Dismaying Story #71: Learning Not to Gossip

Dear Andrew,

How can we better teach our daughters (or our children, for that matter) to be more open and honest with their peers? My daughter vented online about her best friend's behavior recently, and now she's sweating it out hoping the friend won't see her comments, which were made in the heat of anger.

I've often told her that she should give complaints to the person who has upset her and no one else, but I see her and her girlfriends repeatedly in a pattern of gossiping and complaining to each other about friends' actions.

Any pearls of wisdom?

Signed, Mom

Dear Mom,

I did a little research after I received your question; I talked to some kids in their first year of high school and a few mothers of high school kids. The small group of people I talked to does not constitute a scientific survey, nonetheless the results coincided with my expectations.

My sense is that virtually anyone is capable of talking to friends A, B and C about friend D, but this seems to be more prevalent with girls than boys, and in some social groups (cliques, if you will) rather than others. Some girls told me this happened all the time among their closest friends (and they assumed everyone does it), while others said they couldn't remember the last time it happened among the girls they normally hang out with at school. The moms echoed this sentiment, saying it was common when they went to school, but that some of their peers seemed particularly prone to malicious gossiping.

The interesting thing to me is to understand which kids, regardless of gender, are more likely to take part. Here are a few of the comments I received:

"It's the people who are more worried about being popular."

"They care the most about what people think of them -- the kids who were into wearing makeup first, that sort of thing." (And no, I don't think makeup is the issue. This is merely the way a child was able to describe her perception of the difference to me.)

"They gossip because they are insecure. They want to be liked."

This is the part that coincides with my expectations. Let's consider two fictitious young people, whom I will call Abigail and Betty. (They could be Al and Bob for that matter; the same psychological principles apply.) Abigail is confident in her self-image. She recognizes she is human and has flaws like anyone else, but she thinks of herself as basically a good person and assumes most people have a reasonably positive view of her. Betty, on the other hand, appears confident on the outside but has a little voice inside that constantly reminds her of her inadequacies. She is not sure at all what others think of her.

Of these two girls, Betty is clearly more attuned to how others treat her. Her social antennae are constantly unfurled and ready to interpret what the people around her say and do. She is looking for clues as to whether she is perceived positively or negatively by others, and the way she feels about herself may yo-yo up and down depending on her most recent observation.

Now put Betty together with a group of kids who feel the same way. They share a similar focus: who said what about whom and what that means. This is an incredibly big deal for all of them. As usually happens when a group shares a common interest, this will naturally be a frequent topic of conversation.

This leads to a key observation; gossiping is the symptom, while the underlying issue has to do with the way kids measure their self-worth based on cues from others. Not surprisingly, quite a few adults continue to use the same yardstick.

Parents can try to address either the symptom or the underlying issue. I suggest you work on both.

You are already coaching your daughter in social skills around conflict management. Keep it up. Tell her to assume that anything she says to one friend will eventually be heard by the entire school, including the person she is talking about. Your daughter will then feel bad because (a) she has hurt a friend, (b) others will know she hurt someone, and (c) now that friend may do or say something hurtful in return (and we have a pretty good idea how that will impact your daughter's self-image). If she wouldn't say it directly to her friend, then she shouldn't say it to anyone else because there is no such thing as a secret.

Tell her the kids who are liked best by everyone are those who don't gossip, for exactly the reasons mentioned in the last paragraph. Ask her if she wants to be one of those likable people.

Talk to her about her choice of friends. Hanging with others who lack confidence can be an effective way to reinforce and firmly entrench her insecurities. Remember: "If they'll gossip with you, they're gossiping about you."

Dealing with the underlying issue can be more of a long-term project. You can start by helping her recognize that mischievous inner voice. Ask her about one of her recent accomplishments. Perhaps she made the cheerleading squad. What are the chances that as soon as she was alone after the tryout the little voice piped up and said, "Sure, but you know you're not as good as most of those other girls." We all do this at times. Help her understand that she can reply to the voice: "Thank you for your input, now go back and hide in your dark corner and be quiet." Often simply recognizing the source of that negative self talk can lessen its power.

Explain to her the relationship between gossiping and self esteem. Get her to read this article if you think it will help her see the connection. Recognizing and acknowledging the root of the issue is a powerful first step toward change.

Teach her that her self worth is not defined by what other insecure kids have to say about her. She is much more than that. Tell her repeatedly what you think of her as a person and how glad you are that she is part of your life. Catch her accomplishing and being good; praise her for it. Help her recognize her own value and strengths. If she learns to define herself from within, then what others have to say will seem dramatically less interesting and not worth discussing.

Good luck!

