Visitors since 1 December 2000	Judy Martin, on Wake Up Call Interviewed by John Hoh Q: What prompted you to actually write what is obviously a book about a painful part of your life? A: Writing Wake Up Call was very healing. During the incidents I speak of in the book, I was in a survival mode. Reflecting back upon those times allowed me to resolve many feelings. It also allowed me to look at myself from a little distance and grow. I felt ashamed and isolated during my years of crisis with my daughter. Few could understand what I was going through and few could help me in meaningful ways. It has been my hope that Wake Up Call will relieve other parents of their shame and isolation. Q: Why did you choose to start the book where you did? Was this point a turning point in getting your daughter the help she needed? A: Throughout my daughter's tumultuous years I experienced tremendous shock and powerlessness. Wake Up Call begins at a point in which I was just beginning to believe that things were getting better. Then boom! The roof caved in and we had to start from scratch. Again. And that's how life with troubled teens feels. You try everything, you think you're making headway and then something even more awful happens. It's a terrifying and humbling experience. Q: I understand you are a counselor yourself? Describe what you do and your credentials. A: I worked as a school counselor for fifteen years and then became a marriage family therapist. I've been working with adults, children, couples and families for twenty five years. During these past two years I've focused my attention on offering support to parents of troubled teens. I've put my personal and professional experience to work in behalf of others on my web site. I spend a tremendous amount of time by phone and email helping people recognize where they have power and where they don't. I empathize their feelings of failure as parents and help them see, via connection to other parents, that they truly have done their best. And I help parents learn to emotionally disengage from the day to day terror that consumes their every waking moment. My newsletter and essays speak to issues that all parents of troubled teens struggle with and provide parents a sense of being cared for, understood, and supported. Q: Did your expertise in this area help or hinder your role as a parent? Your attempts to get help for your daughter? A: My expertise made it harder. I always held myself against a standard of parenting that I'd learned about in grad school. Either I did a lousy job applying what I'd learned or under these circumstances my training was about as helpful as using a hammer when a screw driver was needed. In any case, I felt like a failure. However, when it came to finding resources--my training was helpful--at least I knew where to begin. It's felt great to me to be very open about my difficulties, despite my training and experience. Parents feel, "If she can have this happen to her despite all her training, maybe I'm not so bad afterall." Q: Throughout these trials, what lesson or lessons that you learned stand out and are impressed upon you? A: As one who has always believed in right thought and right action it's been humbling to find those resources illusory. Over and over I discovered my true limits. I had to learn to sit in them and find my own grace by not expecting myself to always have potency. In some cases recognizing my limits allowed my daughter to take more responsibility and show up. In other cases it had no impact on her. But I became more able to support myself emotionally without having to exert influence upon her. For a number of years now I've been trying to learn how to Be The Ground Beneath My Feet. What that means is, amidst all the fear and drama of living with a troubled teen, I've learned that I can't control my fear by focusing outside myself. This same lesson applies to many situations in life. And while I'm still a work in progress, I sense myself becoming freer. It's as if my own roots have dug deeper into the earth. I've also learned the importance of disengaging with my daughter amidst turmoil. The more we are in reaction to each other, the less either of us feels the full support of our own truth. Too much energy becomes tied up in defending or blaming. This is very difficult to do and it's something that I talk to parents about all the time. Frequently as parents of teens, our job is to do less rather than focusing on what we CAN do. Not doing is very hard because we have our pictures of how things should be. But when I disengage I can become less invested in what my daughter does because I feel more complete within myself. Q: How does upbringing affect one's parenting skills? A: In the book Imprints, author Arthur Janov says that we are frequently "wired" towards mastery or avoidance. Many of us as parents try to avoid ever being the kind of parent we had. The result of that is we spend so much time trying to "not" be our parent we fail to become ourselves. THAT was my mistake. I never wanted to be the selfish irritable mother who raised me. So I always tried to be giving, loving, pleasant and reasonable. As a result my daughter expects the world to revolve around her and developed little compassion for me or regard for me as a person. Her rebelliousness has helped me become more authentic so I have changed my way of being with her. However she is established in long standing expectations of who I am. Those changes come slowly. Folks who go into mastery try to be just like their parents and do it even better It has a similar limiting effect, one doesn't discover who they actually are as a parent. It's kind of like cross country skiing--you can ski on groomed trails that get icy or slushy, but they take you somewhere familiar. When you break your own trail, not always knowing where you are headed, it's both exciting and scary--but it's your show the whole way. I don't think there's right or wrong in emulating or avoiding how our parents parented--but I do think it's important to discover ourselves and our own unique parenting capacities. Q: Any advice for parents in a similar situation? A: Yes--form community. Find others who are going through similar circumstances. Join parenting groups like toughlove and Bily or online bulletin boards and chat rooms. There is so much shame and isolation--parents expect a tremendous amount of themselves--and when their kids chart a self destructive course--life becomes a "hell zone." It's also very important that parents find practices that add energy, heal, and remind them that there's more to life than dealing with a troubled teen. It's extremely easy to become all consumed by our teens. The more grounded and open we are, the more resilience we have, and the greater capacity we find to discover and make wise choices. When terrified, survival is all that's up, and we can't hold a big picture. Anything that brings joy and ease amidst traumatic circumstances is valuable--laughter is very important--so is touch. Q: Which techniques work best to resolve conflict in familial relationships? A: At any given moment in time, certain techniques fail or succeed. Being authentic and creating space for kids to be authentic is always important--that doesn't mean that results will be seen in the heated moment--but it builds a sense of trust and regard over time. Learning how to hear each other without any form of criticizing, blaming, or preaching is very useful. When a person feels heard and "felt" defenses drop and truth is liberating. Sometimes that simple act of being totally present and attentive removes the problem or solutions can be found. This requires a willingness to step out of being "right" or powerful. And that can be very hard to do. Time outs are important--they reduce reactiveness so communication can be re-established. As I said earlier, learning to emotionally disengage stops the cycle of reactiveness, too. A neutral third party who allows both sides of the conflict to be fully presented is also helpful. Sometimes toughlove groups are organized to provide this kind of neutral and supportive facilitation. A neighbor, relative, trusted friend to the family can take on this role. A willingness to speak from a place of personal responsibility is very helpful. Recently I told my daughter, " I know I have a hair up my butt about the house. Things that you do that might at other times not bother me, do bother me now. Too much happened--you did so much damage to the house, now I'm always ready to pounce. This will take time to change. You can help by taking to heart what I'm saying and be more sensitive. That will help be rebuild trust in you. And, I have to be willing to let go, forgive you and move on--but that doesn't mean I'm willing to sacrifice either." (Such personal responsibility doesn't always evoke change in the other, but it does get us to "fit our own skin" better. We feel more sustained by ourselves.) There are many wonderful "How To" books for parents of teens. But few articles and books acknowledge the real limits parents face. Parents have high expectations of themselves and feel like failures when their attempts aren't reflected in their kids behavior. My web site is set up to acknowledge, within a supportive community that often we don't know how to help, techniques don't work but that doesn't mean we've failed. See the web site of Judy Martin.