The Tranquil Parent

Meatless Monday: Breakfast tacos for the uninitiated

2010-09-14T03:01:12-06:00

I'm a big believer in the power of breakfast tacos - nothing starts my morning off quite as well and breakfast tacos do. Apparently though, lots of people don't know about breakfast tacos (which I was reminded of by the New York Times coverage of breakfast taacos several months ago). Breakfast tacos are a staple in our family because not only are they quick and easy to make, but you can make them in advance and store them in the fridge for quick hot meals.

Breakfast tacos can be as easy as serving scrambled eggs and potatoes on a tortilla (flour or corn per your preference, though flour tortillas tend to break less easily than corn tortillas do) or as complicated (if you can call them complicated) as migas. Migas are basically eggs scrambled with sauteed onions and hot peppers and mixed with crumbled up tortilla chips or slices of corn tortillas and cheddar cheese. (Incidentally, this is an excellent way to use those last little chip crumbles in the bag that are too small for dipping.) I don't care for eggs, so in our house, we substitute tofu for the eggs, and season with brewer's yeast for an eggy color and umami protein flavor. In fact, the only rule of breakfast tacos is that they are served on tortilla! If your menu plan for the week includes making black or pinto beans or potatoes, throw in some extra while you're cooking them and save them for the next morning's breakfast - you can add those to the eggs or migas too.

Basic Ingredients

Here's a list of basic ingredients, you can mix and match to make your own breakfast tacos:

scrambled eggs
refried or whole black or pinto beans

migas (scrambled egg and onions or firm tofu crumbled and scrambled with onions and brewer's yeast)

hashbrowns

salsa or pico de gallo

guacamole

fried potatoes

cheddar cheese

Tofu Migas

Sautee a medium onion and 2-4 jalapeno peppers (to decrease the heat, take the seeds out but make sure you wear gloves when you cut them up) in your preference of oil (we always use extra virgin olive oil, because that's what we keep around the house).

Add two 16-oz. containers of extra firm tofu and smash them with a potato masher.

When the tofu has started to heat up, add 1/2 to 1 cup of cheddar cheese and a handful of tortilla chips or sliced up corn tortilla strips (I always use the end of the bag of tortilla chips since I rarely have corn tortillas on hand).

Stir and cook until tofu is hot.

Season with 1/2 T turmeric, 1 T cumin, 1/2 t red pepper, 1/4 t chili pepper, 1 T nutritional yeast and salt to taste.

Serve on flour tortillas topped with your choice of sour cream, guacamole, beans, salsa, or pico de gallo.

If you really get into the breakfast taco thing, you can branch out into chorizo, sauteed nopalitos (the de-spined pad of the prickly pear cactus, it's got a slightly sweet flavor and the consistency of bell peppers without that pepper flavor), or one of my favorites, chilaquiles (basically migas without the eggs with a green or red mole sauce).

The best thing about serving breakfast tacos is that you can have a variety of ingredients and each person (or, ehem, picky kid) can choose their own ingredients. Next week when you make them again, serve different ingredients and voila, a new meal!

The key to good breakfast tacos is getting good tortillas - see if you can find a Mexican grocery store or a taqueria that makes fresh tortillas and buy them by the dozen. Our local grocery store has a "tortilla factory" in the store so we keep tortillas on hand all the time.

Oh, and if your little one (or you) has a hard time keeping the stuffing in the taco, try this trick we used when Z was first learning to eat tacos.

Do you serve breakfast tacos in your house? If so, what's your favorite ingredient for breakfast tacos? If not, what are you waiting for? Give them a try and let us know what you think! - Jeremiah

Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

2010-09-06T09:00:53-06:00

One of our favorite, quickest, and easiest meals is the Vegetarian Sloppy Joe. We cheat and use Simply Organic sloppy joe mix instead of making the sloppy joe flavor from scratch, but remember, this is so we can have a quick, easy meal on a night we might otherwise just give in and go out to eat!

Here's the process:

Sort and rinse a pound bag of brown lentils. Put them in a pot with water, heat to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes or until mostly soft. (Make sure you check after 10 minutes or so to make sure that you don't run out of water in your pot.) Once the lentils are basically finished, strain the water from the lentils and return the lentils to the pot.

Pour the sloppy joe mix into 1/4 cup water and stir until well blended.

Add your seasoning liquid plus several tablespoonfuls of tomato paste to your lentils and let simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes or until most of the water is boiled out, stirring occasionally.

Serve on hamburger buns or regular bread. Add sliced cheddar cheese, slices of white onion or pickles as a condiment to the sandwiches. Serve with a few chips or a pickle on the side for a nice crunchy contrast.

This makes enough for 6 servings with plenty left over for freezing for even quicker (how is that possible!) meals. - Jeremiah

Links we love: Great reads on other blogs

2010-08-30T02:49:38-06:00

A few great reads we've seen on other blogs this week:

These DIY "treasure stones" look like the perfect activity for a hot summer day (or maybe a cold winter one) and would be great for a dinosaur party activity!

I love the thoughtfulness of this Craftzine post about making "magic wands." I'm thinking we're going to have to make some someday soon.

We try hard not to use food as a "treat" but in our small town it's sometimes hard to think of something else that we could do to reward ourselves. Do you have any ideas for non-food, family rewards? Mary at A Merry Life has some thoughts on the subject.

Tara at The Organic Sister wrote an interesting article about shifting her thinking in honoring her eleven-year-old's needs and getting him a cell phone. Don't judge until you read.

- Jennifer

The human fascination with the “language” of flowers

2010-08-26T17:27:56-06:00

Guest post by Amy Brecount White

[I've always been fascinated by the language of flowers - in my early teen years and again in college, I read several different books on what certain flowers meant when they were given to another (this correlated with the time when I was first heavily reading Emily Post's Etiquette). I always made sure that if I bought flowers for anyone, I knew what I was "saying" with the flowers. We jumped at the chance to have a guest post by Amy Brecount White who published a young adult novel, Forget-Her-Nots, about the language of flowers this summer. And in these dog days of summer when the land around us (at least here in Texas) is brown and dusty from a lack of water, I can think of the beauty of the flowers and dream of the fall and spring to come. - Jennifer.]

I often ponder what the very first cavewoman thought when she encountered a flower. It was beautiful, delicate, and gave off the most amazing scent, but she had to wonder what its purpose was... what "message" it could be sending her. Then she probably tried to eat it.

This question of the purpose of flowers has boggled the human mind for centuries. Why so much loveliness that lasts oh-so-briefly? Why such a variety of petals, textures, scents, and colors? We assume there must be some higher meaning.

The ancient Greeks came up with creative explanations for the existence of certain flowers in their fabulous myths. According to one, the narcissus (also known as a daffodil) sprang up from the death of a beautiful boy who fell in love with his own reflection in a still pool of water. Ever since, that flower has come to send the message of being egotistical, or narcissistic, in the language of flowers. According to another myth, the laurel that crowned the victors was originally a nymph named Daphne. Struck by Cupid’s arrow, the god Apollo fell in love with her and pursued her through the woods. Her river-god father changed her into a beautiful laurel tree when she cried out to him. Apollo turned the meaning of a crown of laurel into "glory."

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the tragic Ophelia speaks the language of pansies, rosemary, and rue. On a lighter note, the sprite Puck uses the juice from a flower to work his mischief among the lovers in A Midsummer Night's Dream. And poetry from Robert Burns to Emily Dickinson is filled with flowery messages.

In short, human beings have always believed flowers must be more than they seem. Even now, when we modern types have the decisively scientific explanation for the colors, petals, and scents of flowers as a means to attract specific and well-suited pollinators, that logic falls short. Surely, the purpose of all that beauty cannot be to attract mere insects. Bugs don't deserve such beauty. In the Victorian period, the concept of a "language" of flowers reached its peak both in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Numerous books were printed with lists of flowers and their "secret" meaning. For example, lily of the valley is for "the return of happiness" while a red camellia expresses "unpretending excellence." Sweet basil means "best wishes," while regular old basil means "hatred." These books assign a meaning for nearly every herb, plant, or tree you can think of. No one really knows how popular it was to send messages through tussie-mussies (symbolic floral bouquets), but even today you can easily find books about the language of flowers.

What you may not realize is that this language is already a part of your life. Think about it. Even today, almost every special occasion is marked with flowers. Special birthdays like Sweet Sixteen, Mother's Day, rites of passage such as a bat mitzvah or confirmation, weddings, proms - all of these occasions call for flowers in our minds. And why? Because, I believe, flowers represent our quest to add beauty to our lives; they symbolize freshness and our hope that the world will always bloom.

No one can help but smile when she is presented with a fresh and festive bouquet. Place flowers in a room or yard, and they can transform the very air, so we can breathe in their sweetness. Flowers can also awaken memories and desires, as they do for my main character, Laurel and everyone around her in my novel Forget-Her-Nots. We give flowers to connect with each other and to express emotions that we might otherwise struggle to say out loud. We like to speak with flowers, just as Laurel does.

Personally, I believe the world would be a happier place if we all grew and gave each other a lot more flowers.

