Week Four: Adler's Mistaken Goals of Behavior

First, a caveat: I'm not I get this, or why it's presented. So I'll talk about what it has meant for me so far, the internal insights.

Again, the buttons the dogs have pushed have really made me aware of my tendency to overblown Anger, which happens in Power struggles. Or perceived power struggles, anyway. But, truthfully, Fiora doesn't cause this often; she more commonly created Frustrated, from needing Attention. Especially when she was a baby. But let me give you context: she was NOT a needy baby. As an example, she only sleeps well without us!

So, for me, I feel like _I_ am the one who has difficult providing needed attention, unless I'm at the top of my game. Hard to really know, I was in a lot of pain after she was born, it gradually got better over the first 18 months of her life, but that probably made it difficult and challenging to provide even necessary attention. It is not a problem much now. My dog training has given me experience in ignoring attention-seeking behavior, and I rather relish doing just that! My problem is identifying the behavior as attention seeking sometimes - you know, when it makes me giggle intead of making me frustrated, but I can see how in the future, in a different situation, it could really annoy me.

I also feel like _I_ am the one with big power issues. In the past especially I would give my power away easily (feel like the school system only encouraged that), and I've been slowly improving. MY improvement along those lines have decreased the Anger reactions. Pretty cool.

So, for me and mine, I feel like the Anger reflects more on me than what my child is seeking to do. I EXPECT her to see what she can get away with, to challenge rules, to explore, etc.

i'm curious what next week will bring.