Marital discord? Simply outsource it

Checking up on the domestic help wasn't the kind of thing Lakshmi was used to doing until she married Raunak and moved into his little apartment. While marrying her long time boyfriend, Lakshmi nursed grand dreams of taking indulgent holidays and setting up a strawberry farm in the hills together, but 26 hours into the marriage and she was already struggling with arbitrary domestic chores while her husband crooned away to a television show in the next room. Says she, "It wasn't like anything I'd ever imagined. We had decided to look after our home together, and there I was breaking sweat alone to get things in order." A compulsive neatnik, a quality much admired by her friends turned out to be her undoing as Lakshmi began getting increasingly vexed with Raunak for not being organised. It wasn't long before the newlywed decided they needed help. While urban couples are early to realise they need to see a counsellor or therapist, wonder how some decades ago couples garnered long relationships that ran well into their silver years when getting a shrink wasn't all that fanciful. Defends Dr Sameer Malhotra, senior psychiatrist and psychotherapist, "A therapist offers an unbiased, third-person opinion on the issue and motivates a couple to sort out their differences. Older couples had a mutual arrangement, a hierarchy, and often had siblings, relatives in whom they could confide." With the breaking joint family status and both partners going out for work, the hierarchy has disappeared, and with it the level of tolerance. So, is 'marriage counsellor' an easy escape or a quick solution, much like getting a quick fix beauty treatment? Reasons Dr Gitanjali Sharma, marriage and relationship counsellor, "Marriage counsellor isn't escapism but acknowledging the problem, and when a couple is not able to resolve their issues they should seek help before the damage is done." Dr Sharma blames impatience and lack of willingness to accommodate each other as the primary cause of disharmony. Then at what stage of conflict do couples usually approach a therapist? Says she, "I have had couples visiting me after they had filed for a divorce wanting to make one last attempt. What's worth appreciating here is the resolve to give it another try." With a client list made of lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats, Dr Sharma believes in admission and acceptance as the first step to healing. "I need to take my clients from a state of denial where they feel the problem lies with their partner, to identifying that the problem lies with both of them. Realisation of the problem is the most difficult phase as you cannot suddenly turn over a new leaf," she adds. No denying, there is great solace in confiding, as experts believe until a few decades ago couples did the same in their parents whose opinion they held in high stead. But changing expectations with changing times has only complicated matters. What with no lessons being imparted on anger control, self talk, and a wicked, single-minded focus on Intelligence Quotient (IQ) instead of Emotional Quotient (EQ). Laments Dr Sharma, "More educated we are, the more rigid we become, and find it difficult to resolve even a trifle issue. In such a scenario, a therapist gives lessons to the couple on flexibility and mutual trust." Happily married 41 years now, Govinda Chakraborty, a retired government official and an avid theatre enthusiast, attributes their long conjugal years to mutual trust and understanding. "If your goal is to stay together the rest follows, and the little adjustments you make never actually matters." Marriages on many occasions end with a whimper due to high expectations, leaving one partner disillusioned and heartbroken. He avers, "Expectations should be set on the grounds of expectations of the counterpart. Whenever we had our differences we decided to sit down and sort it out rather than confide in anyone." Seconds Dr Malhotra, "Marriage is about mutual trust, healthy communication, empathy and responsibility. While a marital discord could arise out of personality issues, emotional instability, impulse control problems, misplaced priorities, or infidelity, it is imperative to understand the reason and get a timely treatment." Economic distress or communication breakdown, whatever storm you are braving, the idea is to simply keep at it.

Building Self Confidence

Several similar terms describe the central attribute of a character that decides on the strength of personality and the degree of inner freedom: - "self assurance" describes mostly the behaviour. Counterparts are insecure behaviour or shyness. - "self confidence" is the mental and emotional state that causes the outer appearance. - "charisma" is the effect that those have on others. Self confidence doesn't mean being perfect or presenting oneself in a perfect way, but realizing and accepting own strengths and weaknesses, using strengths to reach aims and considering weaknesses as challenges, not insurmountable limits. It can be observed that some children are by nature more actively exploring their environment than others. So possibly self confidence has a genetic foundation. Still, all experiences that include social interaction, with parents, relatives, friends and classmates, influence the development of self esteem. Appreciation has a positive, rejection a negative effect. But unfortunately, it's not that easy. False or fake appreciation can often be observed with parents and relatives. For example the adoration of even the smallest output of infant creativity, like crude drawings, and other approvals of a child's intelligence and appearance can lead to a situation of over-confidence. Undeserved rejection, on the other hand, like punishing or disregarding a child out of an own bad mood, will confuse it and create insecurity. Over-confidence, or the belief in own abilities and performance that are not real, can lead to arrogance. This can either turn into insecurity, if the person later realizes the truth, or it turns into an inconsiderate behaviour, which also isn't making life easier. Insecurity or shyness are very common burdens and they tend to create a lot of problems. Aside from lacking social and personal success, the constant fear of the own inferiority creates barriers that are hard to overcome. So what's the secret of how to give a child a healthy self-confidence? - Be realistic with appreciation. If you feel you should commend your child for something, consider what would be the ability at its age and then evaluate the outcome. If it deserves appreciation, give it. If you have the feeling that your child is putting to much effort in getting your attention, try to get it back down to reality carefully. Love and appreciation shouldn't be goods that can be bought. - Don't criticize or reject your child out of a bad mood. If you come home after a stressful day and your kid comes up with a picture, show some interest - it might mean a lot more to it than you think. - Keep an eye on the influence your child is receiving from its friends. But if you have a bad feeling, try to talk to your child before you call the offender's parents and ask for a restraining order. - Don't do things for your child if it's afraid of something. It might be hard sometimes, but how should it learn to be independent if it can always hide behind its parents? Later on, it will lack the confidence that comes from the experience of having to do things on its own. - Always be there to give advice if required. There's a whole new world of complex social systems out there, and it's easy to get lost. Remember when you were a child… probably you can learn a lot from that.

