Power struggles: It's not about you ... or is it?

John Stein

It was a few weeks after I had opened a new secure facility to treat hardcore juvenile offenders sentenced by the courts – the first of it’s kind in Pennsylvania. One day, Barry approached me in the rear of the facility. No one else was around. Barry was a big lad, almost seventeen, tall and muscular at 100 Kilos (about 220 lbs.). He bench-pressed nearly 200 kilos (over 400 pounds.) Our fifth resident, Barry was our first from the maximum security prison for juveniles at Camp Hill.

Barry said he would like to visit his old high school and asked if I could arrange it. That sounded like a good idea to me. We were supposed to be promoting the involvement of our residents in the community and I was thrilled that Barry had some interest in his education. Thinking he wanted to see some of his old teachers and trying to figure out how we might accommodate this most reasonable request, I asked why he wanted to visit the school. His response, “I’d like to see my girl friend.” Oops! I tactfully replied, “No. we’re not running a dating service here.” Bigger ooops! And the challenge was on.

Barry said he guessed then he’d have to go himself, to which I replied that we couldn’t let him do that. Barry was standing between me and a wall of old wooden windows. They were nailed shut, but other than that and locked steel doors (and me), there was no security. Barry picked up a solid wooden chair and said, “Suppose I just smash out a window.” I knew I couldn’t stop him, but I also knew I couldn’t let him do that, so at 75 kilos (about 165 lbs.), I told him, “I can’t let you do that.”

He seemed puzzled. There was no way I could stop him. First of all, he was much bigger and stronger than I ... Second, he was standing between me and the windows. All he had to do was turn around, smash a window with one swing of the chair, and take off. Even if I followed and could catch him, I couldn’t subdue him.

So what did Barry do? Well, he pointed to the plaster wall behind me and said, “Ok. Pretend that wall is the windows. How are you going to stop me?” The bathroom was on the other side of the wall. I told him, “I don’t care if you get to the wall.” “Well,” he said, “how are you going to stop me?” I reiterated that I didn’t care if he got to the wall, I just couldn’t let him go out the windows.

It was too much for him. It was like his circuits were overloaded. He went to his room, just a few steps down the hall, and tossed the chair on a bed. It bounced and hit the wall making a hole in the new plaster. We had just finished constructing the semi-private bedrooms in what had been a large dormitory. Stunned, he apologized sincerely. He had not meant to make a hole in the new wall.

My analysis: He wanted to see his girl. The easiest way to see her was if we took him. When I told him “No,” he could certainly escape, but at that point, it became a contest between him and me – a power struggle.

Interestingly, many power struggles, perhaps most, are instituted by adults trying to get kids to do something, or perhaps more likely, to stop doing something. This one was instituted by a kid trying to get me to do something. I won it the same way the kids do – I refused.

In the end, it really was all about me and him. The girl had nothing more to do with it.

And the lesson – it is really hard for the person who starts a power struggle to win it.