My Parents Divorced Each Other.  Where Does That Leave Me?

These are brief essays for young people. 

I Know I Can Get Her To Buy It For Me

As miserable as it is, divorce does provide some potential advantages.  Parents who feel guilty are vulnerable to requests.  Extra money, name brand clothes, video games, movies, food.  All are the kinds of things that were too expensive before.  Now there is even less money to go around but magically, if you ask for it, you stand a good chance of getting it.

            Some parents feel bad and think they can make up for the divorce by giving to you.  Others don’t feel all that bad but think they can get you to quiet down by giving to you.  Some even think that you will like them better if they give to you.  You figured this out.

            You can probably get but should you?  If mom or dad is doing it to buy your attention or to make up for the pain you feel then it’s a bad thing and you shouldn’t do it.  Having won’t make you feel better for very long and you are learning a lesson best left unlearned.  You are learning that getting something you don’t really need covers up emotional pain and you are learning how to use people to get what you want.  No matter how badly the other hurt you it is not ethical to use them just because you can get away with it.  And if you stop challenging them on their bad behavior just because they give you something what happens when you are in Congress twenty years from now and a rich guy wants a favor?  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Questions??????

Have you found it is easier to get stuff?  Do you ask or take just because you can?  Do you plan how to get more from a parent for whom you have little respect?  If you don’t respect the giver what respect is there for the receiver?  What are you learning?

I Don’t Want To Go To Dad’s

            It really makes you mad that they put you into this position.  If you don’t go he/she will be upset or hurt and she might get into trouble.  If you do go you’ll have a lousy time, he’ll feel like he has control over you, she’ll worry about what it is doing to you and you will feel like a sap.

            He has the law on his side but you already know that doesn’t count for much.  If you are over a certain age nobody will do anything about it unless he spends a bunch of money on lawyers and what’s the chance of that?  Whether he can force you or not the legal point is an important one.  Some parents think the legal right to time with you takes away their obligation to work at having a relationship with you.  If you don’t want to see him it isn’t because you are being a difficult teenager.  Typical teenagers like to spend time with parents who love them.  That’s the issue.  Your parent hasn’t done a good job of demonstrating to you that he loves you.  No wonder you’d rather be doing something else.

            But it isn’t so simple is it?  Lots of feelings are involved like the ones of feeling like you’ve disappointed someone.  Some parents, the least effective ones, are very good at getting you to feel sorry for them.  That’s the way they control you and everyone else in their lives.  And everyone thinks that you are the rebellious, irresponsible one for trying not to go.  Who is on your side?

            The court and the lawyers and the professionals and therapists mostly feel bad about your situation but won’t step up.  Probably wouldn’t be good for you even if they did.  You need to figure out how you are going to live with a parent like the one you’ve got.  That means you have some grown up decisions to make and you’ll be making them on your own.  Remember to take care of yourself.  Sacrificing yourself to make a point in this situation is something you will regret.

Questions?????

How do you deal with being forced?  Do you want to spend time with the other parent?  If yes, then is it good time and why?  If no, then why is that and is it you or the parent that’s messed it up?  Do you have a tendency to act up and put yourself in a bad situation just to make your point which they won’t understand anyway?

I knew It Before They Did

            Think back to that talk your parents had with you, the one where they told you they were getting a divorce.  A lot of young people say they weren’t all that surprised, even when there were no outward signs of coming trouble.  For those it was like confirmation of a bad premonition.  You hoped it was just a fear but knew it wasn’t.  The only question was when would it happen.

            When the day came it probably felt a little weird to have had this insight all along.  Kids figure it out way before the parents do.  The parent who didn’t want the divorce is usually the last to know.  There are several problems with knowing.

            Some parents let a child in on the secret.  That is a horrible thing for a child.  There are all kinds of reasons a parent might do this and none of them are good.  Whether the secret is told or the child figures it out because the parent was not discreet makes no difference.  It’s a bad thing to do to a child.

