Category Archives: parenting

Staying involved but staying out of judgment – a hard balance

parenting, Trisomy 21

I’ve been emotionally preoccupied the last couple of weeks with trying to get help for a newborn baby girl with Trisomy 21 who has been left in an institution while the parents decide if they should keep her or not.

I was asked to get involved by someone aware of the situation.  Initially I was told the parents definitely didn’t want her and she would stay in the institution until a home was found for her.  As I got more involved I learned the situation was much more complicated.  Through the staff members I’ve repeatedly told them the parents can be in touch with me to get accurate information about T21 to help them with the decision.

Eventually the grandmother reached out to me and I spoke to her at length.  My goal has been to communicate the importance of placing the baby with someone who will care for her while the parents make up their minds since Baby M is in a physically and emotionally sterile environment and every day that goes by is causing her emotional and cognitive harm.

Has any of this effort been helpful?  To my mind, not nearly helpful enough.  But after two weeks of no change in the situation, my two daughters and I were officially given permission to visit Baby M (the day we visited she was exactly a month old).   The next day, volunteers were organized to come for four hours a day.  Two of my daughters will also be visiting for 6.5 hours a day and this means that now she will have substantially more stimulation and social connection.  Clearly a newborn needs more than this but this is where it stands now.

There are a lot of details I’m not including and this has been a situation that has raised a lot of emotion for me. Dealing with this been a hard balance.  On one hand, I don’t want to judge the parents.  Everyone does the best he can with the resources he has.

On the other hand, I’m deeply, deeply upset to see an infant not getting the care she needs, especially since the financial and social resources are available to support it – and it’s appropriate to feel anger when you see injustice perpetrated.

On Tuesday the parents will be making a decision as to if they will keep Baby M or not.  I am hoping and praying that that very soon she will be in a good home and ask you to whisper a prayer for her sake as well.

**Update: I was notified by the grandmother that the parents were told to find a family for the baby.  Continued prayers, please.**

Avivah

Would I accept my child if he didn’t make choices I approved of?

parenting

I haven’t had a working computer all summer so my online access has been spotty.  I’ve missed sharing with you about so many things – our fifth aliyah anniversary (I couldn’t be happier to have moved to Israel and specifically RBS), summer activities, homeschooling plans for the year (we’ll have two high schoolers home this year in addition to the younger four boys) and lots of thoughts on different parenting issues!   But thanks to a lovely blog reader who brought back the new laptop I bought from the US, I’m now back with you!

>>Hi, I’m wondering how you would react if any of your children decided they didn’t want to be charedi anymore? What if one of your daughters decided to be Modern Orthodox- still keep shabbat, kashrut and taharat Mishpacha, but wear short sleeves, pants, not cover her hair after marriage, etc. Would you be able to accept that? What if one of your kids decided he/she was an atheist and left religion altogether? Would they still be accepted as part of your family?<<

I was sitting with dd20 at breakfast and told her about this question.  She looked a little surprised and said – obviously our children would be accepted in our family regardless of their choices!

As a parent, I try very hard to nurture each child for who they are and to let them know that my love and appreciation for them isn’t based on them performing in a given way.  I believe that every child deserves to be loved unconditionally – this is a foundational belief of mine about parenting and is a significant underlying theme in how I parent and what I teach others.

When we expect our children to make the choices that validate our value as parents, it places a heavy and unfair burden on them.  My child wasn’t put in this world to make me feel good about myself.  It’s my job to feel good about myself.

I don’t give rewards or incentives to get my children to do what I want, not when they are young and certainly not as they get older!  My primary tools of influence are the relationship I have with them and the values that I model.  If there’s something that is important to me, I need to model that through my own actions.

My choices are right for me – while my spiritual and religious beliefs and practices are of great meaning to me, each child will need to make his own decisions in order to have a meaningful life.  I  hope my children will experience as much meaning and satisfaction from their lives as I have from mine – I hope they have even more, actually!

But I don’t think they need to do exactly what I’ve done in order to have a meaningful life.  They don’t.  To have a meaningful life, they do need to know themselves and what matters to them, to think for themselves, and then to take actions in line with what is important for them.  I’ve told my children this explicitly.

It’s a mistake for a parent to think he can control the choices his child makes.  While I do provide lots of active guidance, I don’t try to control what my children think or what choices they make.  I only have control over my own choices and actions.  There are choices that would be harder for me to accept than others and if my ego got in the way, I’d need to do some work on myself to be sure I wasn’t reflecting my own fears and insecurities instead of providing loving guidance to my child.

