Shasta High gets Silked again!

Another Tuesday night and the air is alive with questions and feedback as parents brave another night with Danny Silk at Shasta High School. He talked about how important it is to keep the "Love" on when using the "Logic" tools presented in Love and Logic.
Fear leads to a need for control, if we are afraid we have an innate need to control. Fear chases out the love. So when we are afraid we don't communicate the way we really feel.
The best kept secrets in many families are: "I love you very much." and "I value our relationship." When we are afraid we don't want to be vulnerable with how we feel in case we give away control. The goal is to communicate the love, or to keep the love on. If you really want influence with your teenager, you got to keep the love on. Pay attention to the connection and manage the connection.

The problem is that people hear "I love you." very differently. The topic of the evening was learning how to communicate the "I love you!" message the way others hear it. Instead of "I love you the way I want to be loved!" So Danny presented the Five Love Languages in his usual funny way to people laughing out loud.
When we speak a different language it is difficult to be understood. It is important to speak the language of the hearer if we want to be understood. When we can speak each other's love language, it builds trust and connection. And when we speak a language that is not ours we communicate our value for the relationship or our investment in the connection with this person.
Speaking the language the other person hears, communicates that I need this connection, that I need influence with you and I love you. You feel loved when I feed your love language. How do you figure a person's love language? Watch them. We tend to speak the love language we want to receive.
If I loose the connection then I loose my influence with you when you are away from me. For example, when my child is away from me what is steering my child in the right direction if I do not have a connection to his heart?
What do we do when we have a disconnect with a child right now? Clean up your messes. Own what you are contributing to the disconnect. Cleaning up your mess is easier than you think. All you have to do is point out that you have made a mess and say sorry.
Learning to say "I love you" creates a bond I can count on later and reduces the anxiety that destroys connection. It allows you to put demand on your connection; on your relationship. I can move you away from what you were going to do, by putting a demand on our connection based on love and trust.