How To Train Your Mother-In-Law (and everyone else)
Dear Duana,
I feel like I can’t breathe. I thought after I married her son and had a baby, my mother-in-law Cheryl and I would have more in common and could share things. It has only gotten worse. My husband and I are currently living with his parents as we save for our house. We’re grateful for the help, but Cheryl constantly tries to tell us what to do. She nags at us when we don’t eat a certain food she likes: “Why don’t you guys like to eat (blank)? You should eat it! Try it!” And so on. She tries to tell us what she thinks we have done wrong, what she doesn’t like, etc. It’s gotten so bad that when my husband gets home, he goes up to our room and stays there.
I would love to have a stronger bond with Cheryl, but we’re driving each other crazier than ever. I tried asking her not to tell us how to do things. Nothing I say seems to work. I fear we’ll end up hating each other, and our dynamic is driving my stress through her roof. Help!
Angela
Dear Angela,
Congratulations on your marriage, baby, and saving for a home. The irony of beautiful life events is that any one of them brings pressure and pleasure. Pile them all on at once and add living with his parents, and you’ve got a stresstival.
Yet you can improve things with Cheryl. To see how, glance at this video of pigeons playing Ping-Pong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
And this one of rats playing basketball (plot spoiler, Rachel smokes Sally):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drnnulHw5CM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
And then ask yourself, “What does my mother-in-law have in common with rats and pigeons?”
A lot. We all do. Everyone, from pigeons to Polynesians and rats to Russians, learns in surprisingly similar ways. And knowing how can have you breathing easily again— whether or not Cheryl has any idea you’re doing this.
Step 1: Pick The Behavior You Want To Replace
Right now you’re so upset, it might seem like everything about Cheryl is wrong. But you can’t change an entire person, just specific behaviors, and it works best if you choose one at a time. So start by identifying which behavior you want to alter. In this case, let’s say you’d like Cheryl to nag you less.
But it’s not enough to decide what you don’t want; you must begin with the end in mind, defining what you *do* want. For instance, would you be satisfied if Cheryl replaced nagging with positive or even neutral conversation? Excellent.
Step 2: Skip ‘The Talk’
It’s better that Cheryl *not* know what you’re up to. Although learning via operant conditioning happens with or without our conscious awareness, telling Cheryl will likely create even more tension. Plus, you don’t have to talk to people to change their behavior.
Wait. What did I just say?!?
You. Don’t. Have. To. Talk. To. People. To. Change. Their. Behavior.
It may be against every piece of advice you’ve ever heard, but it’s true. In experiment after experiment, pests and people alike learn according to the consequences of our behavior.
To wit, you can tell a pigeon, “Hey, I’ll give you some food if you peck that ball across this table,” but the pigeon won’t play. Ditto saying, “Put the ball through your own hoop, Rachel Rat, and there’s a pellet in it for you.” Even if birds and rodents could understand English, learning mostly works via consequences—not discussions about what will happen in the future.
Of course, humans have the faculty of speech and anticipation, and sometimes we learn and change after nothing but a conversation. But is discussing things with Cheryl working well for you?
Okay, you’ve got it: The consequence is the thing. Now what?
Step 3: Skip The Punishment
Actually, a lot of folks already believe consequences shape behavior; it’s one reason punishment is so popular. Maybe you’ve even tried it with Cheryl, by yelling or arguing or having your husband intervene after she nags you.
And in numerous experiments, punishment really can stop an unwanted behavior like nagging. But only if two conditions are met:
—The nagging is *always* punished.
—The nagging is *immediately* punished.
Unfortunately, that’s just too high a standard for mere mortals to attain. We can’t catch every single offense, and if we could, it would be exhausting to punish it all. And punishment has its downsides. It doesn’t say what *to* do, for one thing—just what to avoid. Even if it stopped Cheryl’s nagging, it would be at the price of destroying what closeness you’ve got left, because you’d be associated with so much negativity in the process. And punishing your mother-in-law flies directly in the face of the prime dictum of relationship research to behave with kindness and respect.
But there’s good news for you. Although you will need to halt any Discussing and Punishing you might have tried, there’s a highly effective behavior you can replace it with: Reward.
Step 4: Praise What You Like, Ignore What You Don’t
Behaviors that get rewarded get repeated, and behaviors that get ignored go away.
