Of the various items in Magary’s list, the two I tackle the most with parents are avoiding power struggles and controlling yourself since that is the only person you can control.

Please avoid power struggles. If you are struggling for power with a kid when you own the house, you buy the groceries, you control the car, you pay the phone bill and you provide the allowance, then you have brought your child up to your pay grade, or more likely, you have demoted yourself. The best way to avoid a power struggle–control yourself.

Which parent sounds more in control to you?

• You can’t have any dessert until you finish your dinner!
• I provide dinner to children who finish their dinner.

Have a friend throw a couple of “You can’t,” “You must,” “Don’t you ever”‘s your way and see if it doesn’t just pull you into saying something sassy back. Hearing a “You…” is hearing someone tell you what to do. Most of us do not like to be told what to do and we push back. Kids are supposed to grow more independent–it is their job–, and so they are primed to let you have it if you start telling, even demanding, that they do something. That is were the magic is in the second example.

When you say what you are going to do, you are controlling yourself and yourself only. You have provided little invitation to argue, though there might be one to whine. You may provide the same type of answer, such as, “I am only able to hear requests for dessert when asked in a big girl voice.”

So here is the link to the SPA post: 9 Things I learned in the Parent Encounter Program.

So the new address is 1600 S. Main St., Suite 225, Walnut Creek CA  94596. Only the suite number has changed.

Like me, Cory is unimpressed with the available monitoring programs for watching your children. We both believe they don’t work that well; it is too easy for kids to get around. He goes in another direction as well; it teaches kids that surveillance by authority figures is okay. In fact, he goes on, any of the tools that we would like our kids to have in order to protect themselves (encryption, proxy servers, cleaning out cookies) defeats not only those who want to steal our childrens’ information, it also defeats the parental monitoring and control programs.

As a start, he would like us to promote privacy and educate our children so that the default question is, “Why do you need to know that?”

via BoingBoing

Yes, I am still paying off student loans, and business expense eat into my take-home pay. Very few people call me doctor, and even when they do, I say it is okay to just call me Marc. Clinical psychology is about empathy, understanding and relationship; it is not about social standing.

And I suppose, truth be told, that the video is making fun of psychologists. My sharing it with you is psychologists laughing at ourselves.

Please let me know what you think in the comments.