Manifestation miracle
Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parents. Show all posts
How To Teach Our Kids The Sense Of Responsibility
As parents, we want our kids to be responsible. We also want them to become dependable, honest, committed, accountable for their behaviors, accept credit when doing things right and acknowledge mistakes for them to be successful.
Sometimes, we, parents confuse obedience with responsibility. We would love our children to do what we ask, to follow directions and to not question our authority which is understandable when raising our children. However, this is not responsibility! These traits are in fact classified as obedience. Over time, we want children to accept ownership for a task or chore and our children do it because it needs to be done and accept that it is their obligation to do it. Over time, they may even initiate doing a task because it needs to be done not because they are being told to do so. This attitude is called responsibility not obedience.
We do not want our children to fail which can lead us to do too much for our children. When this happens, the children don't learn to take on the responsibility themselves. And I am no exception. I want them to achieve that I support them throughout even to the point of sacrificing my need just to sustain their needs in school.
It stressed me out when I need to give in to my kids' yearning because they do not want to be late in the submission of their projects. I want them to learn how to take charge when something when wrong or doesn't go according to plan. I do not want to take over their responsibilities but I also want them to learn in the process. Even if I feel like this but still worth it because each of them are really good in their craft despite their young age.
Right now, I am trying to set limits and boundaries, impose discipline, teach my children how they should behave, and give them guidance. By not meeting their needs immediately and not giving them everything they want, I provide them with an opportunity to tolerate some frustration, delay gratification, become less impulsive and less self-centered. By setting standards of behavior that I expect my children to meet, I establish consequences for breaking rules and I follow through on those consequences. I teach my children to be appreciative for what they have. It is through the executive role that I hold my children accountable for their behavior, and that in turn, fosters the development of a sense of responsibility.
But I am also a nurturing parent. I am kind and loving to my children. I listen to my children, support them, spend time with them, and are affectionate with them. I communicate my unconditional love - no matter what happens which allows my children to take risks, to make mistakes, knowing that they have my unconditional support and love.
REMEMBER: Children are more likely to accept the limits you set and are more likely to want to meet your expectations when you provide a warm, caring and supportive relationship that underlies the discipline you impose.
When our children feel capable, they are more likely to meet their obligations, volunteer for new tasks, try their hardest and feel good about what they do. These things will increase our child's sense of responsibility.
https://ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Teach-Our-Kids-The-Sense-Of-Responsibility&id=9879394
Parents And Children's Behavior - Points to Ponder
At home little things are even more important. The behaviors of parents and children have its profound effect. It makes huge difference in parents and children's personality and psychology. Scholar's view in the following paragraph is self-explanatory:
"The beginning of both spouse and child abuse can be found in seemingly insignificant things, such as belittling the abilities and competency of another, constantly criticizing, being insulting or calling names, refusing to communicate, manipulating, causing guilt fleeing, repeatedly making and breaking promises, intimidating, threatening physical harm, making unfolded accusations, or destroying property."
It is a two-way traffic and has its impact evidently in their respective lives both positively and negatively. The point to ponder is to understand individual's rights and responsibilities. They both need to execute it emphatically and judiciously. Any deviation and distortion from the right path at the behest of materialistic gain will deeply affect them alike. A word of caution, they must think out of the box to comprehend the reality of life and its meaning the context of creation.
It is a fact that people learn from their mistakes and failures rather from their success. This particular experience becomes a tool to shape up own house and impart rich culture to younger generations. The transformation of constructive attributes will positively show improvement in personality. It then teaches them that respect is earned through command and not by demand. Here, it is important to emphasize that The Holy Quran highlights 'Dignity' apart from respect. This is the crucial and cardinal intersection that catapults the youth into the orbit of knowledge and wisdom. It gives parents a sense of pride to see their offspring achieve success and fame.
