4 Predictors of Divorce and Their Antidotes

According to John Gottman, there are 4 predictors of divorce.  He refers to them as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.   He also graciously offers antidotes for each one.

1.  Criticism 

Attacking your partner’s personality or character, usually with the intent of making someone right and someone wrong:

 Generalizations:  “you always…”  “you never…” “you’re the type of person who …”  “why are you so …”

Antidote to criticism:

Use a gentle start up.  Start with an “I” message.   “I feel __________ when you ______.  I need you to ____________.”

2. Contempt    (this is the most destructive one.)                                                                                        

 Attacking your partner’s sense of self with the intention to insult or psychologically abuse him/her:

• Insults and name-calling: “bitch, bastard, wimp, fat, stupid, ugly, slob, lazy…”
• Hostile humor, sarcasm or mockery
• Body language & tone of voice: sneering, rolling your eyes, curling your upper lip

Antidote to contempt:

Claim responsibility.  “What can I learn from this?  What can I do to make it better?”

Validate your partner.  Let your partner know what makes sense to you about what they are saying; let them know you understand what they are feeling, see through their eyes.

 3. Defensiveness

Seeing self as the victim, warding off a perceived attack:

• Making excuses (e.g., external circumstances beyond your control forced you to act in a certain way) “It’s not my fault…”, “I didn’t…”
• Cross-complaining: meeting your partner’s complaint, or criticism with a complaint of your own, ignoring what your partner said
• Disagreeing and then cross-complaining “That’s not true, you’re the one who …” “I did this because you did that…”
• Yes-butting: start off agreeing but end up disagreeing
• Repeating yourself without paying attention to what the other person is saying
• Whining “It’s not fair.”

Antidote to defensiveness:

Practice getting undefended.  Allow your partner’s utterances to be what they really are: just thoughts and puffs of air.  Let go of the stories that you are making up.

4. Stonewalling

Withdrawing from the relationship as a way to avoid conflict.  Partners may think they are trying to be “neutral” but stonewalling conveys disapproval, icy distance, separation, disconnection, and/or smugness:

• Stony silence
• Monosyllabic mutterings
• Changing the subject
• Removing yourself physically
• Silent Treatment

 Antidote to Stonewalling:

Re-write your inner script.  Replace thoughts of righteous indignation or innocent victimization with thoughts of appreciation, responsibility that are soothing & validating.

Remember that you chose your partner and you are on the same team.  If you feel you are not being heard by your partner, chances are, they are feeling the same way.  Slow down and don’t get sucked into the fight.  Focus on the feelings that your partner is experiencing and steer clear of the four horseman.  They are the end of your marriage.

 

Imparting Values to Your Children and Having the Sex Talk!

If we value our children we must help them to develop a value system that benefits them and positively impacts the world in which they will live.  Before you can teach values, however, you must decide which values to teach.  This means stopping to think about what you believe is important.

What do you want to teach your children about life?  What about aging, health and well being, relationships, sexuality, religion and spirituality, money and finances, education, and grief and loss?   These are big parts of life that most of us experience and have struggled with at some point.

If we hope to influence our children, we must live with both intention and attention – we must know what we want to teach them and make sure that we do so at every opportunity.

Talking About Sexuality

Many parents find the issue of sexuality to be especially difficult to talk about with their children.  We often ask them to point out their eyes, ears, nose, belly button…. And then we skip to their knees and toes!  The end result of such omissions is that children end up with no vocabulary for important parts of the body.  The other alternative is the cutesy names like “pee pee”, and “nana”, and all the other ones you’ve heard over time.  It is really important that a child knows the correct terms for different parts of the body so that they can be comfortable with their bodies, and how they work, and how to take care of them.  Using words that are not “dictionary terminology” may give the impression that the body part being talked about is somehow shameful.  Additionally, when the child needs to seek help, it is important that they have a language (vagina/penis) that can be used with confidence and understood rather than a nickname used by the family, especially when abuse or health care is at issue.

