“She’s so Manipulative”: Judgment Thoughts
Peter is getting ready to leave for work and is waiting for his teenage daughter Stella to come downstairs, so he can drive her to school. He’s been waiting ten minutes already, and despite his calling up to her several times, she has not come down to have breakfast with the rest of the family. Peter feels frustrated and doesn’t understand why it always takes her so long to do something as simple as getting ready to go to school. Then he hears footsteps, and turning to look at her, he sees that Stella is still in her pajamas. Taken aback, he asks, “Why aren’t you ready? We are leaving in ten minutes.”
She looks at him and says, “Dad, I don’t feel well. I need to stay home.”
Peter’s immediate reaction is one of concern that she is getting sick. But then he notices her pupils are bloodshot like she’s high on marijuana. He raises his voice, “Have you been smoking?”
She replies, “No dad. I’m just sick and need to stay home. Come on, haven’t you ever been sick?”
Now Peter can smell the marijuana, so he asks again, “Have you been smoking? Tell me the truth.”
Stella starts to scream, “You don’t love me! You’ve never loved me!” and she runs back upstairs. Peters runs after her and finds the end of a joint in her trash can.
Peter was frustrated, upset, and disappointed when he caught his teen in such a bold-faced lie. When he went to work that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about what just happened. He asked himself, Why did she lie to me? What happened to my kid? She’s so manipulative. She’s always trying to get away with whatever she can. She has become so selfish. It’s all about her.
You may sympathize with Peter’s feelings. Chances are you’ve had similar thoughts about your teen. It’s normal. It’s natural. You’re not a bad parent for having those thoughts. Like Peter, you probably think you didn’t raise your teen to behave the way she does.
It’s completely understandable to go into a moment of mental shock when you are confronted with the fact that your teen is not that same little child whom you held in your arms because she was afraid of the dark and who asked you to stay with her until she fell asleep. Your child has grown into a teen and is still growing, and in this process, there are moments that are extremely hard for you, similar to what Peter went through when he caught his daughter lying to him, straight faced. Parenting a teen with emotion dysregulation problems is tough work.
Noticing Judgment Thoughts
All the thoughts that Peter had about Stella, that she’s a liar, manipulative, and selfish, are evaluations of Stella; those evaluations are called judgment thoughts and can be positive or negative, good or bad; our mind naturally comes up with them all the time about objects, situations, experiences, or people. The ability to evaluate, classify, criticize, and judge is unique to human beings, and we’re evolutionarily wired to do it; our early ancestors learned to differentiate what’s good from what’s bad so they could put their efforts toward preventing anything bad from happening. No human being is exempt from our evaluative minds.
To see how the mind naturally judges, try this exercise right now. Simply walk into your teen’s room and slowly notice every thought that crosses your mind, then write them down in your parenting journal. If you cannot walk into your teen’s room, then simply imagine her room, notice what thoughts quickly come to mind, and write them down. Chances are your mind may have come up with all types of judgments, both positive and negative, about your teen’s room and even about her. As you will learn in this chapter and throughout this book, judgment thoughts, like any other thoughts, constantly show up like windows popping up on your computer screen.
The problem is not the fact that we have these evaluative thoughts but the way that we handle them in our daily lives. We have been taught to believe in every single thought that comes up and behave as if those thoughts were the absolute truth. The challenge is that most of these thoughts are far from being real, because our minds are constantly active as if they had lives of their own. Certainly some of those thoughts are true, and we call these true thoughts facts, but most of them are just mind-talk in the form of wishes, assumptions, expectations, dreams, ideas, and so on.
Our mind is constantly doing its job, coming up with all types of mental noise as if it had a life of its own. However, from just having those thoughts in your mind to actually believing every one of them and acting on each one of them, there is a stretch. Within ACT, holding all thoughts as absolute truth and confusing them with reality is called cognitive fusion. Cognitive fusion, or getting “fused, hooked, or caught up” on your thoughts, is believing that every thought, memory, or image that shows up in your mind is real and quickly giving these thoughts all your attention, latching on to them, dwelling, and stewing on them. Getting fused so quickly in those criticisms, evaluations, and judgment thoughts makes it harder for any parent to step back and choose how to respond to a given situation in a helpful manner or based on what’s really important to you. For instance, following Peter’s example, after continually buying into judgment thoughts about Stella being a liar, manipulative, and selfish, he decided to not talk to her for a week. At dinnertime, Stella, still in pajamas, tried to talk to him, but he acted as if she didn’t exist. The same pattern repeated itself for the next six days. Peter acted as if his judgment thoughts were absolute truths; he was fused with and trapped by these thoughts.
