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How to Save a Marriage for the Traveling Business Person

Statistics on the survival of marriages when one of the partners travels is dismal. How to save a marriage then. Before, I give you a solution, let me remind you of something. You married your spouse because they were the one for you. They had that special something that allowed you to make that big leap into legalizing that enjoyment. If you are reading this article, either you, they, or both of you forgot what that was. For the traveling partner relationship this is forgetting is incredibly easier to do as you get lonelier because you are somewhere that isn’t home.

For those of you who have noticed your marriage getting significantly worse since traveling commitments have begun, I’m going to teach you how to save a marriage in two words….Web Cam. I’m not going to go into too many details here so we can keep this article PG rated. Web cams give you the opportunity to stay in your hotel room and connect with your spouse visually as well as verbally. Like I said before, I am not going to go into details here but you are only limited by your imagination as to how to woo your spouse with the web cam. If you aren’t able to peak your arousal, “so to speak”, with this medium I seriously suggest you sit down with your spouse and discuss how to save your marriage so you too don’t just become another statistic.

Good Luck,

Dr. Bocknek

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for Parents, Family and Marriage.

How to Save a Marriage

You feel your marriage is in trouble. You can’t communicate with your spouse anymore. You are constantly fighting. What was once time with the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with is now a source of major pain. This is article is about how to save a marriage.

To understand where things went wrong we have to go into how communication breaks down. The very core of a break down starts with what we call “Overt Behavior”. An “overt” is when one of the partners does something to the other partner. An overt could be as small as lying to the partner or as big a gambling, cheating and alcohol problems. If you want to learn how to save a marriage you must understand this point. If the person doesn’t apologize and address the “overt” they will create a “withhold” pattern. A withhold pattern is called that because the partner that commits the “overt” will literally withhold their love and start making you wrong.

The overt/withhold pattern can also happen with your children. Let’s give an example of how this shows up. Your teenager wants to go out Friday night with the car. You say sure but you want to know where they are going and that they must be home at 11PM. The teen agrees to call and to be home on time. Fast forward to 12AM and no call and no teenager. You are going nuts. The teens behavior is an “overt”. He then shows up at 12:30 AM and you ask him what happened and tell him you were so worried. If he apologizes sincerely and confesses to being irresponsible and accepts the consequences, the “overt” will be clean this time and it is over. In learning how to save a marriage, the next part is critical to understand. What happens when the teen doesn’t accept responsibility for his actions? He will commit a “withhold”. This shows up as “stop bugging me, I’m just a little late” or “Hey, my phone died so I couldn’t call. What’s the big deal? You guys are always on my back”. The teen literally withholds his love and blames you.

If you want to know how to save a marriage you must be prepared for the overt/ withhold pattern. It happens all the time. Here is the most important part. If you or your partner doesn’t clear the pattern the pattern almost always becomes a recurring cycle. An unresolved overt/withhold pattern literally creates more overt/withhold patterns and the things that we begin fighting over becomes more regular and more ridiculous to where you can be fighting over literally nothing.

In learning how to save a marriage become an overt/withhold detective so you can see it for what it is. Learn how to catch yourself saying something to your spouse that really is inappropriate and apologize from your heart. It could literally save your marriage. We will go more in depth on how do get great at resolving this important communication technique.

Good Luck!

Dr. Bocknek

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Dr. Robert Bocknek is the Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families and Marriage.

Computer addiction and your kids.

It’s been a long time since I wrote about my kids and their computer addiction. The first time I wrote about the problem was three plus years ago. My two oldest teens were staying up to 4 in the morning after went to sleep. They were getting unsocial, grades were slipping and they weren’t going out anymore.

I took the computers away except for school and never in their room. The computer addiction was quite apparent at this time. They were screaming, slamming doors and sleeping a lot. We talked a lot with them at this point. They weren’t happy but started to come out of their room. What came out of their mouth, made me want them back in their room but it slowly got better. They literally transformed to much more enjoyable kids again.