Amy Brecount White is the author of the novel Forget-Her-Nots, in which the language of flowers comes magically to life (Greenwillow Books, a division of HarperCollins, for ages 12 & up). You can find out more and order the book at www.amybrecountwhite.com. - Jennifer

Meat Free Monday: Deborah Madison’s “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone”

2010-08-24T02:55:16-06:00

Every so often we'll bring you a review of some of our favorite vegetarian cookbooks to help you with your meatless options. First up, we wanted to highlight Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, a book that is like the Joy of Cooking for vegetarians. If you're struggling to find a simple vegetarian recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, this cookbook is a standard for your shelf. We have a decent collection of cookbooks - some of them focus on specific cuisines, some of them are vegan, some for desserts (okay, okay, a bunch for desserts), and some are from specific vegetarian or vegan restaurants we've loved. This cookbook is probably one of the most used of them all. The recipes are simple to cook but tasty and the ingredients can be easily found even in our small town with its standard, non-foodie grocery stores. Since it's a basics cookbook, she covers sauces and condiments, appetizers, sandwiches, salads, soups and stews, casseroles, beans, veggies, pastas, pies, grains, eggs, soy, breakfast, breads, and desserts. Whew!

Here's a very simple recipe that is a hit with everyone in our family:

Lentils and Rice with Fried Onions (Mujadarrah)

Ingredients
6 tablespoons olive oil
1 very large onion, sliced into rounds 1/4 inch thick (we like the onions so much that we usually do 2 onions)
1 1/4 cups green or brown lentils, sorted and rinsed
salt and pepper
3/4 cup white or brown long-grain rice

Directions: Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until it's a rich, dark brown, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, put the lentils in a saucepan with 1 quart water and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Add the rice, plenty of pepper, and, if needed, additional water to cover. Cover and cook over low heat until the rice is done, about 15 minutes. Stir in half the onions, then cover and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Spoon the lentil-rice mixture onto plates or a platter and cover with the remaining onions.

Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone is a great kitchen resource featuring a wide variety of dishes and food categories. We highly recommend it! - Jennifer

Links we love

2010-08-20T22:42:35-06:00

Grab a cuppa something relaxing to drink and sit with us to enjoy some of our favorite reads this week:

Learning the value of coins bingo: We spent some time last week helping Z count her money and understand the values of the different coins. This looks like a fun game to reinforce what we talked about. Maybe we'll even let her keep he coins if she gets bingo.

Make an accurate home inventory: Have you made a home inventory? Stored it offsite? We did this a while back but need to update it. This article has some great tips on getting it right and accurate so you get the most accurate reflection of your belongings.

Stop Shopping Momentum: This happens to me all the time! Once I get going, I start thinking of everything else I "need" - I'm going to try employing some of these techniques.

Making Garden stones from leaves: Gardenmama posted a lovely tutorial for making garden stones from leaves. I might have to try growing some rhubarb just to make these beauties!

Playmobil instruction database: I bought a couple of sets of Playmobil toys at a garage sale a few weekend ago. We couldn't figure out how to put one of them together so I went Googling and found a database that lists hundreds of Playmobil sets and shows the box and the pieces included. Using the pictures there was the only way we got our set put together properly.

More links in a week! - Jennifer

Packing a vegetarian lunch for kids or adults

2010-08-16T21:59:51-06:00

School is starting soon so we thought we'd throw out some ideas for packing quick, healthy Meatless Monday lunches for the kiddos. If you read our blogs regularly, you'll know that we unschool Z so we don't pack lunches daily. But we have times during the summer when she goes to summer day camp, and during the spring, Z and I had a weekly picnic between my gym class and Z's Kindermusik class.

Some of our favorite things to pack:

Carrot sticks with hummus or pita triangles

Fruit like cherries, blackberries, grapes, sliced apples with cinnamon, or other finger-sized fruits

Cherry tomatoes or steamed broccoli

Wasa Crackers and cheese

A green smoothie (our favorite recipe - makes three servings - 1 banana, 8 oz frozen pineapple, and a heaping cup of spinach - dilute with water or coconut milk, blend.)

A nut-butter and jelly or banana sandwich (if your school is peanut free try something like soynut butter)

Mock tuna salad on bread, pita, or crackers

Ants on a log

Dried fruit and nut mix (we make our own based on what we have in the pantry)

Cheese stick

Granola bar

Fruit leathers (we love the Fruitabu organic fruit leathers)

We usually pack a combination of items that offer a balance of fruits, veggies and proteins. We usually include a small treat like animal crackers or a square of fair trade chocolate for dessert. Z's not big on leftovers and there's rarely a place to heat them up so we don't usually include leftovers in our lunchboxes anymore - but make sure if you do, you include a ceramic plate for reheating!

If you have five extra minutes while you're packing your child's lunch, do something to make the lunch fun - cut the sandwich or bread slices into fun shapes using cookie cutters (you can do this with slices of cheese or fruit leathers too), include a quick handwritten note, make a portion of the lunch DIY or toss a few chocolate chips into the fruit and nut mix.

Tell us, what are your kids' favorite lunches? Also, what would you like us to address in future Meatless Monday posts?

And if you're looking for a good lunch box, check out either the PlanetBox or the Laptop Lunch kit or our other suggestions in the ZRecs Guide for Safer Children's Products. - Jennifer

Meat Free Mondays

2010-08-09T11:00:39-06:00

Have you heard about the Meat Free Monday campaign? It's "an environmental campaign to raise awareness of the climate-changing impact of meat production and consumption" founded by Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney. We're vegetarians so every Monday is meat-free for us, but I'm thinking maybe we should challenge ourselves to have a lower-impact eating Monday. See, Mondays are the busiest day of the week for us - it's the day we're most likely to fall back on frozen, prepared (albeit vegetarian) foods. With a little advanced planning, I could probably prepare a healthier, more environmentally conscious meal that didn't rely on prepared foods. Here's ten of our favorite, easy to prepare vegetarian foods:

Replace the meat in lasagna with veggies like broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and garlic.

Green smoothies served with cracker, hummus and cheese make a nice light meal.

Veggie tacos: Beans, rices, tortillas, and guacamole are all your need but you can sautee onions, peppers, and mushrooms for more robust tacos
Beans and rice: Do it New Orleans style by using red beans, plenty of Tabasco sauce, and some bread on the side.

DIY pizza: Make a dough in a bread machine or buy premade dough at the store (we've even used French bread in a pinch), and top with sauce and your favorite toppings - sometimes we just do cheese, sometimes we add sauteed veggies to the top.

Brown lentils over rice with carmelized onions: This is one of the faster, cheaper recipes and it's so delicious!

Veggie pot pies are always a hit in our house, stuffed full of carrots, squash, mushrooms, green beans and covered with a cheese sauce in a pastry shell. Our favorite recipe comes from the Moosewood Celebrates cookbook. Bonus? Make two, they freeze great!

Egg or tofu scramble: Add peppers, onions, cumin, and a touch of chili powder, serve on a tortilla shell for a savory breakfast at dinner.

Rice and veggie sautee: Sautee and serve whatever veggies you have in the fridge on top of brown rice.

The health and environmental benefits of reduced meat consumption are well-established, but vegetarianism isn't for everyone. If you're a meat eater, have you considered participating in a weekly Meat Free Monday? For a month? For six months? For a year? - Jennifer

Do one thing different

2010-06-25T02:17:36-06:00

As a therapist, I became interested many years ago in what is called Brief, Solution-Focused Therapy. This is a model that doesn't focus on the problems in one's past, but looks toward the present and the future. It is a model based on the belief that the person has internal strengths that can be brought to bear on the perceived "problem." The therapist helps the client to begin exploring what they would like their future to look like and then teasing out times in life when that future is already happening. Questions are asked about when, where, and with whom that positive future is beginning to take place. Brief Therapy has three main rules:

If it isn't broken, don't fix it

If it's working, do more of it

If it isn't working, do something different!

One of the main contributors to this model is Bill O’Hanlon, M.S. One of his many books, Do One Thing Different teaches a common-sense approach to begin changing your life and solving your problems. The two main points of his book are that you need to 1) change what you do, and 2) change how you view things.

Albert Einstein stated that "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." We often become stuck in a problem and try to make big changes in order to "fix" the problem. Many people think that getting a divorce or changing jobs or houses will solve the problem.

These big fixes can be a setup for failure. We may have great intentions, but life gets in the way. O'Hanlon's premise is that making small changes will help to break the old patterns. Start small by trying something new, changing your old patterns! This is called "changing the doing." Doing more of the same in a situation brings the same results, even intensifies the problem instead of bringing about solutions. Sometimes changing only one thing can break up the inertia that is holding the problem in place.

In order to "change the doing," O'Hanlon suggests the following ideas:

Make the smallest change you can make.

Start with the least amount of time you think is reasonable.

Focus on discovering the actions and the things you can change most easily.

Change the timing of the pattern.

Change the location of the pattern.

Change your clothing.

Change your body behavior.

To "change the viewing" try refocusing your attention. Try these suggestions:

Change what you pay attention to in the situation.

Focus on the future rather than what's gone wrong in the past.

Try finding another frame of reference in the situation.

