The first and foremost caveat of the approach is "stand #1: I refuse to be drawn into energizing energy". Essentially, that you will not reward a child with strong emotions and reactions for their misbehavior. Glasser believes children are fascinated with our reactions....and will evoke them to get our "energy".
Anyone else having Dr. Strangelove flashbacks? XD
As is usually the case with generalizations, the above is often but not always true. There's a conflict dynamic that is all too common between adults, usually married, wherein one partner shuts down as a defensive mechanism. The vocal partner escalates their aggression, in an effort to get the quiet partner back into the discussion. The quiet one retreats further, the vocal one escalates yet again, and it becomes a destructive feedback loop. In this scenario, the vocal one is escalating not out of a need to "steal energy," but because of growing insecurity about the relationship. "Do you even care?"
And, the reason I bring this up is because I noticed my DD7 and I caught up in this same dynamic during a meltdown, where with my calm demeanor I was cast in the role of quiet one, and she played the vocal one. The meltdown was triggered by a new skill on the guitar she was having difficulty with. We gave her a few minutes of timeout to gather herself, and when I went to check on her it seemed she was getting worse, not better. I tried to talk her down from it, but she kept escalating further, and by the time she was shouting over me every single time I opened my mouth, I knew that this approach was going nowhere, and I needed to try something else.
So, I decided to poke the bear. I didn't get all shouty with her, but I did start making some deliberately inflammatory statements. "As long as you maintain that attitude, you are absolutely right, you will
never learn to play this," etc. It gave her the reaction she was looking for, and by the time I suggested we immediately throw her guitar in the trash, she'd been given a new worry to short-circuit that feedback loop. The meltdown abruptly ended, a couple days later she initiated a guitar practice with those skills without being told to, and by the end of the week she was not only playing the chords passably well, but enjoying mixing them around to create her own tunes.
I wouldn't endorse using the "poke the bear" play on a regular basis, but it can be useful when the "don't energize the energy" play is backfiring.
