Dr Lieberman Transforing Relationships #10

welcome to transformer relationships it's very uh part 10 wow part 10 of this amazing series um and the feedback has been unbelievable we're actually going to start up um this week with two questions um from uh submitted questions um and uh one should uh submit your questions to events at kazakh.org e-v-e-n-t-s at c-h-a-z-a-q dot org so the first um first question um was a was a direct quote from a previous class so someone said last week dr lieberman said to provide someone we care about with self-esteem tell them sincerely how much they mean to you and even if they push back ultimately they will absorb the message and move forward so that was the quote okay so so um so i was agonizing today this is the person that versus email is saying i was agonizing today over the right course of action to take with my quote unquote on his own derrick team this week he declined to join the chavez table should i have made a cop should i made a comment can i can i use your quote from last week to my son situation um to ignore that the fact that he they missed that we missed him at the shower meals and um which might yes like what you do okay so look when it comes to teenagers and and shabbos meals here's the general rule of thumb and and you know it's it's we're painting with the broad brush there are a lot of asterisks that go into this more asterisk like an invert for a car ad you know it's like you know 18 a month and then it's like half the page is small print so i have to page a small print but the large print is like this you never want to call a person especially a teenager out on anything that they're doing because that they already know they're doing is wrong meaning if you tell someone to do something that they know they should already do it's called nagging and that gets us nowhere with his spouse child friend co-worker doesn't make a difference so the other thing is something we touched on another time is that if you tell your child you know your teenager you've got to come to shabbos table why aren't you coming you got to do blah blah blah all you're doing is you're injuring the relationship you're making him feel worse about himself and he's justifying to himself all the reasons why it's okay that he not do it and so on so i would encourage you to there's only so far you're going to push anyone particularly a child with the watts until you get into the wise meaning do this do this do what to do what to do what to do at some point you know it's good to know the why same thing by us in other words you know we're motivated you know to do some of the what's but only because we understand some of the whys what to do we darven why well it's a creative universe the degree to which we embrace that varies of course and the further we move away from the recognition of the created universe and exactly what that relationship is and who hashem is the further we're going to move away from dominating or from our observance in general so you know you can push all the watts you have to do this you have to admit the rise to this and that they were bottom and you know i i so so the approach here is as follows so to answer your question is in terms of just you know love and accept unconditionally a hundred percent by children that's not even a shiloh but what you want to do here is when uh is by the ways is is work on one improving relationship that means no more reminding the child of doing stuff that he's going to feel bad that he hasn't done whatever he does do don't you know acknowledge it in a positive way not a hey look who finally showed up at the shabbos table not one of those things but oh jonah that's so nice you know you came down whatever ignore a lot of the stuff you just have to i'm telling you you just get nowhere fast you've got to be able to ignore things particularly with teenagers um really it's look the other way as much as you humanly can so you're saying that we should maybe uh turn our eye maybe even let's say like certain things that happen that like maybe not to focus on it but the the the to to truly emphasize what uh what they are i'm saying doing positively exceptionally 100 and it's not about no boundaries not about uh no takaha it's just about being smart knows you're not going to be effective by beating a kid up and telling him why he's doing more things wrong it doesn't motivate anybody um so you know uh you know in in the cloth of rav david tranq salah ronnie ronnie greenwald that's all you know just love them accept them for who they are where they are how they are and just really take expectations off the table particularly if you've got a challenging child and just love them i gotta tell you it's more than just a pie in the sky philosophy it marmish works and i say love them i don't really mean acceptance is a little hanging fruit i don't talk about accept you should i do my acceptance is you know i accept the fact that pay taxes that's that's not that's not kashmar that's not great embrace celebrate let the child know that everything about him and her you just are in love with and thrilled by you're just captivated with and whatever they do what in whatever way is responsible that's what gets your attention ignore a lot of the other stuff if you can look away look away so the the person asked the second part of the the same question they said is it ever okay to talk about the importance of having a relationship with hashem great so it's a very good question it can't be well look i i would encourage you to consider doing it in a non-preachy way um because as soon as you set up you know i was listening to a share by rev north weinberg's attal it was i recorded probably two decades ago when he was in lakewood talking about kirov and he said when somebody comes to him and says i'm an atheist he goes the worst response is to tell him i'm going to show you why you're wrong because all that does is it forces the guy to dig his heels in deeper and he gets very defensive rather he said the approach is like this you say ah you know what i love to tell an atheist when they come to me not this guy it's pontificating i like to say you know what an atheist is somebody who has proof that there's no god so i like to say show me your proof now the guy would say oh no no well that's not me i'm really maybe more agnostic and then he moves the conversation the point of this is that he said you if you attack somebody as we know head on straight on your ego's gonna get engaged and it's not gonna be a conversation so if if you come full blazing talking about you know um you know it's important that relationship with shaman blah blah blah depending on the child or may may not go over too well i would encourage you i think you know like you've got things like the uh batachan hotline you've got great stories on uh you know i i like uh uh kosher books on just the wonders of the world and you talk about the majesty you know the universe and the different galaxies do you know by the way robbie there are twelve thousand twelve thousand species of