family relationships

A Parenting Crisis: My child has accessed violent pornographic stories online!! – From panic to thoughtful realignment of the parenting role.

Jenny Brown Blog, Family, Parenting, Relationships , , , , , ,

A panicked mother discovers that her 12 year old daughter is writing stories with some sexually graphic and violent descriptions. How could this be? Has she been abused in some way? How do I approach her about it? The tumult of questions in response to this parenting shock point is seemingly endless for this parent. Understandably so!

After some distressed mother- daughter discussions it emerged that various internet sites had targeted her daughter through her social media use. Over a period of months the invitations to engage in written responses to the narratives and pictures had become increasingly graphic. It left this mother feeling naïve and ignorant of such targeted, grooming processes that are part of the internet age our children are swimming in.

What do you think is an appropriate response for this parent? (Aside from legal reporting of activity online that is unsafe for children.)

When I chatted with this mother I suggested that she start by clarifying what her response would be if her daughter wanted to hang out with a group of strangers. This was to reduce the extent of panic that was crowding her clear thinking. She was able to be clear about her principles in response to this hypothetical –

*No mixing with people that the parents had not met and gotten to know, *No socialising without adequate adult supervision, *Being interested in who these people were and how it was that their paths had crossed, *displaying curiosity, and caring principles rather than panicked confusion.

From this more thoughtful base it was possible for this mother to apply the same concerned curiosity to understanding the back story of her daughter’s exposure to these harmful online sites. She reported that while her daughter was initially distraught and defensive, her parental concerned but calm investigation cut through the reactivity. She wasn’t interrogating her daughter but acknowledging that she had not been the kind of guiding parent that she wanted to be for her children – to be a loving boundary setter and guide in the rapidly expanding realm of online relating.

When in a panicked state at the initial discovery, this mother’s entire energy went into imagining the awful possibilities for her child and think about devastating effects on her child’s development: “My child has been disturbed for life!!!” Her focus was anxiously focused on rescuing her daughter and getting all the external fixing help she could muster. This started with asking the school counsellor for a referral to have her child assessed (which is how we ended up talking together – I never saw her daughter).

When she recovered some thinking space she could regain a focus on her parenting principles. She could acknowledge her part in not being adequately in the loop about her daughter’s computer use and ‘virtual’ interactions. If it had been the real world of socialising she knew she would have been better informed about her children’s activities. Rather than beat herself up about this she clarified how she would need to add some extra responsibilities to her parenting job description. She conveyed her loving re-commitment to being a wise supportive parent in a changing world. This is such a different process to anxiously lecturing or ‘therapising’ her daughter. She reached out to her spouse and parenting partner to help her to process her shock and allowed him to talk through his own shocked response. While both had their distinctive reactions to work through they each came to acknowledge that parenting was a learning process that required some regular re- thinking. What did they each want to tweak about their parent leadership in the changing phases of their children’s lives?  They weren’t going to get it right all the time but would be able to recover their wisdom if they didn’t become fearfully focused on their child.

There were encouraging outcomes from this concerning episode for this parent.  She was able to tolerate the period of her daughters distress and angry defensiveness and stay in calm contact. She was able to demonstrate to her daughter that she loved her and was committed to being appropriately informed and protective of her as she was learning to navigate the early stages of adolescence. She was able to share the basis of her concerns about having relationships and sex conveyed in distorted, ugly ways. From this she opened up conversations with her daughter about what she thought was positive social media input and what was ‘rubbish’ input.  Opportunities arose for her to share how she had confronted different kinds of confusing and distorted relationship experiences during her own growing up years. They could think together about different levels of safe and unsafe communications and information.  She was able to work out with her husband some clear guidelines for computer and internet use – regular involvement in online interactions and devices in living rooms not bedrooms.

This mother’s story is such a clear comparison between thoughtful parenting and fear driven parenting in this radically changing technological age. Fear takes parents away from embodying their own role – it focuses anxiously on the child which easily contributes to the child’s distant defensiveness – which in-turn reinforces the parent’s worry.  Fear also drives parents to over-depend on external experts to search for evidence of developmental damage, then in turn to diagnose and treat the child. In contrast, the thoughtful parent focuses on their job description when faced with a child’s challenging episode. They figure out what they want to convey about their commitment to their child’s good and how they are going to action this. They are not swayed by initial reactive protests but persevere towards their guidance goal. A parent who recovers their leadership when facing a challenging revelation about their child’s experience is a parent who can grow through such predicable episodes. In response a child gradually grows more respect for their parent and learns to open up to them in order to access their wise support.

Interventions and Confrontations – REPOST

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Interventions and Confrontations – Are they the most helpful ways to respond to severe problems in a person we care for?

Because I view a person’s symptoms as part of their system of relationships I now focus on expressing my own position in the relationship rather than focus on the problems in the other. 

Last week a relative called me to talk through their ideas for an “intervention”. They wanted to challenge a friend to admit to their symptoms and agree to get some professional help. I appreciated the deep care behind this request. I heard about how a long term friend had been exhibiting increasingly severe symptoms that were threatening many aspects of their wellbeing. I was happy to be a sounding board for my relative and to share some of my principles for communicating such important concerns to someone we care about. The term ‘intervention’ usually refers to the effort to gather a group of people together and confront a person about their need for help. It is often used in the case of serious drug and alcohol dependence. Web sites on how to do interventions describe the context:

People with serious addictive behaviours are often in denial that they have a problem. When heart to heart talks and other attempts to help prove ineffective, you can join forces with friends, families and a professional interventionist to confront the person with the truth and a detailed plan of action.

