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Question 

Dr.Braccio:  We are finding out our ten year old son kocasinan escort bayan lies.  We knew he told “fibs”, but did not want to admit it was a big problem.  But the school counselor called and says they have caught him in lies to avoid punishment at school and our neighbors say he lied to their faces about when they saw him destroy some flowers in their back yard.  He does not like to admit what he does, but we have told him he must be truthful from now on.  He cries and is blaming everyone else.  He’s a late child for us and we’re hurting.  What can we do?

Answer

Insisting on honesty is the correct policy.  Your son is old enough to understand the impact of his lies.  He clearly needs to know you do also.

Reinforcing your son during times when he does choose to be honest will be helpful.  Praise that choice and reward it.

Deal with the lies in a very straight forward way.  There are to be “no excuses”.  He is manipulating your adult world and those at the school and at the neighbors when he chooses to lie.  It may be well invested energy to investigate the behaviors he performs that stimulate the purported “need to lie” in the first place.  Are these destructive behaviors?  Is he cheating or hurting others?  Why does he perform those activities in the first place?

Sadly, there are few models in our children’s world of media exposure and often in their social environment that actively promote honesty as a value.  That places a strong emphasis for that formation on you, as parents.

Another strategy would be to temporarily limit your son’s “sphere of influence”.  He can understand that he can earn his privilege to spin out his freedoms as he proves himself to be trustworthy.

If you have a spiritual orientation you can enlist the support of a minister or priest.

As you implement your “zero tolerance” for lying, do not be surprised if he fights you harder than ever before.  He knows you have minimized his lies and called them “fibs”.  He is hoping you will go back to the old ways.  You must not let your heart interfere with your helping your son by insisting he tell the truth.  His self-esteem is in the balance for people tire quickly of liars.

The goal is for him to be known as a person of honor who tells the truth.  That is a reasonable goal and something to strive for.  Do not settle for less.

Why a Person Chooses Failure When Success Seems Like Such a Better Alternative? The following are a few reasons: 1.Too much effort. I will get by. 2.An absolute belief life is set up in such a way I cannot succeed so why silifke escort numaraları try. 3. Let others take care of me. I deserve it! 4. I deserve it in such an unfair country! 5. No risk of failure if I do not try. 6. I believe I am independent and will raise my children on my own! 7. I know no better and believe this is the way it ought to be! This is actually a big problem in our society where many preach THE AMERICAN DREAM is dead. It is dead if you accept it is true. The result is you consciously or unconsciously choose failure in your life.

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Question

Dr.Braccio:  We’ve been married for seventeen years and I’m always in kocasinan escort hot water with my wife by forgetting her birthday, anniversary and every other important date.  I’ve told her to remind me but she says it’s my job.  She became particularly enraged a few weeks ago when I again forgot her fortieth birthday.  She became more enraged when I said she was overlooking all the good I do and was overreacting.  Our ten year old son told me to just do it and quit defending my forgetfulness.  We generally get along fine.  I treat her good and we love each other.  I don’t understand how little things like this can cause us so much trouble.  What should I do?

Answer

Some spouses do remind their spouses of important days so they will not forget them.  In your case, and your wife is clearly the norm; she wants you to remember important days in your lives.  It seems reasonable to do that.  Particularly when you two otherwise “generally get along fine” and “love each other”.  Your ten year-old son gives you good advice.   Key days to remember for your wife are your anniversary, her birthday, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Christmas.  Add to this list whatever is important to her.

For these days, you would do well to treat her as the most loved person in your life that she is.  Dinner, flowers, massages, poetry, words of love, books of love, and most importantly, showing feelings of true love will make your marriage, family life and mutual feelings of spousal love remarkably better.  A minimal investment in thoughtfulness will pay huge dividends in peace!

While some husbands and wives would say love is what you show by being a responsible spouse, and I would agree, a wise spouse knows that celebrating special dates and trying to maintain a special relationship at other times make for a much more intimate love and marriage.  It keeps the love in the marriage.

In a successful marriage, each spouse tries to hear what the other is saying and meet the needs of each other.  When each does this, then a good loving and intimate marriage is the result.  By becoming defensive about your forgetfulness, she felt de-valued.

Listen to her words, but more important, listen to her heart and meet her needs as they are. You are not “hearing” how important it is to your wife for you to remember key dates.  Do everything you can to remember them.  Even if unfortunate for both of you, her reaction has clearly caught your attention.

