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How To Deal With Strong Personalities

Strong personalities can present challenges in our interactions, particularly when they exhibit controlling behaviors that can impact our mental well-being. Recognizing signs of control and implementing coping strategies are essential for maintaining healthy relationships and boundaries.

Signs of Controlling Personalities

  1. Dominance: Individuals with controlling personalities tend to dominate conversations, decision-making processes, and interactions, asserting their opinions forcefully and expecting compliance from others.
  2. Lack of Empathy: A lack of empathy is a common trait in controlling individuals, as they may prioritize their own agenda without consideration for others’ feelings, needs, or perspectives.
  3. Micromanaging: Controlling personalities may engage in micromanaging behaviors, closely overseeing and controlling every detail while struggling to delegate tasks or trust others.
  4. Authoritarian Communication Style: Communication with controlling individuals may feel one-sided, with dictation of instructions, demands, or a commanding tone that dismisses opposing viewpoints.
  5. Difficulty Accepting Feedback: Controlling individuals may find it challenging to accept criticism, feedback, or suggestions, often reacting defensively or dismissively to alternative perspectives.

Strategies for Dealing with Controlling Personalities

  1. Establish Clear Boundaries: Setting boundaries is crucial when dealing with controlling individuals. Clearly communicate your limits, expectations, and needs to maintain a healthy balance in the relationship.
  2. Practice Active Listening: Show genuine interest in the person’s perspective, validate their feelings, and seek to understand their viewpoint without judgment. Active listening can help defuse tensions and improve communication.
  3. Maintain Calmness: Stay composed in confrontational situations. Responding with patience and composure can prevent conflicts from escalating and help you navigate interactions more effectively.
  4. Assertiveness: Assert your thoughts, feelings, and opinions respectfully. Express yourself clearly while acknowledging the other person’s viewpoint to establish open communication and mutual respect.
  5. Focus on Collaboration: Emphasize finding common ground and working together towards solutions rather than engaging in power struggles. Collaboration can lead to more positive outcomes and strengthen relationships.
  6. Seek Support: If interactions with controlling personalities become overwhelming, consider seeking guidance from mental health professionals or counselors. They can provide tailored strategies and support to help you navigate challenging relationships.

By recognizing signs of control, setting boundaries, practicing effective communication, and seeking support when needed, you can manage interactions with controlling personalities to protect your well-being and foster healthier relationships. Remember, your mental health is essential, and prioritizing self-care in challenging situations is key to maintaining balance and resilience.

Expert Insights

  • Dr. Judith Orloff, a psychiatrist and author specializing in empathetic communication, emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and practicing self-care when dealing with strong personalities.
  • Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and expert on personality disorders, advises on strategies for managing challenging personalities and maintaining emotional well-being in relationships.
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When Your Children Are Hurt By Other Children

As parents, it can be difficult to see our children experience hurt feelings, especially when it comes from their friendships. Whether it’s a disagreement with a friend, feeling left out, or experiencing betrayal, children can be deeply affected by these emotional challenges. However, there are several ways parents can support their children through these difficult times and help them healthily navigate their emotions.

1. Encourage open communication:

  • Create a safe and welcoming environment for your child to express their feelings. Let them know that it’s okay to feel hurt and that you are there to listen without judgment.

2. Validate their feelings:

  • Acknowledge and validate your child’s emotions. Let them know that it’s normal to feel hurt and that their feelings are important.

3. Offer empathy and understanding:

  • Show empathy by putting yourself in your child’s shoes and understanding the situation from their perspective. This can help your child feel heard and supported.

4. Help them identify their emotions:

  • Guide your child in identifying and understanding their emotions. Encourage them to express how they feel and help them label their emotions, such as sadness, anger, or disappointment.

5. Teach problem-solving skills:

  • Help your child brainstorm possible solutions to the situation that caused their hurt feelings. Encourage them to think of ways to resolve the issue or improve the friendship.

6. Foster resiliency:

  • Teach your child that experiencing setbacks in friendships is a normal part of life and that they have the strength to bounce back from these challenges. Encourage them to see the situation as an opportunity for growth.

