January 7, 2011
by Rod Smith
He or she who enables
1. Lies, covers-up, runs interference, for the enabled.
2. Feels over-burdened or rewarded with responsibility for the enabled.
3. Feels like he or she is living more than one life each day; as if the choices (good and bad) of the enabled are his or her responsibility.
4. Endures “borrowed” anxiety – bears anxiety about choices made by the enabled.
5. Seems unable to see the “self” as disconnected to the self of the enabled, and will often see this connection as “oneness” or love, or a soul-tie, or the “oneness of marriage” making the enabling somehow inescapable.
He or she who empowers
1. Learns to allow others to speak for themselves (“I will not lie for you. If you have to call in as sick when you really are hung-over you will have to make that call yourself.”)
2. Understands the critical distinction between being responsible to others and for others.
3. Learns to allow most choices (not all) of those he or she loves and their consequences to run their course.
4. Learns to distinguish between helpful pain, useful anxiety, and what is and is not legitimate cause for concern.
5. Works at healthy, necessary separation, even while being married, in love, or having soul-ties.
Posted in Anxiety, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Responsive people, Single parenting, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust |
Leave a Comment »
January 1, 2011
by Rod Smith
I watch my two-year-old son bending at the hip, one foot raised and turning until he falls gloriously to the floor in convulsive laughter. A momentary pain lights somewhere so deep inside me I can hardly tell in which of my internal galaxies it sits. It is swift and pointed, like the touch of a darting and determined fly set loose in my emotional innards.
Then the pain is forgotten, swamped in the exceeding happiness of watching him attack life’s toddler challenges. He’s hungrily learning a language now, having conquered walking and running, and expressing his brand new heart sweetly in partial, ill-formed words and sentences which tumble, jumbled and joyed up all over the house.
Sometimes he runs, singing at the top of his voice like an emergency vehicle out of control. With siren blaring, he sprawls across the floor and careens into a heap of toddler chaos. Recovering, he mounts the coffee table against my flagging will and “hee haas” astride his horse, a precocious knowing smile flashing from his distant meadow.
In all of this activity and fun he eases his way further into my being, a steel pylon thrust securely into waiting, willing ground.
Rod’s road-post from DROID.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Education, Family, Living together, Parenting/Children, Single parenting |
Leave a Comment »
October 21, 2010
by Rod Smith
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
“Thank you on behalf all my many single mother friends for the article published yesterday. Thank you for acknowledging our bravery and struggles. Thank you understanding the many roles we play and the many difficulties we overcome because of our love for our children. Thank you for noting it is near impossible to have a romantic social life as solo parents. Thank you for listing and understanding what women do not need in a potential partner or in friendly advice. I am 50 and the mother of two sons whose fathers disappeared when the going got tough.
“I have been a single mom for 32 years, and despite the challenges, long hours, and little thanks associated with the job of single mom, I have been blessed to have my sons and love them dearly. I am also proud of having still managed to forge a career, own my home, a car, and travel the world. I have recently studied to become a Life Coach. I just sit with the thought that my children did not chose to be born and hence, are entitled to the best Mom and woman I can be. One thing I know is that my son’s will make wonderful Fathers.”
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Faith, Family, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Schnarch, Single parenting, Step parenting, Teenagers, Trust, Victims, Voice, Womanhood |
Leave a Comment »
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 |
Leave a Comment »
April 23, 2010
by Rod Smith
Begin now, today, to be the kind of woman you want to become in the future:
1. Stand up for yourself without pushing anyone else over. Speak your mind. Say what you want to say. See what you see. Say what you see you see.
2. Be your own “virus protection” program by keeping the “bad” out and let the good in. Bad: gossip, unfriendliness, rudeness, lies, unnecessarily excluding others. Good: standing up for what is right, good, and just, being “open” and not “closed” to others, being welcoming and friendly to more than just your closest friends.
3. Decide to be a kind and good person even when you see people being mean to others.
4. Choose to be an agent of healing when others are hurt.
5. Don’t surrender your power to anyone – it is always yours to foster, protect, and use, first for your own good, then for the good of others.
Posted in Adolescence, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Leadership, Manipulation, Marriage, Parenting/Children, Responsive people, Single parenting, Space, Triangles, Trust, Voice |
2 Comments »
November 16, 2009
by Rod Smith
Size matters...
I’ve seen many families where the children are “bigger” than the parents. The children’s needs, wants, and desires appear to determine almost everything. The parents’ needs are continually ignored while every desire the children become the parents’ marching orders.
Of course parents willingly sacrifice for their children, but in families with “super-sized” children, the imbalance becomes burdensome.
I have seen children pitch a fit, stamp and storm – when a parent makes a legitimate request of the child, or has to alter a minor plan, or must pursue a detour, which the child perceives as hindering his or her freedom, creativity, rights, or friendships.
Such toxic parent/child binds can drain all the enjoyment out of family life.
When a mother or a father sees the light (acknowledges his or her indulgence of the child, can see the child is unpleasant) and tries to bring the child down to an appropriate size, the child will understandably resist. Resistance can become ugly.
