Talking to Kids About Death: Popcak in Australia Catholic Family Magazine

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The latest issue of CathFamily E-Magazine is out!  cath-family

In light of the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, they asked me to share a bit about how parents can handle children’s questions about death.  It’s a tough topic, but one that every parent has to address at one point or another.  My thanks for Byron and Francine Pirola, founders of both SmartLoving.org (the most prominent Australian Catholic marriage ministry) and CathFamily.org (SmartLoving’s sister ministry) for inviting me to write for their excellent publication. Incidentally, if the Pirola name is familiar to readers, Byron and Francine are, respectively,  the son and daughter-in-law of Ron and Mavis Pirola, the Australian couple who presented at the Extraordinary Synod.  In fact, Byron and Francine’s adult daughter, Kiara, is the editor of Catholic Family, making her the 3rd Generation of Pirolas engaged in Catholic marriage and family ministry Down Under!  They are a truly awesome, faithful family  who are on fire for God and his plan for marriage and family life.

Anyhoo, it’s a great issue (and I’d say that even if I wasn’t in it)!  I hope you’ll check it out!

Healthy Marriage Habit #5: Caretaking in Conflict

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Each day, in celebration of the release of my latest book, When Divorce Is Not An Option: How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love, I’ll look at one of the 8 habits that separates “marriage masters” from “marriage disasters.”  Last week, I summarized all 8 divorceoptionhabits and we’ve looked at the first four habits in greater detail already.   Today, I’ll describe the fifth habit, Caretaking in Conflict.  After a brief explanation, you’ll have a chance to take a quiz that can help you evaluate how healthy this habit is in your marriage.

Healthy Marriage Habit #5:  Caretaking in Conflict.Why is this Important?

            The most important thing in problem-solving is not, actually, solving the problem.  Rather, it’s how well you take care of each other as you work together to find solutions to the problem.  Think about it.  If you manage to find a solution to a particular challenge in your life or relationship, but walk away from your conversation with your spouse feeling demoralized, resentful, exhausted and out-of-synch, what good is it?  Solving problems is important, but how you solve those problems is even more important.

I shared earlier that couples in healthy marriages work to maintain a 20:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions  in their day-to-day relationship.  Subsequent research shows that these same couples exhibit 5 times as many positive exchanges as negative ones when they are dealing with problems together and even disagreeing with each other (Gottman, 1995).  You might ask, “What PLANET are these people on?”

The good news is that these happy couples have their feet planted firmly on planet earth and they are not that different from you.  Happy couples argue.  As I mentioned earlier, they argue just about as much as you do.  But they remember that to get through their arguments, they have to try hard to take care of each other in the argument and encourage each other toward solutions.  They do this in little ways.  With little glances, touches, and words that say, “Even though this is hard, I still love you”, praying together so that they check their own wills against God’s will, treading carefully around each other’s sore spots even when they are upset, trying hard to not pour fuel on the fire to make things worse than they need to be, and taking breaks to cool down–early and often.

This is not as crazy an idea as it seems.  In any high-stress environment, taking care of your partner is job #1.  A fireman might run into a burning building to save a baby, but his first job is making sure that his partner can make it back out alive.  A police officer might be charged with apprehending a dangerous and armed criminal, but her first job is watching her partner’s back so they both make it through in one piece.  A soldier might need to claim that hill from the enemy, but his first job is making sure that his comrades stick together.  The second any one of these professional, high-conflict, problem-solvers lose sight of this, their risk of failure and death escalates exponentially.  As American founding father, Patrick Henry, memorably put it, “United, we stand.  Divided, we fall.”  He might as well have been talking about marriage.    High stress situations call for a high level of commitment to partnership above all.   Healthy husbands and wives know this and they work hard to take care of each other no matter what the problem.  Unlike the fireman, the police officer, and the soldier, your house isn’t literally burning down and no one is shooting at you. Your life isn’t on the line (and if it is, put down this book and call 911).  If they can learn to take care of each other when the heat is on, you can too.  In challenging you to learn to take care of your partner in conflict, I am not asking you to learn a marriage skill so much as I am challenging you to develop if healthy life skill.