            The other, more common, situation is where a bright observant child just figures it out.  The danger here is that the child might start to think that he/she has some special ability to see what might happen in the future.   Instead of learning how to deal with bad things that happen the young person might believe that he/she can see it coming before anybody else.  With that foresight might also come a feeling of responsibility, at least for not doing something soon enough to stop it.

Nothing was foreseen.  The child only saw both sides and that was twice as much information as was available to either parent.  The fracture of a family is a big deal in the life of the child.  If the child’s way to bring control back into life is to believe in the special ability to predict the future then that child may encounter a more serious problem.  That child may start to take responsibility for things beyond his/her influence.  Divorce and all the things that lead up to it are very hard.  All of it is beyond the control of a child, any child, even you.

Questions??????

Did you figure it out?  Did a parent share the secret with you?  How did you feel about carrying the secret?  Did it make you closer to that parent?  Did it make you feel funny around the other parent?  What do you think now?  Do you believe you have special insight?

Parents Dating

            There are many reasons why your parents’ dating makes you feel uncomfortable. Middle aged people getting all starry eyed at one another just doesn’t look good, especially when one of them is your parent.

            That’s the easy reason and probably the one you feel first.  The more difficult reason is the feelings that happen which you can’t really describe except to acknowledge that they make you very uncomfortable.  Those have to do with security issues.  They happen for good reason.  A new person is a threat to the security of the family.  Lots of changes might happen as a result, not all of them good ones. 

            So what is there for you to do about it?  Really very little unless there is an extremely good reason.  For instance, if you have reason to believe that the other person is not what he/she portrays then say something to mom/dad, not the other mom/dad but the one involved with the person.  Examples are illegal or unethical behavior.  The big one is whether or not the person behaved inappropriately with you in private.  You can figure out what that means.  These things need to be brought into the open.

            For everything else it’s best for you to adopt a supportive attitude and let your parent figure out if the new relationship is a good thing or not.  If you stick yourself into the middle and attract all the attention then the jerk your mom picked will be elevated to white knight.  That’s bad for everybody.  If your fear of losing the attention of your dad destroys his chance to be happy you might have messed things up for both him and the family.  Usually better to let these things work their way out.  You don’t want your parent poking too much into your relationships so don’t do it to theirs.

Questions?????

What’s it like for you?  Did your parent change?  Do you have the opposite problem, the parent who won’t date?  Do you worry about your parent?  Are you a caretaker?  Have you tried to wreck a relationship?  Did your parent make a bad choice?  What was your role?  Did you help or hurt?

New Friends

            Some kids are lucky.  When their parents divorce nothing much changes except the amount of time spent with one of the parents.  They keep living in the same house,  going to the same school, hanging out with the same friends, and so on.  Others experience more changes.  One of the biggest is the change in friends.

            It is a common occurrence for kids to choose different friends after a divorce.  Usually the new friends are different than the old friends.  Sometimes the difference is not a good one. 

            This isn’t about whether the new friends are as good as the old friends.  This is about the change in you.  Over the years you adopted an identity.  You had a sense of who you were and where you fit.  Others watching you also had a sense of you and where you fit.  Divorce often blows up a family and with it the sense of identity for the members.

            If you were once a good student with close friendships, stayed out of trouble and felt pretty happy most of the time then shifted to being an outcast, in trouble, smoking, and mouthing off at teachers there might be a cause for concern.  That’s not uncommon and it often happens after a divorce.

            Identity is lost.  There is embarrassment to go back into the old groups.  You might feel depressed.  The edgier kids readily accept new members and you might feel more alive doing that stuff.  You find out they are really nice kids but they get involved in things they shouldn’t. But you judge them by who they are, not what they do and society can go screw itself for laying all those moralistic judgements on you about right and wrong and success and failure. You support your new friends.

