The Frustration Factor

Hey fellow Earth humans. To my surprise, the Aliens Amongst Us didn’t actually return permanently to their Home Planet. I intercepted them in New Orlins, just hanging out like real people. As you might expect, the setting was pretty noisy and a lot rowdy so listen carefully. The conversation is well worth the extra effort it takes to listen.

Boredom is a condition seen in infants, children, and adults of all ages. Much of the time, your infant entertains herself. She really seems to enjoy just being alive and involved in the world. At other times though, she becomes fussy, irritable, unhappy, and generally discontent. What is wrong with her? She is bored.

For your infant and toddler, boredom is a frequent state of affairs. This fact is partly why your toddler is always getting into everything and always under foot. Nothing holds his attention very long. He is always looking for new things to get into and novel ways to deal with boredom. Further, he spends a lot of time trying to get you to relieve his boredom.

Your preschooler experiences boredom less often, since his attention span is longer. Nonetheless, he becomes bored fairly easily, especially on rainy days or when he is sick and has to stay in his room, or when he is full of energy and has no good outlets for it. You understand what boredom is (an uncomfortable low level of stimulation) and understand it is a problem for children when they do not have enough to occupy their active minds and bodies.

When children are bored, then, what should you do about it? You have three options for dealing with children who are bored.

First, you can respond in a negative (limit setting) way.

Second, you can respond in a positive or helpful way.

Third, you can do nothing about it.

Although all three possible responses are used with children of all ages, the specific choice depends on the age of your child. With your infant, your most typical response is positive and helpful. With your toddler and preschooler, your response is a combination of helpfulness and limit setting. For the grade schooler and adolescent, your response frequently reflects a do-nothing or "that is your problem" attitude. Let's look more specifically at these three options.

A positive response to boredom is essential if children are to learn constructive and creative ways of dealing with being bored. With your infant, once you have recognized the signs of boredom, you can pick her up, play with her, make noises or do other things to amuse her - move her from one place to another, turn on the music box or the radio. For your toddler or preschooler, you can sit on the floor and play for a while, read to her, help her think of something fun to do. For your grade schooler or adolescent, you can suggest she visit friends or have friends over, offer to play a game, involve her in what you are doing, or just sit and talk for a while.

It helps to anticipate situations in which children are likely to become bored. For instance, when children have to spend a lot of time in a car, it is good to have a travel kit with a supply of pencils and paper, puzzles, hand-held-games, coloring books and crayons, and toys. Most children also enjoy a sing- along while riding in a car, or word games.

Children are inclined to express their boredom in somewhat negative and destructive ways. They may become more irritable and more inclined to fight and argue with each other, may do destructive things such as picking at the upholstery or pulling holes in their clothing, may just start getting into everything they should stay out of. When children behave unacceptably because they are bored, first respond to the misbehavior by setting limits letting them know the behavior is not acceptable. Once you have dealt with the problem in a firm way, you can consider whether or not to help relieve the boredom.

Your third option is to ignore the boredom. Life really is boring sometimes for everyone including you. When you are bored, you may think of something to do; when you have to do something boring, you learn to tolerate the boredom and do the job in spite of it. Your children must learn both of these approaches to boredom,

Boredom is a condition seen in infants, children, and adults of all ages. Much of the time, your infant entertains herself. She really seems to enjoy just being alive and involved in the world. At other times though, she becomes fussy, irritable, unhappy, and generally discontent. What is wrong with her? She is bored.

For your infant and toddler, boredom is a frequent state of affairs. This fact is partly why your toddler is always getting into everything and always under foot. Nothing holds his attention very long. He is always looking for new things to get into and novel ways to deal with boredom. Further, he spends a lot of time trying to get you to relieve his boredom.

Your preschooler experiences boredom less often, since his attention span is longer. Nonetheless, he becomes bored fairly easily, especially on rainy days or when he is sick and has to stay in his room, or when he is full of energy and has no good outlets for it. You understand what boredom is (an uncomfortable low level of stimulation) and understand it is a problem for children when they do not have enough to occupy their active minds and bodies.

When children are bored, then, what should you do about it? You have three options for dealing with children who are bored.

First, you can respond in a negative (limit setting) way.

Second, you can respond in a positive or helpful way.

Third, you can do nothing about it.

Although all three possible responses are used with children of all ages, the specific choice depends on the age of your child. With your infant, your most typical response is positive and helpful. With your toddler and preschooler, your response is a combination of helpfulness and limit setting. For the grade schooler and adolescent, your response frequently reflects a do-nothing or "that is your problem" attitude. Let's look more specifically at these three options.

A positive response to boredom is essential if children are to learn constructive and creative ways of dealing with being bored. With your infant, once you have recognized the signs of boredom, you can pick her up, play with her, make noises or do other things to amuse her - move her from one place to another, turn on the music box or the radio. For your toddler or preschooler, you can sit on the floor and play for a while, read to her, help her think of something fun to do. For your grade schooler or adolescent, you can suggest she visit friends or have friends over, offer to play a game, involve her in what you are doing, or just sit and talk for a while.

It helps to anticipate situations in which children are likely to become bored. For instance, when children have to spend a lot of time in a car, it is good to have a travel kit with a supply of pencils and paper, puzzles, hand-held-games, coloring books and crayons, and toys. Most children also enjoy a sing- along while riding in a car, or word games.

Children are inclined to express their boredom in somewhat negative and destructive ways. They may become more irritable and more inclined to fight and argue with each other, may do destructive things such as picking at the upholstery or pulling holes in their clothing, may just start getting into everything they should stay out of. When children behave unacceptably because they are bored, first respond to the misbehavior by setting limits letting them know the behavior is not acceptable. Once you have dealt with the problem in a firm way, you can consider whether or not to help relieve the boredom.