Dr. Daniel Seigel (2013) notes that people who are good at problem-solving tend to be kinder than people who are not good at problem-solving.  He notes that kindness–which happens to be one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22)–is more than simply being nice to one another, it is  actually a sign that our brain is working properly and able to focus on solutions.   The somewhat jarring conclusion we must draw from this is that anger is not the sign that our Solution-Friendly Brain has turned off.  Rather, unkindness is!   Think of how that changes your perspective on the way you and your spouse communicate.   My clients often struggle with the idea of being kind to their spouse when in conflict.  They often feel that their spouse doesn’t deserve it. However, when we view kindness, not as a gift we give to the other person but as a sign of our own integration, it becomes easier to see why kindness is essential in arguing and how kindness makes finding mutually-satisfying solutions possible.

This is probably the skill that most couples in difficult marriages lack.  Many people were not raised in homes that modeled this kind of problem-solving. No matter.  You can learn it.  In fact, you must if you wish to be happy in any area of your life, not just marriage.  For the Christian this is even more true, because our ability to be kind to others is, in large part, the measure by which we will be judged (Matt 25:31-46).

Take the QUIZ!

Answer the following questions.

T  F  1.  My spouse and I actively try to appreciate and know about each other’s hobbies and interests, even if we, personally, don’t enjoy those things.

T  F  2.  My spouse and I genuinely respect and value each other’s skills and areas of expertise.

T  F  3.  If my spouse knows more about something than I do, I am interested and willing to learn from him/her.

T  F  4.  If my spouse is more skilled at something than I am, I am willing to defer to his/her expertise.

T  F  5.  If my spouse tells me that I offended him/her,   I am good at quickly apologizing and correcting the offense even if I didn’t mean to offend him/her.

T  F   6.  I am interested in listening to and learning from my spouse’s opinion especially when it is different from my own.

T  F   7.  When my spouse is upset, I don’t try to tell him/her that (s)he shouldn’t feel that way.

T  F   8.  My spouse and I are usually good at taking to heart each other’s corrections & suggestions.

T  F   9.  I can learn a lot from my spouse about being a loving person.

T  F  10. When we have disagreements, I am interested in listening to  and learning from my spouse’s perspective on what needs to change.

Give yourself 1 point for each “T”

You scored ______ out of a possible 10 points.

A score of 8 or higher means that the degree of mutual respect is a real strength in your relationship.

A score of 4-7 means that your marriage would significantly improve by giving greater attention to increasing your ability to exhibit mutual respect in your marriage.

A score of 3 or lower indicates that this is a critical area for improvement in your relationship.

How’d you do?  Even if you feel like your marriage is, in general, in good shape, if you’d like to strengthen your ability to cultivate more Caretaking in Conflict in your marriage, check out When Divorce is Not An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love.  Or, for more personalized assistance, contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute (740-266-6461) to learn more about our Catholic-integrated tele-counseling practice for couples, families, and individuals.  Let us help you experience all the love God has in store for you!

Healthy Marriage Habit #4: Positive Intention Frame

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Each day, in celebration of the release of my latest book, When Divorce Is Not An Option: How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love, I’ll look at one of the 8 habits that separates “marriage masters” from “marriage disasters.”  Last week, I summarized all 8 divorceoptionhabits and we’ve looked at the first three habits in greater detail already.   Today, I’ll describe the four habit, Creating a Positive Intention Frame.  After a brief explanation, you’ll have a chance to take a quiz that can help you evaluate how healthy this habit is in your marriage.

HealthyMarriage Habit #4–Positive Intention Frame:  Why is this important?

A positive intention frame is what psychologists and marriage therapists call the ability to assume the best about your spouse even when they are at their worst.  This is not the same thing as making excuses for your spouse’s bad behavior.  Rather, having a positive intention frame gives us the ability to not react angrily to every slight and enables us to address bigger offenses in a sensitive and understanding manner.  Having a positive intention frame is the psychological basis for the corporal work of mercy that is “bearing wrongs patiently.”  Again, there is nothing wrong with addressing offenses directly and promptly, but doing so charitably as well allows the offender to save face.  This increases the likelihood that the offender will work with you to find solutions to the problem instead of reacting defensively to what otherwise might feel like an attack or a criticism from you.

