Hand in Hand 1 by Skadie

Being a parent is a mixed bag – on one hand, you feel immense joy and happiness at the birth of your child, but on the other, you know that as they grow older, your responsibilities increase and the challenges you face become greater. When they start school and start to make friends, they discover a world besides their home and the parents. And unless you know and accept that there are going to be many changes and challenges ahead and are prepared to deal with them, you’re going to find it difficult to stay connected to and bond with your kids. Although each child is different, in general, most parents face the challenges below:(...)
Read the rest of 5 Challenges You Face as a Parent (584 words)

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Post tags: Development, Parenting Ideas, Relationships
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Happy Birthday Lisa by Lachlan Hardy

Psychologists often talk about finding the right balance in life. For instance, working hard but not so much that it negatively impacts your family or personal life. Or being close to others but not so close as to lose sight of where your thoughts and feelings stop and another persons’ begin. What makes this even more complicated is that the closeness or distance we feel from others depends partly on them and fluctuates over time. At the same time, there is often a misguided dichotomy that is used to discuss this issue that pits being a secure independent person against an insecure dependent one. Given that we are social creatures by nature, many argue that we need to be close to others in order to function properly and that interdependence is what we should aspire to. In an interdependent relationship, both peoples’ needs are being met. Within the context of an interdependent relationship, a couple can have fluctuating levels of both independence and dependence.(...)
Read the rest of The Power of “We” (371 words)

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Post tags: couples, marriage, psychology, Relationships, research-based, satisfaction
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moriza/ / CC BY 2.0

When your child becomes a teenager, it can feel like you need to learn how to be a parent all over again. Suddenly, the strategies you’ve used for years no longer seem to work! Dating, the emotional highs and lows, strange sleep patterns, conflict about chores – your child is individuating, and it can be tough to know how to navigate your changing relationship. Luckily, you’re not alone – there are shelves of books about parenting teens. Here are 5 best-sellers from Amazon:(...)
Read the rest of Parenting teens: 5 Bestsellers for Parents (470 words)

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Post tags: brain development, Parenting Ideas, psychology, Relationships, research-based, Teens, tweens
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcticpuppy/ / CC BY 2.0

Parents are often worried about their teens’ involvement in dating relationships and sexual activity. Given the potential consequences and risks, their concerns are perfectly understandable. At the same time, parents need to be aware that preaching restraint and hoping that kids will not fall in love and become sexually active until marriage, is naive at best and dangerous at worst. Teens need our guidance and support even when they behave in ways we do not approve of. While a great deal of research looks at the negative consequences of teen dating and sexual activity, researchers from the University of California-Davis have been looking into the positive aspects of teen romance.(...)
Read the rest of Can Teen Romantic Love Reduce Crime? (336 words)

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Post tags: crime, love, psychology, Relationships, research-based, teen romance, Teens
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qwrrty/ / CC BY 2.0

Let’s face it: kids tell lies. Sometimes it’s because they fear the consequences if they tell the truth, at other times, it may be to avoid an unpleasant task. There can be many reasons for it, but the bottom line is, if you’re a parent, chances are you’ve been lied to at some point by your child. It’s not a pleasant thing to think about, and it’s made less so by the fact that many kids quickly become very good liars. So what can parents do?(...)
Read the rest of How kids fool their parents (659 words)

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Post tags: deception, lying, Parents, psychology, Relationships, research-based
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Flickr: Crossed fingers II by Katie Tegtmeyer

When it comes to lying, it can seem like you just can’t win. People don’t like to be lied to. Lies can damage the bonds of any relationship. On the other hand, telling people the truth can hurt. Emotional pain caused by telling people the truth can also damage relational bonds. What do you do when both the truth and a lie are likely to cause pain? People routinely make choices of this nature. Studies show that we all lie on a daily basis. Most of our daily lies are “white lies” told to protect the feelings of others or to spare us from mildly unpleasant consequences. However, there are times when there is more at stake and knowing the truth takes on more importance. In these situations, people tend to resort to their intuitive lie sensors or as researchers call it, the “deceiver stereotype”. For instance, people tend to look for signs like a lag in speech, fidgeting or inappropriate smiling. “Gaze aversion” is a sign that people all over the world believe reveals a lie. That is, studies show that people from every continent believe that when someone looks down while telling their story, they are likely lying. Chances are you believe this as well. But is it true?(...)
Read the rest of Knowing When You’re Being Deceived Is Not So Easy (415 words)

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Post tags: deceiver stereotype, lying, psychology, Relationships, research-based
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flakstad/ / CC BY 2.0

If religion isn’t part of the equation, living together before marriage seems to be a logical choice – couples can see if they’re compatible before making the explicit marital commitment, and they can share rent and other expenses. However, a quick Google search on the topic brings up thousands of stories, some proclaiming that cohabitation is a good idea, and most saying that it’s bad. Looking at the actual research behind the headlines is eye-opening.

As recently as August 2009, articles published in the Journal of Marriage and Family were examining the issue of commitment, relationship quality, and risk of separation in couples who lived together and those who were married. Wiik and his colleagues looked at information gathered from almost 3000 couples in Sweden and Norway, and discovered that unmarried couples who lived together were less serious and less satisfied about their relationship than married couples were. Cohabitors were more likely to have thought about separation. This is where most of the online stories end. However, Wiik looked more closely at the data, and found that couples who lived together but planned to marry within two years were more serious, satisfied, and committed to their relationship than those with no marriage plans. In other words, not all unmarried couples who live together are alike!

Children further complicate the picture. (...)
Read the rest of Living Together, Part 3: Marry first or just move in? (572 words)

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Post tags: cohabitation, couples living together before marriage, living together, living together before marriage, marriage, psychology, Relationships, research-based
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

What are the differences between their relationships?

Are couples who move in together first more likely to stay together?

What happens when kids are involved?

Find out in this week’s episode!

Listen here:

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For couples living together before marriage, or for those who wait until after the wedding, Doctor Brian recommends:

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Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Related posts:

1. Living Together, Part 3: Marry first or just move in?
2. Living Together, Part 2: Who Needs the "Piece of Paper" Anyway?
3. Anatomy of Three Things (Episode 97)

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cohabitation, living together, marriage, psychology, Relationships, research-based
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Researchers and clinicians have worked on the premise that, when it comes to domestic violence, the experience is a one way street. That is, it is primarily a case of mens’ violence against women. Certainly, there are many statistics to back this perception up. For instance, survey’s show that 84% of spousal abuse victims are females, males account for 83% of spouse murderers, and almost one-third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner. However, more recently, researchers have begun to make a distinction between severe violence and mild to moderate spousal violence. The statistics in the mild to moderate cases of violence appear to be much less dependent on gender.

When police statistics are used to determine the nature of domestic violence, the incidents tend to be more severe and as a result, the long understood pattern of mens’ violence towards women is predominant. However, when nationwide surveys are conducted and people are interviewed over the phone, mild to moderate cases, the most common form of relationship violence, show a more evenly distributed representation of men and women as perpetrators. As a result, researchers are beginning to study how to intervene in these less severe cases in order to help prevent an escalation that could potentially prove more damaging to women.(...)
Read the rest of Partner Abuse, Part 3: Helping Couples Find A Different Way Forward (454 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conflict, conflict resolution, couples, domestic abuse, psychology, Relationships, research-based, violence
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conflict, divorce, Relationships, single parents
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.