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But seriously, folks

March 15, 2010 by

Back to the real reason I started this blog– this blog that has wandered around the world, engaged in politics, and has told you how I feel about Israel. Back to talking about family relationships…

Let me begin by saying something rather radical that will summarize what I am about to say:

Don’t take people who are upset seriously.
That’s it. Don’t.

OK, Let me go back and talk about it and then you will understand, I hope.

When we are little and non-verbal, our tantrums usually consist of non-stop crying, flailing, and throwing things. As we get a little older, our parents encourage us to express our displeasure in more socially acceptable ways, i.e., talking about it. So, by the age of twenty or so, we (most of us) stop screaming, yelling and throwing things and instead use words to express our displeasure.

So far, so good.

However, it sometimes happens that we use words in the same way as we used our stuffed toy animals and blocks and little train cars–we take them and throw them at others like weapons.

In response, those who love us are hurt, surprised, and often themselves become angry and hurtful.

So here we are. Mature, adult two year olds having a simultaneous tantrum.

Now what happens in tantrum state?

The person who is having the tantrum has two major objectives
1. To get his/her point across.
2. To let the other person/people know how upset he/she is.

In accomplishing the second, often the message of the first is lost. Not only that, but the listeners may actually be less motivated to hear the message as they move to defend themselves and pay back in kind. Which is why most arguments do not end well.

Few people realize, however, that when someone is in tantrum state he/she often loses control of his/her ability to think clearly and may say lots of things that he/she doesn’t mean. Some of those things may have dire consequences.

Take my uncle.

When my cousin was a freshman in college my cousin decided to grow a beard. My uncle did not like the idea of his son having a beard. He tried to cajole him and finally, in a tantrum state, threatened him- telling him that if he didn’t remove the beard, he couldn’t come home.

Do I have to tell you the rest of the story?

It was not a happy story.

Did my uncle mean to lose his son for a long period of time? I strongly doubt it. He just got carried away.

What could have happened instead:
My cousin could have listened to the tantrum. He could have responded calmly or not at all, he could have gotten up and walked away. Chances are pretty good that once my uncle got back in control of himself, he would have still not liked the beard, but might have realized that it wasn’t worth losing his son over it.

Example two:

When I began studying for my doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania at age 42– after having been in clinical practice as a family therapist, I was ambivalent. On the one hand, the idea of getting a doctorate was very exciting. On the other hand, I felt the level of instruction in certain areas was naive and simplistic and since the tuition was high, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make the investment of our family’s resources.

I don’t remember what specifically set me off, but one morning, early in November, before we had received any tuition bills, I got really angry and told my husband that I was dropping out and didn’t want any more part of the nonsense going on at the school and that I could think of a lot of things to do with my time and our money that would be more productive etc. I went on and on. He didn’t answer. I’m pretty sure it was because he didn’t know what to say. But after a while, it just ran down. I was finished and I picked up my books and left for school.

Could it have ended otherwise? Surely. Had he gotten sucked into the tantrum, he would have urged me to continue and I would have dropped out just to show him that he couldn’t control me.

Tantrums do bad things to people.

When I was seeing couples in marital therapy, often what the spouses would complain about was what the other one had said at the height of a tantrum. Usually, the spouse either didn’t remember having said it or regretted saying it. In fact, it was not the spouse speaking from his/her rational mind. It was that reptilian brain that all of us have inside of us. It is that primitive fight or flight mechanism that that springs into action when we begin to feel any sort of threat.

So what should we do when someone we care about starts having a tantrum? Don’t respond in kind. Listen, to the message but don’t take everything he/she says seriously. Really. He/she doesn’t mean half of what he/she is saying. There’s no need for there to be more than one two year old in the room. Not feeding the flames helps extinguish them. And once the person is rational again, maybe the problem can even be solved!

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Anger as a motivational tool

January 1, 2010 by

It doesn’t work.*

*Really. Believe me. Kindness works wonders. Anger, not helpful. Need I say more?

