Brought to you by Lois Fischer, MA, LMFT

If your marriage is having problems, you shouldn't wait too long to seek professional help.

From some recent reading I've done, in addition to my own experience in working with couples, I am sharing some  information on what type of couple gets the most from marriage counseling and what type of couple receives the least from marriage counseling.

Answer These Questions:

•    Did you marry at an early age?
•    Are you in an inter-faith marriage?
•    Did your parents divorce?
•    Do you criticize one another?
•    Is there a lot of defensiveness in your marriage?
•    Do you tend to withdraw from one another?
•    Do you feel contempt for one another?

If you answered "yes" to most of these questions, then you are statistically a higher risk for divorce than couples who have realistic expectations of one another and their marriage, communicate well, use conflict resolution skills, and are compatible with one another.

The Effectiveness of Marriage Counseling

A study by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) shows that families do want therapy and place a high value on the experience.

What Type of Couple Gets the Most From Marriage Counseling?
Answer:

•    Young couples.
•    Non-sexist couples.
•    Couples who are still in love.
•    Couples who are open to therapy and change.

What Type of Couple Receives the Least from Marriage Counseling?

Answer:
•    Couples who wait too long before seeking help.
•    Marriages with one or the other spouse set on getting a divorce.
•    Married individuals who are closed to any suggestions that may save the marriage.

Solutions Learned From Happy Couples

Dr. John Gottman's research looks at happy couples for solutions. He has discovered that even though all couples experience conflict in their marriages, happy couples apparently know how to handle their disagreements because of a foundation of affection and friendship.

Unhappy couples do not have this skill.

Gottman's research suggests that the goal of couple therapy needs to change. Rather than trying to change marriages, he thinks counselors should teach communication skills to couples.

Don't Wait
If you think your marriage is in trouble, do not wait.  Call Lois Fischer for an appointment at 763-546-5797 and get your relationship back on track.  

Welcome to the New Year! It is time for change, renewal, and celebration. The great thing about today is that yesterday is gone. You can't go back and undo things you have done, but you can embrace today and look toward the future with hope. Build on yesterday's success and learn from yesterday's failures. Live in today.

Brought to you by Harriet Kohen, MSW and Lois Fischer, MA, LMFT

Yesterday we told about Julie Scelfo's New York Times article entitled "Your Brain on Computers:  The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In."  Here is Part II.  Too much texting?  Trouble with your "Crackberry"?  Need help with your family relationships?  Schedule with us at 763-546-5797.  Use your HSA (Health Savings Account) and get what you and your family need.

"Your Brain on Computer:  The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In" (Part II)

NOT ALL child-development experts think smartphone and laptop use by parents is necessarily a bad thing, of course. Parents have always had to divide their attention, and researchers point out that there’s a difference between quantity and quality when it comes to conversations between parents and children.

“It sort of comes back to quality time, and distracted time is not high-quality time, whether parents are checking the newspaper or their BlackBerry,” said Frederick J. Zimmerman, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health who has studied how television can distract parents. He also noted that smartphones and laptops may enable some parents to spend more time at home, which may, in turn, result in more, rather than less, quality time overall.

There is little research on how parents’ constant use of such technology affects children, but experts say there is no question that engaged parenting — talking and explaining things to children, and responding to their questions — remains the bedrock of early childhood learning.Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley’s landmark 1995 book, “Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children,” shows that parents who supply a language-rich environment for their children help them develop a wide vocabulary, and that helps them learn to read.

The book connects language use at home with socioeconomic status. According to its findings, children in higher socioeconomic homes hear an average of 2,153 words an hour, whereas those in working-class households hear only about 1,251; children in the study whose parents were on welfare heard an average of 616 words an hour. The question is: Will devices like smartphones change that? Smartphone users tend to have higher incomes; research from the Nielsen Company shows that they are twice as likely to make more than $100,000 a year than the average mobile subscriber. If increased use of technology encroaches on the time that well-to-do families spend communicating with their children, some could become the victims of successes originally thought to help them.

