Why Do YOU ALWAYS Have To Be SO Negative?

Here are a bunch of sassy, sarcastic, truthful comebacks to the negative talk transaction: “Why do YOU ALWAYS have to be SO NEGATIVE?” (This is how to effectively respond to the negative talks (-T) mode in miscommunication).

Just know for now, these are all one-liners across different topics to use when you want to “talk back” by using a “directive question” to defend yourself. Let’s use “PosiTalks!” to defend yourself from being harmed in a gut-drenching and gut-wrenching relationship. “Popping the positive question” sends the message that you’re tossing off the live guilt grenade aside someplace safe.

NEGATALKER VS. POSITALKER YOU

Let’s go for a ride now down the co-responsibility byway:

1. NegaTalker: WHY do you always have to be SO-O NEGATIVE?
PosiTalker You: I don’t have to be negative…I choose to be. Don’t you agree?

2. NegaTalker: WHY do you always have to be SO-O NEGATIVE?
PosiTalker You: Well, to tell you the truth…I act negatively to screw with your mind. Don’t you agree?

3. NegaTalker: WHY do you always have to be SO-O NEGATIVE?
PosiTalker You: Well, someone has got to do IT (be negative) or IT (obsessing on the negative) simply won’t get done! Don’t you agree?

Dad: ‘I think we need to talk’

Veteran Dayton Daily News health reporter, Kevin Lamb, wrote a positive parenting advice piece for dads who want to improve their communication skills and become more approachable by using Dr. Dennis O’Grady’s new communication tools.

PARENTING ADVICE

Worried your kids won’t talk to you? Kicking yourself that there must have been a better way to talk to them after they slink sadly back to their rooms?

Then Centerville psychologist Dennis O’Grady, who blogs at www.drogrady.com, has some help with his Father’s Day tips for dads who want to improve their communication skills and become more approachable.

O’Grady also has a new psychology book aimed at better communicating, Talk to Me: Communication Moves to Get Along with Anyone, available on his Web site for $39.95.

Here are three of his 10 TALK POSITIVELY TIPS FOR DADS:

1. Be sure you’re not catching the person you want to talk to at a bad time.

2. If you’re hoping to bring about some change, approach it in more of a collaborative than demanding tone.

3. Don’t be afraid to say you wish you hadn’t just said that. “If you say something stupid, you can take back what you just said by saying, ‘Erase that! I want to take back what I just said.'”

Everyone makes mistakes in talking. That’s why they have blooper shows. Turning your blunder into humor might even soften up your listener.

Kevin Lamb is a lifestyle and health reporter for Dayton Daily News. Mr. Lamb can be reached at the email address of kevin.lamb@DaytonDailyNews.com. To read Dr. O’Grady’s full article just click on “Communicating with Your Dad.” Or you can read about “A Mad Dad on Father’s Day” on this site, too.

Single Parents Love Lives

“Mr. Mom” Jim Debrosse, in the Dayton Daily News, sensitively and humorously discusses if there can be sex and/or love after divorce for the single mom or dad…and what to say to children and teens about s-e-x. It’s a hot topic with few easy answers!

WHY SINGLE PARENTS LEAD SECRET LOVE LIVES

Single parents from time to time have asked me, “Mr. Mom, is there s-e-x after d-i-v-o-r-c-e?”

To which I unequivocally reply, “How the heck would I know?”

But seriously, there are no simple answers when it comes to sex and the single parent, unless you’re willing, as some are, to check your libido into a convent or monastery until the day your youngest child leaves the nest, usually when he or she is 25 and you’re too old to be much interested in sex anyway.

Custodial parents face a series of obstacles in rediscovering their love life that, if applied to Marine boot camp, would lead to mass desertions.

Parenting I-Type Kids

No, by “I-Type Kids” I don’t mean children who are too self-involved or kids who are too self-indulged, because every healthy child is self-focused. It’s true, however, that I-type kids can look and sound MEAN, strong-willed, manipulative, mouthy, mean-spirited, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, obnoxious, stubborn, pushy, impolite, disrespectful of authority and just downright push-push-push pushing way TOO hard to get their way and while all the time at the same time NOT caring a lick about your hurt feelilngs.

Sometimes, in fact, I-types stomp on others’ feelings like an elephant tromping around in a cornfield made of fine spun and expensive glass. BUT that’s being SO narrow and negative of me, isn’t it? “The I-type child” is my shorthand for “the Instigator-type communicator who is a child,” and one who is either an introvert or an extrovert. This is the “typecasting” approach I’ve developed and use to the good of all in my TALK TO ME communication system.

How do you know if your child is an Instigator child or strong-willed kid who disobeys at the drop of a word? Actually, how WOULDN’T you know? With one of my clients, I constructed a “short list of PREFERRED TALK HABITS.” She’s a positive, single-parent professional mother who is successfully and effectively raising an eight-year-old daughter…also a total Instigator communicator.

Willie Nelson…Why You Can’t Afford No Negative Thoughts No Matter How Rich You Are

Willie Nelson plays “the angel’s advocate” because he shows us all that although it’s far easier to be negative…it’s by far more productive to be a positive person. I don’t care if you love or loathe country music…Willie Nelson is a positive thinker, a positive talker, a positive doer and an all-around positive guy who has a bunch of friends from all over the world. “W” knows that ya’ can’t afford no negative thoughts. “I’m crazy for you,” Willie Nelson!

Even after the loss of a beloved son and the gain of the IRS, Willie “dares to care” and calls the stage “home.” He sings positive songs to m/y/our brain. He has “amazing grace.” Indeed, the “outlaw” decided to “grow up to be a cowboy” in spite of what his mama said. Willie plays his well-worn guitar “Trigger”… has great hair for a 70-year-old troubadour…claims to occasionally burn up with road rage…drives cars and trucks that run smoothly on soybean biofuel. Yup, Willie is a guy who works hard to have a positive life in spite of the crap life deals out to him.