Many years ago I was a participant in such a strategy and experienced a long term fall out in the relationship as the years progressed. In more recent years I have come to a different view of such strategies. Because I view a person’s symptoms as part of their system of relationships I now focus on expressing my own position in the relationship rather than focus on the problems in the other. Here are the key principles – some of which I shared with my relative:

  • The goal is to express to the other that they are important in my life as opposed to challenging how they are living their life.
  • Rather than confront the other with the problems in their life – which evokes intense defensiveness – I want to express my wish to have them as part of my life well into the future.
  • In conveying my care for having them as a living and important part of my life I will share some of the observations I have had that have triggered my concern.
  • I use the language of “I” rather than “You” in describing what I have observed and what fears for their wellbeing have been activated.
  • I describe the effects on me and our relationship and how this is different to the strong loving bond I am committed to as we continue as part of each other’s lives. This is different to describing my view of the effects on their life – positioning self as the expert overseer of another’s life can be heard as patronising and drive a wedge into the relationship.
  • I aim to talk one on one with the person rather than pull a group together to confront them. A group confrontation easily leaves a person feeling ganged up on.
  • I commit to ongoing contact with the person to show that my care for them is more than words. I don’t expect that just a conversation will change anything. I am committed to addressing my part in any unhelpful aspects of the relationship pattern over the long haul. This means I will not resort to distancing.
  • I will be truthful and not accommodating but my effort at honesty will be from my perspective and principles rather than a dogmatic declaration that I am an expert about the other. My effort towards speaking honestly will be grounded in real examples not in my subjective judgements and opinion.
  • I will watch my tendencies to be an expert about others rather than staying mindful of my own immaturities. I will stay clear of treating another person as a ‘diagnosis’ but rather will view them as a fellow human being who can be an important resource in my life.
  • If I were to focus on just a diagnosis in another it is all too easy to hand them over to an expert program as a way of reducing my own sense of distress- and my responsibility to work on myself in relationship with the other.

I appreciate that it isn’t easy to know how to address serious concerns about another’s life course or symptoms. Are there exceptions? I certainly conveyed to my relative that they know their relationship with their friend and will find their own way to deal with it best. Every situation is different and there may be occasions when a more direct intervention is the most caring thing another can do. At certain times it may be most loving to call in an emergency assessment service. Even in such cases I would aim to be transparent about my willingness to do this if I ever thought that my loved one’s safety or those of another were under threat.

My view is that a group or individual confrontation of another is almost never constructive. It sets up a one- up/one- down relationship where the person feeling challenged is evoked into high reactivity rather than being able to listen. They hear judgement rather than heart-felt concern. They can be fixed into the postion of a ‘patient’ in their relationship system. My system’s lens reminds me that people get into vulnerable symptomatic places in life via their position in their relationship/family systems. This means that if I change how I relate in that system I can contribute to a less regressive and anxious field for the most vulnerable person.

Bowen on confrontation in a family system:

ON CONFRONTING FAMILY MEMBERS

‘As an oldest son and physician I had long been the wise expert preaching to the unenlightened, even when it was done in the guise of expressing an opinion or giving advice….During my psychoanalysis there was enough emotional pressure to engage my parents[others] in an angry confrontation…At the time I considered these confrontations to be emotional emancipation. There may have been some short term gain…but the long term result was an intensification of previous patterns.”

Family Therapy in Clinical practice P 484

ON RELATING TO A PERSON IN THE SICK ROLE

‘In those families in which both parents could eventually tone down the sickness theme and relate to the ‘patient’ on a reality level, the ‘patient’ changed. After one family had emerged from their unreality, the ‘patient’ said, “As long as they called me sick and treated me sick, I somehow had to act sick. When they stopped treating me sick, I had a choice of acting sick or acting well.”’

P 86 ‘Interventions and Confrontations’ – Jenny Brown

Adopting a research attitude to your life in your significant relationships: a template to guide you

Jenny Brown Blog, Bowen theory, Family, Family of Origin, Family Systems Theory, Relationships , , , , ,

Dr Murray Bowen wrote, “A goal of this therapy is to help the other make a research project out of life” (Bowen, 1978, p. 179). What do you think of this as a counselling goal? – Not to fix, but to motivate a person’s learning journey about themselves in their family system. Nurturing a posture of curiosity through gathering as many facts about your family challenges and life course as possible is a worthy effort in growing a more aware and resilient self.

The personal research project below has been developed by a teaching psychologist in Washington DC, Dr John Millikin. It appears with his permission in the Appendix of the second edition of my book: Growing Yourself Up. I think it is a helpful template for learning to understand self in the bigger picture of one’s family of origin. It is a very different direction to the conventional mental health approach to focussing on symptoms. My own experience in life and clinical practice is that the effort to gather data about family is much more productive than investing in “fixing” effort directed at an individual or a relationship. Paradoxically the bigger picture approach can actually result in sustainable reduction of symptoms.

Perhaps you might like to begin your own family systems research project using the example below as a springboard. It requires a patient effort over time but may be one of the most growth enhancing projects you will undertake:

Another example of an excellent self -research template is:

Appendix 6

An overview of human development across the lifespan from a Bowen family systems perspective

A learning project for individuals and academic groups. Adapted from curriculum developed by John Millikin, PhD, LMFT, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Human Development.

Cast of family and important people

  • Referring to the attached guideline in Appendix 5, construct your family diagram.
  • List other significant (positive or negative) friends, family friends and professionals such as therapist, lawyers, clergy.
  • Name other important or influential people.

Nodal events (births, deaths, illness, leaving home, marriages, divorces)

  • What were the nodal personal events that happened?
    • How did you respond to them? How did other key family members respond to them?
    • What were other nodal family events that happened?
    • How did you respond to them?
    • How did other key family members respond to them?
    • Describe any change in you and the family as a result of nodal events.
    • What were the family circumstances around the time of your birth? (Answer in the appropriate phase)
    • What was leaving home like for you? How old and under what circumstances? (Answer in the appropriate phase)
    • What was leaving home like for your parents? How old and under what circumstances? (Answer with the question above)

Stressors

  • What were general personal stressors (e.g., money, work, relationships, friends, school, sports)?
  • What were general stressors for others in the family?
  • What were significant stressors in the extended family?
  • Rate the intensity of stress and emotion in the family from 1–10.