Give this a try! Rather than looking for a solution to your entire problem, experiment with changing just one thing. Then begin to notice what is different when you make the change. What works? What feels different? Who else changes when you do this one thing? How could you keep doing it?

Do something different this week! - Terry

Still life with cow heart

2010-06-10T03:51:50-06:00

For those who didn't know already, buying a cow heart at the grocery store is not a cheap ticket to a great biology lesson. Turns out they just give you the parts people like to eat. No aeortas, chamber walls, nothin'. Still, five-year-old vegetarian she was, Z found it fascinating, cutting through muscle and fat with kitchen scissors and pushing blood around in the veins on the heart's exterior wall. Big discussion about blood and what it's for (review), what people eat when they eat meat (mostly muscles), the different kinds of muscles in the body, etc.

This picture would have been a lot funnier with Z in it. She was wearing her painting smock, which happens to be spattered all over with red paint, and wearing latex gloves. (Do they make those in kids' sizes?) Our dog had an excellent dinner tonight. - Jeremiah

Four steps to constructive problem solving

2010-05-28T02:50:13-06:00

Working on deepening the friendship in your relationship can help you resolve address conflicts when you need to work on some of your important issues. But what if your problems aren't disagreements you can just "argue" your way through to a resolution?

John Gottman's research suggests that only 31% of problems are actually solvable! He calls the other 69% the "perpetual problems." The most important question is not whether you and your partner will have conflict, but how you get through the conflicts that occur. The Masters and Disasters approached the conflicts differently. Working through your conflicts assures that you will have greater relationship satisfaction.

Gottman posits four steps that are necessary to follow when regulating conflict. These steps are the Softened Start-Up, Accepting Influence, Repairing the Interaction and De-Escalation, and Compromise.

The Softened Start-Up

Gottman, in studying couples in relationships, found that the first three minutes of how a problem is raised will determine the outcome. He went so far as to begin predicting which couples would stay together and which would be divorced based on this first three minutes. Women are more likely to start a discussion with a harsh start-up. If you think you don't know how to do a "softened start-up," consider how you would usually treat a guest in your home. Try this out when bringing up a topic with your partner. You would never accuse a guest or use the same tone you might use with your partner.

Here’s an example of a harsh start-up: "You always ignore me at the breakfast table." A softened start-up might be: "I really would like to have more of your attention when we're sitting at the breakfast table." Can you tell the difference? This start-up needs to be a complaint, without blame; contain "I" statements rather than "you" statements; be clear, rather than requiring guesswork from your partner; be polite; show appreciation; and should not be a cataloging of all past wrongs!

Accepting Influence

So often in conflict we dig our heels in and become entrenched in our own opinion. In order to learn to regulate conflict, it is essential that you begin to learn to accept and understand your partner's point of view. Understanding that his/her point of view may have validity allows you to communicate understanding.

Repair Interaction and De-Escalation

A repair interaction is where you or your partner recognize that the discussion has gotten off track and is heading rapidly towards areas that you know won't be productive. One or the other of you may be experiencing flooding or used name calling or some other negative fighting trick that has derailed the discussion. Gottman suggests using an actual repair checklist to put up a stop sign and try to get back on track. Either partner can call a "time out" and use one of the phrases. Here are just a few examples from his checklist: "That hurt my feelings." "I feel criticized. Can you rephrase that?" "Let me try again." "I'm sorry, please forgive me." "I need things to be calmer right now." "Can we take a break?" "I see what you mean." The list is endless, and you can add your own calming repairs to the list.

Compromise

The fourth and final step is compromise. At this point, draw two concentric circles. In the inner circle, put the minimal points on which there is no possibility of compromise. In the outer oval, begin to identify the core areas where you can yield. Work together to find the areas of overlap, agreement, shared views, feelings, goals. Work on finding ways that you can develop a compromise plan.

Here's an example from my own life. My husband and I fought for years whenever we were in stressful driving conditions, usually vacations and unfamiliar cities. He drove and wanted me to read the map in the same precise way he would if he were reading it. I'm not a great map reader and I would get us lost and couldn't find our way back and my husband would be upset and we'd be lost in a strange city, mad at each other. My unyielding concentric circle was my need to feel safe and my desire for our vacation to be without conflict. My husband needed to know our location and feel in "control" of the situation and to be looked on as competent. Our compromise agreement was that I would drive and my husband would read the map! If he got us lost, I didn't get upset, I would just let him figure out a way back to the correct road. He enjoyed the map reading and the "control" and I enjoyed driving. We have carried this solution to our vacations as well as local car trips and have enjoyed our travels much more since finding this solution. With the advent of GPS, we no longer have the same relationship issues, but the example still stands out as one where we managed to compromise.

Would that we had a GPS for all of our relationship issues, right? Try out these four steps and see if you can become one of the "Masters of Relationships!"

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet? - Terry

When it comes to conflict, it’s about regulation, not resolution

2010-05-14T01:59:34-06:00

In my last post, I talked about the building on your friendship as a couple, one of two important components in making your relationship work, as researched by psychologist John Gottman. Today I'd like to talk about the second step: Learning to regulate conflict. Note that we aren't talking about conflict resolution, but about conflict regulation. This is an important distinction. Many of the arguments that couples have are recurring, perpetual arguments that are often not easily solved and couples may need to learn to live with these differences over time and/or come up with ways of regulating how they handle these differences. Other issues are more readily solvable and learning how to work through these issues will have a dramatic impact on your relationship.

Gottman proposes four warning signs that you should watch for in order to determine whether or not your own relationship is melting down. These are summarized below.

Negatives Dominate

Warning Sign #1 is that there are more negative than positive behaviors occuring in your relationship. Research finds that in a relationship that is going well, there are five times more positive behaviors than negatives. In a relationship that is not going well, there is one positive behavior to every negative one. If you notice this negative leaning in your own relationship, it is important to work on building your friendship, becoming more positive in your attitude and thinking, and paying more attention to how you handle your partner's bids for attention.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Warning Sign #2 is what Gottman jokingly calls the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, four types of negative behavior you must watch for that are toxic: Criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Research has found that these four behaviors are strong predictors of divorce!

Criticism is when a person adds blame to a complaint and attacks the character or personality of the partner. It implies that a problem is the partner's fault and often starts with "you" statements and often uses the words "always" and "never" in making the claim. It is important to learn to complain without blaming in a relationship. See my past post about how to make proper "I" statements for more on this.

Defensiveness is when you deny the responsibility for the problem and put the blame on the other person. It is very important to be able to take some of the responsibility for the shared problems in your relationship.

Contempt is when you make a statement that makes you sound superior to your partner and is usually in the form of a put-down or name-calling. Do remember that contempt can be nonverbal as well as words. You can show contempt just by the look on your face, or by rolling your eyes. It is important that you work on creating what Gottman calls a "culture of appreciation" in your relationship. Begin to express your love and pride, rather than looking for mistakes and flaws. Learn to comment when things are going right and show appreciation!

Stonewalling is when one withdraws from the interaction. This can be an actual physical withdrawing or withdrawing of one's attention and focus. If a person is paying attention, it is easy to see because of visual clues, comments, or other listening behaviors. Sometimes a person stonewalls because the emotional intensity is too great and at these times it is important to have a way to signal to each other than you need a break. During the break it's important to use some deep relaxation techniques or do something to avoid maintaining the stress. See my post about how to lower your stress for some quick tips and ideas on this.

Caution: Flooding Ahead

Warning Sign #3 is that one of both people in the relationship get "flooded." Flooding is the feeling a person gets of being completely overwhelmed and is usually accompanied by uncomfortable feelings and a desire to get away from the situation. It is very important that you use some of the calming practices mentioned in the post linked above to calm yourself before continuing with your discussion. It is often when a person is flooded that things get out of control. Learning to take a break and pick up the conflict when you are both calmed down is very important.

Repair Attempts Rebuffed

Warning Sign #4 is that repair attempts fail. A "repair attempt" is when one of the partners notices that things are getting off track or fails in one of the other areas mentioned above and does something about it. He or she might say "I'm sorry," or "Let me say that differently," or "I really didn't mean to put you down." In successful relationships, these repair attempts allow the discussion to get back on track and are accepted by the partner. In relationships that are melting down, these repair attempts fail and the argument continues in a downward spiral. It is important to recognize when your partner is making a repair attempt, as well as to learn how to use them yourself when things are not working.

These are the things that Gottman suggests you need to watch for in your relationship. These warning signs can also be detected in your relationship with your children or in other important relationships in your life.

Does your relationship with your partner show any of these warning signs? In my next post I will summarize the steps for constructive problem solving. If you can't wait, Gottman's 10 Lessons To Transform Your Marriage is a great place to start.

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet? - Terry

An unschooling primer

2010-04-30T11:00:24-06:00

There's been a big hoopla on the internet about unschooling in the past week, fueled primarily by a deceptively edited and obviously biased piece on unschooling on "Good Morning America." Like most of the coverage served up on shows like this, the details of their take on this form of "extreme parenting" will soon be forgotten, but the lingering misunderstandings will remain. We unschool our daughter, Z, who will be turning 6 this summer, and since we've found it to be a wonderful, joyous experience - albeit one with its pros and cons, like any real-world, not-so-shocking parenting choice - we thought it might be helpful for those curious about homeschooling, and unschooling, to tell you a bit more about it. You might even decide that this lifestyle would work for your family!