Dr. Hart, who is now professor emeritus at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute, said that more research is needed to find out whether the constant use of smartphones and other technology is interfering with parent-child communications. But she expressed hope that more parents would consider how their use of electronic devices might be limiting their ability to meet their children’s needs.

Part of the reason the children in affluent homes she studied developed larger vocabularies by the time they were 3 is that “parents are holding kids, the kids are on their lap while the parent is reading a book,” Dr. Hart said. “It is important for parents to know when they’re talking to kids, they’re transferring affection as well as words. When you talk to people, there’s always an implicit message, ‘I like you,’ or ‘I don’t like you.’ ”

Meredith Sinclair, a mother and blogger in Wilmette, Ill., said she had no idea how what she calls her “addiction to e-mail and social media Web sites” was bothering her children until she established an e-mail and Internet ban between 4 and 8 p.m., and her children responded with glee. “When I told them, my 12-year-old, Maxwell, was like, ‘Yes!’ ” Ms. Sinclair said.

“You can’t really do both,” she added. “If I’m at all connected, it’s too tempting. I need to make a distinct choice.”

Brought to you by Harriet Kohen, MSW and Lois Fischer, MA, LMFT

How are smart phones and computers affecting your family relationships? There is much food for thought in Julie Scelfo's terrific article in the New York Times (June 9, 2010) entitled "Your Brain on Computers: The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In." Need help with your family relationships? We love working with children and teens.  Schedule with Harriet Kohen and Lois Fischer at 763-546-5797.  Use your HSA (Health Savings Account) and get what you and your family need.

"Your Brain on Computers: The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In" 

WHILE waiting for an elevator at the Fair Oaks Mall near her home in Virginia recently, Janice Im, who works in early-childhood development, witnessed a troubling incident between a young boy and his mother.

The boy, who Ms. Im estimates was about 2 1/2 years old, made repeated attempts to talk to his mother, but she wouldn’t look up from her BlackBerry. “He’s like: ‘Mama? Mama? Mama?’ ” Ms. Im recalled. “And then he starts tapping her leg. And she goes: ‘Just wait a second. Just wait a second.’ ”

Finally, he was so frustrated, Ms. Im said, that “he goes, ‘Ahhh!’ and tries to bite her leg.”

Much of the concern about cellphones and instant messaging and Twitter has been focused on how children who incessantly use the technology are affected by it. But parents’ use of such technology — and its effect on their offspring — is now becoming an equal source of concern to some child-development researchers.

Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology and Self, has been studying how parental use of technology affects children and young adults. After five years and 300 interviews, she has found that feelings of hurt, jealousy and competition are widespread. Her findings will be published in “Alone Together” early next year by Basic Books.

In her studies, Dr. Turkle said, “Over and over, kids raised the same three examples of feeling hurt and not wanting to show it when their mom or dad would be on their devices instead of paying attention to them: at meals, during pickup after either school or an extracurricular activity, and during sports events.”

Dr. Turkle said that she recognizes the pressure adults feel to make themselves constantly available for work, but added that she believes there is a greater force compelling them to keep checking the screen.

“There’s something that’s so engrossing about the kind of interactions people do with screens that they wall out the world,” she said. “I’ve talked to children who try to get their parents to stop texting while driving and they get resistance, ‘Oh, just one, just one more quick one, honey.’ It’s like ‘one more drink.’ ”

Laura Scott Wade, the director of ethics for a national medical organization in Chicago, said that six months ago her son, Lincoln, then 3 1/2, got so tired of her promises to get off the computer in “just one more minute” that he resorted to the kind of tactic parents typically use.

“He makes me set the timer on the microwave,” Ms. Wade said. “And when it dings he’ll say, ‘Come on,’ and he’ll say, ‘Don’t bring your phone.’ ”

    Authored by Harriet Kohen and Lois Fisher

At graduation time, it reminds us of those we love...and those we seldom see, often due to a painful divorce.  This article from the New York Times reminds us to help our children through big life transitions, no matter their age.  Let us help your family with transitions, as well as the issues that affect our every day.  Just give Harriet Kohen and Lois Fischer a call to schedule at 763-546-5797. 