All the best,
Andrew

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Dismaying Story #62: The Tyrannical Aunt

Dear Andrew,

We moved to a very small town a year ago because it has one of the best VA hospitals in the country and we have family here. When I first announced we wanted to move, the family out here was very excited and offered all sorts of help. However, I made the mistake of buying a house that my aunt did not look at. I didn't think it was a big deal. I needed to place an offer on the spot or risk losing the property. I knew it was perfect the moment I first saw it. The house closed, and my husband and I began to pack for the move. All of a sudden the cousins out here couldn't be available to help. Not one family member bothered to call us when we arrived. It was a nightmare.

Then the gossip began getting back to us. My relatives had been told that we bought the house in haste, didn't have any furniture and had moved here to sponge off the family. I couldn't understand where this was gossip coming from. It was not based in truth in any way.

I soon learned that my aunt is the self-proclaimed matriarch of this family. She will tell you what you should think, how you should live, and what you should do - and if you don't abide by it, she makes you an outcast with the rest of the family. She has always had major control issues, so this behavior is not a symptom of old age. To the public, she is a very sweet lady. To us, she is evil.

I am physically limited and it sometimes leaves me unable to function. When I suggest she allow me to do the things I physically can (such as washing dishes) instead of walking up and down the steps to put things away in the basement, my aunt refuses. If I sit down to catch my breath and calm my heart, I am avoiding work. If I don't call her, I am not calling out her just to be spiteful. Should I need to cancel a visit due to being unable to move, I am doing it only to be lazy.

I have basically written the whole family out here off. I want nothing more to do with a bunch of weak willed human beings who worship my aunt as some sort of chaotic goddess. I was raised to be a strong person, despite my limitations, and I don't need to ask someone's opinion on whether or not I should use the washroom before I eat (trust me, the woman is that controlling.) I enjoy being self-sufficient, and that angers my aunt most of all. She seems to have this deep desire to be "needed" by the world. My husband will no longer tolerate her. My mother is angry, and very hurt that we are being treated this way. The family was not involved with us before we moved, and the only side of the aunt I ever saw was the "polite side", so I don't have any qualms about parting ways.

My problem is that she is too controlling to leave us alone. When people don't please her, she goes out of her way to discredit them, which she has already done to me at one church (I changed parishes, and I don't tell anyone we are related.) I worry she will try to discredit us should we seek to adopt our child. She has lived here so long and been so involved with everything that almost everyone knows her.

I have tried talking with her (she won't let things go), I have tried being polite, and I have tried reaching out to my cousins. They won't acknowledge me, in fear that it would get back to the aunt. What's your opinion of all this? Any ideas on how we can protect ourselves from her, other than moving away, which we can not afford to do?

Signed, Caught in my Aunt's Town

Dear Caught,

Let's assume your aunt is basically a happy and contented person, who knows that everyone admires and likes her. Can you imagine someone in that frame of mind engineering such a destructive chain of events as has befallen you? No? Well neither can I.

Your aunt is almost certainly a desperately unhappy person. She has towering, raging, monumental insecurities. She is neither blind nor stupid, so she knows what others think of her. She has come to be this way because many years ago she had no faith that others would like her or pay any attention to her of their own free will. So one day, probably as a child, she tried being overbearing. Lo and behold, it worked! She was able to bully someone into listening to her ... and there was a momentary high, a personal validation. For a brief moment your aunt actually mattered -- the reaction of that other person made it so in her mind. Her fear became a self-fulfilling prophecy; it caused her to become a person who is difficult to admire.

So her niece moves into town and tries to be polite and reasonable in an attempt to get her to change her time-proven strategy. It won't work. Your aunt could change, but it would mean identifying and addressing all those personal fears of inadequacy. These have been part of her self-image so long that at this point she believes them to be carved in stone. This is her reality. People don't like her (she believes down deep inside, perhaps not even consciously) and they never will. Such longstanding fear is resistant to change. It would require a will to change on her part and considerable therapy to make headway against it. Unfortunately, nothing you say or do will be enough to change her.

Ironically, she has no power over anyone unless they willingly give it to her. If every single person she talks to understands what is going on and refuses to give in to the emotional pressure, then her approach would be utterly ineffective. Unfortunately, many of us are averse to confrontation so her strategy tends to get people to knuckle under to her will. Do you have a shot at changing how most of your small town reacts to your aunt? I doubt it.

The only person you can control in this scenario is you, and it sounds like you are doing what you can in that department. You are holding your head high and refusing to play her game. Good for you. You have put some distance (figuratively) between you and your family, including her, to insulate yourself from the effects. That works for me.

As I see it, though, your primary problem is that you can't insulate yourself from everyone in town. Living in isolation is no fun. So you seem to have two possible strategies. You can seek out others within the community who have also refused to fall under your aunt's spell and choose to fill your life with those folks. If that doesn't seem possible, I would start planning for the day when you can afford to move.