            Eventually you will find the path that’s right for you.  In the meantime think about the changes you’ve encountered in your life.  Are you the same person you used to be?  Did you shift because it was a good idea, because you got confused and felt a little lost or because you no longer felt like you fit with your old friends?

Questions??????

Have you changed friends since the divorce?  Why?  Why not?  Are you the same person?  How do you describe your identity?  Is it the same as it once was?  Has anyone told you that you’ve changed?  Who changed, you or your friends?

Sex

            It’s not a matter of if you are going to do it but when.  That’s what worries your parents.  You’ve heard the lectures.  Probably the real issue is freedom.  Who gets to decide what you do with your body? 

            Skip the scary stories about disease.  They are all true but telling them has about as much effect on when you have sex as showing movies of car crashes affects how you drive.  Very little.  Think about these two things, developmental synchrony and socio-emotional consequences.

            With no outside pressure applied young people are naturally drawn to what is most appropriate for their age.  That's called developmental synchrony.  It is a necessary part of human evolution and acts as a sort of warning siren that goes off when the person is about to do something that's either too soon or potentially harmful. When the activity is out of synch developmentally, like pressure to have sex too young or with someone for all the wrong reasons, confusion appears.  Should I say no or should I give in?  Repeated confusion is uncomfortable.  For a young person who feels little control over his/her life one solution is to stop thinking about it.  No more discomfort.  Also, no more reasoning about choices so the next time there is pressure to do something that is developmentally out of synch that young person might lack the ability to make a good choice.

            The socio-emotional is simpler.  Sex screws up the opportunity to have a simple good time.  Once sex enters a relationship everything goes into hyper drive.  Flirting and hand holding and giggling over silly things is replaced by serious business.  Nobody is immune to this process no matter what age.  When sex starts happening relationships get way more serious.  If one or both try to make sex casual then they are entering into an activity more like sport.  Most of the time one is persuasive while the other wants to please.  One might then lack the ability to make a good choice while the other applies pressure to satisfy a personal desire.  If you are either one of those you have a problem.

Questions??????

Are you thinking about having sex?  Have you thought it through?  Will it help your life or hurt it?  Do you know the motivation of the other person?  What are your motives?  Are you doing it to demonstrate your freedom?

Keeping To Self

            Some people like to talk about everything.  Others keep everything to themselves.  Most of us are in the middle except when we are teenagers.  Teenagers like to keep a lot of stuff from their parents.  Not just secrets or problems but good things that are happening too.    Parents who are talkers hate this.  They try to get you to tell them.  You resist and succeed.

            This is mostly about setting limits.  It’s the first time in your life when you feel able to make decisions on your own.  If you have nosy, bossy or critical parents you are even more likely to want to keep them out of it.  But if you have a nice, thoughtful, loving parent you probably still lock them out of a bunch of things.  That is something to think about.

            First, locking out someone you love and someone on whom you depend is tactically not smart.  If that person gets hurt feelings because you behaved poorly then you feel bad.  Second, there are all kinds of ways to set personal boundaries and make decisions for yourself.  Pushing away a potentially valuable resource is not the way.  That’s not because of the wisdom you will fail to absorb.  It’s because of the relationship you damage and the possibilities you eliminate.

            Research shows that individuals who encounter severe stress or witness traumatic events, like accidents, tornadoes, fights, deaths, etc., recover quicker if they can vent.  Vent means to just talk, dump the memory.  The look of it, the sounds, tastes, smells, all the senses of the event.  If you dump it within the first day or so of encountering it then it is less likely to mess with your brain later in life.

            Five minutes of venting about your day at school has the same effect.  It preserves your brain capacity to problem solve and make independent decisions and it protects your assets from later damage.  Stress can be like an infection.  You need to drain it off.  And if you have a warm exchange with your parent then all the better for you both.

Questions?????

Do you keep more to yourself now?  What kind of parent do you have?  Is there a trustworthy adult to whom you can vent?  How can you learn to vent?  Do you believe it is best to keep it locked inside of yourself?  Is it really?

