Melody's got an Oprah playing in the next room and I've been listening in. And I'm just furious. In the rush to assign blame for domestic violence we ignore the real cause and guarantee that it will happen again and again. The same people who laugh at Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign (well not all of them because I laughed at it, too) seem to think the answer to violence is to just say no.

It's not that Oprah and the rest are clueless, its just that they refuse to open their eyes.

I know what we all learned about T/F questions that have 'all' or 'never' in them, but this time the correct answer is TRUE.

People (like the other animals on this planet) don't get angry until they are hurt, or even worse, believe they are about to be hurt. If you don't think that watching your relationship, your world, dissolving out from underneath you is painful, well, I don't know what planet you are from. It's horrific. It questions everything you have tried to believe about yourself. A woman in that situation is angry, too. If her fear shows up as physical aggression, no one will ever know. A man will absorb the rage and certainly not report it. It's more likely that in the failing relationship her anger will just mean she is cold, distant, and unsupportive. Or she may be looking for a verbal fight where she wins control by emotionally punishing the man until he simply can't bear it any more and must resort to violence to regain control.

Or, hopefully, walk away. From his wife, his life, his children, pets, home, everything. I did. I still spent a night in jail because leaving isn't even enough in this county, if you take your children with you.

So, I don't think it does any good to point fingers, particularly around our romantic relationships where even the participants usually don't understand what is going on. I'd rather focus on the solutions.

Much of it hinges on the concepts and understanding that are the basis of the Great Sex Seminars. They provide a way out of the mad cycle. You can be sure I'll blog about that later on.

One other area that really is a tragedy and sets up so many marriages for failure is the way so many boys are abused. They are forced to live in emotional deserts. If we didn't teach them from such a young age that their feelings were less than worthless, that they needed to be kept hidden where no one can know, then maybe they would be better equipped to survive relationships. They might even thrive.

Once again the kids lose!

The Superintendent of the DISD (Dallas County Independent School District), Michael Hinojosa, has recommend that the district handle the budget shortfall by cutting HALF of the Counselor positions!

Now, I know that School Counselors don’t get to do much real counseling as it is, given the administrative work they have been assigned, but this is a often child’s only hope for an adult to reach out to if they are in trouble. What kind of future will the kids of DISD have if there are not enough counselors for them to turn to?

What School Counselors Do

School counselors help make plans for kids with all kinds of problems, emotional, educational and vocational. Without them to help kids find their path, who is going to take up the slack? The teachers? The administrators? I don’t think so!!

I want to get angry and blame the school district. I know they have had their share of corruption and the normal bureaucracy struggles. But this is absurd. Cut back on football for God’s sake. Now, don’t get me wrong I think sports are important, especially team sports, but to build huge stadiums like we do here in Texas when they are laying off counselors to make up for the slake is absurd. I don’t know that they are doing that in DISD but I do know there are BOUND to be more humane things to do to solve this problem than to kick out the Counselors.

Who is a kid to turn to???

When my kids needed help with anything in school, they turned to their counselors to help with career choices, to deal with teachers or administrators they had clashes with, etc. But for kids with no real home life, school Counselors become their only real refuge. They help them find all kinds of resources they could not find otherwise. Does the superintendent not get it that he will suddenly see a spike in drug use, in suicide, in violence and school drop out rates if he does this ridiculous thing? The violence rate in Dallas County will undoubtedly go up, the truancy rate will go up, and our courts will have to deal with the kids the School Counselors could have helped long, long before the courts got involved.

Where is our humanity???

If you live in Dallas County it is in your best interest whether you have children or not to weigh in on this issue. Call the board and complain, send a barrage of emails, go down there in person and tell them to get their head out of their rear end and do something different about the budget crisis.

Weigh in with me, too.

Our summer guest

This summer my family has had the delight of hosting a college student during his Internship at a law firm in Downtown Dallas. We live out side of Dallas in Lewisville. It’s a good 45 minutes to downtown from here, so we had tried to find him a host closer to his work. Fortunately for us, we were unsuccessful.

Though our four bedroom house is already was already bursting at the seams, Alex came to stay with us in the middle of June. Three of our four daughters and our son have been in and out of the house all summer. Heather was still here, until July 1^st, when she started her own Internship for Samsung Mobile Fresh Films. Jenny came home at the end of May, as did Hayley. Jenny was returning from a study abroad in London and Hayley graduated from UTSA. Jenny set off to Australia for yet another study abroad on July 15^th. Hayley has been working part time and looking to find her first “real job”. Meanwhile, Wayne has been here for two weeks at a time, plus some, over the summer. Heather has completed her Internship and is home, now about to graduate from UNT in a week. All of this never rattled Alex, in fact, he seems to have enjoyed the comings and goings of all our crew.

Alex

I don’t even know where to start when talking about Alex. Someone I met with yesterday said “Our kids are just as great when they are guests at someone else’s home.” Well, I certainly hope so! Alex has been cheerful, childlike and yet so grown up all at the same time. He has gotten us to have more sit-down meals together than we have had in all the nine years Mike and I have been married. He participates in these meals, too, volunteering to help cook, set the table and clean afterwards. Some nights he comes in wanting to “bake something” an makes us a cake, crepes, or pudding or something. Every night he brings with him his sweet nature and bright energy.

Every morning he gets up, puts on his freshly laundered white shirt, tie and suit. He has a bowl of cereal and heads for downtown at about 7:45. I can’t say I am always up when he is preparing to leave but when I am, he greets me with his bright “Good morning” and chatter about the toils of going to work for sometimes 14 hours a day. When he gets home early enough he takes a long walk or bike ride. One Saturday afternoon he was bored and cleaned out and rearranged our entire pantry. Another he sat down and made a paper mach¢e bowl. Other times he sits out by the pool or in the park reading. He has also made the best of his time here by exploring area attractions and events. He went to the Dallas Symphony one night, to the Arboretum, to Fair Park and to Sundance Square and the Ft Worth Zoo. He often went to the store for something for himself and either picked up something for us unasked, or thoughtfully asked if there was something he could pick up. Somewhere along in there he took a hold of our hearts.

