Marriage Veterans Share Conflict Resolution Secrets by Dr. Alan Singer

I interviewed 9 New Jersey Couples who are celebrating their 30th Wedding Anniversary this year. You'll see their terrific insights in this first installment covering conflict resolution, that was published in the Home News Tribune on 1 /23/08

According to a recent U.S. Census Bureau survey, there are 20 percent fewer couples reaching their 15th, 20th and 25th anniversaries. This new data comes as no real surprise but does address a major problem for families from a different direction. Rather than describing the enormous divorce rate, this survey shows a decrease in the number of long-term marriages.

For a better understanding of long-term marriages, I decided to survey nine Central Jersey couples who are celebrating 30 years of marriage this year (as are my wife and myself). Here is the collective wisdom of the couples who responded to the survey. Incidentally, half of the respondents are grandparents. Multiplying 30 years by two spouses by nine couples means that you will be benefiting from almost 600 years of marital experience here!

Since all of the sage advice from these couples will not fit into one column, I decided to begin with a practical topic: marital disagreements. I asked the marriage veterans what method of resolving marital arguments is most effective for them. The research of Dr. John Gottman in his Seattle Love Lab at the University of Washington indicates that each normal healthy marriage comes along with a package of irresolvable issues, such as division of household tasks and differences in approaches to child rearing. The key to a good marriage is not the resolution of conflict but rather the regulation of conflict, according to Gottman.

Couples who choose divorce to escape from low-conflict marriages often do not realize that with a second marriage they are likely to encounter a new set of irresolvable issues. Researchers Paul Amato and Alan Booth discovered that two-thirds of American divorces (involving children) are of couples who are in low-conflict marriages. Worth noting is that, from a child's point of view, these marriages are "good enough." Author Linda Waite, in her book "The Case for Marriage," found, "Eighty-six percent of unhappily married people who stick it out find that, five years later, their marriages are happier."

It is within the context of that encouraging research that I would like to share some comments of the 30th anniversary couples. Lisa and Mort believe that "listening to the other point of view and considering the possibility you might be wrong" is the most effective method of resolving a disagreement. Similarly, Robin and Michael stated, "Put yourself in the other person's shoes." They suggest that the key to conflict resolution is "remembering to look at the situation not only logically but with empathy for your spouse's feelings and emotions."

Susie emphasized that she and her husband, Barry, try not to let things fester. Their response points out the need for open, clear communication between spouses and the importance of "not taking things too seriously." Susie's method of choice is to "frankly express disappointments and disagreements with each other."

Steven and Diana emphasized the need for direct communication, as did Larry and Judy, who stated, "We discuss the problem and try to resolve it, but that is only after we spend time away from each other to cool off." The need to "cool off" was mentioned by other couples. Linda and Leonard try not to speak to each other at all before calming down. They stress "thinking before speaking," so that they don't regret it later. Linda considers what caused the argument and determines what they can do in the future to prevent hurting each other. She added, "We try to be more sensitive to each other's feelings."

Susan's humorous response shows her honesty and candor: "I try to cool off but sometimes my screams can be heard all around the world — yes, that was me last week!" For her and Leibe, "The most effective method is to talk it out or maybe just let it go." "Eventually you learn to forgive," Susan concluded, "if not always to forget." Last are the candid comments of Heather and Arthur: "We're not so good at resolving disagreements . . . between one passive-aggressive partner, and one upfront emotional partner, our disagreements tend to be very difficult."

"But compromise is certainly the best solution," Heather urged, "or when one partner swallows (his or her) needs in favor of Shalom Bayit" (Hebrew for "Peace in the Home"). Here is Linda's postscript: "Marriage is the best mistake we could have ever made, and may we be here to answer these questions again after 60 years of marriage!"

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a Marriage Therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column at Dr. Singer's blog http://www.familythinking.com/ or e-mail DrAlanSinger@aol.com

Children Can Take Defeat Much Better Than Parents by Dr. Alan Singer

Does every child deserve a trophy just for showing up? If a child enjoys sports but her team loses, should that negatively impact her self-esteem? This column was published in the Home News Tribune on 12/18/07 ...........and it's not just about sports.

In last month's column on parent rage, I described parents and coaches who pressure children into winning at youth sports, rather than letting them enjoy themselves and exercise. This column is devoted to a related topic — winning and self-esteem.

It seems that a significant number of parents these days are under the impression that if a child plays on a team that loses, the child will be hurt or distressed. And that will have a negative impact on the child's self-esteem. Overprotective parents, also known as helicopter parents for hovering above their children, might think that they can orchestrate their children's lives enough to always keep them happy and cheerful. I'll ask two questions: Is this really possible? And, is it beneficial for children?