Having a positive intention frame allows you to feel comfortable making mistakes in front of each other because you know that each of you is trying your best and that you will both tolerate each other’s lapses and offenses and refuse to see missteps as intentional slights.  Research by Hawkins, Carrere, and Gottman (2002) shows that couples who tend to assume the best about each other avoid conflict more and handle conflict more gracefully when it arrives on the scene.

Take the Quiz!

T  F  1.  My spouse and I are good at giving each other the benefit of the doubt when we hurt each other.

T  F  2.  My spouse and I tend to assume that offenses are due to momentary lapses in judgment rather  than an intentional desire to be hurtful or offensive.

T  F  3.  When my spouse does something I find offensive or irritating, I tend to assume that I misunderstood his or her true intentions.

T  F  4.  My spouse and I rarely, if ever, react to each other as if we were intending to be offensive or hurtful.

T  F  5.  I feel like it’s safe to make mistakes around my spouse.

T  F  6.  I feel like my spouse and I go out of our way to assume the best about each other.

T  F  7.  I am confident that my spouse is looking out for my best interests.

T  F  8.  Sometimes my spouse offends me, but I doubt he or she would ever do so on purpose.

T  F  9.  My spouse and I tend to be generous about extending forgiveness when we disappoint each other.

T  F 10.  When something goes wrong at home, my spouse and I are NOT quick to blame each other.

Give yourself 1 point for each “T”

You scored ______ out of a possible 10 points.

A score of 8 or higher means that maintaining s Positive Intention Frame is a real strength in your relationship.

A score of 4-7 means that your marriage would significantly improve by giving greater attention to increasing your ability to exhibit a Positive Intention Frame in your marriage.

A score of 3 or lower indicates that this is a critical area for improvement in your relationship.

How’d you do?  Even if you feel like your marriage is, in general, in good shape, if you’d like to strengthen your ability to cultivate greater Self-Regulation in your marriage, check out When Divorce is Not An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love.  Or, for more personalized assistance, contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute (740-266-6461) to learn more about our Catholic-integrated tele-counseling practice for couples, families, and individuals.  Let us help you experience all the love God has in store for you!

Time Magazine, “The Hell You Say?”

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Time Magazine recently reprinted an article from Patheos Progressive Christian Channel blogger, John Shore, titled What Christianity without Hell Looks Like.shutterstock_216792595

Here’s the money quote from the article, “A Christianity without Hell would have nothing to recommend it but the constant and unending love of God.”   

I don’t know what the author of the quote thinks Hell is, but unwittingly, in that one line,  Shore actually describes the classic Christian vision of Hell.

St Augustine was once asked, “What does God do to the souls in Hell?”  His response? “He loves them.”   The truth is, the flames of Hell are nothing more than the fires of God’s “constant and unending love” licking at the hearts of those who refuse to melt.

Each of us is utterly dependent upon God for our life.  Nothing can exist outside of him.  United with our body in this life, we often suffer under the delusion that we live under our own power.  But when we die there will be no way to pretend that anything besides our complete dependence upon God’s love stands between us and total annihilation.  For those who have spent their lives learning about the constant and unending love of God first hand, and moreover, learning to depend upon it utterly, that experience will be one of tremendous joy, gratitude, and rejoicing.  How giddy we will feel standing on the razor’s edge of nothingness knowing that it is God’s constant and unending love that has, in fact, made us indestructible!  How amazing to suddenly be able to fly…without wings!

But for those who have spent their lives in perpetual, spiritual, “do-by-self!” toddlerhood, refusing to depend on anything or anyone besides themselves, having to suddenly depend entirely on some completely unfamiliar, unknown being,  sustained solely by some unknown, unfamiliar power,  will be nothing short of terrifying.  How could such an experience be anything less than an eternal torture of doubt, fear, and existential nausea as they gaze into the abyss, so eternally in touch with their own powerlessness that they can never accept that God has always been there, will always be there, and in fact, is there still, sustaining them in spite of themselves.

