Family Meetings: 10 Effective Ground Rules for Good Communication

When communicating with your child breaks down, opening up lines of communication is often best be achieved by holding a family meeting. The family meetings allow all members of the family to talk about their feelings, problems, and concerns. It should be viewed as a safe forum for dialogue where truth is the goal through a release of honest feelings. It should not, however, be a time to yell or attack another person's vulnerabilities.

For a family meeting to be productive, you need some ground rules. Here are 10 that I hope you will find useful:
1. Let each person talk for at least three minutes. Try to keep the meetings, no less than fifteen minutes and no more than one hour.
2. Do not judge what the family any members says.
3. Have regularly scheduled meetings. Try to meet at least once a week.
4. Do not interrupt the person talking.
5. Try not to become defensive.
6. Don't criticize how feelings are expressed. Three negative remarks stop the meeting.
7. Really listen and follow the communication guidelines.
8. Ask if the other person would like feedback and perhaps help in problem solving.
9. Shut off the cell phones, don't answer the land lines, and don’t have visitors during the meeting.
10. One person should be facilitated to guide the meeting, track time, and mediate any angry comments.

Alternate so that your child has a chance to be in charge.Remember that positive issues can also be discussed at these meetings. Use it as a time to talk about happy events where everyone can take part in giving encouragement and positive feedback. Consider occasionally presenting a “say something nice roundtable”. Each member would say something he likes about the other person, such as “I liked the way you took care of the back yard. You did a good job.” Or, I like the way you took the extra time to study after you finished your home work.”

All these skills work to promote a good about feeling about your family and home. These tools build secure and strong ties within your family.


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How to Navigate the Insurance Maze

Having the right type of insurance is a necessity, but one that you may not have given adequate thought to.

As a single parent you intuitively realize that you needs your life covered by life insurance should you experience an untimely death and consequently leave a burden on someone else to raise your children. The main consideration has to be how much life insurance do you need and can you afford it.

Health Insurance
As a working parent, you intuitively realize that you need health insurance to cover both you and your children should a major health incident occur. If your employer provides health insurance which covers you and your children, then it eliminates this concern as long as you are employed. However if you become unemployed, then you have a challenge - COBRA is an option, private health insurance, or even Medicaid if you're in a low income bracket.

Disability Insurance
For working single parents disability insurance has to be a consideration. The premiums are low and it would pay you roughly 60% of your income in benefits, should you become disabled and can't work at your current occupation. However, it is important that your disability insurance provide you benefits should you be unable to work at "any type of occupation".

Property and Casualty Insurance
Property and casualty insurance such as homeowners insurance if you are a homeowner is nearly always mandatory if you have a mortgage. Your mortgage contract require you to have at least a Standard Fire Policy to cover the outstanding balance on your mortgage and will, indeed, allow the mortgage company to place it on your behalf and at your expense, if you don't have a Homeowners' policy. In this instance, your Personal Property will not be covered in a Loss. And, most states have a mandatory requirement that you carry the minimum liability insurance coverage if you drive a car.

There some key considerations that pertains to each type of insurance. With regards to life insurance, in addition to determine how much coverage you need, you need to decide between, term, whole life, or universal life which is a hybrid of term and whole life and provides a flexible premium and can be interest sensitive.

With regards to health insurance you need to decide whether you want a major medical or a hospital indemnity plan and to decide how much of a deductible you will be willing to absorb if you choose a major medical plan. With regards to disability insurance you would need to consider how long a waiting period is acceptable and how long you want to receive benefits.

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The Three Things Every Woman Should Know About Social Security and What to Do About It

Ida May Fuller, the first recipient (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 
Social Security is sometimes mistakenly referred to as retirement insurance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When you begin to recognize that it isn't retirement insurance, and is in fact a Ponzi scheme and one that Bernie Madoff would love, you can demand that your politicians change the laws whereby you can have a choice of either participating in the Social Security system or having a personal retirement plan that you actually own. 

For women, especially, Social Security is a bad deal. Here are three reasons.

1. Suppose you have been married at least nine years and 11 months, been supportive to your husband through good times and bad times, but the relationship deteriorates and you get a divorce. Since you were married to him for less than ten years, you would not be eligible for survivor's benefits when he passes away.

2. Suppose you had a long and satisfactory marriage and you both retire and begin receiving Social Security benefits, when he passes away you are faced with a dilemma. You can receive either your benefits or his, but not both. Your government has just confiscated your benefits you have worked a lifetime for with without you being given recourse - a totally unacceptable situation.