No parent wants a child walking around thinking poorly of himself or herself. But losing a game in team competition does not make the child a "loser." It is a parent's responsibility to discuss this with the child. And children are resilient; they will survive nicely. Even if it were possible to protect your child from sadness, disappointment and frustration, isn't it a lousy way to prepare your child for the real world? When you set children free in the world expecting only joy and success, it is going to be hard for them to fend for themselves.

As parents, we have to think of our role in creating this monster. "Sports today mirror our heavy emphasis on individual achievement and hyper-competitiveness," explains Dr. Margaret Carlisle Duncan of the University of Wisconsin. "Parents can't help but reflect this," contends Bob Katz in the October 2000 Parent Magazine. "It applies undue pressure on children to expect them to achieve more and compete more while trying to protect them from failure at all costs."

Susanne Sievert, in an essay titled "It's Not Just How We Play That Matters" (Newsweek, March 19, 2001) observed, "I've noticed this trend a lot lately — adults refusing to let children fail at something. It's as if we grown-ups believe that kids are too fragile to handle defeat." Maybe it is a reflection of some adults' lack of ability to handle defeat.

A research study looked at mystery writers and their readers' self-esteem. At first, I thought it might be a spoof until I saw that it was written by Eric Nagourney for The New York Times Science Section. "A new study finds that people with low self-esteem don't seem to like it much when a story ends with a twist," he wrote. "In a whodunit, they like the who to be the person they suspected all along." Sorry, folks, but life is a bit of a mystery too, and it doesn't always turn out the way you want it to. Should whodunits with unexpected endings be required to have warning labels on the jacket covers?

Last, and most important, the children themselves know "that if everyone wins, winning isn't everything; in fact it's nothing," contends Mark Morgenstern in a November 2001 Child Magazine article. Are you familiar with "participation trophies"? Your child receives a trophy just for showing up, not a team shirt or a hat, but a trophy to show that everyone is a winner and to give kids a self-esteem boost. Some leagues are now stopping this practice.

"The trophy backlash is part of what many experts see as a broader reaction to a culture of coddling," explains Nancy Ann Jeffrey in a March 11, 2005, Wall Street Journal article. "Some educators and psychologists," she relates, "argue that recent moves designed in part to build kids' self-esteem, like giving partial credit for incorrect math answers at school, removes kids' incentive to push themselves."

I was surprised to read about a large-scale research study on this topic, done by Michigan State University professors Martha Ewing and Vern Seefelt. They asked 28,000 children ages 10 to 18 to rank their motivations for playing sports. Responses included having fun, learning skills, and being with friends. Winning a trophy did not even make the top 15.

Mark Morgenstern summed it up as follows, "We want our kids to do the best they can: to show up, to practice, to study, to try. If they triumph as a result, that's great. If they don't, and usually they won't, we'll give them a pep talk and a fortifying snack and send them out to try again. That's life. And they don't deserve a medal for it."

Be Counted columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a Marriage Therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column at Dr. Singer's blog http://www.familythinking.com/ or e-mail DrAlanSinger@aol.com

Parents Who Cheer to Win, Lose Spirit of Youth Sports by Dr. Alan Singer

With the school year in full swing, youth sports are also in high gear. But are our children really having as much fun in sports and getting the exercise that they should? If your children participate in sports, you'll want to read this column which the Home News Tribune printed on 11/7/07

Isn't the main goal of children participating in sports competitions that they get exercise and have fun? Yes, but the reality is quite different.

Of the 3,300 parents who responded to a February 2003 survey in Sporting Kid Magazine, 84 percent have witnessed violent parent behavior (shouting, berating, abusive language) toward children, coaches or officials at youth sporting events. And a surprising 80 percent have personally fallen victim to inappropriate behavior.

How much fun are kids having when a father yells at his 10-year-old son during a hockey game, "Nail him!" or a mother of a Pee Wee goal tender in Ontario, Canada, sues the team's coach for not giving the boy the ice time he was supposedly promised? Think back to the summer of 2000 when, to our horror, we read the story of two Reading, Mass., fathers who viciously fought each other after their children's practice hockey game, and one of them, Michael Costin, died.

Personally speaking, I remember a few years ago when my daughter was on her school's basketball team. As a young rookie on the team, my daughter did not get much playing time, because winning was clearly the main goal of the coach. After letting her warm the bench all afternoon, the coach decided to put my daughter in the game with 30 seconds left in the final period and her team trailing by two points. Another player fed her the ball; she shot the ball, but it bounced off the rim. The buzzer sounded and the game was over. I did my best to contain my emotions but, to put it mildly, I was seething. During the ride home in the car, my wife and I kept our thoughts and feelings to ourselves and let our daughter do the ventilating.