God is present.  He is constant.  He is unending love.  But whether we experience that reality as Heaven or Hell is not up to God.  It’s up to us. The fires of God’s love burn bright and hot and without discrimination–constant and unending.  It is up to us whether we learn to melt…or not.

In fact, Mr. Shore, the only way that Hell cannot exist is for God’s love to cease to be constant and unending.  But those who who have been blessed to experience God’s constant and unending love have also been given the power to imagine the tragedy of living outside of it.

Healthy Marriage Habit #3: Emotional Regulation

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Each day, in celebration of the release of my latest book, When Divorce Is Not An Option: How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love, I’ll look at one of the 8 habits that separates “marriage masters” from “marriage disasters.”  Last week, I summarized all 8 divorceoptionhabits and we’ve looked at the first two habits in greater detail already.   Today, I’ll describe the third habit, Emotional Regulation.  After a brief explanation, you’ll have a chance to take a quiz that can help you evaluate how healthy this habit is in your marriage.

HealthyMarriage Habit #3 Good Self-Regulation:  Why is this important?

Self-Regulation refers to a person’s capacity to stay calm, recognize that they are losing their cool before it’s too late, and regain their composure even under pressure.  Your ability to negotiate conflict and tension in a marriage is directly dependent up on your ability to stay in the Solution-Friendly Brain State and avoid the Misery Making Mindset.     As you saw earlier, when stress causes our emotional temperature to rise, we’re unable to problem-solve and we tend to react rather than respond.  Psychologists refer to this process as “flooding” and it causes a person to be rigid and reactive under pressure (Seigel, 2013; Manes, 2013).  But, if you can learn keep your Solution-Friendly Brain turned on, even in conflict, you can stay in control of the discussion even if your partner loses control of him or herself.

When I was still engaged to my wife, an elderly couple gave us a bit of advice that was as true then as it remains today, “Don’t ever go crazy at the same time!”  If you have the ability to self-regulate, then you can keep discussions on track even if your spouse loses his or her cool.  Developing this skill takes work, but its well worth it because it is what enables you to not have to feel afraid or overwhelmed no matter what problem you are facing or how emotional your spouse becomes.

Of course, beyond the psychological benefits we receive from practicing those habits that lead to self-regulation, Galatians 5:22-24 identifies self-control as one of the Fruits that gives evidence that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in your heart.  Proverbs 25:28 reminds us that the person who lack the ability to regulate his or her emotions is like the city that is left defenseless and powerless in the presence of an invader.

Take the Quiz

T  F  1. We are respectful in our disagreements.

T  F  2. Our arguments result in solutions and concrete plans for improving things.

T  F  3. Even when we’re disagreeing with each other, we are careful to avoid saying certain, particularly hurtful things.

T  F  4. If we offend each other in an argument we are quick to apologize and forgive.

T  F  5. If we offend each other in an argument we bounce back and get the conversation back on track quickly.

T  F  6. We look for ways to encourage and support each other when we’re having tense discussions.

T  F  7.  Generally speaking, I wouldn’t agree with my spouse just to get  him/her to shut up.

T  F  8.  Generally, when I get angry, I do not lash out or say things that I think may hurt my partner even when I feel they might deserve it.

T  F  9.  Generally, when I get angry, I do not shut down, refuse to speak, or walk away from the argument.

T  F 10.  When conversations heat up, I am able to facilitate respectful breaks that give us time to cool down and start the conversation in a better place at a later time.

Give yourself 1 point for each “T”

You scored ______ out of a possible 10 points.

A score of 8 or higher means that maintaining Good Self Regulation is a real strength in your relationship.

A score of 4-7 means that your marriage would significantly improve by giving greater attention to increasing your ability to exhibit Good Self-Regulation in the presence of disagreements and offenses.