Other changes and emotional events

  • Describe any abrupt changes personally and in the family.
  • Were there legal issues?
  • Were there sudden or chronic illnesses?
  • Were there episodes of abusive behavior?
  • If so, what were they?
  • Were there infidelities?
  • Describe any other extreme behaviors or events.

 

The Family Emotional Unit Relationship System

The primary triangle (parents/self)

  • How emotionally close did you feel to each parent? (Answer on a 1–10 scale)
  • How were you involved with each parent? (Also think in terms of conflict, distance, over- and under-functioning/involvement)

How were they involved with each other? (Also think in terms

of conflict, distance, over- and under-functioning/involvement)

»»Who did you take sides with more? (Your common triangle position)

»»Did you help one parent in difficulties with the other? How?

»»Who generally gave you positive attention? How much?

»»Who generally gave you negative attention? How much?

»»Who gave you approval? How much?

»»Who did not provide attention or approval?

»»What was each parent’s involvement like with their own parents (briefly)?

Siblings and sibling position

  • How was your sibling position and functional role in the family different?
  • How did sibling/s relate to you?
  • Were you or any sibling over-focused on? Labeled as a problem?
  • How did this affect your interactions (or perception of your sibling/s)?

General family emotional process (nuclear and extended)

  • Describe major conflicts in the family (blaming, criticism, hostility).
  • Who was involved and what was it about?
  • Describe major distance(ing) in the family.
  • Who was involved and what was it about?
  • Describe major cut-offs in the family.
  • Who was involved and what was it about?
  • Describe major over- and under-functioning in the family (imbalanced taking care of or being taken care of).
  • Who was involved and what was it about?
  • Describe major over- and under-involvement in the family.
  • Who made important decisions?

Together and separate

  • Who was closest to whom in the family?
  • Could you be alone for long periods of time?
  • Could you be together with significant others for long periods of time?
  • How were you responsible for other family members?
  • Did other people get involved in your problems? How?
  • Who would typically bail you out of difficulties? Relationship difficulties?
  • Who were you most dependent on? (How would you scale it from 1–10?)

Feelings, reactivity and sensitivities

  • What were you anxious about?
  • How did you work with it?
  • What were others anxious about?
  • Did anyone worry about you? Who?
  • Who did you worry about?
  • What did you typically get reactive about?
  • What were you sensitive about?
  • What were some of the labels made about you?
  • Who said those?
  • Describe the basic impact of labels.
  • Did any family members think poorly of you?
  • Did any family members not pay enough attention to you?
  • Who got the most attention in the family?
  • Were you able to meet key family members’ expectations?
  • Did you feel you were a disappointment to others?
  • Were others upset with you or you with them? Did you feel responsible for their upset?
  • Who else was generally upset with whom?
  • How did you regulate and work with emotions? Go to someone? Cope by yourself?
  • Describe any other emotionally challenging events or interactions?

Medical, health and addictions

  • List any medical/health issues and major health issues for all family members. Did you have unhealthy habits, addictions?
  • Did any member have unhealthy habits, addictions?
  • Were there developmental issues for you or anyone in your family?
  • Were there any (standard) psychological issues or diagnoses?
  • Who showed more symptoms/disrupted behaviors? What were they?

 

Autonomy, Effectiveness, Principles and Defining a Self

Autonomy and acts of self

  • List areas of self-directed activities/pursuits.
  • What were self-directed activities not necessarily chosen or supported by others?
  • How much autonomy did you have in achieving goals?
  • Did you generally have space to be yourself with others?
  • How open were you with others about your core thoughts and
  • beliefs?
  • Did parents and siblings have a good sense of direction?

Personal and interpersonal effectiveness

  • How did you respond to the personal challenges in your adolescence and leaving home phase? To what effect?
  • How was the family a resource for you in meeting your challenges?
  • What were your talents? How were they connected to family?
  • How effective were family members in meeting challenges, especially parents?
  • What did the family do well as a group?
  • What did the family do well in encouraging autonomy?

Principles and defining self

  • How could you have functioned better in this growing up phase?
  • What do you see now as your responsibilities to yourself during this phase?
  • How can you have taken better responsibility with significant others?
  • If you could now change something about self in this phase, what would it be?
  • What were some the guiding principles involved in your interactions?

REPOST FROM THE FSI – Our Dog and our Family Systems

Jenny Brown Blog, Family, Family of Origin , , , , , , ,

This blog began as a casual conversation in the kitchen at our office between Lily Mailler and Jenny Brown.  It was prompted by the site of Lily’s golden Labrador sitting in the back of her car for over an hour while Lily was working. She was sitting quietly and calmly on her blanket with a breeze cooling her through a partly open window. Lily had organised for her to be picked up by a family member some time that afternoon.

Jenny:  “Lily, I was quite struck to see your Labrador sitting so patiently in the back seat of your car. Two things struck me.  Firstly I can’t imagine my cocker spaniel Hendrix sitting so calmly knowing I was in the building and secondly, I can’t imagine myself being comfortable leaving him confined for an hour or so.  I would be working in the office with an ear out for his wining.  Neither of us would be as calm as you and your dog!  What do you make of this?”

Lily: “Yes, I have observed that my dog Bella has less separation anxiety than other dogs I know, for example she comes with me to the beach every morning and I tie her to a post at the surf club whilst I swim and do my thing, she does not whinge or bark like other dogs that are also tied up and waiting for their owners to come back. I think though that she does have a level of sensitivity to me, for example I have observed that she watches me intently whilst I swim and refuses to walk with someone she does not know when I am around.  I agree with Dr Bowen that no one is totally free from the sensitivity and attachment, I kid myself when I think that I am not disproportionately attached to my dog, recently I have found myself feeling a sense of panic when she did not bark at my arrival at home and found myself rushing outside to see if she is ok. , I believe her hearing is not as sharp as it used to be”

Bella came into my life at a time when I was too preoccupied with making a living and surviving.  I did not particularly want a dog as I felt that it would be another demand upon me. My eldest son and his girlfriend got the dog and they assured me that they would be responsible for it, of course things did not work out that way, they broke up, my son left to work in the Whitsundays and I was left with the dog. I learnt to love Bella but I made sure she was not to be another imposition on me, by making a conscious effort to be clear about what I would and would not put up with from her. I believe that as a consequence she is not demanding and she knows I am top dog. The kids do not understand how come she is so loving and obedient to me when I do not show her the level of attention they show her.

