KS&L 368 Family Communications: Being Present for Family Members

by Tina Erwin

Frequently, spouses become ill because they need attention. Sometimes, they become quite ill because the lack of attention over time has built up to such a level that their bodies are turning frustration in upon itself.Sometimes one spouse doesn’t know how to stand up to the other and tell him or her what feelings are building up. Sometimes he doesn’t know the words, or perhaps she is afraid that being direct will damage the relationship.

Sometimes couples let the sheer volume of ‘stuff that has to be done’ distract them from keeping communication lines open.

Sometimes there is just so much family around all the time that it literally becomes impossible for couples to find time for themselves.

These are the times when one partner must find a way to stop the busyness cycle and carve out time to communicate with that person they have vowed to love for the rest of their lives. Perhaps this is why divorce is so prevalent: couples lack the basic skills and courage necessary to create, build, maintain and do maintenance on their relationship.

The first step would be to work on communication skills. If a husband asks a wife if she is OK, just responding with a ‘sure, I’m fine,’ doesn’t help communication. Perhaps a better answer would be: “I have had a terrible day at work, and I need to talk about it. I am irritable, but I am not irritable at you. Would you please mind just listening and being patient with me tonight?”

That is a good first step. Now the husband knows what is ‘wrong.’ He just needs to remember that when his wife blows off steam, it is not necessary for him to ‘go out back and mount that white horse to save the day for her.’ Men have to learn to listen without fixing the problem. Men instinctively go to that place of how they would handle the problem. That isn’t helpful. Husbands have to learn how to listen without interfering. Husbands have to be patient when they listen and ask how they can best help but understand that it is not helpful if they just try to take over the problem for their wife.

Wives need to understand that most men inherently despise confrontation. If you are having a problem with your mother-in-law, demanding that your husband ‘take care of the problem’ will get you absolutely no where and will create larger problems. In cases like this, you and your husband must sit down and discuss the problem dispassionately – not always easy to do – but essential to maintaining your marriage.

Couples frequently are on different planets when it comes to disciplining and maintaining family balance with children. Communication is critical here but what usually happens is that one parent is the ‘good guy’ and one parent, the parent who insists on enforcing the rules, is the ‘bad buy.’ Dads are often putty in the hands of daughters and moms often have a ‘soft spot’ for their sons. Get over it. Parents have to agree on a parenting plan and both parents have to be consistent. This is the essence of good family communication.

Courtesy in families and basic human interaction is the essential lubricant that makes each day work. ‘Please and thank you’ are never assumed. If your teenagers do something responsible, point it out. Thank them for calling if they are going to be late. If your kids own a car, ask their permission before you drive it. Give your kids the same courtesy you demand of them. Keep your word. Stay in a place of integrity. It is important.

People hear you more readily, when you are not angry. They may act on a suggestion or an experiment idea more quickly than a demand or a directive. Listen to what the person really needs.

Listen.

Be patient.

Seek wisdom before you speak and always edit what you say before you say it. Imagine how what you say is going to come across – care about how it will come across. Understand the politics of family situations and respect how important that understanding is. The more you love the person in front of you, the more readily will you be able to go the distance in seeking the best communication at the correct moment.

KS&L 367 Family Commuications: Being Present for Children*

by Tina Erwin

There is an old saying that often elegantly describes how many families communicate. It goes something like this:

I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Confused? Join the club! Families are so busy these days with the mountain of things that just have to be done that they frequently forget to actually listen to the details of conversations and then things begin to go awry.

What you frequently find is that people are not emotionally present. Their head is nodding but they are not hearing you. It happens to everyone. Something else is dominating his or her mind and when you think you have his or her attention, in truth, you don’t. Even when you ask the person if they heard you and you get a nod response, that does not mean that they heard you.

