Tag Archives: family

Tips for Managing Family Differences

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I recently visited my roots, my family of origin. We had a successful gathering. We enjoyed being with each other, and also had to make decisions regarding our larger family goals, such as managing the family farm. In almost every family, individual members often can have different views. While this can give rise to potential conflict, it can also lead to stronger and more effective teamwork. The challenge is to stay positive, working in individual perspectives, while also looking at the best interest of the whole. Here are three tips for managing differences so as to create success.

Focus on the Positive

Celebrate your strengths. We all have individual strengths and at the same time share deeper values and strengths with the people we love. Recognizing your character strengths, such honesty, love of learning, sense of humor, is important because it focuses on what you love to do that also serves the greater good. Family is a good place to discover and share them. When you can use your strengths to serve a cause greater than yourself, it is deeply gratifying. You can learn more about the power of the character strengths in my article, “The Hidden Power,”

Express your appreciation and gratitude. It builds positive energy, broadens your perspective, and facilitates your productivity and creativity. It will help you become more inclusive, considering the views of everyone, rather than fighting over one solution or another. Over time, the positive is more powerful than the negative. When you express your appreciation, it brings out the higher positive power of life.

Be Aware of the Ghosts

Every family has ghosts. These are old patterns from the past, not fully resolved, that threaten to destroy the family unity and joy. Suspect a ghost if you are picking up negative vibes, gossip, blaming, or a constricted view. Be curious, is this really true? Then work to take positive action. You cannot change another person, but you can change yourself. Facing challenges and choosing to transform them is deeply empowering. A major success in any family is to keep the ghosts away.

Ask yourself, what can I do to create a more positive solution? Often, negativity stems from false assumptions from the past. When you release them, it creates a much brighter future and helps you to communicate more effectively. Even better, the work of any one person in the family has a positive impact on the whole.

If you are having difficulty staying positive, check out Barbara Fredrickson’s positivity website, www.positivityratio.com and take the online test. Fredrickson discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a tipping point towards flourishing and resilience. Successful businesses have a positivity/negativity ratio 2.9/1. Successful marriages have a positivity/negativity ratio of 5/1. If you find your ratio is negative, then look for ways to raise it. If you need help, call me.

Let Solutions Emerge

I have found in my family that decisions are much easier when we have short and long range goals. Some decisions need to be made immediately while others can wait. Think through your priorities and sort out your short-term goals from the long-term goals. Then create a holding space for the longer term goals. When you are positive, this holding space allows for the goodness of life and necessary time for new solutions to emerge. It keeps you minds open, allowing for creativity and resilience, rather than fighting over one or another position. You will be surprised at the success of your ability to work together.

Warmly, Dr. Alice

© 2015 Alice Vlietstra. All rights reserved.

Family Trouble – Dealing with Difficult People

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“It just never works to be in contact with my mother,” said my client as she started our session, wiping away tears. “I don’t want to cut her out of my life completely, but I can’t keep going back to be sniped at again and again.”
This client and I had already strategized ways to talk to mother assertively, addressing the hurtful comments, to no avail. Her mother flatly refused to admit fault or change her behavior.
Our next step was to set strong boundaries of self- protection in specific ways. Here’s a list of ways to do just that. If you have a difficult person in YOUR family, ask yourself:
• Do I want to limit phone calls? Yes/no
•
• If yes, how many per week/month/year? _________per _________________________
•
• Do I want to limit time of day I answer the phone? Yes/no
•
• If so, what are my limits? __________________________________________________
•
• Do I want to limit the amount of time we talk? Yes/no
•
• If so, what’s the limit? _____________________________________________________
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• Do I want to limit time we spend face to face? Yes/no
•
• If so, what’s that going to look like? __________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

• Do I want to remove myself when they are inebriated or otherwise inappropriate?
• Yes/no
•
• Do I want to acknowledge birthdays and holidays? Yes/no
•
• If so, how? Card phone call visit with others present visit alone
• Other ways to protect myself: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Let’s discuss your answers in our next session. Together we CAN find ways to protect YOU.

Ways to Raise a Healthier, Happier Child

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Parenting is one of the most important tasks we perform in this life. Most parents have no training or support to do it well. Guidance helps in this often frustrating and yet rewarding experience. Build a solid self-esteem and a capacity to withstand peer pressure for your children. It can lead to lifetime of rewards.

For children, routine is important.  They need a solid structure to best flourish and learn. Bedtimes, daily chores, unstructured play time, and nighttime rituals all help contribute to a sense of security, and free the child to focus their energy on schoolwork and play. Unstructured time to play is critical to a developing child’s mental health and emotional resiliency. Guard your child’s development from over scheduling!

Here are four ways to raise a happier, healthier child:

  1.  Schedule a consistent routine for bedtime.  A child needs about 10 hours of sleep nightly.
  2. Have home responsibilities for your child.  Around age 10-12, they should begin doing their own laundry and contributing to household chores.  This develops independence and confidence.
  3. Present a calm, businesslike attitude when dealing with discipline.  Losing your cool gives the child a power that rightly belongs to the adult.
  4. Focus on your child’s positive traits, especially when it is tough to do so.

 

Who is family?

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Let’s face it! We all are stuck with family, whethertree_life_hp good or bad! Our families are the people with whom we have to get along. We are all born into a particular family as well being part of the human family. Family can be a tremendous source of comfort during difficult times or can plunge us into our deepest HELL! A healthy family provides nuturance, acceptance, and protection and is a critical source of support in times of stress.

Why focus on “family” when the divorce rate in America is 50%, and an increasing emphasis is being placed on individual pursuits? The concept of “Family” has endured over the centuries. Individuals will go to great lengths to protect their families, despite great personal hardship, time, labor, and distance. I feel that “family” is not declining, but rather is changing form.

In the past, family was defined solely by bloodline and genetic lineage. The purpose of family was to promote the survival of the species through abundant procreation. Barbara Marx Hubbard (2001) argues that our civilization is shifting from an emphasis on PRO-creation to CO-creation. At the present time, pro-creation may have reached its limit. There are now over six billion people on planet Earth! One more doubling of the population may deplete the earth’s ability to sustain its resources. This means that people no longer NEED to procreate in order to sustain life.

Today, family may be defined not only by bloodline and genetic lineage,
but also by those with whom we choose to include in our lives. They may be
those with whom we are spiritually aligned; they may be our work family, and/or
any other group with whom we experience affinity on some level. Jay Hughes,
author of Family Wealth, defines “family” as those to whom we are connected by
bloodline, affinity, and/or emotional bonds. The tremendous energy that in the
past, was put into survival, is now becoming available to support the needs of the
larger human community. In present day America, because our blood families
may be scattered all over the country and/or the world, we are beginning to expand
our sense of family to include a family orientation to those we value in our lives.
This my include blended families, business family, and all those with whom we experience an affinity. Still, family is one of the most critical sources of support in our lives.