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,

My husband always…

December 27, 2009 by

Hmmm… are you interested in the rest of the sentence? Thought so. I became a family therapist because statements like this intrigued me.

Well, if you must know… the full sentence is “my husband always tells me that he loves me.” Yes, really.

But how many people start that sentence (and yes, it can be “husband” or “wife”) and end it with something not quite so nice?

And we hear things about their spouse that are not complimentary. Sometimes it’s a one time thing, and sometimes people complain repeatedly.

Here’s the problem:

1. The listener is in no position to solve the problem

2. The speaker may be upset temporarily, but the listener may take the complaining to mean that there is real trouble in the relationship.

3. The listener may draw negative and lasting conclusions about the speaker or the spouse.

4. The listener may take the disclosure as permission to complain about his/her own spouse.

Can you see where this is going? It’s not going anywhere good.

When couples have issues with one another, they should be worked out between them. If they find it difficult, there are any number of self-help books, seminars, and yes, therapists to help them.

But please– if you’re angry with your spouse, don’t broadcast it. I can guarantee that it will come back to bite you.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,

Truths my father told me

October 25, 2009 by

Tonight and tomorrow mark the yahrtzeit of my father, Harry Mager. He passed away long before his time in October of 1985. Yet, the conversations he had with me feel as if they happened only yesterday. He taught me by word and example many things that have enriched my life. Today, in a sense, I am allowing him to write a guest posting through me. Here are some things I learned from him.

1. No matter what your situation, you have the ability to influence it for the better.
My father was in high school when the Depression began. His family was not doing well financially. He quit school and went to work. He worked hard and learned skills that served him later in his life. He harbored no bitterness; he did what he needed to do.

2. It’s possible to be optimistic even when times are rough.
Fortunately, my father’s life was not a difficult one. His greatest challenge was dealing with my mother, and although she was a formidable challenge, it was not as if he were fighting illness or poverty. However, as with all people, there were times that were less than perfect. Yet, he always had a positive attitude. He looked at each day as a gift.

3. Enjoy the world around you.
My father could have been a great artist. He didn’t have the opportunity to develop his art to the degree that it became commercial, but there was nothing he built, drew, sewed, designed, or sculpted that wasn’t superb. His photography was beautiful. He loved nature. He loved the seasons. When there was a huge snowfall one year and he was unable to go to work, I remember him telling me to get ready so that we could take a long walk in the snow. He loved it. So did I. He loved trees and flowers. He loved beautiful sunsets. The year he became ill, I was saddened to think that he might not see another spring. The day he was buried, the trees were clad in their autumn reds and yellows and oranges and browns, and I thought he would have loved to have seen them.

4. Be kind.
My father was a kind man. He was respectful and courteous, and gentle.

5. Treasure the time you have.
One of my earliest memories is of riding in the back of my parents’ car and hearing my father say to my mother, “Life is too short.” I think he had that awareness at all times and that he tried to fill every moment with something significant. In his store, he had not customers, but friends. People would meet him once and feel as if they had been his friend for years. His leisure time he filled with reading books that helped him self-educate. He became a big fan of Mark Twain. He read Shakespeare for pleasure. He bought and listened to classical music. All of the education he hadn’t been able to acquire as a young man, he reached for as an adult.

6. Love Learning
In addition to his reading, my father was interested in learning any way he could. He took adult education courses, he watched documentaries, and he loved to listen to other people tell their stories.

7. Love your family
One of the sweetest memories of my father is of his standard way of saying goodbye as I would be leaving their house after a visit. He would say, “Drive carefully; you have precious cargo.” He told me that I was a millionaire and told me more than once that I had five million dollars– referring to the five children. I don’t really know the story but my mother had a gold bracelet that had five diamonds on it. I like to think that that my father bought it for her as another way of acknowledging their good fortune at having five precious gems as grandchildren. I know that he adored them and I remember thinking that the day the children and I spent at Busch Gardens with him, he was the happiest I had ever seen him.

