Teenage discipline!

I'm glad I'm not a teenager.
(just a recycled one!) By Nigel Heath

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth in our society about teenage rebellion, teenage crime, teenage drunkenness, teenage pregnancy. Teenagers in general get a bad press for rudeness, knocking old people out of their way, dressing shabbily, grunting instead of talking and just about anything else we can throw at them. But then they are struggling with the hormone rushes and all the exams we make them do when really they should be sleeping all day, partying with their friends all night and being fed on demand in between!

How much of this do we as parents bring on ourselves?

My teenage years were surely never as pressured or difficult as those of my children. The expectations on me as a child and teenager seemed far less than I imposed on my children. I often receive 'funny' emails bewailing our lost youth and the fun we had staying out all day, climbing trees, taking risks etc. Nowadays we are increasingly denying our own youngsters the opportunity to be truly young and free of worry.

So what is the best way through all this for families with teenagers?
The most important thing to know, is what is the most important thing! What is worth the stand up row ? What is worth the sulking, long silences and bad language? Is it how tidy their room is? (You shouldn't even be looking, its their room). The length of their hair? The calibre of their friends? (Your judgement). Their personal habits? The way they talk to you? Probably none of the above - unless they are life threatening for the young person involved or anyone else.

Is there any hope for the poor beleagured parents?
Oh yes! If you want to know what you'll have to ask me. help@thehappyrelationship.co.uk

Coming home

Just recently I was travelling home by train, which always gets me in a thoughtful mood as there are so many other people to watch. Having arrived and walking across the bridge to meet Nigel, I overheard a conversation between another couple in a similar position.

"Hello darling, did you have a good time?"

"It was great, we had so much catching up to do. I'm tired now. We talked and talked and I hardly slept last night for all the excitement. I even woke up during the night, when something else popped into my mind that I wanted to discuss with ..."

"Did you wake at about 4.00am?"

"Yes, I think it was. Why do you ask?"

"I woke at 4.00 and I'm sure I felt your agitated vibes....!"

As I met Nigel, the couple passed us. Their connection was obvious, not only in the cameo conversation I had overheard but also in their very 'together' body language. They looked comfortable together.

After our own 'hellos', I relayed what I had heard and my feeling that it is so reassuring to see couples who have maintained their connection way beyond that first flush of excitement and romance.

There's not a lot to go on, to notice what they were doing. What stood out for me was the way he started the conversation in a very 'soft' way - he was interested in her experience, rather than quizzing her on the 'facts' and he let her take her time, without interruption, to tell him about what happened. (I have probably abbreviated that above!)

Homecomings are a great opportunity to re-establish your connection with your partner.

As children grow up

'Children bring joy to a relationship and also cause extra pressure. They learn to manipulate situations to their own advantage and may play one parent off against another. Christmas is a classic time when they look for evidence of how much they are loved through the amount spent on presents. I’ve seen this carry on into adulthood, creating a rift between the parents and leading to behaviour patterns that are impossible to live with.'

I was talking to a group of business people about the external pressures that can bring stress to relationships. This obvioulsy struck a chord with one of my colleagues who asked for a quiet chat about the effect his stepdaughter was having on his relationship with his wife. I listened to what is a fairly common tale about a 'basically good youngster' who is going through a difficult phase. This once biddable young person is now only compliant when directly asked to do something. And the parents hold slightly different views about discipline and whether this is even something that needs tackling. At this stage the impact is small and it would have been easy to reassure him that it would all blow over as his daughter grew beyond teenage.

But at what cost?! Feelings of dissatisfaction or concern that aren't attended to can fester over time. And in fact the remedy was of course simple, so we chatted for a bit longer and I encouraged him to re-think his view of what is happening.

From the time that we are born until we are old enough to leave home, say 18 (though that could be the topic of another BLOG or two!) human beings go through tremendous times of development and change. These changes are physical, emotional and often spiritual too, as we mature from babies into adults. The greatest times of growth are the first three years and then again as children enter adolescence. After that time, although we don't stop developing, the pace is much more sedate and we grow to expect life around us to be more consistent. That's why as parents it can be both unsettling and frustrating when we just get to a point of understanding our children and they go and change again. Will we ever get it right?