What do we mean by unschooling?

In some ways, unschooling is one version of what most parents of public/private schoolchildren think of when they say "homeschooling." But for those who consider themselves unschoolers, it is also different from "homeschooling" in fundamental ways.

Most parents who choose to educate their children at home find structure and direction in recreating school practices in their home. They use textbooks, lesson plans, and course designs modeled after school experiences and segment learning in scheduled classes. The extent of these practices vary widely, in part because homeschoolers do benefit from the ability to tailor their "school day" to meet the needs of their children - tackling the most challenging subject areas in the morning, for example, when a child is fresh; organizing schooling around other activities or availability of parents (tag-teaming with another parent or rearranging class times to allow for special visitors or "field trips"); or allotting extra time for subjects a child finds more challenging.

Homeschoolers are driven by the knowledge that they are providing a specialized educational experience tailored to their beliefs or worldview that places their child at the center of learning and allows them to focus much more personal attention on helping their child learn than any teacher could provide. The social world of the "homeschool" is quite small - it often depends on how many siblings are also learning at home - but it can be more emotionally supportive as well as more supportive of learning than the public school classroom.

These are generalizations, and for every homeschooling parent who prides him- or herself on a tight academic schedule or an award-winning curriculum, there is one (or at least a fraction of one) who takes a more casual approach. But here's where unschoolers peel off from their homeschooling bretheren. While homeschoolers typically (again, generalizations) attempt to recreate an ideal version of a schoolroom within their own home and under their direct governance, unschoolers see most aspects of the typical school experience as symptoms of the institutional framework - the teacher holding forth in front of the students, the set sequence of subjects and timelines for mastery, and even the emphasis of breadth over depth in learning - that children who can be offered the opportunity to learn on their own should not be saddled with.

By now you are probably aware of which way we lean in our home education. We knew we wanted to "homeschool" before we knew whether it would be possible, but it wasn't long after figuring out that we could actually do this - through some personal and professional sacrifices and some much-appreciated family participation - before we realized that we were not interested in playing school at home. For us, it was a fast and fun slide into home educating radicalism, and we enthusiastically embraced (and wholeheartedly support) the broad aims and philosophy of unschooling, although every pedagogical method (like every lifestyle) has its pros and cons. (More on that in a bit.)

For us, unschooling means following Z's lead on what she wants to learn. The result is that sometimes we will spend days or weeks focusing on a single topic and sometimes we have a Q&A session where Z fires questions as quickly as she can, we answer them and our answer triggers her to ask a question related or unrelated (in our minds) to the answer. For instance, one night during a two-hour drive, Z wanted to know who "invented" electricity; we answered and offered a little about the topic and after an hour of questions were answering queries about human biology (the role of electricity in biomechanical processes and brain functioning) and death. For us, the goal has always been to answer her questions honestly, confess to any gaps in our knowledge, and let her take the lead on how in-depth she wants to go. We routinely identify things we need to look up in books or on the Internet or identify people we know who could answer various questions, and we do our best to follow up.

What is our role as unschooling parents?

We see our job as that of learning faciliators and, particularly at this stage of her life, as key introducers of new ideas. Z regularly brings us project ideas that she wants to work on and things that she wants to "investigate." In fact, she brings us so many of these ideas to create and investigate that we have no way to complete them all! Sometimes we try to guide her impulses in a thematic direction and make sure to link ideas together. Sometimes we just roll with her passions.

We spend a lot of time with books, from kid-friendly reference books to single-topic books to adult reference materials, and use a few worksheets when we find topics she really likes to drill on. We do a lot of "investigating" on the internet (YouTube is great for videos of how anything is made, and there are great materials online aimed specifically at kids to explain a lot of science topics). We also go through stacks of library books and videos and do as much hands-on learning as we can make happen. (What better way to learn about plants than to have a garden?) A five-year-old is at a stage where the sensory world is still of primary importance but descriptive and categorizing skills are becoming more important and serving as a foundation for critical thinking, so we do a lot of that. (Incidentally, we don't know these things about her stage of development because a chart or guide tells us that this is what a five-year-old "should" be doing; we know this because we spend so much time learning with our daughter that we know what motivates her and what path she's on.) We have taste tests where we explore the differences in say, a variety of apples or water from different places (learning about food diversity, using descriptive words, becoming aware of the palate, experimentation, ranking varieties and parsing out flavors. We take field trips - we go to art openings, zoos, museums, she travels with us for business, we visit relatives in other states, we go to big cities and to working history farms.

As she gets older, some of these endeavors will doubtless change shape. Some will become more serious studies of things she seems to have an ongoing interest in or to have a natural facility for. Some will require that we seek out more outside opportunities for her, such as mentoring, cooperative activities in our community, or independent investigations. A lot of things will change when she is a fluent reader and can do more topical exploration on her own, with less guidance from us.

But won't your child grow up without an understanding of rules and limits on their behavior?

We don't have an awful lot of rules in our home. The main one we try to live by and want to pass on to our daughter is the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We've had several conversations about it, and love this book about the Golden Rule. It's the rule that rules our house.

We have a chore chart but it's used infrequently, doesn't hold a lot of ongoing interest, and has no rewards associated with its completion. We ask Z for help when we need it and she does the same with us. These too are often learning experiences.

We do have a loose bedtime for Z but there are nights when she isn't tired right away and on those nights she goes to her room to lay in bed or read quietly until she's ready for sleep. When I say we have a bedtime, I mean that we have a time that Jeremiah and I aim to have Z to sleep - we have a before bed routine that we've established over the years that includes teeth brushing, silent reading, time with dad and time with mom alone.

If we start the routine more or less around 7:30, she's usually drifted off to sleep by 8:45 or 9:00. But because she doesn't have to operate at any specific level in the morning, we feel more free to facilitate her transition from play to bed just as we facilitate her other activities. We do limit her TV time and her viewing choices at this point but we've considered changing that as she gets older. The only other main thing that we limit at this point is candy, although we've had some struggles with that and are considering an unlimited sweets system.

So clearly, we are comfortable living in an environment with few strict limits on behavior. This is part of why unschooling suits us fairly well. To paraphrase one unschooling advocate, whose name escapes me at the moment, unschooling is providing for a child's education with as little structure as the parent is comfortable with. To us, this means allowing her to steer her own education in directions she is most inerested in. Passion translates very well into rapid and meaningful learning, and means that she may advance faster in some topics than curriculum-driven children, and more slowly in others, based on her interests and drives.

How can an unschooled child learn discipline?

Our philosophy is that at some point Z will find something that she is passionate about enough that she will be disciplined enough to work through any issues or difficulties she might have. Actually, she's already taught herself how to ride a bike without training wheels (when she fell, she got back up on that bike and rode it!) and she practices violin on a near-daily basis, most of the time with gusto. I do not, as an adult, generally force myself to eat things I don't care for (I do try to taste a bite) or to "push through" and just do something because I feel like I have to. I don't particularly enjoy exercise but I do it anyway because I want to be healthy - but that's my motivation - I'm not doing it because someone told me I have to. I can't think of anything I do that I'm forced to do - I pay my taxes and I'm not thrilled about that but choose to pay them so I don't go to jail; I choose to work so I have money to live the way I want to live. Unschoolers believe that children should be permitted to find natural sources of motivation just as adults do.

If we didn't have rules and let our kids pick what they wanted to do, they'd spend all day doing x, y, and z!

Kids accustomed to rules and requirements about how they spend their day who are suddenly given freedom do tend to go a little nuts (see college freshmen) but for kids who have grown up with few rules and the freedom to choose tend to make pretty good choices. If you take a child out of school and experiment with unschooling, you've got to give that child some time to "deschool" - to get all those rules and restrictions out of his brain and body. Face it, if you were suddenly given time off work and told to do whatever you wanted would you do all the things you've been waiting to do but haven't had time to do it or would you wake up bright and early the next day and get straight to work? Yep, that's what I thought.

When we arrived home on a recent evening, Z asked to go out and work in the garden, so we did: I weeded while she and Jeremiah harvested greens (wild and cultivated) for a salad (her idea to make one) which she then came in and made for our family for dinner. Yesterday she asked if we could work on an atlas project (a long-term project we've been working on) that has been shelved for several months. Yes, there are days she just wants to watch TV, but most days it never even comes up.

But if you don't teach them, how will they be prepared for a career in x, y, z or what if they want to go into a science/math field?

What we are teaching Z is how to learn. We are teaching her how to access resources, how to do research, how to find information she wants, how to address her curiosity in a constructive way, and how to attain skills that she's interested in learning. In high school I was required to take a geometry class - I countered that I knew I would never need to know geometry - and guess what? The only time I needed geometry since high school (which, trust me, was many, many years ago) was a month or so ago. Did I moan and groan that I wish I'd paid better attention in geometry? (My geometry teacher, by the way, slept through most of our classes.) I did not. I went to the internet, Googled it, and learned how to do what I needed to do in about 10 minutes. I still regret that I wasted all that time in a subject I had no interest or desire to learn.

