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Mom and Dad and the Problem Child

January 8, 2006 by

In some of the families I see, the child is the problem—or so the parents state. When I begin to assess the family, sometimes a much more complex situation is found to exist. In these families there are typically the following elements: a child who has a tremendous amount of power in the family, one parent who is furious with the child, and one parent who is trying to appease the child.

This isn’t the way the trouble began. If one were to reconstruct what went on in the family, it might sound something like this: Mother and father chose to have child who was born the perfect baby. As the years passed, child became more and more independent and increasingly wanted things his/her own way. However, when child didn’t get what he/she wanted, he/she would act in maladaptive ways (yelling, screaming, throwing tantrums, acting defiantly, throwing objects, destroying things in the house, refusing to eat, refusing to sleep, or refusing to get dressed in the morning, etc.) Mother or father would become enraged by the child’s behavior and would react in a non-productive manner (by hitting, yelling, calling the child names, shaming the child publicly, or taking away from the child items, experiences, or privileges in a manner that was very disproportional to the misbehavior.) The other parent would immediately intervene begging or pleading with the parent to please stop, reconsider, and not be so harsh. Once the pattern repeated itself a couple of times, the child began to see this:

I misbehave. One parent (P1) starts to punish. Other parent (P2) rushes in to protect me. Aha. I have an ally. P2 now understands that 1) P1 is unreasonable and 2) I should get whatever it is I want.

As this repeats, P2 begins to forge a coalition with child. “Mommy/Daddy didn’t really mean it. You know how she/he gets.” Child goes to P2 for comfort, complains to P2 about P1 and finds a compassionate ear. In a short time, P1, even attempting the best disciplinary methods, is rendered totally irrelevant. P2 has removed all power from P1 (which in most cases just increases P1’s less than optimal behavior). Meanwhile, child has moved into a collegial relationship with P2 which allows child and P2 to talk about how crazy P1 gets and how we all need to figure out a way to live with him/her and his/her craziness.

By then, P1 has no real options for regaining any authority with the child. P2 doesn’t want to give up the special relationship he/she has with the child, and besides, he/she really believes that P1 is harming the child.

As you might imagine, the relationship between father and mother has deteriorated and neither of them is feeling very happy. All they can really agree on is that there is a problem.

When a family gets into such a situation, often the only thing that will help is the intervention of a professional family therapist. However, if this scenario sounds familiar and you are P2, know that the best thing you can do is to discuss child rearing principles with your spouse at a time and place far away from your children. Establishing a true team approach where both of you are working together and supporting each other in disciplining the child will help the child to settle back into his/her role of child in the family. The child will become disempowered as the tyrant in the family. Parents will regain control and the interpersonal relationship between the parents will improve. Their working together and refusal to be divided will display to the child a new respect of each parent for the other and will enable the child to feel safe in his/her family.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting

Men concentrate; women multi-task

January 4, 2006 by

Several years ago I read an article about the differences between men and women. I generally stay as far away as possible from such articles since I see them as drawing distinctions that may be true of some specific people, but certainly are not true of all men or women.

People who describe men and women as being from two different universes, I think, omit a great deal of data that contradict their thesis. In fact, I think of men and women as people, each one possessing his or her own package of talents, abilities, and, yes. foibles.

But this article talked about men and women being different in terms of their ability to be doing several things at the same time and it pointed to some reportedly reputable research to that effect. The article said that men, by and large, concentrate on the thing they are doing. They may be able to do two things at one time (like walk and chew gum) but add a third, and the man is not able to cope. Women, the article says, naturally multi-task. Of course, this too is an over-simplification and there are large numbers of men who also multi-task. This article also applies to them.

Women, especially married women with children, are constantly doing more than one thing—talking on the phone and preparing a meal and braiding a daughter’s hair. Women have a lot of discrete tasks that they must accomplish, all of which take a lot of time, but some of which involve waiting time. So a woman might be mixing a cake batter when a child starts crying. She goes to comfort the child and the dryer buzzer goes off, so she goes with the child to the dryer as the doorbell rings and on the way to the door drops off the child at a toy box. Once finished at the door, she finishes mixing the cake and just as she is about to pour it into the pan, the telephone rings, but she just continues what she is doing, juggling the telephone, putting away the eggs and the milk, and closing the refrigerator door with her foot.

It’s a necessity for women who are mothers of young children to multi-task. Many women become very good at it. However, it can become an insidious handicap.

