Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 8, Closet-Con ‘13

Two Sisters and One Mister

The Framework
The title for tonight’s episode comes from the annual closet conference that Claire and Jay are attending. And closets and the space for conversation created by confining places help tie the storylines together tonight.

A lost reservation means that Jay and Claire end up sharing a hotel room and dealing with some skeletons while at the conference. There was the literal skeleton hidden in Claire’s closet – a traditional prank played on the newest sales rookie. But the close quarters brought some figurative skeletons out of the closet as well.
Jay: Before you turn that [light] out, have we talked about everything we need to? Cause I want everything in the clear here.
“Everything” turns out to include Jay’s attempt to thwart Claire’s marriage to Phil, Claire’s efforts to interfere in Jay’s plans to marry Gloria, and Jay’s confession about a gal named Rita.

Meanwhile Mitch and Lily go to Missouri (pronounced M-I-S-E-R-Y if you ask Mitch) with Cam to visit his family’s farm. Adding to the misery is the fact that the couple has to keep their relationship closeted while there. As Cam explains: We never told Gram about the gay. You know, after they reach a certain age, it could be the thing that sends them over the edge. And she’s been over the edge for a long time. We’re actually on deathbed number two. But when a tornado confines them all to the farmhouse basement, the resulting conversation causes Grams to soften, admitting: I guess there’s nothing more important than family.

Back at home, Phil, Gloria, and the kids have their own close encounters after Phil discovers Jay’s secret trove of antique model toys in a walk-in closet off the kitchen. Toy mishaps lead to some family bonding – especially between Haley and Alex who both have a crush on the pizza guy from last night.
Alex: He’s shy and thoughtful and wears a Princeton sweatshirt. Hardly Haley’s type.
Haley: I’m telling you the way he looked at me when I came to the door – it was so on.
Alex: It kind of seemed like he was just delivering pizza, and you were giving him money.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
What ends up happening between Haley and Alex tonight gives us a window into the ranting route we all tend to jump onto when we get upset with anyone. The route almost always looks something like this: 1) We notice something. 2) To explain what happened, we tell ourselves a story. 3) The story creates harsh feelings. 4) And we act on our feelings.

Early in the episode, Haley notices something she doesn’t like.
Haley: I’m starving! What are we going to do about supper?
Alex: I checked with Dad and ordered a couple pizzas from Tejas.
Haley: I knew it! You’re stalking my pizza guy!
Alex: He’s not into you, okay! Does he call you brown eyes and give you extra mozzarella sticks?
Haley: Stalker!
Alex: Trollop!
Haley: Ha! Ha! Don’t know what it means.

Things then go from bad to worse: The propeller of the toy plane Alex is holding suddenly starts to spin, and Haley’s hair gets caught in its blades. As soon as she senses what has happened, Haley begins to create a story to explain it.
Haley: Ahhh!!! What did you do?!!
Alex (alarmed): Nothing!
Haley: Yes you did! You turned it on and now the propeller is all tangled up.

Based on her story, Haley creates harsh feelings towards Alex, and she translates those feelings into judgments and accusations.
Alex: Why would I do that?
Haley: Cause my pizza guy is coming over, and now I have airplane in my hair!

The next thing you know, Alex too has her hair tangled up in the plane’s propeller. And because she also has been busy perceiving, thinking, and feeling, she reacts with anger.
Alex: Get her off of me!!! I’m getting dumb through osmosis!
Haley: I don’t have osmosis!

And Haley retaliates.
Haley: How have I never noticed how loud you breathe?!!
Alex: Oh, don’t beat yourself up. That would require you to notice something that isn’t about you!
Haley: Oh my God, you’re such a loser!

When our kids mess-up, we act a lot like Haley did tonight. We too tend to jump into the middle of a ranting route. Our thoughts run wild as we try to figure out what happened. Then to explain it, we tell ourselves a story filled with pretty ugly thoughts, and, in response to the story, we create harsh feelings towards our teen. We then translate those feelings into judgments and accusations and act on them as fact. We rant at our teen.

