What do YOU do when you are trying to get your way? You may be lobbying to go to a certain restaurant that your husband hates. You may be wanting to spend money on something your wife thinks is unnecessary. You may be trying to get your kids to change into clean clothes before your company arrives.

Most of us use different approaches depending on who we are dealing with (friend or telemarketer), what we learned from our role models, and what we imagine might be effective.Think about how you might go about trying to get your way when the person you are trying to convince is resistant–and also happens to be your mate.

Less than two per cent of married couples proudly report never having had a disagreement. The rest of us mere mortals don’t know how that is even possible. Since conflict is an inevitable part of our romantic relationships, it is clearly something important to be smart about. What are the most effective ways to have influence over someone else? (Even though all the self-help books tell us that the only person we can change is ourselves, not surprisingly we are constantly trying to change our partner in little to big ways).

Various Methods of Influencing People: The Good and the Not So Good Ways

Here are the most commonly observed approaches. Most of us have probably tried our hand at all of them. Although I describe them as “strategies,” I don’t mean to imply that the person using each tactic has always made a conscious and deliberate choice to try to get their partner to change via this method. Often we simply fall into the habit of communicating in certain ways–even when they don’t serve us or our relationship.
#1: Compliance-based or the “If you do what I want, I will make your life so much better” strategy
This is an approach where one person tries to get the other to do what is desired by offering positive rewards or incentives to get the other to comply. It can be effective, …

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison called to request family therapy after their 13-year old son called Child Protective Services. When a social worker arrived at their home on a quiet suburban street, Mrs. H was horrified and embarrassed. What Billy called abuse was his parents’ seizing of his Xbox after they caught him playing at 1 a.m. on a school night. When he refused to hand it over voluntarily, his father grabbed the machine and threatened to throw it out the window. 

What Ever Happened to My Sweet Child?

Although power struggles between children and parents are a normal and predictable part of social and emotional development, they typically escalate when children start to grow into teenagers. The strength of some teens’ emotional reactions blow their parents away. Just as power surges occasionally knock out your home’s electricity, creating at least temporary havoc, so can these emotional outbursts bring normal life to a sudden halt.

The sudden intensity of power struggles often come as a shock to parents raising their first teenager. Sometimes the first kid glides through adolescence with very little drama but the second-born makes the challenge. Emotions escalate and often cruel words are spoken on both sides. Kids accuse parents of being mean, unfair, crazy, out of touch…parents call their kids selfish, disrespectful, lazy and disobedient. Is there any way to avoid the pain, the guilt, and the worry of this stage of development?

The Unpredictable Effects of Hormones

Unfortunately, the answer is yes and no. Some of the reason that power struggles can escalate to new levels has to do with the biology of adolescence itself. As boys (starting anywhere between 9 and 15) and girls (starting anywhere between 7 and 13) move into and through puberty, they have their own internal surges to contend with–namely the flood of hormones necessary to ensure normal development. Because of hormones, your son or daughter will have stronger emotions than ever before, feeling overly sensitive, highly anxious or becoming easily upset.

Although it can be difficult for everyone involved to deal …

“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” -Ogden Nash

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who was kept in a lonely castle imprisoned by a wicked witch. One day, her knight in shining armor (her one true love, of course) rescued her from her despair, and they lived happily ever after…or so the story goes. Have you fallen under the spell of the fairy tale romance and been seduced by the myths of effortless everlasting love? If so, you are not alone. 

The truth of the matter is that healthy, strong relationships take grit. Grit is the word recently coined by researchers looking at the importance of deliberate practice for attaining mastery. Not only do great athletes, artists, creatives of all kinds, business entrepreneurs, successful students–you name it–take grit.  As it turns out, so do happy, loving marriages. In all cases, it is hard work that pays off, even more important than luck or talent.

Given that staying in love takes commitment, what are some tips that can help make our relationships more loving and satisfying?

Tip#1: For love to grow, we need to give it time and energy. 

Perhaps this should be obvious, but far too many couples just don’t make this happen. Our time gets eaten up by the demands of work, the children, the television, the computer, and the housework. We don’t even get enough time to sleep as much as our bodies need to remain alert and healthy. Still, creating time–even twenty minutes a day–is essential for us to stay in touch and feel connected. Don’t forget the date night. Even if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford not to. (Save money by trading childcare with friends or neighbors, pack a picnic, take a long walk together, put the kids to bed early and make a date just to hang out).