The youth will then be exposed to new vistas of behavior, which follows the foot-steps of wise people and becomes the beacon of light to others. This is the after-effects of adopting and molding individual's personality into meaningful ways. He not only improves upon self but also gathers others into the umbrella of sense and sensibility. At this point, the youth takes over the mantle and starts learning advancement of knowledge and its application. The self-confidence makes him strong and determined in self-improvement and also contributing to the society. It ultimately leads to development of the mind, which synchronizes with self-improvement and personality development.
There are many tools available to achieve success affecting different people in varying circumstances. Steve Tobak says that it is not intrinsic characteristic or personal habits that determine success or failure. It is your behavior. It means; it is an individual's discipline both in home and in working environments. It reflects your attitude, commitments and flexibility to understand and execute the values.
Analyzing the above scenario objectively will focus our mind on the existing circumstances in our society. The life is progressing with an accelerating pace forcing parents and children a daunting task to meet both the ends. It develops cracks in the delicate fabric of family relationship. Both expect more commitments from each other. Hence strained relationship, and families started to drift and seek solace somewhere else. This is the focal point where parents need to inculcate values in children and make them realize where to draw the line. The children need to understand their position and avoid excesses thereby losing their balance in life.
Parents should also realize that children during this era are exposed to more avenues to learn and understand ethical values. Parents who are ignorant of new vistas of knowledge expose lack experience. Their stagnant intelligence and rigidity in life are depriving their appreciation to gauge the situation. It then, denies the necessity to listen and understand to their children's mind. Of-course, their rich experience can be shared with children who in turn analyze it and adopt those values. Healthy interaction and critical discussion with each other objectively can be of great value to both.
https://ezinearticles.com/?Parents-And-Childrens-Behavior---Points-to-Ponder&id=9722772
Forgiving Parents Part One: The First Part of the Healing
For many years, I blamed my parents for most of what went wrong in my life. "If they would have done it differently, my life would have been so much nicer". "My friends parents were so cool, why couldn't mine be". "I had such a rotten childhood that messed up my life". And so on, and so forth.
I realized later that I was causing a lot of problems in my life because of this way of thinking.
First, if I allowed the past to govern who I was and would ever be, that meant that I would never have a chance to have a better life. The past can only govern the future if we let it. We can create any future we want. In the future, the past is the present now. If we change our present; if the future, looking back we will see a glorious past.
Also, in order to build a better life, I understood that I needed to take full responsibility for it. That meant no more blaming others for the crap that I thought they caused. Maybe, it felt easier those days to think of myself as a helpless victim that has no control and lives from one bad luck to the next. Actually, I regained full control and went from miracle to miracle.
The next step was that I realized that, no matter how bad I thought my parents behaved with me; I was not alone. Most people go to shrinks and complain about the mistakes their parents have done. Many kids were as traumatised as me or even more. Most kids think that the parents of their friends are so much cooler. I understood that my condition, that used to feel like a way to be unique in my misery was a common thread that linked most of us.
So I finished dwelling on the past and never went back. Some of the negativity that was anchored in my brain comes out once in a while in negative thoughts "such as you never succeed, or you are stupid". Slowly, I have learned to turn the volume down on those negative thoughts and don't let them rule my positive thoughts. I repeat positive affirmations about my true self and you can do this as well.
But that is not forgiveness yet. This was only the first part of the healing.
Are you still angry at your parents? Do you think they messed up your life?
Take a moment and think of the potential you have of creating your future. What ever you blame them for, remember, you are the only one that gives power to their past action to influence your future. They have no control over that. And your future can be extraordinary.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Forgiving-Parents-Part-One:-The-First-Part-of-the-Healing&id=5648657
Dinnertime - Balancing the Work/Life Balance Equation
Some time back I did an interview on the importance of dinnertime. It reminded me of the importance of eating dinner as a family in the work/life balance equation so I thought I would post it here as well:
In your view, why aren't families sitting down to the dinner table like they did in the 1950s?
Simple; families have allowed themselves to get so busy that they have come to accept that sitting down together for dinner isn't a necessity. It all starts with the parents; if they don't sit down together or enforce that the family will be eating together, the family won't do it. Make sitting down together the rule and not doing so the exception.
