takebackthehome.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.

Ignorance is ignorance no matter what. Writing things that have no forethought, ethics or respect is wrong no matter what you believe in. When we become divisive rather than cohesive it just opens the doors to extremes.

All true religions believe in god. People can choose not to believe in god.  That is their choice. I don’t know why they would want to but again, that is their choice.  I suspect one of two things happened to them.  They had lousy teachers on the subject, which I have wrote extensively on. Or two, people who they have come in contact with have shoved religion down their throat so learning about God’s teachings was a painful, rather than a joyous, experience.

The only thing we know about god is that he is omnipotent, all knowing and that we can’t understand all that he does.  Since god knows everything he must have wanted all religions to exist as long as they follow his teachings.  There is plenty of great empowering messages from god we can teach and if we just focus on them it will take us our entire life to live up to those standards.

Although, I really enjoy Bill O’reilly most of the time, there are times when I can really understand  the anger toward him.  A couple of weeks ago, he had on a young woman of about 20 on his show.  She was there to tell about the horrible experience that happened to her.  She went to the Castro  area of San Francisco with a group and marched up and down letting all the gay people know that they can be healed of their sicknes by just finding God.  First off,  for those of you who don’t know, Castro st. is probably the center of gay living in the world.  It is a place where gay people choose to live so they won’t be ridiculed and attacked.  I imagine it is one of the safest places to live in almost any city in any country.  Not just for gays.  Many straight people also live there.  I lived there myself for a period of time and I’m not gay.   What happened was someone go so upset about the group they grabbed her bible and hit her with it.  The girl went on to say she didn’t  press charges but did call the police and Bill feigned outrage that the guy wasn’t arrested.

So here’s my point.  I believe in God.  I need God in my life like I need air.  When I don’t spend enought time praying to God and studying the bible I find myself weakening spiritually.  I wish I could help more people find the joy and peace I’ve discovered since coming back to him.  But to make other people miserable so I can go on a mission is just wrong.  How does a 20 year old get the idea to go to the Castro of all places and do that.  If that girl and her group spent the same amount of effort explaining how much joy she has found in God and do it well with out all that judgement and opinions her results would have been 1000 fold better.  People, like her group ran the inquisiton  and burned witches in Salem.  Bill O’reilly knew better but he just created a lot of anger.  How did that make the world a better place.

Don’t teach your children to hurt others and tell yourself you didn’t know.  Let God do the judging.  He is your savior not you.

In closing, maybe everyone can just take a breath and live the teachings, not act like we know everything.  Happy holidays,

Dr. Robert.  Takebackthehome.com.

I was talking America today with another gentleman and the person I was speaking with kept basing his argument on how the rest of the world doesn’t like us. At first I thought he had a point… but then I started remembering  being a teenager again and what happened to me when I spent too much time trying to be liked.  I thought of all the stupid situations, the trouble and embarrassment I got myself into.  Then I said to him, we don’t need to care if the rest of the world likes us.  We are the backbone of the world.  Only we, America, because of our youth, are not stuck to some old cultural predjudice that dictates the kind of hate that we see in Northern Ireland, with the Croates and the Serbs, the Hutus and the tutsis etc.

I’m not saying old culture is bad, in fact, au contrare, it is that we, America, are in my opinion the best of what those old cultures have to offer.  We are an accumulation of people who were cheated, stolen from, persecuted by our homeland.  The people who made it to America aren’t just brave people who left their homeland.  We are adventurers, intelligent, revolutionary.  We are the center of all that the world can be and should be.  Our failures are much more important to the world because of who we are.  We may have bad leaders, have bad periods of time and make awful decisions but we are all that the world has to turn to against the tyranny of the likes or the Iranian regime, or of Putin, or the taliban or Al Queda.  I believe, subconsciously, those other countries see us as their child with all their hope of the future on our shoulders. Our failures are their failures.  It is so painful to watch us falter, they yell at us.  But like all parents, when the child grows up,  they come to realize we don’t need their guidance anymore and in fact are a bit resentful that we don’t follow them.  Good parents, at some point, come to realize maybe the child can actually guide the parents since they have grown up.  Bad parents never see the light.

Look what the Europeans do when Russia invades Georgia.  They do what they always have done…nothing.  Russia is still inside of Georgia despite agreeing to leave.  They will stay there until America pushes them out.  We as Americans need to stop worrying about what other countries like or dislike about us.  As with aging parents, some stay dynamic and can be guiding post to the child throughout their life.  Some aging parents are just adults who stopped growing a long time ago and are becoming the child whom need to be cared for.  I believe that’s what these other countries have become.

Rather than worry about being liked, we, as American families need to begin to raise up ourselves and fill the higher calling that being American requires. We need to  look at what our narcissistic, integrity void government, and business practices have brought the world to in these recent weeks.

We as individuals need to regain that positive can do attitude. Only then can we expect to be able to bring up a leader who we can respect, who can call us forth.  In our own families we need to ask ourselves are we living with integrity.  As parents are we teaching our children our values or are we leaving it up to Youtube and Myspace.

As parents do we need to be liked by our children? NO!!! We hope our children like us but we need to be respected first.  Is our goal to be our children’s friend or their leader?  Do we not sometimes have to make decisions for our children that they really hate because it is the right thing to do, not just for them but for the entire family?

I believe we first need to raise our own bar in the family.  Parents have to stop the 60s guilt of trying to be nice.  Love your kids, love your spouse.  Be a superstar in your family.  Don’t worry about being liked by your kids.  When you are on your game they will respect you and feel safe with you and trust you.  Then, you will be able to guide them.  Only then can they truly like you.

As with the family, America doesn’t need to be liked. First it needs to be respected then the rest will follow.  If we as Americans can’t create positive change than which country do we turn to? We know the answer to that question.  No one.  So when you get one of those moments when you feel like hating America, think what you can do today to facilitate your family to be better and live it.