Tip #2: Be generous with your thoughts and actions.

Did …

“People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws?” -Elizabeth Gilbert

Myth #1: If we have fallen out of love, it means we can never get it back.

Far too often in my role as a psychotherapist, I have sat with couples in distress because one of them reports that he or she is no longer “in love”, and therefore must leave the relationship to find a more perfect love with someone else. Or the rejected partner tells the other to go ahead and leave, convinced that love, once lost, cannot be rekindled. How tragic that we have been so filled with images of romantic love that we think of it as something outside of our control. We wait for love, like a giant bird, to descend from some distant landscape and settle in our branches once again.

Myth #2: If we have fallen out of love, it means we married the wrong person.

This destructive myth makes many believe that love, once set into motion, will carry us along through the complexities of life, if only we are lucky enough, or if we choose the right person. Not so, since conflict, disagreement, hardship and misunderstandings are inevitable in every close relationship. To build a strong, lasting relationship, love is better thought of as a verb not a noun. Love is hard work and includes all of the ten keys described in How’s Your Family Really Doing? 10 Keys to a Happy Loving Family. This means learning things like how to listen deeply to one another, how to understand each other’s point of view, how to respect differences, argue constructively, and to forgive each other’s mistakes.

Myth 3#: If the romance and sex have disappeared, we should just accept the inevitable…the spark goes out over time.

If you talk to …

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

The wish to seek and have a deep sense of family connection and commitment is universal. Ask people what is most important to them and their first answer is always the same–their family. Our families give us a sense of identity and belonging, reminding us of who we are and what is unique about us. They are also the context, the garden soil, out of which our individuality flowers. The metaphor of a garden is an apt one for many reasons. All over the world, there are gardens of vastly different designs, planted at different times, at different stages of growth and decay, with different types of plants. In spite of the fact that no two are alike, all gardens have some common needs–sunlight and water, planting of seeds and cutting back weeds. In short, for a garden to flourish, it needs tending.

What gives families a strong sense of connection? The answer is so simple even though often so difficult to do. We must spend quality time together, or if separated by geography, spend time communicating. Only by making the time to share the details of our daily lives as well as our successes, hardships, dreams and disappointments can we reap the rewards of our intimate bonds. Twenty-first century families are more isolated than ever before. With both parents working more hours than ever and with the demands of work infiltrating family time via computers and cell phones, most everyone we talk to complains about the same thing. There’s just not enough time!

“Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, …

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
― George Bernard Shaw

When I see couples or families in therapy, improving communication is often the first goal. Most people, convinced that they are already good communicators, quickly discover that many of their skills need honing. Effective communication can be far more difficult than any of us first imagined. I am constantly shocked and reminded just how easy it is to hurt or be hurt by our loved ones due to correctable misunderstandings. What are some of the most common mistakes all of us make?

One of the most universal communication errors in our relationships with our parents, partners, and children is that we are tempted to speak without thinking first. This is understandable because we are typically less guarded with people we feel close to. The downside of having this increased freedom of expression is that we often blurt things that we would never even dream of saying out loud to a friend or colleague.

Hence, Tip #1: Engage your brain before you open your mouth, and ask yourself if anyone will really be served by what you are about to say. The old adage “some things are better left unsaid” happens to be true. Healthy families are lavish when it comes to sharing positive words and more restrained and deliberate when it comes to delivering negative feedback.

The  second most common error is that we assume that the other person actually understands precisely what we have communicated. Unfortunately, this is very often not the case. Tip #2: The more important the information being communicated, the more we need to slow down, taking ample time to make sure that the message we are sending is the same one that our loved one is receiving. The best remedy for this (besides making your communications short and to the point) is to learn how to paraphrase and make a habit of asking the listener what they heard. I know that this may sound incredibly tedious, boring, and unnatural–which it will be until you get better at it. Difficult as this may be at first, the …

We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.” -Ellen Goodman

In spite of the headlines revealing the breakdowns and sordid secrets inside the marriages of the rich and famous, most Americans who tie the knot seem to have bought the prevailing myth of romantic love. None of us like to think of ourselves as one of them (those lying, cheating, no-good married types). No, as the song goes, our love is here to stay.