Over the years, women learn to be thinking of many things at the very same time, thereby accomplishing many tasks, but that also means that no one task has the advantage of full concentration. After years of multi-tasking, it becomes difficult to be fully present in the task and in the moment.

Time and again, I have met women who are so used to not being able to finish a sentence, that when they are finally able to speak, still can’t finish a sentence. They interrupt themselves mid-thought because another thought is present and it seems more important at the time. In fact, women often train themselves to be inattentive and to have very short attention spans.

What was a functional behavior when children were young becomes maladaptive when the woman is finally able to have uninterrupted adult conversations.

There are ways to identify if this is a problem for you:

1. Do you find yourself forgetting what you are talking about in the middle of a sentence?

2. Do you find yourself searching for familiar words?

3. Do you find yourself wondering what you heard on the news immediately after you heard it?

4. Do your husband and children report your having had conversations with them that you don’t recall?

If the answer to three or more questions is yes, then you might do well to begin teaching yourself to focus and be fully present in what you are doing.

There are several ways to do this. You can start by to turning off the radio or TV if you are reading or working on the computer. When you are speaking, keep your mind on the subject, “looking” ahead a few sentences so that you stay on the right path. You need to understand and believe that you don’t have to accomplish everything at the same time. It’s really OK to wait until you are finished with one thing before starting the next. Remember that what you are saying or doing is important enough to pay attention to. You don’t need to be in a frenetic rush to accomplish everything. After all, if you are truly present in the moment, then you will feel more centered and relaxed and you will live life to its fullest.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships

I am the 7th Chanuka candle

January 1, 2006 by

The idea of getting old isn’t one that I heartily accept. It would be just fine with me if I would remain fully functional and just be able to tick off the years being perpetually 30 (as I imagine myself to be.) In fact, I still am shocked every time I look into the mirror and see some old woman who apparently has taken up residence in my house, but who looks unfamiliar to me. And though I feel healthy and energetic and happy and hopeful, every once in a while, I get a dose of reality that slaps me upside my head.

So tonight when we went to a Chanuka gathering of a group we belong to, I expected the customary poem written in honor of the occasion and singing and food and maybe some mindless game that some of the people find entertaining, but I didn’t anticipate that they would tell us that in order to be served the food, we would have to wear little paper bands around our head with a paper candle attached to stand up perpendicular in the middle of our foreheads, kind of like an Indian headband with the feather placed in the front. Suddenly, there I was in the Happy Acres Retirement Home for the Hopelessly Confused. I was wearing a [censored] candle around my head like a five year old!! Am I really that far gone? When they handed out the Chanuka bingo cards, I tried really hard not to run for the door, but after sitting there dutifully for an inordinate amount of time, I convinced my husband to leave by saying, “It’s getting late, isn’t it.”

So we ditched our senility and came home to enjoy the last few moments of the old year.

Happy New Year

Oh, and by the way, the pictures from the Bat Mitzvah are at this url:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9AYs2rJi2cvwA

Filed Under: Ramblings

The Therapist as a House Painter

December 29, 2005 by

Imagine this: you have lived in your home for a few years now. It’s comfortable, it’s familiar, it’s, well, home. But it could be better. It could be more pleasing to the eye. It could be updated. Now that you’ve lived in the home, you know what its flaws are and you know what needs to be fixed and well, you think that painting some of the rooms will make a big difference. You like the way the kitchen looks. It’s just about perfect, but the living room, aside from needing a touch-up on the magnolia colored walls should have one darker wall and you have decided on a terracotta color, and the guest bedroom, you have decided, would be nice in a mellow cantaloupe color. So you call up your local well-recommended painter who you heard about through the sister-in-law of the best friend of your butcher and you ask him to come over to give you an estimate on the two rooms.

He arrives and you ask if he has any experience painting beyond the work he did for your butcher’s best friend’s sister-in-law and he at first is a bit put off that you would even question his skill, but then tells you that he can do things with a paint brush that no one else has ever thought of. And you suppress a random thought about what he might mean, but you decide to proceed to tell him about the job you want him to do.

He looks at the kitchen and says, “Oh yeah, I see that this room really needs to be updated.” You say, “Actually, I like it the way it is.” He says, “You can’t be serious.” You ask him to please follow you into the living room and you tell him what you want done there. He tells you that you are right about a darker color, but really, you need a vibrant lime green. You tell him, no, you have decided on terracotta. He becomes insistent. You finally tell him that you need some time to think things through. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.