In the words of Marshall Mclewen, our society is becoming a nation of vidiots. But I don’t think even Marshall could have predicted the computer addiction of today. To you parents, who have young children, do yourself, and your children, a favor. Keep their computer in a public room so you can monitor their time and content. I would highly suggest the computer should only be for educational endeavors. For you parents, of teens, use the same rule. Keep their computer in a public area. No computer, during the week for anything but school stuff. On the weekend, only let your teens have an agreed upon time frame for using the computer.

Computer addiction is insidious and all around you. Your child’s growth is partly based on real socializing with you and their peers face to face. Create the computer rules of the house so it empowers your children to grow.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek

In my opinion, we have come to a point in society of polarization. It seems that most people, who are vocal, are either way left or way right.

I want to say something on this point. When 9/11 took place, we as a country, stood as one. We reprioritized what was important as a nation. We became one people. It lasted for months. All the nonsense, that is being argued now on the news, never would have been discussed. The petty partisan politics wouldn’t even be discussed.

In my opinion, our country, and seemingly the rest of the world, is in a moral pre 9/11 mentality. In my opinion, teenage parenting should be the center point of discussion of society. The majority has completely forgotten about our youth and the next generation. The educational system is not the problem. The government is not the solution. In my opinion, the decay of the family is the problem. I go to endless PTA meetings and constantly hear how the educational system is failing our kids. I believe this is crap. I believe it is the parents and adults who are often failing our kids.

I believe until parents take teenage parenting and family as their priority over pleasure, blaming of others, and excuses as to why we are where we are as individuals and families we are doomed to a rough ride. Until we stop expecting our government to solve our financial problems and personal problems we are in big trouble.

I pray for enlightenment for the masses and for leaders to stop pointing their finger out to them and turn it to themselves and say I am the cause. When that day comes. We will all be alright.

Just a thought.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families

Continuing on with this teen parenting story, I said to my friend “Don’t you think it is inappropriate for this parent to be doing this to his child”? He gave some answer about artistic freedom and how it was beautiful. Not wanting to start an argument I just basically told him that he had no idea of the effect taking those pictures of the child might have on that child and neither had the parent. He admitted it was the first time he had ever thought of it that way.

So here is the issue in teen parenting. It is not okay anymore to not know what your child or teen is doing at all times. We, as parents, have roughly eighteen years to mold our children into ethical, moral, and responsible adults who will be a benefit and a contributor in our home and society. The first four years are basically  for just loving them because they are too small. That leaves fourteen years to train, lead and teach them.

In teen parenting, the parent must be a leader. The parent must take the leadership role away from the teachers, away from their friends, away from the internet. For the teachers reading this, this is not an insult to you. It is a benefit to you. You have been saddled with the lazy parent syndrome. A teacher’s job is to teach subject matters that empower kids to think and learn. You are not substitute parents. In fact, if you read the data 40% of teachers quit the profession after 2 years. I suspect a lot of that reason is because you have been frustrated with having to be surrogate parents rather than educators of the next generation.

For parents, who think that teen parenting is a liaise faire event, I can tell you teen parenting is a do all you can to lead and guide event, and hope you did enough so your teens will succeed in life event.

In teen parenting, your child needs a simplified environment with guidance about the key issues. The key issues are doing well in school, being honest, respectful, and helpful. Our job is to teach them these values in an incredibly loving, guided, responsible fashion.

Please read teen parenting and what is okay part 3.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families

Major problems in public education are being talked about these days like no other time in recent history.  Some of it justified and some of it is the response of the growing trend in America to pass off parental responsibilities on teachers and the school system due to the breakdown of the family.  I would like to focus on the parenting part.

