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

This week alone I sat with five different teenagers all describing intense anxiety, worrying, stomach problems, and problems sleeping. Upon further exploration it was revealed that most of this worry comes from school and friends. Did you know that 84% of teenagers describe themselves as overwhelmed and suffer psychological consequences because of it. So how do you as a parent encourage excellence from your teenager without adding to this pressure, and how can you help relieve the stress they already feel?

1. Listen: This is the number one thing you can do to help your teen manage their stress. Listen empathetically without trying to fix their problems. Also, avoid telling them how they could have done it differently. Try to stay away from statements such as “Well, if you had only.... you wouldn’t be in this position.” Chances are they already know, and telling them now will not help their current position. Say things like “I know what its like to have that big of a deadline looming,” or “that sounds like its really getting to you”. Further you want to make statements and ask questions that encourage further discussion from your teen.

2. Encourage healthy eating and sleeping patterns: Teens who eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly can manage stress with less psychological consequences. While I know that you can’t control what they do, you can make sure nutritious food is available to them, and model a healthy lifestyle yourself.

3. Watch your expectations: Make sure your teen knows you expect excellence and not perfection. Perfection is toxic and can lead to stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

4. Encourage them to “be vague”: So many teens come to me with one plan for their life, make valedictorian, get into (Insert prestigious school here), and become a (insert high power job here). While its great to have a plan and goals, they need to be flexible. There are things outside of their control for all of those goals so they are not appropriate to have. Encourage them to have goals that are only within their control. Strive for excellence with their grades, get into a good school, and major in something they enjoy and will be able to provide them with a future.

Making these small changes with your teen can help them lead a balanced and less stressed life, giving them less anxiety and irritability. A win win for everyone! 

Julia

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

Sundays for me have always been different.  I was raised in a church-going family and there were never any questions as to where we were going on Sunday morning and whether or not we would be on time to church.  Being on time, I was told, was being five minutes early.  And there were certain things that would not happen: family arguments were not just frowned upon, they were forbidden.  My father was the enforcer, and my brothers and I respected him and honored his wishes.  For Dad, his Sunday was a day that wasn’t just some legalistic day set aside for religion, but a day where he could once again find his center, and catch his spiritual breath.

One of Jesus’ major confrontations with the Pharisees was over the observation of the Sabbath.  Jesus regularly healed on the Sabbath, not as a provocateur, but as an affirmation of one of the major purposes of Sabbath rest: to heal and recover.  My father worked five and often six days a week in factories all over northwestern Ohio and southern Michigan.  Those of you with factory experiences will immediately know that they are not centers of spirituality and deep religious thought.  My father dealt with this environment in an authentically Christian manner: he worked hard and he honored God by his words and relationships. I sensed Sundays weren’t just a time of religious duty for my father, but a necessary time for healing.  I watched my father use his Sabbath for three primary purposes…

…to restore energy – My father worked hard and Sundays were a time where he ceased work.  If he had Saturdays off, that was the day for chores and man-duties around the house.  Sunday was for rest.

...to heal – Dad never was sick, to my recollection.  But he used his Sabbath rest to allow God to bring His healing touch to his life.  My father’s best naps were on Sunday afternoon, and when we would watch the Tigers play baseball, he only saw one third of the game because he would contentedly doze off.

…to become whole – Dad would use his time at church to remind him first of his own brokenness, but then be reminded of God’s grace and redemptive touch.  He would comment on our car rides home from church on what he had learned and what his response was.  Church was never tedious for my Dad.  It was seen by him as a necessity in his spiritual growth.

My father, born of German immigrants, is to this day the best example I’ve had of a man who lives an authentic Christian life.  He is also the best example I have had of someone who has embraced the Sabbath as it should be embraced, a day that was set apart for us to more effectively become the people we were created to be.  Thanks, Dad!

Jim 

I am passionate about reading. Love it. I will read any and everything I can get my hands on, and when desperate I've even been known to read the back of a cereal box. I'm currently in the middle of Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years". If you haven't read it yet, put it on the list. If you're not a reader, put it on the list. You will not be disappointed.  In a few words Don can challenge, inspire and motivate in a way which few writers can. 

With insight and raw honesty this book invites you to engage in the story of your life (more on that in another blog). I bring up the book because it caught my attention when Don mentioned his friends and their teenage daughter.  She was heading down a path that strikes fear into most parents.  The kind of path which brings parents into my office dragging their teen behind them with a look mixed with anxiety and exasperation asking me to "fix them".  Through conversation with Don, the father realizes that his daughter was choosing the most enticing story she could for her life and he set out to create a story that would be more tempting than the one she was choosing. This father realized you cannot force your teen to change, you cannot verbally berate them into submission, neither can you shame them into choosing what's "right". You will only succeed in pushing them further from you. They will choose the story that is most loving, kind, accepting, exciting and fun. If you are struggling with your teen, I encourage you to try the following: Take an honest look at the story of your life and make some changes. Create an environment your teen will want to engage in. Build relationship with them, take on a challenge together, accept and love them for where they are, adopt a better story for yourself and watch them crave a better story for themselves. Will this solve all of your problems? Of course not, but its a huge step in a more positive direction.

Julia