Dear Therapist: This is why I suggest that if you’re going to invest money in your children, you use it to pay for family therapy. Family therapy will provide an environment where you can get to know your children better, and they in turn can hear you better. It will help clear the air and repair lingering issues from the past and teach the whole family more productive ways of interacting. And finally, you’ll all have the opportunity to understand not only one another, but yourselves individually, with less projection, distortion, and faulty assumptions
I think one of the reasons that we have a mostly functional partnership is that he responds to my “projection, distortion, and faulty assumptions” with humor. For example, when I say “have you considered these three alternatives to your current method of solving this problem”, he sings “tell me what to do” to the tune of “fly me to the moon”
I would like to have the same dynamic with Zo but it might be more difficult within a parent child context. For example, when my dad says “you should try harder” or my mum says “you never cried as a baby”, I am at a loss
Within a partnership context, the expectation is that we need to invest time/energy to get to know each other. Within a parent child context, it is easy to assume that there exists a common perspective. But really why should there be a common perspective?
Snow came early this year. In the spring, I look forward to seeing children playing in the slush. Who is to say what is the right way to splash around partially melted snow and make a mess of everything?
365grateful 