November 17, 2010
by Rod Smith
It's the journey, remember...
A healthy family – and I will remind you that no person or family is healthy all of the time (that’s unhealthy!) – sets itself on broad and healthy goals that include being:
1. Unpredictable, spontaneous, flexible; allowing each person and each generation, to be different from the former generations.
2. Forgiving (reflective, gracious) – allowing little or no time for the gathering of injustices.
3. Funny – often self-deprecating.
4. Hospitable – welcoming of strangers and guests.
5. Generous – eager to share with persons in need.
6. Open – willing and able to embrace difficult issues.
7. Diverse – welcoming of persons of all shades, creeds, and ages.
8. Free – creative, honest, displaying growing integrity.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Education, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Listening, Responsive people, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Young Love |
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October 18, 2010
by Rod Smith
Honor courage when you meet it
the bravest people I have ever met. Not only are many fighting financial battles with a former spouse, they are at the same time negotiating with schools, coordinating visits to doctors, ferrying children to and from sports events, strategizing visits for the children with the other parent, and trying to placate a boss and colleagues at work. Simultaneously, many are trying to maintain some form of sanity though attempting to develop the semblance of a social life while having to face a stigma (thankfully it is diminishing in some cultures) about being divorced at all.
What divorced mothers do not need is:
1. Romantic involvement with a needy man – especially one who is in search of a mother but doesn’t know it.
2. Judgment about her parenting, her discipline, or her children’s behavior.
3. Questions about what went wrong in her marriage, or the suggestion (overt or covert) that had she “given” her marriage to God, or been more obedient or submissive, or prayed more, fasted more, tithed more faithfully, her marriage would have survived.
4. To be thought of as an easy target for sex as if it is the one thing she must surely be missing now that her marriage is over.
Posted in Attraction, Betrayal, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Domination, Family |
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October 17, 2010
by Rod Smith
Hold back and listen
for as long as possible. Give time to enjoy and know each other without the children. If each of you cannot do this (let’s say she perceives she is unable to be away from the children and you feel somewhat obligated or compelled to include the children in the dating process) then she is not ready to date, and you are not ready to accommodate a woman and children into your life.
When you do meet the children keep out of her relationships with her children. Withhold your opinions (insights, guidance, discipline) if she is not parenting as you think necessary. No matter how much she asks for your input, or how much the children appear to need or love you, if you get prematurely entangled you will ultimately come out second best.
You are at your most helpful when you support, empower, encourage the woman to tap into her internal resources to be fully the mother she is able to be. She has to do this without you if she is ever to be comfortable sharing this with you.
Withhold your opinions about her ex-husband, visitations, her finances, how he treats her or how he treats his children. This potential minefield predates you and you will be better off as a couple if you regard it as none of your business. A relationship built on trying to correct the injustices of her past will not bode well for your future.
Your distinctness (separatness) is more important than your necessary ability to bond with the woman and her children. When the time comes and bonding with both mother and children is necessary, your distinctness will be a life-saving necessity both in the immediate and in the long-term future.
Posted in Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce |
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September 28, 2010
by Rod Smith
Send me your "Something Beautiful"
Write something beautiful – and send it to me.
Keep your contribution to 200 words. Pick a moment from today or from any time in your life and recount it.
I have a few motives:
1. I like to surround myself with beauty. Your writing will assist me toward that end.
2. I believe that each of our lives is a collection of its own set of miracles, its own quarry of joys and delights, even if it is, at the same time, filled with challenges.
3. I’d like to publish a few of your offerings (thus the word limit) and send a prize to the writer of the best piece.
So, have at it. I will be the sole adjudicator of your “something beautiful” submission, and, until it goes to press (if it does) your only reader.
I will send the winner his or her choice of three books: one of the Joan Anderson books I mentioned earlier this week or a copy of a book I have read every June for about 8 years: Failure of Nerve by Ed. Friedman. Please place “Something Beautiful” in the subject line of your Email or your comment. I will close submissions by Friday, October 1, 2010. I look forward to reading something beautiful from you.