starfish now to me that's mind-boggling and my kids know it's like it's something i say it's just because it's like okay fine you want to say that you know that that there's no creator fine and somehow we got one starfish two stars twelve thousand i mean at some point you gotta say there's gotta be a little hakma as to how and why and all that so i just you know you look up at the night sky there's so much the human eye i you know i tell my kids you know it's like you know whenever they come out these new robots that can do you know 15 million dollars to pick up a cup of water and to do this meanwhile the human brain and the body can do things with the most sophisticated robot machinery with billions of dollars thrown at it can't accomplish you know the bionic man aside so um you know it's it's the opportunity to see hashem the relationship of hashem is evidence and if you can do it in a non-preachy way great uh so again there are other ways to accomplish that but by all means having a relationship with hashem and and letting the child know just how important and valuable that is is indispensable also going back to abner weinberg his biography is that now it's fantastic and he talked about when he was growing up his father used to say to him you know do you know that hashem loves you that's that's that is how he developed a relationship with hashem so you know what it doesn't have to be you know these long to our you know deep meaningful conversations just these little drips these little mentions these observances answer yourself also let them see and model your own behaviors apparent about how you see and bring hashem into every aspect of your life and they'll help to absorb that so meaning you're saying that it doesn't have to be specifically okay now we're going to sit down and we're going to talk what is the meaning of our relationship with hashem it's like a it's informal it's just like the way they they when you're built up in your house or whatever it is right right if you've got a teenager that that they're going to sit with you know popcorn and eagerly listen to what you have to say call it kabode i'm not sure there are too many out there okay great so um somebody uh unrelated different person to the email which is i guess i think it's i just realized it's very similar to just mention um they said will a 22 year old son who is not taking responsibility for his actions and disconnecting himself for himself from his parents by limiting conversations staying in his room doesn't show interest in other people's lives become a mensch by the by the parent giving more unconditional love so good good so the very good question is that look you know my kids are already selfish he's already keeping to himself and now i'm going to pile on saying you're such an amazing human being for staying in your room so first off i don't know what's going on in the house which is why i always like to engage people you know live as you know but i'd say like this no human being let alone teenage 22 year uh 22 year old boy wants to walk out of their room if they're going to be hit with a haha with rebuke with criticism or take out the garbage so i would hide in my room also if every time i ventured out it became another job another chore nothing i'm doing wrong so i would take a step back and first make sure this house is possible when the child comes out it's not you know drudgery it is but it's positive it's good it's not a chore it is um an atmosphere that would encourage somebody to want to come out of the room because think about it yeah let's assume this 22 year old is a smart kid which he probably is he can stay in his room where it's safe quiet calm and relaxing or venture out where it's going to be hit with something that he may not want to hear or see or do you know what i i'd stay in my room too so again make sure the house is as as not you know in an artificial way but genuinely a a happy place to be that's how people become encouraged to want to be around you and to want to be a part of your skype so that's number one the second thing is when you do engage your child focus on just the positive and make no mistake there's some kids you know who are very talkative they're very communicative they like to engage we call them girls right and then you've got the kind of kid who would just sort of sit there on the couch and if you've got one of those boys you don't have to uh you know uh pepper him with conversation if he's sitting down on the couch you can be in the same room open up a safer a magazine you know spend time with your child without exchanging a word that's okay that's valuable that's important uh you don't necessarily have to talk i'll tell you another something very valuable particularly with teenagers and boys i find that sometimes parents will say that you know the kid the child doesn't engage but it's because whenever the child does engage even though the parent doesn't offer a critique they're almost like bombastic and it's like the child will say something the father the mother say no but it sort of shuts them down if you have a child that's just not so communicative or sort of in their own space whenever they venture out verbally emotionally physically you got to be sure that it's a very safe space meaning that they can voice their opinion they can express themselves in a way that is heard and validated um and you'll find that it's just very effective so i'll tell you a great line i got from my sister-in-law who is a brilliant social worker when anyone says something that's completely like foreign out of left field doesn't matter what it is how crazy it is teenagers or whatever rather than calling them out on it saying that's crazy that's insane whatever she simply says tell me more that's so interesting and i gotta say it's just a great line just say that's so interesting tell me more and you begin to open the floodgates of conversation but again whenever you have somebody that's not so chatty make sure this space itself is the sim card and when the child does engage it is positive and you don't not shutting them down even though you may be thinking you're engaging in a conversation to that child it may be felt like rejection or being shut down so you're saying um to answer the question you're saying that if you have um it's um they're like that if if you if you like you're giving them um if it's not like a safe environment like a friendly environment then then there's just gonna it's gonna condition yourself it's gonna continue but um but if it's a safe it's uh it's friendly environment they want to do it then that's gonna uh it's gonna encourage that behavior that's right it'll foster them to come out more and the more positive experience they have and again end of the day is whatever their child does and here's the thing by the way when you have a kid like that don't ask him to do anything when he's not in a good mood because he if he's not going to do it or it's going to be a huge blowout argument it's not worth it when a child like that is in like a good space for