Archives for parenting

Solving the Most Common Relationship Issues: Differing Methods for Child Rearing

June 3, 2019 by admin in Family, Relationships | Comments Off on Solving the Most Common Relationship Issues: Differing Methods for Child Rearing

How do we discipline our 2-year old when he’s having a temper tantrum in the middle of the store? Do we let our middle schooler have the cell phone she’s been begging us for? How do we handle our teenager who wants to be allowed to go to parties and get in cars with people we’ve never met? These questions are tough enough to answer when raising children, but can be even tougher when you and your spouse can’t agree on the answer! Although we tend to look for a partner who shares similar core values and beliefs, consider that a relationship consists of two different people from two different backgrounds.  That can lead to some vastly different approaches when it comes to child rearing. So, how can you work together and make countless decisions without arguments, recriminations and resentments?

Respect each other: It can be hard to really listen to your partner’s opinions when they don’t match your own. However, remember that your partner is NOT a mirror image of you. As strongly as you feel about doing “A”, your partner may feel equally as strong about doing “B”, and have just as many valid reasons. You don’t have to agree, but have respect for your partner as a different person with a different personality than you, a different history and maybe a different culture/religion.  Respecting each other will go a long way in smoothing out this common relationship issue.

Listen, listen and listen some more:  When your partner is talking about their opinion, be curious and try to cross into their worldview.  You might ask clarifying questions. What are the feelings behind their thought? For example, it may be easy to see your partner is angry when they are demanding you punish your child for going to a party they weren’t supposed to attend. But be inquisitive about what else they may be feeling.  Perhaps they felt fear that something could have gone wrong. Gaining better insight and understanding into your partner’s feelings will always be helpful in navigating differing ways of child rearing.

Try for compromise:  Go for a solution you both feel at least okay with.  To get there:  both people can identify what they are inflexible about and where there is room for flexibility. Let’s look at an example: your partner feels it is very important for your pre teen to have a cell phone so they can be more social and be able to “fit in” with their friends. But you are strongly against it, believing the use of cell phones only contributes to more problems with friends.  If each of you made a list of areas of flexibility and inflexibility perhaps a fair compromise is that your child gets the phone, but is limited to times they are allowed to use it, as well as limits on social media use.

Take it deeper:  Often we have a strong opinion when a topic reminds us of our own childhood experience.  Be curious about your own history with this item and tell your partner what this reminds you of, good or bad.  For example:  your partner forbids your teen from using any kind of profanity but you’re more forgiving.  When you think back to your childhood, perhaps you were called a prude for following the rules.  You think that if your child breaks a social norm once in a while, they’ll be more accepted by peers and this is part of the reason you’re okay with occasional swearing.

Raising children is one of the most challenging jobs we can have, but also the most important to work together on. If you feel your relationship needs help meeting this challenge, contact us at getsupport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com or call 908-246-3074 to schedule an appointment.

Making Summer a Time to Connect With Your Spouse—And Your Kids!

June 21, 2018 by admin in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Making Summer a Time to Connect With Your Spouse—And Your Kids!

Summer brings longer days and brighter sunshine. In books and movies, it’s a time for love- spending days relaxing and taking romantic strolls. The reality may look a little different for parents. As a parent, I feel very torn this time of year. Part of me is singing Hallelujah at the thought of no more rousing sleepy children up for school and fighting to get homework done.  But the other part of me is thinking about months with little routine and kids who may be bored and constantly hungry!

With some creative thinking, summertime can be quality family time you may be missing during the school year AND quality time with your partner in different ways than you can during the winter months.

