Embracing the relationship-first mindset.

Step 1: 

Describe the situation using the facts in bullet format.   

Step 2: 

Explain all of the ramifications, emotions, and consequences (if it all needs to be said) of the facts listed in step one. Explain these things from a place of emotional neutral. If you are not in neutral, try writing them down or asking a trusted person to help you.   

Step 3: 

State the resolution you seek. Be clear with what you want.  

(If you don’t have a resolution to present, it may appear that you are either whining or asking for someone’s opinion.) 

No resolution? It is best to wait until you do.  

Example: 

1.  The dog chewed up another remote control.  

2.  Having to replace these is costing us a lot of money and a lot of my time.   

3.  From now on, the remote goes on the bookshelf.  

Necessity is the mother of invention, and I was the mother of a foster teen who didn’t understand what it meant to be a contributing member of a family.  

During a moment of necessity, I came up with the idea for the Chipping in Jar.   

We were in our second week of our placement and he overslept.  He rushed into the kitchen and ordered me to immediately drive him to basketball camp.  I let him know the way he was speaking to me was not acceptable and attempted to model a respectful tone. 

He raised his voice and told me it was my job and threatened to call his social worker if I didn’t immediately comply.   I responded by pointing to the phone and letting him know he was more than welcome to call her.  

When he didn’t make a move toward the phone, I told him it was hard for me to nice things for him, when he was speaking to me and treating me disrespectfully.  I did a lot of things for him without a thank you or any acknowledgment.   

I needed a way to show him that families contributed to one another and to the household.  So, I took a mason jar from the cabinet and found some multi-colored plastic discs the size of poker chips, and asked him to sit at the table with me.     

I put seven of the green chips in the jar.  

“These represent what Dad is doing for the family today.”  I explained how his salary paid for the things that were not obvious like health insurance, the household bills, the groceries, the cars, and covered the cost of his basketball camp.   

Then I held five yellow chips over the jar explaining that these chips represented what I was doing for the family today dropping a chip in the jar for each item I listed.  I made a meal plan, was going grocery shopping, preparing meals, serving meals, and then…. I withheld two chips, showing them to him as a said 

“Dropping you off and picking you up from basketball camp.”  

Then I handed him a red chip and asked him what he had done for the family or the household today.  He hadn’t done anything since he just rushed out of bed, so he didn’t put the chip in the jar.   

I told him, 

“If you need Dad to pay for camp, and me to drop you off and pick you up from camp, then you need to have some of your red chips in the jar to take out."

In essence, I wanted him to understand he was taking our money, time, and energy without reciprocation or even a thank you.   He understood it as transactional (not as building family cohesion which was my goal), but I was also going to take what I could get.    

He asked what he needed to do get dropped off and picked up from camp today. He swiffered the floors and unloaded the dishwasher, which took him a total of 8 minutes.  

His two red chips were dropped in the jar.  

When he was ready to go to camp, I removed the two chips from the jar, and replaced them with two yellow chips representing my contribution to him for the drop off and pick up. 

The jar was emptied every night offering gratitude to everyone for their contributions.  

This was not a long-term fixture in the house because I didn’t want it to become a way to “keep score”.  But it accomplished the goal I needed it to, it helped him to understand how a family worked together giving as much or more than they took.   

If every member of your family is contributing more than they are taking, then the jar will always be full.  There will always be a time when you need to take more than you can give.  But when the jar is metaphorically full, it is easier to give more than usual and not feel taken advantage of or taken for granted.