I just answered a rather desperate email from a baby boomer whose ninety year old mother must be placed in a care facility. The mother suffered a broken hip in a fall and cannot walk alone even with a walker. She cannot dress herself, or do any of the other task necessary to living in her own home. The family has been hiring someone to stay with her around the clock, but are no longer able to afford the cost of such care and realize the care they are paying for is not trained or competent to give any real care. They are just baby sitters for the elderly. 

The mother is one of the sweetest people one could ever know. Almost too sweet for comfort. She leaves you wondering if anyone is really that good. In reality she is a velvet covered brick. Underneath the warm and fuzzy exterior is a woman who has learned how to win folks over to her side and enlist them to do what she wants done without ever having to ask or appear to be needy, and to do so without confrontation. She throws out little hooks that, when bitten, trap folks into doing what she wants without her having to ask. Since this case is such a classic example of this process, maybe we should study it together. 

Her daughter has faced the hard fact that her mother must be given care they can't provide or afford at home. Mother doesn't want to go, but she does not confront her daughter directly. She hints and whines to family and friends until they confront the daughter with hurtful accusations. The daughter is crushed and devastated until her brother intervenes and is able to stop the outside onslaught. This means the mother must turn to her weapon of choice in such cases. She begins to hook.

There are only three hooks: guilt, fear, and anger. Most of the time folks will use them in that order. First they try to make us feel guilty. If that doesn't work they try to make us fearful. If that doesn't work, they either get angry or try to make us get angry and say things we regret. Then, when we want to make up, the reconciliation demands that we give in to what they wanted in the first place. 

The mother's first hook was, "I want to die. I want everyone to pray that I will be able to die. I am ready to meet my Savior and do not understand why God leaves me here." Talk about a great hook. That has both guilt and fear in it. This caused panic among the friends and even the hired caretakers. They came to the daughter in tears begging her not to move her mother. So the daughter emailed me to ask what she should say or do. 

My response was for her to recognize this is a hook and the only way to respond to a hook is to not bite it. By that I mean, do not respond with guilt or fear and respond with as little emotion as possible. A good response might be to say, "I am sorry you feel this way, but I can certainly understand how you would do so. It is all right for you to want to die. It is all right for you to be angry and it is all right for you to tell me how you feel. If and when I have to make this kind of change I am going to be angry, so you should have the right to be so as well. I am sorry all of this is necessary and that it makes you unhappy." Then leave it right there, don't get into an explanation battle with her, it has been explained and further efforts will only offer the opportunity for more hooks.

This response disarms the hook. She said she wanted to die hoping you would respond with pleas for her to live. Simply saying you are sorry she wants to die, takes away the power to make you react and leaves the hook lying dead in the room. 

As we face the care decisions with our loved ones, one of the best tools we can develop is the ability to recognize and avoid hooks. The best way to do so is to simply listen to what is being said and what is not being said. Good listeners are hard to hook I make a game out of it. When someone is hooking me I watch for the guilt and wonder how they are going to do the fear one. When the threats come, I see them as a hook instead of a reality and wonder how they are going to use the anger one. Are they going to get mad or try to make me lose it? When I hear and recognize the hooks, I can respond with "I am sorry you feel that way" instead of melting and giving into their manipulation.

I believe manipulation is by invitation only. If someone is manipulating (hooking) you it is happening because you are allowing it to happen. Even if it is mother saying she wants to die.