Jenny– “Isn’t it interesting to think about what else is going on in our family’s at the time a dog enters?  Hendrix came along at a time when I was adjusting to adult children leaving home?  There is no doubt that he filled something of a void for me in terms of being needed and enjoying my attentions.  We have certainly developed reciprocity of sensitivity to each other. He is so alert to me giving attention to our older dog.  Our much older dog was quite self sufficient and non- demanding.  I agree with you that our pets are a part of our family emotional process.  After all emotional process is what we humans share in common with lower life forms…the limbic part of our brain that is instinctual rather than making thoughtful decisions. The position they occupy has a lot to do with what is happening with shifts in other relationships.

Lately I have been working on being a bit more functionally differentiated (less fused) and more thoughtful about my responsibilities as owner/pack leader with Hendrix.  May be seeing your calm with Bella and Bella’s calm with you, is an additional bit of a wakeup call for me?!  I had been coming to realise that I was to some degree drawing from Hendrix’s attentiveness and affection to steady myself during a time of change in our family.  I’ve been focussing more on being a leader to him—not letting him jump on our bed, or walk in front of me, or come through the door first.  He’s becoming a much calmer dog as a result.  Ironically I can enjoy him more when I’m not so wrapped up in him.  This sounds similar to what you observe with your relationship with Bella in contrast to your children.

I’ve been wondering if those of us who are vulnerable to a disproportionate child focus are also prone to a more fused projection onto their pets …especially when children are less present in our lives?  I can also see how Hendrix can be part of a triangle in my marriage.

Lily- “ My capacity to stay in my own skin with Bella does not mean that I have the same type of reciprocity with my children, I actually was so focused on my kids that there was less of the focus left for Bella and I believe that as a result she has functioned much better than all others in my immediate family system. It is interesting to note that Bella has not had any physical symptoms during the 9 years of her life but for the odd tick she has picked up from the bushes. It makes me wonder about how the relationship variables expressed in levels of sensitivity may be important predictors of her good health, besides her biological predispositions.  Her brother, who belongs to another member of my extended family, has had a number of physical ailments. There is plenty in the writings of Bowen and Kerr around this issue although the evidence is not conclusive”

Jenny– “ I’ve heard an very interesting presentation at a Bowen Centre conference on triangles and domestic dogs, presented by  Professor Barbara Smutts, University of Michigan.  She studies the dynamics of social relationships in dogs (and other social mammals) by observing video-taped interactions in fine detail, using frame-by-frame and slow motion analysis.  Imagine being able to study our family process in this way!

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/psych/people/directory/profiles/faculty/?uniquename=bsmuts

There’s an interesting chapter in Peter Tiltelman’s (ed) book on triangles by Linda Flemming on triangles in a human, canine pack.  She describes the formation of an emotional triangle with 2 dogs with the dynamics of insiders and outsiders.  When she starts dating her future husband, new interlocking triangles are evident.  When one of her dogs becomes quite symptomatic, she draws from Bowen theory to deal with the system instability.  Her first step was providing more leadership, which helpfully shifts focus from the reactive pack member to managing self in a steadier manner.  She resisted focussing on the symptoms in her dog.  She writes, “As long as I was focussed on Shayne (dog) as the problem, we made no progress in changing behaviours. When I began to see the problem as residing in the system rather than on Shayne, we began to make progress.”  p237-8

Isn’t it interesting the parallel to applying Bowen theory when there are symptoms in a child? I wonder if sometimes it’s easier to see an effort towards more differentiation (more autonomy in relating) in our relationship with our dogs than with our children.  It’s a notch harder to make objective observations of ourselves in our own species.  It would be great to hear other’s observations about their dogs in their families.”

Refs-Flemming L. “Observation of Triangles in a Haman-Canine Pack”. Ch 9  in Titelman, P. (Ed.) (2008). Triangles: Bowen Family Systems Theory Perspectives. New York  Haworth Clinical Practice Press

See also the section in Jenny’s book “Growing Yourself Up” titled= lessons from puppy management. P119-20. www.growingyourselup.com

 

 

Original post on The Family Systems Institute website: http://www.thefsi.com.au/2013/01/20/dogs-family-systems/

Keeping a gracious view of family this Christmas/Holiday season

Jenny Brown Blog, Family, Family of Origin, Family Systems Theory, Relationships , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Gathering with extended family for any holiday season or milestone event reveals both what we share in common and the significant differences between us. I wonder if you’ve ever sat at the family festive dinner table and listened to a relative express a viewpoint that really irritated you. Do you walk on egg shells waiting in expectation for that relative to take offence? Have you observed how challenging it is for a family member to participate in the socialising? Perhaps you have observed how much a family member relies on alcohol to manage the occasion? Or do you have a relative who uses humour (somewhat inappropriately) as their method of conversing?
I often hear people declare that they just don’t like their sibling or aunt/uncle….. They consider that their life and values have taken a different direction and they would prefer to not have to continue an effort to be in contact.
A family systems view opens up a different way of thinking about the variations amongst family members. The young person in the family who was most focussed on (negatively or positively) will be the one who absorbs more of the immaturity of the whole family system. The more anxiously focussed on child may be the one born at a particularly intense time for parents, or is the same sibling position as a parent (or a parent’s troubled sibling), or who was the only child of one gender, or was a sick infant. Not all siblings leave home with the same capacities to cope in life. In turn, this means that others enter the challenges of adult life with greater or lesser emotional resources. The sister or brother who seems so different from you may simply represent what could so easily have been your own path if the family circumstances were a little different.
Can you see how this opens up compassion and grace towards the more challenging family members. It also enables us to reduce our reactive responses to the apparently more immature members of our family – previous responses which have contributed to fixing oversensitive patterns in place. If you are the member of your family that others seem to struggle to accept, it may be useful to understand how your position, in relation to your parents insecurities, have added to your heightened sensitivity to others. It can make sense of how quickly you take things personally when you are with family and how others distance when you get upset. This awareness of us and others can be helpful to refocus on managing our part and to shift away from blaming others.
Perhaps a good gift to yourself and your family at this year-end is consider your extended family as part of a system that has enabled some to manage stress and relationships more effectively than others.

