Family Conflict: Unmet Needs

It was 9am.

I had just turned my phone off 'Do Not Disturb' and I already had a missed call and voicemail.

It was marked urgent.

A previous client of mine was in distress.

"Ms. Tameka. I need help. My daughter is a teen now and I am having some problems. I only trust you to help her. I know you can help her. I would also like her not to know about it. Please call me to discuss." She said in the voicemail.

I had a few other obligations to tend to so I sent her a message that I would call her before her daughter got home from school.

When I called, she let out a big sigh, "Well, here we are Ms. Tameka. You know she's a great student. She's a great child however she calls me names and refuses to speak to me. I know you can help her but I don't want her to know I called you. What can we do?"

"I will reach out to her to check on her and invite her to do some coaching with me. Once she agrees, we can get started." I said very matter of factly.

"Thank you Ms. Tameka. I know you can help us." Said my client as she hung up the phone.

I reached out to the teen and after catching up, I invited her to do some coaching with me.

"Oh my goodness Ms. Tameka I would LOVE to!" She said excitedly.

"Okay please speak with your mom and tell her you would like to do some coaching and look forward to our first session next week." I said.

Almost immediately, mom sent me an email and thanked me profusely. She asked me to send over the consent form and made the payment for the month.

First session, I allow the teen to talk about anything.

I knew we would get to the heart of the matter however my first goal was to identify the unmet need.

When there is unfavorable behavior and conflict, there is always an unmet need.

There is no way around conflict without addressing the need.

And in family conflict, we must identify the needs of everyone so that we can come to common ground.

Mom needs connection.

Teen needs significance.

Mom doesn't understand how to meet the need for significance because she feels her needs for connection are going unmet.

Teen refuses to connect because her need for significance isn't being met.

This is a constant battle of wills and no one wins.

So my first goal is to help mom understand that as the leader she goes first. She meets the needs of the teen and leads the way to show her how to do the same.

Once we've established this baseline, I introduce the self-coaching model to both as a tool to keep if and when they ever feel unheard.

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