That’s not my idea, it’s the well-established foundation for training whales to leap out of water, movie animals to play dead, dogs to sit/stay, and school kids to raise their hands.
It works on adults too, and unlike punishment, it works even when you only reward behavior sometimes; ask any gambler who’s still tossing silver into the slot machines, any fisherman who’s holding eternal hope, and any jilted lover who’s checking their cell every minute or so.
How does this look in the real world? You’ve got to become super-attuned when Cheryl is *doing what you want*. It’s human nature to zone out when Cheryl isn’t bugging you, and then to notice and react punitively when she’s a pill. But if you want her to become more pleasant more often, it’s time to turn that dynamic on its head.
So when she’s nagging, simply look away, direct your attention elsewhere, leave the room—in a neutral way, withdraw all your attention.
And when she is speaking to you neutrally or positively, reward that as often as you can: Stop what you are doing and pay keen attention to her, nod your head, smile, make eye contact, give her a hug, tell her “I really appreciate you,” “I love that idea,” “You’re right,” “I’m loving talking with you,” “You are really so much fun,” “We should go to lunch later on,” “You’re a fantastic grandma,” and/or some combination. Rats and whales will work for food. People work for attention and praise.
Upshot? You may feel like a heel for rewarding your mother-in-law using the same principles used to train Shamu. And even these techniques won’t result in perfection, because we are only human after all.
But by subtracting awkward conversations, eliminating punishment, ignoring the behavior you dislike, and adding attention and praise when you’re being treated as you wish, you’re getting much more than what you want in the moment. You are building a positive, kind, and respectful relationship with your baby’s grandma. And even if she might object to your methods if she knew them, I doubt she will object to the happiness that results when people get praised.
Love works, even when we’re having to work at it.
Cheers,
Duana
The following LoveScience articles are related to today’s post:
Mama’s boys and men who put Mama #1: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/mommas-boys-the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-loving-a-man-who-adores.html
New babies, their impact on marriage, and what to do about it: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/babies-marriage-the-real-impact-and-what-to-do-about-it.html
Kindness and respect and its absolute necessity in relationships; plus, how to have Discussions: http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/dealing-with-your-difficult-man-1.html
The author wishes to thank B. F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike. Thorndike’s law of effect that rewarded behavior tends to recur and punished behavior tends to decrease, was thoroughly explored in the experiments B.F. Skinner later conducted and enumerated in the theory of operant conditioning. From dolphins to dogs to Dauphins, we are all learning via operant conditioning. You can read more about Drs. Skinner and Thorndike and operant conditioning here: http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
Do you have a question for Duana? Write to her at duana@lovesciencemedia.com. All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScience Media, 2013.
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Reader Comments (10)
I can hear Dr. Jesse Purdy chuckling, and all I can think of is training my goldfish to swim through a hoop. :-)
I wonder if the original letter writer considered that she might be driving her MIL crazy too. They could probably both benefit from remembering the reward/ignore dynamic.
Kelly, I'm sure you're right...on all counts. :) Had 'Cheryl' written to me about 'Angela', you can bet the advice would have been the same. We're all training each other all the time.
Unfortunately, we're typically training one another unconsciously...and thus so often training one another to be annoying! I, for instance, have been trained to get up every morning by my greyhound. She whines; when I get up and feed her, the whining stops for me, which is a reward for me (aka negative reinforcement), and obviously the dog gets breakfast--a reward for her.
Yes, the Love Scientist has been trained by a dog. Aaargh! I hate it that behaviorism works. I love it that behaviorism works. What's required to make it work in our favor? Making the unconscious conscious so we can intentionally leverage the power of rewards.
Duana,
I really appreciate this article. Though I was taught this before (...in my first college level psch class) I had forgotten. I plan on exploring this concept to improve some of the more troubled relationships in my life.
Thanks...truly!
Asha Petrich
Asha, you are most welcome! Thanks for your feedback. If you'd like, let me know later how your own experiment goes.
Okay -- so how does one ignore the MIL when she's not talking to you -- she's talking to the grandchild? Some things seem to need correction, but my husband and I cannot come up with a way to correct that she will respond to.
For example, let's say we are guests at HER club. She says to our child, "I am the boss here and you have to try the zucchini." Well, no, she's not the boss. AND I have way bigger fish to fry than having my child try the zucchini. And this is a very small example among many, many constant invasions of our family dynamic.