You may wish to re- read Chapter 3 of my book Growing Yourself Up, titled:

Family ties that bind: Understanding our family of origin

In particular the section- Each sibling experiences a different family

An excerpt:

Have you ever paused to appreciate that each of your siblings experienced a different family to you due to the variations in the degree and tone of attention each received from your parents? Some siblings get a balanced amount of attention and assistance in line with their logical needs, while others get an exaggerated degree of positive or negative attention….
The useful thing to appreciate in your growing-up efforts is that you can’t have the same expectations of each sibling that you have of yourself. Each family member’s pathway to maturity is inevitably different from your own.
Before we move into blaming our parents for any challenging siblings, it is worth remembering the influence of our parent’s family systems:
Much of a parent’s reaction to each of their children comes out of an unconscious effort to relieve their own uncertainties and anxiety, not from a deliberate attempt to mess up their children. Our mothers and fathers came out of their own families with a level of tolerance for upset, discord, involvement and demands. In turn this is played out in their marriage and their reactions to each of their children. None of us, or our parents, has any say in the hand of maturity cards we are dealt as part of the inheritance of generations of families.
(Growing Yourself Up p.39-40)

Whatever your family heritage and tradition for gathering at this time of year,
I wish you a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays, filled with grace for each family member.

*A CHRISTMAS REFLECTION: Systems theory assists me to cultivate more compassion and understanding towards other family members. Additionally and even more importantly, the Christmas message of God’s grace shown in coming down into our struggles as the son, Jesus of Nazareth, demonstrates an extravagant dose of undeserved favour and compassion towards us. In response to this I am compelled to nurture the same compassion towards others.

 

Once in Royal David’s City – Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Verse 2:
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor and meek and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.

A Tale of Triangling Mothers

Jenny Brown Blog, Family, Parenting, Relationships , , , , , ,

Seeing triangles provides a key to unlocking ways to bring our best to our most important relationships.

‘Jenny, today when I heard you describe your triangle with your mother I thought: “Oh my goodness – You are fuelling the problem in your family!” I can see for the first time that I’m adding to my husband feeling set aside and to inflaming his irritating ways of trying to insert his presence in his daughter’s and our family’s life. No one behaves at their best when they feel critically sidelined. I also see that I’m contributing to my daughter becoming arrogant and quite disrespectful towards her Dad.’

At a recent community seminar on marriage I shared about my triangle position in my family of origin. As I entered my teenage years my mother increasingly confided in me about broader family matters. In some ways I was being elevated to an informal leadership position in the family as my mother managed her stress about the family through using me as a sounding board. She would discuss her worries about my siblings amongst other things. At times she asked me to connect in a particular way to a sister in an effort to reverse the pattern of distancing that concerned my mother.

My alliance with my mother developed gradually through developing common interests including matters of faith. I’m sure my mother never intended to triangle me in this way. It emerged out of a growing friendship and it clearly filled some gaps in what she shared of herself in her marriage with my Dad. As I look back I can see that my father didn’t seem uncomfortable the growing closeness between myself and Mum. I assume that it took some pressure away from him by relieving an undercurrent of unmet expectations of him in the marriage. Hence both my mother and father unconsciously co- constructed the triangle, with myself as a willing participant.

Such triangles commonly emerge between parents and one of their children. In my family it functioned to relieve some pressures. The cost was that it contributed to some distance in my relationship with by sisters and brother and it primed me to be an “over -helper” in my adult relationships. For my parents, while it assisted with harmony in their marriage, it also prevented any breech in their emotional connection from being worked on and resolved. While it was a rewarding connection for me and my mother, it detracted from the growth of connection between my mother and each of my siblings. While there was not obvious tension in my relationship with my father, my alliance with my mother influenced my view towards men as lacking in their relational capacities – not a helpful posture to take into my own marriage as a young woman.

After sharing about my key triangle growing up at the recent seminar, a woman came up to me in the lunch break and expressed that she could recognise a similar triangle emerging in her family. She was alerted to the potential detriment of this triangle for her marriage and her teenage daughter. Here’s what she described to me in the course of our quite brief conversation:

“My eldest daughter has increasingly become a friend to me. We just seem to click! But I can see that there are problems developing as we are regularly taking sides against my husband. I complain to her about her Dad’s annoying ways. When the family is all together, she gives me a knowing critical look every time her Dad tries to give input. I realise that I’ve been encouraging this – it makes me feel good to have her in my corner. Tension is increasing in my daughter and her Dad’s relationship and I have been getting more frustrated with how he reacts to her. Today when I heard you describe your triangle with your mother I thought: “Oh my goodness – You are fuelling the problem in your family!” I can see for the first time that I’m adding to my husband feeling set aside and to inflaming his irritating ways of trying to insert his presence in his daughter’s and our family’s life. No one behaves at their best when they feel critically sidelined. I also see that I’m contributing to my daughter becoming arrogant and quite disrespectful towards her Dad. Last year my husband and I got some counselling for our marriage that didn’t get us very far. I couldn’t really understand our tensions and growing distance until today when I saw the triangle I was in with our daughter and its effect on our marriage. I can see that I need to stop inviting my daughter into the snug alliance that judges her Dad and my husband. She’s not going to like giving up this position but I know it is best for our whole family.”