Stressful summer

It has been a stressful summer anyway, and he has kept us cheerful throughout the difficulties. I became ill going out to California for Athena’s graduation from Law School at the start of the summer. We went to Kerrville New Folk for our annual trip and or fellow Kerrvillian Ronzo died of a heart attack. Mike had a horrible spasm in his shoulder one night and we spent the entire night in the ER. Then I came down with a case of Shingles. Just as I was recovering from the Shingles I underwent a minor operation to remove a pre-cancerous cyst on my side. And of course, we moved my things out of my office, and re-arranged two entire rooms of our house to accommodate my things. Alex helped us with it all, even scrubbing the office floor on his hands and knees to remove the gunk left by the lining used to keep the (now removed) rug from slipping on the wood floor.

Yesterday was Mike’s birthday and he is the only one- none of our kids - got him a card. And last night he got me a huge bag of Sour Patch Kids (my one real vice.)

The gift

When Jenny left for Australia, he got her a gift as his “host” for the summer (it was her friend from NYU that asked Jenny to find Alex a place). Jenny thought he would get Mike and I something, too. At the time I thought, “Wow, that’s completely unnecessary. Alex has been such a gift to us- we should get him something.”

He is leaving tomorrow and I am not ready! I didn’t fully understand how much I am not ready until I woke up this morning crying. I had a dream about his leaving in which he gave us each a gift card as a going away gift, and I handed mine back to him. I told him, “You don’t have to do this because you have been such a gift to us.” Then I put my arms around him and started to cry, I said. “We don’t want you to go!”

I woke up sobbing, Mike heard me and put his arms around me. It was then I realized how close Alex is to the age Lance would have been now. Alex is 19 and Lance would be 20. Saying good-bye to Alex feels like saying good-bye to Lance. Lance was seven weeks old when he dies of Sudden Infant Death.

Oh, I get it now

Coincidentally I am closing my office today. It marks the beginning of my moving into a new career path. Oh, I will still be seeing some clients in another office, but the move is a clearly defined moment of moving my career path. And my counseling career has been a kind of monument to Lance. It was after he died that I went back to school and got my degree in Counseling. For me, it was a way to make some meaning out of his passing. The coincidental convergence of these two losses in one day is strangely poetic. I let go of both my “monument” to Lance and (while I wasn’t consciously aware of it) an adult representation of of who Lance might have been in the form of Alex.

I don't know how to say good-bye

As I write this he is upstairs getting ready for his last day at his Internship. We are leaving tonight, probably before he gets home, for my 35^th (yes, that’s right, 35^th) High School Reunion. So I will say my good-bye this in a few minutes with a bittersweet pain in my heart.

BYE ALEX!

The Cycles and Teachers

Today I talked to a group of teachers about how the Cycles can work for them in their classrooms, with their administrators and within their own families. I was touched to tears as I told them of an experience I had with my Third Grade teacher, Agnes Conner who recognized the pain I was in and began helping me see value in myself. She did it incrementally, respectfully, empathetically allowing me to see that there was something in this life for me.

As I talked to them I realized what a hard job they have. Now, understand, I come from a family of teachers and know how hard they work and how little they get financially compensated for the most important job in the world next to parenting (also not financially compensated for). But today I thought about the task of trying to model the Cycles path for their students and with administrators whom have lost sight of their real task. One woman talked about how the current head of the Houston school district was hired after having bankrupt Corpus Christie’s school district. This administrator increased his own salary by 9%, she said, and then he told all the teachers in the district not to expect any raises in from 3-5 years. Next he started building stadiums and new schools and laying off teachers. Talk about failing to take ownership of the realities of the needs of the district!

Are the Cycles “Christian based?”

But in the middle of her frustration she turned to me and said “This is not Christian based is it?” I had ask why she asked that question. She said it is because at some point in my presentation she got chills and it sank in that the Cycles of the Heart is exactly what Christ taught. I hugged her and thanked her for seeing the heart of the model so clearly.

The practice of Compassion is more than understanding the words.

My Spiritual Path

I remember an experience I had at the age of 13. I had been exploring Christianity since I was nine, having walked across the street to the United Methodist Church to attend Sunday School by myself because my family didn’t attend, though my Mom said we were “Methodists”. By 13 I had developed a healthy spiritual life of my own and had read the Bible and learned to pray in a way that felt connected and had a real relationship with Jesus and God. One morning after a long prayer session I suddenly felt a calling to be a minister. I thought, “I’m a girl! And I’m only 13! How is that supposed to happen?”

Well, I did what I could. By this point I had really gotten a sense of what God is and that I could take it literally that “God is Love” as Jesus so often told. It became a sort of mission for me to express this newfound wisdom with the people I knew.

An opportunity arose for me to share this with my Sunday school class. Each of us were assigned to be in charge of a lesson for the class. One week a boy in the class brought popular music and talked about how this music drove people to use drugs and about how, as Christians we could not let the music induce us into that world. I was inspired to teach my lesson of love. I brought in some great popular music at the time about love. I don’t recall what songs I used, but it was 1969 so there was no shortage of music about love. I wrote a slew of poetry expressing my own feelings about the importance of and need for, Love in our lives. I dimmed the lights, lit incense, played the music and read my poetry. The room was filled with titters and inattentiveness. Of course, in retrospect I am certain these 13, 14 and 15 year olds could not yet hear what I was trying to communicate.

Teaching something foriegn

This is of course what the middle and high school teachers I talked to this morning are dealing with themselves. But now, unlike then, I understand the blocks to being able to express love and to be compassionate. The Cycles of the Heart is a model that clearly lays out a path to being able to practice the compassion that Christ, Budda, Mohamed, the Dali Lama and all the other great Spiritual teachers have taught. So I guess, as it turns out I am a “minister” of sorts, teaching people compassion.

The greatest Spiritual goal

It is the practical application of how to achieve the greatest Spiritual goal of being a compassionate person. Understanding the Cycles of the Heart and practicing it inside of ourselves and outside of ourselves in our relationships, in our workplace, our communities and in our world we really can “change everything!”

What do you think?

I know I have not blogged in a while. I’ve been going through some re-grouping of my life and professional direction in the past couple of weeks. It has not been easy and will not be an easy change, but it is absolutely what is right for me and ultimately, everyone.

I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you think about what you know about the power of compassion or how you have applied the Cycles of the Heart to your life.

You said it!