3. And, suppose you have been single woman all your life, retire and then begin receiving Social Security benefits. If you have been working in a non-professional job, you will have benefits that would be less than the national average. However if your counterpart is a stay-at-home wife married to a professional husband, she will receive 50% of his benefits while he receives 100%. Moreover, when he passes away, she will receive his 100% while never having worked. It is without question that she will have higher benefits than you will as a single woman who worked all your life.

It is clear that the Social Security system discriminates against women as it allocates a significant percentage of women to a poverty existence. This policy need to be addressed both on the political and on a personal level. I stated earlier what you should do on the political level. However, on a personal level, you need to choose the most secure and reliable investment for your funds after your employer has deducted Social Security payments from your paycheck.

I suggest strongly that you consider life insurance with a cash value buildup. This can be a whole life plan or a universal life plan. The key points are that the cash value is guaranteed and builds up tax free. That means that the politicians can’t get their hands on it. You should buy as large a face amount that you afford so that your beneficiaries can receive a tax-free estate if you pass away before retirement. Investing in the stock market or in an annuity are other options, but with either of these options, you have a tax exposure and comparatively little or no remaining estate.

Three Essential Things You Need to Know About Depression

 
Just about everyone gets the blues from time to time - that feeling of sadness or grief that usually results from unpleasant life experiences.

While many people refer to the blues as depression, however, true clinical depression is as different from the blues as pneumonia is from a head cold.

The Blues and Depression
The blues is a temporary and usually normal reaction to stressful life situations. Most cases don't involve physical symptoms, loss of self-esteem, or suicidal thoughts, and the negative state usually passes within a few hours or days.

Depression on the other hand, is an intense, pervasive and long-lasting disorder of mood that attacks the body as well as the mind, often resulting in serious problems in work, social, and physical functioning. Unfortunately, some people don't recognize depression for the serious illness it is. They think of it as a personality flaw, a sign of weakness or a character defect.

The Three Dynamics of Depression
To go further in depth, depression occurs in at least three different dynamics:

• People in the first category are chronically depressed. Depression is built into them and may be passed from generation to generation.

•  The second dynamic concerns lasting grief that occurs after a severe loss. Its severity is entirely subjective but might occur with the loss of a child, spouse, or loved one, an amputation, mastectomy, a sizable career setback, or loss of functioning brought about by disease or trauma.

•  The third dynamic involves loss accompanied by anger. People who have unresolved issues with a departed loved one often do not know that they are angry. This despair can set in after messy divorces or after a close relative or friend passes away. Since they are not able to deal with these problems by interacting with the object of their anger, they take their antagonism out on themselves instead.

 Loss is the common element in all three dynamics. It could be a loss of time, an object, an idealization of an object, or a person.

Symptoms of Depression
Symptoms of depression often include disturbances with sleep, appetite and body weight, energy, concentration, and sexual functioning. There is frequently excessive guilt, feelings of worthlessness, loss of interest or pleasure in activities, and, in severe cases, thoughts of or attempts at suicide.

Some depressions are the result of a chemical imbalance and may only be treated by anti­depressant medication, some require psychotherapy, and still others a combination of methods.

Chronic Depression
Those with chronic depression can't be helped except by antidepressants. In these cases, psychotherapy may be of little help and a poor use of time and money. Time helps a person who has suffered a severe loss as well as an involved other person who listens to the aggrieved as he or she gives words to the pain. This does not necessarily have to be a therapist, but if there is not a strong support system, treatment is very necessary. Finally, only a strong guide can help people whose loss is accompanied with anger move toward slow recognition and safe expression of their real feelings. This is usually the only path out of melancholy.

The Good News About Depression
The good news is that more than eighty percent of depression sufferers can be treated successfully. If you or someone you care about is depressed, seek help now by contacting a qualified mental health specialist.


What is your views about depression? Do you accept the difference between having the blues and experiencing depression?

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How Your Child Can Become an Exceptional Student

Teacher instructing pupils in their classroom 

In their book, Pygmalion in the Classroom, psychiatrists Robert Rosenthal and school principal Lenora Jacobson describe a study they did involving children from kindergarten through fifth grade. They told the children’s teachers which students in their classrooms had “exceptional learning abilities.”

But the teachers did not know that the researchers had chosen these “exceptional” students at random. When the students were tested at the end of the school year, the students who the teachers had been led to believe had exceptional learning abilities had made much greater academic progress than their peers. In essence, the teachers had been programmed to expect more from certain students, and these students thus expected more of themselves and delivered.

The message here for teachers is that you get what you expect. Expect the best from your students and you’ll get the best. And, above all praise the efforts. The results will come.