Because women tend to value relationships, mindfulness of her needs helps you to fulfill them.  This is normal.  In your wife’s eyes, mindfulness of her significant events is a part of how she feels meaningful to you versus being “taken for granted”. Which do you intend to communicate?

For now, even at this late date, and her initial reaction may not be positive, I would advise you to buy her a birthday present or get her flowers, chocolates or perfume.  Set the tone for the future.  Say you are sorry and mean it.

I would predict if you do this, your marriage will be much better.  By making your wife feel special and truly loved, she will treat you much better and both of you will be remarkably happier.

Question

Dr.Braccio:  I am a forty-nine karatay genç kızlar year old who married late and has two teenage children.  My concern is my memory.  I’m busier than ever, always running here and there and can’t seem to remember like I did before.  The problem is I need my memory more now than ever.  My doctor evaluated me and said I was fine and to just slow down and be healthy.  Nothing seems to help and my wife and children kid me when I lose my keys, cell phone or forgot a password to get into a system I may use a lot.  What’s wrong with me and can I improve my memory?

Answer

The first answer is that there is apparently nothing wrong with you except you are overextended and need to slow down and be healthy as your doctor said.  The second answer is that you can improve your memory.

Before you do anything, recognize you are constantly traveling on a speeding out of control treadmill that you must control.  One’s memory will always be poor when daily responsibilities are overwhelming.

There are various things you can do to improve your memory.  They would include the following:

1. Eat three balanced meals day.  Good memory requires a healthy and well-nourished    body/brain.  2.  Get enough rest.  Fatigue will blunt the best of memories.  3.  Write down passwords and remember where the book is you put them in.  4.  When not on you, have specific places you always put things you commonly forget.  Examples would be car keys always go in the basket on top of the refrigerator or the cell phone is always on or near the charger in your den.  5.  Appropriate use of vitamins and supplements.  6.  Eliminate or reduce alcohol consumption. Exercising.  7.  Learn to relax by deep breathing, self-hypnosis, yoga, medication, or any other techniques to help you relax and clear your mind.  One cannot think clearly when the short term   memory is cluttered with unimportant information and is under constant bombardment by   information coming from all directions.  8.  Slow down your life and take on a manageable work and life load.  As a minimum, learn to focus on one thing at a time.  To focus on too many things at one time means you will not be completing any of them or will complete them erratically.  As goes the famous quote, “One cannot serve two masters at one time”.  9.  Believe your efforts to improve your memory will succeed and it will occur.  10.  Try various techniques called mnemonics to improve your memory.  A few examples would be as follows:

A.  Associations.  Probably the most common relates to time change:  “Spring forward and Fall back”. B.  Pegs used to help you remember something.  For example, us  rhyming word pairs:   One with Ton, Two with Rule, Three with Tree.  Further examples could be with letters:  LSJ for Lansing State Journal, MPA for Michigan Psychological Association.  C.  A visual image in your mind of your uncle preparing and cooking Paella when you go shopping to buy ingredients to make the delicious Spanish meal.  This helps you remember what you must buy and how to make it.

If you try the above suggestions with confidence, you will see improvement in your memory.  You can even have fun at home and enlist the family in activities to improve the memories of everyone.  I know of cases where this has been done with much success.

Whatever decision you make needs to be made by the three of you with open discussion and decision making.  You can listen to others, but the choice is yours.

Any questions and comments would be appreciated.

Question

Dr.Braccio:  Our fourteen-year old son has had a rocky and difficult eighth grade silifke eskort ilanları year.  He’s been in his first puppy love, which ended in disaster, has been crabby at home and school, wants to be part of the “in group” and continues to be obsessed with how he looks.  A little pimple on his face gets him upset.  As my husband laughs and says, “He’s a general pain in the wazzoo”.  He’s our oldest of four and we wonder if this is what we should expect.  We are a close family and talk a lot, but he’s difficult to deal with much of the time.

Answer

Welcome to puberty and middle school life in the family lives of adolescents and parents.  Things will be at least as complicated next year when he begins high school.

Adolescence is and has been a difficult time.  Children go from elementary school where relationships and body changes occur but nothing like the radical changes that occur in adolescence.  They become very aware of what they look like and too often seem to compete and compare themselves with others.  They become aware of sexuality and the opposite sex.  Feelings of unattractiveness, awkwardness and low self-esteem can cause so much hurt.  Even the changes of voice from the light timber of a child to the beginning of adult sound can be difficult.  A squeak every now and then is not unusual.