Another survey (August 2001) by Sports Illustrated for Kids received 3,000 responses from youngsters in the United States. Seventy-four percent had seen out-of-control adults at their games. The most common type of bad behavior was parents yelling at kids (37 percent) followed by parents yelling at coaches or officials (27 percent). When asked what emotions they felt when adults misbehaved at a game, most youths stated embarrassment, followed by disappointment, anger and then fear. An excellent resource for this information is the National Alliance for Youth Sports at http://www.nays.org/.

What's behind this outrageous behavior of dads and moms, often referred to as "parent rage"? And what are some communities doing to bring the situation under control? One reason for this behavior is that "many parents increasingly view winning as the primary goal in the game of life," explained Bob Katz in an October 2000 Parents Magazine essay. Many parents believe that success in youth sports will lead to college scholarships and even the magnificent rewards of a career in professional sports. Katz also said that some parents who act unsportsmanlike are former athletes or lifelong wannabes. He suggests, "They can't help fantasizing that if they could rewind the tape of their lives, the next time around, they'd practice harder and concentrate more. Now, through their children, a second chance has emerged and it's hard to treat a game as only a game."

Noteworthy: In August 2002, the New Jersey Legislature approved a law that permits a school board or youth sports team to ban the presence of any person at an event who engages in verbal or physical threats or abuse aimed at any student, coach, or parent, or initiates a fight or scuffle with any student, coach or parent.

Some of the remedies for this problem include: silent games where coaches and parents are prohibited from yelling, requiring parents to sign a code of conduct, and ejecting a Little League child rather than the parent from a game when the parent acts up.

Ninety percent of the parents in the Sporting Kid Magazine survey support a parent education program, and 75 percent believe it should be mandatory. In a 2001 New York Times article, Edward Wong described the approach in El Paso, Texas, where parents have to sit through a 3 1/2-hour class on appropriate fan behavior before their children can play in city-sponsored youth sports. Wong spoke with a soccer coach in Ohio who insisted, "The next step is to eliminate the fans altogether and just let the kids play the game."

This trend can be reversed if parents remove winning as the primary goal and emphasize the enjoyment and health benefits of competitive youth sports.

"Be Counted" columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column at Dr. Singer's blog http://www.familythinking.com/ or e-mail DrAlanSinger@aol.com. "Be Counted" columnists are members of the public.

Rx for Healthy Families: Eat Dinner Together by Dr. Alan Singer

Dinner with your Family, what's the big deal? It's actually quite a big deal and is very beneficial to your children and your entire family. Here's my column that the Home News published on 09/18/07. Please make a special effort to have dinner with your family on September 24th.

It's hard to believe that something that is so easy to do can be so good for you and your children: eating dinner together. A 2004 study of 4,746 children 11 to 18 years old, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that frequent family meals were associated with lower risk of smoking, drinking and use of controlled substances such as marijuana. The same study found that teens who ate meals with their family had a lower incidence of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, "Teens who have frequent family dinners are likelier to get better grades in school, and higher academic performance is associated with lower substance abuse risk."

Rising rates of childhood obesity are a well-known concern of many parents. In 2000, a research team at Harvard studied 16,000 children of nurses and found that children who eat with their parents tend to have healthier eating habits than those who rarely do. The study, published in the Archives of Family Medicine, found that children who had family meals were 1.5 times as likely to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day as those who seldom ate with parents. The authors of the study also noted that these children had healthier diets throughout the day.

Why is the family dinner such a positive experience? It is an established daily gathering where family members can talk, bond, benefit from stress-free time together, and enjoy each other's company. To maximize the positive experience, phones should not be answered and the television should be turned off.

More than a decade's worth of research by CASA (http://www.casacolumbia.org/) has led to several important findings. "Compared to teens that have five or more family dinners per week, those who have two or fewer are: more than twice as likely to have tried cigarettes, 1.5 times likelier to have tried alcohol, and twice as likely to have tried marijuana."

CASA's literature also states with regard to parental engagement: "Parents who have infrequent family dinners are: five times likelier to say they have a fair or poor relationship with their teen, 1.5 times likelier to say they know the parents of their teen's friends — not very well or not at all, and more than twice as likely to say they do not know the names of their teen's teachers."
Important CASA data shows that 58 percent of teens report having dinner with their families at least five times a week, which is up from 47 percent in 1998.

One specific project of CASA is "Family Day," which deserves our support (for our own good). You don"t need to pledge money, write letters to legislators, or attend a rally — just show up at your own dinner table next Monday (Sept. 24). Read more at http://www.casafamilyday.org/ and remember to keep the television off and let phone calls go to voice mail.

I wanted a New Jersey perspective on these national statistics, so I turned to my friend Bill and his e-mail address book of friends for a quick survey. Bill knows lots of people; he is what Malcolm Gladwell, in the book "Tipping Point", refers to as a "connector." Bill e-mailed his friends asking, "How many nights per week do you eat dinner with your family?" When I tallied the responses, and saw the average was 2.4, I called Bill for his comments.