I was impressed by this woman’s insight and her resolve to change her part. (Relationship triangles are often difficult to identify). Her husband was at the marriage seminar with her and she had the opportunity to talk to him about her realisations. I sense that this was the start of a constructive growing up effort for them both as spouses and parents. My own awareness of my primary triangle growing up has been enormously useful in helping me to manage unhelpful tendencies to align with those who confide in me, judge those who I hear complaints about and be too quick to step into the cosy elevated status of giving ear to other’s problems. I am committed to not becoming a part of issues being detoured from the relationships they belong in. For me, and for the insightful woman I met briefly at the community seminar, seeing triangles provides a key to unlocking ways to bring our best to our most important relationships.

To be Human is to be in Relationships

Jenny Brown Blog, Relationships , , , , , , , , , ,

We can’t survive without them but at the same time it’s in our relationships that we can so easily get unravelled.   Either we feel like we lose ourselves or we feel burnt out from futile efforts to make things right for another. In our relationships we can experience the very best of ourselves and the very worst.

One of the most common maturity blocks in our relationships is to lose sight of our part and to focus on changing, blaming or comparing ourselves to others. It’s common to think that others are the ones who need to “Grow up!” We try to push them to be more mature only to discover that our efforts just don’t work and can even intensify the relationship challenges we are struggling with. It’s a huge step of maturity to appreciate that relationships and dealing with others will become more rewarding when we work on ourselves. This growing up effort goes into=

  • developing a deep sense of guiding principles for all our relationships
  • being responsible for our own problem solving and not take this over for others or allow others to take this over for us
  • understanding the family patterns behind a challenging interactions so that we can get beyond blaming

It’s an interesting and rewarding experience to learn to see how to shift our less mature responses in relationships. Learning to recognise when

  • we detour to third parties,
  • or become overly helpful or controlling,
  • or we hand over our responsibilities to others,
  • or we depend too much on relationship approval,
  • or we’re too quick to distance when tension arises.

Recognising such patterns enables us to make new choices that enable us to bring our best to our relationships.

Genuine maturity is about deepening our understanding of our self in all of your key relationships – from the family we grew up in, through periods of singleness, in the intimacy and trials of marriage, in the vulnerability of our sex life, in the daunting task of raising children, in the midst of competition and performance pressures at work, and adjusting to aging. While the effort is on self and not others, growing up does not happen in isolation but in the pushes and pulls of complex relationships. It’s our important relationships that provide the very best laboratory for growing up. They also provide the best motivation to work hard at being a mature resource for those we care about.

I wonder if this all sounds a bit too much like hard work in your already hectic life; yet if there’s the chance that this effort can unveil a very different picture of yourself in your relationships, it might just be worth giving this journey a go.

 

Where is my energy directed as a parent?

Jenny Brown Family, Family Systems Theory, Parenting , , , , , , , , ,

Parents and family

As a parent where is most of Pam’s energy directed?   Is it to trying to handle her son? -Or reacting to Bill her husband and son’s step-parent? – Or towards managing herself in relation to her son and husband?                 

It’s useful to think back over an example of interacting with the child you are concerned about. Typical interactions reveal where most of our efforts are going?

Pam is a mother of a struggling adolescent son. She described a recent morning scenario with son Hamish and her husband Bill. Over the past year Pam’s concerns about Hamish anxiously withdrawing from peers and the family were increasing. Just last week Pam had set Hamish’s alarm the night before to help him get to school. When she woke she headed straight to his door to listen for evidence of any movement. All was quite. Pam’s stress levels increased. She knocked lightly on the door and asked if Hamish was getting dressed for school. She heard him mumble: “I’ll get up in a minute”. Pam went to the kitchen and started making his lunch. Her partner Bill (Hamish’s step father) told her to not get so uptight. Pam responded saying: “You don’t understand how anxious and down Hamish is. He needs all her support to get better”. After 10 more minutes Pam knocks on Hamish’s door, enters and sees him still in bed. She sits by his bed and asks if he’s OK. Hamish says that he has a bad stomach ache and just can’t get to school. Pam offers to make him a detox smoothie to help calm him. She gets out his school uniform and places it next to him. She packs his bag and leaves for the kitchen again. Bill sees how worried Pam is and says: “I can’t believe the stress he is putting you through!”  He calls out loudly and angrily to Hamish: “Get yourself up and come to breakfast now – Or I’ll come in and drag you out!”. Pam rushes to Hamish and sees him curled up in a ball and becoming quite distressed. She reminds him to do his breathing exercises to avoid a panic attack. She does the deep breathing herself and coaches him to follow her cues while sitting beside him and rubbing his back. Hamish begins to get shaky and says that he feels really sick. Pam gives him a rub on his back trying to help calm him down. Bill comes to the bedroom door saying firmly: “What’s going on here? Why are you still in bed? You’ll make your mother late for work again!” Pam asks Bill to leave saying: “You are not helping!”  She tells Hamish he can stay in bed until morning tea time and can go to school late. She writes him a late note to take to school and leaves it beside his bed with his bus pass. Bill vents his frustration to Pam about Hamish being lazy. Pam defends Hamish saying he has bad anxiety. They both leave for work. Throughout the morning Pam sends texts to Hamish encouraging him to get to school. Hamish doesn’t text back and doesn’t make it to school.

It was very helpful for Pam to describe the details of this scenario with a factual description of how each person responded.  Such descriptions assist people to see ways that each person is affecting each other. Pam identified that her primary energy is being directed towards Hamish:  worried thoughts about his anxiety, what he might be feeling, what might fix his symptoms, how to make Hamish feel better about himself and be happy about going to school.

Pam could see that her secondary energy was directed towards Bill and what she saw as his effect on Hamish. As Bill ups his criticism of Hamish, Pam increases her nurture for her son.