What is the harm, you might ask, in basking in the honeymoon love-will-conquer-all phase? The problem is that the expectations of marriage, when blown up to mythical proportions, leave couples believing they have failed when the proverbial stuff hits the fan. In truth, conflict and suffering come with the package, and can strengthen the trust and bond if the couple has the right tools to work with.

Far too often in my role as a psychotherapist, I have sat with couples in distress because one of them reports that he or she is no longer “in love”, and therefore must leave the relationship to find a more perfect love with someone else. Or the rejected partner tells the other to go ahead and leave, convinced that love, once lost, cannot be rekindled. How tragic that we have been so filled with images of romantic love that we think of it as something outside of our control. We wait for love, like a giant bird, to descend from some distant landscape and settle in our branches once again.

This destructive myth makes many believe that love, once set into motion, will carry us along through the complexities of life, if only we are lucky enough, or if we choose the right person. Not so, since conflict, disagreement, hardship and misunderstandings are inevitable in every close relationship. To build a strong, lasting relationship, love is better thought of as a verb not a noun.     …

Although worries about sex, drugs, and school still top the list when I talk to parents of teenagers, the issue of screen time, video games and social media sites often have parents and teens in bitter battles. What’s a good parent to do?

According to a 2010 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average American youth spends eight to ten hours a day on some form of media–often more than one at a time. The Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH) was founded ten years ago as a collaborative effort of Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health to figure out just how this enormous change in the daily life of kids might be affecting them.

Michael Rich, MD, is a pediatrician whose focus is to study the effects of media on children’s health. He thinks of media the way other doctors think about nutrition, wanting to give parents research based tips on which media are empty calories versus full of nutrients. In order to do so, Rich and his team have examined more than 3400 studies on the impact of media. Not all the results are what you might expect.

For example, Rich and Bickham found that kids who watch TV with friends were often more likely to spend time also doing other kinds of activities with their peers. So quantity is not necessarily bad. On the other hand, kids who spend more time watching violent shows tended to be more isolated. The research does not indicate whether it is the chicken or the egg. In other words, do isolated kids watch more violent TV or does violence cause more isolation? No matter what, parents and therapists should be monitoring the content of kids media and encouraging social engagement of all kinds.

Media late at night can disrupt kids sleep, and too many kids (and adults) are already suffering from sleep deprivation. Neuroscientist Marcus Dworak looked at sleep patterns of boys aged 12 to 14. Researchers asked kids to alternate between watching action movies one night …

Did you know that more than half of kids aged six to nine now use some kind of children’s social network? Or that 47 percent talk to their friends on the Internet? And that 14 percent are on Facebook in spite of the fact that they are underage? To top off these startling revelations of a new study is the distressing news that 58 percent of parents admit they are in the dark about what their kids are up to in our brave new world.

Our kids have been born into this world. They are “digital natives” and many parents and teachers are “digital immigrants,” trying to learn a new foreign language and enter a mysterious culture that is both unfamiliar and overwhelming. Some parents I talk to have stuck their heads in the sand, hoping it will all just go away. Not likely.

Our children are spending more and more time online—and this trend is only going to continue to soar as smart phones are in kids’ hands at younger and younger ages. It is imperative that parents educate themselves about how to protect their children in the new technological universe.

We hope that you are one of the lucky parents whose kids can’t wait to go back to school. Unfortunately, millions of kids have a hard time going back–for many different reasons.

Some are starting kindergarten and just plain scared of the unknown. Others (over 6.5 million kids in America) are heading off to a new school where they lack friends or familiarity.

Even larger numbers already know what they don’t like about school. They’ve been there, done that. They have to get up early, sit in classrooms and do what the teacher tells them to do all day long–including homework when they get out.

Although we all agree that getting a good education is essential, that doesn’t mean that many kids don’t hate the loss of freedom that goes with it.

To make things worse, public schools in America have been profoundly impacted by both the troubled economy and by the mandates of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Many schools doubled their math and reading instruction but, in order to do so, eliminated music and arts education, the very classes that many kids looked forward to the most.