Loving couples offer each other permission even when permission is not required:

• Permission to mourn losses both great and small.

The loving partner says, “I will not diminish your grief or try to talk you out of it or hurry you through it.”

• Permission to have all the friends needed, both male and female.

The loving partner says, “I will not determine your friendship circle any more than I would expect you to determine mine.”

• Permission to be with family as much or as little as is desired.

The loving partner says, “I will not get in the way of pre-existing relationships and will honor the people you loved before you loved me.”

• Permission to dress in any manner desired that is both pleasing and is comfortable.

The loving partner says, “I will not presume anything about your choice of clothing except that you must find it both pleasing and comfortable otherwise you would not wear it.”

• Permission to speak your truth even if it doesn’t match with my experience.

The loving partner says, “We all have our own filters through which we see the world and I am not going to tamper with yours.”

Allowing children of all ages to face the inevitable challenges that come their way:

• If you “help” and run to their aid, your assistance and anxiety suggests your children are incapable without you.
• Your anxiety becomes another task or challenge your children must endure. They probably have enough on their hands without having to assist you with what you are facing. Make things easier by getting out of the way.
• When children adjust and accomplish things without their parents’ help the children get the helpful message that they are capable of facing tougher and more crucial challenges in the future.
• Your children are probably going to be better at life and facing life’s challenges than you are. Letting them face things without you shows them that you believe in their abilities and are more invested in their success than you are in their dependence.
• Your children deserve the freedom to explore the world and to discover their capabilities. That’s close to impossible if the parents insist on paving the way for them.
• Your children need you to step in, and nothing should stop you, if your detect cruelty or neglect or bullying, otherwise, do the loving thing and let them face whatever it is without you.

“My grandson (13) is of very high intellect. However, his social graces are lacking. He struggles to look people in the eye and show gratitude. His sister, brought up in the same home, is quite the opposite. The parents are embarrassed by his anti-social behavior. They reprimand him continually. This has been going on for years. I am wondering whether this type of behavior is typical of very intelligent people, and if so, should the lad be reprimanded so severely?”

The challenge the boy’s parents appear to face involves giving your grandson room to be his own person – a social or an anti-social one.

While they so intensely connect his behavior with their parenting, they afford him a lot of power over their emotional wellbeing.

Embarrassment, followed by reprimands, suggest a greater commitment to image than to pursuing what, if anything is going on with a family member who may or may not need professional help. If reprimands work (which I doubt) and he falls into line (becomes socially competent) one should not believe his pain or distress or discomfort has somehow disappeared.

Please read “ALL MY STRIPES” by Shaina Rudolph. It is a very helpful book for children – and for adults.

Percy Pheasant was my friend. He was a man of enduring patience and I tested it often.

I know he trusted me because at least once he let at least one of his daughters ride with me on my motorcycle.

Percy perfected the art of what therapists call a “non-anxious presence.” He melded this with a long-term view of everything, meshed it with his deep love of family, and lived his life with an easy grace and natural humility.

Percy was even known here at my church in the USA:

He was traveling with Charles Gordon – and I am not making this up – a member of our congregation whose name really was Donald Duck forgot Percy’s name and introduced him from the pulpit as “Arnold Partridge.” When Percy took to the pulpit he calmly proclaimed, “Thank you Donald Duck, my name is Percy Pheasant.”

The last time I saw Percy was a couple of years ago. He was picking up his beloved Ivy from WOW and we chatted and in that brief and last exchange he reminded me how the real treasures of our existence are kindness, humor, faith, and love. He just stood there, embodying it all.

I do believe in Heaven and that the minute Percy made his entrance even Heaven became a better place.

Rod Smith and sons, Thulani and Nate

December 31, 2016

Lower-functioning people, like lower-functioning families, are mind-bogglingly predictable. They invade boundaries, war over roles, suffer and inflict jealousies, wade in unresolved conflicts, wholesale gloom, demand inordinate attention, collect wounds, and are critical of any who cut loose of their tired patterns and conversations. They are usually rigid, right, and religious.

While I have empathy for such people and families, although it is usually wasted, and while some require intensive help to break their repetitive orbit, until such individuals and families are ready for change, the helper (counselor, therapist, coach) will spin his or her wheels on the client-designed treadmill until the helper becomes part of the client’s low-functioning litany of moans.

