Hi Nicholeen,

I’ve transitioned from bully/fear based to TSG over the last 4 years. How do I handle when a child uses triangulation & spouse defaults to modern progressive during logistics & decision-making, where I see roles not being honored & my wife allowing our kids to make parent decisions. I want to continue trying to honor her interactions, but things get blended when it should be a joint parent decision, & my wife’s default historical parenting is to let our kids make decisions instead of us together.

Our 12 YO daughter wanted to see a movie. She texted me a cropped screenshot of showtimes with missing data. I called to clarify the logistics & see if Mom was aligned. Our daughter was playfully vague & claimed Mom said yes, but I could hear her actively whispering to her mom in the background to get Mom to say yes, without clarity on the plan. I asked to speak with my Mom who was busy finishing work, so after initially confirming our daughter was driving her crazy about the movie, she confirmed not knowing what the plan was, & said let’s figure it out later.

I took the lead to find center seats for a standard showing, as both my wife & I prefer not to do 3D. I had 7 minutes to finalize reservation. My wife called back while driving with our daughter, the whirlwind took over as I like to say. Daughter kept pushing for 3D. My wife began critiquing the center seats I selected, & had daughter viewing options on her device. Mom struggled with staying positive, being decisive, & allowed our daughter to take over the decision-making.

Mom backpedaled & delegated the seating & showtime decision to our daughter, then telling me OK whatever, to proceed with the purchase, then going back, asking about other seats… I chose to exit the power struggle. I calmly opted out, told them to enjoy the movie & stayed home. mom tried to oblige & make everyone happy, but I preferred to opt out & told them to make it a Mami & daughter event.

I want to use this as a TSG teaching opportunity so my daughter understands roles, cooperation, & how to respect others' preferences instead of controlling the outcome, without me absorbing the "inflexible, not fun dad" label. How do I structurally review this dynamic with my spouse (or should I simply move on & let my opting out speak for itself) & how do I review with our daughter separately, without lecturing, to ensure the father's voice is heard & adult roles are restored more understood by her little by little?

I need to take a trip at the end of this month for four days and four nights. My High Functioning autistic daughter wants me to leave her in the house alone while I'm away with the dog. She says she wants to spend the days I'm away in the house alone, going nowhere, just eating junk food, watching TV and playing video games because that sounds like heaven to her. Unfortunately, I don't trust her to take care of the dog well as she has been mean to the dog before and I know she is lying about staying in the house by herself because I found out that she met another sex partner on TInder and she wants him to come over while I'm gone. She is unaware that I know about him. He lives in New York City (which is over an hour ride by train or car from where we live in New Jersey) and it looks like she has gone to New York City by herself by train to see him and have sex with behind my back. She lied to me both times and said she was seeing friends. It is obvious to me this guy is only using her for sex but it looks to me like she is under the impression that her dalliance with him could lead to a relationship. I doubt he would come, but he might, and if he doesn't, I am worried she could go on Tinder and find some other stranger to come over here to have sex with her which could potentially be dangerous to her as well as my property. I want to ask my cousin to stay here with her and take care of the dog but I don't know if my cousin is willing or not. When I told my daughter I wanted my cousin here she got exceedingly angry. I am worried that if my cousin does stay here, my daughter will make her life so uncomfortable she will not want to stay. What can I do?

Hi Nicholeen,
I’m a 49-year-old father, and about four years ago, our family hit a wall with some really severe behavioral struggles with our oldest son. Before finding your work, our home baseline was a lot of reactive anger, yelling, and passive coddling. I realized I needed to change myself first. I committed to doing the work of personal reform, cleaning up my own anger, and implementing TSG principles as best as I possibly could.
The results in my own life have been a massive blessing. I’ve been able to stop micro-managing, stay calm, and find a peaceful, steady command presence. I don't engage in the old power struggles or family triangulation anymore.
However, this has created a difficult dynamic with my wife. She still tends to operate from a permissive/modern progressive place, sometimes validating our kids' complaints when they face boundaries, running on a frantic, rushed schedule, and falling back on old avoidance and victim thinking loops. Because I’m no longer stepping into that old "dance" with her, she seems to see my calm firmness and boundaries as a threat or a cold lecture, which has caused real emotional distance and tension between us. We did a marriage retreat which is faith based and our continuing with meetings through this retreat group afterwards on a weekly basis. That has helped some.