Email address: Rod@TakeUpYourLife.com
Rod Smith
9/29/2010
Posted in Anxiety, Attraction, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Faith, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Therapeutic Process |
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August 25, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My daughter (24) has started seeing a man no one in the family likes. Surely she should see this as a ‘red flag’? Do you think we should have a big meeting and all tell her what we see and then let her take it from there?”
See your dislikes as a challenge
to announce that you (the members of your family) are all separate people. Each of you is probably perfectly capable of loving and embracing persons who are very different from the persons others of the family may choose. You can do this all without falling apart as a family.
Letting your daughter know what you see, think, and feel individually might prove helpful to those who feel the need to deliver this message, but I think I’d avoid the big meeting at this time.
I’d suggest you challenge yourselves to love whomever your daughter loves and use your differences as a source of growth.
Posted in Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Friendship, Love |
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August 19, 2010
by Rod Smith
Bravely begin claiming back your life
can be as damaging as child neglect. While I am aware of this somewhat harsh generalization, I cannot help but call to mind the many over-focused parents I have met who, in the name of parenting, lost their lives to their children and in the process, all but consumed their children. Such parents are usually taken aback when the children fight back in a desperate search for room to breathe. If you identified yourself in yesterday’s column and would like to move toward a more healthy position, here are a few initial, or small step, suggestions:
1. Announce your insight about your propensity to over-parent to your spouse (or, in the absence of a spouse, to a few trusted close friends) and declare your desire to give everyone around you more room to move.
2. Do not be afraid – if this is at first even possible. Establishing space and healthy separation will not damage your child. Not doing so might. You are not rejecting your child. If you’ve been over-parenting it is likely your child desires some space even if he or she appears to resist your moves toward some independence. Children are as resistant to change as most people.
3. Forge personal interests unrelated to your child. Fake your enthusiasm if you have to, but get involved in something outside of the home. Come on! Think. You did have a life before you had a child. Reach out to it.
4. Reconnect with old friends to reestablish a community of support. Be careful, initially, to avoid other child-obsessed parents as you try to break your addiction to your child.
5. Make a priority to invest time in the relationship with your spouse. I believe that children are happier when they know that their parents do not depend on the children being happy, but rather that the parents’ relationship is strong. (Added by Vincent Randy)
Posted in Adolescence, Boundaries, Children, Parenting/Children, Step parenting, Trust |
2 Comments »
August 18, 2010
by Rod Smith
Here are 7 signs you might be too close or over-parenting your child (or children):
Have surrendered your power to your child?
1. Your child is central to all your conversations. Every conversation, no matter how initially unrelated, ultimately includes or returns to the topic of your child.
2. You deeply desire to be your child’s friend and so you avoid difficult issues, necessary conflicts and confrontations.
3. You find yourself in the middle, trapped between your partner and your child, your ex and your child, teachers (coaches, mentors) and your child, your parents and your child. You are a self-appointed shield and therefore attempt to fend off essential opportunities for helpful pain and growth, necessary for all children to become healthy adults.
4. Your child is the stake in the ground to which you are tethered and around which you function. Everything is about your child, all of your social life (if you have one at all), your interests, activities; everything is focused around your child.
5. Your primary adult relationship (with your spouse or partner – you might have forgotten that this is in fact your primary relationship) sometimes gets in the way of your role with your child and almost all of the time you choose your child and feel guilty if you do not.
(Tomorrow: Steps to healthy parent-child separation)
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, High maintenance relationships, Love, Step parenting, Teenagers |
3 Comments »
July 26, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My younger brother (19) just got out of jail with nowhere to go because our mother has kicked him out for good. He walked to my dad’s who, with loving arms opened his home to his him. He has been here for four weeks but after two weeks he picked back up on his old life: smoking pot, stealing money from us, lying, not coming home, and lying more. My mother (our parents are divorced) catered to this lifestyle for about two years until she had nothing left. I cannot bear to see this happen to my dad. My brother is the sweetest kid in the whole world but a habitual liar and a thief. I have begged my dad to kick him out but he is still under the illusion that his son might change.”
