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[quote=Anonymous]PP--I am looking at this part of your message because it is a concrete example:

"After empathy alone, I'm guessing my kid would then say "yeah, she is the worst. I hate her." Then I would say something like "that's not fair or nice to say to her. You loved her last week. You're just angry because she embarrassed you today, which I understand, since I would be embarrassed too."

Your response to this would not be validating. You have assigned an emotion to her (anger) and made an inference about why she has it.  The emotion is hers to own and figuring out why she has it is up to her, with some guidance from you. Validation can be hard because you have to filter your immediate thoughts and reactions so much.

Think about it: Your response gives her no out and she will feel like a cornered rat.  No wonder she she pouts and storms off. What else can she do?  Say: "Oh, you are so right Mom.  The teacher should have embarrassed me for what I did."  Not a chance.

Your goal here is not to be told you are right.  It is to get her to start making inferences and conclusion about her feelings and her behaviors herself.

A more appropriate response would have been "I am so surprised to hear that.  Just last week you said you loved her."  Then comes the judgmental part.  You can either wait for her response or add a question:  "Did something happen?"  The key is to make observations and neutral questions that she can respond to without discomfort and not make judgments or inferences.

With the toilet flushing (which I agree is uber annoying), start the conversation with something like "I see you didn't flush the toilet." Wait for a response--do not feel the need to rush in with words to fill up a verbal vacuum.  If after a reasonable amount of time with no response or if she gives a "So what" response, follow with another observation.  "An unflushed toilet tends to upset people."  If she says something like I am not discussing this now, calmly say "Okay, this is important to the family.  Could we discuss it at 6 this evening when you have more time?

I agree that what I would really like to do is shout out "Can't you just for once flush the damn toilet?"  And indeed I did say things like that (minus damn as I don't swear but sure would have been thinking it).  And it was getting me no where.  Why couldn't this child follow the simplest rules and just behave?  But I got to the point where I realized that nothing I was doing was changing her behavior so the only thing left was for me was to try to change my behavior and see what happened.[/quote]

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