The answer is that we need to take a longer view, knowing that during the time of great upheaval in adolescence they are quite likely to change their viewpoint dramatically, to change their preferences for hobbies, foods, friends and that we cannot hope to keep pace with all this.

As parents our role is to help our children move from complete dependance on us to (almost) complete independance. And to do this we must review the part we play, using each significant change in their behaviour as a signal to us, that perhaps now is the time for another change.

It can help during this time if you take an active interest in their lives, listening to them and playing back their ideas without judgement, in anticipation that when this whirlwnd time is past you will have established some positive habits of relating to each other. When they too reach a time of more settled adulthood, they will want to share their thoughts and ideas with you.

Can an affair be good news?

Last month Radio Wiltshire interviewed me about the impact of affairs on relationships.

Their interest had been generated by some astonishing statistics published by the Nationwide in Swindon. These showed that men and women tend to spend more on their lovers at Christmas than they do on their husband or wife.

Once an affair is out in the open, there is no escaping the fact that it has a wide-ranging impact on the people involved. And sometimes this can be for the good. It can be a wake-up call for people who had been letting their relationship drift. Or it can be the catalyst for change that needs to happen - my radio interview was closely followed by another with a lady who is now married to her lover. She was honest enough to say that she found their affair intensely exciting. Both she and her new husband were in relationships that were without love, which came to a natural end when the affair was exposed.

However, I don’t want to paint an unrealistically rosy view. For most couples an affair is devastating and a symptom of a deeper problem with their relationship. If they work to sort out the deeper problem, there is every chance their relationship will recover. Taking this route isn’t easy: it demands absolute commitment from both parties; it is hard work / takes time; the affair must have ended completely; the ‘guilty’ party must understand the impact their affair has had on their partner, and work to re-establish trust; both parties must be really open with each other - about their feelings as well as what they are doing.

How to have Sex after Marriage

Have you watched this fascinating Channel 5 TV documentary?
Each week a couple who for a variety of reasons have discovered their sex life isn’t what it used to be, are encouraged by three experts to score their partner for emotion, appearance and sex.

All the couples we watched are to be congratulated for their great honesty in saying where they are. Even more importantly - they all showed tremendous courage in trying out something different in order to recapture the passion in their lives. The drive for a fulfilling relationship is very strong and the programmes we watched confirmed our belief that you need both commitment and continuing effort to keep your passion alive.

One week we watched a couple who were continually arguing. It seemed he could do no right, while she was constantly frustrated she was doing the major share of household tasks. Both of them had lost the closeness of their early relationship - just a few years previously.

At the beginning of a relationship you cannot imagine that you will ever disagree about anything. In getting to know each other we often explore our views on the ‘big’ topics, so it’s fair to say there are reasonable grounds for this expectation. However, we tend to overlook the little things, the day-to-day living together things that can lead to frustration or annoyance that eats away at a relationship over time.

Poor expectations

People tell us fascinating stories about the way things ‘work’ in their relationship.

One area which can be either a joy or a nightmare is the transition between home and work.

The other day, Mark told me he went to work with a ‘little mental list’ of domestic things to do during the day. Despite his best intentions, they all seemed to fall out of his mind as he drove to work and became focussed on his job.

His wife Sandra, in frustration at nothing getting done, began putting a note in his sandwich box to help him remember. To begin with these were friendly and chatty but as time passed and they still didn’t do the trick, they became shorter and more negative in tone. Quite often Mark became so absorbed in his work he didn’t break for lunch until late in the afternoon. With all opportunity to pop to the local shopping centre gone, the little note became a nagging accusation of inattention and lack of care. As he arrives home, Sandra greets him with a demand to know whether he has done his ‘chores’ and of course isn’t surprised to find that yet again he has forgotten.

Unfortunately this is setting up a downward spiral. Sandra has poor expectations of Mark. Mark is fulfilling them on a daily basis. Mark feels guilty about not remembering and angry his hard work in the office is not being recognised as part of his contribution to their relationship.

