Family

It started simple enough. I wanted to explain to a friend who was struggling how there were different kinds of love. The problem is that I couldn't figure out how to get to the right words. I knew that there were different kinds and different expressions...

Sometimes to move forward, you must move backwards. To understand the future, you must look to the past. While past performance is no guarantee of future performance, looking to the great thinkers of the past can lead you to a better understanding of...

If you want to get into a real conversation with someone, talk to them about their teenage children. Move past the pleasantries of “they’re fine”. Leap over their accomplishments. Dwell for a bit on how the parent struggles with what their child is do...

It was through reading Brené Brown’s work Rising Strong  (See my posts Part 1  and Part 2 ) that I came across the reference to The Dance of Connection . The reference was to over-functioning and under-functioning in stressful situations. Having seen dif...

God hates divorce. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation. The state assumes that stable marriages are in the best interest of the state itself. Despite this the average marriage lasts only seven years and the divorce rate has impacted 4...

Hollywood makes it look easy, whether it’s jumping from a building to a rope ladder hanging from a helicopter or it’s building and sustaining a lifelong love – at least as much of the love as you can fit into a two-hour movie. Just because they make ...

Coming by estrangement in your family honestly doesn't make it feel better. Knowing you're not alone in the struggle doesn't resolve the pain of broken relationships. However, the more you know about estrangement, the more you can come to terms with it....

I’ve for some time recognized the three words in Greek used to describe love – eros , philos , and agape . C.S. Lewis’ count of The Four Loves , therefore, was interesting and confusing. Effectively to the three above, Lewis adds storge , which is s...

Failure is a gift? Well, yes. In The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed , we are indoctrinated into the world of raising children and how we must sometimes allow failure to happen. We must accept that ...

It’s no secret that I love dogs. I’ve spent most of my adult life with one or more canine companions. For the last 13 years, I’ve owned my own company, and the dogs have their own airlock doggie door system to get into the office. My love for our dogs ...

Anyone who has a teenager knows that they speak a different language. In fact, they often seem like they’re a different species all together. They don’t seem to act like their younger versions of themselves – and you wonder how they’ll survive to be o...

It’s been years since I read Intimacy Anorexia . It fell into my standard note taking pattern but I suppressed the process of writing the book review on it because it was too close and too personal. I wasn’t able to be objective about the content beca...

In my Sunday school class at church, we’re watching an old series by James MacDonald  titled “Lord, Change My Attitude.” During one of his sessions he mentions a book that he refers to as being out of print – Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness . At the ...

It was a secret love affair for over 40 years.  It was two preeminent psychologists.  And it’s difficult to get to Love’s Story Told: A Life of Henry A. Murray without stumbling between the public appearance and the private relationships.  I came t...

I picked up The New Peoplemaking not because I wanted to continue delving into family systems but instead because that Virginia Satir's work is often used as a model for change. I have no problems with the fact that her change theories were based on...

“Why am I me?” is an important – and unanswered – question that George Dyson asked his father, Freeman Dyson, at age 8. It’s at the heart of Judith Rich Harris’ work in No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality . It’s the essence of the tension...

In the previous post , I addressed the foundation of The Nurture Assumption , Judith Rich Harris’ challenge to the assumption that how we nurture our children has an impact on their outcomes in life. She has broken the causal arrow from a parent’s nurtu...

When you look at another family (probably on Facebook) and think “they’ve got it together,” do you think that they “come from good stock,” or are you impressed with the matriarch and patriarch’s ability to nurture their children? Would it surprise yo...

My children haven’t seen Back to the Future . They’ve not seen the idealistic view of the 1950s portrayed in a movie from the 1980s. They don’t understand what it was like when I was growing up when we walked down to the park to play, rode our bikes ...

Reading a child rearing book originally written in the late 60s and published in 1970 seems like a departure from my reading list. I don’t typically read child rearing books for good reason. I disagree with quite a bit of what is written. Thomas Gordon’s boo...

Kids should be first.  When parents get a divorce or separate, the primary concern should be that of the wellbeing of the children.  However, too frequently, parents are more interested in “winning” the popularity contest and ensuring that their ex do...

Parents pour so much time and energy into their children. They become the focus of their lives. From an evolutionary sense, it makes sense to have humans wired to take care of their children. It increases survival of the species. It might even explain...

It’s been several weeks now since I got to attend a knighting ceremony. The queen wasn’t present and I wasn’t in a castle. It was my friend who was knighting his son. This ceremony and symbolic act of recognizing him as a man I would find out later from ...

I don’t know anyone who has ever lived that has described relationships as easy. Rewarding, absolutely. However, I don’t know anyone who has said that relationships – good relationships – are easy. Relationships are necessarily difficult, messy, dynamic...

Raising all kids today is hard. Since I’ve only attempted to raise kids in today’s environment, I can’t comment about whether it’s harder or easier than previous generations. I can say that the grandparents I talk to tell me that they believe it’s ha...

It’s been said that parenting is the world’s hardest job. It comes with immense responsibility, impossible hours, no respect, and an unending litany of problems. However, there is a more difficult job. That is the job of the step parent. With parenting you...

Not that counseling is ever an easy job, but some times are harder than others. Sure, you can help find folks find their calling or cope with death and divorce. You can handle the couple who are struggling to hold their marriage together. A good counselor...

Inflection points matter. They’re the one time when a left turn really matters from a right turn. Paul Tough’s thesis is that “mobility in the United States today depends in large part on what happens to individuals during a relatively period in late ...