I hope that my children will always feel they are loved and accepted by me for who they are, whatever life choices they make.  Isn’t that what being part of a family should be about?

Avivah

Tips for the first day of school – how to orient a child in new situations

parenting

It’s that time of year again, the first day of school!

New situations are hard for everyone.  For kids, the first day of school is filled with many unknowns and not knowing what to expect can be a source of anxiety and tension.  You can minimize this tension by recognizing how important it is to help your child get his bearings, and then taking steps to help make his world more predictable.

The need to be oriented to one’s surroundings is an inborn need in all people, and is so uncomfortable and distressing that we do all that we can to avoid this. We seek out someone to help us get oriented – ideally this is a reliable person who is a source of authority, compassion and warmth.

In the absence of a reliable and trusted adult, children who are disoriented will get their bearings from the children around them.  However, kids who are disoriented taking the position of guide for one another is incredibly ineffective!  So don’t leave your child with an orientation void to be filled by others much less capable and compassionate than you!

Here are some tips to make the first days of school smoother and more successful for you and your child:

1) Talk to your child in advance about what to expect on the first day.  An attendee in a recent parenting workshop I gave shared that her teacher’s kindergarten teacher made a video of the classroom and emailed it to all of the student – this is wonderful! Anything that helps a child feel more prepared for a new experience reduces his anxiety, and primes him for more success socially and academically.

2) Encourage your child to share how he’s feeling about this new beginning.  If he expresses discomfort, don’t assume that this is a problem that you need to solve.  It’s uncomfortable as parents to hear your child expressing fear or other negative emotions and we tend to want to shut that down by jumping into solution mode, or to reassure them that their concerns aren’t valid.  Instead, reflect back and validate to him that you’ve heard his concerns.

3) Introduce your child to his new environment – accompany your child into the new situation to the degree that he’s comfortable with you being there.  For young children, take them into the classroom and introduce them to the teacher.  Help make an emotional connection with the teacher so that your child feels comfortable being left with her.  Walk through the classroom and show him where to hang his backpack, where are the bathrooms, where to get a drink of water.

You might wonder if this the teacher’s job.  Ideally, the teacher will spend time connecting with a child and helping to orient him on the first days of school, and the more she does this the more smoothly your child’s adaptation will go.  However, my experience has been that there is often a large gap when entering these situations and that children benefit from the parent proactively filling that gap.

4) Let your child know when you’re leaving – do not disappear when his back is turned!  It’s common for parents to want to avoid the child’s distress when they leave, but he needs to be able to trust your presence.  It’s scary for young children to be left in an unfamiliar place with people they don’t know, before they feel a sense of connection or trust in them.

When you leave, reassure him that you’ll see him later – help him feel connected to you even in your absence.  A loving note or a little drawing tucked into lunch can be reassuring for them and remind him of your love even without your physical presence.

5) Give your child something wholesome to eat before he leaves for the day so that his brain and body are well-nourished! This includes proteins, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates (eg eggs, milk, oatmeal with butter). Send snacks that will help his body stay on an even keel – I’ve shared lots of recipes (click on link to see them) that make delicious and easy to pack treats that are good for your child without looking ‘healthy’.

(If you’re reading this and missed the first day of school, you can still apply these ideas.  Helping your child’s world be predictable is important any day of the year!)

Above all, smile and stay calm!  If you can, take a bit of extra time in the morning so that none of you feel rushed.  If you can’t, don’t worry about it.  Just keep smiling and send your kids off with the message that you love them, you think they’re wonderful and you trust that they’re going to have a wonderful year!

Avivah

How our daughter paid her way through college

frugal strategies, parenting

In my last post I shared that our daughter was the top student in her graduating class.  I didn’t mention, that while she was engaged in a very demanding full-time academic program, she was also paying her own way through college and seminary.

Someone recently told me dd was ‘lucky’ to be able to do this.  I think luck is what happens when hard work and preparation meet, and while dd is the first to say that she felt that G-d helped her to achieve all that she did, I wouldn’t say that luck played much of a part.  Money didn’t fall on her from the sky!

She worked super hard, didn’t lose focus and didn’t get discouraged – she had clarity about her goal, continually looked for ways to make it possible and organized her time and energies to support her goals.  She worked really, really hard for the last three years.

