Stuck

Your family has a big problem! Your kids are misbehaving and your marriage is strained with the recession, too much debt, and the breakdown of communication (an exchange of understanding) with the kids.

As a result of the stress, the two of you don’t talk much any more. Sure, you might yell a little, throw a few blame jabs, coupled with some justification jargon, but as for communicating, that happened in the good ol’ days.

You’re stuck trying to solve a problem you have no idea how to solve. You’re stuck because the solutions you receive from friends and family typically come from folks in the same situation as you. Following their advice only blesses you with problems that look a lot like theirs and you are content with your own.

Most people don’t solve problems they shuffle symptoms. I heard about a couple that had difficulty maintaining decorum while addressing finances with each other. They decided to conduct future financial discussions in a restaurant. The public pressure safeguarded emotional explosions that typified such events.

How is using public pressure solving the problem? It’s a band-aid covering the inability for either spouse to effectively communicate about money.

Our current way of talking about money, children, or intimacy have been ingrained in us for decades. Waking up tomorrow with the desire to discontinue arguing with children and spouse is great but unlikely to happen.

Reading books from ’so-called’ experts gives you added knowledge, but how does one translate the knowledge from the book, into your head, and into practice? This is another place where we get stuck, especially if one spouse is doing the reading and the other has his/her head in the sand.

When you practice what you’ve learned, you develop skills. The frustration in most families has nothing to do with bad people, parent or child, but rather, it has to do with a lack of skills.

Parenting was designed to be fun as well as challenging. It’s not the job of a parent to be a friend, it’s your job to be a parent and there are skills you can develop quickly that make your job easier and more rewarding.

Wouldn’t you enjoy intimate time with your teenager? How would it be if your teenager wanted to spend his/her time with you because they trusted you and respected your feedback?

The majority of kids who rebel do so because the parental system at home is broken, not because they were born with a propensity to push your buttons.