Transcript of If You Don't Understand Why Someone Is "Misbehaving", WATCH THIS! | Mel Robbins Clips

This may seem like a hard question, but in the 30 years of clinical psychology experience and being the founder of the Think Kids program at Mass General Hospital, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you have from your career truly working with parents and kids, specifically?

I would say a couple of them. One is that still today, despite all the things that we've learned, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, challenging behavior or concerning behavior is still tragically misunderstood and mistreated. And if we can just shift our thinking to better understand what causes it, there's so much opportunity to be helpful in a variety of different ways. So I think that's one of the things. Yes.

When you say challenging behavior, what do you put in that bucket?

It depends on the age of the person you're talking about and the setting. But we're talking about everything from tantrums with younger children to the concerning behavior with teens that keeps adults up at night to the challenges that people have with their spouse's behavior, their in-law's behavior, their colleagues' behavior.

What would you tell the person who's listening right now who's either overwhelmed or burnt out or just tired of dealing with a person or a particular issue in their life? And they're just like, is this ever going to end? Is this ever going to get better?

Yeah. Well, the good news is we've seen it get better in the toughest of places. And this is a battle-tested approach that started with the most challenging behavior, again, in the toughest of settings. And we're talking about with kids with severe trauma histories in residential treatment facilities. We're talking about functional facilities and things like that before we ever started using it in homes and other places. So it's proven, but that's not to really diminish the fact that wherever you're experiencing concerning behavior from folks, it's incredibly frustrating. It's really hard to deal with and it pisses us off. So it's really hard to keep our calm and be able to respond in ways that are effective. But I think we've got some ways to reframe understanding the challenging behavior that can position people in a totally different place.

Well, that's cool. So it sounds like what we're going to learn from you today is an entirely different way to look at and approach a situation where someone's pissing you off.

You got it. And your question before of what have I learned over 30 years? The other thing I've learned is that, and this is probably one of the most, I think, important findings in social science research about helping people, and we're talking about any person, kid, adult. If you're trying to help somebody with anything related to their behavior, what we've learned over the years is there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior. And the good news is it's also the most powerful one.

What is it?

It's the degree of helping relationship between helper and helpy. The degree of helping relationship. And when I say helping relationship, what I mean by that is a collaboration born of empathy, of understanding, of non-judgmental acceptance. So it's working together on hard things, but coming from that non-judgmental perspective. And that's what we find, whether it's in therapy or in schools or all kinds of places. That's the biggest predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior.

Well, what I immediately think about, and I'm sure we're going to impact this in great detail, well as I think about situations in my life, whether it's dealing with our son, Oakley, when he was in the fourth grade and we were just figuring out that he had dyslexia and ADHD, and he was super lonely and felt like an outsider. And we were trying to help, but everything was a standoff and a fight. Or when another situation, my husband was going through a really bad bout of depression, and I wanted to help, but I just couldn't find a way in. And I can think about challenging people in my extended family, where I'm like, I'd like to help you be a better person because you piss me off and annoy me, where it almost feels like a deadlock in terms of the dynamic. And it's It's as if they don't want help and you don't know what to do. And so are you saying it's possible for us to change our approach and that changes what happens?

Absolutely. And also, you know what? I've got a philosophy that all of our work flows from. It's a pretty simple one. When we apply it to kids, it goes like this. Kids do well if they can. Oh. Not kids do well if they want to, but kids do well if they can. And what that means is if a kid could do well, they would do well. And the reality is, in all the years I've done this, I've never met a kid who prefers doing poorly to doing well. And now substitute that word kid with adult, with spouse, with partner, with coworker with mother-in-law, you name it. People do well if they can.

It's true.

Everybody wants to do well and wants to have healthy, happy relationships with others. There's just things getting in the way sometimes. And when you're saying, all these people that might piss you off, how do I get them to change their behavior? I hate to say it, but they may be saying the same about you because they're surely saying the same about me at times as well. And so it's really about how do we come to some mutual understanding and how do we collaborate with one another? And what we found is we've developed a bit of a formula for how to do that. And we'll see that not only does it have proven results, but it maps on to how our brains work, how our brains process to process information. And to boil it down a little bit, when somebody's pissing you off with their behavior, you want to tell them what to do. And the reality is they're never going to listen to you unless you start by listening to them. And we'll talk about exactly what a formula of that looks like.