For her first year (age 17), she was simultaneously studying in an Israeli seminary (without a dorm) and at college.  She lived with an elderly woman and helped her out in exchange for room, board and a salary.  She later switched arrangements to live with a family in exchange for room and board, and did house cleaning to cover tuition expenses.

Second year (age 18)- she studied at an American seminary along with attending college. (This seminary did have a dorm.)  She was offered a scholarship at the seminary in exchange for a work-study arrangement, where she was the kitchen supervisor.  She qualified for a Pell grant to supplement the remaining seminary costs.  She volunteered for the Perach organization as a tutor for children in need; volunteers for this organization are given a stipend of several thousand shekels for every year they participate towards their college tuition in Israel.  She continued doing cleaning work to cover remaining expenses.  (She did not continue with Perach for her third year because she felt she would have more control over her schedule if she worked for pay the same amount of hours she volunteered.)

Third year (age 19) – Since she had finished two years of seminary by this point, she only had college tuition to pay.  We had moved to RBS from northern Israel so she was able to live at home and commute daily to college.

She had several jobs during this time.  1) She was hired as a workshop safety instructor by the college.  The workshop is filled with industrial tools like a huge carpentry shop and her task was to teach younger students how to use the tools and to ensure their safety when they worked there.  2) She worked once a week as a mentor for an organization that helps children at risk.  3) She did cleaning work once a week.

I believe there was one scholarship that she applied for in her second year and I don’t remember if she ended up getting that or not – it might have been around 1000 shekels. She also had some financial help from a family member in the first year that she was very appreciative of.  It’s likely there were other stipends or scholarships she might have been able to get if we had known about them.  Not being Israeli and not having lived here very long, we don’t know the system as well as those who are native to Israel.

Attending school and getting an education are two entirely different things.  Dd really invested herself in her studies, and got a great education.

Is it because she paid for everything herself that she did as well as she did?  There’s no question that as seriously as she would have taken her studies, she valued it even more because it was her initiative, her effort and her money that paid for it all!

Avivah

College staff: “Your daughter is remarkable – how did you do it?”

aliyah, parenting

Dd20 is now a college graduate!

Dd20 graduated a day before her twentieth birthday with a specialization in technical engineering/industrial design. At the graduation event, dd was called up to receive a certificate of excellence, which she was later surprised to find was accompanied by a generous check.

I got teary eyed during the speeches as the significance of this milestone sank in. Less than five years ago we moved from the US to Israel with a fifteen year old daughter who couldn’t speak Hebrew, who faced every challenge thrown at her with a good attitude and never gave up.  And here she was, not only coping in an Israeli educational institution in a very challenging field but excelling.

Afterwards the head of her department came over to me to and told me that not only is dd the top student in their college, but she would have been the top student in the best university in Israel.  She went on to detail the personality traits she based her statement on and asked me, “I honestly want to know – what is your recipe for raising a daughter like this?”  I deflected the question and said that dd has had the main part of turning herself into an amazing person, but the department head told me that she has seen many, many students and she is convinced that how dd was raised is a big part of her success.

People have asked me how I raised my children to be high achievers.  My honest response is that I didn’t actively set out to do this.  The fact that my older kids have all excelled in the academic and work frameworks they’ve been in is a reflection of their personal motivation and work ethic.  If they hadn’t excelled, I would think just as highly of them all.  If they do their personal best then I see that as a success, regardless of how that compares with anyone else.

I tried to create a home environment in which their internal motivation had space to develop, where their unique personalities and gifts were recognized and supported.  I didn’t have a personal agenda that I pushed on them.  I didn’t give them the message that I needed them to succeed in a certain way to make me feel like a successful parent.  Parenting isn’t supposed to be about me – it’s about helping my kids become who they are meant to be.

I’ve tried to communicate to them my deep belief in them without pressure to perform or produce.  I trusted that they would all develop according to their own individual timelines, and to believe in their abilities and competence even when I didn’t yet see it.  I encouraged them when they were unsure of themselves but didn’t push them to do what they didn’t yet feel ready to do.

It was important to me that they were hardworking and responsible – and they are – and those qualities have served them well.  I wanted them to believe in themselves, to invest themselves fully in whatever learning or work experience they were involved in.  And they have.

It was nice to be recognized as having had a part in dd’s success, but really this is her success, her hard work, her investment in herself and in everything she’s done.  We are so, so proud of her!