Saying that unschooled children won't be prepared to study in a math or science field is basically saying that either 1) there's no way to learn math or science without a teacher or 2) that children are not inherently drawn to math or science. If you break it down that way, it's clear that both of those ideas are ridiculous - it's just as easy to learn math or science as it is to learn how to read or to learn how to write or draw - you just need the motivation to do so. Gone are the days when you made a career choice in high school and stayed in that career - or even maybe the same company - for your working life. Now you make a choice - maybe in college, maybe before and you figure out the path you need to take to attain that career goal. So what does an adult do when they want to change careers mid-life? They do the same thing - they figure out the path that need to take to attain that career goal. They don't just say, well, it's too bad I didn't study art or music or math in high school, guess I can't be an artist, musician or mathematician. No, they say, well, I need to do X to get there and then they do it. And ultimately, that's how unschooled kids achieve career goals too.

Of course, just as the world of information, life skills, and so on changed from our parents' generation to ours, it may change again by the time our children are grown up. But from our perspective, we're preparing a child who will be ready for just about anything she wants to do.

What about socialization?

Like most unschoolers and homeschoolers, Z socializes with a wide variety of people. Since she's not in school all day encouraged to only interact with children her own age, she has opportunities to interact with all ages of people every day, and does. Sometimes we go to homeschool "park days" where kids of all ages meet up and play. Sometimes we go to a store where she chats up the cashiers (and just about anyone else who will listen). Sometimes we visit with a friend with a younger child and Z is more than happy to show the younger child the ropes. She's also learning violin, which while is an individual lesson, gives her the opportunity to perform with children younger and older than her and even with adult music students. Since the majority of people that she interacts with on a day to day basis are adults, she is quite comfortable talking with adults and can hold a conversation better than some adults that I know. In fact, one of our pet peeves is when Z asks a direct question of an adult and the adult directs their answer back to me instead of to her or ignores her completely. Many adults she encounters seem so ill-equipped to interact with a child as a sentient person that they simply do not hear her when she talks to them.

Give me some examples of your unschooling.

Our days vary a lot. I work part-time and Jeremiah works full time out of the home so Z spends at least a little time most every week day with her grandmother. (Yes, it was hard to convince my mother about unschooling too but she seems to have come around to the idea.)

In the past month we've covered:

Math: Sorting, graphing, adding, subtracting, and counting M&Ms, dividing fresh from the garden strawberries for the family to share, dividing allowance into three different jars (spend, save, give), counting money, budgeting money, saving money, time telling, experimenting with a spirograph, and estimating

Language Arts: She reads to us most nights, we read to her every night and sometimes during the day as well, writing her own books, writing a list of all the words in a single word family that she knows, oral storytelling, retelling stories or events of the day, writing letters to family.

Science: Planting and maintaining a garden, learning about periennal and annual plants, weeding, hatching spiders, keeping snails in a habitat, talking about conservation of resources, snakes, lizards, collecting shells and investigating them.

Health: Watching Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" and discussing healthy food choices, cooking, personal hygiene, etc.

Art Drawing on a near daily basis, drawing in storytelling, diagramming and mapping out things, painting, looking at art, talking about art.

Music: Near daily violin practice, sight note reading, how to write notes, music composition (she is very interested in making up melodies right now).

Phys. Ed: Bike riding, dance.

Community Service and Citizenship: Picking up trash in the neighborhood, listening to NPR on the radio (seriously, her favorite show is "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!"), learning about the ethical treatment of animals.

This doesn't count a recent trip to the beach with her grandparents where she learned independence (her first three-day trip away from home), explored the ocean, and built on her extended family relationships or a visit from an out-of-state grandmother and out-of-town cousins, both younger than her, to whom she was a gracious host.

Why not just send Z to school?

Jeremiah and I have known we wanted to homeschool since before we were even married. We both felt that the hours that we spent in school were not worth the return on our investment if we had to do it over again. We also wanted to be able to travel at any time without having to worry about unexcused absences or taking busywork to complete on a trip (I'll never forget the time my parents wrote me a sick note when I went to Disneyworld with my dad; he's in the construction business which means that summers are swamped for him and the only time he could take a real vacation was in the winter. The school said that wasn't an excused absence and I'd get zeros for any work I missed while I was out. Both of my parents - divorced by then - thought that was ridiculous, so they just wrote me a sick note.)

We also dislike many of the decisions that the Texas State Board of Education makes, so that weighed heavily in our decision as well. When I first thought about the idea of homeschooling, I imagined playing teacher at home - a nice little chalkboard with one of those cool chalk covers that the teachers always got to use so their fingers didn't get dirty, a little room where I could hang up my own teacher posters and I'd teach and my children (oh yes, I wanted six of them at that point) would sit quietly and listen. (Ha!)

But then, in the many, many hours that I had to do nothing while Z was nursing I started reading books about homeschooling. Somehow (I don't remember how at this point), someone put John Holt's book Teach Your Own in my hands and my life (and my ideas about homeschooling) changed radically. From Holt, I went to Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason. It isn't technically about unschooling but it is about systems of reward and punishment, which drives a lot of schooling. From there I went on to read Mary Griffith's The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child's Handbook and from there to Lawrence Cohn's Playful Parenting. It all seemed to just mesh together at the right time with our other child-rearing philosophies, and unschooling became our new path to take.

Why not use a curriculum?

Once I read the books mentioned above, all of my former ideas about how to homeschool went out the window. Add to this that Z is often resistant to do worksheets or activity books (she'll go on an occasional binge where she'll do workbook type activities but usually resists them) and unschooling presented itself again as the path to take. We do occasionally look at sample curricula on-line - sometimes we gather ideas from them of books to read or activities to do or projects to toss out to Z as bait. Sometimes Z wants to do a workbook or use a computer program (we like Kumon books and Mia Kutoka's software) so we have a few of these around, but again, they are used when Z wants to use them.

We are not opposed to curricular materials per se, but to their use in governing what is learned when. We have made great use of Hooked on Phonics materials and they have been instrumental in Z's learning to read. But we have found that she has a very particular way of going about it, and this usually involves very intensive and enthusiastic work on reading over the course of a day - sometimes she will want to work on reading four, six, or eight hours solid, with breaks for meals and short play sessions but really working through some reading challenges - and then won't want to try to read anything for two weeks straight. It's weird, but she makes so much progress during those cram sessions, it just works. She is learning to read fairly quickly, and we make sure she understands just what kind of freedom that will offer her. Given the environment she has been educated in so far, she finds this freedom highly motivating and takes a great deal of pride in her reading abilities.

What are the biggest challenges of unschooling? The biggest drawbacks?

Sometimes the lack of structure can be unsettling. Sometimes you might wonder what your child is learning, if they are "keeping up" with other kids. Sometimes topics seem to get picked up and then abandoned before you can do much with them - either because the child loses interest or, more often, because the parent lacks the time or the organizational resources to keep the topic alive. Sometimes you can drive interest out of a topic by providing too much or too little input.

We could probably do better at making sure that ideas Z is interested in learning about are explored as far as her interest will take her; it is hard to tell at this point if we should play a larger role in helping identify learning themes and keeping track of ideas for her so she can continually explore them in greater depth. She is at an age where she still looks to us for a lot of ideas and entertainment and we might make better use of that than we do. Sometimes we feel pressed for time or too harried and half-finished projects are abandoned or worse, never started. Doing things on more of a schedule might counteract some of these problems, and we do try to schedule a bit. Sometimes our other obligations intrude and push those learning projects to the side.

Z has many friends, but few her age that she sees regularly, and none as regularly as children who are in school do. Socialization in public schools is not necessarily all good - many children are very poorly socialized by the public school system - but regular time with friends you choose to spend time with is one of the benefits of a school setting. Again, this is something that we could probably do a bit better about, rather than a shortcoming of homeschooling or unschooling itself.

We generally don't think of these problems as signs that we have chosen an educational method that "doesn't work," any more than the downsides of a job indicate that you are in the wrong career field or any more than having a cheese sandwich is "wrong" because you aren't having a PB&J. Every path has its pros and cons. Some of the challenges we face as unschoolers are ones public school parents might face as well, now or later. Others are unique to our path, but allow us to avoid some big disadvantages of other educational models. Such is life.

We also do have some outlets for our desire for guidance and structure, ways that we moderate and adapt the unschooling journey to our own personalities. We maintain lists of the learning standards used in public schools in Texas so we have a sense of what those kids are covering each year, and challenge ourselves to make sure (although in ways that are largely driven by Z's interest) that she is being exposed to the variety of skills and concepts that are covered in public schools. But one of the key freedoms of unschooling (practiced to a lesser degree by many homeschoolers) is the realization that the sequence and benchmarks of many learning milestones are somewhat arbitrary. It is not that children should not need to learn many of these things; they should. It is not that many of them are not best mastered within a general age range; they are. But a child's interests, if followed, will inevitably mean that your kids are far "ahead" of other kids in some areas and far "behind" them in others, based on their interests.

What are the key advantages that make unschooling the right choice for you?

