“Nature, we are starting to realize, is every bit as important as nurture. Genetic influences, brain chemistry, and neurological development contribute strongly to who we are as children and what we become as adults.” -Stanley Turecki, M.D.

Sue and Alan Richardson are like so many other distressed parents who reach out to our counseling clinic. They have three kids. Two have been launched successfully, and they have warm relationships and good communication. Sue and Alan are devastated because one of their kids, now 19, is such a problem. Samantha struggled with depression beginning in junior high, rages at them on occasion, tried to make it at college but couldn’t stand the pressure, and has bounced back home again. What went wrong? They parented all three kids similarly but Samantha was always more difficult and highly sensitive.

Stopping the Blame Game

Parents often get blamed or blame themselves for any problem that shows up in their children. We now know that every baby is born with certain innate inherited characteristics or temperament. Temperament is, by definition, the part of a child’s personality that is not caused by good or bad parenting. Built-in traits will affect each child’s style of interacting with people, places and things throughout their lifetime. The research validates what many parents knew intuitively all along. Some babies are easy, and some are more challenging. Because it is almost taboo to say something negative about one child or to compare your kids, many parents don’t get the support that they need when struggling with a more difficult child.

The Nature Vs. Nurture Debate

The debate about just how much of our behavior and personality is genetic vs. environmental, or nature vs. nurture, has raged on for the last hundred years. Twenty or thirty years ago, in an ongoing effort to understand why people behave in certain ways, both good and bad, researchers focused more on the nurture side, examining things like the family environment or types of parenting that were correlated with problems or resiliency in children. In the past ten …

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 …

“Everything is a battle and we can’t stand it any more.”  These are the first words spoken by Sylvia, mother of two, and her husband quickly agreed. “We can’t get the kids to school on time, get them to turn off their electronic devices, do their homework, or go to bed without resistance and stalling. Can you help us?”

If this sounds like your house, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And the answer does not have to involve spanking, shouting, nagging, criticizing or coercing. Although power struggles between parents and their children are exceedingly normal–especially in adolescence–they should not be the norm of everyday life. What’s a parent to do and why do we get into power struggles in the first place?

A crucial component in the development of a healthy personality is gaining a sense of autonomy.

Starting around the age of two, children demonstrate their desire for increased independence by discovering the power of the word “NO!” and “mine”. Toddlers have a strong desire to figure things out for themselves, and when they succeed, they gain a sense of self-confidence and self-control. This stage has come to be known as “the terrible twos” because it can take parents by surprise when their sweet baby begins to have a mind of her own. In truth, it would be terrible if this stage didn’t happen.

Power struggles stem from a natural urge in children to have control over their choices.

Too many parents interpret their child’s resistance as defiance or lack of respect for authority. This sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? In fact, when a parent thinks about resistant behavior in this way, it makes it far more likely that the parent will react to the kid’s non-compliance with an overly intense emotional response such as increased annoyance and anger. When setting limits with kids, the less emotional the better. By asserting himself, your child is building a stronger, more separate self. Kids need to learn to be independent by practicing how to stand …

“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 …

There’s a tug-of-war going on in intimate relationships all across the country. A conflict, although sometimes never fully resolved, that can make or break a marriage. It often rears its head around Valentine’s Day, birthdays, or anniversaries. Can you guess what it is?

If you or your partner has been voicing the sentiments in the following list, you are not alone. It’s normal.

•  ”You never spend time with me!”
• “I need to be able to spend time with my friends.”
• “Why can’t we just hang out and talk like we used to?”
• “I wish you would find your own friends or get more hobbies.”
• “Why don’t you take better care of yourself and learn to be happy.”

One of the ongoing polarities in any relationship–whether between marriage partners, parents and children, or friends–is the balancing act of closeness and distance. This is the ongoing dance of intimacy, and the key is to learn to move towards and to move away without seeing either polarity as right or wrong, good or bad. To forge the bonds of relationship takes time together but also takes time apart lest the bonds begin to feel too tight or binding.

The Stages of Intimacy

The dance of intimacy and autonomy goes through predictable stages as a couple passes through the family life cycle. At the beginning, when couples are getting to know one another, and are falling in love, they tend to spend so much time together that other friends and family may feel abandoned or neglected. The first stage is all about closeness and bonding or the relationship never gets off the ground. Once the bond is established, a new stage emerges where each person feels safe enough to assert his or her individuality.

The second stage, known by psychotherapists as differentiation, was named after the biological process when cells or tissues start to become specialized in their functions. It is a necessary and positive movement that is crucial for healthy growth and development. But the process of differentiation in couples–moving from “we are one” to becoming two unique individuals in relationship–is often confusing and painful for couples. In fact, …

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.     …

“Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.” -Ogden Nash

Most people have heard by now that high levels of conflict between a couple can be destructive not only for their relationship but can cause lasting harm to children caught in the crossfire. As painful as divorce can be for kids, what we know now is that excessive, bitter fighting is what troubles kids–whether the family remains intact or not.

Some new research tackles this same issue from another angle. What is the impact on kids when they grew up in a household where their parents were constantly fighting about money? Although you might think it would make kids more cautious and concerned, (and it probably does this for some kids), unfortunately it appears to make them more likely to accumulate debt in their college years.

The issue of credit card debt among college students has been a growing concern over the last decade. Both administrators and teachers have recently seen more and more students dropping out of school, not because of academic failure, but for financial reasons, including credit card debt.

Adam Hancock and a team from East Carolina University recently published, in Springer’s Journal of Family and Economic Issues, the results of a study of 413 undergraduate students from seven different American universities who took part in the College Student Financial Literacy Survey.

Through an online survey, the authors inquired about a number of issues related to the financial education and climate of the students’ families. They asked not only about credit card debt and number of credit cards owned, but about the students’ level of knowledge about credit cards, loans, and personal finance. They also surveyed their attitudes about debt and about credit cards. They asked questions like, “Are they safe or scary? Are they too costly? Are you comfortable with only making the minimum payment each month?”