How does this affect both parents and children?
Dinnertime is a prime opportunity to have a captive audience with your kids and to allow for discussions to develop organically. Not capitalizing on this opportunity means that parents and children miss the chance to connect on both simple topics (how was your day?) and more complex topics (addictions and sex).
What are your top five tips for creating the perfect family dinner together?
1. Start early when the kids are young - set the expectation that the family sits down for dinner together such that the kids see it as the normal thing to do.
2. Establish a contract - When my kids were little, my wife and kids would eat dinner at 5PM and I would eat later when I got home from work. We had to agree upon a dinner time (6PM) where we would all agree to be at the table for dinner. I had to schedule it in my calendar and treat it just like a meeting; because if I didn't make the meeting I would keep my family waiting. Our 6PM dinnertime contract has been in force for years and has worked beautifully.
3. Turn off the electronics - No TV, iPods, or any other distractions at the table. If Publisher's Clearinghouse calls with a $1 million prize then let them wait.
4. Have some fun - laughing at the dinner table is massive for building relationships as a family. Encourage a bit of goofiness and fun. If kids see dinnertime as a fun time they are more likely to want to do it
5. Don't be in a rush to leave the table - Before our daughter went off to college my wife and I frequently would sit around the table with her after the meal talking about whatever was on her mind. From our perspective as parents there was nothing more important than giving her our attention and talking about whatever it was she wanted to talk about.
What is the most important thing parents should know about eating with their children?
Dinnertime is more than filling your gullet. It is where kids get to observe their parents in a captive environment and establish relationships which transcend well beyond the dinner table. Think about dinnertime as the place where relationships get built and where your words and actions imprint upon your kids.
Is there anything else you think I should know?
This all starts with the parents. If the parents agree that dinnertime is a priority then the kids will see it as a priority. If the parents view the dinner table as a place to build relationships, the kids will participate. If parents make the dinner table fun, the kids will want to be there. Parents need to set the standard and be the example.
Divorce: 3 Tips To Help Normalize The Situation For Your Kids
"I don't want to spend Easter with him!" Well, maybe not the whole day. In fact, you don't even have to face him when you get up to see what is in your basket. But, can't you eat a meal together sometime during the holiday? Even if it is in a restaurant, can't you and your ex celebrate part of traditional family occasions together?
Your kids will feel a lot better if they see you engage in normal activities together from time to time. They will enjoy having both parents at their birthday parties, graduation celebrations, and anything else that calls for a cake and presents. They will enjoy seeing both of you at their games, parent / teacher conferences and medical appointments. Do you think you can do it? Here are suggestions that might help.
1. Make sure your current squeeze and your ex have met. Spend some time together without the children. Double dating with your ex and his new significant other may be awkward at first, but anyone can be civil long enough to drink a cup of coffee, or eat lunch. You don't have to eat at a formal restaurant, or go to a movie. Just find a quiet, comfortable place to talk together and learn about each other.
2. Talk to your own lover about your family situation before you commit. Don't exclude her from the get together, but make sure he or she understands how important continued contact with your ex is to your kids. Too many times, parents get along fine together until a new lover is on the scene. Then, adult jealousies interfere with solid parenting relationships.
Don't let your new relationship destroy your good working arrangement with your children's other parent. The kids were there first, and raising them with a solid emotional foundation is more important than a new love interest who is too insecure to let you fully participate in their lives.
3. Even if you don't like the other parent's current squeeze, treat him or her with courtesy and respect. You don't have to share your soul's deepest concerns with her. All you have to do is be cordial when you see each other at Wal-Mart, or visitation exchanges. Being unpleasant just makes a tough situation harder. A little superficial friendliness won't kill either of you.
There are situations that make the advice in this article impractical. If there was abuse, or violence in the old relationship, continually exposing yourself to the trauma is neither good for you or your kids.