  • Take advantage of warm weather and go outdoors- Do something fun with your partner, like playing mini golf, hiking, dining on an outdoor patio or renting a jet ski together. Take a similar creative view and find family activities that you can only do in the summer-visit a water park, head to the beach or go to an outdoor concert.
  • Take advantage of less running- Throughout the school year, our time tends to be filled with the practicalities of homework and chauffeuring. The summer can bring a break from all that. Enjoy more leisurely family dinners on weeknights without having to eat in between activities. Take the kids to a farmer’s market and try a new fruit or vegetable. Extra time with your partner can allow for coming home from work when it is still light outside and do something as simple as sitting out in the backyard and catching up on your day.
  • Take the vacations with and without the kids- Enjoy a family getaway at places with a range of activities (from roller coasters to museums) so family members with different interests find something each one likes. Living in the northeast corridor affords lots of opportunities for spouses to visit a winery, a historic site or the city.
  • On a rainy day, stay home and look through old photos and have an indoor ‘picnic’. Take out family albums and tell your spouse or kids about where you grew up and what activities your family did.  Put your digital photos up on the TV and view the more recent ones on a big screen.  Then spread out an old blanket or tablecloth on the living room floor and have an indoor ‘picnic’ free from ants!
  • Allow each family member to have a say in the activity or alternate choosing the activity. It’s possible to unconsciously cater to one child’s needs and interests and the rest of the family gets dragged along.  Each day let a different family member choose the activity or put out options to vote on (and the parents make the final decision).  Explain that a family is a system that needs to work together to function at its best – each member can sometimes lead and sometimes follow, but always with a positive attitude.
  • Allow for miscommunication and mishaps. Having expectations can cause disappointment when the reality doesn’t live up to what we envisioned.  Taking that one step further – we often don’t verbalize these expectations to the other(s) so they have no idea what we had in mind!  No wonder arguments can break out in the middle of something that’s supposed to be fun.  Communicate ahead of time and be adaptable when needed.  Keep your focus on the fact that everyone’s safe, healthy and you are all together.  After all, that’s the whole point

Parenting in The Age of Social Media Frenzy

March 22, 2018 by admin in Family, Relationships, Teens, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Parenting in The Age of Social Media Frenzy

When young couples dream of having children, they dream about such things like holding their newborn infant for the first time, watching them take their first steps and experiencing countless moments of pure joy and love for a child they’ve created together. And while all those things do happen, the reality  we come to understand is that parenting is hard! And parenting in today’s world of technology is even harder! As a mother of four kids, I often find myself saying ‘I wish I was a parent years ago before phones and social media existed. It was probably so much easier.’ Of course, parenting in any generation came with its own set of issues, but the advent and influence technology and social media has on our children has certainly caused many extra layers of complexity as we raise our young children into pre-teens and especially through the rough  teenage years.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the pitfalls we can run into navigating our children through these social media times.

-“But mom everyone has a phone except me!”-It seems like the “appropriate” age to provide your child with a phone keeps getting younger and younger. So how do you determine when is it the right time to put the phone in your child’s hands? First, as difficult as it may be, try not be swayed by the ‘but everyone else has one’ argument. Generally, when kids make that statement, we realize their idea of everyone is likely to be skewed. No one knows your child better than you, so base your decision on them personally.  There is no right age and as parents, we have to be comfortable with the timing. It is also important to remember that allowing your kids to have a phone and allowing them to join social media sites can be two different things!  Consider…

  • Are they responsible enough to take care of a phone?
  • What are the needs they (and you) have that the phone would serve?
  • How would you guide them in making decisions on who to friend, who to accept, and what to post?

Understand the lure of the smartphone.  These devices are designed to get users addicted by offering variable reward.  Meaning, we don’t know if each time we check, there will be a new message or ‘friend’ for us.  Sometimes there is and this gives us a dopamine hit which feels good.  Other times, there isn’t.  It’s the possibility of ‘reward’ that keeps us coming back (adults too).  It is a powerful force and you will need to set consistent guidelines for its use.

-“I guess I wasn’t invited to Julia’s party that everyone is posting about”-Being an adolescent is hard enough with issues such as trying to fit in and make friends. Years ago, kids may have heard about a party they were left out of after the fact. But in today’s social media age, kids are seeing all social activities every other kid is doing on any given day. This provides a lot of opportunity for them to feel left out or bad about themselves, ultimately potentially affecting their self-esteem. As parents, it is important to teach our kids how to feel confident in themselves and not compare their social lives to anyone else’s or base their worth on how many followers they have. This is a tough lesson; after all, how many of us have seen a Facebook post about a night out that we weren’t included in and felt badly? We need to share the lessons we remind ourselves with our kids…

  • Focus on the friends you have
  • Not everyone gets invited to every event and how to accept that
  • One’s worth is not determined by how many (often superficial) online friends one has