Obama’s father’s day appeal to black men struck a cord with me. He said "They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it,"

Obama took the risk to speak up

His call to black men is for them to take ownership of the conditions in which they find themselves. He is not attacking them for their failures, as much as pointing out that the only way anything will change is for us to take ownership of the things we can. He goes on to say, "We can't simply write these problems off to past injustices. Those injustices are real. There's a reason our families are in disrepair ... but we can't keep using that as an excuse."

The Victim role

What he is saying is that staying in the Victim role and complaining about the injustices in our country does not empower anyone. He says, making the choice “to demand the best from themselves and their children” is what is called for, not staying in the Victim place and blaming society for all the problems.

Ownership

I have not always been sure I agree with what Obama has to say, but this time I am sure. I like hearing from someone in power recognizing that all of us, no matter how downtrodden, have the power to take Ownership of their lives and circumstances. You have no idea how many of my clients who have been badly abused feel trapped and unable to take Ownership of their lives because of the injustices they have suffered. Any time you believe you have no choices and that you are trapped in a condition beyond your control you are in the Victim role.

Taking Ownership by “demanding the best” from ourselves and our children truly changes everything.

What do you think?

Is Obama right in his call to black fathers? Is this not true for all of us?

Comment below.

Be patient, I’m going to RANT

A lot of us in Texas, and I suppose, around the world are shocked and amazed at the public turnaround on the decision to remove the 440 children from the FLDS compound in West Texas. I mean, I am glad that if CPS acted without proper authority the Supreme Court overruled them. CPS in my experience has seldom done things correctly. I have seen them remove children from parents who loved them because their spouses or boyfriends who were then incarcerated had abused their children. I have even had cases where bruised and battered adolescents were told to “Go home and mind your parents”. I’ve seen them investigate cases where kids were clearly being abused and send the child to treatment and let the parent remain in the home to have the child rejoin them with no consequence or follow up after returning from treatment. I’ve seldom seen CPS do the right thing, so it is no real surprise to me that they screwed this one up, too.

What about the kids?

My dismay is that these poor kids have had such an awful ordeal. First, they are brought up in a culture that cuts them off from any knowledge or exposure to the modern world. Then they are taught obedience to an authority that dictates to them who and when they shall marry and have children, no matter their tender years. I understand there were dozens of children under the age of 17 who were “married” mothers. The boys were taught that they, too, were to grow up and marry someone the “authority’ selected for them and to have sex with their “underage wives.”

These kids have been yanked from everything they knew, exposed to the “outside world” and given sanctity and safety for a month or so and now they are being returned to the world they were torn from. I suppose it is hard to know who the abusers are since the members of the sect deny any “abuse”. Oh, I suppose girls get pregnant by divine intervention. At least that must be how the Texas Supreme Court sees it since I have never seen more clear evidence that SOMEONE is abusing a child than that they are under age and pregnant in a cult where the BOYS never marry under age 17.

This is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen and I don’t understand what in the world is going to protect those kids from further abuse.

The New FLDS Policy

The newest thing is that they say they no longer will have a policy of letting under age girls marry. HELLO they were NEVER legally married in the FIRST PLACE. What is to prevent them from continuing an illegal practice that was never overtly practiced???

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t think these cult members who have been practicing their perverted version of Mormonism for over a hundred years. This is NOT a matter of “Religious Freedom”. It is a matter of CHILD SAFETY. Oh, and of course, polygamy itself is illegal in Texas, too.

Maybe the authorities are just stepping back to make a better case later, but in the meantime these children continue to be exposed to further abuse. What of the girls who are under age and “married” to their older cousins and uncles? Wont they go right back into the subjection of forces sexual relations with their “husband”? What is to prevent it? It is what they “believe” to be their rightful place.

What other abuse situation would we let this happen in?

In other situations where children are in a home where abuse is clearly taking place the child is NOT RETURNED because the odds are that they will be abused again. WHAT IS DIFFEREN HERE????

It is our job as a community to protect these children. We have let them down. I am disappointed and grieved that these poor kids don’t have anyone who will protect them. Their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts and uncles all grew up believing that it is right for them to be subjected to this kind of treatment. Clearly none of them are going to protect their kids, boys or girls.

Man o’ man that CPS

CPS, “bless their hearts” are “doing the best they can”. They are going to “teach” these parents to parent??? How can they pretend that this somehow will protect these children. As long as the “husbands” have access to their “wives” the kids will be abused. It’s their “God given right” according to the FLDS beliefs.

A better solution?

From the beginning of this mess I have thought it was all handled badly. CPS went in with guns, armed to remove the kids from their “dangerous” family. It was heavy handed and frightening to participants and viewers alike. What I believe should have been done is that a number of CPS workers, social workers and psychologist should have gone in and taken charge of the kids on the compound itself. They should have separated the men and the women and began teaching them about child development, the law, and parenting. This would take months and they could continue to practice their religious beliefs while being taught a more humane way to treat children. Prosecuting the “polygamist’ marriages as they were discovered through financial penalties and incarceration only in the most hardened cases. In cases of men who have developed pedophilia as a result (we do have tests for this) remove them from access to any child (as we do in the case of other child abuse offenders) and even incarcerating those most likely to re-offend in the greater community.

What do you think?

Any other approach denies children protection, and traumatizes all the individuals involved without helping anyone only criminalizing the whole bunch as we did that fateful day we went in armed and bussed their children away from them.

What do you think? Was it right that we sent them back? What should we do? Comment below.

During the past month I have had the delight of watching two of my daughters graduate. One, my oldest twin, graduated from college with a BA in English Literature, and in 4 years time and over a 3.0 average. The other, my oldest, graduated from Law School and within the top 5% of her class. My youngest twin daughter will graduate from college with a BA in History, and double minors in Radio-TV-Film and Chinese, graduating Cum Laude. Looking back over the past 28 years, I can honestly say I couldn’t have wished for more for my girls.

Honestly, I was not always sure they would make it to where they are now. I always knew what they were capable of achieving, but it wasn’t always clear they would make it. They all had their challenges.

My lawyer daughter

My oldest was always amazing. I told her from the time she was three that she should be an attorney because she could make an argument better than anyone I knew. She had her problems in school, not academically, but personally. Many of her teachers did not appreciate that she was smarter than they and resented her. She was outspoken and unbelievably bright. Her father abandoned her when she was eight and she had a horrid relationship with her step-father. She never felt like she fit into the small town we lived in as she was growing up. Then, after I left her step-father and was a single mom of three, she fell in with the kids who smoked cigarettes (among other things). Still, she managed to keep her grades up enough to graduate, though school was not her first interest. I am sure because of the fact she had no real relationship with a father figure, she always had a boyfriend – some not so wonderful. She was rebellious at times with me, fighting to find a sense of herself.