If drugs, alcoholism, violence or some other equally reprehensible behavior is not involved, being able to treat your ex and his family as normal human beings could go a long way towards letting your kids relax and accept all the new people in their post divorce lives. They will be better adjusted to the situation if they see that you are.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Divorce:-3-Tips-To-Help-Normalize-The-Situation-For-Your-Kids&id=8968592
Quick Ways to Manage Time for Family
Did you know that till the 16th century the word family was used only to represent the household servants? It was only after 1667 that the word family was used to refer to those in blood relations, especially the parents and their offspring. And, we are talking about family in this context in the following article.
It seems that the more sentimental the meaning of the word has become the more difficult it has become, in the modern life, to keep up with the expectations of being a family member. Are you someone facing a difficulty in being there for the family? Then here are a few tips for you.
Make a Choice
The most important thing you need to do is to make a choice between your family and the other thing. You cannot be at two places in one time and so it is you who has to decide where to show up.
You can either spend an entire evening with your friends or deviding the same time between your family and friends. I have a friend who is a physiotherapist. Due to his paramedic profession he has little time left for socializing, let alone any time for himself. Yet, when I talk to him he does share how he went to a movie with his parents and then how much fun he had during beer party at a friend`s house.
When I asked him how he manages to maintain the balance and he said that multitasks. He may hang around with friends but do shopping being in a mall and if he has to relax at home he did rather take his parents out.
Spare the Weekend
Keep one day of the weekend exclusively for the family and let your friends know about it so no one makes any such plan for which you have to say no and feel guilty later on for not going.
Most people suggest that things pick up by weekend afternoons and family members plan to go out by the evening. So, in case you need to meet your friends or got something important to do then get it done before noon.
A Meal Together
This is one of the best ways to catch up with your parents, siblings or children. You may either volunteer to cook with the gang or chit-chat; your wish. Nothing brings people more close than sitting down together and having food.
Take a Walk
If any of your family members walks to work or school/collage (you are lucky if your roads to work/school are the same), then you should try walking with them more often.
Even otherwise, a nice walk after dinner or on mornings of holidays is a nice way to re-connect.
Remember Special Occasions
Be there for the birthday celebrations and anniversaries. If you think you owe something to one of the members in your family then these special occasions are just the time to make them feel special.
Take advantage of the occasion and do something special for them that you have not done for them in a while. It could mean getting them something that they have been asking for since long or just spend time with them.
Make use of Technology
The fact that the world has become a global village should be taken an advantage of in favor of your family. Keep connected through emails, text messages and phone calls. When the whole world is a click away why should there be any distance from the family.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Quick-Ways-to-Manage-Time-for-Family&id=9493807
Science says parents of successful kids have these 11 things in common
Any good parent wants their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults.
And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success.
Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.
Here's what parents of successful kids have in common:
1. They make their kids do chores.
"If kids aren't doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them," Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford University and author of "How to Raise an Adult" said during a TED Talks Live event.
"And so they're absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole," she said.
Lythcott-Haims believes kids raised on chores go on to become employees who collaborate well with their coworkers, are more empathetic because they know firsthand what struggling looks like, and are able to take on tasks independently.
She bases this on the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study ever conducted.
"By making them do chores — taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry — they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life," she tells Tech Insider.
2. They teach their kids social skills.
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.
The 20-year study showed that socially competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by age 25 than those with limited social skills.
Those with limited social skills also had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.
"This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.
"From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted."
3. They have high expectations.
Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment.
"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets," he said in a statement.
The finding came out in standardized tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.
This falls in line with another psych finding: the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy."
In the case of kids, they live up to their parents' expectations.
4. They have healthy relationships with each other.
Children in high-conflict families, whether intact or divorced, tend to fare worse than children of parents that get along, according to a University of Illinois study review.
Robert Hughes, Jr., professor and head of the Department of Human and Community Development in the College of ACES at the University of Illinois and study review author, also notes that some studies have found children in nonconflictual single parent families fare better than children in conflictual two-parent families.