How do major problems in public education get handled?  I would like to start with a situation I found myself in a few weeks ago.  In my city we have neighborhood associations.  At our last meeting, we had a school board supervisor come in to discuss problems.  Immediately, the parents were going off on how lousy the teachers are and how bad the supervisors are performing.  I couldn’t speak to the supervisors, because I couldn’t clearly understand what they were doing, but one thing I did know was that the teachers were young and fresh and ready to teach.  What I wasn’t hearing from the pareents was anyone asking what they as parents could do to help.  I got up and mentioned how I had 4 teenagers and all of them were doing well and asked the supervisor how many parents come for parent teacher conferences or to the parent teacher nights.  The room immediately went silent.  The supervisor thanked me for the question.  He said only 10% of the parents show up.  You see actually I knew this statistic. That’s why I sent my kids to the next town high school where parent participation was 90%.  The 2 schools are literally 5 miles apart.  My kids school has a 80% graduation rate and 60 % college attendance rate.  The school where these parents live has a 50 % drop out rate.

Major problems in public education quite often are directly related to lack of participation of the parents in their children’s education.  Oh, I heard some parents say well we both work, “how can we go to these meetings”?  I mentioned both my wife and myself work and we always go to the meetings.  Again, there was silence.  This pattern went on and on and each time I had to mention about the sacrifices my wife and I made to make sure my kids were in the top 10 % of their class.

I am not here to make myself sound like the worlds greatest parent.  But I do want to say your kids are your kids.  No one does care or should care about them as much as you do or should.  Major problems in public education stem primarily from parents forgetting that the family is the most important element in public education not the school.  Schools across the country have similar curriculum.  Often we see towns that are right next to each other where one town has 70 % going to college and the other has a 49% graduation rate from high school as is the case where I live.  In almost all the cases the difference is the parent participation level.

The bitter pill if you have kids, be a leader.  Raise the bar, go to meetings at school, not to complain but to get involved and watch the results skyrocket.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is a problem solving expert for parents and families.  See him at take back the home project, or keyboardculture.com or contact him directly at bocknek@takebackthehom.com.

I don’t usually talk too much politics on this sight but after reading and listening to Nancy Pelosi’s latest stupid idea I felt like I just couldn’t sit still.  I am not going to blame this party or that or the notion of pro-life or pro-choice at this time.  But her idea of increasing condomn distribution to our young people as part of the bail out package is just ridiculous. Her reasoning was if we have less pregnancies there would be a decreased population so a smaller tax base.

I believe an important choice available to handle the teen pregnancy issue is tough love parenting.  I just did a talk last night at a business woman’s dinner meeting and the anger I got when I said that I was against condom distribution in schools.  I explained that that data shows that the more we have talked about condomn use the more pregnancies we got.  I even gave a concrete example of one of our local high schools where there is right now an implanted condom program and right alongside of it is about 20 teens who are pregnant.  In my opinion, the reasoning behind this is when parents have a weak relationship with their children at home and then the conversation about sex is so strong at school it is just mere exposure.  In other word, the more you focus on something the more likely it is going to happen.  Kids hear what they want to hear at school.  Then, when you add movies like Juno that normalize teens getting pregnant and a likewise television series on the same subject, getting pregnant is just another inconvenience.

When I talk about tough love parenting, I am not talking about constant punishment and no joy.  I mean the parent knows everything that is going on with their child.  The parent leads the kids with values and expectations.  The parents lets the child knows about responsibilies, not just to themselves but also to the family.  The parent also let’s the child know about consequences of their actions, also that what the child does outside the home reflects on the family positively and negatively.

The other side of tough love parenting is bonding with our children.  That is constantly sharing our trials and mistakes we made when we were young and show them how we handled things poorly and that we are going to be there to minimize the chance they will make the same mistake.

When I see the anger I saw last night I know how far we have gotten from responsible family life.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is a problem solving expert for parents and families

See Dr. Bocknek’s courses on takebackthehome website or write him at bocknek@takebackthehome.com

Tough love parenting is a term which is thrown around, usually with the meaning that the parents have tried everything and nothing worked so now we have to make our child miserable until they behave.  Here’s the thing.  Kids need guidelines and leadership, from the parents, in their life.  It’s no wonder that kids from single parents are 3 times more likely to have a run in with the law than two parent homes.  If you exclude two parent homes where one of the parents has an addiction the data skews even more to 5 times more likely to have a run in with the law.

