With a teen mental health crisis raging many parents are at a loss as to how to support their kids and ease the tension at home. In the next several episodes, I’ll share the DBT skills I teach my clients and use with my own kids. My goal is to help you empathize and connect with your teen, so everyone suffers less. In today’s episode, I’ll teach the DBT Think skill, created by Adolescent DBT experts, Alec Miller, and Jill Rathus. This skill helps you rethink your initial negative assumptions about your teen’s behavior.
Interpersonal effectiveness - THINK skills
As humans, we tend to fill in the gaps when we don’t have all the information. And if we're angry, anxious, frustrated, we're not jumping to positive conclusions. we're not filling in the gaps with rainbows and butterflies. We're filling in the gaps with, “They did that on purpose.” “They don't appreciate anything I do for them.” “They are always so disrespectful.” The problem is this line of thinking is not helpful and it’s not true (and even if it was, we wouldn’t know because we can read other people’s minds). These are all negative assumptions, interpretations and conclusions that make us feel worse and don’t help us connect or solve problems. The “THINK” skills were created to help you take a step back from that negative line of thinking to figure out what else could be true. The think skills help us reduce the power struggle that often develops between parents and teens.
Here's a typical example. You ask your teen to take out the garbage, clean their room, empty the dishwasher or the like and a few hours later you see that it hasn’t been done. What goes through your mind?
I’m guessing something along the lines of: they don’t listen, they don’t have any respect, they won’t be able to live on their own, and on and on. Now you’re really upset. When this happens to me, my mom impulse is to shout at them. But the therapist in me knows that while that might feel good and it might even get them to do what I want in the very short term, but I’m teaching them the way to get your needs met is by shouting and shaming people. That’s not my goal. So, what can you do instead? Practice the THINK SKILL.
How do you do it? As is true with many DBT Skills THINK is an acronym to help make the steps memorable.
THE “T” IS THINK DIFFERENTLY:
Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. What is their motivation? Were they really trying to do something mean to you on purpose? “My guess is your kid was not trying to upset you.”
THE “H” IS HAVE EMPATHY:
Are they emotionally vulnerable? Are they stressed out about something, worried about something? What's going on with them? Or do they even understand where you're coming from? And maybe you need to clarify. “Have you ever forgotten to do something?
THE “I” IS INTERPRETATION:
What are other interpretations of the persons actions? Make a list of as many as you can think of. Make sure to include one positive or at least neutral interpretation.
they just forgot, they saw something shiny, they got a call, text, or snap, the intended to do it later, they think taking out the garbage is a waste of time and should never be done
The “N” IS Notice: Notice other times your teen has been helpful or considerate. Maybe you don’t feel the person is on your side, but when have they shown you compassion or been sensitive to your needs in the past. Maybe they are under stress, tired, hungry, or otherwise emotionally vulnerable.
Remember all those times they babysit their siblings for free even when they have other things they’d rather do
The "K" is Kindness:
Look on the person with kindness. Remember moments they have been kind and caring to you. Can you offer them the same kindness?
Remember that time they told you how proud they were to have a mom who helps people or a dad who is so talented. Or in those fleeting moments when they said you were “cool.”
Those are the moments that count. That’s what they really think. Now proceed with them with those things in mind rather than shouting say: I noticed you didn’t take the garbage out; I’d really appreciate it if you could do it.
The think skills also works well when you find yourself at opposite ends of a more serious conflicts. Remember were not just raising teens were cultivating relationships with people we will know and love forever. We may need these people to take care of us someday.
If you connected with what you read here, and you want to work with me, go to my website, rebekahshackney.com and send a message through my contact page. An audio version of the The DBT THINK Skill is available on my podcast, A Therapist Takes Her Own Advice.