"My reaction is bittersweet," Bill said, "since I'm glad to know that my own two dinners with my family each week is within the norm of my peer group. But the survey reflects the difficulty of young suburban professionals and business executives who struggle with balancing work and family."

When I asked Bill (who has three children under the age of 7) whether he sees his two dinners-per-week lifestyle changing, he replied: "I definitely do aspire to being at home for dinner more often. Where the rubber hits the road is when my kids become more independent and subject to out-of-home influences and I will surely be there more often." Lauding the importance of family dinners, Bill emphasized, "The home has got to be the hub for family life and communication — the dinner table is the center of the home." So, please put down this paper and write Monday, Sept. 24, on your calendar.

"Be Counted" columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. Respond to this column at Dr. Singer's blog http://www.familythinking.com/ or e-mail DrAlanSinger@aol.com

Time With Grandparents Most Priceless of Gifts by Dr. Alan Singer

When Robin read my column on middle children, she related the "favoritism" of siblings to her parents' extravagant treatment of her nephew. This column appeared in the Home News Tribune on 08/22/07

Home News Tribune reader Robin e-mailed me with this comment: "After reading your column on middle children, and how they feel neglected because the oldest child and youngest child get so much attention, I want to point out to you that a grandchild creates an even bigger problem. I can't believe the attention that my parents have showered on my nieces and nephews. Can you imagine that my nephew received a $300 video iPod from my parents when the most expensive gift they ever got me as a child was $50?"

Robin makes an excellent point, which falls under the rubric of favoritism. It is detrimental to children, whether they are toddlers or adults, and it is harmful to children, whether it relates to their siblings or their nieces/nephews. The Babylonian Talmud poignantly describes the damage that can result from favoritism. Tractate Sabbath (10B) states, "It was because of what Jacob gave to Joseph in excess of his other sons, that his brothers became jealous of him." The Talmud concludes, "The matter resulted in our forefathers' descent into Egypt."

Don't expect this entire column to discuss favoritism, because it is not one of those issues that can be presented from two points of view. There is no formidable pro-favoritism lobby out there, and there is no scholarly research I know of that has tested favoritism's harm, using a control group. Parents who care about their children cannot make one of them the center of their universe, nor can they do that to a grandchild. Dr. William Doherty of the University of Minnesota explained to his own children, "In the solar system of our family, our marriage is the sun and the children are the planets, rather than the other way around."

I have chosen to use the remaining space here to discuss some important issues that face America's 56 million grandparents that came to light in a poll of 1,419 parents and 1,209 grandparents, which was conducted by Child magazine in December 2006. While it is encouraging to know that 80 percent of the nation's grandparents had visited or spoken with their grandchildren by phone in the past month, according to AARP, it is a bit disheartening to know that 62 percent of grandparents want more time with their grandchildren, and only 47 percent of parents would welcome the extra bonding time. Contact with grandparents is seen as a disruption of the weekly routine and the culprit appears to be overscheduling.

The author of the Child magazine article, Jessica Brown, quotes a grandfather named Doug, who lives 2 1/2 hours away from his son and grandchildren and complains, "I'd love to see my three grandchildren more often, but they have something to do every weekend, basketball, dancing, soccer, you name it." Sadly Doug adds, "The fault is with my son, not the kids, because he should be going out of his way to make time for visits."

With many households facing the dilemma of overscheduling, I'd like to pose these questions: Do parents believe that soccer is a more worthwhile use of their child's time than interaction with his/her extended family? Can the benefits of dancing compare to the priceless conveyance of values, affection, and history that occurs in multigenerational bonding with grandparents?

The survey indicates that the biggest obstacle to closeness is physical distance. Among the respondents, parents and grandparents lived an average of 235 miles from each other. Psychiatrist Arthur Kornhaber, M.D., encourages families to exchange photos and video mail to keep the emotional attachment going. "And if you need to save more money for visits to keep the generations close," he remarked, "consider it spiritual currency."

The Child magazine survey describes discipline as "a hot-button" issue. Brown states that when it comes to critiquing their child's parenting style, 36 percent of grandparents wish they didn't have to bite their tongues. Eighty-one percent of parents think grandparents applaud the tactics they use. In fact, however, only 63 percent of grandparents give their seal of approval.

Does the video iPod that began this column constitute spoiling? Brown indicates, "Only 34 percent of grandparents feel they spoil their grandkids more than the parents do. Instead, a surprising 56 percent of parents own up to playing the role of the chief spoiler." The article quotes Amy, whose mother-in-law brings her 4-year-old a present on each visit: "I understand her desire to do so, but I want my daughter to appreciate gifts, not expect them."

This column is dedicated to our first grandchild, David, born July 19.

"Be Counted" columnist Dr. Alan Singer is a marriage therapist in Highland Park. He can be reached at DrAlanSinger@aol.com. He blogs at www.familythinking.com.