Social positioning also changes dramatically.  To be popular and part of the in crowd becomes far more complicated and difficult.  How fast you can gallop on the playground or how many dolls you have becomes irrelevant and is replaced with social graces and getting along with the opposite sex.  Of course, to be a good athlete is very helpful with social status. Unfortunately, to be a top academic student is too often not given enough status and parents and school personnel need to praise it.

Because everything is so new and solid maturity and personality balance are often lacking, it can be a very difficult for persons who do not fit in.  Adolescents are often even cruel as they criticize and ostracize those who are seen as slow and not cool.  This causes great pain in many boys and girls as they are going through so many physical and emotional changes and need to struggle to find self-satisfaction and self-esteem growth.  The lack of maturity and life experience in seemingly adult bodies often leads to bad decisions and conflicts with parents and school officials.

The positive thing is that most persons adjust to middle school and then high school after going through growing pains.

It is important during these adolescent years that you try hard to keep good communication open with our children.  We must listen to them, have their confidence and give them the best advice we can.  That is what good parenting is all about.

That you are close as a family is very important to “survive” the adolescence years of your children.  Parents must have developed strong bonding since birth to have the family strength to overcome the many societal and peer temptations that are so available to adolescence:  Inappropriate sexuality, illegal drugs, dare devil activities and poor peer choices to name a few.

A strong spiritual or strong moral sense of right and wrong must be in place to help your son and other children make good decisions and be a positive leader for his peers.  That he will make many mistakes is to be expected.  Make sure you are there to be a strong guide and example for him.  With your support, he will hopefully focus more and more on being a good person, friend, citizen, son, student and contributor to society.

Dr. Braccio Talks on “The Drive With Jack Ebling” Radio Show with Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal and Jack Ebling on 4/22/14 about how the continuing glow of the “Rose Bowl” will last for a long time.  They discuss how the feelings for the future konya merkez kadın escort ongoing success for the program in 2014 are much higher than they were in 1988.  They also discuss the 2014 football season.  As always, the key is how the future will play out.

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Dr.Braccio talks about what happens karatay bayan arkadaş psychologically if the citizens of a Constitutional Republic lose faith in their elected officials in Washington, D.C.  Sadly, he feels many citizens feel this way.  Hopefully, this will change over time.

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Dr.Braccio talks about the amazing relationship between “Princess kocasinan escort bayan Lacey” and Adreian Payne.

They both gained so much from each other.  It was a unique friendship of great love. No one can know the facts and not have tears of great happiness and sadness. I hope there is eventually a movie about the whole situation to make millions feel good about the human race. We read so much about the evil deeds of human beings that it is wonderful to see good deeds of human beings clothed in golden loving friendship. We need more of this. They each had great adversity and in their own ways nobly overcame them with their remarkable loving friendship.

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Dr. Braccio Talks to Rich Herl on the “Tony Conley Radio Show” about The Motivation of Ivan Lopez in his shooting rampage at Fort Hood on 4/8/14.

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How do you get over the disappointment of not getting your dream job?  How do you get past not getting the big account that could grow your business and change your life?  How do you get over not getting the big raise that could give your family financial security?   How does an athlete like Keith Appling get over a poor performance in his last game as a Spartan?

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Dr.Braccio talks with Jack Ebling and Graham Couch, of the Lansing eskort mersin State Journal, about the amazing emotion raging in the psyches of the players, coaches and fans in a one and out tournament such as the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  They discuss the emotions that must have been going thought he minds of Seniors Keith Appling and Adreian Payne when they saw their 16 point lead turn into a 2 point deficit and their careers could have ended.  They also discuss the heartbreak of Wichita State when losing to Kentucky when a last shot failed ending a historic 35 game winning streak.

Flight 370 in Malaysia has generated great human interest for millions around the world.We can relate on kocasinan eskort bayan these factors among others:  We all fly.  We all could imagine this happening to us or someone we love.  We put our total trust in the pilots.  We have families and loved ones.  We can identify with losing a family member.  Who could imagine a 777 being lost for nearly two weeks?  What happened inside the plane?  What did the passengers know and when did they know it?  How did the passengers feel?  Additionally, there are concerns about potential terrorism, hope overtaking reality, the concern of evil versus good, and potential use of the 777 plane as a terrorism instrument.

