Parenting

What’s in your Parent/Child CommunicaTION?

When children experience dialogue with their parents as being heavy in direction and correction they will hear parental questions of interest as interrogation. They will expect whatever they tell their parent about their day will lead to correction or direction…which will then feel like condemnation. Researchers tell us in healthy parent/child relationships the communication ratio is typically 4 positive, affirming comments to 1 negative or correcting comment. In struggling relationships, to create something positive the ratio would increase to 8 to 1. Yikes! That means for every direction or correction statement, I need to say 8 non-direction, non-correction statements. To be successful, I am going to need to know WHAT to say.

From Confrontation to Conversation: Thoughts on Listening

We often overlook the role of listening in our lives. There are many guidelines that people give for public speaking, but whoever heard of anything like that for public listening? We take it for granted and don’t think about the importance that it has in creating, healing, and maintaining relationships. True listening is an active … Read moreFrom Confrontation to Conversation: Thoughts on Listening

Mother’s Day – A Day of Ambivalence

Grief is layered. Love is vulnerable. Forgiveness is a mysterious healer. Being willing to love well will require us to risk experiencing great loss. For many Mother’s Day brings both joy and sadness and they are reminded that there is much to be thankful for and much to grieve. Living healthy requires the ability to do both… sometimes on the same day…

Life Lessons Learned On the Court

Team sports offer youth the ability to learn the following life lessons: you don’t control the world, the value of teaching rather than finding faults, encouragement motivates – criticism discourages, mistakes are part of life, each person has a part to play and each person is gifted in some way but not necessarily the same as others, and your identity and value is not based on performance.