Avivah

Things People With Down Syndrome Are Tired of Hearing – video

parenting, Trisomy 21

Last night we attended the graduation exhibition for dd19, who today will be graduating after three years of college!  (More about that in another post!)  Also in attendance was the sister of a graduate, a young mother who has an infant with T21.  Dd19 happened to have Yirmi (4) with her when she was chatting with her, and they were very encouraged just seeing what a child with Down syndrome actually looks and acts like – not at all like the misconceptions that are typically thrown around.

There are unfortunately a lot of limiting and false beliefs about what Down syndrome is and what it means for the life of the person who has it.  I loved the following clip, sent to me this morning by a blog reader, because it’s so real  – people who themselves have Trisomy 21 responding to common assumptions regarding Down syndrome.

Our expectations are that our four year old son who happens to have T21 will need a bit more time and support but that’s he’s fully capable and will be able to do the things that most of us can do.  Just like any other child!

Avivah

 

Why to parent smarter, not faster

parenting, personal development

I spent the last two days in a hospital in northern Israel with my mother, who just underwent hip replacement surgery.

I’m grateful that this kind of medical procedure is available.  At the same time, I really struggle with a certain attitude exhibited by staff towards patients and I’ve seen all too often.

Simply put –  too many nurses aren’t kind to their patients.  They are brusque, impatient, rude and sometimes downright mean.

After hearing the elderly woman in my mother’s room on the other side of the curtained partition repeatedly saying something in an agitated way and not hearing anyone respond (she was speaking Russian and I didn’t understand what she said), I went to get help for her from the nurses station.

Her iv had come out, and the staff came in to replace it while loudly chiding her.  Apparently she was disoriented as a result of the post surgical anesthesia. A short time later they had to replace it again, because in her confused state she had pulled it out again.

A short while later the staff had finished and my mother had gone to sleep.  I continued to hear the woman repeatedly asking for something in Russian but no one was responding.  Finally I went over to her side of the curtain and began speaking to her soothingly in English.  As I thought about how she must be feeling, I put my hands gently on each side of her face and as I looked into her eyes told her I know it was hard for her to be in the hospital, to be in pain and alone and frightened.

She continued to talk to me, and while I didn’t understand what she was asking, I gave her what I could – my presence and compassion.

She became more calm, and I continued to sit with her.  I stroked her arm and told her she was safe, that it wouldn’t be long before she could go home and be with people who loved her.  As I took her hand in mine she gripped it like a vise, with a palpable sense of desperation.  I almost cried when I then saw that that each of her hands had been tied to the bed rails so she couldn’t move (presumably to prevent her from taking out her iv in her disoriented state).

She became more and more relaxed and after twenty minutes she fell into a deep sleep.  Even in her sleep, she didn’t want to let go of my hand.  Finally I loosened her grip and she continued to sleep peacefully through the night.

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So often we’re in such a rush that we end up creating more work for ourselves.

What if the Russian speaking nurses had spoken to this patient kindly when she first expressed her distress, instead of yelling at her?

I know, you’re probably thinking, “But they don’t have the time!” It’s true, they have a lot to do.  Maybe too much to do. Nurses are notoriously overworked.  And taking this kind of time isn’t part of their job description.

However, even when looking at this from a time management perspective (not from an emotional or holistic healing perspective), the most effective thing those nurses could have done is to have spent several minutes letting the woman know they cared about her and were there to take care of her.  In their rush to get things done, her anxiety went up, her agitation grew and twice they needed to bring in three staff members to hold her down, reinsert the iv and change the sheets (since blood had dripped on them).  In the end it would have saved them time and frustration.

This is true with parenting, too.  Whether a child is screaming, seems out of control or is balking at taking direction from us, there’s a tendency to want to lay down the law, to insist they do what we want and to do it NOW.  There’s a perception that taking time to connect or  to understand, will make one’s hectic life even more busy – and there’s just not enough time for everything.  So how can a busy parent make time to slow down and connect?

The answer comes from understanding that when it comes to people, fast is slow and slow is fast.  You can be efficient with things, but you can’t be efficient with people.  You need to be effective with people.

Effectiveness is relationships means making connection a priority.  When you make time upfront to connect to your child and try to understand what the situation is and how he’s feeling, he feels safer, more attached to you, more interested in your guidance – and there’s less backlash and resistance to deal with later on.  Making the time for connection really is a time and energy saver!

Avivah

 

Going Crazy With the Kids Home All Day?

parenting

I wrote the following article last summer for a local publication, and now that it’s once again that time of year I’m sharing it here with you!