So then, if the family is a two parent home with no addictions, the main reason why tough love parenting is needed is that the parents have been lacking in guiding and leading their child for quite some time.  Rather than be offended whether this is true of you or not lets do a quick quiz and see how you do.

tough love parenting quiz

1. Do your children have chores that must be done by them?
2. Do they do them? or Do they complain when you remind them?
3. Are their grades in the top 20% of their class?
4. Do your children talk back to you often?
5. Do you honestly enjoy your children’s company?

These are only 5 questions but there could be many more.  If you answered no to at least one of these questions or answered yes to #4 then you need a boot camp on rules and parenting.

Here’s the thing, what a lot of parents call tough love parenting really ought to be renamed leadership parenting. Often simple guidelines like the ones mentioned in the quiz above, when enforced, are enough to totally transform your child into just a great person who is a joy to have around.  If you need help creating this kind of consistency, I highly reccommend you contact Dr. Bocknek at bocknek@takebackthehome.com or visit the website at takebackthehome.com.  Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for parents and families.  You or your family can take one of his courses or can have him come to your town for one of his empowering talks or seminars.  If you are considering painful tough love parenting steps beyond what what the quiz talked about, its not to late to first try Dr. Bocknek’s easy to follow and phenomenally effective guidelines to a great home.

Good luck.  Sincerely, Dr. Bocknek, the problem solving expert for parents and families.

www.takebackthehome.com, www.keyboardculture.com

One can tackle the effects of divorce on children from many angles but no matter what you say the numbers of divorces are staggering.  World wide, it averages over 58%.  Because the goal of “the take back the home project” is not to drag you down into depression about your family issues or crises, I want to spend a few moments talking about how to empower you going through the divorce process.

The effects of divorce on your children could be disastrous or a time for bonding, loving and a chance to rise above who we normally are.  Its like the old saying “when you have lemons, make lemonade”.  Divorces are painful.  Normally nice people say awful things and behave in a way they would ordinarily be ashamed of.

To minimize the effects of divorce on your children, as the parent you must take some important steps.  Before we say what the steps are, we need to understand something about ourselves.  We are not fixed entities.  In other words, we are not like a table.  A table, no matter whether it is cold or hot or there is a divorce going on, unless you burn it to the ground, will remain to be a table.  Everyone will agree it is a table.  We as humans are not that.  We are what our actions are.  If I am being mature and appropriate at this moment then in this moment I am a mature and appropriate adult.  If I am screaming hysterically two minutes later then at that moment I am a hysterical adult.  So, in other words, we are fluid and constantly changing.

To minimize the effects of divorce on children, then, it is critical to be acutely aware of what your actions are because your actions will determine whether the effects of your divorce on your kids will be empowering or disastrous.

How do we facilitate empowering actions?  Empowering actions are driven by empowering questions that make us think in ways that lead us to constructive action.  For instance,  Instead of “Why is this happening to me”?  we might ask “Since this is happening what things can I say to my kids that will help them get through this?”  You could even improve on this, “what three things can I do today and the rest of this time so the effects of the divorce on my children won’t hurt their life”?  If we ask bad questions our brain goes nuts with destructive thoughts which will often lead to bad behavior on our part. Great questions lead our brain to come up with empowering solutions.

Empowering steps to take to minimize negative effects of divorce on children.

1) Ask of yourself empowering question? (as mentioned above)

2) Be honest, in how your actions could have been better in the marriage.  (share them with your kids)

3) Share with your kids you are a team and teams have ups and downs, but great teams always come through.  Remind yourself and them of this often.

4) Be the leader, keep playing your role and make sure the kids play their role.

Divorces stink but if we are smart we can learn empowering lessons of life from them.  Good Luck!

Dr. Robert Bocknek is “the Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families”.  See him at takebackthehome.com and at keyboardculture.com.  or write him at bocknek@takebackthehome.com.