Meanwhile our teen is also busy perceiving, thinking, and feeling. And they often react to our rantings by becoming resentful and defensive – like Alex did tonight. In response, we create more harsh feelings and rant more and louder, setting up a vicious cycle.

BottomLine
Gloria (kneeling next to baby Joe): Oh, did you find a little toy?

Tonight as the camera pans away from the tangled-up sisters to another corner of the room, we are let in on the rest of the story: Baby Joe has the remote control for the model plane and is randomly pushing buttons to make the plane’s propeller spin.

We moms could benefit from one of those panning cameras when our kids mess-up. Because we often jump into the conversation, explaining the problem with our own version of the events. And often within the very first seconds we communicate to our teen that they’re the problem and warn them to defend themselves or attack back.

Of course, we get upset when our teen messes-up. How could we not get upset? This is our kid! But as Haley and Alex’s plight reminds, we are often reacting to an incomplete story.

What’s a Mom to Do
Have you ever wondered how the folks who work with youth gangs sometimes manage to get the kids to stop fighting and retaliating? They’ve learned that showing respect for the position of the kids by listening makes a crucial difference. Only after the kids believe that they’ve been listened to and that their ideas have been understood, can they give others’ ideas a fair hearing.

Our kids aren’t all that different. Our willingness to listen – even when what we’re listening to sounds crazy, is the first step to helping. Almost always a greater awareness of our teen’s story will change how we feel. And this, in turn, will affect how we act and their response.

Your Parenting Experiences
Being bound together eventually created space for a conversation that helped the two sisters – who were arguing over one mister tonight – understand each other a bit better. And sometimes a confining place can help create space for conversations with our kids too. I found that riding in the car with my teens – sitting side-by-side with them – often seemed to provide just the kind of space they needed to let their guard down a little bit and open-up. How about you? Have you found a particularly good space for catching-up with your teen?

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Modern Family: Season 5, Episode 6, The Help

The Dunphy Daughters Call to Claire for Help

The Framework
“Help” (some helpful, some not so much, and some way too much) is what tied the plotlines together tonight. Gloria hires a too-good-to-be-true nanny to help out around the house even though Jay and Manny seem dead-set against it. Mitch and Cam hire Pepper to help plan their dream wedding, but Pepper’s dreams are way over-the-top. And over at the Dunphy house, Phil’s recently widowed dad Frank has come for a visit because he’s a bit down-in-the-dumps. But when Phil and Jay try to help cheer him up with a night out on the town, Frank ends up hiring a hooker – by accident.

Meanwhile, Claire is looking for something that’ll help cut down the fighting between the girls.
Claire: Tension between Haley and Alex has been getting pretty high. So our solution was to move Haley down to the basement – which we were just about to do.
Phil: When my dad came out for a weekend visit.
Claire: Two weekends ago.

Claire is right to be concerned. Anger between the sisters is spilling out of their shared bedroom into the rest of the house. It overflows into the kitchen where the rest of the family is trying to enjoy breakfast.
Alex: You’re ruining my life!
Phil: These eggs are delicious.
Haley: What life?! Get out of my room!!
Claire: I put milk in them.
Alex: It’s not your room anymore!!
Luke: Well they sure are fluffy.
Haley: Mom!!!
Claire: I’m just going to go stand out in the yard.
Haley: Seriously, get out!!!
Alex: I told you it’s not your room.

Later the girl’s outbursts continue with this.
Haley: Gross!!! Those are my socks!!
Alex: They are not! Mom!!
Claire: I’m just going to pop outside.
Phil: I should get her a rake.

And this.
Haley: Mom! I’m going to throw-up! Alex’s hair smells like cheese.
Alex: It is not cheese!!! It is cruelty free, organic shampoo with traces of churned goats’ milk!
Haley: So cheese! (taking a whiff and then holding her nose) Ugh!!! I need a bucket!!!

Flipping the Frame: My Notes
It’s a given. Siblings will fight with each other. That’s just what they do.

The best way to keep brothers and sisters from fighting is to space them at least four years a part. Obviously, there’s nothing that can be done about this now, but it’s true. Siblings close in age (like Haley and Alex) fight more, and the fights seem to intensify as soon as the youngest becomes a teen. This is so for a gazillion reasons – competition, jealousy, differences in temperament all lead to clashes.