The conflict between parents prior to divorce also affects children negatively, while post-divorce conflict has a strong influence on children's adjustment, Hughes says.
One study found that, after divorce, when a father without custody has frequent contact with his kids and there is minimal conflict, children fare better. But when there is conflict, frequent visits from the father are related to poorer adjustment of children.
Yet another study found that 20-somethings who experienced divorce of their parents as children still report pain and distress over their parent's divorce ten years later. Young people who reported high conflict between their parents were far more likely to have feelings of loss and regret.
5. They've attained higher educational levels.
A 2014 study lead by University of Michigan psychologist Sandra Tang found that mothers who finished high school or college were more likely to raise kids that did the same.
Pulling from a group of over 14,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 to 2007, the study found that children born to teen moms (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish high school or go to college than their counterparts.
Aspiration is at least partially responsible. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856 people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric Dubow found that "parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later."
6. They teach their kids math early on.
A 2007 meta-analysis of 35,000 preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math skills early can turn into a huge advantage.
"The paramount importance of early math skills — of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts — is one of the puzzles coming out of the study,"coauthor and Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. "Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement."
7. They develop a relationship with their kids.
A 2014 study of 243 people born into poverty found that children who received "sensitive caregiving" in their first three years not only did better in academic tests in childhood, but had healthier relationships and greater academic attainment in their 30s.
As reported on PsyBlog, parents who are sensitive caregivers "respond to their child's signals promptly and appropriately" and "provide a secure base" for children to explore the world.
"This suggests that investments in early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that accumulate across individuals' lives," coauthor and University of Minnesota psychologist Lee Raby said in an interview.
8. They're less stressed.
According to recent research cited by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post, the number of hours that moms spend with kids between ages 3 and 11 does little to predict the child's behavior, well-being, or achievement.
What's more, the "intensive mothering" or "helicopter parenting" approach can backfire.
"Mothers' stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly," study coauthor and Bowling Green State University sociologist Kei Nomaguchi told The Post.
Emotional contagion — or the psychological phenomenon where people "catch" feelings from one another like they would a cold — helps explain why. Research shows that if your friend is happy, that brightness will infect you; if she's sad, that gloominess will transfer as well. So if a parent is exhausted or frustrated, that emotional state could transfer to the kids.
9. They value effort over avoiding failure.
Where kids think success comes from also predicts their attainment.
Over decades, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like this:
A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.
A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.
At the core is a distinction in the way you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on kids. If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence, that creates a "fixed" mindset. If they succeeded because of effort, that teaches a "growth" mindset.
10. The moms work.
According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.
The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money — 23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.
The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.
"Role modeling is a way of signaling what's appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe," the study's lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.
"There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother," she told Working Knowledge.
11. They have a higher socioeconomic status.
Tragically, one-fifth of American children grow up in poverty, a situation that severely limits their potential.
It's getting more extreme. According to Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon, the achievement gap between high- and low-income families "is roughly 30% to 40% larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier."
As "Drive" author Dan Pink has noted, the higher the income for the parents, the higher the SAT scores for the kids.
"Absent comprehensive and expensive interventions, socioeconomic status is what drives much of educational attainment and performance," he wrote.
5 Myths About Happy Couples (and Why They're False)
Every couple has issues, no matter how it looks from the outside.
True love is not always roses and chocolates. In fact, it can get messy and complicated. Giving up fairytale notions, however, means you won’t be constantly dismayed when love’s inevitable reality shows itself to be different than your internalized fantasy. For example, consider these 5 myths about happy couples:
Myth: Happy couples want to have sex all of the time.
Fact: They don’t want to have sex all of the time, but they do gear up for sex.
