November 19, 2024- While it is true that many persons are happy and relieved to be divorced when the love and caring have ended with their spouse or partner. With that said, often forgotten in the equation are the children and their future relationships not only with both parents but with important and loved family members. Divorced parents need to never forget they divorced each other but the children have not divorced anyone and want a loving relationship with all family members. Partners who put the needs of their children ahead of themselves work together to make sure the children are able to have good loving relationships with both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and other extended members of the family. Partners that do not do this too often do it out of anger at the ex, and use it as a form of punishment for them. When this occurs, the feelings and any trauma and sadness the children are experiencing due to the divorce is not being considered, and that is very inappropriate. In a divorce, part of the process needs to be not just how to settle their legal affairs but also what will happen to the children. The following are things couples need to do to best help the children adapt to the divorce and allow all family members the opportunity to give love and receive love from the children: 1. Accept your marriage did not work and is going to end. 2. Make every effort to try to at least get along with each other for the sake of the children. This may initially be very difficult, at least during the initial period of the divorce because of raw nerves and possible feelings of abandonment, betrayal and poor treatment. 3. Even if you have these bad feelings, it is important to try to get over them to the level you realize your children belong to both of you and it is best that they have loving and caring relatives that are available and desire to have a good relationship with them. 4. What is mentally healthy interaction with the two families needs to be worked out with appropriate rules and boundaries that are set up and everyone agrees. 5.I firmly believe each parent in the divorce needs to do all they can do to make the children’s lives be as stable as possible. This is certainly helped by allowing them to have all the love, affection and caring they can have from grandparents and other members of the extended family. 6. If the two of you find your anger and hurt are so strong you cannot effectively interact with each other and reset interactions your children have with your ex- partners’ family members, this is a time to recognize this is inappropriate behavior. 7. Seek the support of a therapist experienced in divorce and the aftermath trauma and anger who can help find ways to allow healthy interactions with the family members of the ex-spouse could be very helpful to both you and your children…The ability of children of divorce to have good relationships with families of both spouses is clearly a major area of concern in divorces that too often is not discussed before and after divorce or relationship breakup. For emphasis, we need to make sure our children have the opportunity to interact with all family members with the goal of having them be able to love who they choose to love and be loved by important family people in their lives.

November 12, 2024- I think most of us really desire to be a likable person. From a survival point of view, humans have always needed to be likable to get along with each other and build relationships in order to survive emotionally and sometimes physically. This is still true whether it be a social group, a family, the military, a business or whatever group there is that requires teamwork. Teams do not work well when the members do not see each other as likable. One could strongly argue that in order to have any short or long-term relationship, there needs to be a beginning where there is a feeling of likability between the persons. One need not be a psychologist to be aware of how far happier and successful one will be with interactions and relationships based on being likable. People who are not likable may get to accept it, but generally deep down do not like this but too often cannot seem to figure how to make themselves more likable. In fact, they can become less likable by being upset that others do not like them and let them know it . Because self-esteem is closely related to how others see us, being likable is very important to how we see ourselves and something we should try to develop. The following are traits that relate to being likable. I am not saying one needs all of these traits to be likable, but certainly one needs some of them: 1. A simple smile whenever you meet someone. 2. Listen and pay attention when interacting . 3. Authentic and not fake. 4. Admit when you make mistakes. 5. Tolerant and understanding of persons. 6. Respect for others and their views. 7. Not act as a “know it all.” 8. Remember the person by name. 9. Be honest. 10. A sense of humor. 11. Respectful 12. An accepting body language 13. Human touch as appropriate. 14. Turn off the phone. 15. Make eye contact. 16. Mirror body language.

October 29, 2024- It is difficult enough making good decisions in life, even with the best of information available. The dilemma of overthinking is that one is constantly living with problems in decision-making whether they are past decisions or those we are going to make in present and then future decisions that will need to be made. A further problem is they tend to be negative. This can result in such mental health conditions as anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD and panic attacks. This is not to say that everyone has all these conditions, but they are often present with persons who have problems making decisions or looking at what they have done or the possible consequences of decisions in the present or future. Add on top of this that persons who overthink often tend to be negatively evaluating the whole process of decision-making to the point that they end up with mental health issues. This trend to see decision-making in a negative light often leads to an inability to make decisions, which of course, then brings on the mental health issues.This endless loop on decision-making can be overwhelming for persons. Let us make sure that we are not confusing doing the groundwork necessary to make good decisions but rather overthinking decisions in a way that they are never made or will be simply reviewed negatively from the past. I might add as a longtime psychologist, this is a more common problem than one might think. It also is true that most of us if we honestly look at ourselves or analyze persons we know in family or outside of it, we can see overthinking is often present. The following are some remedies to deal with the problem of overthinking: 1. Accept decisions you have made in the past and let them go. One cannot could have, might have, ought to have or should have done anything differently than they did. 2. Realistically look at the options one has, make a decision and live with it. 3. Accept you may have made bad decisions and may continue to make them. The point is to try to make good decisions and learn from any bad decisions we have made. 4. Replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts when dealing with the inability to make decisions. When a thought comes into your mind that you cannot make a decision, you need to tell yourself yes you can make a good decision based on the best information available to you. This is obviously easier said than done, but needs to be worked on a little bit at a time. 5. If you find you cannot solve this problem of not being able to make a decision and it is causing you mental health distress, now is the time to seek out an experienced therapist who can help you overcome this problem.