Our lives are very flexible. We feel that we are active participants in her education and that we are all learning all the time. We experience wonder with her on a regular basis. We get to explain things in fun ways and explore topics with her. We spend a lot of time outside, have a lot of interesting conversations, and are confident that she will not have the desire to learn drummed out of her by mismanaged schooling. We are able to allow her to focus on things she is very interested in and seems to have a natural affinity for, and develop herself deeply in those areas. Peer pressure and conformity are not really issues in her life. We have an intimate knowledge of the things that interest her, and find it interesting to find connections between these things, and to extrapolate from them what kind of person she is and is becoming, in a way that parents less directly involved in their children's education probably aren't. She has no idea that there is even such a thing as a person who thinks (or thinks they think) learning is boring.

The key to unschooling is recognizing that learning happens all the time if we let it, and that children are fantastically enthusiastic about this happening, if it is not drilled out of them by forcing them to "study" things they are not interested in. There are opportunities to learn and to teach at any given moment. When we take a road trip, Z will look at the traveling blue dot on our iPhone's google maps and she's familiarizing herself with map reading, with geography, and with the use of technology. When we go to an art show, Z is learning how to look at art, how to talk about art, how to act in social situations. When she got her ears pierced, Z learned about hygiene, making safe choices, and confronting her fears. We do not sit at home all day each of us doing our own thing. We are out and about and in the world - she is socializing and interacting with people of all ages - from babies to adults and it is natural to her.

Her learning, much like our own learning as adults, ebbs and flows - some days she wants to play with her dollhouse all day but even then, as parents, we must recognize that as valuable time for her to process interpersonal relationships (she is often acting out events that happened in the past through her dolls) and for her to hone her storytelling skills (she talks her way through her play narrating the characters movements and words). We must trust that she will lead us to her interests - that we may throw ideas or subjects into her path and she will pick them up and study them or discard them. Unschoolers trust that their children are interested in learning about the world around them, and see themselves as guides to help children make the most of that innate drive to learn. - Jennifer

Building your friendship with your spouse

2010-04-29T11:30:47-06:00

In my last post I talked about the relationship changes that occur when a baby enters a family. This is an important time for a couple to remember why they were attracted to each other in the first place, and begin to reestablish their "couple-ness."

What makes a good marriage? John Gottman, after studying marriages for over thirty years in his research at the University of Washington, put couples into one of two categories. He called them the Masters and the Disasters. The Disasters were the couples who either got divorced or managed to stay together (often for the sake of the children), but were miserable. The Masters were the couples who stayed together and were relatively happy. And to become a Master required just two things. The Masters of relationships worked on the friendship in their marriage and learned how to regulate the conflict.

One of the concepts that Gottman teaches is that becoming a Master involves a lot of "small things often." Many people think that it’s the big things that impact a marriage - the vacations, the gifts, the large gestures - but these things cannot take the place of the small, daily things that have an impact on our relationships. In light of the need to work on friendship in a marriage, there are several “small things” that you can do to improve your friendship.

The first step in growing your friendship and learning about your partner is beginning to understand the inner psychological world of the other person. To do so, Gottman takes couples through two different types of questions. The first are questions that help you understand the likes and dislikes, thoughts and feelings of your partner. You read a question and then answer it in the way you think your partner would answer. Then you find out if you are correct.

Here are a couple of examples of this type of question: "What is my favorite holiday?" "What kinds of books do I most like to read?” “What do I fear the most?” (You can find many more questions of this type in Gottman's Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work.) This helps couples see where they might have some preconceived ideas about what the other person is thinking or feeling, but actually may be very incorrect.

The second type of question gets to a deeper level of understanding. Open-ended questions are questions that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" answer. Examples of this type of question are "How can I be a better friend to you?" "How have you changed in the last year?" "What are some of your life dreams now?" More examples of these questions can be found in And Baby Makes Three, by John and Julie Gottman.

The whole purpose of these questions is to get beyond the daily grind interactions that most couples have. Spending all of your time talking about issues of childcare, family logistics, chores, schedules, drains your emotional bank account. Spending time together, learning about each other's inner world helps you to create what Gottman calls a "Love Map," and helps to strengthen the friendship - step one in becoming a Master of Relationships.

The other important point in building and maintaining friendship for couples is to learn to express appreciation, affection, and admiration. This is where the "small things often" concept comes into play. It doesn't take much effort to offer a word of praise or a thank you or a touch. So often we ignore the things that are appreciated and criticism becomes the norm in our families. When a couple learns to make this positive perspective a habit, their relationship - and their friendship - grows! But remember, it isn't enough to think the positive thoughts. They need to be expressed, often! This is what the Masters do differently from the Disasters.

In my next post, we'll discuss the second part of Gottman's prescription for stable and successful relationships: Regulating conflict. - Terry

ZRecs Family: How relationships change - and grow - after a new baby

2010-04-16T15:40:00-06:00

A new baby! How exciting! You must be thrilled!

These are the expectations that the world holds when a new baby enters a family. Certainly, these things are (we hope!) true; but they do not tell the whole story. No wonder that many couples are afraid to let others know just how difficult their lives have now become.

In studying couples views of their marriage after a baby entered the family, John Gottman found that 67% of couples reported a decline in relationship satisfaction. For mothers this drop came at about 6 months; for fathers it was more likely to be experienced around the end of the baby's first year. This can be a rather depressing statistic, unless you look at the flipside of that figure. He also found that 33% of the couples did not report that decline. He then began to study the differences in these two groups.

The transition from a couple to a family is a very difficult one. As a twosome, it is easy to just pick up and go to a movie or out with friends. During pregnancy, the focus is on the mother-to-be, with lots of positive attention, gifts, advice and support. When the baby arrives, it can be a time of great joy, but also great change. No matter how much preparation a couple goes through, the changes are still overwhelming.

What usually happens at this point, however, is that couples begin to think that they are somehow not getting it. They think that others must be having a much better time of it and that they are somehow flawed as parents. And who wants to admit to being less than perfect? Couples often argue about things that weren't even on their radar before. Think about all the changes that take place when a baby enters the family (main points summarized from Gottman's "Bringing Baby Home" research and the book And Baby Makes Three):

A profound relationship shift occurs

Here’s a quote from Rajneesh, an Indian mystic:

The moment a child is born the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.

And I would add, so is a Father!

Both the father and mother go through these profound relationship shifts. Before they were sons and daughters; now they are a father or a mother of a helpless newborn. There are many new responsibilities. Often roles become more defined along traditional lines. And life is looked at in new terms - before baby and after baby.

It is very important for couples to work at becoming more of a "we" than two individuals at this time, working on their friendship and closeness. Getting help from family and friends to ensure some time together without focusing on the baby is important. Sharing the bond that this new baby creates is a source of love and joy.

Relationships change

Many couples find that there is increased conflict when a baby arrives. There is much less time for conversation and closeness, including sex, and the relationship can suffer. New parents are often stunned by the sheer amount of work that is involved. They find they have lost the ability to even finish a sentence, much less a normal task!

Here again, getting help in whatever form can help to ease the stressors. But realizing that this change is normal is the most important step toward maintaining relationship satisfaction during this time. Things do get better as the baby gets older and the rewards increase as that new baby begins to interact with you.

Fathers often withdraw

Fathers sometimes find that women are more supported in the parenting role than fathers. Today's fathers often want to be more involved with parenting than the fathers of the past. But sometimes they find it is difficult to stay involved and are only too happy to get back to the working world.

It is important to keep fathers fully involved with their children through this period of time by participating in the feeding, bathing, changing, and mostly playing. Fathers play differently than mothers, in most cases. They are very important and shine in the area of play!

There are physical and psychological changes

There is no question that most new parents are sleep deprived and often under a lot of stress. This can lead to sadness, irritability and depression, at the very time in life when outsiders are expecting you to be overwhelmingly joyful. Sexual desire may decline or disappear. The mother may be nursing, uncomfortable, too tired to think about sex. One or both of the parents may become emotionally unavailable to the other. Sometimes postpartum depression sets in, or a longer-term depression develops. Just the lack of sleep, in and of itself, is enough to bring about depression!

Addressing issues

The most important first step in beginning to understand these changes is to recognize that they are normal and that all couples go through them in some way or another. Beginning to talk to each other and to other friends or family members about some of the changes will ease the feeling of isolation and failure. Just because these feelings arise does not mean that the marriage is in trouble. You will develop a deep love together for this new little being and this will strengthen your bond.

As Gottman put it, "Emotional communication and emotional connection are the keys to success during the transition to parenthood." What can you do to be more emotionally connected to your spouse during this time of "joyous stress?" Remember that keeping your relationship healthy is the first step toward building a strong family!

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet? - Terry

Notes on a five-year-old’s ear piercing

2010-04-15T16:06:27-06:00

Zella had been asking about piercing her ears for about a year now, and we figured it was time to give in, but we were committed to the idea of having it done with a needle at a piercing studio rather than with a piercing gun. We've made our case for professional ear piercing over on Z Recommends, and encourage you to check it out. But what I'd like to talk about here is the experience we had of getting Zella's ears pierced. This is a story of how a five-year-old confronted and overcame her instinctive fear of real and immediate pain, and of our role as parents in helping her to do so.