The reality is that the very hot feelings early on in a romance eventually wane, simply because familiarity creeps in. It’s inevitable that your partner won’t seem as new and exciting to you at some point. This means you are likely not going to constantly desire sex, like you may have early on. What it doesn’t mean is that you stop having sex and that you don’t still have exciting, sexually-charged moments together. Healthy couples work to have sex, even when the initial desire is absent. Gearing up and having sex keeps couples connected in more ways than merely interacting around the chores, plans, and logistics of life. But quality is what’s important—not quantity. You don’t need to have sex all of the time to have a healthy relationship. Feeling burdened by your partner’s sexual demands is also problematic. Healthy couples keep a good balanced sex life where quality and mutuality trumps frequency.
Myth: Happy couples don’t fight.
Fact: They fight, but they also forgive.
So often we hear popular wisdom espouse that couples should “never go to bed angry," and seemingly happy couples like to boast, "We never fight!" Yet, I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard a teenager say how confused they are because their divorcing parents never fought. Arguing and conflict are normal parts of intimate relationships. If it never happens in your union, then you are not two separate, self-actuating beings and you may eventually find that one of you becomes claustrophobic in the relationship. Happy couples fight, but they stay happy by using tools to work through their conflicts. Most important, they have well-tuned abilities to soothe each other and make each other feel better and secure.
Myth: Happy couples tell each other everything and enjoy doing the same things.
Fact: Happy couples have a separate life, outside of their relationship.
It’s an absolute myth that happy couples share every detail of their existence and do all of the same activities together. In fact, sharing everything can lead to less intimacy; you may begin to feel like your partner’s therapist and not their lover. Or if you do everything together, you can start to feel as if your partner is an extension of you, not a separate person. Happy couples have multiple ways to feel supported and enjoy their lives. They may not enjoy the same specific interests and activities, but they do agree to try new things together. They indulge each other’s interests and, at the same time, support each other in pursuing their own separate goals. Even if it’s not a traditional hobby, happy couples have tried-and-true ways of enjoying time together and laughing: It could be something as simple as just watching reality TV on the couch.
Myth: Happy couples love unconditionally.
Fact: Tension and challenge are always present.
Happy couples are not complacent couples. They don’t always say, “I love everything about you and I love everything you do!” There’s tension between fully accepting your partner as is, but allowing for growth and change. What is life without growth and change? For happy couples, the tension between these polarities means unconditional love is not always possible. At the same time, the tension between what we are and what we are becoming means the relationship remains vital not stagnant.
Myth: Happy couples are entirely emotionally healthy.
Fact: Everyone has issues.
So often I talk to people in my practice who say they feel “crazy” or “weird’ because of whatever issue they are facing. I have come to see that most people struggle with something. The question is, Are you aware of what you struggle with? Can you acknowledge it to yourself and to your partner, and can they do the same? Happy couples recognize their own shortcomings and can even laugh about their foibles from time to time. If a member of the relationship has no ability to admit fault, apologize, forgive, or hold themselves accountable, that is when relationships become stuck and eventually toxic.
If you find yourself often frustrated that your relationship isn’t closer to “perfect” or that you and your partner are not more enamored by one another and cherishing of your time together, consider that your relationship might be more “normal” than you recognize.
Single and Lonely? The Truth May Be Exactly the Opposite.
Eye-opening studies of single people, married couples, and their social bonds.
If you are single, you know what other people think about you—poor thing, you are lonely and alone. That narrative is such a part of our conventional wisdom that we use words like "alone" and "unattached" as synonyms for being single. As more people live single, the story goes, the countries where they live become nations of isolates.
Science tells a different story.
Over the past decade, researchers have analyzed big, nationally representative datasets that tell us whether the single or married people are more likely to be doing what it takes to hold us all together. Some research, such as the most recently published analyses I'll describe below, compare people who have always been single with people who are currently married and those who were previously married. Those studies make it hard to draw any causal conclusions. But there is other relevant research, too, in which people who are single are followed over time as they stay single or get married. That lets us see how the exact same people behave when they go from being single to getting married, and gets us a little closer to suspecting whether getting married might have something to do with any changes in their behavior.
As it turns out, the two kinds of study tell the same story.