7. Encourage healthy coping mechanisms:

  • Guide your child in using healthy coping strategies, such as engaging in enjoyable activities, spending time with supportive friends, or practicing mindfulness and relaxation techniques.

8. Role model healthy communication and conflict resolution:

  • Demonstrate positive communication and conflict resolution skills in your own interactions. Children often learn by example, and seeing healthy conflict management at home can have a positive impact on their own behavior.

9. Support their social skills development:

  • Help your child develop their social skills by teaching them about empathy, active listening, and the importance of respecting others’ feelings and boundaries.

10. Seek professional help if needed:

  • If your child’s hurt feelings persist or significantly impact their well-being, consider seeking the help of a mental health professional who specializes in working with children.

By providing a supportive and nurturing environment, parents can play a crucial role in helping their children navigate the complex terrain of friendships and hurt feelings. Through open communication, empathy, and guidance, parents can empower their children to develop resilience and healthy coping skills, ultimately helping them build strong and fulfilling relationships in the future. Remember that every child is unique, and it’s important to tailor your approach to your child’s individual needs and temperament.

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Reconciliation in Families: Why It Is Important, What It Is, and What It Is Not!

Family, the cornerstone of our lives, is a haven where love, support, and understanding ideally flourish. However, just like any relationship, familial bonds can encounter strife, conflicts, and misunderstandings that can strain these connections. In these moments, the concept of reconciliation emerges as a powerful force, offering a path toward healing and restoring harmony within family dynamics. Let’s delve into what reconciliation truly means in the context of family relationships, what it doesn’t entail, and why its presence is profoundly important.

What Reconciliation Is:

1. Healing and Understanding: Reconciliation within families involves acknowledging past hurts and grievances, fostering empathy, and striving to comprehend each other’s perspectives. It’s a process that opens the door to healing wounds and rebuilding trust.

2. Communication and Empathy: It’s about engaging in open, honest conversations, actively listening, and empathizing with each other’s feelings, creating space for understanding and empathy to flourish.

3. Forgiveness and Moving Forward: Reconciliation isn’t just about saying sorry; it’s about genuinely understanding the impact of actions, seeking forgiveness, and committing to positive change, allowing for growth and progress within relationships.

4. Building Stronger Bonds: Through reconciliation, families have an opportunity to emerge stronger. It’s an avenue to deepen connections, reinforce values, and fortify the foundation upon which family unity rests.

5. Respecting Differences: It’s about acknowledging and respecting each member’s individuality and differences, fostering an environment where diverse opinions are valued and accepted.

What Reconciliation Isn’t:

1. Ignoring Issues: It’s not about sweeping problems under the rug. Reconciliation involves addressing underlying issues rather than ignoring or avoiding them, even if uncomfortable.

2. Assigning Blame: It’s not a blame game. Rather than focusing on who’s at fault, reconciliation aims to find solutions and mend relationships, shifting the focus towards resolution and growth.

3. Instantaneous Fix: Reconciliation isn’t a quick-fix solution. It’s a gradual process that requires patience, commitment, and continuous effort from all involved parties.

4. Erasing the Past: It doesn’t erase the history of conflicts. Instead, it acknowledges past grievances while working towards a future that is not dictated by them.

5. One-Sided Effort: Successful reconciliation requires mutual effort and willingness from all family members. It cannot be solely the responsibility of one party.

The Importance of Reconciliation in Family Relationships:

1. Nurturing Emotional Well-being: Reconciliation contributes significantly to the emotional health of family members. It creates an environment where individuals feel valued, understood, and supported.

2. Strengthening Family Bonds: It reinforces the sense of belonging and togetherness within the family unit, fostering stronger connections that withstand challenges.

3. Teaching Valuable Lessons: Through the process of reconciliation, family members learn empathy, forgiveness, and the importance of communication, serving as crucial life lessons.

4. Promoting Growth and Understanding: It encourages personal growth and understanding of differing perspectives, promoting a more tolerant and compassionate family dynamic.

5. Securing a Positive Future: Reconciliation paves the way for a future where conflicts are addressed promptly, fostering a more harmonious and loving environment for generations to come.