Parents are so concerned about their jobs, the family dynamics, keeping up with the neighbors and managing the politics of life that they frequently neglect to hear the little clues that their spouse or kids are telling them that would have tipped them off to a potential problem. Potential problems are not convenient, so often it is just easier to nod, or ignore the problem or just say no, no matter what it is. The problem with this is, that when you think you can ignore something, it comes back to haunt you later. Sometimes, you have to deal with something ‘little’ when it starts and you may discover that taking those few extra minutes prevents/precludes something ‘big’ from ever happening. Let us look at this classic example.

A busy mom is getting her 4-year old ready for pre-school. She is stressed. She has a big meeting that morning and she needs her son to hurry. But her son says he doesn’t want to go to school. He hates school. Every other morning he just loves school, but not today. Today he hates it.

Here are her options:

1. She can yell at him, threaten to punish him and demand that he get ready right now and utterly ignore his adamant refusal to go to school. She can even call him a bad boy.

2. She can ignore the child’s behavior without comment and shove him in the car, dump him off at school and try to cool down for her meeting.

3. She can stop what she is doing completely, sit him down in her lap and look him in the face and calmly and with concern ask him to tell her why he doesn’t want to go to school. This is where it gets really hard. A four-year old often has trouble expressing his feelings. He needs the mom to feel that something is terribly wrong at the school. Surely she knows that he has never behaved like this before. Surely she can see that there is something very wrong here. Her son tries to explain, but he lacks verbal skill and cannot tell her his plight, with articulate words but the look in his deep blue eyes tells her he is afraid – of something. She watches as the tears fill up those precious eyes and spill down his cheeks. These are tears of relief as he feels that she is really listening.

In options one and two, the Mom’s actions tell the child that she is not hearing him, cannot focus on his needs. She has lost touch with that psychic sense that all good Moms need to have to avert problems. Once she gets to work, she tosses the situation off as an irritation. But it doesn’t go away. Day after day, her son becomes increasingly more adamant that he does not want to go back to that school. Finally he ‘gets sick’ so he won’t have to go to school. Now he is a behavior and a health problem for her – or that is her perception. He is now costing her a lot of time way from work. At no time has she actually listened to what he is trying desperately to tell her in his clumsy four-year old way. The child begins to lose faith in her and their relationship just gets more difficult. This situation was a growth opportunity for both of them and the Mom in this case, missed it – completely.

In option three, the Mom gets herself out of the way so that she can listen to her son all the way. In that moment, she is completely present so that she can hear this child, on the physical and psychic level. When she does this, she realizes that by analyzing his past behavior, she can see that he is genuinely afraid. He is not making this up. What about her meeting? Hopefully, she has a backup plan and can call a sitter and leave her son home for the day. Organized Moms always have a backup plan with little kids. She goes to work and at lunchtime, she calls the school to let them know that her son won’t be there and to find out how things are. What she discovers chills her: three teachers quit, and now one teacher is responsible for 35 small children ages 5 and under. This mom also calls the teachers who quit and discovers to her horror, that the school has changed policy and now leaves these little kids outside in the Charleston, South Carolina summer heat for 3 hours at a time with no water. They are also yelling at the children. She spends the rest of her lunch, locating another pre-school. She has to take some time off to get him installed in a new school but now every morning, he is happy to go to school.

She spent perhaps an extra five minutes of listening to her son initially. Five minutes of time. She was a total of 30 minutes late that day. She was able to have her meeting and she felt good about it. What she discovered about the school validated her faith in her son and her own psychic sense that truly, something was very wrong. Her son was seldom if ever sick in his early years because he did not need sickness to get his Mom’s attention. He was also seldom a behavior problem because he was able to communicate his needs and be heard. In fact he was never a behavior problem even through his teenage years. That critically important communication link was kept strong by direct and psychic communication between parent and child.

In part two, we will explore family communications.

* I am the Mom in option three. This is a true story about my son James now age 31! I was a Lieutenant in the US Navy at the time and the situation taught me the value of believing in my children from the time they were little. Tina Erwin