Two scholars who have made the most important contributions to this question of whether single people are social isolates or social glue are Natalia Sarkisian and Naomi Gerstel. In their just-published 2015 article, they analyzed one wave of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (1992-1994) and four years of data from General Social Survey (2000, 2004, 2006, and 2012 combined).
The authors were able to determine the percentage of people in each group (always-single; previously married; and currently married) who had:
- Socialized with their neighbors at least several times a month.
- Socialized with their friends at least several times a month.
- In the past 12 months, seen their parents at least once a week.
- In the past 12 months, seen their siblings at least once a week.
- In the past month, given to friends, neighbors, or co-workers "any advice, encouragement, and moral or emotional support; help with shopping, errands, or transportation; help with housework, yard work, car repairs, or other work around the house; or help with child care."
- In the past month, received the same kinds of help from the same kinds of people.
- In the past month, given the same kinds of help to siblings.
- In the past month, received the same kinds of help from siblings.
- In the past month, given the same kinds of help to parents.
- In the past month, received the same kinds of help from parents.
So, in total, there were 10 different measures of connection to other people. The authors compared always-single people to married people and to previously married people. They did that separately for the men and for the women. That's a total of 40 comparisons. (They also compared the previously married to the currently married, for all 10 measures—and separately for the men and the women.)
Source: Pressmaster/Shutterstock
Despite the huge amount of data and the potential for numbing complexity, the results were about as clear as they could be: In all 40 comparisons, the people who had always been single were most connected to other people. They were more often in contact with others, they socialized with them more often, and they exchanged help more often. That was true for their relationships with their parents and siblings as well as their friends and neighbors. Always-singles were more connected than previously married people were, and they were especially more connected than married people were. Both the men and the women who had always been single had the most robust social ties.
The previously married people were also more connected to others than the currently married people were, in all of the ways that were measured except for some of the results for exchanging help.
Of course, people who have always been single might differ from currently married (or previously married) people in various ways. Could the differences in connecting, staying in touch, socializing, and exchanging help be better explained by one of those other factors? For example, maybe the differences are about having kids or not, and not about marital status.
The authors analyzed the data, controlling for factors such as age, the number of kids people had, employment status, education, income—and, in analyses of connections with parents and siblings, health, and distance from the family members. Mostly, the results stayed the same: The always-single people were the most connected, and the currently married, the least. In some instances, the results were even stronger once other factors were taken into account. This means that always-single people's greater rate of connecting with others cannot be explained by not having kids, working fewer hours, being at a different point in their life course, or any of the other explanations suggested by the factors controlled for in the analyses.
The results describe people of different marital statuses only in the United States and only at certain points in time. As the authors note, we cannot know from these data alone whether the patterns are specific to the ways marriage and single life are practiced just in this country and just in recent decades. The findings, though, are consistent with what has been called the "greedy marriage" hypothesis. Marriage in the United States today seems to gobble up married people's time and attention. It is as if, once married, couples are just not into anyone else any more—not their friends, neighbors, siblings, or parents. Mostly, it is just the two of them.
Imagining an Authentic Life
There is no such thing as a real self, and we should celebrate this.
I am the boy whose first word was "ball." I am six, and sitting at dinner with my parents and two-year-old brother. We are eating chicken-and-cream-of-mushroom casserole, Del Monte green beans, and Brown'n'Serve dinner rolls. On the Zenith in the other room, Cronkite drones, "And that's the way it was." The overhead bulbs glare on the pine-green plates and the charred candle-wicks we light only on steak nights. Earlier that day, my best friend John had said that his first word was "bubba." We found this funny, since the only man we knew by this name was a limping 300-pounder who stank and cackled while draining 30-footers during the halftimes of junior high basketball games. I didn't know my first word. So I asked that night. My mom was pouring iced tea, and dad was reaching for the butter, and they said, in unison, "ball."
