First Article About Marriage and Parenting:

Life Coach Online Counseling: From a Better Parent to a Better Husband
L. contacted me for an Online Counseling relief and Relationship Advice session. She had reached a point in her relationship with her husband where she was just completely and thoroughly frustrated with him and the situation she found herself in. “My husband made the decision for me to quit my job based on the cost of daycare vs. my teaching salary. Also the fact that he did not want to have to dress and take them to daycare in the morning influenced his decision as well.” She began. “Now that he is the only one providing income he believes that everything concerning the house and kids is my responsibility.”

I listened to L. very intently as she describe her situation. I wanted to make sure I was in fact getting the whole picture before I jumped to any conclusions regarding her relationship and her partner. As a Psychologist I could not offer constructive advice that would allow her to build her relationship if I went in looking at the situation with any prejudices. L. went on to describe a scene similar to a TV show of the 40’s and 50’s. The ones where the father had a job and the mother took care of the house and kids. There is of course nothing wrong with this type of relationship and family setting “if” it’s what both partners desire. As a practical Life Coach, it was apparent however, as L. continued describing her situation, that she was not happy and that it was most definitely not what she wanted.

“We were fighting every night about who had to do the dishes or bathe the kids. I got tired of the bickering and didn't want the kids to hear us arguing over who "had" to give them a bath...so I came up with a schedule for every day of the week alternating dishes or bath. Each of us does one of these tasks while the other does the other and it alternates every night. It was fine for a few weeks...but now we are back to him saying that he does not understand why he has to give them a bath ever or do dishes. He should be able to come home, take a nap and play with the kids but that is where he believes his part of parenting responsibilities stops.” She paused here sighing in obvious exasperation then continued. “I have tried to explain to him that I need a little bit of down time too. Otherwise I was giving baths, getting kids in bed and doing dishes (and packing his lunches-another requirement) and not even sitting down until 9 while he is on the couch at 7. How do I get him to see that I “AM” busy during the day and that I deserve his help and to rest in the evenings too? What do I do to keep the peace and also get help? I feel like a single parent!”

L. did clarify one thing for me when I asked her about it. I was curious as to their partnership in taking care of the children on the weekends. “He gets mad if I leave him for even an hour with both kids awake in the evening or on the weekend. He expects me to take them both to the grocery store rather than letting me go when he is home....even though he would NEVER dream of taking them both with him.” At this point looking at the situation I had to agree with L. She was very much like a single parent who had a live-in part-time babysitter. I assured L. that I could certainly understand her frustration. “Whoever still holds traditional 19th century view of parental roles is either blind or just mistaken” I advised L.

I have no simple one line Relationship Advice to offer, I said, but through Marriage Counseling you both should certainly be able to remedy the situation. A structured guidance and counseling program along a 2-3 months period should allow you to do that, I informed her.

These are the three themes of the program:
A. Attitude change: how do you value and assess each other’s strengths and abilities; life aspirations; family and parenting and challenges.
B. Acquiring the right child rearing practices and parenting style(s): how each parent can and should react and contribute to the children; what are the appropriate parental and gender role models?
C. Enriching marital communication, relationship, sexuality and mutual emotional growth.

Do not give up, I said; you both have a lot of work to do, but I’m sure you can handle it and even enjoy it. Since marriage is a reciprocal chain of behaviors, there are a lot of actions and behaviors that you could do that have the power to trigger your husband to transform his attitudes and parental style. Lead him to learn to enjoy his kids and help you both to enjoy each other in the process!

Second Article About Marriage and Parenting:

Leadership At Home Via Online Counseling

Question:
There are tough times in our family due to tension between us, the parents, and our two teen aged kids. They are less and less obeying the house rules. We do not want to go to formal family therapy sessions; we heard that Online Counseling could be effective enough. Can we get help to maintain our childrens' discipline?

Answer:
We can miss very quickly the point once we concentrate on the issue of obedience and discipline. It is, many times, a remedy for a failure, to pinpoint and zoom onto the children’s side, and dealing with THEIR defiant behavior. We definitely can use the Online Counseling process to deal with your value system first. This will help to tern the question away from the issue of controlling the kids to the challenge of developing the right parental style(s) in order to educate,  guide and lead them.

For that purpose I recommend you to take a look at YOUR end, and re-asses the nature of your parental authoritative power.

Forget the …‘I’m your parent and therefore you do so and so because I say so’… stuff. It belongs to old days that are far gone. No parent should trust that method to work well and for a long time, as it used to be. It is your problem if you tend to stick to it. If so, parents, you better wake up. We are at the 21st century. The Online Counseling guidance process deals with issue in a most successful way.

The term of LEADERSHIP is called for.

The essence of leadership, in short, is the ability to build trust that creates sustained loyalty for you. It is also the process of influencing others to adopt and follow your directions and ideas. You, the parents, can be so and do so through modeling and relationship building.

No, your home is not the political arena, but yes, parents should develop and maintain their leadership position if they want their children to follow their guidelines and their house rules. And please note: leading is not ruling! Parents who are their kids’ leaders tend to worry less regarding the intensity of obedience that they have established and more about the charismatic bonds that they should create. They do not base their expectation on their children’s fear from punishment but on their kids’ decision to maintain their loyalty to their parents.

Since leadership is built through modeling and relationship building, I’ll first explain the concept of modeling:
‘Leading by example’ or ‘walk your talk’ is modeling. And you can check yourselves and your parenting style:
- do you, the parents, involve your kids with family budget planning and spending? This is an opportunity to model financial awareness and responsibility.
- Do you expose them to the various ways you choose to refrain from substances while socializing? This models them a decision making process regarding values and cultural norms.

Smart parents, therefore, choose to act wherever they are as if they are with their kids, who are constantly watching them. This awareness for your role as a model strengthens your ability, as parents, to use the powerful method of modeling. The Online Counseling process is doing the teaching job here: shows you how to show them the ‘how you do’ before you expect them to do.


Finally, a few words about Relationship building: an on-going process that requires RECOGNITION and REWARDING.

The ‘recognition’ term:
suppose your kids want to go to a certain activity that does not seem appropriate to you. Recognition means, in such a case, that you acknowledge their needs before you band their wish. It also means that you appreciate their gains if they would be able to attend and you are aware of their feeling of loss if at the end they would have to give up.

‘Rewarding’ does not necessarily lead parents to their pockets… Rewarding may be a warm ward, a comforting gesture, a thank you note or just an eye to eye look that reviles your wish to pay attention. And by the way: when was the last time that you forward one of those goodies to your kids? So here is another reason to get assistance: use the Online Counseling process to discuss and practice the 'do' and the 'do not' regarding rearding your kids.


So now, dear parents, I can finally conclude my answer:
Online Counseling is a very powerful tool to re-structure parenting style(s) by choosing the proper activities and behaviors that would bring your children to perceive you as their leading figures.

Another way to phrase it: depend on their acceptance and loyalty to the guidelines, not their obedience to you.