whatever reason for whatever time maybe you know haley's comment every 72 years however often that window comes up go ahead and that's when you take the opportunity to to allow him to do something positive in the house in order to give in a certain way to do something in a certain way to contribute a certain way and then be very lavish with your praise and appreciation um but be very careful about um piling on again chores when the child is not in space to be able to do that sounds great um and then um i guess jumping up to i guess a slightly different topic about we know that uh social media obviously over the last uh few years has been um growing in popularity uh whether it's facebook or whatsapp or even just text messages and stuff so um and sometimes we could be even in group chats even though we not personally but but people you know let's see like a youtube page or whatever it is people write these comments and people you don't even know it could be people you know you don't know like some random uh username whatever it is yeah yeah so what if so what do we um how do we keep our health head held high or we're attacked in the the darkness of the web or yeah phone whoever is you know i tell you when i first um i wrote my first book going back 20 years ago and it came out and it was like my first bad review of the first of what became of many on uh on my book i was like my gosh you know and i don't mind it it was just like anyway off base and it like gets stung um but then you know you begin to realize that you know what is whether it's you know people hide behind this cloak of anonymity and they can't see you they don't know you and they just fire you know these lobs and now it gets the point where this guy i don't want to encourage people to go take a look but is on my last book it's called um my book is never get angry again and his mom is like this guy in his mother's basement um and like a cloak he calls himself like the something monk or something and he tries to bash the book but i was watching with my kids because it's just funny he doesn't mean to be funny but he's just he's just like and then so what lieberman says is you want to make sure and it's just like i don't know it's just he dramatizes it uh end of the day is you know whether it's people you know people you don't know a familiar refrain of mine is we treat other people based on how we feel about ourselves so it's important to recognize that when somebody particularly when they're anonymous and it's very easy to sort of complain and criticize and to uh you know to poke fun at you know people in pain cause pain people are hurt cause hurt unfortunately it's what happens um and you either develop a thick skin and recognize it other people are coming from this place or you know you're going to take it personally and find yourself behind the eight ball but this mom has just came up with one of my kids we're talking about this and you know this is something we also mentioned here on uh with hazak about you know saying so and so you know you hurt his feelings and it's one of the phrases that are are so unproductive when parents or rebellion or teachers say you hurt someone's feelings no well you did you don't hurt anyone else's feelings you said something and that child interpreted as something that caused them pain not to say we're not responsible for own actions but the message there to that child is on one hand yes your words can cause harm but you have to be careful because if this child believes that he's going out there causing pain to other people based on his words alone then he is going to be paying by other people's words and the day is it's not really true even though words yes they do cause pain they do cause harm we have to be careful with our language from our perspective but at the same time if we believe that our words directly will cause somebody else pain then we have to accept the premise that their words will directly cause us pain in which case we're health uh were helpless so rather it's important for children for adults to recognize that it is the meaning we attach to in our interpretation that causes us to feel a certain way uh and that's what causes the pain that makes sense [Laughter] i remember i heard um i read in uh one of the book when it was form of a friend who's talking about this concept not directly but he's talking about the concept of whenever whenever a person they want to be successful in like uh helping out the community let's say oh i want to build i want to help build the ishiba and help build a mix cloud or whatever it is that then you're always going to have negative counts already have the ishiba oh the mcfly's already over there like so he said that you have to be i've got the hebrew word you have to be like you're deaf like you don't hear that outside noise so so i think maybe it relates to this that that um that we have to uh just um you know not right i listen to those outside voices i guess look no one ever erected a statue to a critic you know it's so easy to sit on the sidelines and throw darts and say it can't be done i could do it better it shouldn't be done this way um but end of the day is and the people that change the world are the people that look at things differently and say why not and so yes they'll always be their naysayers doing an obligation to listen with an open ear at the same time is what to be said for shutting people out um who are very quick to dismiss and to the and and to denigrate what is you want to do only because their own they're in their own safe space you know i am going to end with a great uh real life example my brother-in-law is a brilliant marketer he does um he puts out these social media um social media sort of like you know one or two minute videos and he said somebody said you know you can't do it like that it's not professional enough meanwhile he does do it like that and he does get business from it and it does gain traction and it's great when that person says it's not professional what he means to say is i could never do that because it's not professional enough but you say you can't do it of course you can because he's doing it so you know again no one ever erected a statute to critic it's easy to sit in the sideline and throw darts end of the day the people that change the world and people look at things and say why not and that's why by the way you know organizations like kazakh like tourney time you know you guys are the ones that look and say you know what here's a void here's something that's missing let's go ahead take action and do something and end of the day is our life comes down to making decisions you make a decision and it's an incredible power that comes with it so mr shem let's make good decisions this week sounds like a plan uh okay great thank you dr miranda for taking very precious time we really really appreciate it my pleasure uh impacting so many people and um everyone's reminded to submit your questions to events.kazakh.org which will be addressed in future quests thank you everyone for joining us