My father is not with us physically, but his influence on my life is profound, and I hope that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will feel his influence for years to come.

Our family, September 1956

Our family, September 1956

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

Sisters 2

October 7, 2009 by

I wrote about sisters once before– here. I actually enjoyed rereading the post and hope you will too. But today I want to write about a specific issue in the relationship between sisters.

As anyone who is a sister or who has two daughters knows, despite coming from the same genetic pool, sisters can be very different from each other. They can look different.

Ayala (left) and Tamar (right)

Ayala (left) and Tamar (right)

Matan with Lilach (his twin) and Hadas (his older sister)

Matan with Lilach (his twin) and Hadas (his older sister)


And just as they can look very different, they can have different preferences, interests, levels of extraversion, talents, etc. But, just the same, they share so very much that they have the potential of being each others’ best friends through life.

Here’s how.
1. Understand that your sister really is different from you.
2. Understand, though, that there is such a richness in shared ties and experience that your sister can offer you a friendship unparalleled by anyone else.
3. When you have disagreements think about what is at stake.
a. Your pride (you can get over it)
b. Your health and welfare (talk to her about it)
c. Her health and welfare (talk to her about it)
4. Don’t trash your sister to others, whether inside or outside the family. (There are no secrets and this one will come back to bite both of you)
5. And most important: Forgive. Nothing is sadder for a family than being split by the hostility of two of its members.

My sister lives thousands of miles away. I don’t see her nearly as much as I would like. Anyone who met us would tell you that aside from the voices, we have almost none of the same traits. Yet we share a bond that is strong and healthy. It’s one I cherish. Here’s our song.

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

Savta, Grandma, Bubby, Nana

September 30, 2009 by

If new parents have a complaint “no one prepared me for parenthood” and parents of newly married children realize there is no road map to being a mother/father-in-law, there is another path that is far more uncharted. How does one be a grandparent?

You see, most people have been around new babies. They have watched friends or siblings or cousins be new parents. They observe comforting techniques, clever holds, and parent-initiated play. But being a parent-in-law and being a grandparent are far harder skills to learn.

We may have learned that in-laws were outlaws. Comedians told us that mixed feelings were what happened when you saw your mother-in-law driving off a cliff in your new Cadillac. Our own parents may have complained of in-laws’ meddling or of their disinterest. It seems that very few families hit a good balance.

But perhaps, even more problematic is how to define ourselves in the roles of grandparents. For many of us, our own grandparents seemed ancient when we were young, and seeing them as people separate from their grandparent role was so very difficult. They were obviously created only for our comfort, the real purveyors of unconditional positive regard.

At first, it’s not that hard. We coo and we smile and we hold and rock the infants. They are so lovable. I never really understood the word “delicious” until I looked at my first grandchild and now the youngest is just as delicious. But what do we do as they grow older?

Early on I decided that I was not into buying their love. First of all, Israeli homes are small. Secondly, my children buy their children everything they need and much of what they want. They lack for nothing. I didn’t want my grandchildren to look forward to my visits as a gift extravaganza. I also didn’t want to force hugs or kisses on them, as much as they were so very appealing. I remember as a child feeling smothered in my grandmother’s ample bosom. I didn’t want my grandchildren to feel that.

So how do we build healthy relationships with them? How do we let these precious young people know that we love them?