Our response has been whatever our best attempt can be to divert attention from her demand, but that is difficult and is clearly ineffective. It gets even worse when our child stays with my MIL overnight because then we're not around as the parents, so no consideration at all is given to our needs as the parents.
We definitely respect my MIL as a person, but she clearly thinks she can do a better job than we can. That's fine, I have broad shoulders and can handle that, but my husband and I think that she is slowly ruining her relationship with our child, and we are going crazy in the meantime.
Dear Mrs. Crazy,
That's a lot to handle. I agree with your spouse and you that your MIL is setting the stage to have her grandchild someday elect not to spend time with her. Plus, Grandma had her turn to parent; now it's yours. Unless you ask for her help in the parenting role, in my opinion her job is to love your baby doll and back you up when you ask for it.
Not that I want you to say so to her. Nope. There's being right and being happy, and clearly, so far being right still isn't leading to much happiness in your casa.
So my advice to you isn't going to differ much from what I said to Angela. In fact, your issue with your MIL is actually extremely similar to her scenario. What to do?
--Identify the one behavior you want to replace, such as commanding your child to do things with which you disagree/undermining your parental authority; that sounds like two problems, but in your case, they’re sides of the same coin.
--Pick the behavior you want to replace it with, such as accepting your parental authority wordlessly or even supportively, and keeping Off The Grass in terms of not bossing your daughter (being kind and accepting instead).
--If you’re Discussing and/or Punishing, don’t. Grandma has been at this a long time. Her personality is not going to change, and she’s liable to get angry at any suggestion that she’s been doing things in a manner not-so-pleasing. She does a lot for you, and she'll focus on what she's done right rather than where she's erred. Anyway, D&P doesn’t work. Save everyone the useless angst.
--Instead, ignore it when your MIL bosses your child, and give praise and attention when your MIL accepts your parental authority/is supportive of your parenting/doesn’t boss your kid around but rather is kind and accepting with her.
What this looks like in the real world?
Consider not having your daughter stay overnight with MIL. You said it—you have no way to reward or ignore your MIL’s behavior when you’re not even there. So be there, or don’t have your daughter there, until you’ve followed the steps and curbed MIL’s bossing.
Meantime, create opportunities to spend time together as a family. When MIL bosses your child or undermines your authority, withdraw your attention. This can take many forms: “Oh, look at the time! We have to be going!” or simply turning and talking to someone else.
When MIL accepts your authority/supports your parenting/is kind to your child, immediately offer up rewards: Make eye contact, show interest in MIL, discuss a favorite topic of hers, ask her a question where she can shine and be the authority (about something non-parental), tell her how much you love and appreciate her, thank her for bringing you all to her club.
A Facebook friend jestingly asked me whether these techniques, known as operant conditioning, are guaranteed to work. Well, actually, yes. If you do the above, it will lessen the amount of those inappropriate and undesired behaviors, and increase the amount of the behaviors you like.
But. Most people have a *really* tough time shifting gears and following this plan. Why?
Well, first, this form of learning is largely unconscious. And it’s just a lot of effort to become and remain conscious of it. Praising what is good is not a model most of us grew up with, whereas punishment is; this goes against the grain, having to catch people at what we like instead of sniping at them for what we don't.
Second, punishing offenders just feels so darn good sometimes. We want to believe it works, even when the evidence in our very own lives is against it.
Third, a lot of folks object to what they see as manipulative tactics. To that I respond, punishing people and trying to talk them into our own way of doing things is no less manipulative—it just feels worse and fails to work well. If you want to live life free of manipulation, you're in for a long haul of accepting things just as they are and understanding that the only person you're going to try to change is you. I support that choice, but that's the one non-manipulative option.
And then, training people to replace undesirable behaviors with desirable ones takes a lot of time. It requires high levels of vigilance to watch for and reward what’s right; huge amounts of self-control to ignore what’s wrong; and even then, change happens slower than we want.
Plus, change is seldom total. We want an absolute end to the unwanted behavior, and we want it yesterday!
