing when it comes time to negotiate. Stronger members attempting to rush things through will in fact waste time and create conflict. Making sure everyone has time to voice their needs and concerns is the best tactic to save everyone’s time in the long run.

When this occurs and the other roadblocks are overcome, co-operation and team work will begin to happen spontaneously.

Emotional Manipulation

I am a thinker and a planner. I take a lot of time when thinking things through. I worked on the ideas presented here, and eventually wrote this book, after years of heartache and frustration caused by my family not listening to my ideas… not listening when at times the outcome really hurt us, even causing grief and loss.

The statement above is true but also an emotional appeal. There is nothing wrong with doing this. I am trying to move you, and emotions are good tools for doing so.

Emotional manipulation, however, is different. We become emotionally manipulative when instead of moving our audience, we use emotion to pressure negotiations instead. Some examples are:

“How can you be thinking of yourself after all I have done for you?”

“I am running out of time/money/patience to listen to you. Just hurry up and give me what I need!”

“I work harder than everyone else here and so my wishes should come first!”

“I am so sick/broken/disadvantaged, how can you possibly think about anyone but me?”

“What are you? Stupid? Why can’t you just do as you are told?”

Emotional manipulation is, basically, using anger or humiliation to motivate someone to work harder (intimidation), or making them feel guilty if they don’t act in a way that will stop making you feel sad or upset (guilt-tripping). Our eBook Emotional Stupidity offers a lot more insight into how people use their emotions in manipulative and non-productive ways.

Our online emotional intelligence intensive, on the other hand, offers five units of work teaching the truth about how our emotions are a personal, high-speed and high-tech inner guidance system.

Here it suffices that we learn to stop using our emotions as tools of manipulation in negotiation.

Learning to read other people emotionally will help us gain empathy and understanding, but emotional manipulation on the other hand in a working family relationship will usually end in some form of tragedy.

Using guilt or anger to gain ground in a negotiation will breed deep resentment that initially may not be seen on the surface. The psychological fallout from this negative strategy spirals into family dysfunction, including a whole host of symptoms such as major and minor mental illness, somatic illness, lost potential, conflict, loneliness and despair.

Emotional manipulation is learned behaviour we pick up from poor role models in our lives. This might be from our parents and other family members, or destructive role models in movies, song lyrics and on TV. It is a bad habit we need to closely monitor in ourselves if we ever hope to be a GForM.

Emotional manipulation is a poor negotiation tool and shows insecurity rather than confidence and strength.

How are decisions made in your family? Do members use anger, tears, impatience or disrespect to try and get what they need? If this is the case, you may spend a little time thinking about how this situation came to be.

I am not likely to gain your co-operation by yelling or crying to get my way, and I will never give in to my family’s requests if they behave this same way towards me.

Action Point: Instead of resorting to emotional manipulation, a much better way to gain our family’s co-operation is to make offers, sometimes called bids, toward a vision that includes connection.

All bids are not created equal, and there are unhealthy ways we can use bids to get people onside.

An example of a low-quality bid may be asking someone to join you in putting another person down, or to tempt them with activities (such as over eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs) that are not healthy or productive but which you know they will find hard to refuse. Offering unsolicited advice is another form of low-quality bid.

Small high-quality bids

• asking questions and listening
• sharing insights and knowledge
• demonstrating your understanding of them as a person
• showing care and concern about obstacles and setbacks they may face
• asking advice

Larger high-quality bids

• asking them to work toward a shared vision or goal with you
• asking them to accompany you on a journey
• offering long-term assistance with something you see they are trying to achieve

Instigating a DMP in your family is a seriously high-quality bid!

Playing the victim is a particularly virulent form of emotional manipulation that our legal system actively encourages. In families, this can become a bad habit where people vie for favour on the basis of how much harder they have it than everyone else.

It is vital the DMP remains free from people playing the victim and other forms of emotional manipulation. The GF&M’s ‘court’ is NOT a court of law. Victims may gain protection but otherwise will not be rewarded in any way for being a victim. The DMP is about decision-making and agreements, which may include setting boundaries (clearly defined procedures and roles) but is not about justice.

The Arrogance of Self-Pity

Self pity is not always a sign of humility or weakness. Feeling sorry for oneself, or angry about being hard done by is often a ploy for a person to expect their needs and demands should always come first.

Action Point: A person running a faulty programme who says “The tougher I can show I have it, the more rights I should be granted”, will generally be very emotional and hard to deal with in a DMP. It is vital in this case that the person should be encouraged to get centred and calm before presenting their needs.

The faulty programme needs to be actively and consistently challenged. It is the calmest and most centred people—those able to consider everyone—who rise to positions of authority in the strongest families.

“If you feel overworked or mistreated, maybe you need to take some time out to get really clear about what your real needs are.”

The person playing victim will not like being told this. They generally do not want to share authority but instead want the right to boss people around.

Solutions in this case may require an agreement where ‘the victim’ gets what they need rather than what they want.

GF&M’s should also be meticulous in scrutinising themselves for this type of faulty programming.

If you are feeling hard done by it is your responsibility to restructure your families organisational chart and redistribute roles and responsibilities in a way that is sustainable and fair.