Fortunately for both of us I knew not to fight her. I knew not to engage in power struggles and put her into positions that took her power away, but instead to allow her to find her own way. Keeping from engaging in either rescuing her or moving into “making her” do what I wanted to do, allowed her to blossom into the wonderful young woman she always had inside.

News proud

The oldest of my twin girls is now heading to her life after being the news editor of her college paper and dealing with a room mate with terminal cancer for the past year. She has managed to remain out of the rescuer role while still being available for her friend. Now, she is going to either Taiwan or New York City, depending on what job is offered to her. She is courageous, tenacious and kind. Whatever she ends up doing, she will keep that strong sense of herself. I left her father when she was only 7 and she was angry and hurt by our failed marriage. Yet she kept her self together and on the honor role throughout high school. It must have been hard for her because her twin sister was dyslexic and struggling all through school. She never rescued her sister, but always believed in her and encouraged her.

Wow, look at her now!

My youngest twin, graduating in August, has overcome dyslexia to become an honor student and will be graduating cum laude. She was, I was told, one of the most severely dyslexic children. But she was determined and loved reading. Then, with remarkable determination chose to learn Mandarin Chinese, even spending 10 months in Taiwan to immerse herself in the language. She loves learning and is planning on spending another 2 years there after graduation. She might have given up in grade school when the kids teased her and teachers pressured her, but she didn’t. She avoided becoming a victim and took ownership of her life.

I still have two kids left, my husbands’ children from a previous marriage, and they are on a clear path to success as well. His oldest is going to New York University and just returned from a stud abroad program in London, and will be heading to Australia in July. She fought to find herself in spite of her difficult relationship with her mother, and dealing with her parents divorce. My husbands’ youngest, his son, is now in middle school and an A student, despite behavioral problems that were overwhelming in elementary school.

What made it work

Understanding the Cycles of the Heart has changed everything for me, for my kids and for my new marriage. I am proud of the fact that I have managed to avoid remaining in the victim position myself. It would have been easy to do, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, two divorces, and been a single mom. Knowing how the Cycle of Egocentrism can ruin your life and relationships I fight to keep my automatic brain from dragging me down its tyrannical path.

I can’t help but believe that my ability to remain (mostly) in the Cycle of Compassion is why my kids are where they are today. I thank God for my having stumbled across this model. It really does change everything.

Cult Abuse of Chlldren

What might have happened if the mothers and children of the Branch Davidians had been captured instead of slaughtered that day in April, 1995? Would it have been that different than what is happening today? A cult that uses women and children as their sex slaves in the name of religion is one that cannot be allowed to continue.

What they are brought up to believe

Yet the children, male and female alike, in this bizarre sect have all been brought up to believe in their “faith” s as a natural, precious, and fundamental part of what it is to be a human being. They go about their lives believing, as they have for generations, that this is truth and the way to God’s Kingdom. Each and every one of them is raised to accept this view of themselves and others. They each believe in what they were conditioned to believe since birth. Their accepted worldview rejects or technology, and our modern ways and the knowledge of psychology and the acquired wisdoms of the past 150 years. Ignorance was their choice. It is always the way of cults in general. Outside knowledge of other’s beliefs is not only discouraged but punished. No new knowledge can be allowed into the closed system because new knowledge would destroy the system.

Who is going to be prosecuted?

Do you prosecute the women who were brought up to believe that marrying off your children to much older men is acceptable? Do you prosecute these same women for abandoning their young sons that were thrown out of their “families” because there were too many of them? Do your prosecute the men, who were brought up to believe it is their rightful place to have many young wives and force them to have sex with them as they please?

Clearly Criminal

Clearly all of the above constitute legal abuse and crimes that are normally punishable by law. Yet what happens when we begin to view this case as a case of programming, not unlike that of Patty Hearst? All of the members of this sect were programmed from birth to see their lifestyle as the only choice acceptable by God as they understand him.

Is it our role as a legal community to imprison them for their crimes, as we did Patty Hearst, or is our responsibility to them something entirely different? What if we could view them not as perpetrators of horrors upon innocent victims, but as victims themselves worthy of our compassion?

The Travesty

Some people already are seeing the travesty that is likely to occur to these people and have been protesting outside the courtrooms where we attempt to find “justice” for those our courts are attempting to protect. Unfortunately there are no “bad guys” here to prosecute. The system was the problem, not the people involved. All of these people were caught up in a system that was dangerous and just plain wrong. But there are no bad guys are there?

A different perspective

It changes everything when you try to look a situation from the prospective of compassion rather than the old egocentric view of seeing everyone as a good guy, a bad guy or a victim. When we impose our legal system on these people by prosecuting them for doing what they earnestly believed was the righteous way of living, we become what our forefathers fought against. We as a community become the perpetrators by prosecuting this group for their religious practices.

Clearly abuse is abuse

But what they were doing to their children was wrong. There is no question about that is there? Raping children of the age of 12 or 14, abandoning children (boys) who were not going to be useful in continuing their patterns of multiple marriages to one male is all wrong. Morally and ethically we cannot let it continue, but we have to stop it in a way that does not make anyone a criminal.

Practicing Empathy

We have to put ourselves in their shoes and practice empathy for their situation. There are those in our culture (among whom I count myself) who oppose the everyday practice of circumcision as genital mutilation of our baby boys. It’s as wrong as the genital mutilation of girls that we have outlawed in this country, even when practiced for religious reasons. Yet we continue to practice this primitive mutilation of baby boys on a daily basis all across our nation. It’s okay to do it to boys, but not to girls. I don’t get that at all.

When we consider that the practice of genitally mutilating boys is a natural normal practice in our culture, it makes it hard not to step into the shoes of a cult that sees raping 12-14 year old girls as a natural and normal practice in theirs.

It changes everything when we begin to have empathy for their beliefs and understand that, like us, they have been brought up in a culture which finds some very bizarre practices to be normal and natural.

What do you think?