In essence, reconciliation in family relationships is a transformative journey. It’s a commitment to understanding, empathy, and growth, enriching the fabric of familial connections. Its significance lies not just in resolving conflicts but in nurturing enduring bonds that withstand the tests of time, adversity, and change. Embracing reconciliation within families fosters an environment where love, understanding, and support prevail, creating a haven where every member finds solace, acceptance, and belonging.

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What is shame and how to heal?

By guest blogger: Stephanie Patterson, LMFT

 

According to researcher Brene Brown,

shame is defined as “the intensely painful experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.”

Shame has a strong visceral reaction. One person describes it as “that feeling in the pit of your stomach that is dark and hurts like hell. You can’t talk about it and you can’t articulate how bad it feels because then everyone would know your ‘dirty little secret.’” And yet we all experience it from time to time when one of our vulnerable spots gets triggered. For example, motherhood and body image can bring a feeling of shame to women; men commonly feel ashamed of being weak.

Shame is different from guilt.

Shame is believing one is bad, while guilt is believing one did something bad

This is an important distinction.

Parents often try to shame their children into obedience, mistakenly thinking shame is a great motivator. This could not be farther from the truth. Shame disconnects us from others.  It immobilizes us. It makes us feel weak.  We want to shrivel up into a little ball and disappear. When we call children names, when we say “You’re always…(anything negative)”, or if we say, “Don’t be a…. (wimp, cry baby, drama queen, etc.),” we are shaming our kids. When we tell children, teens, or grown up children that they ARE something, they usually believe it.  Then they wear that label and inwardly feel it is true about them. Make sure you are not telling them they are something bad. That is shaming.

On the other hand, feeling bad about doing something wrong can be a great motivator for change. The difference is that when you do something wrong, you yourself are not something wrong.

There is a fine but significant distinction.

In Brene Brown’s book I Thought it was Just Me (But it Isn’t), she shares her insights from years of studying shame and how to overcome it.

Here are her steps in a nutshell:

  1. Notice when one of your shame triggers is hit. Get to know what your body feels like and the thoughts that tend to run through your head when you feel shame.
  2. Reach out to someone you feel comfortable with. This person should be reliably supportive on the topic that you are feeling shame about. For example, I may go to my sister on topics of womanhood or dealing with family, but I may avoid topics of raising children if she sometimes makes unfavorable comparisons.
  3. The last step is the hardest: speaking shame. After you receive a healthy dose of empathy from your support person, you can then talk with the person who hurt your feelings. You can tell them what they said and how deeply it hurt you. When you are able to speak your truth about your shame, you disarm it.

We cannot always know which of our comments will hit someone’s shame target right on, but we can be fairly certain that when we respond to others with empathy, shame cannot exist. Empathy means listening to others, hearing the emotional undertone of their messages, and commenting on how the experience might feel to them. Empathy connects and heals. Shame severs and hurts.

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Is Your Child a Manipulator or Influencer? 

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

Children want feel significant and can be natural leaders when parents can direct this desire in a healthy manner. Unfortunately, many children turn into manipulators or bullies, trying to control everything and everyone in their path. This has a lot to do with developmental drives. A child is untrained force of emotional energy. They cry, scream, tantrum and hit at the slightest provocation. This is because their brain and nervous system are ruled by their emotions over their thoughts and it takes time and practice for them to learn how to manage themselves. Truthfully, many adults are still trying to learn this skill!

When your child is acting bossy, try to imagine how you can redirect this emotional energy into concrete, positive influence. How can you model natural leadership and guide them to be significant without the abuse? 

Reinforce areas of their character that demonstrate their capacity for patience, kindness, respect, love, generosity, and compassion for others. Empathy that is experienced and offered toward others is still the key builders of morality and good judgements in our brain development. Use it without restraint toward your children. 

Look for examples, in media and the world around us, where positive influence and helping others is happening. Discuss the costs for this and why others would lay down their time and energy for someone else. Ask your child how they have done this and who they could pick to be helpful to…Shift their attentional focus from finding significance in manipulation to finding identity in influencing others.