I love this. And what I really want to make sure that I highlight as you're listening is that sentence, Kids do well if they can, and adults do well if they can. And I am so, I guess, hopeful, and I feel better knowing that we're starting from a position based on 30 years of research where you've seen over and over and over again, everybody wants to do better.

You got it.

And if you provide the right conditions, they can get better.

Yes. And here's why, though.

Okay. Tell me why.

Well, because if you believe kids do well if they can, or people do well if they can, what you're doing is you're embracing a mindset shift because that's not the most common way of thinking about people in their behavior, especially when they're behaving in ways that piss you off or are very concerning. The more common way of thinking about it is kids do well if they want to. Yes. And if you believe kids do well if they want to and a kid's not doing well, you're going to assume the reason they're not doing well is because they don't want to.

Yes.

So then what are you going to do about it? You're going to try to pressure them. Make them want to.

Correct.

And we start this very early on with kids with rewards and consequences and things like that. But in essence, as long as we have more power over somebody, we never quit trying to do that, motivating people to behave better, which is all fine and well, if what is standing in somebody's way is a lack of motivation.

But that's not what's normally standing in someone's way, is it? I think that's where it's going. Correct.

And if you're trying to motivate somebody when motivation isn't the issue, not only is it not going to be It's effective, but it might make matters much worse. And we can talk about what I mean by that. So when you shift your focus and you say kids do well if they can, people do well if they can, what you're saying is if that person could do well, they would do well. And if they're not, something else is getting in their way. And I personally don't buy that it's just a lack of motivation. And now here's where the research comes in. Because we have about 50 years of research in the neurosciences that has shown beyond the shadow of a doubt, that people who struggle to manage their behavior, they actually don't lack the will to behave well. What they lack are the skills to behave well. Skills in areas like problem solving, flexibility disability, frustration tolerance. And I can give you fancier names for those things, clinical names.

Please don't. Because this is... If you're watching this podcast on YouTube, you're seeing my mouth slowly open wider and wider as my jaw is hitting the ground, because this is the simplest explanation and the most empowering and encouraging explanation I have ever heard for how to change the way you look at other people in your life, whether like me, you're a boss and you're trying to motivate your team or you're a parent like we both are, and you're trying to motivate your kids or you're dating somebody and you're like, boy, I wish you'd take better care of yourself, and you're trying to motivate them. And you jump so quickly to the judgment and the frustration. And I'm focusing on frustration and people behavior that pisses you off because it feels accessible and lighter, because it can quickly go to the serious stuff where somebody's really struggling, and you feel super hopeless. That It becomes very scary to think about, but it's going to be the exact same model. You got it. Because we're starting in the exact same place with either kids or adults, which is kids do well if they can. And if you start there, instead of judging a lack of willpower or discipline or motivation, you go, okay, well, what are the conditions for doing well?

And it sets you up to collaborate, to help, to be a helper. Because when you define this as a lack of motivation, then what it sets you up to is to try to use power or control to try to motivate somebody.

What have you been in the car rides with me and my kids or at the kitchen, Dr. Abelon? Come on now.

And I want to point out something because you said something really important a moment ago. So there's a difference between just being aggravated by somebody's behavior and being aggravated, but also really concerned and hopeless and worried. And as a parent, there is no worse feeling.

Now, I see you brought something.

Yes.

What is that letter that you have there?

Well, so this is a girl I worked with in the Boston public schools who was having a really hard time, both at home and at school, challenging her behavior. And she both was what I call an exploder and an imploter.

What does that mean?

So exploder means like she would scream, she turned over her desk, she would throw things, she'd hit other people. An imploder means she would quietly put her head down and cry. She would sneak out of the room and ask to go to the bathroom and not come back. She would shut down. And to me, by the way, all these are, these are different flavors of saying, I'm having a hard time handling something with the skills I have. Why would a kid choose to do any of those things if they could handle the situation better? Kids do well if they can.