Once he leaves, you decide to call another painter because you want him to do for you what YOU want. After all, you are paying and you will be the one who is living with the results.

Now imagine this: You walk into a therapist’s office and you say that you are having a problem with anxiety about a job interview. Your therapist, already feeling threatened by your insistence on knowing what his qualifications are, tells you that you don’t really need to prepare for job interviews; you need to examine your childhood and discover why you have this difficulty with presenting yourself to authority figures and where it was that you missed developing healthy self-esteem.

Well, if you are like most clients, you will not walk out. You will think “he’s the expert and so he must know better.” Well, that is not entirely true. In fact, you are the expert on what’s bothering you and what you think a good solution might be. You are not hiring the therapist to do the job HE wants to do. You are hiring him to do the job YOU need done! He is a house painter. He needs to paint the house the colors YOU want on the walls YOU choose. He is in your employ and you do not have to go forward with his agenda. He needs to respect your agenda and priorities.

I believe that people are the experts on themselves. When they are faced with a challenge that is too difficult for them to face alone, they come for help. But they are the ones who determine what they want and need. And we, the therapists, are the house painters.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Ramblings

Our Chanuka Miracle

December 28, 2005 by

Imagine this:

It is the third day of Chanuka. It is too cool to stay outside for a long period of time, although compared the Chanuka holidays we remember celebrating in the northeastern United States, it’s absolutely balmy. Nonetheless, the family decides that indoors is the place to be.

But we aren’t in Kansas anymore… Everyone here is celebrating Chanuka. The children have school vacation. There are activities for children at just about every public institution. The museums, parks, and malls all have art workshops and donut making and singers and dancers. And every family in the country wants to participate. And from my experience of past years, they all do. Simultaneously. In the same location.

And all of them are smart enough to figure out that if the weather is not warm, the best place to be is indoors, thereby making any indoor activity crowded to the gills and worthy of the term “balagan.”

So here were are, faced with a dilemma. Where can we (10 adults and 20 children) go to be together where we will not be crowded and where we can actually enjoy being together without being pushed, stepped on, or shouted at (to say nothing of the prospect of being smoked upon…)

One of my daughters-in-law and I had discussed this question a week or so ago and she had said something like, “the best thing would be to meet at someone’s house, but no one would be stupid enough to offer their house.” Those may not have been her exact words, but that was the impression her words made on me. I of course replied, “OK, I’ll do it.”

The participants:

Our five children, three of their spouses, and their collective 20 children consisting of
2 12 year olds,
4 9 year olds,
1 8 year old,
2 7 year olds,
1 6 year old,
1 5 year old,
1 4 year old
3 3 year olds
1 2 year old
2 1 year olds
2 children under the age of 1

Well, the truth is, it turned out better than anyone could have imagined. I had set up four different activity areas for the children and in fact, they almost exclusively used the arts and crafts area which was located in our sunroom. The older ones helped the younger ones and all of the children were amazingly content and well-behaved the entire time.

From start to finish, we had the family with us for about 6 hours and all of it was pleasant. That might count as our Chanuka miracle.

If you would like to see some pictures of our day, they are available at http://michelson.shutterfly.com/action/?a=9AYs2rJi2csLy

Filed Under: Family life

Oh Little Town of Modi’in

December 26, 2005 by

This is “where it’s at.” Modi’in is the place where Judah Maccabee and the Hasmoneans began their battle to return the temple to Jewish worship. Modi’in, a place literally located at the crossroads of history. The way to Jerusalem passed by our doorstep. On the mountain across the street, there were lookouts, always at the ready to warn the people who lived there of invasion. On this mountain there are over 150 cisterns, an entire system designed to provide water to the people who lived there. There is a Byzantine church. There are ruins from the Stone Age. And, there is the fine tradition of a people who refused to bow to their conquerors and remained strong when passive compliance was the easiest course.

Each year as I read about and think about Hanuka, I wonder what is really the message for us. Is it the victory of the few over the many? Is it the story of the miracle of the oil? What is the message that can speak to us in our day?

For me, the message is loud and clear. The easiest thing for Jews in countries of the Diaspora to do is to comply, to be like the rest of the Americans, French, Italians, British—not to “make a big fuss” about keeping kosher or observing shabbat. Yet, those who we think of as brave took the harder road. They felt that we had something very precious to preserve. And they persisted. They risked everything, even their lives, to preserve what was precious to them—to show their devotion to their God and their people.