You moved there for the hospital and family. The second one has ceased to be a draw, so that leaves the hospital. Surely other communities have good medical facilities. Your house would sell ... in time. If jobs and income are an issue, start looking elsewhere and something will eventually pop up. You may not be able to afford to move immediately, but I bet you could do so in time.

In a larger community, I would simply advise you to seek out other people. If this is not possible in your small town, your best bet might be to cut your losses and head for less poisoned waters.

All the best,
Andrew

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Dismaying Story #51: The Sister-In-Law Wars

Dear Andrew,

My husband and I have been together for 10 years. When we first met, I was drinking to suppress my sorrow over losing my first born child. He died at 1 month of age due to a heart attack and being pre-term. My husband was using meth and cocaine. I understand his family's reaction towards me when we first got together. I was another throw-away girlfriend, an 18 year old flake. But then I got pregnant, and they had their doubts that the baby was my husband's. Once they were convinced, and my husband cleaned up, things slowly changed for the better within my relationship with his parents.

But the siblings, after 10 years they still treat me like the throw away girlfriend. They gossip behind my back, they say terrible things about me to my babysitters. The biggest problem is with my youngest sister-in-law. She is only a year younger then I am but still behaves as though she is in high school. She says derogatory things in front of my children, and verbally abuses me when I ask her not too. She blames me for my husband's drug use, even though I had met him after he started all of that. He has been clean 8 years now, but she won't let go. Sometimes I feel like she hates me only because she was unable to marry her brother. Then there is the fact that I had the first grandson, which is a big deal in that family. She showed up shortly after the birth of our last son, ignored me totally and the first words out of her mouth was an insult towards the newborn. It has even got to the point where my mother-in-law had to physically restrain me from hitting her.

I try to stay away from family events that I know she is attending, but I am tired of this animosity. I have tried being nice, and helpful, I have tried ignoring, but her gossip comes back to me and can be painful. I love my husband dearly, I love his parents. But I don't know what to do about this sister in law. Should I continue to ignore her?

I know this hurts my husband. He loves her but can't stand the fact that she behaves this way towards me. I want it to stop or at least have this hatred towards me suppressed enough so that everyone can enjoy the family events.

Signed, Not So Throw-Away

Dear Not So,

I am sorry to hear of the loss of your son. That is the type of pain that follows you for a lifetime, but I hope time has taken some of the sharpness away and made it more bearable.

You mention the various ways you have tried to mend fences with your sister-in-law. The glaring omission in your letter, though, is what your husband has done about it.

I'm a big believer that once you get married, that marriage now becomes your primary household, your number one family. Extended family is incredibly important, of course, especially once children come along. Children gain wonderful benefits from having loving grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. In a conflict like this, though, your husband has to make it clear where his primary allegiance lies.

He knows how his sister treats you, yet I assume (because you didn't say otherwise) that his own relationship with her has not changed much. What message is she likely to take from this? That's easy. He is showing that he condones her behavior, at least to the extent he is willing to tolerate it.

If that continues, what kind of pressure does that put on the relationship between you and him? You say he doesn't like the behavior, but it wouldn't surprise me if the fact that he tolerates it will at some point become an issue between you. He is now your husband and the father to your children. It's time for him to step up and act like a husband. He needs to let his sister know where his primary allegiance lies.

More than that, he is the one with the leverage here. You and your sister-in-law are forced into occasional contact and the two of you have not developed a close bond, which means the thought of you withdrawing from a relationship with her is not much of a threat from her point of view. On the other hand, I bet her relationship with her brother is important to her. That gives him some bargaining chips you don't have.

He needs to get her alone and tell her in no uncertain terms that she is hurting you, she is hurting him (not only because he hates to see his sister acting this way but because she is driving a wedge into his marriage) and he will not stand for it. He must look her straight in the eye and tell her that she will treat you and your children with respect, and that if she continues to force him to choose between his sister and his wife ... she will lose.

In many cases this will be enough to turn the tide. If that doesn't happen, he must be willing to back up his words. To show that he will not tolerate her behavior, he should refuse to subject you and himself to that relationship unless and until she can at least be respectful.

I also know that it usually takes two to tango, even if the bitterness comes primarily from one direction. You mention being physically restrained from trying to hit her, so your sister-in-law is obviously not the only one with fighting spirit. Are there times in the past when you have thrown fat on the fire with things you have said or done? Once your husband lays it on the line with his sister, you must be willing to do your part (and from your letter it sounds like you are). You want respect from her so you should treat her the same way.

Hopefully that will open the door to begin healing the rift.

All the best,
Andrew

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