Mark and Sandra often tell their story in wry amusement as an observation on the differences between men and women. Sandra even tells of the time she put her note in his sandwich to make sure he’d notice it!

At this point it’s good to remember I can only see the part of the story visible to everyone. It’s tempting to offer solutions to ‘fix’ their relationship. It’s not really broken - they just need a gentle nudge in the right direction to learn better ways of being together. Or a little help to uncover the ‘baggage’ from their past keeping them stuck in negative behaviour patterns now.
How might I start a conversation to provide that push without coming up against embarrassment or annoyance as I cross an invisible line which says “it’s not polite to notice someone else’s relationship issues”?For this reason Nigel and I have started to convert our coaching and workshop sessions into E-courses - bite-sized chunks of exercises and ‘snippets of wisdom’. Couples can download these from our website and ‘play’ with them at home. The best solutions are always their own - all we have to do is provide the gentle nudge or guidance, to help them emerge. If you would like to find out more about our e-course programmes follow this link and register your interest. E-course info

Loving Arguments!

Nigel's view as Mr Angry.
What happens when you argue, have a spat, strong words or whatever you call it?
Close and loving relationships don’t necessarily run smoothly all the time. Well ours doesn’t! We are both strong minded people with our own views so there are moments when our ideas collide and we choose to disagree about something. We used to do this in a different way, based on how we had been in our previous long term relationships. Now we have devised a system all our own where we are both able to ‘shout’, express our opinions, and be emotional, safely!
These arguments always end up with us making new learnings, about ourselves and each other and quite often about men and women in general and their different communication styles and emotional coping strategies.
I think of myself now as emotionally intelligent but this hasn’t always been the case. Growing up through the 60’s & 70’s my role model for male emotional intelligence was based on what worked well when Henry VIII was just a lad! Scoring out of 10 my score reflected my Father’s at an astounding -3! I hope I'm pushing 8 by now.
My advantages in an argument. I can shout louder, I know more rude words, I can focus on the exact meaning of words and therefore point out faulty logic, and I can go bright red in the face with suppressed frustration (anger).
My disadvantages in an argument. Not following the general flow and becoming lost in a logic that is not there. Having ‘feelings’ which don’t have any useful words attached to them. Turning my anger on myself because I can’t string together a cogent argument. So I end up full of adrenaline (fight or flight) with fight not really an option and no room to fly.
In common with most men I now need a period of quiet, by myself, to calm down and let the adrenaline subside. John Gray might term this ‘going into my cave’ (Men are from Mars). John Gottman calls it ‘becoming flooded’ (with emotions).
If any of this sounds horribly familiar, you’ll be glad to know there is a way out which allows reconnection, healing, learning and growth.
If I can call a halt to the argument, or if Jenny does, (we call this hitting the pause button) and I can find some way to soothe myself for about 20 minutes I get to a better place.
To begin with I seethe inside and come up with those things I wish I’d said that would have jolly well shown her!
As the adrenaline begins to subside these less than useful thoughts are replaced by ones that consider what I would like to have happen now. To wonder what little gremlin deep inside caused me to behave in such a rude and unpleasant way. Provided Jenny leaves me alone for 'long enough' I can find a way to apologise and ask for a time to work out what happened so we can both learn from it.
Leaving me 'long enough' we discover is another fundamental difference between us in how we process emotions, specifically how fast. Jenny goes through a similar process to me (different pictures, girlie stuff I expect) just a lot quicker. So she is ready to say sorry and look for a hug and reconnection whilst I’m still lost in the adrenaline.
Any overtures just then send me back to my unresourceful state and prolong the time it takes for me to settle back to normality.
It must be a bit like waiting for the ‘incredible hulk’ to shrink back down to human size, turn pink and find a new shirt and trousers!
Once 'long enough' has passed we are both in a place where we have a new perspective on what happened, can perhaps notice what caused it (usually some baggage) and begin to formulate or strengthen our strategies for coping with arguments. Our relationship is strong because we constantly put little deposits in our ‘relationship bank’. I’ll write another blog about this. Having an argument withdraws credit. Finding ways to reconnect and respect each other after an argument puts twice as much back.