Nobody understands the divide-and-conquer strategy better than the children in your home. They have an instinct for it. When one parent stands in opposition to a desired outcome, a child will attempt an alliance with the other. If successful, the strategy is reinforced and is likely to become a repeated pattern of family interaction, often leading parents into states of confusion or even conflict between themselves.

Your child needs parents who know how to stand firm together. A healthy alliance between father and mother creates a secure environment in which children are more likely to attain appropriate emotional and behavioral balances as they grow. So, how strong is your parental alliance? Do the two of you cooperate well, or do you often work against each other?

If you want to become a stronger team, give attention to these four important components:

1. Consistent Communication
As parents, you need to have regular conversations about your children. At least once a week, you should spend time talking about what they need, how you are experiencing them, their challenges and achievements, and the roles each of you are playing in their lives. It is important to maintain a common pool of knowledge about your children and a shared perspective regarding their future.

2. United Responses
Work hard at coming to agreement on you both respond to the needs and requests of your children. When they ask for a decision, they should hear the same choice coming from both of you. If you're not sure of the other parent's opinion, be sure to insist on discussing it with them before giving a response. Don't get caught in the "but I need an answer now" trap; if you do, your children will learn to always wait until the last minute to ask, leaving no time for parental collaboration.

3. Secret Diplomacy
As parents, you won't agree about everything. Work out these differences privately, not in front of your children. Take whatever time you need to reach a joint conclusion. If you cannot decide between yourselves, get input from someone else. In most cases, it would be better to agree on the flip of a coin than to bring your children into the debate.

4. Prioritized Alliance
Your alliance with each other needs to be stronger than your alliance with your child. This is sometimes a challenge, especially in blended families, but it is an important priority to maintain. There is little your child will come to value more than a secure, healthy relationship between parents. They may not be able to acknowledge it now, but trusting in the strength of that bond is more important to them than getting their own way.

If you haven't been doing these things, you can expect some resistance to change. That's okay.  Stay united as parents and face the challenges together. It's a battle worth fighting.

Tim Tedder

Two-thirds of couples report significant decrease in their relationship satisfaction following the birth of their first child. This is due to a combination of tiredness, depression, and loss of romance. Conflicts between the parents typically increase, and when the marriage suffers, the baby suffers, too. We know that even babies react to conflict in their environment (rising blood pressure, distress) and parents who are caught up in their own problems are more likely to unintentionally neglect some needs of their child.

What can new parents do to protect their marriage?

1. Be flexible in building your parenting partnership.

• Flexibility: Allow freedom for your spouse to build a connection in a way that is natural for him.You both bring your own histories, values, and dreams into your parenting role. Do not be rigid in your expectation of how parenting should be done. Decide the absolutes, but allow much freedom in determining what to keep, leave, and create together.
• Partnership: Work together through negotiation and compromise, but learn to appreciate and build on each other's unique styles & strengths. We assume a mother's role, but fathers are important in the development of a child, too. (Research supports the significance of a father's role, especially in the development of intellect, empathy, and social competence).

2. Take a wide perspective on parenting.

• A wide view of experience: Your problems are not unique to you.Talk to other couples, especially ones who have "made it" through the first year of a new child.
• A wide view of time: This stage will not last forever. All the care that a new baby requires will change as your child matures and learns to become more independent in thought and behavior. (Of course, that means you'll have new challenges down the road; but that's another article.) One of the things I chose to do for my first child was to keep of journal of my hopes and dreams for her. That helped me keep things in perspective, and now that is the most enduring record of the first years of her life.

3. Keep your marriage in the center of your focus.

Guard against creating a child-centered family. The best gift you can give your child is a healthy relationship between its parents. Work on...

• Fortified Friendship: Make sure you invest in affectionate talk & touch every day. You may have less time to devote to this right now, but make sure it remains a priority. Don't neglect each other.
• Intentional Intimacy: Planned sex is still good sex.
• Controlled Conflict: Avoid conflict in front of children until around age 4, and then allow them to see healthy conflict with resolution. What is healthy conflict? It's characterized complaining rather than blaming, understanding rather than persuading, respect rather than retribution.