So I wish I could tell you that the plan above will give you an easy, fast, and total eradication of MIL’s meddling. But that’s not going to happen. Consider Shamu, though. He’s too large and dangerous to beat with sticks --I mean, can you even imagine someone foolish enough to try to train a whale via punishment?--, yet eventually, he jumps out of the water…for fish and praise. And every now and then, even though he’s been trained with these principles all his life, he flat-out refuses to perform in front of a sold-out show. What do his trainers do? They ignore him, go on with the show with other whales who are doing what’s desired, and give Shamu a big fish when he feels like cooperating again.
It works with whales. It works with people. Your MIL won’t be the exception. Hang in there!
Let's start with the fact that I absolutely agree with you. But.
Withdrawing one's attention is an obvious form of disapproval, so why is that not considered to be a punishment? We are dealing with a highly-talented and experienced manipulator here, which is why we have so much trouble. She doesn't just say, "WELL -- I'm SURE you know why I chose to make her stop talking." She will specifically address us and add, "...don't you agree?" So then the choice becomes continuing to focus on anything other than her (completely upsetting her because she asked you a direct question, and ignoring her is ultimately rude), or saying "something". So far we continue to distract, and when put in this position of "needing to say something" we direct any comments to our child instead of her so that we're not actually calling my MIL down.
And yet, the whole thing just feels so in-you-face anyway. I can rationalize, but in the end I'm returning rudeness with rudeness -- however merited the response is. And couldn't this be viewed as a passive-aggressive way of calling someone down? There is a difference between being disengaged, and having to actively disengage, which is obvious, and therefore insulting. And once you're insulting, what's the difference between that and actually "having the conversation"?
Please don't think I'm trying to argue with you -- this is just (obviously) very relevant for us right now. Our child came to me in tears last month and asked why we were so afraid to stick up for her. I told her we weren't afraid, it's just that you can't tell someone to change, and that sometimes it becomes tricky trying to figure out a plan that the person will respond to. We've been coaching our child for years on ways to disengage, and it just now seems to maybe be making sense. Barely. Frankly, it took me about four years of marriage to get my husband to learn how to disengage and deflect so that he wasn't under his mother's thumb, and yet was also not making her feel like he was treating her like a child.
I really think the key is getting the child to participate, and that is another tricky element because you run the risk of making the grandmother look like a villain. We spend a lot of time talking about how everybody has a dark side and a light side, and if you like their light side, there's usually a way to manage the dark. Our child has a love/hate relationship with my MIL -- most of it is love, but there is a substantial does of yucky. And it's all so unnecessary because our kiddo is known as the most polite by everybody! You mentioned not spending the night. We've done that countless times. But I've always just said, "It's not a good night," or "The next few weekends are so busy," and she believes us so then asks again, and by that time, our child misses her so much and forgets how miserable she gets or says it will be fine. Which it never is. And even non-sleepovers are problematic, so then what? Am I removing all access? That's pretty extreme and seems to merit some sort of explanation, right?
I don't see how someone with zero emotional intelligence will ever "get it" unless something extreme happens, and that's scary, especially since she loves our child (the only grandchild) SO much. My MIL is just ridiculously self-centered and demanding, and insists on being in control. Doesn't the lion tamer work with the cub since birth? Could he possibly use conditioning in the later years with an animal that "has an agenda" and is, shall we say, set in its ways? That's what I feel we're dealing with.
Mrs. Crazy, I hear you. I doubt your MIL will 'get it'. She won't change; we don't really get to change other people, just some of their actions some of the time. Some of her behavior will become more tolerable to you. If you shape it.
By the way, your question is perfect and I don't a bit mind your asking; I like it. Clients of mine have had the same reaction: How is this not punishment, it's so rude?!
And I remember being a psychology student and wondering what the difference was between a punishment and a negative reinforcer.
So here's an explanation. A punisher indicates what not to do; it adds an unpleasant event following a behavior, a big NO in red letters: "Leave our daughter alone, you're being awful!"
A reinforcer says what to do, by adding a pleasant event following a behavior--such as adding eye contact, leaning forward, and smiling when MIL is being pleasant and appropriate with you/your girl.
Negative reinforcers work by removing an unpleasant feeling following a behavior; these are still rewards, because something icky (being ignored) has been taken away (by restoring attention and praise). For instance, nobody would say ibuprofen is a punishment; rather, it's a reward because it removes the headache. Thus, for folks whose headaches are relieved after taking ibuprofen, they become more rather than less likely to take ibuprofen next time they're in pain.