Three No Nonsense Ways of Dealing with Worry

To a degree, everyone worries, some people worry in nearly every situation. Whether things are good or bad, they worry that this situation would surely get worse. Understand that worrying is a drain on your energy and enthusiasm and if uncontrolled, it can be a terrible burden to your existence. How you handle worry can determine whether you are going to live a happy, normal life or one filled with neurosis and negativism.

The good news is that any situation which can be used to generate worry can also be used to generate hope. Psychologist have found that worrying is simply a matter of choice and is unrelated to the events in our lives. In fact, some people experience worry more than 10 times as often as others, and, not surprisingly, they reduce their likelihood of happiness by 64%.

Here are the three no nonsense ways to deal with worry:

First, concentrate your energy on today. Effort that can be used to solve today's problems is wasted when you worry about tomorrow; and to make matters worse, most things that people worry about never materialize. James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States, once said," I have had many troubles in my life, but the worse of them never came." Chances are that if today's problems are handled in an efficient manner, they will not only make you more confident to handle tomorrow's problems, but also may have a minimizing effect on those problems.

Determine if you have immediate cause for worrying. Ask yourself, "Can the things I am worried about materialize?" What will happen if they do? Do they represent real dangers? Can something be done about it today? If nothing, then force yourself to attend to matters at hand.

Second, assuming that you have cause for worrying: what is the worst that can happen? Lose your health? Your job? Is your family, prestige, or self-esteem in danger? It is of particular importance to the final step that you identify the worst that can happen. If this identification process indicates no real dangers facing you, then concentrate on the real problems of today, rather than the imaginary ones of tomorrow.

Third, after considering the worst that can happen, then now is the time to do something about your worries by contemplating methods of handling them. When real danger faces you, more good can be accomplished by outlining alternative courses of action rather than worrying about the dangers, and when no alternative exists then face the problem squarely.

When you get caught up in your worries and anxieties, take these three steps: live for today; consider the worst that can happen; and then do something about it. You will find yourself living a happier life.

The 5 Most Important Things You Can Do to Stay Healthy

Image via Wikipedia

The current crisis in American health reflects the premise that curing disease is the essence of health. However, as evidence accumulates that modern medicine is not as good at curing today's killer diseases as society is at creating them, it appears that a more useful approach to health and wellness would be one that emphasizes health eating and prevention as well as treatment.

This article discusses the five most important things that I personally do and hope you are willing to do to stay healthy and well. 

Here they are:
1. Be Familiar with Your Health Condition
Knowing more about your health, both when something ails you and when you feel fine, helps you to live a healthier lifestyle. It reduces your fears of health impediments to your quality of life. People who take an active interest not only in their illnesses but also in their overall health are 15 % more likely to feel that their health problems are not reducing their satisfaction with life.
2. Eat Grapes and Oranges and Drink Both Grape and Orange Juice Regularly.
The bioflavonoids (chemical compounds related to vitamin C) in grape juice interferes with the process by which cholesterol sticks to arteries. Regular consumption of grape juice reduces the likelihood of clogged arteries and lowers the risk for heart disease and strokes. Vitamin C, found in many fruits including oranges, also inhibits the process of artery clogging as well as lowers blood pressure. Regular consumption of vitamin C is found to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and premature death.
3. Have a Tomato in Different Ways.
Unlike most fruits and vegetables, the tomato retains its health effects in any form - cooked or raw. Include some form of tomato product in your diet whether it's canned, raw, cooked, in soups, sauce, ketchup or juice, at least five times a week. This provides enough lycopene ( a member of the protective and immunity-building carotenoid family) to cut the risk of cancer and heart disease in half and to improve the health of lungs, eyes, and the skin.
4. Eat Less, But Eat More Often.
If you're thinking about cutting back on the amount of food you eat by cutting back on the number of times you eat, don't do it. Eating fewer times reduces the efficiency of our bodies in processing food as fuel. In other words, skipping meals maximizes the caloric effect of the food we eat. A study found that people who ate five or six times a day had 5% lower total cholesterol and were 45% more likely to be able to sustain their target weight than people ate once or twice a day.
5. Choose a Doctor You Can Connect With.
It is important have a doctor that you can connect with. We need to have a good feeling towards our doctor. This includes knowing that our doctor is truly listening to us and responding positively to our concerns rather than seeing us as just another number. People who rate their doctors as being friendly were two times more likely to seek medical attention at the first sign of distress and were three times more likely to follow medical instructions.

These five simple, but important things, are the essence of what I do to stay healthy. I'm sure they will work for you also.
 
 
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