“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.” -Milan Kundera You probably don’t need to tell a die-hard dog lover (like me) […]
Depressed Dads Need Help to Help Their Kids
For many years, the medical community has known that when moms are depressed, it puts their children at risk for more emotional and behavioral problems but until recently, the impact of fathers’ emotional health on the children was unexamined. According to a new study which appears in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics, a child’s odds of […]
Overcoming Fears and Building Emotional Intelligence
“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.” –Karl Menninger If we want to overcome our fears, and most of do, we must first be willing to examine them. Just cultivating awareness of what is going on- naming the sensations without judging and without pushing them away can be the beginning […]
Marriages Thrive with Good Communication
There are many excellent resources available to couples wanting to learn how to communicate more effectively. One of the several that we like and recommend is now in its third edition. Written by Matthew McKay, Martha Davis and Patrick Fanning, check out Messages: The Communication Skills Book. If when you completed your Current Family Assessment […]
You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
“Families break up when people take hints you don’t intend and miss hints you do intend.” -Robert Frost At the heart of relationships is the art of communication. How tragic that we do not spend as much time teaching our children the skills necessary to get along with others as we do teaching them math […]
Negative Parentlng of Infants and Toddlers Increases Aggression
Results of a new research study of more than 260 mothers and their children, followed from birth until first grade, were published by University of Minnesota this week. Before the study, researchers believed that the combination of the temperament of the infant and negative parenting, particularly in the toddler phase (think terrible two’s) would put […]
