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ISSUE 25 • FEBRUARY 2001}

Change is hard! And sometimes we make it harder!

Mark Hill looks at resolutions to change — ourselves and others

New Years came and went, just like it does each year. Of course no New Years could live up to the hype that last year’s did. Each year, many of us ponder our lives, what we value, what we want to change. Those still young and still enjoying a Disney mentality undergo the annual painstaking practice of vowing to change something, resolution time! Get rid of those love handles, stop picking my nose, stop smoking, stop eating, stop living! Lately on the news, however, it has been reported that for the most part, we do not follow through with our resolutions. Health clubs show a huge surge in January, only to be dead again in February. So why do we keep making resolutions? Or why have some of us stopped?

Ok, so here is a list of resolutions I have made over the past decade or so:

• Stop smoking,
• more exercise,
• eat a more healthy diet,
• get my finances in order,
• get married,
• get a new job,
• own a house.

How would I go about doing these? Well how about an intervention plan. Ok, lets take smoking, here goes.

Goal 1. Mark will become more healthy

Ok, looks good but how? Many intervention plans begin and end with the goal, and are thus usually doomed to fail. But if we go on to how, lets take the next step.

Goal 1. Mark will become more healthy

Strategies:

• Mark will purchase a stair master
• Mark will have carrot sticks in the fridge for snacking
• Mark will view nicotine cravings as he does sexual ones, and enjoy the ride.

The above looks pretty good, obviously my hopes of quitting are better by adding the strategies. But ... I still don’t have a plan, yes I know what I am going to do, but I need to plan it further. Ok, lets see what is next.

And Again:

Goal 1. Mark will become more healthy

Strategies:

• Mark will purchase a stair master. Good idea, only, I am completely broke!
• Mark will have carrot sticks in the fridge. Ok, Can do that one.
• Mark will view nicotine cravings as he does sexual ones, and enjoy the ride.

Getting healthy was only goal one, if I were to continue with my other resolutions, I would have a lengthy intervention plan which certainly fill up my January and February with joy and fun. So much joy and fun, that by March, if I lasted that long, I would have ripped it to threads, and chucked it in the garbage.

Change is very hard! We cannot underestimate this. I am not going to get more healthy until I am ready, no matter who helps me buy the stair master, and not even with Martha Stewart making nightly delicious carrot sticks with parsley on the side for me. Stair masters, carrot sticks are tools, tools that can only be helpful when a plan is put into place, a plan which focus’s on several elements. It is these elements I hope to focus in on, elements which are essential in all intervention plans, and elements that are still rarely found in the plans of the youngsters and families we work with. Being ready does not always have to mean ready to make the change, but ready meaning, having what I need in place to enable change to occur.

Why am I not as healthy as I could be? Who knows, I do, but can I vocalize it, maybe if I spent many hours contemplating it. I do eat the way I do for a reason, It was not always that way. My parents insisted I eat healthy at home, I did not really begin to eat in a less than healthy way until I was out on my own. I was 28 when I began smoking, old enough to know the dangers, and old enough to know that as I was beginning, it was going to be difficult to stop, but I went ahead anyway. Finding out why I choose some less than healthy life-style choices, and the need they are currently filling for me, are the keys to coming up with a plan for change. If, for example, I were to determine that I eat because I am bored, then it might be easy to find other ways fill that time with more useful activities.

That is a beginning, but still hard. Most of us have in the past written up intervention plans based on what parents, teachers and other professionals tell us needs to change in a child. Things that if changed would make the adults around youth have an easier time relating and being with them. It is interesting talking to young people about what needs to change. It often

leads to discussions about how they are reacted to, and how that bothers them. This reaction, based on the behavior’s target is important, because it says that neither child or adult are happy with the relationship — a place to begin.

At the Nexus program where I work, I am happy that we have struggled to move into creating intervention plans based on not just the wishes of the family, but with a focus on the wants of the child. It is just as important, that all intervention plans include goals for all involved, including mom, dad and even the youth and family workers. This way, everyone involved is committed to the plan. It is essential these goals are needs-based. By needs-based, I mean that we need to know why things occur, who gets what out of it, and what can be done to ensure this need is still met, even if the particular behavior decreases.

There are two other important elements which must be in all goal/intervention plans. The first is guaranteed success. Yes, we can almost guarantee some success, by insuring that some of the goals are easy to follow through with, i.e., getting a lamp for a bedroom, having mom teach staff how to make the perfect stew, etc. Some small things which can be accomplished. Very small, very detailed, yet extremely important to instill faith that the plan is legitimate.

The second element which must be there is that no behaviors will be eliminated, decreased or changed, NONE! If becoming more healthy was on my intervention plan, I would surely have failed. The goal must be for me to think about why I am unhealthy, and find out what need it meets. From there we may decide that some of the unhealthy elements in my life should stay. Stay with me. Yes I should not smoke, and eat more veggies, but if you look at another issue, it is possible, something we desperately try to change might be essential to the lives of a child or family — something which cannot be seen until the proper questions are answered.

So here’s a story:

Over the past year at Nexus we were working with one particular family which instilled the above learning in me. It was a four-person household, two parents with two children. One child in particular appeared to be the most problematic. This youth skipped school a lot, lied, fought with mom, stayed out late hanging out with older children. The other child was quiet, and generally stayed in the background. Mom headed the parenting, and was at her wits end. Despite our best efforts we were initially unable to evoke any change in the behaviors with the youth involved.

We decided to concentrate on Mom, working at getting her to accept certain things, and changing how she interrupted some of the things that were going on in the family. In addition we spent much time working on skills Mom had always had a desire to complete, enhancing her self image and sense of strength.

Well, the children are still having difficulty, but Mom is soaring, meeting each problem with strength and stamina, tested at times, but she is there for the problems, dragging dad along whenever she can. Mom appeared to be need a focus. Without one, she spent much of her energy focused on the problems with her daughter. Moving her focus inward, to her own education, career aspirations, etc., enabled her to focus on other things, therefore creating a change in her perceptions of the problems with her daughter. Though mom is still concerned about what is going on with her daughter, she able not to let it bring her down, and focus on herself and other members of the family. This appears to be having a small ripple effect with her daughter, who is seeking time with youth and family workers for the first time, possibly noticing some of the changes which have occurred with her mother, and within the family. It appears she may want to be a part of things, and not be left behind.

This story demonstrated to me the need not to always focus on behaviors, but the way these behaviors are interpreted into the culture of the family. Of course certain behaviors, especially those which may harm oneself or another cannot be accepted, and we must attempt to make changes, but this is not always the case. It is amazing to me that a child who is acting might begin some small changes simply though ‘family time’ — family time being time each week that the family spends together. It is simple sounding, I know, but often we complicate things which are not so complicated.

Lastly, no intervention plan should be over two pages long — after two, start editing. That is my own rule, so as not to overwhelm the youth and family involved. An intervention plan is a tool we use in our work with families, and it is also important that we use this tool with an operation manual, i.e., a framework for working with children and families. If not, we could be doing more harm than good.

And so ....

I still am not as healthy as I should be by the way, but I am starting to get a handle on my finances, got a house, lost a few pounds, and I will get married. But none of these occurred by insisting on change. Many occurred when a certain thing, person, experience showed me why they needed to change. Only when this occurred was a structured plan to assist with this change helpful to the process. The plan followed, it did not begin the change. And I still am going to quit smoking this year, because I am human, hopeful, and somewhat Disney oriented. That, I will change next year.

Mark Hill
Nova Scotia, 2001