When the Ties That Bind Unravel

                                                                            Stuart Bradford

Therapists for years have listened to patients blame parents for their problems. Now there is growing interest in the other side of the story: What about the suffering of parents who are estranged from their adult children?

While there are no official tallies of parents whose adult children have cut them off, there is no shortage of headlines. The Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn reportedly hasn’t spoken to her father in at least four years. The actor Jon Voight and his daughter, Angelina Jolie, were photographed together in February for the first time since they were estranged in 2002.

A number of Web sites and online chat rooms are devoted to the issue, with heartbreaking tales of children who refuse their parents’ phone calls and e-mail and won’t let them see grandchildren. Some parents seek grief counseling, while others fall into depression and even contemplate suicide.

Joshua Coleman, a San Francisco psychologist who is an expert on parental estrangement, says it appears to be growing more and more common, even in families who haven’t experienced obvious cruelty or traumas like abuse and addiction. Instead, parents often report that a once-close relationship has deteriorated after a conflict over money, a boyfriend or built-up resentments about a parent’s divorce or remarriage.

“We live in a culture that assumes if there is an estrangement, the parents must have done something really terrible,” said Dr. Coleman, whose book “When Parents Hurt” (William Morrow, 2007) focuses on estrangement. “But this is not a story of adult children cutting off parents who made egregious mistakes. It’s about parents who were good parents, who made mistakes that were certainly within normal limits.”

Dr. Coleman himself experienced several years of estrangement with his adult daughter, with whom he has reconciled. Mending the relationship took time and a persistent effort by Dr. Coleman to stay in contact. It also meant listening to his daughter’s complaints and accepting responsibility for his mistakes. “I tried to really get what her feelings were and tried to make amends and repair,” he said. “Over the course of several years, it came back slowly.”

Not every parent is so successful. Debby Kintner of Somerville, Tenn., sought grief counseling after her adult daughter, and only child, ended their relationship. “It hit me like a freight train,” she said. “I sit down and comb through my memories and try to figure out which day was it that it went wrong. I don’t know.”

Ms. Kintner talks of life as a single parent, raising an honor student who insisted her mother accompany her on a class trip to London, a college student who made frequent calls and visits home. Things changed after her daughter began an on-again, off-again relationship with a boyfriend and moved back home after becoming pregnant. Arguments about her daughter’s decision to move in with the man and Ms. Kintner’s refusal to give her daughter a car eventually led to estrangement. She now has no contact with her daughter or three grandchildren.

“I knew parents and children had fights, but there was enough love to come back together,” Ms. Kintner said. “This is your mother who gave you a nice life and loved you.’ “

Judith, a mother in Augusta, Ga., who asked that her last name not be used, tells of a loving, creative daughter who experienced a turbulent adolescence. At college graduation, the parents were shocked when their daughter unleashed an angry tirade about her childhood. Later, the daughter asked for financial help paying for an Ivy League graduate school. The parents agreed, but a visit to see her on the East Coast was marred by another round of harsh words and accusations. They withdrew their financial support and returned home.

“I’ve done a lot of crying,” said Judith, who has sought therapy to cope. “I’m very depressed. All the holidays are sad, and we don’t have any closure on this. She was so wanted. She was so loved. She still is loved. We want her in our life.”

Dr. Coleman says he believes parental estrangement is a “silent epidemic,” because many parents are ashamed to admit they’ve lost contact with their children.

Often, he said, parents in these situations give up too soon. He advises them to continue weekly letters, e-mail messages or phone calls even when they are rejected, and to be generous in taking responsibility for their mistakes — even if they did not seem like mistakes at the time.

After all, he went on, parents and children have very different perspectives. “It’s possible for a parent to feel like they were doing something out of love,” he said, “but it didn’t feel like love to that child.”

Friends, other family members and therapists can often help a parent cope with the loss of an estranged child. So can patience: reconciliation usually takes many conversations, not just one.

“When I was going through this, it was a gray cloud, a nightmare,” Dr. Coleman said. “Don’t just assume if your child is rejecting you that that’s the end of the conversation. Parents have to be on a campaign to let the child know that they’re in it for the long haul.”