******************

We’re less than a month into summer vacation – are you feeling like the school year can’t get here too soon?!?

It’s challenging being out of a routine and having all the kids home, and it doesn’t take long for everyone to begin to feel bent out of shape. However, along with the challenge of longer unstructured days together comes an amazing opportunity.

Time.

Do you know what the most powerful tool you have as a parent is? The answer is deceptively simple and can be summed up in just a few words: the connection your child feels to you is the most powerful tool in your parenting arsenal.

What do you need to access your parental power and create connection?

Time!

Every interaction with our children can build our relationships with them. There is nothing – nothing – more important than building and maintaining a sense of connection with our children. Everything else flows from this core – behavior, motivation, emotional maturity and much more.

By adopting a different paradigm when we look at the noise, mess and crankiness, we can see potential opportunities where previously we saw irritation and frustration. What a gift the summer can be when we realize that the more time the kids are around, the more opportunities we have!

For the time to be beneficial to the relationship, it needs to be positive and enjoyable for you both. Take an hour to brainstorm things you can do with your kids that you’ll both enjoy. Look online for a list of 100 fun summer activities and see how many you can do together. Get your kids involved and ask them for ideas they’d like to add to the list.
When juggling multiple ages, look for activities that will span an age range – like trips to a zoo, water park or even a local park.

However, if your age span is wide, it’s almost impossible to find something that everyone will love. If the younger kids are all content, the older ones are bored and when the older ones are engaged, the younger ones will need a lot more active supervision! The best tip for how to maximize time with kids who aren’t interested in the family activity is to use it to emotionally connect with them – chatting together as you walk or sit together, an arm put around a shoulder, truly listening as they talk (even with all the inevitable interruptions!).

My personal favorite family vacation has been outdoor camping. We’ve done this a number of times over the years with a variety of ages from teenagers to infants and every time, every single person has loved it. This doesn’t work for those who don’t enjoy the outdoors and/or don’t have a car, but there’s an indoor takeoff on this idea that we’ve also enjoyed. Set up a tent and sleeping bags inside for an at-home camp out, making complimentary foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, roasted marshmallows, etc. (This can be done on the mirpesset or in your yard as well.) Minimize your use of electricity and use flashlights at night, turn off the phone and ignore knocks at the door – it’s family connecting time.

Don’t force yourself to do something that you don’t enjoy and don’t let the thought of spending relaxed time with the kids be intimidating – keep it simple and doable. You don’t have to leave the house or plan an outing to have fun. Get some great books and curl up on the couch together for a family read aloud. Gear this towards the older ages and the younger ones will often listen in and pick up more than you expect. If you have much younger children, I’ve found that starting with a short read aloud first; whether they choose to stay snuggled up with the big kids on the couch or to run off and play, they’ll be more relaxed after this time with you.

If learning to do simple home repairs interests you, get your kids involved with you. As we’ve learned to do things over the years, our kids have worked side by side with us on a long list of home projects. Our teenage son recently got his 6, 7 and 9 year old brothers involved in plastering the walls of our mirpesset with him – even the three year old got in on the action! They had a shared enjoyable experience and did a great job.

Involve everyone in a family baking session – even small kids can help add ingredients with your active supervision and it’s fun to eat the fruits of your labor together. Even preparing a daily snack or nightly dinner can be a time for connecting with your kids! Start earlier than you would if you were doing it yourself, and give each child a job. According to age and ability they can peel vegetables, add vegetables or pasta to a pot, and help set the table.

All chores have potential to become connecting time when you work together with your kids in a relaxed way. Being stressed and demanding of their performance obviously won’t build relationships, and it’s critical to keep in mind what our priorities are when we’re trying to get things – relationship first! Again, take more time than you need to get the kids involved. My three year old takes armfuls of sorted laundry and delivers each pile to the bed where I tell him to put it. It’s not efficient but it is effective – he loves doing laundry with me!

To sum up, it’s not what you do with your children that determines the quality of the interaction. It’s how you do it. Supercharge the value of even the most simple activity together by: 1) remembering that each interaction is an opportunity and 2) look for ways to engage your child while doing it, physically and/or emotionally.

As you extend yourself to actively invest in the relationships with your children, don’t forget about taking care of yourself, too. It takes physical and emotional energy to be present for your family members and this can only be sustained if you make self-care a priority. Be sure you’re getting adequate sleep (insufficient sleep makes monsters of us all!), eat regular meals, stay hydrated, and think positive thoughts.