Is there a difference between taking innocent babies and mutilating their genitals and taking a 12-13 year old girl into a forced marriage and raping them? Can you find empathy for their strange beliefs or do you see them as a sick, perverted culture that needs to be punished? Tell me what you think. Comment below

Cycles of Dysfunction

One of the biggest stories in Texas for the past couple of weeks has been the story about the “Fundamentalist” branch of Mormons who lived on a 700 acre compound in south Texas while practicing their beliefs of polygamy as a valid, spiritual practice allowing all members to experience closeness to God through their patience. This practice has as a centerpiece of its practices the pre-arrangement of marriages of older men (40-50 years old) to girls when they turn 13. The girls are then supposed to become one of their husbands many wives and bear children from which other men will choose their future 13-year-old wife.

Twisted Faith

The members of this sect are loyal Christians believing in the Book of Mormon from some “fundamental” perspective that ordains their behaviors as sacred. All of the children are brought up in this system, and as a part of this system are indoctrinated into believing that they are doing what is right and spiritual, including the males. It’s easy to think of this sect as a group of perverted individuals who prey on young girls and subjugate the women into sexual slavery, because, by our standards and beliefs, that is exactly what is occurring in fact.

Perpetrators?

Of course, this is how the legal system addresses this issue as well, treating the men as wicked perpetrators preying on innocent young girls. We love to look at things in black and white terms in our world, and our legal system is organized to support a clear-cut right and wrong view of the world.

Is legal perpetration any better?

But what if we could step back from the Victim-Perpetrator-Rescuer mentality long enough to consider the wholeness of what has occurred. The practice of polygamy in the name of religion is at least as old as our country. Generations of children have been brought up believing in this practice as a part of their spirituality and taught, through this twisted view of Christianity, that it is the right and proper actions for all involved. Members of the religion believe it is their right to have the most basic of our US Constitutional rights, to practice their faith as they see fit.

In fact, other religions have been honored in their spiritual practices and given rights to do things that would otherwise be considered illegal. Native Americans are allowed to gather and possess Peyote (a psychosis-inducing plant that is classified as an illegal drug). Other religions have allowed the mutilation of children for thousands of years and it is practiced as an accepted part of our culture without question from authorities: circumcisions of male infants.

What is so different about what this sect is doing? Forcing sexual intercourse on anyone, married or not, 13 or not, is rape. But I also think its atrocious to cut on the genitals of infants…

Where is our line?

We must look at the rights of children and certainly forcing them in to marriage and sex at 13 is wrong, but the entire sect believed this to be an honorable spiritual practice, even the men. Their cult, along with all others, is base on a the Cycle of Egocentrism and can only be positively addressed by using the Cycle of Compassion.
We become the perpetrator

Law enforcement swoops down and grabs up over 400 children, many of who are already mothers themselves, and sent them off to overcrowded facilities with caregivers from an entirely different world. This traumatized the children even further and certainly did nothing to help them perceive this new world in which they found themselves seem safe or inviting. So in trying to rescue these children our community becomes the perpetrator, harming them even further. The people they love are now being seen as criminals and the children, then put in a place to want to protect the only family they know, and in spite of what may have happened to them, they want to “rescue” the people we perceive of as their perpetrators.

What is right?

In the “cycle of egocentrism”, which involves viewing the cult members as “evildoers” and criminals, from whom their victims need rescuing we remain caught up in a system of pain and misery. What if we could see these people as wounded individuals who need our help in discovering more productive ways to live with each other and in the world? What if we had some empathy for their worldview and, while taking ownership of protecting the children, and gave them respect for the fact that each of them was doing what they believed to be correct (no matter how ill conceived)? Wouldn’t that change everything?

What do you think?

Whether you understand the bizarre practices of this South Texas cult, you certainly have some opinions about both the cult and our response to it. Let me know what you think.

Comment below. Use the security key – I’ve been being spammed lately…

New Study on Anger

Validation

Wow I feel validated! I’ve been preaching for years the importance of expressing your anger and not shying from conflict. Now research validates its importance to the quality of our lives. Holding back our feelings has dire consequences, it seems.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we have license to attack each other, it just means we are encouraged to speak our angry feelings out loud.

Confusion between anger and violence

Those of us who grew up in homes where angry outbursts accompanied hitting, verbal abuse, throwing things – or worse – are often frightened of anyone expressing their anger, no matter how benignly they do it. Some of us are down right anger phobic, both of our own and others.

In my family growing up, the only people allowed to have their anger were the adults. If one of us kids smarted off or expressed our anger we were punished by being shamed with laughter, sent to our rooms and told we were being “ugly”. But the adults were allowed to hit us with belts, “green switches”, hairbrushes and their hands and to yell and scream as long and as abusively as they choose.

Of course, I didn’t want to be like that myself, and certainly felt ashamed if I ever found myself provoked to anger.

The result is that we think that any time anyone expresses anger they are being violent. We then put them in the role of “the bad guy” and think of whoever they dumped their anger out on as “the victim.”

Choosing to be rational

Many people growing up in very refined homes never witnessed anyone expressing anger directly and they internalize it and rationalize it away without ever having a chance to even let it come to conscious awareness. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! Just because we renationalize it away doesn’t mean we haven’t felt it, and that it still doesn’t need release.

The physiology of anger

Anger is like any of our emotions, a necessary part of being a human being. We feel anger for a reason, again, like all of our feelings. Anger is there to tell us “Something is wrong. I need to do something about this!” When we fail to express the need to do something differently, we end up locking this “energy-in-motion” (the definition of emotion) into our bodies. The energy of the emotion of anger starts out in our root chakra and moves outward and upward through our bodies. But, if we block the flow of emotion and fight it down using our physiology to stop it (holding our breath, tensing our diaphragm, tightening our shoulders, gritting our teeth) we lock it into place so that it does not get expressed. Then, the effort of locking in that emotion takes its toll on the body. We experience stomach problems, breathing problems, muscular aches and pains, perhaps fibro-myalgia, some say even cancers can be triggered this way.

What I am NOT saying

I am not saying it’s okay to blast people with unbridled attacks, either. There was a period of time when people used “I’m just having my feelings!” as an excuse to attack anyone and to dump their feelings off on others. I am NOT advocating this kind of behavior. What I am advocating is that we all MUST find a way to express our feelings of anger appropriately and consistently if we are to remain healthy and have strong, long lasting relationships.

