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Showing posts from April, 2006

Family dinner is vanishing because the family has vanished.

Family dinner is vanishing because the family has vanished. I know a Mom who IM'ed her kids that dinner was on the table and then whoever showed up got to eat and whoever was in the middle of a video game got what was left. Everyone is busy and pulled in a dozen directions these days, which prohibits sitting down over anything together, let alone a meal. School, work, commute, ball practice, music lessons, going to the Y to work out, shopping, and everything else eats away at the concept of 'traditional family.' That model of family vanished and so did that model of how to get together. Today I encourage families to get together with their schedules on Sunday night, map out how and when to connect, or when they will be going to the same place at the same time to be together. The goal is connection, we don't do that around a kitchen table much these days, but we still can connect if we take the time to plan for it and then make it happen. " Dwight Bain Bio: Aut

Counseling results over the Internet?

The British Journal of Psychiatry published research a few months ago indicating that the success rate for Internet counseling was about the same as traditional counseling. Here's a portion of my thoughts about that study as it applies to positive change in the lives of people in Europe or the US. "Taking any positive action to change brightens up our mood, because we are moving forward to do something about an area of our life that needs improvement. Internet-based therapy could generate short-term results in mood for many people who are too busy to schedule a counseling appointment, or too exhausted, or too afraid to go through the process of trying to get in and see a qualified professional.Often, mild depression is caused by the accumulated daily stress of life, career pressures, relationship issues, the consequences of past decisions, or even something seemingly trivial, like traffic. I suspect the results of the study reflects people who know they need to work on an area

Strategic Change is key to move through the stages of rebuilding a family after divorce:

There is a predictable process for parents and kids to rebuild a new family system together after divorce. Here are the four stages, (which could take years to complete,) and how it works to guide you or someone you care about in moving beyond the pain of the past to move toward a new life of connected and loving relationships. 1) Broken- the children's parents close their marriage to each other, breaking their family apart into separate single parent households. 2) Blending- one, (or sometimes both) of the children's parents have a new relationship that grows to the point of remarriage, frequently with several children involved, (think "yours-mine & ours). This is where knowing how to include the kids in forming this new family unit is critically important to guide adults and kids in avoiding conflict to build unity together as they begin to form a new family system. 3) Bonding- these two families join together through the process of expanded relationship development

What changes are taking place in how people of faith are responding to Divorce?

Here are some recent trends to be aware of in understanding how the Christian community is changing to deal with the task of rebuilding life on the other side of divorce. I've noticed these changes over the last fifteen years as a certified family law mediator in Florida as well as over the last twenty years as a professional counselor focused on guiding people on their journey to rebuild their broken world today, while praying for a chance to experience a better world tomorrow. Does divorce still carry a stigma in Christian circles? Divorce is still viewed as a failure for believers because it is the very public unraveling of many private sources of pain; however it's dramatically improved over the way it used to be. Thirty years ago the stigma of wearing a scarlet 'D' was like the kiss of death in many Christian circles. Today divorce is more common and accepted as just another sad reality of life. Contrast this against what used to be viewed as a rare occurrence amon