Sometimes love isn’t enough. Couples need skills.
Loving someone and genuinely caring about them doesn’t automatically create a peaceful happy home. It takes time and effort to really be there for each other. Working together, we can develop the behaviors and communication skills necessary to make love an action word.
We will learn to understand each other, trust each other, and support each other so that arguing stops and closeness grows. Tenderness, warmth, feeling valued–these are the things couples seek. Let’s get your relationship back to tenderness, warmth, and love.
Families have rituals…
Families have rituals, ways of coping with life’s challenges. Often these habits or ways of managing are beneficial. Other times families may mean well, but patterns are just not working out.
Children’s behaviors are confusing and irksome. Parents can’t get on the same page, and one person is stuck always being the tough guy. Peace, quiet, and kindness can be in short supply.
Therapy as a family…
In some cases, to really understand the systems in play, its best if the whole family comes to therapy. The person in the most distress may be expressing something that transcends one person. The family coping must be looked at and understood as a unit.
Isolating one person and saying, “Here is the bad one” just doesn’t work. Each person is connected, and the behaviors of each reflects something going on between members as much as within an individual. Uncooperative members may feel cut off and not valued. If some members are not coping with sadness or anxiety, it can show up in another member’s life.
Disruptive behavior isn’t due to a bad child, and punishment won’t make it go away. Looking at how the family functions as a unit can be required to make real and sustainable change. Often the changes are not just in the disruptive person but in how the group communicates and functions. When the systems within the family change, the disruptive behavior is no longer needed.
Let’s work on a solution.
If you feel your family’s relationships are fraught with tension and blaming, consider bringing everyone in to work together on a solution.