Ideally, there won’t just be the one big “sex talk”.  If you have little conversations along the way, it will be less of a big deal and kids will be comfortable when the topic comes up.  In fact you can start around age 3.  At this age, be sure to define sex for kids.  As defined in the dictionary, sex is to be designated male or female.  In other words, it is more than just sexual intercourse and we can start with the basics of gender and names for body parts.  Remember, sexuality is a topic that is greatly affected by a child’s stage of development and environment.  Note that when it comes to discussing sex and sexuality with older children, you’ll want to be prepared to talk about emotions, beliefs about love, being needed and wanted, and self esteem as it is appropriate based on their age and level of understanding.  While we cannot always be there to protect and inform our children, we can definitely model how we like to be treated in a relationship, in addition to providing a safe and nurturing environment and sharing with your children how to seek help when they need it.  Most importantly, parents can help the children think for themselves or do some critical thinking about how their behaviors and actions can affect their self esteem, safety, and growth.  A parent can model the family’s values and beliefs, affirming both parent and child as loving people worthy of both love and respect.

Recommended Books:

• It’s Not the Stork: A Book  About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends by Robie H. Harris
• It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris
• Deal with It!  A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain and Life as a gURL.  By Rebecca Odes
• The Guy Book: An Owner’s Manual by Mavis Jukes
• GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens 2^nd edition  by Kelly Huegel

Please feel free to share other tips and resources you have found useful in your approach to talking to kids about sex!

 

Gifted and Talented: What It Means To Be Wired Differently

Most people think that GT is a label that begins in school and ends in school.  While most schools have made a concerted effort to identify and serve our gifted and talented children, they often fall short when it comes to understanding the emotional needs of this unique and very special population. 

Thanks to the work of Polish psychologist, Kazimierz Dabrowski, we now know so much more of what it means for these individuals to be wired differently than the peers.  We are beginning to embrace the knowledge that their individual make up isn’t something that is turned on the first day of kindergarten and left behind upon graduation from high school.  This is so much more than a school label.  It is who they are from the inside out and who they will remain for a lifetime.   Dabrowksi exposed us to what he calls the “overexcitabilities” and OE’s for short.  The gifted are extremely sensitive in a variety of areas.  It’s a stimulus-response different from the norms.  It means that in these 5 areas, a person reacts more strongly than normal, for a longer period than normal to a stimulus that may be very small.  It involves not just psychological factors but central nervous system sensitivity.

The 5 areas are:

• Psychomotor
• Sensual
• Imaginational
• Intellectual
• Emotional

Psychomotor:

This is often thought to mean that the person needs lots of movement and athletic activity, but can also refer to the issue of having trouble smoothing out the mind’s activities for sleeping.  They may display lots of physical energy and movement, fast talking, lots of gestures, and sometimes nervous tics.

Sensual:

Here is the “cut the tag out of the shirt” child who will limp as if his leg is broken when only a sock seam is twisted.  They also have a love of sensory things – textures, smells, tastes, etc. or a powerful reaction to negative sensory input (bad smells, loud sounds, etc.)  They tend to be sensitive to bright lights an harsh sounds.  A baby who cries when the wind blows in his face, a child who plugs his ears when the automatic toilet flushes.  The child who is awed to breathlessness at the sight of a beautiful sunrise or cries hearing Mozart, etc.

Imaginational:

These are the dreamers, poets, “space cadets” who are strong visual thinkers, use lots of metaphorical speech.  They day dream, remember their dreams at night and often react strongly to them, believe in magic and may take a long time to “grow out of” Santa, the tooth fairy, etc.

Intellectual:

Here’s the usual definition of “giftedness”.  Kids with a strong “logical imperative” who love brain teasers and puzzles, enjoy following a line of complex reasoning, and figuring things out.  A love of things academic, new information, cognitive games, etc.

Emotional:

This includes being “happier when happy, sadder when sad, angrier when angry,” etc.  There is an intensity of emotion, but also a very broad range of emotions as well as a need for deep connections with other people or animals. Unable to find close and deep friends, they may invent imaginary friends or simply make do with pets or stuffed animals.   They are full of empathy and compassion.  A child who needs a committed relationship will think herself “betrayed” by a child who plays with one child today and another tomorrow and refers to both as “friends.” This is also the OE that makes the kids susceptible to depression.

Dabrowski believed emotional OE to be central — the energy center from which the whole constellation of OE’s is generated.