Rod in about 1962!
as all of you have over your brother. It took your mother two years to reach a point that you want for your father to reach in a month. Until your brother sees the light and your father sees his enabling role, all of you better lock your valuables in a safe place.
Do all you can to stay out of the middle, to allow your brother and father to have to face each other, and increase your tolerance for your father’s pain. While this might sound hard or uncaring, nothing will change for your family while everyone is doing what everyone has always done The healthiest person in the family usually holds important keys for beginning transformational processes, and it can’t happen without the willingness to upset the applecart, and sometimes, even watch it crash.
While ANYONE but your brother assumes responsibility for your brother, he will continue to use behavior that has worked for him in the past – and something must be working if he keeps repeating it.
It is important for you to see that you are not responsible for either of these grown men in your life. You are responsible to each, but not for each – understanding the difference will make a world of difference for you and even potentially for your father and your brother.
Posted in Adolescence, Anger, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Teenagers, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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July 22, 2010
by Rod Smith
Clarify what you expect in your own home
1. Supervise the child – this matter is about the adults, not the child. You, the grandparent, are empowered to make his visits a joy.
2. Gather old irons and toasters for the boy to work on while at your home.
3. Get him a set of tools to keep at your home.
4. Sit with the boy and request he teach you how things work as he dismantles used electrical items you have collected and set aside for him.
5. Place his usual targets, your valued items, out of his sight for a short time.
6. Pack everything already broken in a box and ask the family (as a group) what it intends to do to repair the damages.
7. Be prepared for some conflict as you articulate your expectations for what occurs in your home. Your intent appears to include “fixing” something about your son-in-law. Quit it. Focus on creating a fabulous (real, forthright, fun, flexible, and fascinating) experience for your grandchild every time he walks through your door.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, In-laws, Parenting/Children |
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July 14, 2010
by Rod Smith
“My children, a daughter who is 17 and a son who is 19, are fiercely competitive and hardly anything either says goes unchallenged by the other. They verbally attack each other at every opportunity. Please comment?”
Talking it through in a public place.....
I am aware of just how difficult this is but it is important that they learn to cope with each other without the services of a go-between to assist, or someone who short-circuits their unfortunate, but necessary process. The minute you “jump in” or are pulled in, is the minute you help them avoid responsibility for a conflict of their making – and become responsible for the monitoring of its outcome.
Being piggy in the middle is ALWAYS a very draining, anxiety-producing experience for piggy, especially when piggy in the middle is mom or dad.
Your son and daughter are going to be siblings for many years, perhaps for even longer than they will each know you! The sooner they learn to accommodate and love each other the better off each will be. Learning to love and accept each other will do all of their other relationships a whole lot of good.
Discerning your level of intervention will always be your call. I believe your intervention is necessary if blows are exchanged or if unabashed cruelty occurs.
Call a meeting. Have “dinner with a purpose”. Meet them in a crowded restaurant where it is unlikely that tempers will flair and where they will be unlikely to become loud or aggressive. Let them know the degree of grief you experience when they are continually at each other’s throats. Let them know how a parent feels when his or her children seem unable to get along.
Heart-to-heart conversations can go a long way to building bridges that will be necessary to one day walk cross. I do it with my own children (12 and 9) and I am always surprised at how much it means to them, and how much they take our “dinners with a purpose” to heart*. I know, I know: my children are younger and it is probably much easier when dinner with dad is something exciting. But, this is your opportunity to parent with a purpose – and I challenge you to make it happen.
* We even have “meeting chairs” in our home and we only really sit in them for “serious” or “important” conversations.
Posted in Adolescence, Children, Communication, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Teenagers, Triangles |
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