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tranPARENTcy

By Ron Huxley, LMFT

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that being a parent today is tougher than ever before. Blame it on the moral decay of society, the impersonal nature of technology or the breakup of the home. Either way, contemporary parents feel out of touch with themselves and their children. 

The solution is not to turn back time but to open our selves up to our children. As stress bombards today’s families, parents retreat farther into their private self leaving a fully functioning but completely unsatisfactory public self to go through the daily routines of work and family life. This deprives both parent and child of the intimacy and closeness they both want and desire. Ironically, strength comes through vulnerability. Letting children see our frustrations, pain, and failure can be a valuable lesson to them. 

Many parents can’t see the wisdom in being transparent to their children. Already debilitated, they can’t understand why they should give away their power. This notion of power comes from a false parenting authority of “Do it because I said so” or “I am the parent therefore you must obey!” This is not true strength. This is force. Strangely enough, giving up this false strength will lead parents to the true power of intimacy in their family relationships. 

Self discovery:

Children are naturally curious. They love to explore and learn. Parents can use this drive to increase intimacy with their children. The first step is to make/take time out of busy schedules to really be with children. TransPARENTcy is achieved in those unstructured but regular moments with children. It can be in the car on the way to or from school. It can be at a regularly scheduled playtime at home. It can be during the last few minutes of the day tucking your child into bed. The actual arrangement is not as important as simply making the most of everyday interactions with children. 

To do this parents need to get comfortable being in the here-and-now with children. Children are naturally present focused. They are not worried about their future or their past. Get into that present moment with your child. Be aware of the environment you find yourself in and talk about those things with your child. This is how a child learn about the world. Encourage questions. Eliminate judgment about right and wrong and instead let your child explore ideas about the world to help them find ethical answers. Talk about your child’s thoughts and feelings in as objective a manner as possible and then share your own thoughts and feelings without lecture or sermonizing. 

Be Honest: 

Honesty is still the best policy when it comes to our emotions. If parents feel one of the primary emotions: mad, sad or glad, share them honestly. Hiding these emotions lead to negative behaviors on the parts of both parent and child. Of course if parents are going through a major depression or anxiety children should not take the place of a good therapist or become the emotional dumping ground for a parent’s stressful life. Instead, parents can model how to manage difficult feelings so that children can learn how to regulate theirs. The truth is that parents can’t hide their emotions even if they want to. Most likely children already know when their parents are mad or sad even if they try to hide them. 

Children were nonverbal long before they were verbal making them experts of the unspoken expression. If mom or dad find their own emotions so horrible that they can’t be honest about them, maybe children shouldn’t trust their emotions either. Many parents believe that by covering their own emotions they are protecting their children. Consequently, parents put on an act to only show positive feelings. This gives children a one-sided view of life making them unprepared to cope with others in the real world. This form of protection is really for the parent not the child. Children are harmed not helped by this belief. 

Take risks: 

Many parents who want greater connection with their children never experienced it as a child themselves. It is frightening to be transparent with anyone, especially one’s children. The greatest risk of vulnerability will come when parents must admit a mistake. To avoid this risk parents try not to reveal their inadequacies to their children causing children to mistrust what parents say and do. This is not the way build stronger bonds. If parents want to be an appropriate role model and achieve greater intimacy with their children they will need to admit their humanness. 

Even more frightening for parents is the idea that they might need to ask forgiveness of their child for a word or action acted out in anger. Forgiveness has a spiritual quality that transcends emotional hurts and repairs relationships. It opens doors of intimacy that would otherwise remain locked shut by hurts and resentments. Taking this type of risks can be particularly difficult for fathers. There is an old notion that fathers must be proud, strong and therefore invulnerable. The rationale is that this behavior teaches boys how to be a man. Unfortunately, it teaches all the wrong things and ill prepares boys for future relationships. Today’s sons need dads who understand the importance of learning from one’s failures as well as successes. 