Highly gifted people tend to have all 5 of these, but different people lead with different OE’s. The engineer types lead with Intellectual, the poets with Emotional and Imaginational, etc. but variations in the levels of the individual OE’s explain a great deal about the temperamental differences we see!

These five describe the unusual intensity of the gifted as well as the many ways in which they look and behave “oddly” when compared to norms.

 

Adapted from Dabrowski’s Overexcitabilities: A Layman’s Explanation by S. Tolan

Emotional Needs Assessment

All human beings have certain needs in common. Some of these needs are easier to fill than others. Needs for food, shelter and clothing are sometimes hard to fill but we manage to do it. Other needs are just as important but easier to ignore – our emotional needs. Take this needs assessment and see where you are at.
Needs Assessment

Parents are often quick to say “There isn’t time for me right now.” But in reality, we must take care of ourselves if we are to take care of others. We cannot give what we don’t have! Having our needs met involves other people, but ensuring that they are met is still our responsibility. How do we do that?

Below are a few ideas to get you started.

• Talk with others and share your thoughts and feelings.

• Ask for what you need in an open and honest voice (without demanding, whining, or asking someone to read your mind).

• Ensure that your support system includes more than one person.

• Build relationships with people who are willing and able to give and receive emotional support.

• Be a person worthy of respect and trust.

• Give what you most want to receive.

Becoming aware of our needs allows us to focus time and attention on building the kinds of relationships that will help us meet them.

If you have suggestions for other ways to get your emotional needs met, I’d love for you to share by leaving a comment. Thanks for reading!

Stages of Grief after a Miscarriage

Some women will go through all of these stages; others will go through only some of them or will experience them in a different order:

Denial and Isolation

Many women hold out a slim hope that the doctor was wrong and that they are not, in fact, having a miscarriage at all. You might find yourself doing hours of research on the Internet looking for another explanation for your miscarriage symptoms.

Perhaps you don’t want to see anyone –- not even your spouse or partner. You might resent anyone who speaks to you or you want to hole up at home and not take phone calls or go to work. Social interaction may feel exhausting, and you may just want to be by yourself.

Anger

You may look for someone to blame for the miscarriage. Many women blame their doctors for not seeing the signs earlier and for not being able to prevent the loss from taking place. You might blame your partner or find some reason to blame yourself. (Try to remember that miscarriage is very rarely anyone’s fault and usually cannot be prevented.)

You may feel resentment toward the medical clinic you attended if its pregnancy loss support protocol was inadequate. Your friends and relatives may infuriate you with thoughtless and unintentional hurtful comments. (Try to be gentle with the people in your life and remember that they rarely intend to hurt you — they are usually just trying to help.)

Bargaining

If you are religious, you may try to bargain with a higher being and promise specific good deeds if you get pregnant again quickly and do not have a repeat miscarriage. Or, you may conduct hours of research on how to prevent miscarriages and search for anything that you can do to minimize risk of another loss, such as leading a healthier lifestyle or trying alternative medicine tactics.

If you have this inclination, remember again that you probably did not do anything to cause your miscarriage and that most miscarriage causes are completely out of your hands. Working toward a healthier lifestyle is nearly always a good idea for any person, but just beware of creating any unrealistic expectations for yourself or believing any claims that something is a “miracle cure.”

Depression

You might wonder if you will ever have a baby. You may convince yourself that you just aren’t meant to be a mom, or that you are being punished for some reason. If you are trying to conceive again, and you are not getting pregnant as quickly as you would like, you may despair that it will never happen. If you do get pregnant again, you may feel intense anxiety and a conviction that you will miscarry again.

Images of babies or pregnancy in public and in the media might bother you, leading you to turn away when you see families with young children or women with visibly pregnant bodies. You may not be able to handle attending coworkers’ and relatives’ baby showers or visiting newborn babies. You may end up flipping the channel when commercials come on featuring pregnancy tests.

Acceptance

Although the pain of your miscarriage may always be with you, it will at some point become easier to deal with. You will be able to look back and be sad that the miscarriage happened, but your feelings of sadness will not feel nearly as overwhelming as they did in the beginning. Many women will not reach this stage until after giving birth to another child.