While it’s understandable that Peter behaved as he did and that his mind would come up with those judgment thoughts, not talking to Stella for a week was an ineffective response to the situation, didn’t improved his relationship with her, and was a departure from what’s really important to him as parent.
Wait…Wait…It’s True
Sometimes when discussing the idea that it’s natural to have judgment thoughts and that they are simply thoughts—not necessarily absolute truths—parents say things like “But my teen really is a slob. You haven’t seen her bedroom. It’s ridiculous. There is food all over the night table, clothes all over the floor.” And they’re right. I haven’t seen the teen’s bedroom. However, I would add that when your mind comes with a criticism about your teen, and you have the urge to do X, the question to ask is, “Would this action you want to take serve to escalate or de-escalate the conflict?” Notice that I’m not asking whether the judgment thought is true or not but asking whether if behaving based on that particular judgment thought is helpful or not in that given moment. Parents usually recognize that when having those criticisms about their teens, they feel like screaming at them, removing all privileges immediately for the rest of the year, and so on, but later acknowledge that behaving that way simply escalates the conflict.
I personally know how difficult it is to step back and answer the question of whether the actions I take, based on judgment thoughts, are helpful or not in a particular situation. I also know that, although difficult, it’s possible. We all struggle with making a choice when triggered; however, we can also learn to step back and check in with ourselves whether our behavior will make things better or worse for us in a given moment.
Exercise: Taking a Judgment Inventory
Let’s take a look at one of those moments in which you felt like killing your teen—yes, you read that right, and as bad as it might sound, most parents experience those moments. It’s natural. Be as honest as possible with yourself. Please think about the terrible times you’ve had with your teen and jot down in your journal all the judgment thoughts, evaluations, and criticisms that may have shown up in your mind about her.
Then, complete the sentence My mind says my teen is…with each of the judgment thoughts, evaluations, and criticisms on your list.
When Peter did this exercise, his list looked like this:
- My mind says that my teen is…a liar; irrational, manipulative, very selfish; she only thinks about herself.
- My mind says that my teen is…a drama queen, an angry teen, unmotivated.
- My mind says that my teen is…out of control.
Notice any reaction you had during or after completing this sentence. Any apprehension about writing down those judgment thoughts? If so, you are not alone. Your parenting mind is doing its job; it naturally evaluates, judges, criticizes, and classifies.
Acknowledging and accepting that at times your mind comes up with these evaluative thoughts about your teen is a beginning. Recognizing that your mind, like my mind and anyone’s mind, quickly could become a judgment machine is simply being honest.
Old psychology books, including academic and self-help books, often present the idea that having negative judgments, criticisms, or evaluations is bad and that we must hide, deny, or challenge them, as if your mind could have only positive judgments. As an experiment to evaluate whether we can suppress or eliminate our negative judgments, I invite you right now to not think about a dark piece of chocolate.
Now, what just happened? If your mind is like mine, as soon as I asked you to not think about a dark piece of chocolate, you had the image of it. Telling yourself to avoid judgment thoughts won’t work; in fact, research has suggested that ongoing efforts to suppress, deny, eliminate, or push them away will simply increase their frequency.
As long as we’re alive, our minds will spontaneously come up with hundreds of judgments, criticisms, and evaluations throughout the day, as if our mind carried what I call a judgment machine. Here’s a quick exercise inspired by an exercise in Harris (2009) that illustrates how the judgment machine works.
Exercise: The Judgment Machine
Simply practice right where you are by taking the following steps:
- Bring to your mind all those judgment thoughts about your teen.
- Place your hands together in front of you, palms upward, like an open book.