I have done my best to describe this experience in terms that are true to the emotional journey it entailed for its protagonist. What may look like melodrama to the jaded initiate is, for those at the threshold, simply drama. The ability to willingly withstand pain is the most profound threshold of fear a young child can overcome.

The challenge

When Z was still an infant, Jenni and I had a long discussion about ear piercings, and eventually worked out that we'd allow her to get her ears pierced when she asked for it, and then only after a careful and detailed explanation of what was involved both in the piercing and in aftercare (piercings should be cleaned twice a day for six to eight weeks to prevent infection). We never suggested the idea of piercing her ears to her, or asked her when she was going to do such a thing; to my knowledge, no one else did either.

The first time Z asked, she was four. We explained the process (mark spot, pierce with needle, insert jewelry) and she declared that she would wait until she was six. We said that was fine and didn't bring it up again.

A couple of months ago, she asked again, and again we explained the procedure. This time she said she was ready and that she wasn't going to cry. Cry or not, we could tell that this was a meaningful challenge she was ready to take on.

The setting

Needle piercing means a tattoo parlor and body piercing shop. The only piercing shop in our town refused to pierce the ears of any child under 12, so we did some research and found a piercing studio in Houston that would do it with a consent form. Jenni had a photography conference in Houston last month, so we timed the an appointment for 7:30 on a Thursday evening as we rolled into town for the five-day conference. Zella would get her ears pierced before we even checked into our hotel.

It worked out well but made for a late night. Zella was very excited to have her ears pierced, and of course we had given her all of the information we could to make sure she was making a five-year-old's version of an informed decision. She was very cavalier about the idea of it hurting, but cavalier is how she does brave, so we accepted it as her way of getting through it.

At the studio we met the piercer, a very nice young woman with pierced ears and a row of barbell piercings through the skin at the back of her neck. We picked out a pair of stainless-steel studs to be Zella's starter earrings, which she'd wear for six to eight weeks without taking them out. The earrings themselves are costly - stainless steel, with the back screwing into the post, they start at $25 each for the smallest ones, and go up to $30, $40 and more for those with larger stones. We went for the smallest ones.

The first ear

Zella and Jenni went into a little room with windows with the piercer while I stood outside of it. Zella excitedly chatted up the piercer as she prepared her instruments, charmed everyone, and asked loads of questions. The piercer had an instrument tray, wore gloves, sanitized everything, and had things in sanitized packages for one-time use, like prepping for surgery.

Zella seemed to get a little nervous when the piercer swabbed her ear.

I was petrified, and flashed Jenni comically frightened looks when I knew Zella wasn't looking my way.

Then the woman stuck the needle through one of Zella's ears and into a cork at the other side, then left it hanging there for a minute.

Zella didn't even know she'd been pierced, and asked what the thing hanging from her ear was. But when the piercer took out the needle and put in the earring, Zella flipped out; it probably hurt a little and she finally understood what had happened. She screamed and cried and we had to coax her to calm down enough to let the piercer put the front jewel on the post (stainless steel, with screw threads). But at that moment she announced with complete certitude that she would not be piercing the other ear.

We said that was OK, and that she could have just one pierced ear if she wanted to, but that we would not be coming back for a long time, because if we left without finishing the job we wouldn't think she'd be ready to for a year or more. Which was true. It also costs a lot of money to do this, and I had no interest in coming back to pay once more for not getting the job done. She agreed to think about it while Jenni had her lip ring changed (she has worn a stud for a while and wanted to have a ring put in again, and those are designed to be put in with tools), so she watched and got comfort and attention from myself and the heavily tattooed manager on duty. He offered her gum, which I wish we'd thought of earlier, because that is something we routinely deny her (don't want to start the habit) and she feels it is a very adult thing and a big treat.

Confronting the self

Zella and I went outside for a bit, sat on the steps, and talked about pain, fear, and meeting challenges in our lives. We discussed times when something was hard to do but necessary to achieve a desired outcome, and what it feels like to do something that is hard and even scary to get to that place we want to be.

Every parent who has had to take their child to get a flu shot knows that willfully subjecting yourself to pain or discomfort of any kind is totally alien to a young child, but having the end goal be something Zella had chosen and really wanted for herself helped clarify the issue for everyone and established this as a personal milestone she could (just barely) wrap her mind around. I told her I was proud of her whether she got her second ear pierced or not, and we talked about how much she wanted this.

This from a self-admitted pain wuss. But let's ignore my personal threshold for self-inflicted pain and consider instead something more universal: A father's instinct to protect his daughter from pain and fear. I have that too, and at that point in the evening, sitting on those steps with my anxious, self-searching daughter, it took everything I had to suppress that instinct and encourage her to face the challenge she had set for herself.

I have struggled in the past to explain how our children can force us to grow not just in terms of parenting skills and tactics but as human beings. I don't anymore.

The second ear

By the time Jenni had finished her lip ring change, Zella was once again adamant that she wanted to get the second ear pierced. I tested her resolve, pressing the issue because I didn't want her to get in there and use up more of the piercer's time if she was going to back down. I talked her through the idea that it would hurt as much as the other one had, but she now knew exactly how it would feel and for how long, and what the outcome would be, so she wasn't dealing with unknowns anymore. She was insistent that she was prepared to go through with it.

Zella steeled herself with two more pieces of gum, went back into the little room, this time requesting me as her chaperone, and proceeded to bawl, cower, scream, etc. at every approach by the piercer. At that point we wanted to do our best to help make it happen so she would succeed rather than fail at this personal challenge, so we coaxed and talked her through it. Between plying her with gum, helping her visualize showing off her new earrings and bragging about her bravery, and a desperate offer of a new Zhu Zhu Pet, courage won the day.

Slaying the dragon

I had been wary of letting Zella get her ears pierced. I knew it would make her look even more like a "big girl" than she already does, and it is hard to jump through some of those hoops when you see your child's early childhood slipping by so quickly already. I also wondered about infection and care and was concerned about the pain and whether she was ready for it. I had at one time advocated for making her wait much longer than we even did, as I know some parents do.

But seeing what that experience she chose made her grapple with, how she processed it, and the fact that she triumphed over it, all felt important and meaningful, disturbing and scary in the way that all real growth can be disturbing and scary. It reminds me of tribal rituals that use pain or fear to mark the transition from childhood to adulthood, the details of which would make most Westerners recoil. It also makes me grateful for this sanitized version of such rituals (if you'll forgive the pun) and for having the luxury to expose our children to fear at measured doses and self-selected intervals in a world that is so hard on so many children.

From where I stand now, I couldn't be happier about letting her go through with this, or more proud that she did. As for that "big girl" status, it couldn't have come at a better time. She earned it.

If you're interested in learning why we chose to use a professional piercing studio to have Zella's ears pierced, click that link.

Therapist Terry McNichols' biweekly Thursday column about marriage and family relationships, ZRecs Family, will appear tomorrow. - Jeremiah

Thoughts on Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution”

2010-04-15T02:56:54-06:00

Jeremiah and I are now officially hooked on Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution," and although we love cooking shows ("Iron Chef" and "Top Chef" have been staples in our viewing pantry for years), there's something very different about this show. So much so that we even have our five-year-old daughter watching episodes with us, with interest, on Hulu. (More on that in a minute.) If you haven't heard of Jamie Oliver yet, he's a celebrity chef from England who worked to get the junk food out of British school lunches. Last year he came to America (specifically, to the "most unhealthy city" in America) to try to change how children eat and how their schools and families feed them.

A few things stood out to me in the first few episodes. In one of the more shocking scenes, Oliver held up a variety of vegetables and not one first-grader at the school he had been allowed to make some changes at could name a single vegetable. I'm not talking about showing first graders sea beans or sunchokes, but tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and cauliflower. (They also were unaware that French fries are made from potatoes.) It was pretty eye-opening when Chef Oliver literally compiled (prepared and piled up on the table) a week's worth of the food that one family ate in a week of their regular diet. Beyond the obviousness of this being a nasty pile of junk food, the entire pile was brown in color - there wasn't a red or a purple or a green thing to be seen. He did the same trick at the school to show parents what the kids there ate in a week, and again, it was brown, brown, brown.

In our household we don't put a lot of weight to the food pyramid; instead we try to have a balanced and colorful diet. We also try to buy in season as much as we can, so that means that we don't always get red in the winter (for instance) but over the course of the year, we try to hit all the colors of the rainbow as often as we can.

After Jeremiah and I had watched it, I thought it about some of the questions it raised for days. Would Z be able to name the vegetables? (None of us really like cauliflower so she probably wouldn't know that...) What would the primary color of our weekly food intake look like if we piled it all on our table? (I can't afford to waste that much food but maybe we can experiment in a different way.) What are we doing to our children to raise them without knowing how to use a knife and a fork? (In England, Oliver said, teachers help the kids in the lunchroom learn how to use utensils - an idea that felt radical and obvious at the same time at a school that had as policy preferred food that required a spoon or better yet, no utensils at all.) What does this say for etiquette in our country? Or for the types of food we choose to eat?