Whatever you are feeling, please remember that it’s normal and that it won’t always feel as overwhelming as it does in the beginning. You will find that you are stronger than you think and that, over time, coping with the miscarriage will become easier.

Source: 2006. Memorial Hospital, Inc.

It’s time to HALTT and think before you react!

Parents who are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Triggered often struggle to be who they want to be for their children.  To be in HALTT mode means we need to stop and catch our breath before reacting to a child or a situation.  When we are in HALTT mode, it takes 1) thought  2) attention to our own physical and emotional condition and 3) some parenting skills to respond to children with love and care.

 H- Hungry:  When we are hungry, we can’t focus and our attention gets short.  When our blood sugar level gets off balance, we start acting grouchy!  Making decisions becomes difficult.  The stomach growls, “Get out of the way, I need to eat!  No more patience!”

A-Angry: Angry people cannot hear.  When we’re angry, our breathing tends to be shallow and fast.  The heat gets so intense inside our bodies that it almost seems as if an explosion is building.  Completely out of patience; we send the message, “Don’t mess with me!”  No matter what someone else is doing, they are wrong.

L-Lonely:  Loneliness saps us of our energy.  Sighs… wondering… sadness… But NO conflict please!  We are often very needy when lonely, yet sometimes want to be absolutely alone.  We tend to communicate, “Nobody cares about me and now I don’t care about anyone else either!”

T-Tired: Tired for most of us means exhausted. When we’re tired we’re in no mood to discuss anything.  We feel overwhelmed and all we want to do is sleep.  Decisions seem harder to make and we don’t have the energy to argue – although we can snap at anyone who tries to push us!  All we want to say is “Go away!”.

T- Triggered:  To be triggered is to feel your body reacting – and many times you do not know why.  We want to fight, or we want to run.  We may feel outrage, disgust, or intense sadness way out of proportion to what is currently happening.  In some way the person, the message, or the situation in front of us reminds us of another time and place that was painful.  Often we are easily agitated, even ready to cry.

Hungry?  Angry?  Lonely?  Tired? Triggered?

Take care of these things first.  Delay making crucial decisions.  Realize that when someone is in HALTT mode, that person will have a tendency to react rather than respond.

When I am working with parents and teaching HALLT, I often add in Chronic Pain which can definitely affect someone’s mood and cause them to want to react rather than respond.  Are there others that you think are worth mentioning?  Ilook forward to your comments.

Your Teenager’s Brain

Teenagers Brain handout

When you are at a loss for what to do with that crazy teenager living under your roof, your best bet is to try to understand what is going on in their brain.  I’ve included a handout for you to print out and put on your fridge as a friendly reminder that they aren’t crazy, you aren’t crazy and it really is going to be ok.  Once you understand there really are some big changes going on in the brain, it will be a little easier to breathe and remind yourself that “this too shall pass”.  Check out the tips and see what you can do to positively affect your teenager’s brain.

Your Child’s Brain

Childrens Brain handout 

There will always be a debate of Nature vs. Nurture but as a mother, I believe I can do all things – including nurture with the best of them – so I was a bit of a maniac in those first 5 years after my children were born.  I’d heard about that invaluable window of time in the first few years of life where I could really make a difference, and believe me, I wanted to make a difference.  Now that my kids are growing bigger, I try to make a positive impact on anyone else’s kids that I can get my hands on.  I’m not kidding.  As I continue to work towards my LPC licence, I am working towards becoming an RPT (Registered Play Therapist) as well.  Part of my approach with parents will be psychoeducational and I’ll be handing them information like this.  I hope you all enjoy reading about your child’s brain and the things you can do to impact it in a positive way.

Forgive for Good

What is Forgiveness?

• Forgiveness is for you and not the offender.
• Forgiveness is taking back your power.
• Forgiveness is taking responsibility for how you feel.
• Forgiveness is about your healing and not about the people who hurt you.
• Forgiveness is a trainable skill.
• Forgiveness helps you get control over your feelings.
• Forgiveness can improve your mental and physical health.
• Forgiveness is becoming a hero instead of a victim.
• Forgiveness is a choice.
• Everyone can learn to forgive.