Happy

            Months after settling into your new life after divorce you might suddenly wonder what it was like to be happy.  You have some memory of it but it is fading.  More than anything happy felt like the absence of tension.  It may have been a long time since you felt the absence of tension.

            Try to remember.  If you know what to look for you can make it happen again.  Like laying in your bed early Saturday morning all warm and cozy just floating.  Or listening to mom and brother sing in the kitchen or playing catch with dad.  Lots of things were happy back then.  Divorce felt like a meteor that crashed through the roof of your house and just wrecked everything.  It took a long time for the shock to wear off.

            OK, the shock has worn off and you are still a little angry about what happened.  It’s time to seek happy again.  You’ve learned a valuable lesson.  Happy isn’t for sure all of the time.  Things happen which mess everything up.  From here on throughout your life happy will be different.

            You have a choice.  You can adopt a negative perspective and view life as one big problem after another waiting to get you or, you can look at it as endless possibilities both good and bad.  The choice you have is to balance the good and bad by seeking the good and by paying enough attention to know when you have encountered it.  People who expect nothing but bad still encounter good.  They just don’t recognize it until it has zoomed past.  Then they chalk it up to another negative thing that happened to them.  If instead they were on the lookout for the good stuff and reached out and grabbed it when it came by they might have an altogether different outlook.

            Pretty much everything is temporary.  That’s OK.  It means you lose good times but it also means the bad ones don’t last forever either.  Both are temporary.  Your attitude is the captain of this ship.

Questions?????

Do you remember being happy?  When and why?  Do you think you can control how you feel?  How much of life just happens to you?  Have you missed good opportunities because you were mad or afraid?  Are you still in shock?  What does balance mean to you? 

Right or Wrong

            How do you decide what is right and what is wrong?  Is it a thought?  Is it a feeling or maybe some of both?  Think about how that happens.

            We encounter many situations each day which require a decision.  Most of the time it is an automatic process.  Not much thought is required.  Like the decision to stop at a stop sign.  That’s an almost automatic decision we make because of what we have learned.  We learned it is the law and to break the law means penalty if caught.  There is also the safety question.  Buzzing through stop signs is dangerous not only to us but to anyone near to us.  That brings in the social good issue.  There is usually a social consequence to our decisions.  In this case stopping means we respect the right to safety of other people.  We understand that an orderly society needs rules like stop signs in order to keep it orderly.  Stopping is a minimal intrusion on our right to go and a safeguard for everyone.  Not stopping is considered to be wrong.

            Not every decision is so clear but they all are a blend of what is hard wired and what we have learned.  Things like self protection, preserving the species, eating, staying warm, etc. are hard wired behaviors.  Everything else is learned.  When still very young we learn by absorbing what we encounter.  Later we learn by absorbing and by comparing what we absorb to what we’ve already learned.  That’s why some people have such a hard time with right and wrong.

            If you grow up in a family where members think no rules apply then you will be confused when you go out into the world.  In pre-school the kids might think it’s not okay for you to hit anyone you like.  In kindergarten the teacher might not think profanity is a good idea.  If you fail to figure out the difference between what is acceptable and what isn’t you’ll have a hard time.

            Right or wrong is a blending of decisions rooted in hard wired programs and learned ones.  Figuring out which is which helps you get along and live with everybody else.

Questions???????

What do you think about right and wrong?  Are all the rules an attempt to control you?  Is there some other purpose?  Do you often feel right when everyone else says you are wrong?  How did you get out of step with everyone else?  Even after thinking it through is their wrong your right? 

Stuck

            Try to figure out how you got stuck.  Seems like you are the only one that did.  How come?

            Stuck is a dark hopeless trap between two parents who are angry at each other.  You are like a shield.  You get between them and take the shots they fire at one another.  Each one hurts more.  Your brother and sister watch it happen and scold you for staying there.  They don’t understand.  You are stuck.