A paradigm shift

The next time someone appears angry take the time inside to remember 1) this does not mean they are going to hurt someone (necessarily) 2) this person feels something is wrong in their world and may need some help. The shift that takes place when you begin to view anger in this way can change everything for you.

What do you think?

Are you able to handle it when people express anger? Or do you clam up and try to avoid the situation? Is it best to avoid anger and conflict at all costs? Let me know what you think. Comment below.

What happens when a parents authority is blatantly being challenged by the newly found independance of a todler? What is a parent supposed to do? She didn't hit her, she just blasted her with high powered water and didn't even leave any marks on the child. Of course, seeing the video recording was startling to see, because the child was obviously upset by it, and it could have potentially hurt her. Naturally Child Protective Services was called in, but what could they do? The child was not physically wounded.

So was this appropriate? That depends on how you view children. What is the nature of a child anyway? Are children incomplete adults? Are they extensions of ourselves that need to be kept under control?

Raising a child is a challenge.

I raised or helpd raise six of them, three of my own and three step children. Believe me some of them challenged my authority on a regluar basis. Trying to be an authority to a child determined to be in charge of their own life is a difficulty. That is, unless you recogize their right to be in charge of their own life. Kids need us to guide them, not run them. Yet because we were "run" ourselves, because our parents taught us that children were "to be seen and not heard" - that's what what we teach our children. But what does this do to a child?

What it does is to teach a chld that they don't matter. It teaches them to disconnect from their own instincts, to lose touch with what they feel, think and how they see things. Children have delightful ways of looking at the world that are untainted by the culture and our media. When we allow them to express their own ways of being in the world.

Obviously we have to keep them safe and teach them about the world and to understand the price of things. Teaching them is not the same thing as "controlling them".

How do you feel when someone tries to control you?

Personally, I hate it and tend to try to get away from that person as soon as possible. What I have observed in kids is that if they have a parent that believes parenting requires controlling the child; the chld does all they can to get away from that parent as soon as they can. That doesn't mean they don't love their parents; it does mean they don't like how it feels to be around them.
Parents attempting to control their children through over protecting them, or forcing compliance on them with brut force and "authority" are locked into a set of rules, rather than being able to be present with their children. The child then is victim to the parents attempts at control and they feel all the things a victim does. They feel powerless, despairing, trapped, incapable and depressed.

So, well, I turned out okay....

You might question this assesment, if you think that most people raised this way turned out okay. But the reality is that drug addiction and depression are on the rise, as are anxiety disorders and attention deficit disorder. The divorce rate has finally eased some, but it's still at more than fifty percent. Children raised in an environment where they were respected as complete human beings are not so likely to end up divorced, depressed and drug addicted.

We can parent differently. We can have different attitudes toward children. When we start recognizing their wholeness rather than seeing them as sub-human deserving of little to no respect, we can start honoring their spirit and raising adults who can believe in themselves. Now, THAT really does change everything.

Let me know what you think

Child rearing is a delicate subject. When I was growing up you never said anything to anyone about how they were raising their child. It was as off limits as religion and politics. Now I am addressing this touchy issue. I'm sure you have your own opionion. I'd love to hear it. Comment below.

Monstrous Act

This morning CNN reported that a 21 year old father, Travis Mullis, turned himself in for the murder of his infant son. This was no ordinary murder. This young man, already a father of two (of whom he had relinquished parental rights), stomped in the child's head before throwing him off a bridge.

In 1987 I lost my own son to Sudden Infant Death. He was only two months old. The tragedy of this incident will never leave me, nor will the memory of my precious baby boy. By all reports, the young man had loved this child and not chosen to relinquish rights to this child as he had his other children.

What really happened to this man?

When a person flips in this way and does something this horrendous. This young man was adopted himself, and had a troubled adolescence. He has reportedly claimed to have bipolar disorder, though no evidence of this has yet to be uncovered. Just prior to the tragedy, he told a friend he was desperate to leave his live-in wife (the mother of the baby, Alijah). Then, in a related story, he is being investigated for "enticing a young girl".

What we know about Travis is that he was a troubled person. From the sounds of it, he had few friends, and little ability to connect with anyone. Obviously he had been able to connect with women enough to father some children, but he was completely unprepared to manage any kind of intimate or long term connection with anyone.

The real tragedy

The real tragedy here is not just that Alijah is dead, but that this man never had a chance himself. Who was ever there to care for this boy? Being adopted doesn't, of course, mean that he had no one in his life, yet there is no mention in any of the stories of his parents. I can tell you that if one of my children, (my twins are 22) had been involved in something like this I'd be at their side. The news would not have missed my involvement in my child's life.

Clearly this man had no such support from his adoptive parents. From presumedly an early age, this boy experienced the powerful rejection and abandonment from his birth parents. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning the practice of adoption. But in my clinical experience, adopted children become insecure, anxious adults struggling to understand why they were "not good enough" for their birth parents to have kept them. Open adoptions have helped with this issue as it answers the multiple questions a child has about his birth parents reasons for relinquishing their child.

Travis was in need

Being a "troubled adolescent" indicates that this boy needed help and attention long before this tragedy. Why did no one notice or try to get him help? Where were his adoptive parents? If this boy had gotten what he needed in childhood, he would not have become the world renowned stomping murderer of an infant.

Travis knew he was in trouble but who did he have to turn to? In Texas we offer no real help for people in our public health system. Living in Texas if you have psychological issues you cannot get help through the Mental Health and Mental Retardation centers, because only the "severely mentally ill" can receive services.

Where is our empathy?

Where is our empathy for this young man's tragedy? Obviously, he was hurting desperately about his behavior or he would never have turned himself in to the police. He ran after the incident, undoubtedly in a panic and uncertain as to what to do. But then, over time, he realized he had to turn himself in to the police.

This is a young man who needs help, attention to his own early wounding, and most likely, medication to help his mind begin to get put back together. As a culture, we need to take ownership of our own lacking in our responsiveness to the mentally ill. This man is clearly quite ill, and it's a tragedy that no one helped him even though he had been crying out or help at least since he was a teen.

Not a Villain, just a man

Travis Mullis is a tragic figure to me. What do you think? Is he a monster? Should we be able to find empathy for such horrific acts? Comment below and let me know what you think.

