The girl and her mom are entrenched in an argument about why she should be allowed to do what she wants, no matter what Mom says. And not only should she be allowed to, she intends to do so. Mom says she’ll put a lock on girl’s door. Girl says she’ll climb out the window. Mom says she’ll install barbed wire. Girl says that’s why she has wire clippers. Mom says wire clippers won’t work on razor wire. Girl says bolt cutters will.

“Then I swear to God, I’ll get a Rottweiler,” says Mom.

Slowly and calmly, Lily Anderson, co-coordinator of Step-Up, a counseling program for teens who are violent at home, says, “Okay, we need to keep going.”

The rest of the circle is uncomfortable. Anger management hasn’t worked for these two; they’ve been in group therapy for several months. Everyone is wondering the same thing: what can we do to avoid looking and sounding like them?

Step-Up is an anger management program provided by the King County municipal government. Most participants are here because a court ordered them to be, after an arrest over a domestic dispute. Instead of punishment, the goal is rehabilitation, learning to control one’s emotions. Conflict avoidance and familial reconciliation. Taking responsibility, recognizing warning signs, boosting self-esteem, communicating more positively. Making amends.

I was not ordered here by a court. I came because my parents thought it would be a good idea. I strongly disagreed at first. But my parents and I did argue and swear at each other, and we did benefit from anger management.

In the Step-Up workbook, there are lessons to teach us better behavior. We are presented with various theoretical aggravating situations — John lends his bike to his friend, who forgets to lock it and the bike gets stolen; you asked your friend to take care of your fish while you were on vacation, but she didn’t feed them and they all died — and tasked with finding responses — reactions — that don’t involve anger, aggression or hostility. We learn to change our way of thinking from negative to realistic. We learn to take time-outs and calm down. We learn to listen to each other.

More central to the program than the lessons is the process of checking in, which opens every meeting. In the workbook, there are two wheels: the respect wheel and the abuse wheel. The wheels are divided into separate categories of mutual respect and abuse of family members. During check-in, parents and teens both find something they’ve done from each wheel in the past week, things like Respecting Your Home or Nonthreatening Behavior and conversely, Property Destruction or Threats and Intimidation.

Typically, the process begins with us failing to acknowledge anything we’ve done from the abuse wheel until our parent brings it up. Then we begin to defend our actions. We minimize what we’ve done, deny, justify or blame it on someone else. An argument will likely ensue, at which point one of the coordinators steps in (Steps Up) to point out where we have gone wrong.

As this transpires, everyone else in the group sees other people in the raw. It makes us look into ourselves and realize that we too are here because of this kind of behavior.

The father describes how his son calls his mother names. His teenage son shakes his head, as if to indicate that he has no recollection of these names. “Filthy Jew?” his father says.

Father asks him why he can’t just behave. The teen says it’s because his parents never give him anything he wants. Father asks him precisely what he wants.

“To take the boat out,” he says.

“We let you take the boat out.”

“You only let me take it out for, like, two hours. I want to take it out all day, with as many people as I want to have in it.”

He looks around the circle as though hoping to get someone to back him up. Lily steps in to regulate, pointing out the many abuses he is committing right now.

They tell us to make “I feel” statements as opposed to “You are” statements. (“Instead of ‘You are an asshole,’ try telling your father, ‘I feel like I am being treated unfairly,’”) They teach us the different kinds of responses to adversity: aggressive, passive, assertive and passive-aggressive.

They present us with more hypothetical situations to exemplify these — Olivia and her friend are sitting and talking in the living room. Olivia’s son, Jim, is playing a computer game. Jim shouts the “f” word very loudly. Olivia is embarrassed. She could: a) Tell Jim, “Shut up!” b) Keep talking to her friend like nothing happened. c) Say, “Jim, I need you to speak respectfully in our house.” d) Walk over and unplug Jim’s computer. The goal is assertive communication (answer c). To take charge of the situation without getting caught up in it. To stand up for oneself without acting hostile.

The boy can’t be more than 10 years old. It’s the first meeting he’s come to. He doesn’t want to be here; he says he doesn’t care if they lock him up for not coming.

“I won’t stay in jail. My papa will come and break me out,” he says.

“No one’s going to come and break you out of jail,” says his mother.

The boy’s older brother sits next to him at the meeting. His brother is in his teens, but he has the mind of a two-year-old. The boy sits sullenly, refusing to look at his developmentally challenged brother. Their mother tells how her young son beats up on his older brother and calls him names. She appeals to the boy to try and understand what his brother goes through every day. His older brother blows a raspberry and laughs. The boy turns and snaps at him to shut up.

Every other week, someone graduates from the program, which means cookies and a session devoted to their case. The graduates read two letters to their parents: a sympathy letter where they apologize for whatever it was that they did to get them enrolled in Step-Up, and an empathy letter which they write from their parent’s perspective, and how their behavior must have made them feel. They discuss where they started and where they are now. What’s changed, what’s better. Things are always better. Every member of the group writes compliments on small multi-colored slips of paper which are given to the graduate. Before the graduate leaves, they say a few words, try to impart some wisdom to the newer members, the members who may yet still be skeptical of how they’ll benefit from Step-Up. Often families cry as they reconcile and promise to treat each other with more care in the future. When I graduated, neither my parents nor I cried. Our problems hadn’t been that severe to begin with; we had come a ways, but not as far as some of the other members had come.

Earlier this year, things looked bleak for Step-Up. To save money, the program was to be cut from the budget. However, due to overwhelming response from current and former members of the group, funding has been secured through 2009. Beyond that, the program will have to find funding elsewhere; city council recommends that they lobby the state legislature in the upcoming season.

Meanwhile, dysfunctional families continue to assemble in a circle and learn functionality from one another.