– “I’ll put down the phone in a minute. I just want to send this Snap”-We have likely all read countless articles about how much time adolescents spend on their phones today, and how detrimental that can be. But how much time is too much? And how do we get our kids to actually enjoy other activities when the lure of social media is so huge? As with the “right” age, there is also no magical amount of screen time that is appropriate. Again, every child is different and you want to consider how much time is appropriate for your child. But, engaging them in other activities is certainly an important element in this dilemma. It’s hard enough to connect with our adolescents, but even harder when having to fight for their attention with the screen. So don’t hesitate to make certain activities technology free!  Consider…

  • Involving them in other (offline) activities
  • Establish phone-free times, such as mealtime
  • Make family movie nights – take turns who chooses the film and make special snacks for the occasion
  • Initiate in-person conversation with your kids (riding together in the car is a great time for this).

The technology won’t stop evolving, and parenting will always be hard! But with some focus on the rewards, we can all get to continue experiencing those daily moments of pure joy we dream about. If you need help with parenting in these tough times, please feel free to contact us at 908-246-3074 or getsupport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com.

How to Handle Different Parenting Styles: “I’m Tired of Always Being the Bad Guy”

January 19, 2017 by admin in Family, Marriage, Relationships | Leave a comment

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One of you thinks spanking is necessary at times and the other thinks there’s never a justification to hit

One of you thinks kids need a good amount of discipline and the other thinks kids learn best in a loving environment

One of you thinks kids need to have chores and the other thinks kids should be allowed to be kids

One of you wants to track your child’s phone and the other thinks kids are trusted until proven wrong

If these disagreements in your relationship sound familiar, you aren’t alone. Many couples may hold similar values and morals, but simply have different parenting styles. Of course you and your child’s other parent are going to have different ideas – you were raised in different homes, maybe in a different city/culture/religion and definitely by different parents! While your personalities may mesh well in other aspects of your relationship, often simply having different personalities create very different types of parents, with different ideas of how strict or lenient children should be raised.

These differences can cause couples a lot of distress, where arguments abound and tensions run high. This is especially true if one parent is always feeling like they need to act as the disciplinarian or the ‘bad guy’.  Sometimes the other parent then becomes the ‘fun parent’.  Anger and resentment can easily build if this becomes a pattern.

The good news is that different parenting styles is not always a bad thing!  The good cop/bad cop routine can work well for couples at times, and often, a good balance can be found between a stricter parent and a more laid-back parent.  With some simple tips, you can find this healthy balance, and turn your different parenting styles into a positive for you and your family.

  • Develop the ability to carve out time to talk about these topics WHEN YOU ARE NOT PRESSED TO DECIDE AND AWAY FROM THE KIDS-To help eliminate the ‘bad guy’ and ‘fun parent’ roles, having these conversations away from the kids will allow you to come to an agreement on decisions and then present a united front.
  • Try to be flexible with your point of view-Get more information about healthy parenting from books, blogs, your child’s teachers/guidance counselors, and other reliable sources.  Share what you find with your partner without pressuring them to comply.  There isn’t only one right way to parent, and the more both partners can be flexible and open to trying different parenting techniques, the more likely you can be to strike a happy balance that both partners can live with.
  • Get into your own therapy- Spending time exploring the issues that being a parent may be triggering in you will be worthwhile. People bring their own upbringing and childhood into all aspects of their adult lives especially parenting, and you don’t want to blindly act out your issues on your kids. While the level of discipline that occurred in your household growing up may have worked well enough, that doesn’t mean it was optimal. Remember every child is also different and may not respond the same to different methods of discipline.
  • Begin couples therapy focusing on parenting- Couples counseling will give you a safe place for these discussions.  You will both gain an understanding of where the other’s views came from.  This leads to empathy and caring, which moves couples closer to each other.  It’s from this closer vantage point that parents feel more like partners.

You may find that with some work and time, your parenting differences will be a helpful thing for your partner- the strict parent may learn to loosen the reins just a little bit, and the laid-back parent may find that sometimes more discipline is necessary and appropriate. While you don’t always have to be on the same exact page on every discipline matter, seek to find a healthy balance.

 

If you have are having trouble with opposing parenting styles in your relationship, we can teach you how to implement these tips and have productive conversations about these issues. Call us at 908-246-3074, or email at getsupport@couplestherapycenterofnj.com. Doing it sooner rather than later could save your years of unnecessary hassle and make your current relationship stronger than ever.