It drives us crazy to hear two kids we love acting so hateful to each other. So we often wade into the middle of the fight to try to stop it with something like this: “Each of you tell me, one at a time, what happened.” The problem is that the minute we step in, the issue totally changes. No matter what the original battle was about, it now becomes a competition to see who can win us to their side. And if we begin to arbitrate like a judge, we promote case pleading on both sides that can be endless. Plus the more often we step in, the more likely our kids are to call for our help – just like Haley and Alex did tonight in each of their squabbles.

What’s a Mom to Do
Usually our kids can resolve their issues in their own way. Their screaming might drive us crazy, but as long as there’s no threat of physical violence or emotional abuse, we can often facilitate this best by staying out of the way. (Claire, thanks for modeling this for us tonight. You were wise to step outside instead of stepping into your daughters’ fights.)

Sometimes, though, the fighting intensifies to the point that we have to step in. Below are some tips for stepping into the fray when you can’t ignore it.

– Separate them. Send the fighters to their own corners for a cooling off period – their own bedrooms or opposite corners of the house will do. Sometimes the space and time apart seems to be all that is needed. But separating them teaches them nothing, so if we want lasting results, we’ll often need to do more.
– Reconvene with them. When things have calmed down, direct the warring parties to another neutral place – for example, the kitchen table. Sit down with them, and listen to both sides without trying to judge who’s right and who’s wrong. Try instead to clarify the problem: “It sounds like you’re mad at Alex because you think she took your socks.” Ask both kids to offer a solution that might work for everybody involved. If they can’t come up with any ideas, suggest a solution. For example, if the teens are fighting over whose clothes belong to whom, you might suggest that they keep their things separate by always hanging them up or putting them in drawers when they’re not being worn. Each might also be responsible for doing their own laundry to further minimize the mix-up.
– Reinforce the family rules. Before you all get up from the table, remind your teens of the rules for fighting fairly. For starters, this should include that nothing physical is allowed – no hitting, pushing, shoving, or hair pulling. No damaging each other’s things. And no name-calling. This is also a good opportunity to ask for your teens’ input on these rules and how they’re enforced.

The BottomLine:
Claire (to the hooker she mistakes for a therapist): I’m just at my wit’s end with these two. (Hopeful) I don’t expect you have any experience with teenagers?

It’s not always the intensity of our kids’ fights that drives us crazy. Sometimes it’s the sheer number of the clashes that give us battle fatigue.

To reduce future fighting…
– Try to be evenhanded. Teens are especially quick to pick-up on preferential treatment. Although our teens may protest whenever they feel slighted, we’re wise not to try to prove them wrong. Because we can’t. In almost every family there’s going to be one child who needs more of something – our time, or attention, or resources. So rather than trying to treat our kids all the same, it’s better to assure our kids that we’ll try to always do our best to give them each what they need.
– Hold family meetings. Get together once a week as a family to give everyone a chance to air grievances and work out solutions together. This is also a good time to praise any negotiating or compromising you’ve noticed during the week. Reinforcing their positive behavior – perhaps even with a tangible reward sometimes – can help with future battles.
– Make time for one-on-ones. It’s never easy to find time alone with each child – and it can be especially difficult in large families. But our kids tend to resent each other less (and squabble less) when they feel that we value them as individuals. When we regularly make time to give each child our undivided attention – with special excursions or a few minutes on a daily bases – we are valuing their individuality and letting them know how important each relationship is to us.
– Model fair fights. Our highest form of influence in our kids’ lives is our day-to-day modeling. And our kids learn a lot about how to deal with disputes by watching and listening to us resolve issues with our spouse. So it’s important that we get it right. (Click here to read more about this in last week’s post. Claire, you too!)

Your Parenting Experiences
Some fights are easier than others for our kids to resolve on their own. What issues tend to require you to step in when your teens squabble?

Sources: Get Out of My Life by Anthony Wolf and webmd.com/parenting

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