Higher-functioning people and families are wildly unpredictable. They care about what works, about what is kind, and how all or most people can benefit from their actions and attitudes. Who is in charge, who and who is honored is of little interest to them, largely because such concerns are eclipsed by the level of meaning that comes with living.

I hope you will get ahold of your life before someone else does.

May you define yourself before someone else does.

May you escape rigidity, religion, and being right, and find it replaced with ambiguity, faith, flexibility, and fun.

And, may it also be true for me.

I have an inordinate love for families no matter how complex. After many years of listening, watching, and connecting the variables, I see several enduring truths:

• Faith, language, culture, country, and levels of wealth or poverty don’t make too much difference to the ways in which people connect, disconnect, love or hurt each other.
• Jealousy is jealousy, selfishness is selfishness, if you are rich or poor and no matter what your mother tongue or what continent is home.
• Unwanted themes in families will repeat despite the best, most loving efforts of those who’d wish they wouldn’t.
• Change is possible but securing it is easier said than done.
• A problem that is ignored will not disappear. It will go into hiding and while it is in hiding it will brew into something more toxic shape and more pernicious than it was when it was first denied.
• The keys of change for a troubled family are in the hands of the member (or members) who is willing to risk and lose all in the name of individual health and wellness. This person will be determined to remain connected to his or her family while they at one and the same time refusing to be sabotaged by its difficulties.

As 2017 looms I want to thank you for your very faithful readership throughout the years. This column was published and was on newsstands for the first time in March 2001 –  I think it was the 21st. And, it’s been going daily ever since. I repeat (having said it in many previous columns): when I write to you I am also writing to myself. I love my life – but it is far from perfect. The challenges I offer as you plan 2017 (yes, PLAN it) I also embrace:

• Let 2017 be a year where you get yourself more and more OUT of debt. There is very little as draining as high-interest debt (or family debt) and to be free of it is indeed absolutely liberating. (Apart from home-bonds, my family is debt free).
• Let 2017 be a year where you owe no apologies. You’ve said and you mean your regrets, you have asked for forgiveness where it’s possible, and you have done as much as you can to learn from your errors.
• Let 2017 be a year where you evolve into the most generous person you know. As I have said many times this is not about financial wealth although it will involve substantial risk and courage and it will sometimes be about money.
• Let 2017 be a year where you watch you own behavior more than focus on what others are doing or not doing.

“Does severing ties mean you will never have to ever see that person again or be expected to relate to them at all? I am referring to your column from Friday where you gave ‘broad scenarios” where a family severance may be necessary.”

Extreme responses, like never having to ever see someone again, are sometimes necessary.

Extreme abuse or cruelty calls for extreme action. But, thankfully, things are not usually so extreme in families.

Just as I offered (with hesitation) the broad scenarios justifying cutoffs, I am going to offer broad stances or attitudes or truths to carry you into a family where caution is required but a complete cutoff may not be necessary.

• Agree to not be alone with a person who has formerly victimized you in any manner.
• Agree that you will not give a single penny to the person who has formerly used you for money no matter how convincing or “reformed” he or she may be.
• Clarify for stance ahead of time. Highly manipulative people know how to “work you” and will take you by surprise.
• Abusive people by definition don’t play by the rules of common decency and respect. Know that going in.
• Remember that you are always in charge of you. This is not a selfish way to live. Surrendering your power to another usually is.

A dozen traits of the healthy members of your family:

• They do not take sides even if it is to their apparent advantage
• They expose gossip for what it is and refuse to be part of it
• The are very much a part of the family but don’t appear to be trapped by any of the family’s problems – this can appear to some who are trapped by the family’s problems as if they do not care
• They find reasons to compliment even the most difficult members of the family
• They listen more than they speak
• They speak well of family members and if they cannot speak well of someone they keep their silence
• They avoid digging up the past unless it is in fun and to laugh at themselves
• They accept criticism
• They are unpredictable and appear to break the family rules
• They show little regard for hierarchy or age while at the same time they are respectful to all
• They are people you can trust with your healthy secrets but not with your attempts to get them to take sides against anyone
• They know how to relax and to laugh and to have fun and they know how to work really hard and get things done when it is time to work