Create a Family Team: 

Some parents complain that the reason they cannot be transparent with their child is due to conflicts in personality. When children and parents have drastically different moods, reactions and motivations, it can make connecting quite a chore. To overcome this problem, parents try and focus on similarities versus differences. While this is helpful, it is also important to concentrate on those differences that divide parent and child. Talking about personality differences can actually be a way to connect to a child. Discuss how you and your child are different and why that makes each of you unique. Explore the various ways to process or react to life. Never define the differences as deviant, just different. Learn from the other person’s viewpoint and discover compromises that fit you both. 

Parents can use personality differences to build a powerful “family team.”  Match individual interests, skills and desires so that each person compliments the others. The role of the parents, in these family teams, is to cheer lead each personality. Make the motto: “one for all and all for one” your new slogan for family transparency. 

Empathy: 

The surest path to transparency is empathy. Empathy is the act of communicating our understanding of a child’s feelings, thoughts and needs without being overwhelmed or taking responsibility for them. This will be tough for parents who believe that parenting is simply about taking care of their child physically and not emotionally. Children with the best self-image have parents who validate their emotions. Consequently, these same children report feeling more connected and open with their parents. Some of the most effective parenting classes have at there root the concept of empathy. The philosophy is simple: You can’t harm a child if you are being empathic with a child. And the reverse is true as well: Your child will be more cooperative because he or she feels more connected. 

Intimacy is rarely looked on as discipline. While it doesn’t negate the need for consistency and rules, homes without empathy get very little true cooperation. Oh, there is compliance, in the short term, but there is little cooperation. And there is little connection. Fortunately, empathy is a learned skill. It requires parents to do three things: give full attention, paraphrase a child’s words and reflect a child’s underlying feelings. With practice parents can use empathy to create a healthy, intimate relationship with their children. 

Facing the Future Now: 

If it is true that families today are experiencing greater stress than families of the past. This makes intimacy more challenging. More conscious effort on the part of parents to counteract this imbalance. While our technology might continue to progress, our relationships can continue to become more impersonal. True intimacy in families require parents to use the skills discussed here to be real with their children.  This will require risk from both mom and dads. A change in attitude may be required that is different from how parents grew up. Traditional roles may need to be revised. TransPARENTcy is a skill that parents can practice to enhance family teamwork and connection.

Posted on

tranPARENTcy

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that being a parent today is tougher than ever before. Blame it on the moral decay of society, the impersonal nature of technology or the breakup of the home. Either way, contemporary parents feel out of touch with themselves and their children.

The solution is not to turn back time but to open our selves up to our children. As stress bombards today’s families, parents retreat farther into their private self leaving a fully functioning but completely unsatisfactory public self to go through the daily routines of work and family life. This deprives both parent and child of the intimacy and closeness they both want and desire.

Ironically, strength comes through vulnerability. Letting children see our
frustrations, pain, and failure can be a valuable lesson to them. Many parents can’t see the wisdom in being transparent to their children. Already debilitated, they can’t understand why they should give away their power. This notion of power comes from a false parenting authority of “Do it because I said so” or “I am the parent therefore you must obey!” This is not true strength. This is force. Strangely enough, giving up this false strength will lead parents to the true power of intimacy in their family relationships.

Self discovery

Children are naturally curious. They love to explore and learn. Parents can use this drive to increase intimacy with their children. The first step is to make/take time out of busy schedules to really be with children. TransPARENTcy is achieved in those unstructured but regular moments with children. It can be in the car on the way to or from school. It can be at a regularly scheduled playtime at home. It can be during the last few minutes of the day tucking your child into bed. The actual arrangement is not as important as simply making the most of everyday interactions with children.

To do this parents need to get comfortable being in the here-and-now with children. Children are naturally present focused. They are not worried about their future or their past. Get into that present moment with your child. Be aware of the environment you find yourself in and talk about those things with your child. This is how a child learn about the world. Encourage questions. Eliminate judgment about right and wrong and instead let your child explore ideas about the world to help them find ethical answers. Talk about your child’s thoughts and feelings in as objective a manner as possible and then share your own thoughts and feelings without lecture or sermonizing.