Tim Tedder

I don't think that anyone can argue that it is extremely hot right now in Orlando, Florida.  In my opinion, miserably hot!   How to stay clear of heat exhaustion during this time is all over the news.  Recently in the Orlando Sentinel I came across an article that was talking about athletes, both High School and College, going back to practice for their respective fall sports.  In it they stressed the importance of water and coaches paying attention and taking the time for their players to rest in the heat.  I began to think about this.  It dawned on me that our “souls” are similar.  They need nourishing especially when things are "hot". Whether it be a hardship in our marriage, your kids, or any other relationship, things can make us "hot", or angry.  Just like a time out in practices for fall sports in order to hydrate, we need time out for our souls to hydrate.  

So what is the purpose of time out for the soul?  It helps us cool down.  Take inventory of our emotions so that when we deal with a "hot" situation we have the composure to do it without "losing it" so to speak. The important thing to remember is that anger is usually a response to not being heard or understood. We often, mistakenly so, assume that the louder we get the more we will be heard. The opposite is actually truer. The louder we get, the less we are heard.  

As we are in a time of transition with kids going back to school, our economy all over the place, and a million other things, I encourage you to take inventory of the "heat" in your soul.  Take time to attend to it.  It can only help you and the relationships around you.  

Melissa

Recently, I was sitting on the couch at my sister's house when I heard a loud "whack" followed by some crying.  My nephew had been following a small dog around the house and while his head was down he was not exactly watching where he was going and ran right into the dining room table.  After a quick cry, I listened, amused as I heard my nephew explaining to my sister what happened in his broken 2 year old language.  When he was finished he promptly came into where I was sitting, grabbed my hand and brought me to the scene of the "crime".  He pointed to the dog, and then the table, finally his head and said "walk...bonk head".  It was adorable.  I chuckled with my sister that he doesn't want to cry as much as he wants to have someone to commiserate with him.  He wants to share his pain.  

Thinking about this later in the day, I realized that as adults we are the same way.  If our heart is hurt we want and need to tell someone about it.  We want someone to empathize with us and say "wow that's awful".  We are relational and we want to know that we are not alone. We want to know we are not walking through the hurts of this life without someone else caring when we "bonk" and it hurts.  It helps us to tell and sometimes retell the stories of our lives until, somehow, we feel better.  Sometimes a client will hesitate when I ask them to share with me a particularly painful part of their story.  They will ask me "What's the point? Its not going to change anything." Many times people don't want to talk about it because they do not want to feel bad.  However, if we're all being honest, they are already feeling bad and simply holding back the dam.  Telling our story not only helps us receive the empathy we need and the knowledge that someone cares, but also helps us to process through the pain.  Until it's not so painful anymore.  If you are hanging onto your pain, and unsure what to do with it, maybe it is time to start talking.    

Julia

I had the privilege of seeing my two-month old granddaughter for the first time yesterday.  Charlotte Jane Keller came into this world in February of 2010 and we had our first conversation last night.  She, of course, spoke in her own language, which was rich in coo’s and ahh’s and lavished with wonderful smiles.  I asked her how her life was going so far and she responded by saying that up to this point, not bad.  Her parents were decent folks, and her big sister was definitely “coo”-l. 

I am reminded in looking into Charlotte’s eyes for the first time how our decisions affect future generations.  I met Charlotte’s grandmother in 1975 and we were married eleven months later.  Our son, Christopher, was born 10 months after we were married (great planning on our parts!) and we were off and running trying to be a family that would be a safe and loving place for one and all.  Those 34 years were full of adventure, tears, fun and drama.  But I decided to love a woman that would be my wife.  And we decided to love our children as best we could and through trial and error were able to see our two children grow to be adults and have loving families of their own. 

The course of our lives are driven by our decisions.  And seemingly small and what seems to be minor decisions can have a major impact on the direction of our lives.  Seeing Charlotte was a reminder that each decision that I make is an important one and that it affects lives other than my own.  Charlotte’s very existence stems from a decision that I made 34 years ago. 

In seeing my new granddaughter for the first time, I am reminded that we need to weigh our decisions carefully and understand that each one affects the course of our lives.  And, we need to realize that those decisions become our legacy.

Jim