Let's meet Pai, my fiance's cockatiel.
Isn't he cute? At age 17, he can still pose for a photo and sing songs too. He is going strong. So how is he related to Strategy Training?
Well, I and my fiancé once argued about him.
Here's the story:
My fiance loves Pai. He would put Pai right next to his bed to keep him accompany.
However, I was returning from home from studying at Pennsylvania.
And.
I hate the idea.
Pai is a bird, so his fallen feathers and bird food would fly across his bedroom, which would be our bedroom by the time I came back.
I don't want to have feathers and birdfood on my bed.
Well, I do not want to argue with my fiance, and forcing him to leave Pai forever alone.
So here is how we solved our bird issue:
“We ‘ve had a problem.” I started just like Apollo 13, “I do not like to have Pai in your bedroom because he leaves feather and bird food on the bed. “
“Is he going to be forever alone?!” my fiancé cried “He is going to cry for attention.”
That is very true: Pai does cry for attention, and the fun goes up to disaster/monsterous level from hearing him chirping loudly at midnight.
I took out a paper and wrote:
Goal: To keep Pai accompany without having feathers and bird food on the bed
Plan: ........
Then I show the paper to him.
“Let leave him forever alone in the living room,” my fiancé proposed the idea, while
rolling his eyes.
I wrote it down.
“You seem extremely unsatisfied,” I noted his emotions while expressing my empathy.
Then I wrote: "Work next to Pai in the living room."
“I am working with 3 computers and 1 giant screen.” My fiancé noted, “I do not want to move out of my bedroom just for Pai.”
I rolled my eyes and put a line through my idea.
Then I thought about our times at the San Francisco Zoo, and remembered "The zookeepers often change the tigers and the lions living places to make the places more cognitively and "odor"ly fun for them."
Odor.......
I wrote, “Put Pai in the bathroom which contains a variety of different odors…….” I pointed at my writing, then asked, “How about that?”
Suddenly, Pai has transformed from a cockatiel to a dog.
“Oh yeah!” my fiancé finally cried in approval, “The zoo says that it is healthy to put animals in different environments. I worked next to the bathroom, so Pai can still see me in the bathroom. Also, because the distance is just far enough from the bed, no feathers will be on the bed. I can use a vacuum to clean up what Pai has left behind in the bathroom too!”
He checked the idea, right at the spot.
My fiancé brought Pai into the bathroom. Then he commented, "Now, the world is in peace."
Thus, strategy training helps to save my relationship.
Well, from reading the book How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber and Julie Kim. The authors also mentioned strategy training indirectly as one of the main ways to help parents talk to their children because strategy training help children to problem-solve later when they grow up.
Although, I do not have kids, I hope my conversation with my fiancé is sufficient to reflect how to use strategy training in daily life.
PS: This photo is taken while Pai is in the cage because weirdly, he loves to stay in his cage.
So if you have the time, please share how you use strategy training too!
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