by Marcia | Jan 21, 2016 | Social Skills
Once your children have grown and left you, their schools and extracurricular activities are no longer a good bet for meeting similarly situated adults. You may prefer not to rub shoulders with coworkers once the workday is done. Whether you are looking for a BFF, a...
by Marcia | Dec 24, 2015 | Healthy Aging, Living Well
Maybe it’s just because I take extra time off for the Christmas holidays. Or maybe it’s a sign of advancing age. Whatever the reason, I find myself increasingly savoring small things. These days I notice my senses more and the news they bring me. I relish the thrust...
by Marcia | Dec 15, 2015 | Setting and Achieving Goals
The end-of-year holidays form a kind of time tunnel linking the present with the past and the future. When they roll around, we take stock. What do they mean this year? How are things different from last year? We may nostalgically remember times past, before Mom died...
by Marcia | Dec 1, 2015 | Childrearing
How do you give really bad news to children? What should you say when a natural disaster hits or when someone important dies? How can you parse a divorce for a child—or bankruptcy or foreclosure or drug addiction or crime? This world has so many kinds of adversity....
by Marcia | Nov 17, 2015 | Childrearing
“My child is out of control!” I have heard this heartfelt cry so many times from parents who are frustrated at not being obeyed. But the problem is not simply a matter of exacting compliance. Let’s start by considering the complaint. When you say “out of control,” you...
by Marcia | Nov 6, 2015 | Childrearing
Below are more ways of improving your children’s behavior without bringing out the big guns. As with the last batch of suggestions, these defuse tension by relying on a sense of humor, which gets you results without resentment. In the Doghouse Sometimes it’s...
by Marcia | Oct 30, 2015 | Childrearing
It’s great when parents can correct a young child without provoking tension, conflict, and a power struggle. One way of doing this is to use some form of playful humor to make your point. Some of the examples below work well in families with several children. ...
by Marcia | Oct 23, 2015 | Workplace and Career
In America, one of the first questions adults ask one another is, “What kind of work do you do?” For most of us, our jobs are part of who we are. So how do you find something you enjoy doing that will be a good fit financially and in other respects as...
by Marcia | Oct 16, 2015 | Love & Marriage, Relationship Skills
Carol and Eric, married for twenty years and with children at home, came to see me on the brink of divorce. Carol was seething with a cold rage. Eric was penitent, in obvious pain, desperate to save their marriage. Carol said, “We both know we had a sacred agreement....
by Marcia | Oct 13, 2015 | Childrearing
Back in the Dark Ages when I was about five years old, I can remember lying on my bed and sobbing, then hearing my father’s angry voice—“I’m not going to put up with this!”—and his footsteps coming swiftly down the hall toward my room. I got a spanking that day and on...
by Marcia | Oct 6, 2015 | Childrearing
Children are like recent immigrants. They arrive with little or no command of the language or knowledge of the local customs and depend on the natives for survival. As they learn to fend for themselves, they rely heavily on their senses and their powers of...
by Marcia | Sep 30, 2015 | Childrearing
A woman who sees me for counseling spoke recently about chatting with a man she met on an online dating site. After their initial contact he wanted to connect with her by phone or text. Noticing that he lived in a nearby town, she suggested that they meet for coffee....
by Marcia | Sep 25, 2015 | Love & Marriage, Relationship Skills
Many unhappy couples go to counselors together before calling it quits. Many of the counselors believe that their job as professionals is to save the partnership. Dr. Phil is an example. “You know you’re ready for a divorce when you can walk out the door...
by Marcia | Sep 22, 2015 | Relationship Skills
Anger, judiciously expressed and directed at a proposal rather than a person, can be helpful in negotiations, according to some research. On the home front, however, how much or how little your anger achieves will have a lot to do with the listeners’ back story....
by Marcia | Sep 18, 2015 | Relationship Skills
Usually when we speak of hypocrisy, it’s to scold someone. Practice what you preach! we say righteously. What business does anyone have doing things that he or she disapproves of others’ doing? Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black? But not so fast. Often the...