It was difficult for Pam to consider directing her energy towards herself as a parent. She had become increasingly concerned for Hamish over many years. She was allowing her worry to shape her parenting; and to shape her interactions with Bill.  As a step towards reclaiming some parent leadership Pam began to grapple with:

• What am I in control of? What is beyond my sphere of control?

• How can I convey what’s important to me as your Mum?

• How do I want to contribute to my child growing their own coping capacities?

Pam didn’t quite know how to answer these questions but was willing to work on it.  She saw that the more she invested her energy into trying to change Hamish she was losing her clarity as a parent. While pleased that she wasn’t getting caught in a futile power struggle with Hamish by trying to drag him out of bed, Pam saw that her helping efforts were contributing to her beloved son’s increasing helplessness. The patterns of a child becoming increasingly entitled, or increasingly dependent, are years in the making. Hence the path to improved wellbeing occurs gradually, is often bumpy and requires plentiful stores of patience.

*Upcoming blogs will show how Pam answered these questions and reshaped her parenting accordingly.

Relationship boundaries in social media

Jenny Brown Family , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As a pre digital revolution baby boomer, traversing the world of IT and social media has been challenging.  I was slow to venture into the realm of Facebook and was certainly naïve about how to use it helpfully. For my first 7 years I friended family only, ignoring all incoming friend requests. Then I did an about face and somewhat impulsively accepted all requests in one foul swoop, announcing that I had decided to come out of the ‘stone age.’

When my book publisher fed back that I needed a social media presence in order to gain entry into the US publishing market, I decided it was time to be better informed about this area. This prompted my seeking assistance to start up this blog site along with its attached Facebook page. I wasn’t aiming for a large reach, just a platform to gradually work out how to utilise this medium for sharing ideas. For the past 2 years I have been fumbling my way through navigating this strange boundary-less online world; and it hasn’t all been smooth sailing.

Like any new relational domain, my interactions with social media reveal much about myself. In particular it has revealed ways I’m inclined towards fusion in relationships. For example, I have written some personal blogs along the way, which have  included my intersections with broader family member’s lives. Often in ways that identify some of their circumstances – at times including photos. Importantly this has been done without fully asking permission. While I have consciously focussed on representing my own ‘growing up’ journey, I have come to see ways that I have inadvertently invaded other’s personal boundaries.  While it has been uncomfortable, I have been grateful to receive some honest feedback about other’s unwelcome experience of reading mentions about them in a blog or post. This feedback has helped me see the subtle ways I make assumptions on behalf of others.

In the realm of social media, I think us parents need to be especially respectful of the autonomy of our children (whatever their age). I recently came across a new word to describe social media boundary issues for parents: ‘Sharenting.’ It’s quite telling that such a word has emerged to describe how over-involvement with our children may spill onto a parent’s Facebook and Instagram pages. I remind myself that our children are not our property and hence their lives are not open slather material for our conversations and our social media. I have come to see more clearly that as my children have launched into their adulthood, their separate lives and boundaries are even more important to honour.  Mia Freidman, long time Mamamia blogger writes:

We are the first generation of parents who have to decide how much of our children’s lives are made public. We must choose how exposed they’re going to be. How much of their story we’re going to write through images of them and words about them before they’re old enough to decide how – and if – they want to be portrayed to the world. These are very big decisions.

For my adult children and for all of the people who are part of my systems of relationships, I have increasingly seen the importance of thoughtfully considering what I write and post. Given my blog is all about relationships, the appropriate lines of privacy can be easily blurred. Primarily I refrain from the fusion trap of assuming that any other person would approve of my referring to them in a public blog or post. I can mention the relationships I’m part of but if I refer to another’s life circumstance, then their permission needs to be requested. At the same time if I only write what I think others will approve, this can be another expression of togetherness fusion. I see that mindreading on others behalf is a form of ‘over-functioning’ in crossing boundaries while posting what we perceive will bring the most approval is an ‘under- functioning’ kind of fusion. If I’m honest I need to watch for both immature possibilities in my online relating.

What is this ‘fusion’ thing I keep referring to? Immature fusion (or undifferentiation) is when we fail to discriminate where our separate selves begin and end in relation to others. It is when the positive bonds of human relationships are amplified (usually unintentionally) to the detriment of respecting each person’s autonomy within the family/group. The more a person utilises the experience of togetherness with others to steady them self in life, the more vulnerable they are to ‘fused’ relationships. Additionally, the more a person avoids uncomfortable relationships and focusses on the validating harmony that can be found in a small nuclear family/ or ‘in’ group, the more likely they are to lose perspective regarding their boundaries with these people. I see that we all have degrees of such immature fusion in our lives and relationships.  My responsibility is to address indicators of my fusion, to the best of my capacity, when it is evident in my relationships.

Self- absorption and unhelpful togetherness is a challenge for us all in this anxious world. The realm of social media provides a new stage for this and hence calls for honest reflection and clarification of relationship principles. I have seen my own lapses in wisdom and maturity as I have engaged with this public, web based domain.  At those confronting times it would have been tempting to simply cut off my social media involvement to avoid the risk of future discomfort. However I consider that I’ll learn and grow more by continuing to work at managing myself online with clearer principles and awareness of my potential lapses.  For this work in progress, the following principles are emerging as helpful to me:

  • Is there any assumption made on behalf of another in posting this?
  • Am I conveying thinking about myself in my relationships and not crossing into giving a subjective commentary about another’s life?
  • Have I thought about the longer term implications for people’s privacy around what I post?
  • If I am conveying the thinking of others? Do I appropriately give them credit in my referencing?
  • Am I clear about the purpose of my site (which posts belong where)? Have I communicated this clearly to the potential readers? Do I keep within these parameters and not impulsively post about areas about which I have insufficient knowledge or permission?
  • Is my self-referencing in social media portraying an exaggerated picture of my accomplishments, my relationship strengths or the flip side = failures?
  • Equally is my other-referencing portraying an exaggerated picture of other’s accomplishments or failures?
  • Am I posting what conveys my own thinking or am I editing myself in an effort to garner the most online approval?

