She then recounted all the problems and challenges she had raising her now 14 year old troubled teen and how different he was from his three sisters.  “I don’t understand him; he makes me want to strangle him almost every day!” She told of his failures in school, and his difficulty socially with others in church and in the neighborhood.  How he had been arrested for breaking curfew, and was beginning to hang out with boys several years older that she labeled “losers”

After 10 minutes of venting all the horrible things related to this son of hers, the question came up: what does he ever do that is a little less horrible?  She had a stunned look, and asked “what do you mean?”

“Well, in would be impossible for someone to be horrible 100% of the time, so what does he do that is a little less horrible?”  After a momentary pause, she again launched into diatribe about just how horrible and terrible he was and how no one really understands what an overwhelming struggle she has just tolerating him at this point.

After a workshop, with many people milling around, really isn’t a good venue to have the kind of discussion that this woman was trying to have, so I asked her another question.  “Who are the positive male role models you or your son had in your lives?”

This question proved her undoing; she related a history of three abusive step fathers as she grew up, a mean grandfather and two of her own terrible marriages.  She followed that up with a statement about how unreliable men are in general, that they are always going to disappoint and fail to follow through or keep their promises.  As she talked, it became apparent that her views of men were being applied to her son as well.

I made a referral to a good therapist I knew in the area, and suggest that she might be painting her son with all of her hurts and disappointments rather than just seeing his behavior as his behavior, which will sometimes be immature and irresponsible as one might expect of a 14 year old child.

This doesn’t mean that real problems are not happening in this family, it doesn’t mean that this mother’s frustration, pain, and discontent, are invalid to any degree, only that it is hard to correct a child for his own poor behavior and choices when many of his actions bare an additional weight of meaning.  Hopefully, in therapy, the mother can learn to deal with her son without adding the weight of her prior disappointments towards man and transferring it and redirecting it towards her son.

If you have a negative relationship with your troubled teen, if you are disappointed and frustrated by your child to the point of anger and feel that family counseling may help we encourage you to speak with one of our counselors.

Being assertive means that you express yourself effectively and stand up for your point of view, while also respecting the rights of others. Assertiveness, isn’t being overbearing, dictatorial or in other ways over controlling.  If one were to conceptualize assertive communication as a scale, it would be the balance spot between being too aggressive and too passive.

Sometimes in families, there exists and out of balance communication system, this system may have a petty tyrant lording it over the rest of the family.  This overlord of communication may not tolerate or appreciate assertive communication, and may actually pursue any assertive communication as if it were an inappropriate breaking of a mighty and scared law.  This Lordling, may castigate and ridicule those that try to be assertive, which has the result of creating emotional and social distance between family members, erodes individual worth and self-esteem in the family members.

It has long been recognized that assertive balanced communication is a necessity for effective long term and satisfying relationships.  Relationships where more than just one person feels heard, understood and respected.  If assertiveness is an area that has been a struggle in your family, then maybe it is time to move into a more balanced and assertive style of communication.

To learn how to stand up for yourself and be more assertive in your family circle and to seek family counseling in Mesa AZ.

If you find that you need support to increase your ability to evaluate and look at things in a different more helpful way in family relationships then we encourage you to speak with one of our family counselors.

Every family has a unique way in which words produce responses.  For example one family might really enjoy movies and insert movie lines to convey large bits of information in a specialized way.

Another family that I know has digested the movie “Princess Bride” to the point that line after line from that movie are common language and words used in the family.   “Have fun storming the castle” being an alternative way of saying goodbye and good luck when a member of that family departs to do something important to them.

Other families are more musical in nature and may include lyrics as part of their communication.  These examples are easy to recognize, but do not capture the full array of possibilities.  Every family possesses a unique pattern of word use, meaning, and reactions to those meanings.

Problems in families can be increased when there exists a lack of awareness of how words are being used and how those words generate reactions.  In one family, the father had pet names for his children, that he thought were funny and endearing, his children however found them offensive and like they were being put down.

Names like “Leadbutt” and “horsieface” were not terms of endearment to the children, and in fact they felt diminished and ugly because of them, which was not the intention of the father.  This is a straightforward and easy example to understand, however many families behave mindlessly when it comes to words they use, and how they are employed.

Families with histories of trauma, past abuse, depression and anxiety are also frequently ones that are unaware of how words are going to create reactions that hurt each other, or make peace and satisfaction elusive.

If you find that you need support to increase your awareness of your communication in relationships to ease the situations in your home then we encourage you to one of our relationship counselors.

The reason why trust is frequently the focus of clinical work is that shortfalls in being able to trust interfere with the intimacy people may desire, the ability to solve problems and adapt to the ever changing complexity of both work and social life.

When trust is missing or diminished in the marital relationship, conflict, arguments and one-ups-manship can occur which creates a feeling competitiveness and a need to protect one’s self from possible hurts or betrayals.   Ultimately this erodes the quality of the marriage and many times impacts the other important family relationships as well, through the diffusion of mistrust in most of the relationships.

If trust is lost between parent and child this is challenging as well, this tends to generate rebellious behavior, over punitive and demanding parenting, that is neither adaptive to the needs of the child or the parent.

Building trust is one area that is regular element in many treatment approaches.  When you look at your own life, and find that the quality of trust you have with others is lacking, you may believe that is due to “them” and how “they” are.  In reality trust is a decision that each of us make and can be improved through increased mindfulness and practice.

If you find that you may need support to develop more trust in your relationships to ease the situations in your home, our family counselors are here to help.

One time a client spent considerable time trying to convince me that she wasn’t communicating anything to her husband or children when she refused to speak with them or would behave sulkily.  Of course through a discussion of this she finally came to realize that these silent communications were often louder and clearer than the verbal things she might say.

To be an effective communicator one must be able to possess certain sensitivity or sensitiveness to the messages one is sending and the interpretation of messages being sent that have no words attached to them.

Many times, people that have experienced trauma as children have some difficulty recognizing the non-verbal messages that they are both receiving and sending.  This deficit is commonly a feature in anxiety and depression, and may require support or therapy to overcome.

Many times families have tremendously good intentions and yet lack sensitivity to how members are responding.  An example of this can be found in a family that was by nature and culture a very loud and boisterous group; they were funny, sarcastic and energetic with each other and anyone that came into their circle of contact.

This family had four boys ages 12, 9, 8 and 5 before the parents finally had a little girl. During this pregnancy there were some health issues and when the little girl was born one of the side effects of the medications that the mom had taken was an increased sensitivity to light and sound, where at very low levels of sound the little girl reacted with fear, withdrawal and discomfort.

This was very difficult for this family because they had a pattern of what it meant to show love and to be with each other that was pretty set in their family.  They were very hurt that their little girl and sister didn’t like them and would go to some lengths to avoid them. By the time she was three she would scream anytime she had to leave her room.

There was no lack of love and no bad intent in this family but they struggled with being sensitive to the needs of this child who read and received the messages send by this family far differently than they were intended.

After a short consultation and a few sessions of therapy the child and family began to accommodate each other and the child through increased sensitivity.

If you find that you may need support to develop better sensitivity to ease the situations in your home, our family counselors are here to help.