- Then imagine placing each judgment thought onto a finger. Say the thoughts out loud as you place them on each finger. For instance, your thumb could be “She is a liar,” your index finger “She is manipulative,” and so on, until you have labeled each finger with a judgment about your teen.
- Slowly raise your hands up toward your face until they are covering your eyes.
- Notice whether you can see the room or not.
- Bring your hands back down into your lap.
What did you notice? Were you able to see the room or only parts of it? Now imagine if your teen were standing in front of you. Would you be able to see your teen for who she is, or would you be looking at your teen through this judgment machine?
If you continue to get caught up in your judgment thoughts, you will be unable to see your teen for who she is. Again, getting caught up or fused in those evaluative thoughts, believing and behaving as though they were the absolute truth about your teen, not only affects how you feel in the moment but also impacts how you feel about your teen, how you see your teen, and how you respond to your teen when a conflict arrives.
So if you can’t eliminate judgment thoughts, because our minds naturally carry a judgment machine, what can you do to stop being fused to the evaluations and criticisms that your mind produces about your teen?
Describing: An Antidote to Judgments
All of us have our own judgment machine working at maximum capacity most of the time, but when we get fused to the evaluations and criticisms that it produces, we foreclose a simple but important ability: to describe what we see. Describing situations, experiences, objects, and others’ behaviors for what they are allows us to get unhooked from our judgment machine long enough to make a big difference in how we respond to those judgments. Describing is simply stating what you see for what it is, as if you were a witness in a courtroom. When you describe what happens, you simply report what you see without adding an interpretation.
Finding an opportunity to switch from judging to describing is as easy as looking around wherever you are and noticing what you see. As an exercise, look at your surroundings in this moment, choose an object, and notice what your mind says about it. If your mind comes up with such terms as ugly, bad, pretty, cute, dirty, or pleasant, then your judgment machine is on. See if instead you can simply describe the attributes of that object. Here is an example: I noticed a chair in my living room, and my mind naturally came up with the judgment ugly. When I looked at it again and made a choice to describe the chair’s attributes, I came up with this: The fabric of the chair is blue velvet, soft, lumpy, and the chair has wooden legs.
From this example, you can see how describing and judging are very different mental tasks. Returning to Peter’s example, if he were asked to pause, notice the judgments he had about Stella—that she’s selfish—and then simply describe what he had observed without judgment, he might say, “When going into the kitchen and preparing herself a sandwich, she didn’t ask her brother whether he wanted a sandwich too.”
Exercise: Practice Describing
To practice distinguishing descriptions from evaluations, choose a particular negative judgment thought your mind has about your teen and see if you can come up with a description of your teen’s behavior that’s related to the judgment. When Peter completed this exercise, he came up with these judgment thoughts and descriptions:
- Judgment thought: Stella is lazy.
- Description: Stella doesn’t get up until 9:30 a.m.
- Judgment thought: Stella is manipulative.
- Description: Stella does whatever she needs to get what she wants. If I say no to a request, then she asks her mom, or she will text me multiple times asking the same question in different ways.
What happened when you switched from judging to describing your teen’s behavior? Did you have any trouble describing without judging the behavior? If so, you will have plenty of other opportunities to practice this new skill.
Describing is a very important skill, and throughout this book, you will be asked to describe your teen’s or your own behavior as a starting point to many of the exercises that are covered. It’s quite likely that even when you’re intentionally describing a situation, object, or your teen’s behavior, your mind will play tricks and quickly turn on the judgment machine, and the judgment machine will, in turn, loudly push you to react and take action. Within ACT you’re invited to pause, notice those judgment thoughts, and then choose how to handle them. Learning to step back from our judgment thoughts in a given moment is called defusion.
Defusion: A Survival Skill
Defusion is a core ACT skill you can use to handle the many difficult thoughts your parenting mind comes up with. What you choose to do with all of those sticky thoughts is the key, and defusion will allow you to step back, get some distance from your thoughts, accept them for what they are, and give yourself a chance to choose how to respond to them instead of just quickly reacting.