I decided that my home should have interesting things for the children to do when they come. Boxes of Legos, wooden blocks, small cars, little plastic people, and hand puppets are available. We have checkers and chess and playing cards. We have childrens’ videos and books. We sometimes show them home videos of interesting places we’ve been. We placed in the garden little figures in both ceramic and plastic of animals and gnomes that the children enjoy identifying, visiting, and often moving around from one place to another in the garden. Some of the figures are on the ground, some are hanging from trees, and one gorilla is climbing up a large pottery urn. As the seasonal fruits ripen on our trees and vines, together we pick plums, pomegranates, clementines, and lemons. We harvest grapes. We are growing kumquats and in another couple of years, when the fruit may be eaten, they will join the cycle. And we usually have an ample supply of pretzels and chocolate milk. In fact, when the children visit, often they home in on the chocolate milk as if it is a ritual. Of course the other thing we have done is the special trips that by now we have taken 7 of the grandchildren on.

We, of course, talk with them, listen to them, tell them stories about when their parents were young and tell them of our own adventures.

My maternal grandparents and their 6 oldest grandchildren

My maternal grandparents and their 6 oldest grandchildren 1955


My paternal grandmother and my two oldest children (her great-grandchildren) 1973

My paternal grandmother and my two oldest children (her great-grandchildren) 1973


My parents with their grandchildren, 1983

My parents with their grandchildren, 1983

What do you/your parents do as grandparents to foster close relationships with your/their grandchildren?

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Not a zero-sum game

August 21, 2009 by

I have been thinking lately about families and what makes them so important for the individuals in them. Of course there’s love and affection. Of course there is respect and consideration. And there also is loyalty. When I wrote a couple of days ago about competition and how it is unhealthy in the context of a family, I didn’t talk about one very important concept: the zero-sum game.

The zero-sum game, briefly is: A situation or interaction in which one participant’s gains result only from another’s equivalent losses. Source: here

Unfortunately, most of us go through life thinking it’s a zero-sum game. That’s why people are so competitive. “I can only win if the other guy loses.”

When my children were young, we had a book of cooperative games. Instead of “King of the Hill” where one person gets to the top of the hill and pushes all of the others down, the book recommended a game where as many people as possible get to the top of the hill and they cooperate to see how many they can hold up there. Games which foster cooperation also foster healthy relationships. Games like “Red Rover” where everyone is on the winning team help children understand that there doesn’t have to be a loser.

When family member achieve personal or professional expertise, other family members need to not just be happy for them, but to rejoice in it for themselves. Every strength of every member of the family only increases the others’ strength. As my children excel in areas I can’t even touch or understand, I feel personally enriched. I share in their happiness. And, fortunately, that is how they feel about each other.

Shel Silverstein said it well:

Yonatan and his little sister Naomi Elisheva

Yonatan and his little sister Naomi Elisheva

Hug O’ War

a poem by the late Shel Silverstein
[Author of A Light in the Attic]

I will not play at tug o’ war

I’d rather play at hug o’ war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses

And everyone grins

And everyone cuddles

And everyone wins.

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

Your enemy is my enemy

August 13, 2009 by

When I wrote about competition a couple of days ago, I was really writing about human relationships, particularly those among family and friends because competition is unhealthy in the context of friendship and intimate relationships– except as modified by Virginia Satir (if you haven’t already, see Competition).

But today, in thinking about close relationships I want to talk about loyalty. Loyalty is one of the most important elements of a relationship. Loyalty means that a friend or loved one will choose to support and defend their loved one no matter what. It means that we can always count on that other person to be there for us and stand up for us. It means that if we have been hurt or wronged, that other person will understand and feel the hurt and want to help us.

Early in our marriage, my husband, a loving and kind person, made sure that any time I felt hurt or slighted, I would know that the other person really was kind and good and that I was too sensitive. I found that hurtful– more hurtful than what the stranger had done to me. I wanted him to tell me that it wasn’t right that this person was insensitive or unkind to me. I didn’t want to hear why the other person was right and I was overly sensitive. To me, that was treason. His job as my husband and my best friend was to hear me and feel my pain and to take my side. I wasn’t asking him to retaliate. I wasn’t asking him to talk to the other person. I just wanted to be understood.