            The stuck kid shields one parent from the other, then turns around and shields the other.  But it doesn’t really work because everyone still hurts.  Brother thinks it’s dad’s fault and sister thinks it’s mom’s.  You love them both and just want everyone to get along and are determined to stay in the middle until that happens.

            Stuck is a noble place, a loving action.  But you know what?  People who are that angry eventually find bullets that go through shields.  Brothers and sisters who take a side have an easier time because they at least can get out of the way of some of the bullets.  Shields try to remain loyal to both.

            Stuck kids stay stuck between parents who don’t even recognize he/she is there.  The best is when a parent sees what is happening and pushes the child out of the way.  Stuck is no place for the child.  If the parent can’t see it the child eventually must.  Stuck doesn’t work.  It only hurts. Get out of the way.

Questions??????

Have you been stuck between two parents who hate each other?   Did you think sacrificing yourself would help?  Do you see both sides so clearly that you have no side yourself?  What happens of you step aside?  Are you sure about that?

Vans and Vipers

            A van is safe, practical, boring.  A Viper is risky, totally impractical and exciting.  If either is your only vehicle your drive through life may be similar.

            Van owners take care of people and business.  They play the radio and pretend but life is mostly taking care of responsibilities.  They hope a Viper is somewhere out there in the future.

            Viper owners live on the edge, drive fast, take chances, crash often and sometimes don’t see old age.  They live their fantasies but mostly alone.  That’s because their fantasies are not shared, at least for very long, by the people they try to get to ride with them.

            What does this have to do with you, a relatively new driver?  Balance.  Balance is better than one or the other.  Drive the van and learn to be practical and responsible.  Then get into the Viper and learn to drive it like a pro.  Pros don’t crash.  Balance is both practical and fantasy.

            One or the other is easier but way less satisfying.  Take the time now to figure out a way to be both.

Questions????

Do you get the symbolism?  Of course you do but what do you think about it?  Do you think the rules don’t apply to you and you can get away with going too fast and reckless?  Do you think you get to do that for awhile and then settle down?  What if you don’t?  But what if you miss all the fun because you are way too responsible?  Do you think there is time in the future to have fun?  When will that be?

Pot Smoking Parents

            The pot smokers are different from the drinkers.  The drinkers end up destroying themselves and their families.  For the pot smokers it’s more of a long, slow decline into disorganization.  You’ve watched these families, had friends of these parents and even been in their houses.

            Regular pot use makes it so the smoker intends to get things done but never quite gets to it and eventually learns to not let it bother him/her.  That’s the chemistry effect.      The problem for the kids of these parents is they learn to tolerate the disorganization and even to see it as normal.  So when a parent is inconsistent with rules or discipline the young person learns to find ways around him/her.  That results in yelling when the parent over-reacts or almost total absence of parental influence when the parent is being mellow.

            Like it or not, structure and consistency are necessary when growing up.  You get to take on more and more of the authority for managing yourself as you grow but you had to learn how to do it.  You are supposed to learn those lessons from your parent when you are little.  Pot smoking parents are either away from the child smoking pot or too mellow to notice what the child needs.  The child grows without consistent learning about things like safety, choices of friends, goals for the future, showing up for work every day on time, etc.

            It’s fun to hang out at a house where the parent enforces no rules and tries to be one of the group.  It isn’t good though.  Everyone eventually learns that managing life’s challenges occupies more time than having fun.  If you don’t learn how to manage those things you’ll never have the opportunity to have any fun at all.

Questions????

Do you think this was just another lecture on why you shouldn’t do drugs?  Do you know families like this?  What will happen to them?  Does any of this fit for you?  Are you concerned? 

Inappropriate Behavior

            What you do affects everyone connected to you.  That means it’s incredibly unlikely that you will ever completely get away with doing something you shouldn’t have been doing.  There might not be a consequence but the possibility is always out there lurking.  That’s the downside.  On the upside is the fact that connections to those we love and who love us back prevent us from being all alone.  That by itself is worth the hassle.

