Please Be a Part of the Handing Down Happiness Project.

I am concerned about American society.  I know I'm not alone.  We drown in media that tells us about war, home invasions, murders, drive-by shootings and fires, day after day.  In American homes, spouses and parents communicate guided by their individual personal experiences and expectations, with no pattern of guidance to direct them toward compatibility and collaboration.  Children often fend for themselves, developing patterns to keep parents and authorities at bay, experiencing no support except from peers.  Frustrated parents try to connect.  How many involved can fall prey to the belief that this unsatisfying struggle is...life?

If this pattern continues without intervention, if each American must re-invent the wheel in his/her attempt to be a loving partner, spouse, and parent, the reality of family will continue to deteriorate. The result will be shorter marriages, higher divorce rates, more family violence, more school violence, continued degradation of the educational system and less education of the American workforce.  To debate the various possible causes doesn't help.  Whether it's the economy, the two working spouses, failing educational system or other options, without direct intervention, including learning to communicate in a healthy way, the situation will continue to decline.

Imagine an America where there are media reports of people doing good, where children learn to recognize and communicate their needs, where parents who haven't learned those skills, may learn them to bring calm to the home.  Where the goal, the effort, the education, and the expectation is that families put energy into being a happy, safe-haven for all members to return to.  What if life were other than a sentence of rowing upstream, worrying, rowing, capsizing, rowing harder and having the expectation of toil until either death or retirement. Imagine life as one writer put it, guiding the canoe downstream from destination to destination. The home will be a shelter from the storm, a place of celebration, of appreciation, of support, where everyone practices healthy communication.  A place where problems are recognized and solutions sought, whether it's juvenile pot-smoking or Dad's workaholism.  Happiness won't be a daydream, but a path to step onto, for all the family to experience and relish.

The Handing Down Happiness project is a plan to spread the wealth of wisdom that grandparents have accumulated.  We'll use video snippets of Grandma and/or Grandpa passing along some "experience" they've grown from, some changes in attitude that they wish they'd made years earlier.  If they've picked up a thing or two, why not pass it on.  We'll provide technical support.  We'll also help the wise realize they have something of value to add to the mix.  Please be a part of it.

I have learned some things in my life.  I'm happier now than I used to be.  Happy is now my default way of being. And the sensation isn't what I used to think it was.  It's nice to jump to my feet when my team wins the Super Bowl, but that's something else.  A moment of excitement. What I am experiencing is quieter.  Kind of like the pleasure of seeing your child graduate, or being publicly thanked for your work.  A warm place.  A nice place to spend time.  Troubles still happen, deaths in the family, grief is still real, but where I return to is the nice place.  I'd like to help others find this nice place.

I thought I was unique.  Ha!  As I talk with my 60+ year old contemporaries, I find we have all gone through many growth experiences.  We have all looked into spirituality, self-development, or ways to help US society. My high school classmates have been working on themselves as well.  Many of us discovered ways of being that allow us to be freer or more focused, appreciative, relaxed and in different ways, happier.

What do you say we make US families happier?

I've been imagining a curriculum, a collection of courses, using the skills and knowledge of experienced professionals and experienced laymen and women to transform the US Family from overworked, harried, exhausted, angry, or struggling collections of folks sharing a roof, into calm, happy, supportive, collaborative, cooperative and loving collections of related people.

My first thought is to focus on re-framing or re-defining happiness.  Happiness requires no purchase, requires no achievement, no attainment of a goal.  Happiness is a decision about how to be.  That sounds too simple.  That's why there would need to be a course or two. Our culture, our media discourages the belief that happiness is possible without a promotion, a raise, a new relationship, a new car, or a vacation in Bali.

Some courses would help to understand the rational appearance of anger and its healthy influence on our lives. Expressing anger to fix an unmet need (like Nonviolent Communication teaches.)

Courses on communication would be available too.  There are great books and courses with helpful advice and exercises to guide people to set personal boundaries, get agreement, disperse upsets before they become cause for divorce or assault & battery.

Where I went wrong, and I believe other families go askew is believing that what "feels right" in the parent's imagination (based on personal history & tavern-logic) is actually the best course of action.  There is no American Parenting Methodology based on success of raising generations of healthy, scholarly, responsible, literate and involved citizens.

For many, US parenting is an arduous, unsatisfying, angering, limiting, challenging, 24/7 sentence for life. Let's change that.