NOTES: Bowen conveys that = High Fusion People Live in a feeling dominated world. So much energy goes into seeking love and approval and keeping the relationship in some kind of harmony, there is little energy for life-directed goals.

Less fused people = have employed logical reasoning to develop principles and convictions that they use to over-rule the emotional system in situations of anxiety and panic. They are less relationship directed.

Summarised from: Family Therapy in Clinical Practice p 366- 370

Mia freedman blog and use of the term: ‘Sharenting’ 

The bigger picture behind negative self-talk

Jenny Brown Family Systems Theory , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“I know that my ‘self-talk’ in relationships tends to be negative and full of doubts. I need to work on improving this self-talk.”

I wondered whether there was more to this than a case of negative self -talk.  Together we began exploring the effects of the relationship reciprocity and not Helen’s individual cognitions.

*Helen is a recently semi-retired, professional woman. She had enjoyed a successful work life but was ready for a reduction in work responsibilities now that she was in her 60s. It was a huge transition for Helen who had been with the same employer for over 25 years. She had taken on this full time career track following her divorce. Helen described the way her adult children were stepping up to support her following this significant job departure.  They were all hearing about her fears that she would struggle to manage her finances and have sufficient funds. While Helen had followed sound advice on her investments and had offers of secure part time work, these facts did little to allay her fears.

As Helen reflected on her shifting relationship with her 3 adult children she recognised how much she was venting her worries to each of them. They responded with reassurance, statements of respect for her ongoing achievements and advice about her transition decisions. Helen did appreciate the caring response from each of them but said that she felt unworthy of their praise and encouragement. When asked about the effects of their increased support she replied:

“The more support they give me the emptier I seem to feel about myself, and my money anxieties are not relieved.”

Such an interesting response! I deemed it was worthy of further investigation. I asked Helen how she accounted for her discomfort with her children’s gestures of encouragement and affirmation. She thought that distance had been her main way to manage herself in relationships to her own parents and that this had translated into a comfortable distance with her own children. Not a cut –off kind of distance, as she saw them all regularly. Rather it had been an emotional distance where she refrained from sharing at a deeper, more personal level. She had been concerned not to be an emotional burden for her children. This current transition had prompted a greater connection with her children. Her recent expressions of vulnerability however, were clearly unsettling the previous equilibrium for Helen.

Helen’s next reflection was especially intriguing. She said:

“I know that my ‘self-talk’ in relationships tends to be negative and full of doubts. I need to work on improving this self-talk.”

I wondered whether there was more to this than a case of negative self-talk.  Together we began exploring the effects of the relationship reciprocity and not Helen’s individual cognitions. I asked about the pattern of receiving praise from important others. We explored how the more she expressed her self- doubts, the more her children responded with assurances; and the more Helen received assurances the more she was felt inwardly depleted. This cycle did provide positive connection with her children but it was also setting up a pattern for Helen to under-function. The more she was reassured, the more she feared for her future; the more she was praised, her sense of confidence diminished. The self- talk was much more than an expression of individual doubts. Rather, it was an outworking of a relationship phenomenon.

To investigate the relationship influences further I asked about the specific patterns with each of her children. While the over-all pattern of Helen venting and her children encouraging was apparent, each relationship had some unique features. Helen became increasingly fascinated as she explored the nuances of her interactions with each adult child. This was expanding her lens well past individual introspection. She could see that her eldest son responded with lots of practical suggestions and offers to help her save money by having regular meals with their family. Helen’s response to him was to present as less capable than she was in terms of her budgeting and life management. With her only daughter, Helen experienced a good dose of emotional caretaking. She felt quite overwhelmed by her daughter’s rescuing gestures but could see that she was giving plenty of invitations to be rescued through her expressions of worry.  Her other son was somewhat less responsive to Helen’s worries. He was more laid back in listening to her concerns.  After listening and empathising he would shift the conversation away from her worries to an exchange of ideas. Helen had first thought that he was less caring than the other two. However on further reflection she saw that she felt more solid and less vulnerable in this interaction. Each of the varied patterns with her children reflected differences in the degrees of worry she had for them growing up. The son she worried least about was the son who was now relating more to her capacities. The children who she saw as having more struggles during their growing up and young adult years were the ones that were relating more to Helen’s expressions of incapacity.

Helen began to appreciate how much she was contributing to a depletion of her ‘self’ in her relating – in particular with her eldest son and her daughter. This ‘de-selfing’ in the relationship exchange contributes to a negative internal dialogue.  Helen determined to stay connected to each of her children during her current life transition. She was not going to revert to the previous distancing. She stated however that she wanted to work on connecting in a less fragile manner. She resolved to be open about the impact of the changes to her circumstances. She would share what she was learning about herself during this time. Helen wanted to share in a manner that conveyed she was responsible for managing her worries thoughtfully. She would welcome her children’s gestures of care but endeavour not to participate in unnecessary rescuing interactions. All of this would require consistent observation of herself in each relationship and continued practice at presenting her more open and capable self to the other. It would be a different effort to just endeavouring to correct negative self -talk about her deficiencies.

I think that Helen’s example demonstrates how ‘systems thinking’ is different to individual thinking. The key focus of attention is how is each person is effecting and shaping the other. Each individual’s ‘mind set’ and behaviours are inextricably linked to the back and forth responses in important relationships. The question that promotes maturity is not: How can I change my self -talk and the consequent behaviours? The more constructive growing up question is: How am I contributing to this pattern that is either depleting my confidence, or another’s sense of capacity? How is the relationship dance shaping my thinking, feeling and behaving? How can I alter my part of the dance in ways that promote mutual responsibility?

*Names and identifying details have been changed