Scarcity

One of the primary drivers in advertising is scarcity. The incredibly simple idea behind this highly destructive principle of coercion is that people won’t work or pay for something that is cheap and easy for them to obtain. For this reason, we are constantly told that everything we want is in short supply and we may need to fight someone else to make sure we get there first.

This leads to poor choices around decision-making, and extremely poor behaviour around negotiation. A hungry family isn’t going to talk politely about sharing if they believe food is in short supply.

Scarcity is so deep seated in most of us that rivalry tactics—employed to make sure we don’t miss out—are often fierce and difficult to overcome.

This ruthless game plays on in the real world now with cars, housing, health care, education and even food.

Time, likewise, is sold to us as a precious and scarce commodity. For instance, you may not think you have enough time in your day to play GForM, but how many hours do you spend watching TV or surfing the internet?

Then think about how much of your life you are wasting by not planning or making decisions to work towards the future you really want?

The truth is, modern agricultural and manufacturing techniques, coupled with unregulated markets and mass production, have created a vast surplus of items including food, even housing, and other items we all need. Scarcity is maintained artificially to keep people motivated to purchase things while also keeping prices up.

Besides these tangibles, a scarcity mentality also includes vital social capital, namely love, attention and respect.

Don’t be a sucker for scarcity. A GF&M should be on guard against its tyrannical sway.

Give your children unlimited time to explain what they need and might be planning, and use wisdom and heart by taking time to put yourself in their shoes. In this way you may come to see that what they really need is probably a lot cheaper and easier to obtain than the designer clothes they might be hounding you for now.

If you have trouble with this, perhaps work through the action point in the DMP titled Drawing them out.

Action Point: The most important commodity you can give your children to overcome the roadblock of scarcity is your undivided time and interest.

Family members may be ruthless when you first attempt the DMP, at first arguing and shouting each other down in a perceived scarcity feeding-frenzy. Because of this, an atmosphere of support should be built on patience and the historical examples of trust and understanding you worked on at the beginning of the chapter titled Induction.

Your family needs to come to trust that everyone is going to get a turn and that from now on agreements won’t ever be sealed until there is 100 per cent consensus.

Our Brains are Faulty Simulators

Numerous research studies have proven that while we might be able to control some of the events in our lives, nearly all of us are hopeless at knowing how the plans we make are likely to make us feel.

This has been described by scientists as our brain being ‘faulty simulators’.

If you are interested, there is a fascinating TED talk on this here:

Adults have been proven to make the wrong decision so often that choosing the opposite of what we think will make us happy is usually the best course of action we can take.

Don’t believe me? What do you think most people will choose if needing to decide between what will make them happier—attending a party or doing their taxes? Pretty easy choice, right? Now think about how each of these choices will be likely to make you feel the next day.

Children, on the other hand, are even further disadvantaged in decision-making by not having the benefit of hindsight.

Action Point: The more family members can be encouraged to talk a situation through honestly, the more wisdom-from-hindsight becomes available to the group. Remembering how a similar situation being planned turned out in the past, will just about always allow for a better decision than any family member could achieve on their own.

Being Sick Means I Deserve More of Everyone’s Time and Attention than Other Family Members

This is a faulty belief that if not tackled might just kill you. Don’t believe me? If you are running this bad programme, what incentive will you ever have to be well?

Action Point: Attention should be focussed on giving energy to this type of family member’s efforts to take care of themselves.

Hug them when they are happy and they are doing things to take care of themselves.

When they are complaining, leave them with some things they can do for themselves.

Build personal care into all solutions.

Love Will Solve Everything

This is the last roadblock we face, and one of the hardest to overcome for some people.

The happily-ever-after promised is in fact a recipe for disaster.

Two people coming together to run a household is the beginning of where roles must be established and processes put in place. Believing that love will magically bring wise governance to a home is sure to deliver only disappointment and disillusionment.

Most of us receive training for our mental and physical ‘centres’ as children. We were taught how to walk, eat, run and even swim. Many were taught how to read while still at home and were then packed off to school where our mental development was further encouraged in all kinds of ways.

Throughout all of this, there was another centre within us where development unfortunately remained almost entirely up to luck. That third centre is the realm of our emotions. Tragically, research now shows that it is the development of this neglected centre which really determines our ability to connect with ourselves and with others, determining much of our genuine success and happiness in life.

How can our partner possibly take care of our emotional needs when we barely understand our own emotions?

Action Point: Do our Love Boat Tour of the Emotions and Kim’s Emotional Intelligence Intensive

Conclusion

Rather than ganging up on each other (majority rules), gender wars (father or mother knows best), or everyone fighting to have their separate and disjointed needs met as individuals (emotional manipulation and scarcity), mature and responsible leaders will strive to encourage equality and teamwork in their family.

Because humans tend to have difficulty maintaining a balance between focussing on their own needs and the needs of others, especially in times when resources (such as time, money and energy) are in short supply, it is vital family leaders put in place a Decision-Making Process that will maintain this balance.

The process itself will also help alleviate the mistakes we tend to make due to our brain’s tendency to simulate the future poorly.

Onwards and upwards!

Assembling . . . . . . . . . Everyone Needs a Role

 

*If resistance is showing up between family members, it may be wise to work on the organisational chart in your family and better define roles and responsibilities. There is much more on this in the next chapter.