Your third option is to ignore the boredom. Life really is boring sometimes for everyone including you. When you are bored, you may think of something to do; when you have to do something boring, you learn to tolerate the boredom and do the job in spite of it. Your children must learn both of these approaches to boredom,

Our intrepid hunters have tracked the Great Mouse to a remote desert somewhere on the Earth planet where it appears that the Great Mouse may have finally faltered. Will the Great Mouse once more escape or is this the end of the Great Mouse’s world? Join me to learn the fate of the Great Mouse.

Do not become competitive. How might you and your significant other become competitive? Actually it is much more subtle than you might think. Even less obviously, you may not see it as competition and might deny that you are competing, if asked.

Do you recall, "Relationships are a 50/50 proposition?" Well, therein lies the source of most of the competition I have in mind here. If relationships are supposed to be 50/50, then it is reasonable to rate yourself and each other. Who is ahead or behind?

• "I do all of the work and you spend your time laying around."

• "I'm getting tired of doing my work and yours too."

• "I'm there for you but you are never around when I need you."

• "I hold up my end of things but you just do whatever you feel like doing."

Do you see the pattern? "I am doing fine and you are screwing up." Although this is most always the pattern, it can work the other way. "I know that you are getting the short end of things but…." Either way, the race is on, you and your significant other have become competitive. …

Once the Leadership Team completes the steps and activities discussed earlier, it has a Leadership Perspective from which it can successfully participate within the agency's incorporating environment. Through its Initiators and Authorizers, the agency develops and sustains sufficient resources and auspices to continue operations. Through its Implementers and agency Management, it assures services are in place to serve its clients and that those services and agency operations conform to accepted regulations, standards, and guidelines. Through the agency's services structure and its Providers, the agency works to assure the help it provides is the help its clients need and deserve. Through its connection with and attention to potential clients and to those who may refer potential clients to the agency, the likelihood people in need will be better able to cope with their needs, problems, and vulnerabilities down the road increases. Further, everyone associated with the agency is better able to contribute to the success of other people and organizations in ways far beyond the agency's narrow responsibilities. Only when all participants in the human services community succeed can an individual human services agency make a difference consistent with its full potential.

I hope the point has been made the Management Perspective and the Leadership Perspective are not the same and they both are required for agency excellence. I also hope the point is clear neither is more or less important than the other. Both are essential perspectives from which to pursue agency excellence. Let me reiterate one other critical point here.

Help is only helpful if it helps. Everything we do should support and further the success of our stakeholders in general and our clients in particular. Nothing we do should jeopardize their success or serve any other purpose. As I said in Chapter One, the point of developing a human services agency is to help people cope with the needs, problems, and vulnerabilities in their lives. Everything we do should further this outcome and nothing we do should interfere with achieving the outcome.

The standard is simple. Do the right things right, the first time, on time, every time, one client at a time. What is the right thing? This is also simple. Make sure the help we provide is help that truly helps. …

The posts in this series are excerpted from Ecological Human Services Management: An Organic Model For Practice.

In this episode of the Audio Tidbits Podcast, I have included four excerpts from Fifty-Two Skidoo: Thought Snacks for the Contemplative. After a brief thought about getting the hell kicked out of us, attention shifts to advertising, advice, and when we know we are growing old. Please enjoy.

The hunters have tracked the Great Mouse to the zoo on the Great Mouse's home planet. I don't know what it means or how to understand what I hear. I must leave you to your own conclusion.

People are constants, problems are variables. Simon is not saying people never change, are always the same. You need only hang around most anyone for a while to know people are very changeable. Were that not true, things would get very boring and most of the world's serious problems would never get solved.

The people you deal with through your success business have some characteristics that stay fairly stable over time. Traits not changing much include things like attitudes, approaches to doing business, interpersonal style, beliefs, values, general mood and demeanor, cooperativeness, and most everything else mattering in the context of your success. This is enough of a fact of life you are well-served by simply assuming people are constants, they are not going to change, at least not much in any ways making any difference for you.

Making this assumption puts you onto the right track with people and problems: you will,

• Deal with people and work on problems.

If the people change in positive ways, all the better; but you are not counting on it and are not investing much time in trying to get them to change. You want to see what people are doing right, since you likely can get them to do more of whatever it is; but you cannot concern yourself much with what they are doing wrong. You might get them to do less of it but not a lot less any time soon. Your goal is to encourage people to do more of what they are already doing right, with the hope they will have less time and energy for doing things wrong. If you are very successful with this approach, the right things will become so habitual the wrong things gradually just drop away, although it can take years, if you have the free time to devote to the task. …

Be dependable and keep your commitments. On the face of it, my point here seems like another one of those no-brainers. "Be as good as your word." "Do what you say you will do." Certainly loyalty is also part of the package as is faithfulness, to the extent that promises have been made. It would seem that this is simply a further example of predictability, "You can count on me."

Dependability and keeping commitments go beyond these types of usual, "the way you deal with everyone" behavior. Within serious relationships, they have a more intimate dimension. They are an important ingredient in the tie that binds, are part of what makes the relationship special.

• You are there for each other when either of you needs support, encouragement, or someone to scratch the itch so to speak.

• You are truly interested in and want to know about each other's activities, thoughts, and personal issues.

• You are happy and excited when things go well for either of you and feel badly when they do not.

• You share in each other's lives and are available, good times, bad times, and all. …