There’s just six weeks left until school starts – make the most of of the unique summer advantage!

Avivah

How to prevent burnout for busy parents

parenting, personal development, ,

“My husband and I would like to know: How do you and your husband prevent physical, emotional and mental burnout, when high emotions, lack of sleep and nutrition is neglected due to the high activity?”

The truth is that you can’t prevent burnout without taking care of yourself.  You just can’t.
That’s why we get burnt out in the first place, because we’re neglecting critical needs and treating ourselves like rubber balls that can bounce and bounce and bounce and never break.

green glass ball

Well, it’s not like that.  Sometimes when you drop a ball you find out it was made of glass, and not taking care of yourself will show you that the ball of self-care is a glass ball covered with a layer or two of rubber – it will bounce a bit and then as the rubber wears away, everything cracks into pieces.

shattered glass

Taking care of yourself is a process. Sometimes you do better and sometimes not as well.  There are three things that I’m going to suggest you start with, to keep yourself on an even keel:

1) Get enough rest.  Everything is harder when you’re tired, and it seems more overwhelming. I’m a much more flexible and kind person when I’m rested – to myself and those around me!

2) Regular, nourishing meals – What can I say, skipping meals leads to low blood sugar and irritation.  You have to eat! And once you’re eating, include foods that your body recognizes as food – not stuff that’s so processed than even a prehistoric wouldn’t have a long enough memory to remember where it came from!

3) Make time to do something that you love, something that renews your inner self.  It doesn’t have to be every day, it doesn’t have to take a long time – but make some space for this to happen in your life.

Now, I know you’re wondering, “but how can I take care of myself when there are so many more important things that need to be done?”

Nothing is more important than lovingly taking care of yourself.  Really.  Read that again and again, say it out loud until you start to believe it.

And then make the commitment to yourself to put first things first, recognizing where you belong on your to-do list: at the very top.

Avivah

If you want to be happy, this is what you need to invest in!

marriage, parenting, personal development

Sorry I’ve been AWOL for a while!  I’ve been having computer issues that have been dramatically limiting my computer access.  The issue isn’t resolving as quickly as I would like (to put it mildly!) so I’m using it as an opportunity to practice patience and remembering to allow life to happen on G-d’s timeline and let go of my idea of when things have to happen.

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If you ask young people what’s most important to them, they’re likely to say ‘making money’ or ‘becoming famous’.  So much of our society is focused on these external goals.  While those goals are of value,  in a 75 year study of over 700 men, researchers wanted to determine- what makes a good life?  Is it the things that we strive for when we’re starting our adult lives?

The primary message to emerge from this study is that good relationships keep us happier and healthier.  It’s nice to have more relationships and connections, but what matters more than the number of relationships is the quality of those relationships.

As I watched the video above, I thought about my own life and agreed that this is what has brought me the most happiness.  My husband and I celebrated our 24th anniversary a week ago, tomorrow our youngest will turn 4 and two days later our oldest will turn 23.  So this is annually a period in which I’m conscious of completing one stage and turning the page to a new stage.

Over this period of time, there have been times of financial stress and of abundance, of physical health and physical challenge, of struggles and of triumphs.  Sometimes external validation has been there and sometimes it hasn’t. But throughout it all, the relationships with my immediate family members has given me a sense of stability and satisfaction.

It’s knowing the power of effectively investing in relationships that motivates my work as a parenting consultant.  As much as good relationships add to the quality of one’s life, constant conflict and stress in relationships downgrades your happiness  – even if in other areas you seem to have it all.  Often people feel hopeless and frustrated about relationships with their spouse and children, but just because that’s how it is now doesn’t mean that’s how it needs to stay.

We all want happiness but as the speaker above said, relationships can be complicated and messy, it’s hard work and it’s life-long.  However, the benefits of creating those relationships are deeply valuable; they heavily influences physical health, emotional health, cognitive health and life span.

After all these years of marriage, I continue to look for ways to invest in my marital relationship.  I shared with you about going away together for the weekend recently; we also go out once a week together.  It’s not where we go but just making space away from the house and kids that matters.  But once a week wouldn’t be enough if we didn’t connect during the week!  If a couple of days go by without having significant conversation together (not the day to day business of co-running a home kind of talk), it feels like something important is missing.

How do you invest in keeping relationships healthy and strong?  If your relationships aren’t supportive of you, what can you do to improve them or find other ways to nurture yourself?

Avivah