In Israel, the easiest thing is to just give in to the international pressures that tell us that we don’t have the right to live in security. They tell us that we don’t need those humiliating roadblocks that have saved the lives of countless Israelis– Jews, Christians, and Muslims– after all, the need for Arab dignity is more important than preserving innocent lives. The easiest thing was for Sharon to give the Arabs a gift by throwing innocent people out of their homes in Gaza, homes some had built with their own hands and lived in for thirty years—dropping them off at hotels, depriving them of their livelihoods, showing the world how easy it is to destroy a Jewish community. That was easy. Standing up for one’s beliefs, commitments, and principles is what is difficult.

An article in the Jerusalem Post talks about one woman’s struggle with a school system in the US that contrary to law was teaching the children Xmas carols. The comments others made to her article were disturbing. Many of those who commented told her to just take it easy—what’s the big deal—doesn’t she have other things in her life to deal with? It is precisely those comments that point up the real message of Hanuka—that we do have something worth preserving, that we are not the same as everyone else, that we will not cede our traditions and belief because keeping them is uncomfortable or unpopular.

From the point of view of family life, it is a similar lesson. If we have values we want our children to hold dear, we must not yield or take the path of least resistance when their friends are influencing them to do something we do not believe is good or safe or moral. “Everyone else” may be wrong. We need to hold fast to what we believe in and not take the easy way. For me, that is the real message of Hanuka.

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Ramblings, Spirituality

Oy Little Town of Bethlehem

December 25, 2005 by

In 1978, we went to Bethlehem. My husband and I and our five children packed into a taxi and among other places, visited the Church of the Nativity. We took some pictures so that my husband’s colleagues, Christian chaplains, would be able to see the church as we experienced it. It was on a summer’s day that was bright and sunny and very hot. As we bent down to enter the church through the very short door, we felt the coolness of the church’s interior. What I remember most was the silence and peace of the place. We were the only tourists at the time and after spending a couple of minutes, we left.

About ten years later, we drove through Bethlehem, this time in a private car. The first intifada had already broken out and we all knew to ride without seatbelts through Bethlehem so that were we to be shot at or firebombed, we could escape the car quickly.

As the years passed, the Oslo accords turned Bethlehem over to the Palestinian Authority. Visitors to Rachel’s tomb, the tomb of one of the matriarchs of the Bible, on the outskirts of Bethlehem were stoned and fired upon by Palestinians necessitating the building of heavy walls around the tomb to safeguard the visitors. This, even though Rachel’s Tomb was left in Israeli hands.

A couple of years ago a bunch of terrorists barricaded themselves inside the Church of the Nativity and shot at Israeli troops from inside. After a long stand-off, Israel was persuaded to export some of the terrorists to Europe where they were to be closely monitored and others were to be jailed in Jericho under the watchful eyes of the Americans. Most of them are now free and unaccounted for.

During the most recent intifada, Christian Arabs, residents of Bethlehem and the areas surrounding it, have left, fearful of their Muslim neighbors who threatened their existence. Hal Lindsey writes about the phenomenon at http://www.hallindseyoracle.com/articles.asp?HLCA=Next&HLC=12190

Israelis can no longer drive through Bethlehem and foreign tourists we spoke with recently express fear at visiting the Church of the Nativity.

There are those who believe that the war being fought against Israel and the Jewish people would end if all of the land of Israel were turned over to the Arabs. However, for those who look carefully, it becomes clear that the war is not just against Israel; it is against the Christians too and any who are not ready to accept the most radical forms of Islam.

And peaceful little Bethlehem has become the symbol of the innocent victims of the hatred and terror.

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings, Spirituality

We’re on the same team

December 21, 2005 by

I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know how to stop it. But I can tell you that one of the most powerful forces working against a good marriage is competition. I have observed, over the years, dozens if not hundreds of young couples embroiled in marital discord. He is unhappy with her. She is unhappy with him. He tells me how she is inadequate and she tells me that if I want to really know what inadequate is, I should spend a day with him.

Sometimes they sit there in my office and it seems as if both husband and wife have as the goal for the session to show me how superior they are to their mate.

And I wonder. Why does one have to be right and one wrong? Why can’t both be happy with the other. Sure her hair gets in the drain and her pantyhose are always draped over the shower door when he’s about to run a shower. But look again and you’ll see his socks on the floor and the stubble from his beard in the sink.