Fortunately, he’s gotten a lot better (though not 100%), but it is something I taught my children as well. The world can be a cruel and unkind place. There are people who unknowingly and knowingly hurt others. The people we rely on and love need to be with us. They don’t need to be our moral compass that informs us that no one really wants to do wrong or that the other person was busy/sick/preoccupied/annoyed etc. etc. We don’t want to hear excuses for why the other person was right and we were wrong. What we want to hear is, “No one has the right to hurt you like that; I love you; you are a good and worthwhile person.”

That’s loyalty. And that’s what we need to do as family members or close friends.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Competition

August 9, 2009 by

I haven’t posted in a while on anything therapy/growth related and it’s about time. For the last two days I have been thinking of competition. Competition seems to be hard-wired in human beings. Even very little children want to be able to do something better than their sibling. They want to be thought smarter, prettier, cuter. They say things like “I can hold my breath longer than you can” or “my picture is nicer.”

It makes sense that we compare ourselves to others. There has to be some yardstick for performance, else how would we know if a performance were better or worse than average. We looked at Susan Boyle and we compared her to other women her age, other women singers, and before she began to sing, we expected that she would be laughable. Her appearance was thought to be substandard and people expected that her performance would be too. Everyone was surprised when she opened her mouth to sing and her singing was beautiful. In our minds, we compared it to the type of singing a normal person does and it was much better and then we held it up to a higher standard and she met or surpassed it. Comparisons help us make judgments.

However, competition turns out to be inappropriate and even harmful in many circumstances. In relationships with siblings and spouses, competition leads to devaluing behavior, sabotage, and ridicule. In families, we are on the same team. We need to be happy when any of our team members scores a basket! We need to help them maximize their performance just as we strive to do our own best. Saying “great job” and “wow, you did it!” when someone else has achieved something costs nothing and helps to build good will and feelings of security.

We all accept the concept of sibling rivalry as natural. Parents struggle to help each of their children to feel loved and valued, but there is always an echo of that rivalry. However, even worse is the situation when people have been programmed from early childhood to be comparing themselves to all others around them. The result is either always feeling wanting and inadequate or feeling superior (often without reason).

There are sometimes good results from striving for the kind of excellence that would lead people to see one as superior. People go to school and study for years to become the most knowledgeable, the recognized authority. People design research studies to achieve benefits for the public at large, but also because they want others to recognize their achievement and superiority.

But when competition enters family life, it is often destructive. When husband and wife each strive to be the one who is right all the time or the one who knows best, both of them suffer. When children are compared to one another in a way that lessens the value of one, that is destructive not only to the child’s ego, but to the sibling relationship– a relationship that often is the most satisfying lifelong relationship a person has.

Virginia Satir, a talented and much loved family therapist once told a couple that their competition was not a bad thing. The bad thing was what they were competing about. She suggested they compete to see who in the couple be the most loving, the most caring, the most forgiving, the most supportive, the most helpful. It’s the kind of competition that families need. It’s the kind of competition the world needs.

Filed Under: Emotional health, Family life, Parenting, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,

Helpful hints for reputation management from the mother of someone who does it for money

July 26, 2009 by

I was reading an article about the arrest of several mayors, politicians, rabbis, and other people today on charges of corruption and international money laundering, and I thought, “this has got to be a disaster for everyone involved.” And then I thought about who could possibly benefit from this mess.

So for those who would rather not have to pay to have their reputations managed, here are a few helpful hints:

1. If you want to get rich, learn something well and work hard.

2. If you are thinking of getting involved in a business deal and the other person seems to be the kind of person who would cut corners, run the other way.

3. If you’re not sure if it’s legal, it probably isn’t.

4. If you don’t look good in handcuffs, obey the law.

5. If you enjoy walking down the street without people pointing at you and commenting on your behavior, stay legal and inconspicuous.

6. Don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want featured on the front page of your local newspaper.

And if you don’t follow my advice, get in touch with my son

Filed Under: Ramblings, Relationships Tagged With: , , ,
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