Dad, still wearing his whistle at the table, was the head football coach at the local high school. The game consumed him, and he passed the obsession to me. In my childhood photographs, I'm wearing football jerseys in all colors, usually numbered in the quarterback-favoring teens. I'm also hugging NFL-size footballs. By the age of five, I'm already collecting Topps trading cards of pro players, though I don't yet possess the picture of my favorite, Fran Tarkenton, quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings. The coach makes up for this by giving me a Tarkenton jersey for Christmas, purple polyester, white number 10, gold and white stripes on the sleeves, and best of all, printed on the back, spanning my shoulder blades, "Wilson." This begins a holiday tradition, lasting until the eighth grade—a new jersey of a new favorite QB. And always, along with the jersey, a fresh football.
"Ball" proved prophetic: I spent my early childhood training to be a quarterback, played the position well on my middle school's team, played it better in high school—leading the '83 team to the school's only undefeated regular season—and ended up being recruited by West Point to play for Army.
But now I wonder: Did I really blurt that word? Surely the coach wanted so much for my first word to be "ball" that he translated my blubbery random "b's" and "l's" into his favorite sound. Doing so, with my agreeable mom cheering on, he thrust me into a narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end satisfying to his soul: My boy was born to the gridiron.
What if he had converted my babble into "ma-ma" or "da-da" or "dog" or "duck" or "car?" Would I be crashing in derbies or blasting mallards or suffering serious Freud-lashings? What if I'd said the first word of poor John, and found myself shuffling around gyms out of shape, lonely, and mocked? John escaped this destiny, became fast, lean, popular, and cool, and got all the girls my neurotic self (is "Hamlet" ever a first word?) never could. His parents didn't make a big deal, I guess, over "bubba." They eased him into other plots, loose and casual, and so his narrative was open-ended, more Tristram Shandy than my Great Expectations.
Regardless of form, digressive or linear, by the time we become aware of ourselves we are already trapped in fictions not of our making, and our only hope of escaping the text is to write our way into a story of our own. Our self-fashioned narrative, however, no matter how original, has already been determined by the tale we inherited: we can define ourselves somewhere on a spectrum running from "whatever, old man" to "I'm a chip off the old block." Whether I become a footballer, a poet, a doper, or live fast and leave a fine corpse, I am always the boy who first said "ball."
More goes into a self than grammar, syntax, semantics, plot—atoms violently birthed in the Big Bang, the make of our species, millennia of history and culture, DNA. Each of us is a braid whose strands range from the oldest hemp to most recent nylon. But only one line elevates us from mere being to abundant meaning, from bare existence that is what it is, nothing more, to purpose, yearning, failure, love, writing books, and comparing cell phones.
That line is language.
At the dinner table that night in '73, encased in our rancher in tiny Taylorsville, NC, my dad, my mom, my brother, and I: We were all informed by stories ancient and near--the Biblical myths, the parables of American Christianity, dreams of the Democratic party, Southern Gothic lore, small-town tales, the fantasy scripts of parents, our own earliest gurgles and coos. We were (and are) each a node in a vast textual network, criss-crossed by thousands of narratives, out of which we in our own way were (are) trying, fated and desperate, to weave a cogent "I."
How many moments have you lived so far? Ten years contain about 5 million, so go the calculations. How many things have happened to you during those minutes, or have you made happen? Billions and billions. When you piece together an identity, a story of who you are, you choose only a fraction of these events as components of the narrative, a narrative already determined by millions of pre-existing ones, and you emphasize some episodes over others, and slant the tale to support your idea of self.
You find yourself a character of a great gloomy luminous novel composed for you for untold centuries, and you labor most of your days to seize the pen for yourself, form your own plot, burgeon into your heart's hero. The work is in progress: You revise earlier passages to conform to your current feelings. You do the same with the present moment, altering your self-definition in the "now" to correspond to memory's eruptions.
This is authenticity—not finding or being true to a stable self (that great American illusion), but rather fostering awareness of the endless editing that we are always unconsciously doing anyhow, taking charge of the changes, growing responsible for them, and generously interweaving our texts into multitudinous networks of the world.
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