Even if the couple doesn’t squabble, their competition can come out in other destructive ways. The most destructive of these is the inability to appreciate the other. After all, if this person is your competitor, how can you enjoy his/her achievements? How can you appreciate when he/she is praised by others. Doesn’t that mean that he/she has scored a point over you? Such partners actually resent the other’s achievements.

At some point in marriage, there needs to be a realization that the two of you are a team. You are working together to make a full and rich life. It is, of course, not a competition, but in fact, a cooperative effort and therefore one’s success is good for the other.

Years ago when women first entered the workforce as professionals in large numbers, there was a phenomenon of men becoming angry and resentful of their wives’ success. The man would feel upstaged by a woman whose earning power exceeded his. When I mentioned the phenomenon to my husband, he commented, “Let’s give it a try!”

It is only when each person begins to see the other as an asset and not a competitor that couples can really become strong and feel secure. When a husband takes pride in his wife’s achievements in her home and professional life and a woman similarly appreciates her husband’s accomplishments in his life, then both feel loved and secure and both can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Praise and appreciation from others feels good. Praise and appreciation from a spouse is a precious gift that only a spouse can give.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships

Oprah

December 18, 2005 by

Here in Israel, we are able to receive television programming from other parts of the world, but often we see the programs weeks, months, or even years later than they originally were broadcast. All of this is to explain that the other day while “riding” a stationary bike at the health club, I saw an Oprah program that is probably not one that has been recently broadcast in the US.

On this program there were several couples that had one thing in common. In each, the husband was gay and had hidden that fact from his wife. In addition, all of the men had had liaisons with males during their marriage. As you might imagine, it was a fascinating show. Oprah asked all of the questions that curious people might want to ask including the most important one: Did the wife suspect anything? The answer in all cases was “no.”

All of this was interesting, perhaps inviting her audience to be voyeuristic, but isn’t that what TV is all about? However, it was where she went with the program that worries me.

She conducted an interview with a gay single man who showed on TV how easy it was to be propositioned over the internet by married gay men. In a period of several minutes, he had received something like five invitations. Then Oprah stated that there are millions of gay men married to women who have no suspicions of it. She said that many of you women in the viewing audience are likely to be married to gay men who are hiding the fact from you. She spoke in a very authoritative manner. People trust her. I was appalled.

Does she not realize what she did? Millions of women watch her, respect her, and buy books and products she recommends. Now, armed with frightening statistics, even assuming they are correct, she tells these women that they might find out that their husbands are gay. How many women from that moment on felt some doubt about their husbands? How many women began to rifle through their husbands’ pockets, wallets, and drawers? How many women began to question their husbands? How many women who used to feel safe and secure in their marriage are now wondering if and when they will find they’ve been duped.

It is one thing to present a problem on television. It is quite another to suggest to people that something over which they have no control and which affects the rest of their lives may be happening behind their back. Inducing paranoia is not healthy for a family or for a society.

Sorry Oprah, this time you made one colossal mistake.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Ramblings, Relationships

Marriage and MAF

December 12, 2005 by

So you are married. Your spouse is the person you chose to spend your life with—a rather big and important decision. He or she does lots of things that make you feel valued and happy and some things that make you feel disappointed or embarrassed. Welcome to the real world!

All of us have married human beings. Human beings tend to be generous, kind, clever, funny, helpful, caring, and sweet. Human beings also are HUMAN. They make mistakes. They aren’t always as compassionate, considerate, or thoughtful as others sometimes wish they were.

So we find fault. We look at the human failings and we are appalled.

“How could you say that if you really love me!”
“What were you thinking!”

And our poor human partner is thinking, “Huh? What did I do now!”

And that is the way that arguments begin. The hurt one needs not just an admission of guilt from the other, but an apology.

Now that is a problem. There is one gender whose apology gene is recessive. It has to come from both its mother and its father and people of that gender who have such a gene are very rare. There are people from the other gender who also have great difficulty coming to grips with their imperfection.

So what is one to do?

There is one strategy that can be used. It is akin to the Cold War strategy of mutually assured destruction. In that case, the threat of destruction to both sides kept each from attacking the other.

In a marriage, what is needed is mutually assured forgiveness (MAF). That is, that as long as each is acting in good faith and means to do the right thing, the other will agree not to dwell on a thoughtless action.

Such a policy can lead to (MAH) mutually assured happiness. Try it; you’ll like it.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life
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