What Forgiveness is Not

• Forgiveness is not condoning kindness.
• Forgiveness is not forgetting that something painful happened.
• Forgiveness is not excusing poor behavior.
• Forgiveness does not have to be an otherworldly or religious experience.
• Forgiveness is not denying or minimizing your hurt.
• Forgiveness does not mean reconciling with the offender.
• Forgiveness does not mean you give up having feelings.

To know if it is time for forgiveness, you have to know if there is a grievance in place.

Creating a grievance

• A grievance is formed when something happened in our lives that we did not want to happen AND we spend way too much time thinking about it.

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions – it is very likely you have a grievance.

1. Do you think about this painful situation more than you think about the things in your life that are good?

2. When you think about this painful situation, do you become physically uncomfortable or emotionally upset?

3. When you think about this situation, do you do so with the same old repetitive thoughts?

4. Do you find yourself telling the story of what happened over and over in your mind?

Note:  Creating a grievance is not a sign of mental illness.  Being hurt is not a sign of weakness, stupidity or lack of self-esteem.   It may just mean we lack training in how to do things differently.  Feeling hurt is a normal and difficult aspect in all of our lives – almost everyone creates a grievance at some point.  Even though grievances are normal – they are not healthy.

To form a grievance that interfered with your life, you have done the following three things:

A.  Took an offense too personally

B.  Blamed the offender for how you feel

C.  Created a grievance story

I know what you are saying.  “Of course it is personal, it happened to me!”   I understand that.  But if you want to find forgiveness, keep reading for the antidote.

The Blame Game

• We insist the reason for our suffering lies with someone else (*If we believe the cause of the hurt lies outside us, we will look outside ourselves for the solution as well)
• When we blame someone else for our troubles, we remain stuck in the past and unable to heal.
• When we believe someone else is the cause of our pain then we believe we need something from them in order to feel better (we want an apology, a promise to change, someone to beg our forgiveness, etc.)

Unfortunately, while it is easy to blame others for how we feel, we are essentially giving away our power.

Giving Away Our Power

• When we blame another person for how we feel we give them power to regulate our emotions.
• Feeling bad every time we think of the person who has hurt us becomes a habit and leads us to feel like the victim of someone more powerful.
• We can feel helpless because we are constantly reminded both in mind and body of how bad we feel.  When we blame this normal, protective response on the offender, we make a mistake.

The Grievance Story

• There are many versions of your story and many points of view but you only get to tell it from your point of view – your version.
• How often you tell it, to whom you tell it, and how you tell it dramatically affect your life.
• We can easily paint the picture of helplessness in the face of someone’s cruelty, thus creating a grievance story.

Is yours a grievance story?  (“Yes” to five or more and “No” to #12)

1. Have you told your story more than twice to the same person?

2. Do you replay the events that happened more than two times a day in your mind?

3. Do you find yourself speaking to the person who hurt you even when that person is not there?

4. Have you made a commitment to yourself to tell the story without upset and then found yourself unexpectedly agitated?

5. Is the person you hurt you the central character of your story?

6. When you tell this story, does it remind you of other painful things that have happened to you?

7. Does your story focus primarily on your pain and what you have lost?

8. In your story is there a villain?

9. Have you made a commitment to yourself to not tell your story again and then broken your vow?

10. Do you look for other people with similar problems to tell your story too?

11. Has your story stayed the same over time?

12. Have you checked the details of your story for accuracy?

So if you’ve seen enough and recognize that you need to forgive here is some guidance:

Get the right kind of support:

• Ask for comfort for a short period of time
• Request advice on how to handle what happened
• Ask for honesty from your support network
• Try to learn from the support
• Tell the positive story of your successful coping
• Experience the health benefits of forgiveness

Here are the “don’ts”

• Complain to family and friends about how poorly you were treated
• Resist  advice
• Ask others to support you even if you are wrong
• See the challenge as too big to handle
• Suffer the health consequences

Finding the impersonal in the hurt:

• Realize how common each painful experience is
• Nothing that has happened to you is unique
• Suffering is common among everyone
• You were not the first nor will you be the last one it happens to
• Most offenses are committed without the intention of hurting anyone personally

Choose Your Story

We begin the process of creating a new story by taking care every time we talk about the unresolved painful things that have happened to us. 