Here is how to practice defusion: first, you notice when the judgment machine gets activated. Next, name all those evaluations, judgments, or criticizing thoughts as a theme; you can name them any name you want, including silly names, or you can simply notice what your mind is doing by saying silently criticizing, judging, evaluating. Peter named his judgment thoughts “dangerous thoughts.” Another parent I worked with named her thoughts “Ms. Self-righteous.” Naming the thought for what it is allows you to step back from it. Again, having a thought, including these very loud judgment thoughts, doesn’t mean that you have to act on it. Here’s another defusion exercise.
Exercise: Clouds in the Sky
Think of different judgment thoughts that your judgment machine has about your teen; then imagine that every time you notice a judgment thought, you place it inside a cloud that is floating on the sky. You can clearly see the font, color, and even size of those judgment thoughts inside the cloud; and now watch the cloud carrying your judgment thought slowly moving through the sky until it fades from your sight.
After completing this defusion exercise, do you see the difference between noticing these judgment thoughts and acting on them? Having a thought, including these very loud judgment thoughts, doesn’t mean that you have to act on them.
The more you practice defusion, the more you will learn to have all types of thoughts and then choose your behavioral response; this may seem impossible at the beginning, but as Victor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” Defusion is a key skill in your parenting job, because instead of responding to your teen’s reactivity with reactivity, as Peter did, it allows you to respond to your teen’s emotional sensitivity based on what’s really important to you.
Here is one more defusion exercise to try: after naming your judgment thoughts, you can acknowledge and appreciate that your mind is simply doing its job. For example, you could say, Thank you, judgment machine or Thank you, Ms. Self-righteous. At the end, your mind is simply doing what it is wired to do, which is coming up with evaluations and criticisms, as all minds do.
Some of the parents I work with try to replace each criticizing thought with a positive one as a way to counter the critical thoughts; the challenge is that this replacement strategy may work but only in the short term, because it’s only a matter of time that your mind, like my mind, will come up again with another judgment thought. Pushing against judgment thoughts or any attempts to replace them is still getting fused and hooked on those thoughts, because you’re still paying attention to them.
With defusion, you can learn to notice and acknowledge judgment thoughts without doing anything besides choosing your parenting response. Even when things are getting heated with your teen, defusing from your judgment machine and putting it aside will give you a moment of choice to handle those evaluative thoughts instead of automatically behaving in a reactive way.
Summary
The judgment machine is wired within our minds, and it simply does its job throughout our life. This only becomes problematic when we become fused with our criticisms, evaluations, or judgment thoughts and respond to them as if they were absolute truths. Most of us can easily get hooked on our judgment machine in the middle of a difficult situation and subsequently toss out any skill we have learned. However, taking that road will only increase the distance between you and your teen and make things worse for the two of you. Describing your teen’s behavior for what it is, noticing whether the judgment machine is on or not, and then defusing from it, will make a difference not only in handling conflict with your teen but also in improving the overall quality of your relationship with her.
Defusion is a crucial skill within ACT and will allow you to notice criticisms and all types of thoughts, create distance from them, and give you a chance to choose your behavioral response to a particular situation with your teen.
Weekly Practice: Defusing from Judgments
This book will present a number of different defusion exercises, and some may naturally resonate with you more than others. My invitation to you is to try them all. Just as you cannot learn to walk by reading about walking—you actually have to walk—you cannot learn ACT skills by reading about them; you have to practice them.
Try out two different defusion exercises this week. First, on a flash card or a piece of paper, write down all the different judgments that your mind has about your teen. Then carry this paper with you in your wallet or purse, and throughout the day, read this list at least three times. Notice any reactions you have. How is it for you to have those thoughts without getting hooked on them? As you know by now, you cannot get rid of those judgment thoughts, but you can learn to have them without acting on them.
Here is a second defusion exercise: throughout the day, check in with yourself about whether the judgment machine is on when you’re dealing with your teen or thinking about her. If it is on, then tell yourself I’m having that thought that… At the end of the day, write a poem about your judgment machine that includes the criticisms, evaluations, and judgment words that your mind has come up with during the day.
Learning to respond to your thoughts in a different way takes practice, so please be patient with yourself. Practicing will make a difference in your parenting repertoire.