            Inappropriate behavior is one of those charges that get put on you when you’ve done something that might have seemed okay at the time but later maybe didn’t turn out that way.  A lot of time it takes place within a social context.  That is, it happens with friends.  Sexual behavior, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, aggressive behavior or defending a friend, driving recklessly with a car full of friends and the music tuned loud, accepting a dare to steal from the locker room, taking a stand against a teacher and maybe taking it too far, keeping a secret to protect a friend, etc. are examples.  Think of some more.  All of those behaviors happened because for one reason or another you didn’t think about the consequences.

            In every case there is a consequence, sometimes a big one, and it happens for one reason.  You crossed a boundary.  You decided it was all right to do something but failed to recognize that what you were about to do affected somebody else.  You can’t be responsible for everything.  Feeling like you are would make you crazy.  But you are responsible for what you do and for the consequences that happen afterward.  If you enter into a risky behavior with absolutely no thought about the consequences you are hurting yourself and everyone who loves you.

Questions?????

Can you think of things you did where you got lucky and nothing bad happened?  Why do you think you get to make choices that affect others?  If you do then do they get to do stuff that affects you?  Can you think of boundaries in your life?

Help

            It is hard to figure out when you need help.  Not help with homework or a chore, help with you and how you feel.  It’s normal to have a lot of hard feelings when a family breaks up.  It’s also normal to have them when it starts to reconfigure.  That is when new relationships start to happen, when parents date and remarry or when sisters and brothers stay away more with friends.  Any of those things might leave you feeling alone.

            So when is it something to worry about?  When is it time to ask for help?  Well, if you’ve been feeling rotten for weeks, not just days or hours then you might need to consider it.  If you find time slipping away as you stare into space with nothing in particular in your thoughts then you might be depressed.  If you know what you need to do to get going but keep doing the opposite then that’s another sign.  If you start attracting all the wrong kind of attention in a way you never did before then somebody else will decide for you.

            Bright, sensitive people have a hard time getting over tough things because they often think and feel deeply.  A little help goes a long way.

Questions?????

Have you felt all alone and completely lost for long periods of time?  Have others noticed?  Is there anybody to talk to about it?  Has you attitude about life changed?  Have you avoided getting help as a way to show how angry you are?

Relationships

            Even though your parents might think they are experts on relationship don’t believe it.  That’s not to say that they don’t have lots of experience.  It is also not to say that they don’t have a lot of really good advice to share with you.  Go slow and use your head is always the best.  But if you stand back and look at the state of relationships for your parents generation as a whole what do you see?  You see a mess.

            It cannot be a good thing for lots of kids to grow in split up families.  You even see the way your parents react emotionally to the daily pressures and that doesn’t look so hot either.  It is logical to believe that something is wrong with the way we do relationships.  It is not logical to believe that the problem will just get solved by itself.  The stability of our culture in the future depends upon young people of today making better choices than the young people that were once your parents.

            Lots of things changed in the 50’s through the 90’s.  The biggest thing was that more people experienced a higher degree of freedom.  That’s absolutely a good thing.  But sometimes some people don’t do a very good job managing the freedom they have.  Like it’s up to you to decide with whom you have sex and how often.  Or, at 21 you can go to bars and get into your car afterward.  Or, parties are more fun than work.  The list goes on of all the things you can do.  It’s up to you to decide whether or not you should do it.

            So, it is in everyone’s best interest if your generation learns to do relationship better.  It’s easy to get into one but much harder to make it work.  Freedom has made it just as easy to get out of marriage.  The task is then to figure out what it takes to make relationships work better.  There will not be one model.  There will be many.  Again the go slow and use your head advice pertains.  Give some thought to how you would like to meet somebody, marry that person and raise a family. 

Questions?????