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Question

Dr.Braccio:  My worrying sent me to kocasinan escort ilanları the emergency room.  I thought I was going to die.  My whole body was trembling, my heart was pounding and I had a splitting headache.   I was told I had a panic attack and to quit worrying.  I’d like to but I am a worrier and feel I should be.  My mother and sisters are the same as me.  We laugh and agree I have just taken worrying to a new level.  My adult children and husband tell me to loosen up and stop seeing the worst possible outcome to everything.  I know they’re right, but what can I do to change?  I can’t have another panic attack.  I have medication from my family physician but want to control my own feelings without it.  I was actually worrying about an interview for a promotion my son was taking in Illinois when my panic attack began.

Answer

You need to relax, stop and smell the roses.  Do not believe you “should” be a worrier.  Life is too short to always be worrying and accepting it as a part of your life.  By expecting the worst, you take worrying over small every day matters to the level of “catastrophic “ events.

You can change but it will be hard because you have been at it for years.  Hopefully the fear of panic attacks can help you to change your outlook so it never happens again.  As you have found, panic attacks are horrible and to be avoided.

Whether your son got the promotion or not, your getting a panic attack and going to the hospital over it had no impact on his interview and caused you needless emotional and physical agony.

The following are some suggestions to help to reduce the possibilities of having another panic attack.

1.    Continue to meet with your physician about the use of medication. That may be necessary until you can take more control of your anxiety.

2.    Eliminate “should” from your vocabulary.  It infers a moral failure that you are not doing something you must do.  This leads to useless guilt.

3.    Replace the word “should” with a choice statement.  For example, “I choose to help or not help my neighbor today”, versus, “I should help my neighbor”.

4.    Smile and laugh when you feel intense and ready to worry.

5.    Recognize all the worrying in the world will not change what happens.

6.    Find joy in life everyday.

7.    Use deep breathing, self-hypnosis, meditation, yoga, music or any other way to relax and put the “tiger” to sleep and bring out the peaceful “lamb” in you.

8.    Recognize the emotional and physical cost of worrying.  The trip to the hospital and the agony of a panic attack show you the havoc worry does to your body and mind.

9.    Choose a worry time every day when you will worry and push worries away until that time  This can be very helpful.

10.  Exercising.

11.  Talking with a friend.

11.  Determine what you can realistically do day-by-day and do it.

12.  If necessary, seek out a therapist experienced in panic attack treatment if you cannot effectively get over your anxiety and any resulting panic attacks.

Any questions or comments would be appreciated.

If you feel you need outside support, you can seek out a pastor and/or therapist experienced in such situations as yours.

The rewards for you and the children are so huge that no effort can be too great to keep your marriage together.

Any questions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

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Question

7.    Learn to love yourself more.  You will then find far more understanding and love for others.

8.    Focus on active listening.  This means you listen to what someone says, ask questions to resolve what you do not understand and with that information, respond in a civilized and problem solving mode.

9.    Admit when you are wrong.  Honest contrition has mellowed countless angry hearts.

10.  Find at least one good thing to say about people you see every day.

11.  Spend time every day being grateful for what you have in life.

12.  Cut out sarcastic comments completely.  They are hurtful and a form of bomb throwing that will never be helpful to anyone.

13.  Before you make a statement, ask yourself if it will gain you what you desire.  An example would be if you wanted a friend to help you, you would not yell at them and demand they help you.

14.  Stop drinking alcohol.  That things are worse when “doing some drinking” is a clear sign that alcohol is bad for  you and to stop drinking would be a positive thing.

It will be hard for you to change after being this way for your whole life.  The positive thing in your favor is you desire to change and are aware of the problem.  That you love your children shows you have the capacity to effectively love yourself and others.

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Even if she continues for a period of time to have a hard time changing, hopefully she can begin to see the excitement and fun that comes from spontaneously trying new things.  That both of you could do it together would be great fun in a positive mother/daughter bonding situation.

Any questions or comments would be appreciated.

Dr.Braccio talks with Jack Ebling and Graham Couch mersineskort about the surprising lack of action from Jim Delany, The Big Ten Commissioner, in the aftermath of the physical fight in the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan Football Game.

Dr.Braccio talks with Jack Ebling and Graham Couch about the surprising lack of action from Jim Delany, The Big Ten Commissioner, in the aftermath of the physical fight in the Ohio State University and the silifke escort numaraları University of Michigan Football Game.