A score of 3 or lower indicates that this is a critical area for improvement in your relationship.

How’d you do?  Even if you feel like your marriage is, in general, in good shape, if you’d like to strengthen your ability to cultivate greater Self-Regulation in your marriage, check out When Divorce is Not An Option:  How to Heal Your Marriage and Nurture Lasting Love.  Or, for more personalized assistance, contact the Pastoral Solutions Institute (740-266-6461) to learn more about our Catholic-integrated tele-counseling practice for couples, families, and individuals.  Let us help you experience all the love God has in store for you!

Want Faithful Kids? These 4 Secrets Will Make It Happen

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Commonweal, has some bad news  for Catholic parents.  (But hang on, I’ve got the good news for you after this brief interlude.)kids

Here’s the bad news for Commonweal readers, and we may as well get right to it: Just over half the young people raised by parents who describe themselves as “liberal” Catholics stop going to Mass entirely once they become “emerging adults”—a new demographic category that means either prolonged adolescence or delayed adulthood, defined here in Young Catholic America as ages eighteen to twenty three.

But now, let’s put that sad trend in perspective: The picture isn’t all that much better for the children of “traditional” Catholics. Although only a quarter of those young adults say they’ve stopped going to Mass entirely, only 17 percent say they’re going every week, and in general, their allegiance to church membership and participation seems nearly as faded as the kids of so-called feckless liberals.  

Young Catholic America analyzes three waves of results from the National Study on Youth and Religion, collected from 2002 through 2008. Since many of the same young people were surveyed across this time period, the authors can compare earlier thirteen-to-seventeen-year-old respondents with those same young people five years later. Now that they’re eighteen to twenty three, their current status as Catholics might discourage even the most ardent evangelist. Only 7 percent of these young adults who might have turned out Catholic can be called “practicing” Catholics—if “practicing” is tightly defined as attending Mass weekly, saying that faith is extremely or very important, and praying at least a few times a week. About 27 percent are at the other end of the spectrum, classified as “disengaged,” meaning that they never attend Mass and feel religion is unimportant. In between these two poles is a complex landscape of the marginally attached—perhaps willing to identify themselves as Catholic, attending Mass sporadically at best, and in general living life with their Catholic identity as a more dormant, if not entirely irrelevant, force.   READ MORE.

It has nothing to do with liberal or traditional.  The book Commonweal cites totally missed the point.  Virtually nothing the institutional Church itself does will keep kids in the pews.  Not better preaching, or having perfect priests, or better music, or…whatever.  There is already a TON of research on this issue.  Young Catholic America appears to totally ignore this data from what I can tell.  In Real Estate, the key to success is “location, location, location.” In the Church, the key to raising faithful kids is “relationship, relationship, relationship.”
 
If we want to raise kids that are faithful and willing to save sex for marriage, then we need to do 4 things.
First, moms and dads need to witness a passionate marriage that’s worth saving sex for.
 
Second we need to make certain to love our kids in ways that make them feel close to us (not just us feel close to them). That’s the heart of discipleship between parent and child.
 
Third, they need to have a lived experience that the faith is having a qualitatively positive impact on their family life. If they can see that the faith is somehow a significant contributing factor to why their family like and enjoys each other more than their non-churched friends like and enjoy their family lives, they won’t mind–and in fact will eagerly strive to live up to–the extra rules and expectations we put on them.
Fourth, dads–yes, DADS–need to take charge of teaching the faith (oh, and the research actually shows that dads need to teach an authentic faith and model authentic piety, which is probably why trads did better in the survey).  All the data show that when dads actually take responsibility for teaching and witnessing to the faith, kids grow up to live it.  If moms are in charge of faith  formation, the figures for faith transmission are depressing.  
If those 4 factors aren’t in place, then religion just looks like a hypocritical hobby and the rules just make kids feel “weird” and unable to fit in with their peers. If we want to raise kids capable or making a radical witness, we need to make sure we are forming a radically intimate relationship with them.
For more information on how to raise kids who own their faith and love God with all their hearts, check out Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids.