Believe It Or Not, Study Actually Says, “Happy Wife, Happy Life!”

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Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD.”  A new study from Rutgers and the University of Michigan proves how true that is!

When it comes to a happy marriage, a new Rutgers study finds that the more content the wife is with the long-term union, the happier the husband is with his life no matter how he feels about theirshutterstock_217008835 nuptials.

“I think it comes down to the fact that when a wife is satisfied with the marriage she tends to do a lot more for her husband, which has a positive effect on his life,” said Deborah Carr, a professor in the Department of Sociology, School of Arts and Science. “Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives.”  Carr and Vicki Freedman, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, co-authored a research study published in the October issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.  READ MORE

To discover more great marriage tips, check out For Better…FOREVER! A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage , Just Married:  The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage and  The Exceptional Seven Percent:  Nine Secrets or the World’s Happiest Couples!  

 

 

Moms’ Response to Baby’s Cries May Indicate Unresolved Childhood Wounds/Need for Counseling

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A new study suggests that the way a mom feels about responding to her child’s cries may indicate the presence of unresolved–and perhaps unrecognized–childhood wounds.shutterstock_215227429

The research found that moms who either come from healthy families-of-origin OR have successfully resolved their childhood issues tend to respond more sensitively and compassionately to their baby’s cries, seeing those cries as a call for help.  By contrast, moms who had not adequately come to terms with their own negative childhood experiences tended to focus on how their baby’s cries affected them. Moms in this latter group tended to experience a crying baby as manipulative or a nuisance.   Instead of being prompted to provide a nurturing response, these moms tended to worry about how they were going to get their own needs met if they responded to their child as much as their child seemed to need them.

“Responding sensitively to infant crying is a difficult yet important task,” notes Esther M. Leerkes, professor of human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who led the study. “Some mothers may need help controlling their own distress and interpreting babies’ crying as an attempt to communicate need or discomfort.”   READ MORE

The study presents a powerful argument that moms who struggle to respond compassionately, promptly, and sensitively to their baby’s cries should not write their resistance off to a difference in parenting style, but rather see it for what it is, a sign that there may be work to do on healing from childhood wounds. Rather than experiencing these findings as a judgment, moms who struggle to be nurturing in response to infant crying should be encouraged that there are effective ways to resolve the inner-tension that robs them of the joy of motherhood.

While every parent has off days, if you habitually tend to feel that you are in competition with your child to get your needs met, or experience your child’s cries as manipulative or a nuisance, contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute’s tele-counseling practice (740-266-6461) to learn more about how you can begin to heal your childhood hurts and free your heart to love your child the way God intends him or her to be loved.  You can get your needs met while being present to your child.  Let us show you how.

New Tender Tidings Emagazine for Catholic Parents is Now Available!

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Kim Cameron-Smith, founder of IntentionalCatholicParenting.com and More2Life Radio Contributor just let me know that The Fall 2014 issue of Tender Tidings, CAPC’s FREE parenting magazine, is nowshutterstock_163230620 available!

In this issue:

~Hospitality: Making a House a Home
~Marriage: Does your spouse feel like a priority in your life?
~Balance: Simplifying our homes and our calendars
~Dr. Greg answers some stumpers from real parents. Is it wrong to practice yoga in order to relax? What should we do if an older child wants to sleep in the family bed? What should we do if our child cries when we drop her off at school?
~Family prayer: Marcia helps us make a prayer plan for our family no matter our experience.    PLUS MORE!

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Parent Success Tip: 2 Steps to Drug Free Kids

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Parenting is a tough job.  Every parent wants to raise successful, healthy kids but there are so many challenges.  And now, as states begin legalizing marijuana, our children are faced with even moreshutterstock_29603572 pressures that make staying drug-free, alcohol-free, and tobacco-free harder.

The good news is that new research shows that two simple parenting strategies can help you raise kids who are much more likely to stay clean and sober.

1.  Don’t Play Favorites.

The study showed that kids who felt that they were less favored by their parents than a sibling were about twice as likely as the favorite child to use drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.  Researchers encourage parents to go the extra mile to spend time with the child they have more difficulty getting along with.  Putting more energy into your relationship with your harder-to-relate-to child can help you build the rapport you need to guide your child to a healthy adulthood.  Remember, God gives us the kids we need, the kids who have the best chance of making us change and grow the way God needs us to.  If you have a child who is harder for you to get along with, put the extra time in and welcome the growth that comes.

2.  Engage

The study also found that there was an even greater  likelihood that the less-favored child would abuse drugs, alcohol, or tobacco when the family, itself,  was considered “disengaged.”   Family life has to be more than a collection of individuals living under the same roof and sharing a data plan.  Make sure you are taking the time as parents to create rituals of connection; regularly scheduled appointments for your family to gather for work, play, meaningful talk, and prayer.  The more you create and nurture these daily and weekly rituals of connection, the more engaged and healthy your family will be!   Establishing family rituals helps you claim your place as the “domestic church” and allows God’s grace to flow more freely in your family life as you take regular time to learn about the gift God is giving you through each other.

Taken together, avoiding favoritism and increasing family connection through rituals can help give your kids the extra boost they need to resist a host of evils, including drug and alcohol use.

For more tips on raising great, healthy, godly kids, check out Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.

The Serotonin Myth Continued: What You Need To Know About Depression

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A few weeks back, I reported on a new study that pounded yet another nail in the coffin of the theory that depression is caused by low serotonin.   You can read that original post here as well as the follow shutterstock_217156765up post wherein I responded to a question from a reader asking if I was trying to say that people who suffered with depression were to blame for their struggles (short answer:  no.)

Over at PsychCentral, one of the most popular psychology news portals on the web, the director, Dr. John Grohol has an excellent piece summarizing the growing case against the low serotonin theory of depression.  He writes….

Back in 2005, Lacasse and Leo pointed out in the journal PLOS Medicine that there was a huge disconnect between what we knew about serotonin’s role in depression from the medical research, and what pharmaceutical advertisements were claiming we knew:

Regarding SSRIs, there is a growing body of medical literature casting doubt on the serotonin hypothesis, and this body is not reflected in the consumer advertisements. In particular, many SSRI advertisements continue to claim that the mechanism of action of SSRIs is that of correcting a chemical imbalance, such as a paroxetine advertisement, which states, “With continued treatment, Paxil can help restore the balance of serotonin…” [22].

Yet […] there is no such thing as a scientifically established correct “balance” of serotonin. The take-home message for consumers viewing SSRI advertisements is probably that SSRIs work by normalizing neurotransmitters that have gone awry. This was a hopeful notion 30 years ago, but is not an accurate reflection of present-day scientific evidence.

New research that we reported on last month confirms the role of serotonin in depression is not well-understood. In that mice study, removing the stuff in the brain that creates serotonin2 did not create a bunch of depressed mice.

Other research confirms it’s not as simple as a serotonin deficit. As Whitaker (2010) noted, the 1976 Asbert study is still relevant. Asbert looked at levels of a metabolized result of serotonin (something called 5-HIAA) in spinal fluid. If low-levels of serotonin cause depression, then all people suffering from depression should have significantly lower levels of 5-HIAA in their spinal fluid than people without depression.

What Asbert found, however, wasn’t a clean result. In fact, it clearly shows how complicated depression as a disease process is. In both groups of people studied — both a depression group and a control group — about 50 percent had “regular” levels of 5-HIAA, about 25 percent had really low levels, and another 25 percent had really high levels.

If serotonin were really an important part of the picture in depression, we’d expect that group to look significantly different than the control group. In this study, at least, the two groups looked largely the same.

As we said back in 2007, serotonin may play some small, not-yet-well-understood role in depression. But if it does, it looks nothing like the simplistic “low levels of serotonin cause depression” hypothesis that was all the rage ten to twenty years ago.  READ MORE.

Of course, none of this means that depression medication can’t be helpful but only, as I reported before, that it should never be the first course of treatment for depression. Research shows that meds are best when they play a supportive role to therapy.   Meds alone do not represent the best standard of care for treating depression.  If you are on medication for depression but not currently in counseling, talk to your doctor about getting a referral to a therapist in your area, or contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn more about you can benefit from our Catholic-integrated, telephone counseling practice.  Let us help you find effective, faithful solutions to the tough emotional challenges you are facing.