What if family life became an opportunity to report the successes, challenges and failures of the day to a loving, supportive audience.  Mom and Dad are eager to get home, and share. To find out how the kids are.  To hold everyone, hug everyone, to hold everyone accountable for their actions and offer guidance for improvement.  I used the term "transform" earlier.  That's what it would require.  But the information is available, it needs to become more accessible and an accepted pattern of behavior. Imagine receiving the RSVP, "We can't make it Monday, that's our 'Family Success' night, how about Tuesday?"

Why We Choose Partners Who Are Wrong For Us, Again

Human Nature's Amazing Technology: The Dovetail Radar.

Why does violence occur in couples, and between parents and children?

It starts with upbringing. If beaten for years, by either a raging, drunken parent or a sober, impassioned disciplinarian, there will be some wires crossed about the propriety of physical punishment. In my conversations with adult beaten-kids, I have come across only two who claim to have never struck their children. While I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of their claims, I suspect they were unable to provide a dream of a communicative home. People who are abused physically, mentally, or are raised in the presence of it, are injured, or "dented."

How do couples who beat, or tolerate beating, find each other?

I call a skill possessed by humans “The Dovetail Radar.” I’m dented by my childhood experience with violence. I’m perhaps a 6 on a scale of 10. Ten being survivors of genocide in Sudan or The Holocaust. The radar I describe allows us to spot people who are dented to a degree similar to our own.  I believe this trait is the most accurate intuitive force possessed by humans.

People who live in a frightening place—like a violent home—learn patterns of self-preservation, like lying, deceiving, rebelling, attacking, tantrums, rage, or effusive praise, saccharine facades, propriety, shyness, reserve and charm combined in many ways. Suppose a young woman has been regularly beaten, whipped through childhood. Suppose her “score” was an 8 on our fictitious scale. She has learned to conceal her interests, or believes she has no interests, because long ago she found personal interests were dangerous. They got her beaten. She lies about many things. It keeps her safe. She conceals her truth to avoid provoking  rage in others.

She meets a boy raised in a home where conversation between family members was supportive, and remains so into his adulthood. Let's call his score on our Radar scale a 2. When these two hang around for an afternoon, she finds him weird because he talks so openly about himself, and he asks questions about her. And he frowns often and tilts his lead like a puppy in a TV commercial.

He finds her strange, rambling on with inconsequential dramas. She seems mad at people. There’s something in her that repels him, even though she’s really pretty. She doesn't feel genuine. Here we have the pair of radars, the girl with a score of 8, and the guy with a score of 2. They will not "Dovetail." The 2 (healthier relationships) detects evasive answers and improbable descriptions coming from the 8. The 8 finds the 2 naive and uninteresting.

Those with lower scores, more familiar with telling their truth, revealing their desires and interests to supportive family, will find the game-playing of the 8’s irritating, dramatic, and unfulfilling. There’s no quickening of the heartbeat, no blip on the their radars.

Ms 8 does find a bigger than life, handsome ladies-man VERY cute, and he knows how to talk to her. Another 8. He has developed charm, fake sweetness and deception. To her, he is ELECTRIC. He seems to really appreciate her. They don’t know about the dark sides of each other's families, but somehow the attraction is powerful. For reasons unknown to them, they are all over each other (they'd call it animal magnetism) Like the carpenter's joint interlocking two pieces of wood—they “dovetail,” like lacing fingers. They just FIT.

But for the two 8s, life starts intruding on their passion, and darkness appears. One may lie, cheat or rage. The other sticks around, comfortable with drama, hoping things will change, putting up, believing, raging, heart breaking, but persisting. Scores can even result from different parental methods. She, viciously beaten, locked in her room, deprived of food for punishment. He, threatened, told he was worthless, stupid, ignorant, watched his mother beaten by his father and other men in her life. The radar we all possess, will find mates that have similar scores.

Counseling, growth, achievement, increased self esteem through therapy, courses and other interventions will change these patterns and make healthy relationships possible.  Honest.

I've Lost My Little Boy!!

My Worst Nightmare

Baggage. The stuff from childhood. My personal strangeness includes wanting no one to overhear my conversation. I have no story for it. I fear humiliation.

This weakness became clear to me when my young step-kids would ask me questions while riding on the bus. I was afraid some nearby Muni-rider would snort at my answer. So I would tell the boys to stop asking questions.

Years later, my natural son, about three, and I went to a small sandbox in the Marina district of San Francisco. After a few minutes, I noticed he wasn't in view. I called his name and there was no answer. If you ever wonder what an anxiety attack feels like, this is it.

