Verbal Judo

This week I attended a library conference down south where I presented two programs. One of them I co-presented with a colleague and friend of mine on the topic "Managing Teen Behavior." This is a subject that comes more and more into play nowadays with librarians dealing with teens adopting the library as a hang out place, and a place where they are left for hours until their parents come home. These teens are restless and bored and often cause problems for staff.

In our presentation we covered verbal judo, a tactical communication style used to generate compliance. Among the topics covered in verbal judo was "things never to say to a teen." Among them are "Calm Down", "You Never... or You Always...," "What's your problem?" and in my opinion one of the most used and awful of them all: "Because I said so." I am guilty of the "Because I said so" statement probably because it has been used on me. Whenever this statement is uttered the first response from a teen will be "why?" When you say "because I said so" you are not supporting your rules with logic and reason and thus will not gain any respect. After I studied these verbal judo techniques I made a promise to keep out "because I said so" from my vocabulary no matter how easy it is to say to an unruly teen.