Similarly, when I feed my whining dog, I get rewarded via negative reinforcement because my dog stops whining--thus making me more rather than less likely to feed her again next time she whines. When you cave in to your MIL's demands for attention when she is contradicting you, she stops bullying, which is a reward for you--making it more rather than less likely you'll cave in again next time she's a pill. Simultaneously, my dog has gotten a big reward there for whining, and your MIL got quite a perk for meddling.
*We are all training each other all the time. Your MIL is training you...right now. And you are training her...in ways that make you even more upset. The key is to begin doing it to get the results you want rather than the ones that are making you Mrs. Crazy!*
The removal of emotional discomfort, in other words, is a reward. When you restore attention to your MIL, you are alleviating the emotional discomfort your MIL will feel from being ignored. But note that you must ignore the behavior you do not like if you want to have this powerful reward available.
So, in order to restore attention, you have to take it away at the right time--that is, when the offense occurs. Think carefully ahead of any contact how you will withdraw your attention. Will you claim to need to leave the table? Stop eye contact? Go to the bathroom? Leave the party? Take a non-existent phone call? Have a raft of ignoring-tactics prepared *before you see MIL* so you can intentionally implement them the moment she's tacky. While withdrawing your attention is mildly punishing, it's also a very, very powerful way to change behavior. Because when you give attention again--which you will, when she's well-behaved--that will alleviate her discomfort the way ibuprofen relieves pain.
Now to your daughter. I would *hate* it if someone treated my girl that way! And I saw from your first post that you want to involve your daughter and have her directly intervene on her own behalf. The reason I ignored that ;) was that using operant conditioning is threatening and hard for most *adults* to do. Just thinking of not answering your MIL and ignoring her is sounding very, very stressful for you. I am not sure it's going to be easier for your child to do--and it might even be more stressful, more cognitively difficult, precisely because she's so young and she's an easy mark for Grandma--your daughter's not a peer, she's a dependent, and one who has been under Grandma's thumb since babyhood.
So it might be preferable for you to lay the groundwork--again, without putting your daughter in MIL's power until the groundwork is well-laid, *or* (less preferably) going ahead and letting your daughter spend the occasional night, knowing you and your child just won't be in control of anything until your daughter is back with you. Later on, when you've got the hang of it, you'll see that even though your MIL won't like it when you suddenly leave parties, dinners, conversations, drop eye contact, say you have to go to the bathroom or make a phone call, etc.--life will go on. Her behavior (MIL's) will improve. But the amount of up-front bravery required of you is pretty big. I think the adults have to be brave first. Just my opinion. But I've had college students who were terrified to do what I've asked of you, and I can't imagine asking a child to do it.
I'm glad you're skeptical. Everyone I have brought this up with is. They're *sure* it will not work with *their* [fill-in-blank]. But...it does. It has worked for students of mine who wanted their parents to accept their new grown-up status. It has worked with clients who were dealing with intrusive and narcissistic ex-spouses who were using the kids as pawns. And it has worked with middle-aged women who were desperate to get their own now-elderly mothers to stop micromanaging their lives. Every one of these individuals was certain this technique of ignoring what you don't want and rewarding what you do want would work for *other people*, maybe, but not for their situation; their person would get angry over being ignored. Yep, some of the folks did get angry about being ignored; they all lived, though, and they all changed their behavior. And all the cases I've seen showed it worked for their situation.
But don't take my word for it, look up behavioral therapy and see how operant conditioning has transformed the way kids are treated and how they respond in schools, or how it's being used in helping adults in counselors' offices. It works on animals with far less intellect than we have; it works on people. This science is actually old--not sexy, not cutting-edge. But extremely well-established, cause/effect, and abundant. A multitude of experiments underscores the value of operant conditioning. It is a fact of life--now accepted as a 'theory' the same way we speak of gravity as being theoretical.
Here's another way to think about it. You're at your wit's end. No matter what you do, your MIL isn't satisfied. So maybe if you can't satisfy her, you can satisfy yourself and protect your child. What you've done before has not worked--MIL is still socially clueless and hurtful. Simply accepting your MIL exactly as she is has not worked-- you're still Mrs. Crazy. Maybe it's time to try a new way. This is one. And the science is on its side.
Fabulous. Now to compose my list of exit strategies!
You go, Mrs. Soon-Not-To-Be-Crazy! Please let me know how things unfold.
Cheers,
Duana