Common Concerns

Healthy Marriages, Healthy Families

In October, 2019, I was privileged to be a guest on Dr. Randall Woodard of St. Leo University’s monthly webinar. This one was on healthy marriages and families.  The main points from my part of the presentation follow:

A Marriage is a living thing – it needs what all living things need

1.       Attention, time, fun, affection, nourishment.

2.       Do not get busy and lock the relationship into solitary confinement, slipping it bread and water

Inside Voice, Outside Manners

1.       While there are different degrees of formality between public and home manners, please do not think that being the “real you” means being a rude, inconsiderate monster.  Is that the real you?

2.       Loud voices trigger fight-or-flight, as do gestures and facial expressions of aggression.  Physiological arousal of this type creates a kind of logical “disconnect” and makes reasoning much more difficult.

A Sacred Circle

1.       There should be times set aside in which attention to the relationship and one another comes first

2.       No one should intrude – not kids, parents, electronics.

3.       Definition of an emergency:  actual emergencies, not inconveniences.

The ongoing gift of self to the spouse – and the responsibility to be a good gift

1.       It is necessary to keep growing and developing as a person. If you don’t want a boring marriage, don’t be a boring person.

2.       Grow together and each grow individually, bringing that enrichment back to the marriage

Talking to Kids About Hard Topics

I was asked to speak to a group about strategies to talk to children and teenagers about difficult subjects.

This particular group focuses its service work on a variety of peace and social justice issues. Their concerns include answering questions about the death penalty, euthanasia, intensive and end of life care, abortion and suicide.  The same overriding concern – how, exactly, to answer kids’ questions -could include ecological concerns, animal abuse or neglect, war, and the effects of greed. The “what” was not the topic; the “how” was the main course.  The “how” often determines the effect. 

The main points were:

1.       Be sure you understand what someone is asking you.  There’s no use going into a big explanation when it is not exactly what they wanted to know.  Children are not unique in being clumsy about wording their queries and also not unique in the human tendency towards a bit of manipulation. 

2.       Understand your audience’s level of brain development. Through about age 12 (and for many people, through adulthood), people are concrete thinkers. They consider things in real space and time; abstract concepts and hypothetical situations are difficult for children and often are difficult outside of certain areas for those in their teens and adults.  An adult, for example, may have excellent abstract reasoning ability in terms of mental problem solving for mechanical challenges but not for philosophical issues – or vice versa.

3.       Likewise, try to figure out where your audience is in terms of moral development. If they are stuck in the immature (and normal for young children) “what can I get away with?” or “what’s a good deal for me?” stages, appealing to higher principles when explaining a problem will be very difficult; start at an elementary level of “fairness,” which is easier for those with less mature moral development to grasp.

4.       Be clear and specific, but not more than is appropriate.  Avoid euphemisms (telling young children a beloved pet, or prisoner on death row, or a sick person in a place with legal euthanasia is being “put to sleep” can be a recipe for terror at night).  Children will fill in blanks with their imaginations.  Tell them what to expect: “Grandma will have a lot of needles and tubes to help her breathe and help her body work.  She may not be able to talk or even open her eyes, but she can hear us.” Coach children on how to act; can the child share about school, sing a song, read a bit of a beloved book to the resting patient?  Can they touch him or her; if so how and where?

5.       Punt where appropriate!  Children may have questions that are not yours to answer. 

6.       Like adults, children become very anxious when they are powerless.  Whenever possible, offer the child something to do about social problems.  If the child is sad about people being homeless, can the family discuss how to be more generous, including ways the child can be part of that, by having simple meals and donating food to the food bank or shelter, or selecting gently used toys or clothes to give away?  By offering an action strategy the child is drawn into solutions and not helpless bystander status.

Why am I even telling you this?

How we share information, and what we share, are not the only concerns.  Another one is “why.” WHY am I telling you something?  For you?  For my own benefit? It is an issue therapists wrestle with in every session.  We struggle for the right answer: what to share, when, why and how.  Am I telling you something to get help? To show I can understand your pain? To boast? For validation? To give help or teach?

It’s helpful to consider what we want to say and the effect we hope to have. Is the person ready to hear it?  Is what we’re saying serving us, or the person to whom we’re speaking?  Am I using a “me, too!” to try to gain immediate credibility or avoid having to be understanding? Am I competing (my day was worse than yours; I win!)?  Minimizing because I’m too busy to listen?  Am I trying to solve your problem before you’ve let me know what the real problem may be?

On a recent visit to the James Museum in St. Petersburg, I learned that Native Americans traditionally allow silence to regularly permeate their conversations to allow respectful consideration of one another’s perspectives.  This wisdom is found in so many cultures; learning it and using it are harder than it might seem.

How we share information, and what we share, are not the only concerns.  Another one is “why.” WHY am I telling you something?  For you?  For my own benefit? It is an issue therapists wrestle with in every session.  We struggle for the right answer: what to share, when, why and how.  Am I telling you something to get help? To show I can understand your pain? To boast? For validation? To give help or teach?

It’s helpful to consider what we want to say and the effect we hope to have. Is the person ready to hear it?  Is what we’re saying serving us, or the person to whom we’re speaking?  Am I using a “me, too!” to try to gain immediate credibility or avoid having to be understanding? Am I competing (my day was worse than yours; I win!)?  Minimizing because I’m too busy to listen?  Am I trying to solve your problem before you’ve let me know what the real problem may be?

On a recent visit to the James Museum in St. Petersburg, I learned that Native Americans traditionally allow silence to regularly permeate their conversations to allow respectful consideration of one another’s perspectives.  This wisdom is found in so many cultures; learning it and using it are harder than it might seem.