Jacarandas in bloom right now - grateful.

That's all you can do, other than asking the person to move out (and that is a valid request for an adult). It's possible to learn emotional detachment from the 'negative' other - you learn to see the cloud but not be under it.

Yes, absolutely. It's a way of trying to manage others rather than, as in the person suggesting gratitude re a dying parent, dealing with ones own discomfort with sadness etc.

Reframing is a skill that can be taught. It's my experience that emotional validation needs to go alongside the focus on skills. Imagine it like an internal weather system. You wake up, and it's mild weather. The person wakes up and it's a storm. Yes, they can learn to bring an umbrella and wear their psychic gumboots, but oh man, it sucks to wake up to the storm.

I actually quite like doing gratitude exercises, but if anyone was suggesting I should do them because I had the moral flaw of being negative, I would not be able to engage with gratitude at all! It's a great way to activate a person's inner critic.

There's a generational shift, for sure. I'm not sure I'd use the word 'fad' but it's a change, and like all changes, it probably has both positive and negative aspects. It's only now becoming conceivable to me that I don't have to be a dutiful daughter. No religion involved, just trauma keeping me in an intensely ambivalent environment. So, definitely, I applaud dd2's freedom from duty ( and, ironically, think it points to better parenting than I received - that internal freedom she can access doesn't come from generational moral superiority but from her attachment needs being met in infancy and early childhood). I anticipate that weakening bonds of duty will have some negative impacts on society, but positive impacts for the individual. It's a conundrum, and from this Gen X position, it's a bit like being wedged between two losses at times - the loss of self to duty, and the loss of the promise of duty.

Does the person have a mood disorder? It's really hard to be 'positive' if so, given lack of positive effect kinda goes with the territory. If they do, are they in treatment ? (Acknowledging that treatment resistant depression exists). Absent depression, temperament is somewhat inbuilt. It's less a matter of changing another person's temperament, and more a matter of setting your own boundaries.. Person B probably needs to recognize an element of luck in their own temperament, where they can 'shake things off'. Person A is on their own journey, which may or may not include embracing positive psychology. It's possibly more useful to think about this problem in terms of household dynamics rather than locating all of the problem in one person. Good luck! I can be the negative person, and I have lived with negative people, and it is difficult.

Yeah, best to just get on with loving them without commentary, whether that's at a distance or close up. That's what unconditional love is. It doesn't rely on them giving you what you need. You just love them because you do. (Mothers who have not been sainted, ahem, may need to process this with a trusted other who is NOT the adult child in order to be able to get to feel the love under the hurt or the anger). There's a lot of backstory here for OP, much of which she isn't responsible for, and I understand why the daughter going low contact would be hard to handle emotionally. But really, this is an easy path because there's only one useful option - radical acceptance.

I remembered I also wanted to offer a reframe. I am proud of dd's fire and ability to draw boundaries, including with me! That is something I'm struggling with at more than twice her age. It's actually a really good skill, and I do give myself credit for acknowledging and respecting it in her, and for not keeping her emeshed in guilt. I honestly would rather never see her and know she was happy and content, than see her and know it was because I was manipulating them or guilting them into it, or that they were scared to say no. So finding what there is to admire in your daughter's ability to choose contact can, imo, be helpful and relieving to both of you .

Dd2 and I are lowish contact ATM after a big Christmas blow up where we were both/neither at fault. The best gift I can give her is her space. I do message now and then, and get replies, and have seen her several times this year, but I'm very committed to allowing her to handle life and relationships her way. All relationships are a dance, and sometimes the partners in the dance need a break. You can lovingly engage with it, and even find positives in it. I'd reply, t'hanks hon, I appreciate the thought. Hope all's well. Love you. ' and leave it at that. Angry feelings are for exploring in a journal, with trusted friends, or a therapist.. Good luck. Adult children relationships aren't always the easiest.

A walk I took alone in the arboretum; cold winter air, a path winding upwards through young forest. Grateful for this memory of extreme well-being and connection with myself and the natural world. Laughing so hard on the telephone I could hardly breathe, and ds coming in to see what was going on! Grateful for the many memories this year of laughter, eccentricity and vulnerability with a friend.

It was wonderful to watch here in Sydney.

At no point did I suggest people force their children to work in abusive jobs. I think I suggested that the teens, when one typically has parental support of some kind, is a good age to learn how to do things like fight for one's work rights, including learning the skill of looking for a different job that is less overtly toxic. And that the workplace benefits from on-the-ball teens. I really don't believe that m/c teens without jobs are making things better for w/c kids with jobs...we apparently have a labor shortage here, and it has not improved the workplace in any way. All that seems to happen is existing workers get squeezed to the bone. I am old fashioned and think that workplace organizing is the way to achieve workplace improvements ( not being snarky saying that it's old fashioned - union membership here is at an all time low...it's clearly a 20th C perspective that has been undermined and/or rejected). Finally, I do think working 'low' jobs for a period is something that can increase empathy ( and hopefully later political action) in adults who worked as teens. Dd2 is now on a very fast track in her (professional) career, and frankly, it's a different kind of toxic, good pay for it, but her summers in retail as a uni student, while hard, was an important experience in helping her really internalize the understanding that all labor has value. But yeah, basically I think the workplace is ****ed in so many ways, just most of us don't have the option to avoid it. So we have to learn to navigate it. For teens, it can be a deeply experiential learning in that navigation, while in a stage of life not typically burdened by full responsibility for a family budget (acknowledging that some teens do carry that burden). That's all. If my teens had had a binary choice between being abused (beyond the 'normal' abuse of labor for profit) at work or not working, of course I would not expect them (nor any teen) to work in that environment.

