communication – Marriage Success

How Did My Child Get So Disrespectful?

This is a question too many parents are asking these days. And it seems the age at which this problem manifests is getting younger and younger.

Let's look at some of the apparent reasons for this:

• Peer pressure. Kids tend to emulate what the "other" kids are doing so if they observe their friends being disrespectful to their parents, this makes it easier for them to follow suit.

• Turbulent school environment. If the scene at school is rough and kids are learning not-so-wonderful character traits, this can rub off at home.

• Parents not around. When both parents work or spend too much time away from home, some children find ways to let their parents know they object to this. Disrespect may certainly be one of these ways.

Each one of the above most certainly can be factors, but let me suggest another possibility:

The parent and the child are OUT of communication with each other.

What does that mean: "out" of communication? It means simply there may be talking going back and forth, but communicating isn't really happening. The child has things on his mind that s/he doesn't want the parents to know or is too embarrassed to tell them. The parents observe conduct that they consider non-optimum and instead of sitting down with the child and discussing this, they get backed off or consider they just don't have the time to do so.

The child may be struggling to understand something about life or upset about something that happened with a friend. The parent who gets in there and finds out these things and is there to gently help the child resolve these concerns is a parent who is instilling respect into the relationship. And this respect goes both ways: from the child to the parent and from the parent to the child.

A vital ingredient in helping your child grow is communication. It cannot be brushed off. To the degree that your conversations with your child are superficial, to that degree your child will go out of harmony with you. You, the parent, are in control of how much harmony and respect there is in your home.

Each of the three factors given above (peer pressure, etc.) may be present in your child's life. But if you and your child are in superb communication, these factors just do not have the same impact they would otherwise.

It is never too late to get into better and better communication with your child. Every step in that direction is a major step in the right direction.

In future posts, we'll discuss ways to bring about this superb communication with your child.

The Advantages of Sleeping On It…

You and your husband are upset about something. What advantages are there to sleeping on it?

I'd have to say...none.

If you and your spouse are in the middle of an upset, it's worth the extra effort to try to resolve it before heading off to bed. For a few reasons:

• You'll get much better sleep if the upset is behind you.

• Though some upsets will "fade away" with time, many do just the opposite. They linger and can have a negative impact on other areas of life.

• Upsets (even minor ones) that are allowed to accumulate can put unnecessary strain on the marriage.

• If there are kids, whether they view the upset(s) directly or not, they are affected by them.

Sometimes we're just too tired to sit down and resolve an upset before going to bed, but any effort you (and your spouse) make on this kind of thing can be very helpful. Even if all you do is look each other in the eye and say, "hey, I know we're upset but I think the world of you. Let's agree to fix this tomorrow for sure." — that's far better than sleeping on it. And a fast hug or kiss wouldn't hurt.

One Very Easy Way to Improve Communication…

If you and your spouse are not in good communication with each other, there are a number of ways to improve the communication, but here is a very simple approach: talk to your spouse about things that are VERY REAL to him/her.

Each spouse has a number of subjects that are “very real” to them. It might be work-related, a favorite sport, a particular political view, maybe even a sibling that one spouse spends a lot of time with. If you’ve been together for even a short time, you pretty much know what these subjects are.

If you’re the wife and you’d like to take that first step to improve communication, discuss subjects with your husband that he has a good bit of “reality” on. If you do this, your husband’s willingness to communicate will be higher than before. Keep it sincere along this line and you will eventually see an increased willingness to communicate about other subjects (recent upsets perhaps).

People find it very easy to talk about things that are very real to them. When the level of communication in your marriage drops, talk to your spouse about these very real subjects first and you’ll have taken a simple and effective step to raising the level of communication.