Your grievance story will:  hurt you, imprison you, keep you in the past, isolate you from friends and family, and remind you and others that you are a “victim”.

Learn forgiveness and you will: tell your story so your problems become challenges, allow you to overcome difficult obstacles , allow you to succeed on a journey of forgiveness, and remind you and others that you are a “hero”.

Avoid Unenforceable Rules

An expectation you have that you do not have the power to make happen.   It is often an expectation of how another should behave or how things should play out. We do not have the power to enforce all of our “rules and expectations”.  Trying to force something you cannot control is an exercise in frustration.  The more unenforceable rules you have, the more frustrated you are likely to be.  You must let go even if there is only one, because you will suffer every time it is broken.   Recognize this and begin making enforceable rules that give you some power and control.

Here is the bottom line…

Forgiveness is a choice.  Let it be on the menu of choices when you are mistreated.  Forgiveness takes place by undoing each of the steps of the grievance process.

• balance the impersonal with the personal                                                                                                                   
• take responsibility for how we feel                                                                                                                           
• change a grievance story to a forgiveness story

Before you are ready to forgive, make sure:

• You know what your feelings are about what happened. (naming the feelings keeps us from denying or minimizing the feelings)
• Be clear about the action that wronged you.  (it’s important to know exactly what lines were crossed and that it is not ok so we can avoid situations like it in the future)
• Share your experience with at least one or two trusted people.  (sharing your pain helps put your feelings into words and allows others to care for and offer guidance and support)

Recommended Book:  Forgive for Good  by Dr. Fred Luskin

Empathy: Why We Should Nurture It in Our Kids

Empathy is the ability see and value what another person is feeling or experiencing.  When we see someone crying tears of joy at an important reunion and notice ourselves choking up, that’s empathy.  When we see someone struggling with a problem and feel an emotional pull to help, that’s empathy.  It’s a core-skill for what psychologists call “pro-social” behavior – the actions that are involved in building close relationships, maintaining friendships, and developing strong communities.  Some say it appears to be the central reality necessary for developing a conscience as well.  While raising empathetic kids may seem like a daunting task, you should know that kids are empathetic by nature.

I imagine most of us do this already when we tell our kids to “think about how what you did made your sister feel.”  We are inviting them to recognize that it is important to take another’s feelings into account.    Here are a few more ways to help support our kids’ development of empathy:

• Help your kids put words to their emotions.  Feelings are complex bio-chemical realities that take place in our whole bodies, but not necessarily involving our logical brain!  Naming them can be trickier than we sometimes realize.  We have so many words in our language to try to express the various shades of sadness, anger, and fear.  Helping our kids find the right words that express what they are feeling is a great way for them to come to understand the feelings of others.
• Feel out loud.  Modeling the behavior you want your kids to emulate is one of the best parenting srategies around.  Kids are watching us all the time and what we do influences them as much or more than what we say.  Share your thoughts and feelings about situations in the family, what friends are going through, what that kid at school your is complaining about might be feeling, and even what you see on TV.  It doesn’t have to be a heavy lecture- just simply share what the other person may be feeling, how it affects you and that it makes you want to consider how to help.
• Include empathy as part of discipline.  Make sure you include conversations about how people are affected by a problem as you are creating the solution.  Have them consider how their sibling may be feeling after getting hurt.  Show sympathy to the perpetrator too, so they can see how this empathy can guide consequences as well.
• Reward empathy.  Pay attention to when your kids are responding out of empathy, reaching out to help, or changing their behavior out of concern for another.  Let them know you recognize it and support what they are doing.  Feel free to give them an “out of the blue” treat too – it won’t hurt!
• Be patient.  Even as adults, we are not perfectly empathetic all the time.  It’s a lot to ask kids to put others first and to have the emotional energy to notice other’s feelings all the time.  As with all things, progress is slow and accumulates over time as their skills (and brains) develop. 

Keep pointing these moments out and modeling the skills as best you can.  Our kids will get there, just like we did!

I’d love to hear your comments and stories of how you model empathy for your children!   Thanks for reading!

                                                                                               

 

*Information adapted from a Steve Palmer article