I'm grateful for the handyman who came and dealt with the damage caused by the roof guys. Friendly, professional, quiet, hard working - left things in a better state than when he arrived.

Congratulations! Welcome to the little one.

Hmm...I wanted 0, and then I wanted 6. I had three. I'm relatively happy about that. When they were younger, I used to wish I had a 4th, but now they are grown up, I am glad I stopped at 3. They are all like me in one way or another. I have one sibling, and am the oldest.

High rotation Also listening to the new Arctic Monkeys album. Would literally die without music.

I think that if people think that the modern workplace is a place, for most people, particularly for those working in under-valued industries, where poor treatment is a one-off, they are not in touch with the modern workplace. It's endemic. Health, education, care, not to mention retail and hospitality - poor treatment of employees (labor conditions and wages + management ) is how these systems are sustained. I think teens is a good time (while you still have the support of parents and the hope that you don't actually have to be financially independent) is a great time to learn to recognize the ways in which you are being exploited, become active in challenging it, and learn to leverage the little power you have - withdrawal of your labour - for your benefit. I have a strong sense that people who think their children are 'too deserving' for this experience may be playing a part in upholding it - my son's workplace is better off, employee wise, for having him in it. He helps co-workers make sure they know their rights, and helps them check that they are not being underpaid. He takes part in union and other activism, while still maintaining productive relationships with managers. These are good things to do in the workplace - we need good, intelligent, capable and concerned young people being active in these jobs. Schools are not a site free of abuse, harassment, pressure, denial of autonomy. In fact, such terrors can thrive there.

Join the real world, where even non-teens get treated poorly for crappy pay. I would LOVE for everyone to work in a decent job with decent conditions, however, this is not the world we live in. And there's just so much socio-economic privilege behind, 'oh, my teens don't work.' Or 'my teens work, but only in jobs where we know the family'. Great. Bully for you, Many teens work because that's how they can pay for things. Many teens don't have extensive networks of contacts, or the luxury of just waiting for the right thing while mama pays. So yes, when teens work because they have to, in the available jobs, we hope they will have decent managers, though we know their conditions will be not great. And when they find they have a poor manager, we help them deal with that while looking for the next job, and learning how most people live their lives - dealing with imperfect situations while trying your best to improve on it as you go. Find and building solidarity with co-workers, learning how to manage difficult people. Learning the monkey bar art of swinging along to what is coming, without letting go of one bar before you've got hold of another. The skills most ordinary people need to survive life. (At least, unlike school, there is an element of autonomy. Teens can quit their workplace by securing another job if their manager is abusive or insufferable.) Yes, lovely if you can do that at 16 with wonderful pay and conditions. Dream-world for most.

It's not just. Equal work should be equal.pay.

Ds started at $15 AUD and I think is now $20. It's because we have youth wages. I think it's unethical; if you are doing the same work as someone older than you, you deserve the same pay. The minimum youth wage relies on parents subsidizing their children. Ds pays token board, but could not survive independently on youth wage. We are a high COL area with an inflation problem. Effectively, the company gets his labour cheap and I make up the difference. I'm not sure what it is over 21. Not enough to manage COL + inflation, that's for sure.

Work is pretty toxic, not just for teens. The toxicity just varies. Very few people are working in ethical jobs, for a start. And those that are often have to deal with terrible management, pay or conditions. Plenty of people can hit one or more positives, such as high status/pay or great conditions, but it's nearly always exploitative of others somewhere along the line. Helping a teen navigate the various toxicities the workplace throws at you is a great learning experience, imo. Ds has learned a lot of self-advocacy skills through his lowly retail job. It's absolutely going to stand him in good stead in his adult life, and the toxicity (such as it is) has caused way less harm than the toxicity I see every single day in the compulsory education system. Teens can leave jobs; children and teens are stuck in institutional settings no matter how toxic.

Ds bought me a FunkoPop of my favourite rapper 🙂 A colleague has gone out of her way to be inclusive and share data, strategies and motivation with me. Someone whose children I tutor always adds a bonus when I invoice them for the term.

My favourite place in my home is my purple yoga mat. If I'm down on that mat, I'm doing OK. I like to do my yoga, and then write, and I write still sitting on the mat, with my computer open on a small folding floor table that is also one of my favourite 'places'.

Different situation, but I graduated ds early, and sent him to work. He has absolutely THRIVED in the work place. I do anticipate him returning to study next year, and ymmv - it's relatively easy for us here to access study at any age. He will likely do something IT or graphic design related (not at university). ADHD can do a number on an individual's perception of themselves as academic, and I wouldn't downplay the role his neurological differences are playing here.