I recently listened to a therapist suggest that if one spouse intentionally focuses on deep personal growth and the other doesn't keep the same pace, it naturally causes a systematic breakdown and separation in the marriage. Part of me worries that by changing myself, I’ve accidentally created this distance.

My question for you is: In your extensive work with families, have you observed this kind of marital separation when one parent decides to passionately pursue self-government on their own? Perhaps undergoing reformation and transformation, where they may almost seem like someone else? And beyond just "keeping going" and modeling the behavior, what insights or tips can you share to help me and anyone else out there struggling similarly, to stay focused on principles while still inviting and allowing a struggling spouse to open up to the goodness of doing this work of self-improvement themselves?
Thank you.

I am needing some help in knowing what to do to help my 10 year old son motivate himself to do the parts of his school work that he doesn't enjoy or find easy. This is mainly in writing assignments! He is using the I.E.W (Institute for Excellence in Writing) programme for this part of his Language Arts Curriculum. He is by nature quite a lazy person he doesn't like to do chores either! He would much prefer to spend his entire day designing and making incredible planes and ships out of Lego, or cardboard, or drawing intricate and amazing planes and machinery on his drawing pad. I can see he has a good mind but this lazy attitude of "I don't feel like doing this" or "I don't want to do this" or just flat refusal "I'm not going to do this" is almost an every day occurrence. Getting him started on his book work at the start of the day is really difficult as well, it can be 11:00 in the morning before I finally get him started on his book work. I have similar trouble with my 12 year old daughter. l also have three other school age children that I am homeschooling, a preschooler and 5 month old twins. I am from the Gloria vale Christian community in New Zealand and at the moment we are under huge attack from the ministry of education for the country who are wanting to take our homeschool exemptions of us because of false accusations. Any advice or help will be gratefully accepted

Hi Nicholeen –

I just returned from a month-long trip visiting my children and grandchildren in the US, and for me every day was a highlight, full of connection and joy. However, after I returned I did some self-reflection and I would like to present some thoughts and get your feedback for improvement in the future.
Since my children don't use TSG with their children, if I saw something needed to be corrected, I would describe what they did and describe what they should have done and why. Then I would tell myself to drop the subject.
A couple of times, though, I gave the toddler a no answer and, reflecting on it afterwards, I think I should have asked his mom first if that was ok. This happened when I noticed that he was bringing large sticks and branches into the house and waving them around and unintentionally jabbing/hitting people or objects. I told him the sticks needed to stay outside, and he listened. Another time, I gave him a no answer about climbing on the table. When we would eat, if he wanted something, he would just climb on to the table to get it. You can imagine the chaos that ensued! So I told him he would need to stay seated, and he got that too, although he didn't love it. His mother is very relaxed and has high tolerances; this type of thing doesn't bother her. I feel with hindsight that I should have asked her permission before directing my grandson, and that perhaps I should apologize for not doing this. What do you think?
There was another behavior that was hard for me. My granddaughter, age 31/2, will sometimes ignore me when I speak to her. For example, we came into the house after a long car trip and she told her mother she was hungry and thirsty. Her mother responded that everyone was hungry and thirsty and went back out to the car. I asked Shevi if I could get her a nice cold drink and she completely ignored me. My first feeling was hurt and rejection. I acknowledged the feeling, but then told myself that this was not personal. Shevi really wanted her mother to take care of her and she didn't have the skills to communicate that politely. I then described what she did (ignoring my question), told her what she should have done and why, and told myself to drop the subject. I found that I needed to take some deep breaths to let it go.
Any comments/suggestions for improvement are appreciated!