Suicidal Soldiers

The army seems to be paying attention to a new statistic that indicates soldiers are attempting suicide at rate of 5 times a day. Yes, that's right, 5 times a day. The suicide rate among soldiers is increasing the longer we are involved in this military engagement.

Recognizing that traumatic events cause untold damage on the spirits of the sufferer is imperative to understanding and treating the condition. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder causes extricating pain to the soldier and to their families. The impact of their natural response to an overwhelmingly traumatic event continues on in their marriages and among the children of those marriages.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder's Legacy

Violence and abuse to the children of soldiers is part and parcel of the PTSD experience. We cannot afford to ignore the problem of Post Traumatic Stress on the lives of future generations.

So many people want to criminalise wife beaters and child abusers. When we see the immediate impact of trauma on these Vets, perhaps we can re-evaluate the need for this type of position.

What are the implications of this for the rest of us?

It is in our DNA to love and nurture our spouses and our children. If a parent or spouse is behaving differently than this, it would be reasonable to assume that something has gone wrong. Moving into a place of having compassion for how these perpetrators became the abusive "monsters" they are, can perhaps allow us to change how we respond to them.

These soldiers did not go into the war with the intention to become self abusing, wife abusing, child abusing maniacs. Yet this is how they often return. How we as a culture respond to their pain can help us, perhaps, expand how we view ALL of these behaviors from ANYONE.

Stopping the Trauma Cycle

It's not a normal thing to beat a child. If a child is being beaten, odds are, the parent was, too. When we can begin by addressing the trauma cycle and not by criminalizing, then perhaps we can stop the cycle altogether.

Can we really view a child abuser with empathy?

What do you think? What is your gut reaction to the idea that perpetrators need our empathy as much as the victims? Do you understand the tie I am making with returning Vets and other parents that abuse their children and spouses? Comment below and let me know.

Madeleine's Left Alone!

In Europe, I understand, it's normal to leave your small child or infant alone in a room while you go out to dinner. A friend of mine told me that while she lived in Germany her friends would coax her to go out for dinner and leave her sleeping infant alone in her apartment. My friend was appalled by the idea. It amazed me that anyone would think that is okay. Well, I thought, cultures are different.

Still, it's difficult to imagine doing it, especially today when we know almost immediately every time someone snatches a child because of our media coverage.

Madeleine is a True Victim

I'm sure that Madelein's parent feel like a Victim of what occurred to their precious daughter. And, of course, they had no way of knowing that, on that particular night, their child would be stolen from them. Are they a Victim?

I don't think so. They do hold some of the responsibility in what occurred. A child is totally defenseless without a parent or other responsible adult to protect them. When horrible things happen to our children, whether we know about or not, we hold some responsibility.

The Difference Between Blame and Responsibility

Madeleine's parents are clearly not "to blame" for what happened to her. They couldn't know this was going to happen, yet because this innocent child was in their charge, they do hold some of the responsibility. This, of course, is the danger of not thinking about our actions.

As the Culture Does so We Do

So much of the time we do as our culture does. We don't think about the long term implications of what we are doing because "everybody does it". There was a time in our history when beating a child with a belt was an accepted, everyday form of child discipline. Now, most parents know this is an abhorrent thing to do to a child.

But if you have grown up in a family where that is normal then it is likely that it is what you will do. If it is normal, in the culture of your family to call a child names, to verbally yell obscenities at your child, then that is most likely what you will do. You don't even stop to think about the effects this has on your child.

Like Madeleine's parents, we have to stop and think about the importance of paying attention to what is responsible behavior, and separate that out from what is the "norm" for our culture. Just because everyone else does, doesn't make it okay.

It's Just Like Scared Straight Santa

It reminds me of the general reaction I had to the Scared Straight Santa complaint I made in December. Most people thought it was a reasonable thing to do to a child. Frightening a child into good behavior is apparently the "norm" in our culture.

Now, it doesn't threaten the life of our child the way leaving a child unattended for an hour or two does, but it is just as irresponsible. When we frighten a child into compliance we are setting them up to have problems later in life.

Why? Because when we care more about the child's behavior than we do about the child's emotional state we are communicating to the child that they don't matter. Ultimately, when a child learns to believe that they don't matter, they start believing that no one matters. The result of this is an adult who will possibly do virtually anything to another person because no one matters to them. This is how the murders on death row feel.

What's Your Opinion?

Does this make sense to you? Is the culturally accepted "norm" an appropriate way to parent our children? Tell me what you think.

Discipline? Is this really what we want?

Very cool. This weeks Newsweek had an article in it about child "discipline":

"Disciplining kids can be tricky. Parents try the old star chart, then scolding, punishing, maybe even a swat or two. Bad news: Alan Kazdin, the new president of the American Psychological Association, says none of it will help much. His new book, "The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child: With No Pills, No Therapy, No Contest of Wills," in stores this week, lays out a different approach. He spoke with NEWSWEEK'S Peg Tyre."

She goes on to say that Kazdin advocates that "good behavior needs to be practiced like a musical instrument". I am very happy that someone as esteemed as the president of the APA is coming out against old school ideas about "discipline". I agree with what was presented here, but I think there is much, much more.

What do kid really need?

The title of the article made me think of the daughter of a friend of mine. One afternoon I was visiting my friend and I heard her daughter talking in her bedroom as I walked by. I looked in to see this little girl of about 9 with all of her dolls lined up with their faces against the walls. This precious little girl was scolding all her dolls for being "bad". That incident really struck me as indicative of a problem with the more "gentle" discipline of sending the child to "sit in the corner".

Kids need most of all to know that their behavior makes a difference to us, their caregivers. They need to know that what they do has an impact and that we notice. Most of all they need to know that we care how they behave and that how they behave and what they feel, matters to us. Kids need our time, attention and our affection.

When we are unhappy with them, we let them know. This is not discipline as much as it is being human being.

Then, there is my son...

I have an amazing son, well, he's my step-son, but he's my son. I've been with him since he was four years old and we are bonded. He's mine.

A few years ago he started having some discipline problems at school and at home with his other Mom. One on one with me, we never had an incident. There was one time he spent a weekend with me and we had a deal. He was supposed to read a book asigned him at school, and he really didn't want to read it. He could read just fine, he just didn't care for it. That night we were planning to go to Chuck-E-Cheese. As the day wore on he had not read his book. His other Mom had gotten in big fights with him about it and offered him monetary or gifts as a reward if he complied. That is not my cup of tea.