Childhood Overweight and the Relationship between Parent Behaviors, Parenting Style, and Family Functioning

This article discusses the relationship between parent behaviors, parenting style, and how a family functions with respect to the development of childhood overweight. Parents can influence a child's weight through specific feeding and activity practices and perhaps more broadly through their parenting style and management of family functioning. These more global influences of parenting style and family functioning provide a framework in which specific parent behaviors can be interpreted by the child. Therefore, understanding the impact of specific parent behaviors within the context of parenting style and family functioning needs to be explored. This article highlights the pervasive influence of parents around the development of dietary habits, and suggests that additional efforts to examine the interaction between specific feeding behaviors and parenting style/family functioning should be promoted to better inform the development of interventions that may help stem the growing prevalence of obesity among our children.

Build Your Capacity to Create a Loving Home

Your home is where your children learn the most elemental lessons of human life — how to take care of their own needs and how to contribute to taking care of the needs of others. Home is a foundation for your children’s future relationships as spouses, life partners, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, good friends, community members, co-workers, and stewards of the planet. And home is a sanctuary to protect your children so they can learn lessons of caring and contribution at their own developmental pace and with your support, guidance, and respect. A loving home is free of fear, which is the source of all conflict. It is a place where children trust that their needs matter and that everyone’s needs — theirs included — will be considered and cared for. They can then relax into the life that calls them forth with such urgency — and find their place in the net of giving and receiving that forms a family, a community, a nation, and a world. Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids is primarily about parent-child relationships. The processes and suggestions for improving respect and co-operation apply to all ages of children and are also very effective in communicating with adult family members. Each of the three parts of this book will contribute to a parent’s growing capacity to create a respectful, loving home.

Celebrate the Small Steps

No approach is ever perfect – there are definitely days when all Lydia can do is vent and 15 minutes just hits the tip of the iceberg. But there are also days when she doesn’t feel an urge to call to vent at all. Instead, she calls to celebrate – it could be that she was able to calm herself down all on her own. Or, that rather than yell back in rebellion at her dad’s demand, she was able to walk away, trusting fully that once he’d calmed down that he’d be open to more a compassionate discussion. As you attempt these steps with your own kids, remember to model celebration of the smallest of accomplishments. Why? Because this stuff isn’t easy, not by a long shot. And it can be easy to get discouraged when we haven’t acknowledged our accomplishments. And, because each baby step absolutely matters because it builds trust one word at a time.

Model Respect

A rule I continue to reiterate to Lydia is this - regardless of how you feel about your dad’s and mother's parenting style or how he communicates, you need to show him respect. We can’t expect respect if we don’t offer respect first. I tell her this in the context of a broader lesson about life. At some point in her life, she’s likely to have a boss, customer or teacher whose style she doesn’t like. We can disagree, we can stand up for ourselves, but it is never ok to disrespect. Because when we do, we say “my needs matter more than yours.” It would be inauthentic of me to not show any frustration or annoyance at my ex’s style in front of my daughter. But for the most part, I remember that by modeling respect of my ex first, I’m showing my daughter she can too.

The Battle of Parenting Styles

In divorced or separated families in particular, differences in parenting styles are a common cause of conflict. And if you’re sitting in the seat of the “NVC parent,” it can be easy to quickly judge your ex’s style as “wrong,” “domineering” or simply “uninformed.” Yet such judgments are only cause for further conflict. What NVC teaches us is that using demands with our kids may work in the short run. And if a demand doesn’t do it, certainly a “do this or else” command will do the trick. Before we know it, the house is quiet, everyone’s doing what they’re told, and we can finally relax. Enter … teenage daughter who visits every other weekend. Just so happens she lives full time with mom, and they’ve been living this thing called “NVC consciousness” for years. Suddenly your demand/ command approach no longer works with her. She sees right through you and rebels at the mere sniff of a demand. So what’s a parent to do? On one hand your mind is racing with “if he’d just do it like I do, things would be fine.” And on the other you realize that your ex truly believes his style works, he stands behind it and has no intention of changing. Whether you have full custody, shared custody or something in between, how we respond to our ex’s parenting style to him and around our child will have a lasting impact on their relationship to one another.