Later that weekend, I took Z to a garden shop to buy some seeds for our garden, and we looked at all the different kinds of seeds and young plants - melons, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, peas, lettuce - and picked some out. (Last summer, Z stood at the tomato plants and picked the cherry tomatoes off the plant - more of them ended up in her belly than in our basket!) As we looked at the seeds, I talked to Z about the show and later, we decided to let her watch it. She was surprised at the brownness of the food, at the lack of knives and forks (and children's inability to use them) in the lunchroom - she has been proudly learning to use a "sharp knife" to help us cook - and at the inability of the other children to identify vegetables.

We think exposing her to this kind of information is important to her knowledge about food and health. If we shield her from the side effects of our junk and fast food country then what happens when she goes to college and doesn't have that information? Will she fall into the eating habits of her peers? Or even earlier than that - what happens when she is pressured or ostrasized by her peers for drinking green smoothies or preferring water to soda or for her love of sushi or fruit or oatmeal?

Little by little, if we can teach her to value her food - to value the resources that nurtured the plant while it grew and the people who grew it, to recognize the difference between an in-season, ripe tomato and the tasteless blob of red that poses as a tomato in the December grocery aisle, to treasure the health of her body and to nurture it by making healthy, colorful food choices - then maybe she will grow up outside of this brown, fast food America. Maybe she - and others like her - will be able to change the system, support the farmers and the earth and live and grow in health. And maybe she will teach me to instinctively reach for an orange when I need a snack or to satisfy my crunching need with carrots or dried cherry tomatoes instead of chips and salsa, and I'll be healthier too.

Jeremiah and I both highly recommend the show, and showing it to kids, too. There is a lot to it, even more than just info on healthier eating - watching the ways Oliver goes about doing community organizing as a chef, the way he tackles the project from various angles at once, and the way he personalizes the issues involved are all fascinating and inspiring.

Since then, we've planted about twenty tomato plants (mostly cherry tomatoes), a dozen pepper plants, and lettuce and spinach, plus peas, beans, melons, squash, and a few things I'm probably forgetting. Come on, color!

For further info on the state of school lunches (and to learn about other people who have been tirelessly working on changing the system for years) see the links below:

Jamie's Food Revolution: Sign his petition!

Let's Move

Fed Up With School Lunch

Chef Ann Cooper: The Renegade Lunch Lady

The Edible Schoolyard

School Lunch: Subtract the Additives

You can watch episodes online for yourself here. Bon appetit! - Jennifer

Five research-based steps to greater happiness

2010-04-09T22:30:22-06:00

The answers are pretty simple. It's making them habits that's hard.

Here's the shortlist, but it's really his delivery and the details he provides that make it all sound so simple.

Accept painful emotions as a part of life.

Spend more uninterrupted, non-multitasked time with people who love and support you.

Exercise.

Cultivate gratitude.

Simplify.

I specifically like the emphasis on how #4 needs to be ritualized and not just "understood" in the abstract. I grew up in a religious family and am a "more spiritual than religious" adult. The loss of prayer is, even from an agnostic's perspective, a real loss in the sense that it deprives a person of a regular engagement in reflecting on things to be grateful for. - Jeremiah

ZRecs Family: Expectations

2010-04-02T03:05:06-06:00

I wrote in my last post about how your view of the world impacts your relationships. You learn a way of being in your family of origin (the family you grew up in) and you and your partner both came from entirely different families. Even if you think you have a lot in common, it is soon apparent that differences in expectations can cause you a lot of pain and conflict. Today I'd like to talk about three common expectations that can give us trouble in our relationships.

1. The Happiness Expectation

One of the expectations that we often bring to a relationship is that marriage, or another person, will make us happy. I long ago framed an old cover copy of LIFE magazine, in which one half showed the wife lounging in bed being served breakfast on a tray by her adoring spouse. The other half of the cover showed the spouse, also lounging in bed being served breakfast by his adoring spouse! I am sure that I found this particularly enduring because of some of my own unfulfilled expectations. We expect the behavior of our partner to bring us happiness. For example, I fully assumed that my husband would be the one to handle the trash in our family. My father always took care of that chore in my family or origin. I assumed that taking out the trash was equal to an act of love. My husband, however, had a different idea. His mother took care of the trash and he considered it women's work. We battled that difference for many years before finally reaching peace. We still both try to pass off the task to the other, but we don't any longer make the same assumptions as to who owns the problem.

This idea that we our happiness depends on another person's behavior is a troublemaker. Happiness begins as an inside job and expecting your partner to fulfill all your needs will only lead to frustration – and unhappiness! I spent my early married years waiting for my husband to bring me flowers. That is not the way he shows me love and when I realized that, I began to buy myself flowers.

2. The Change Expectation

Another expectation that causes problems is assuming that your partner will change after you are married. If you don't like the package prior to the wedding day, don't assume that you can bring about change. I will admit that change does happen in response to each other in a relationship. Sometimes it’s changes we want; other times it’s changes we didn’t expect. But assuming that you will be the change agent in forming your partner into the perfect man or woman of your dreams is sheer fantasy.

Barbara Streisand said, "Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits and then complain that he's not the man she married?" This is not a funny joke. Many people, when asked what they saw initially in their spouse, will produce a list of qualities and behaviors that were once endearing. Often these are the same qualities or behaviors now topping their complaint list! Perhaps your partner was spontaneous and fun loving. In later years, that might translate into "unpredictable" and "irresponsible." Or maybe you were serious and down-to-earth, only to hear now that you are "no fun," and "too boring." Beginning to accept your partner "as-is" is the beginning of a healthy relationship. We are often attracted to a person who is very different from us or our family and then spend a lifetime trying to make that person more like us!

3. The Peace-At-All-Costs Expectation

Many of us came from families where conflict was avoided at all costs. In those families, it is considered taboo to bring up topics that will cause anyone to become even the slightest bit upset. In other families, yelling and arguing are considered the norm and are not upsetting. Isn't it interesting that we seem to gravitate to someone who is the opposite of what we are accustomed to? Often the two types will marry and before long will wonder why there is such a disagreement in how arguments are solved. But the expectation that everything will always be smooth and that disagreements won't need to be worked out is also a poor start to a relationship.

Recognizing that these expectations exist is a good starting place for understanding why it is that two people who started out thinking that their relationship was perfect, find out soon enough that there is work to be done to make the relationship last!

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet? - Terry

ZRecs Family: Improving relationships sometimes means examining your world view

2010-03-18T12:00:46-06:00

When my husband and I were engaged to be married (40 years ago this month!), we were required by our church to have several sessions of pre-marital counseling. The pastor who counseled us was an older, single man. He asked us how we handled conflict. I answered, "That's easy! We fight and fight and fight and then I cry and he gives in!" I was dead serious. The pastor suggested that perhaps we weren't ready to get married and should put off our decision until we had worked out better ways to solve our conflicts.

Being all-wise at the age of 21, we were quite sure that this pastor, having never been married, couldn't possibly know what was best for us and had no right to tell us we weren't ready for marriage. Besides, our method was working quite nicely (for me at least), so we ignored his comments and proceeded to use this very method of conflict resolution for the next 6 or 8 years. I was the master of the long pout and could hold out for several days, if necessary, to get my way. My husband, himself a conflict avoider, wasn't happy with the outcome at times, but since his goal was to keep me happy at all costs, this method worked for him as well. We would kiss and make up and have great make-up sex!

A funny change happened about 8 or 10 years into our marriage however. At some point, my tears stopped moving my husband to give in, and we gradually realized that our methods weren't getting either of us any satisfaction. We began the long process of learning to fight fairly, learning to negotiate, learning to look at the possibility that we might both have a valid point in any given situation. Many methods, books, counselors, retreats, friends helped us along the way. I plan to bring some of those ideas to you in later posts, but today I want to talk about how my own world view changed.

We establish our world view in our family of origin (the family we grew up in) and usually don't realize that we are acting out of that world view. My world view was that the most important thing about an argument was being "right." If I wasn't "right" then my whole belief system began to crumble around me. I needed to be "right" to prove that I was a loveable, "okay" human being. If I was "wrong," then there must be something fatally flawed about me. Many of us suffer from this black and white thinking.

One of the most important changes you can make in your relationship is to begin to accept the fact that your partner's position on a given subject has equal validity to your own and that there is a possibility that you are both "right." For example, you might assert that the "way" to get to the grocery store is by taking certain streets, making sure that all of your turns are left turns. Your partner, however, may choose a route that goes past some familiar landmark and assert that this is the correct route. Is there a "right" way to get to the grocery store? Obviously, this is a simple example, and many far-more-complex examples abound in any relationship. What is the "right" way to discipline your child? Or the "right" way to clean the kitchen? Or the "right" way to celebrate a holiday? Or the "right" way to spend or save your money?

When I began to accept that both my husband and I had valid points in a disagreement, our relationship began to grow. I began to understand that we could both hold different ideas at the same time and both be "right." I began to look at the world as a place where not only black and white exists, but many colors and shades in between.

Think of some areas where you might be willing to consider your partner's point of view and begin to change the way you see the world!

Terry McNichols is a Marriage and Family Therapist who also blogs at Grace and Gravity and Are We There Yet? - Terry