Think about how complicated it is to make a relationship work?  Is it about whom you choose or about what you do after you choose or both or neither?  Is it all chemistry or just chemistry at one point and work after that?  Is it mostly up to one of the couple to make things work?  What’s a model you’d like to try and what would you have to do to try it?

Keep It In The Past

            There are those that believe that if a bad thing happens to you when you are young that it will continue to affect you throughout your life.  They believe certain things contaminate everything that comes after.  Abuse, divorce, deaths, etc. are examples.  Long range observation challenges this idea.

            The fact is that the bad thing was a moment or at most a chapter, in a life.  There is always way more good than bad on either side of the bad thing.  Sometimes enduring hardship even helps the person develop strength and resilience.  Those who bounce back and keep trying after experiencing a failure didn’t learn to do it by never having experienced bad things.  They learned to do it by experimenting after a hard time.  They pulled it off by believing that they could.

            Believing that you can is the key.  Everything is perception.  If you believe that your parents’ divorce ruined your entire life and then go on acting like it did then your life will be very hard.  If, instead, you step back and understand that divorce happens because people fail at marriage and lack the resources to fix it then you might conclude that a lot of what happens occurs because of the choices that are made and the perceptions that influence those choices. 

            This is not a look on the bright side.  This is a keep looking for a side that gets you to a better place.  There are infinite possibilities.

Questions???????

Do you conclude that your life will be messed up because of what your parents did?  What if you made different choices?  What if you changed your attitude?  Is it possible for you to learn from their failures and turn them into your successes?

Wanting But Not Getting

            Sometimes you might want something so much that you cannot imagine life without it.  But in the back of your mind you already know that you probably are not going to get it.  Wanting and the fear of not knowing what to do after not getting grow together.  Not trivial things like an item you want for your birthday but big stuff like you don’t want your mom to die from the cancer that came back or you don’t want your dad to move out or you can’t imagine going on without that one special boy/girl friend.

            Your brain tells you that of course you will go on.  You just cannot imagine how.  One of the most important things is to manage your impulses.  Impulses are those actions fueled by adrenaline that almost always create new problems.  They start with a want, smack into a reality that says no, you can’t have that, cycle back to the want, get a surge of fuel and away you go with an action that is totally desperate.  People lose control at times of great loss.  Angry, hurt young men get aggressive when they should walk away.  Family members who feel betrayed plot revenge.  Most of the time none of it goes beyond a thought.  Unless impulse kicks in.

            If you have a history of having acted on your impulses you need to understand that when things get tough there is a greater likelihood that you will behave impulsively and make it worse.  Stay cool. Think it through.  Tomorrow is a new day.

Questions??????

Have you behaved impulsively?  Did you make things worse for yourself and others?  Did you regret it?  Did you have control?  What other options were there?

Please Stop Bossing Me

            Parents often have a hard time knowing when to back off and stop trying to be the boss.  After a divorce it gets worse.  They try to manage everything all of the time and forget that you are able to manage yourself quite well some of that time.  They also forget that trying to manage you so much does nothing to make you want to be closer to him/her.  So they might even try to manage even more as a way to stay connected.

            You can tell this is happening if every conversation with mom or dad has some reference to a responsibility.  “How was your day and do you have homework?  Are you feeling better and is your room picked up?”  Every contact is in some way linked with a chore.  That’s because your parent feels overwhelmed and believes that managing everything efficiently will bring serenity.  It doesn’t.  It creates tension.

            It might be up to you to teach you mom and dad that some management is all right but the way to stay connected to you is to lighten up and to act more like a supportive friend some of the time.  That’s not to say that you tell them no more management.  That would never fly.  Just gently help them to understand that you feel closer to them when they ask how you are and really want to know how you are, not what you have done and are doing next.

Questions?????

Is your parent stuck in management mode?  Do you fight back?  Can you empathize with the pressure they feel?  Can you step up and take care of more on your own?  What might you say to help them back off?