Out of his decades of counseling experience William Glasser in 1998 wrote, “The vast majority of family unhappiness is the result of well-intentioned parents trying to make children do what they don’t want to do. And in search of freedom, children, resist their parents efforts.”
He goes on to emphasize a key principle or axiom of his approach to counseling:
We can not control the behavior of another person, even a child; the only thing we can do is give them information.
If he was right, then it begs us to ask ourselves, “what information is my behavior communicating to my child?”
What is criticism, nagging, bribes, and punishments communicating?
What if the information is, “I don’t like you the way you are?”
If we knew that was what we were communicating, then would it be enough to consider other alternatives?
Whether that means Glasser was right about his theory of motivation is unclear but I still find his work to be widely applicable and relevant, far more useful than Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
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