Hi Nicholeen! I have a question about fear. My adult son lives with us and has a very short temper, which can become verbally and emotionally abusive towards me. I've tried many techniques and mental talk with myself to help me conquer the fear that turns on the moment I see him, but it's too strong. Over the years, I have spoken up more but I don't feel it gets me anywhere because most times I feel defeated and lose the battle. I end up either freezing or crying. Recently, I reached out to a brother in law that's very good at communicating, and he believes he can teach me better talking techniques using the Socratic Method. Although I'm super excited to learn, he can't teach me until Thursday because of work. So, I was wondering, what can I do in the meantime to work through this fear and my son's overpowering voice? I've tried telling him I can't talk to him while he's yelling, but he gets louder and my voice can't be heard. I've tried describing his behavior, in hopes that he will stop, but he gets more angry. It's hard to be with him, especially since I am disabled and literally can't get away if I wanted to. He has never hurt me physically, but I get so unreasonably scared that I can't think. I do have hopes we can have him move out in the next few months, but he's also struggling with mental health, so I feel so trapped. Any advice I will greatly appreciate!

Our son, a neuro-diverse, 34 year old, who is learning self government with great strides… has 2 lists related to his morning care. He has some attentional issues which is why we have a morning care list on his bathroom mirror to refer to. Most days he has 1 or 2 things that he misses. It might be brushing both sides of his hair or shaving his face well/completely or picking some things off the floor. He also might forget to do the 2nd list completely which has 4 things to do like put in his hearing aid and put on his watch. I know he can do all of the tasks independently but he gets thinking about the French Open or something else going on in his life, and has a tough time focusing on the lists and completing them accurately and completely. I would love to get your suggestions on how to help him self govern this area of his life. He has a difficult time being mindful of what he is doing in real time. He walks around thinking of other things instead of attending to his current task at hand. Another example is that he slides his feet into his gym shoes and many times crushes the heel of the shoe so it collapses downward. If I am with him, I have a small chair for him to sit on and I remind him to pull the heel of the shoe up so it doesn't get crushed and deformed. I have seen him (when reminded) do this completely independently yet if I don't remind him he will crush down one of the heels an just keep walking… He's usually distracted talking to me or someone else about something unrelated and something that is in the future when this happens.

Any ideas to help him attend to the task at hand (and to play the movie of me in his head asking him to do things the way he was instructed?) without reminders? I'd love your insight on this matter.

While addressing my 10 year old son's disobedience, he started yelling and crying. I encouraged him to take 5 minutes to calm down in his room or wherever he was comfortable. He said if he would go to his room it would make things worse. He tried to claim he was calm and just wanted to go do the chore he earned. I explained he was not calm and needed to be calm first. We got into a back and forth of me trying to explain he needed to take time to get calm, but he refused to follow the instruction and demanded he just be able to go do his chore. I eventually gave up and let him go. This did not seem correct to me, but I couldn't think of what else to do. How do I handle this type of situation? He is obviously very strong-willed and has a habit of absolutely digging in his heels and refusing to follow instruction when in such an emotional state. Even when he's not emotional he has a very difficult time obeying and following even the most basic instructions. How do we get through to him that we are the parents and he is the child? There is a role issue and bad habits.

I am very concerned about my 19 year old High Functioning Autistic daughter. She told me that she shut down her feelings because of all the disappointments she has had in her life. She says she has no empathy, is not able to feel remorse and cannot feel joy. Her main emotions are anger, resentment and apathy. She says she has no ambitions for her life and does not believe she will ever get married or have a partner. She is very angry and mostly directs her anger towards me and blames me for her miserable life. She says when she is out in public she only acts a part and her real self is the one she shows to me at home. I don't know what to do anymore. She is only hostile towards me, tells me she hates me and I can't get through to her no matter what I seems to try. When she has meltdowns she can get violent. I am losing hope that she will ever be able to have a change of heart. She says she is an adult and cannot stand it when I use TSG Parenting methods with her. I tell her if she lives at home with me she still has to follow my rules and if she fells that she is an adult, she can move out and support herself but she says she can't. What can I do? Is she already too old to change? How can I stop her from having all this hostility towards me? I think living like this is causing me to have health problems. I am losing heart as I don't know how to make things better.

Is it important to understand the stages of child development to parent well and have a healthy family? A simple example would be a 3 year old child that has tantrums because they are tired. Another would be for 5 year old with lots of food aversions. Are these types of behaviors so typical and common that every parent should be aware of child stages of behavior in order to have realistic expectations. If yes, could you recommend the best way to get educated on development stages such as books etc. Thank you