“Un-spoiling” a child is no easy task: it is better not to worship children in the first place.
Posted in Adolescence, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Space, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Triangles, Violence, Voice |
1 Comment »
October 26, 2009
by Rod Smith
“My son (12) and my daughter (14) don’t like their stepmother but when they play their cards right for her she buys them stuff. I don’t like to see my children manipulating to get things from her. Should I step in and say something? We are not really on good terms with each other.”
Let then be...
that the challenges I will place before you are most difficult to achieve – but I repeat: parenting is for grown ups; successful co-parenting is for saints. So…
Do all you can to get on good terms with the other woman who is co-parenting your children. I am not suggesting you become bosom pals but “cordial adults” would be a helpful arrangement for all concerned.
Avoid stepping into the mix with your children and their stepmother. All three have a lot to teach each other. Approaches from you will hinder the process. While no parent wants to see his or her children develop manipulative habits, this is a matter for you to directly address with your children. Your children will manipulate if it works, and will not, if it doesn’t. Take care of how they treat you, and allow their stepmother to discover her own unique relationship with her stepchildren.
Posted in Adolescence, Anger, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Education, Faith, Family, High maintenance relationships, Listening, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Spousal abuse, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Teenagers, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Voice |
Leave a Comment »
October 22, 2009
by Rod Smith
I am convinced that no matter how rough a person’s past is, or how traumatized the present might be, or how bleak or absent possibilities might seem, there is always hope for a more fulfilling future. Today I shall be an agent of hope.
I am convinced that no one is thoroughly bad (there is something redeemable in the “worst” of humanity) and no one is thoroughly good (everyone must combat his or her own “dark” side). Today I will offer guarded trust to all whom I meet.
I am convinced that while in the depths of the bleakest of circumstances, loneliness, and pain, some people attempt to display a brave front. Today I will be an agent of kindness to those who have to hide their deep pain.
I am convinced that my own happiness and fulfillment will be incomplete while it is at the expense of my integrity, while it requires someone else to lose, while it is contingent on darkness or deceit. I will live honestly and without manipulation.
I am convinced that conflict is a necessary part of fulfillment and integral to love. Today I will readily engage in helpful conflict that I may learn to love others more deeply than I have done before.
Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships, Domination, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships, Reactivity, Recovery, Single parenting, Space, Triggers, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice, Womanhood |
1 Comment »
August 4, 2009
by Rod Smith
“I am recently divorced and left my marital home with my son (4). The ex still lives in our marital home. He and his girlfriend (the reason for the divorce) and her kids spend most of their time at this house and so does my son. My son is acting out and wants us to go back home. It’s so difficult for me to make him understand we can’t go back. I love this child who is my absolute life but he seems to want to be with his dad rather than me. This hurts so much. I don’t know if I can cope much longer with him always crying for his dad. He cries for me when he’s with his dad and cries for his dad when he’s with me. He’s also turning into quite a manipulator like telling me that he won’t have breakfast if I don’t take him to his dad. Please help.”
India
Your son is trying his best to “communicate” how he is feeling… unfortunately, divorce is not something he will understand until he is older. You and his father must come to an agreement about how to put his needs first.
USA
This is difficult for you to grasp yet you want a four-year-old to get it! Increase your capacity to tolerate his pain while decreasing your dependence on his love. The boy wants to go home – don’t make it about preference of one parent over another.
ACT, Australia
distressed because of the divorce. His behavior is about what’s happening NOT because he prefers you or your husband. Really strong loving boundaries are needed for him in this painful transition.
Scotland
Your son really isn’t a happy little chap, his life is insecure and unpredictable. He ‘acts out’ because he can’t ‘speak out’. You and your husband must work together to provide stability for him.
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Divorce, Family, High maintenance relationships, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Single parenting, Spousal abuse, Triangles, Voice |
1 Comment »
July 29, 2009
by Rod Smith
Speak up....
When Thulani was about nine months old we once entered the USA through LAX.
A roaming immigration officer met us in the line.
“Papers!” he demanded without looking at me.
“I beg your pardon,” I said.
“Papers? Passports? Where’s the mother?” he said.
“Sir,” I said, “The courts in Indiana decided that the whereabouts of my son’s mother is no one’s business.”
The officer stormed off with our passports, only to return to repeat the question.
“I have told you,” I said. “Now, tell me officer,” I continued, “What are your worst fears?”
I pointed out that the legitimacy of the passport ought to calm his worst fears. Getting a little more than irritated I noted:
“I can’t figure out if this is sexism or racism? You’re not checking other parents and babies. Is it you can’t imagine a man traveling with a young baby or it is that we are different colors. Both will make a good story for Time,” I suggested.
Then, having slept through all this in a backpack on my back, Thulani awoke.
“Dadadadadadadadaaaa,” he said into my ear and the official stuffed our passports into my hands and left us alone.
He never did answer my questions.
Posted in Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Voice |
1 Comment »
difficultrelationships.com 