Why does this get you so emotional?

Because just kids being misunderstood and mistreated. And it doesn't have to be that way. We know better. We know better. We have to do better. We have to do better. And I don't blame us because this is how it works in history. We learn. Conventional wisdom gets overturned and we learn better. And it takes a while until we change our practices. And we're in that period now, which is why I'm thankful for you helping spread the word here, because we can shift our thinking and do better here. We don't have to lose kids. And I just looked at this It was a girl's letter, and I've seen this a million times, and it still makes me emotional every time because this girl was struggling so much. And they used a classic sticker chart to try to motivate her to behave better. You know, Get stuff if you behave well. And it wasn't working great. And I asked her, when I was meeting with her, I asked her what's happening with it. She's not great at letting people know what's bothering her and things. But she would write for me. She could do it in written form and she could draw things.

I asked her how the thing was going, the sticker chart, and she wrote this for me. And it says, My brain is idiotic. I make stupid mistakes. I mess everything up. I always make a mess and get hurt and ruin everything. That's a kid we're trying to motivate to behave better? You got to be kidding me. I mean, how we missed the mark. This kid, more motivated than anybody in the face of the Earth to behave well. Why? Because she didn't want to feel this way. So she already has all the internal motivation in the world. The last thing we want to do is send her the message, We don't think you're trying hard enough.

And what is available to the person who's listening to you right now? And if you could speak directly to them, whether they are a parent who has a child just spiraling from an eating disorder or spiraling with behavior issues at schools and they're getting kicked out and they're lost, or you have somebody in your life that's spiraling with addiction. What do you want to say to that person directly about what's available to them in this conversation?

Well, So what I want to say to them is that it starts, most importantly, from this place of mindset. Okay. And that we've got to take ourselves out of this position of wanting to make somebody change, impose our will upon them in some way, whether we do that harshly or nicely. And what we need to do is remember, this person is doing the best they can to handle what the world is throwing at them with the skills they're able to bring to bear in that moment. And so what we want to do is we want to try to help figure out what are they struggling with so much? Which skills are they having a hard time accessing? And how can we help them with those things? How can we help problem solve? How can we help them build skills? And I have good news here, too, is the skill building process, it's not something where you're going to send your kid or somebody out to have somebody else build their skills. You can help them do that. And it's not by some sneaky process. It's just by collaborating with them on practicing problem solving, but using the real life problems that they are confronting.

And I just want to be clear that it's not like I don't reach moments where that faith gets shaken because I get so upset, bothered, pissed off, etc. And both in my own life, personally, but also my In my clinical life. And I just try to hold tight to that philosophy. And when you were saying that a memory came up years ago in my practice of working with an adolescent who was really, really struggling. And his behavior was really obnoxious, too. So it was- What? Well, he just would be really disrespectful to his parents, to most adults, authority figures. And it seemed like he just didn't care. So it was so easy. It was so frustrating because you couldn't engage him much, and it seemed like he didn't care. I remember the day where his mom, who had never lost hope, and she brought in, he was about a 15-year-old at the time, and he was a pretty rough kid. She brought in a picture of him asleep as a two-year-old on the back seat of the car. He was just the cuteest little thing. And it's giving me goosebumps right now just talking about it.

And I saw this and I said to myself, that kid's in there somewhere. This hardened, tough kid who's really hard to access. This little adorable guy. And things have gone wrong in the interim. But I got to believe that that kid who everybody looked at this, what a lovely, cute kid. He's in there. He wants to do well. And how do we access that? And so and actually, sometimes I give that advice with little kids. I said, if you're losing faith, just watch them sleep for a little bit because they're really cute then and they can't be obnoxious when they're sleeping or difficult. And it'll restore a little bit your faith and remind yourself kids do well if they can and then come back out the next day. Although we're going to get into specifics about exactly what to do. I want to be clear, this is not just about mindset. It's about shifting your mindset and then shifting what you do to match that new mindset.

It sounds like what we're going to learn from you today is an entirely different way to look at and approach a situation where someone's pissing you off.

You got it. What we've learned over the years is there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior.

What is it?