“Jake!” He had started looking for me and walked away. He came running. I hugged my little guy and told him how afraid I had been. “We need to work out a way that when we feel lost, we don't go looking. That can get us really lost. We call out, "DAD!" or "Son!!"

“OK, Dad.”

We went shopping at the Marina Safeway. While I went from item to item down an aisle, I heard "DAD!"  My little reseacher was testing this system.

"Over here!"

"Dad!"

I could hear his calmness, so my wits stayed put. “I’m standing in the middle of an aisle, go to the end and look down the aisles toward my voice.”  We just spent a few seconds re-connecting. For a grown man with a fear of public humiliation, I decided the terror at the sandbox was worse than anything. I couldn't have that happen again. No one seemed troubled by our system. Not that I looked. I also started answering his questions while riding the Muni. 

Is Corporal Punishment Different Than Corporate Punishment?

What is the proper use of corporal punishment?

Example Silly Scenario

1. The vice president of the corporation holds a meeting of managers in his division. When he says that we need to communicate better with our subordinates, a senior manager says, "I think we need a good example to follow, to imitate." The VP demands, "Are you suggesting I'm not setting the tone!?" The senior manager sheepishly looks down. The VP lunges forward, grabs the senior manager, lifts her out of her chair, presses her over the table and delivers three ferocious paddles to her rear end. He releases her and orders her back to her office until she repairs her attitude.

The VP is attempting to develop the latest methods for teamwork, for focus, for an engaged staff by conducting these meetings. His goal is increased profitability in his division by raising the morale of the employees. The senior manager made a statement that seemed to challenge the VP's authority and his methods. What he says, goes. He will not brook insubordination.

Have you ever seen this kind of action in a corporate meeting? In a public meeting? In a private meeting of adults? When would this behavior be acceptable?

But you knew all along, didn't you?  The Senior Manager, age 32...is the VP's daughter.

The Positives ( I guess) of the action:

S.Mgr learns not to surprise the boss,

Learns not to embarrass him in front of other subordinates.

Team learns that VP will not tolerate challenge. Just act agreeable at work.

Team learns that suggestions could be dangerous, so hold them back.

Better to just go along with the VP's program, and don't recommend adjustments.

Subordinates will learn to love the boss when they adapt to keeping quiet and avoiding appearance of challenge.
The Negatives of the action:

Daughter learns she can not speak her truth.

Team learns that work is not the place to speak your truth.

Truth-telling time should be confined to (away from job) get-togethers with peers.

Truth-telling will be met with forceful suppression.

If the VP's program is really not working, no one will come tell him.

Corporal punishment drives a wedge between the VP and his direct reports.

What other pros and cons do you see?

Now, imagine the meeting took place at the daughter's tenth birthday party. Same script. Would the pros and cons be different? Would your attitude be different?

"Scarring" your child -- What Does That Even MEAN?

As I sit among folks and talk about kids and grandkids, I'm struck by the variety of opinions about what "discipline" is, what little kids should expect to be exposed to in the molding process.

I have used the term "scar a child," and I am imagining some recoiling by parents who wonder what could I be talking about.  Scarring is a dramatic term.  But Merriam Webster defines it, "A lasting moral or emotional injury."  So am I picturing a whimpering child, adolescent and eventually adult who assumes the fetal position and sucks his thumb for ever?  No.  Kids learn to hide these injuries, and grow into damaged citizens who seek therapy or beat their own kids.  I believe some parents are clueless about types of training appropriate for maintaining household order.  But what can we expect if we let every parent try to re-invent the wheel.

Does corporal punishment scar kids? When you bark at or rage at kids, and they stay out of your way, have you succeeded in developing a responsible person? Research shows that when the normal "fight or flight" response is active for prolonged periods, or constantly, in a child, the child's brain will develop "wiring" connections that are abnormal. The results can include instant violence without thought--automatic resort to violence.

A child raised with adrenalin pumping will grow into an adult with responses developed during prolonged fear. This often results not only in violence, but also resistance to taking reasonable adult action, e.g., getting an education, seeking employment, communicating with a spouse or a child. Confrontation, criticism and attempts at guidance may trigger aggravation and violence before the man can even consider the possibility of change and growth.

No sane parent wants that for their child. The moral or emotional injuries that come from bursts of parental anger have after-effects for the child that can influence quality of life, relationships and future choices unforeseeable by the pissed-off parent. Now, how do we convince millions of parents that the anger and need to corporally discipline (like THEY were disciplined) ISN"T OK, and doesn't bring about the intelligent, authentic, courageous, open, warm, loving and supportive man and woman they hope for?