Be Honest

Honesty is still the best policy when it comes to our emotions. If parents feel one of the primary emotions: mad, sad or glad, share them honestly. Hiding these emotions lead to negative behaviors on the parts of both parent and child. Of course if parents are going through a major depression or anxiety children should not take the place of a good therapist or become the emotional dumping ground for a parent’s stressful life. Instead, parents can model how to manage difficult feelings so that children can learn how to regulate theirs.

The truth is that parents can’t hide their emotions even if they want to. Most likely children already know when their parents are mad or sad even if they try to hide them. Children were nonverbal long before they were verbal making them experts of the unspoken expression. If mom or dad find their own emotions so horrible that they can’t be honest about them, maybe children shouldn’t trust their emotions either.

Many parents believe that by covering their own emotions they are protecting their children. Consequently, parents put on an act to only show positive feelings. This gives children a one-sided view of life making them unprepared to cope with others in the real world. This form of protection is really for the parent not the child. Children are harmed not helped by this belief.

Take risks

Many parents who want greater connection with their children never experienced it as a child themselves. It is frightening to be transparent with anyone, especially one’s children. The greatest risk of vulnerability will come when parents must admit a mistake. To avoid this risk parents try not to reveal their inadequacies to their children causing children to mistrust what parents say and do. This is not the way build stronger bonds.

If parents want to be an appropriate role model and achieve greater intimacy with their children they will need to admit their humanness. Even more frightening for parents is the idea that they might need to ask forgiveness of their child for a word or action acted out in anger. Forgiveness has a spiritual quality that transcends emotional hurts and repairs relationships. It opens doors of intimacy that would otherwise remain locked shut by hurts and resentments.

Taking this type of risks can be particularly difficult for fathers. There is an old notion that fathers must be proud, strong and therefore invulnerable. The rationale is that this behavior teaches boys how to be a man. Unfortunately, it teaches all the wrong things and ill prepares boys for future relationships. Today’s sons need dads who understand the importance of learning from one’s failures as well as successes.

Create a Family Team

Some parents complain that the reason they cannot be transparent with their child is due to conflicts in personality. When children and parents have drastically different moods, reactions and motivations, it can make connecting quite a chore. To overcome this problem, parents try and focus on similarities versus differences. While this is helpful, it is also important to concentrate on those differences that divide parent and child.

Talking about personality differences can actually be a way to connect to a child. Discuss how you and your child are different and why that makes each of you unique. Explore the various ways to process or react to life. Never define the differences as deviant, just different. Learn from the other person’s viewpoint and discover compromises that fit you both.

Parents can use personality differences to build a powerful “family team.”  Match individual interests, skills and desires so that each person compliments the others. The role of the parents, in these family teams, is to cheer lead each personality. Make the motto: “one for all and all for one” your new slogan for family transparency.

Empathy

The surest path to transparency is empathy. Empathy is the act of communicating our understanding of a child’s feelings, thoughts and needs without being overwhelmed or taking responsibility for them. This will be tough for parents who believe that parenting is simply about taking care of their child physically and not emotionally. Children with the best self-image have parents who validate their emotions. Consequently, these same children report feeling more connected and open with their parents.

Some of the most effective parenting classes have at there root the concept of empathy. The philosophy is simple: You can’t harm a child if you are being empathic with a child. And the reverse is true as well: Your child will be more cooperative because he or she feels more connected. Intimacy is rarely looked on as discipline. While it doesn’t negate the need for consistency and rules, homes without empathy get very little true cooperation. Oh,
there is compliance, in the short term, but there is little cooperation. And there is little connection.

Fortunately, empathy is a learned skill. It requires parents to do three things: give full attention, paraphrase a child’s words and reflect a child’s underlying feelings. With practice parents can use empathy to create a healthy, intimate relationship with their children.

Facing the Future Now

If it is true that families today are experiencing greater stress than families of the past. This makes intimacy more challenging. More conscious effort on the part of parents to counteract this imbalance. While our technology might continue to progress, our relationships can continue to become more impersonal. True intimacy in families require parents to use the skills discussed here to be real with their children.  This will require risk from both mom and dads. A change in attitude may be required that is different from how parents grew up. Traditional roles may need to be revised. TransPARENTcy is a skill that parents can practice to enhance family teamwork and connection.

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