I told him that if he still wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese then we'd go when he finished the book. Then, I walked away and went about my business. He finished the book within minutes. There was no bribing, no arguing. Just a simplel understanding between us that he had to fulfill the requirement before we'd go on with our day as planned.

Another time, he was planning on going for a bike ride with his Dad and I was to take him, and their bikes to meet his Dad at the park. When it came time to go, I couldn't find him anywhere. He showed up a few minutes later on his bike having returned from taking a quick ride without telling me. I was not happy with him. I told him I was disappointed in him and that I had expected more from him. I didn't punish him, and there was no fight.

Having a great relationship is key

Now, the key to this is that we have a great relationship. I listen to him, and he listens to me. We show each other that we care about each other through affection and spending time together. When he is upset I spend the time to listen to what he is feeling. When I am upset he gives me hugs and asks about what is going on. We have a real relationship. When you have respect and empathy for your child, then you are taking ownership of the relationship and discipline becomes a moot point.

What is really going on?

One thing I know for sure is that if a kid is acting out in any way, if they are a "discipline challenge" it is because something is going on with them. They are in need of some kind of help. Our job, as parents, and caregivers is to help them through it. That's hard when they can't tell you or don't really know. But our job is to key in to what is going on with them.

Treating your child as a second class citizen who should "mind their elders" no matter what sets them up to be abused and angry. Relating to the unique and wonderful little person you have the privilidge of spending time with is a whole different experience, both for you, and the child.

Tell me your "discipline" stories

How has parenting been for you? Have you tried different kinds of discipline and seen it work? I know there are a lot of strong advocates for strict discipline who swear by the results. I'd love to hear from you.

Regrets

My daughters were home for the past week or so. My oldest just married in August and she and her husband have been talking a lot about the ideas of having kids. In that process my oldest talked to me about her own upbringing and the many mistakes I made along the way. It was hard to hear. I know logically that it's impossible to raise our kids without wounding them, but hearing exactly how we did it is painful. More than anything, I regret that I was unable to put her needs ahead of mine. I was so focused on getting what I needed that I subjected her to circumstances that injured her. Listening to her talk I felt such enourmous empathy for what she had been through and deeply regretted putting her in those situations.

Empathy for Myself

Enough of my clients have dealt with parents unable to hear how they had damaged their children that I know my merely being able to hear how I wounded her was healing. The hard part was letting it in that even though I did things that hurt her, I was doing the best I could at the time. My wounding from my childhood had set me up to behave as I did. The entire time my children were growing up I was going to therapy and doing what I could to become a better mom and to make better choices. I am still working on making myself a better person. I'd like to be able to continue to parent with more wisdom and self understanding than I have had in the past. That I could not be more when I was younger is not my fault. I've done the best I can to be what my kids needed me to be.

That Doesn't Mean it Doesn't Hurt

My grief over the pain I have caused my kids is immeasurable, not because I feel guilty, but because I wish it had been different for them. They are so amazingly beautiful, brilliant and kind. What more could a mother ask for in a child? Yes, they have their flaws and work they will have to do on themselves, but I can't wait to see what they will become. Even though it hurts to know the pain they have been through, I trust them to go through their process of healing and do the best they can with what they were given, just like I did. Of course it hurts to know the pain they went through and that I had something to do with it. Yet, their path is their path. I know they are strong enough to work through what they need to work through.

I Can Be Here For Them

The beauty of having worked through so much stuff myself, is that now I can be there for them. I can listen to their pain and be available to hear their anger without blaming myself. Whew, it's hard work, but they are so worth it. Having forgiven myself for my mistakes and knowing that I did the best I could I can listen to how my mistakes affected them. I can apologize and offer them support for their pain.

I Can Be Proud of Myself

It makes me proud to know that I can be for them what most parents cannot do for their children. I can validate their pain and I can let them know that it was not okay that they were hurt the way they were. I can let them know what happened to them was not their fault and that I should have been able to protect them better. I can do that without blaming myself, because blaming myself would only focus on me and not focus on helping them deal with what occurred.

Can You Hear Your Kids Pain?

What can you do to get yourself in a place to be able to hear the damage you did to your kids? Ouch. It really hurts, but believe me when I tell you the rewards for doing the work are worth it. Let me know what is going on with you, how you managed to hear your kids or if it was too painful and you rejected what they had to say. I can understand that, too.

Who Is Santa Clause Anyway?

But there were various Santas, different traditions by country. St. Nicholas is said to arrive in Holland by boat from Spain, a more prosaic method of transport than the sleigh. But he only leaves gifts for good children and the naughty ones get left birch twigs by an ugly black dwarf.

1. The Finnish Santa was also a pagan figure, named Joulupukki and known for wearing goatskins and horns. But instead of giving presents, he demanded them in return for not causing trouble.
2. The British Father Christmas first appears as a minor pagan figure in the middle ages. Portrayed as a merry old man he was associated with feasting and drinking and the pagan festival of Yule. Disapproving of this pagan revelry in 1644, England’s puritans banned the celebration of Christmas calling it,”The Old Heathen’s Feasting Day”.
3. In Germany, there was the Pelznickel or Belsnickle (”Furry Nicholas”) who visited naughty children in their sleep. The name originated from the fact that the person appeared to be a huge beast since he was covered from head to toe in furs.
4. The Dutch version of St. Nicholas is that he was a lover of the poor and patron saint of children, is a model of how Christians are meant to live. A bishop, Nicholas put Jesus Christ at the center of his life, his ministry, his entire existence. Families, churches, and schools are embracing true St Nicholas traditions as one way to claim the true center of Christmas—the birth of Jesus. Such a focus helps restore balance to increasingly materialistic and stress-filled Advent and Christmas seasons.

Santa as We Know Him

During his time, most Christian saints were martyred, but Nicholas has lots of stories because he lived a long life and he died in his bed.

You can select any number of stories about him, but most have in common his bringing help to people.

It was actually Dutch emigrants had taken the story of a legendary gift-bringer called ‘Sinterklaas’ to America, where he eventually became known as “Santa Claus.”

Eventually, a new figure of Father Christmas emerged, representing a spirit of benevolence and good cheer in medieval England.By the 19th century, he was evolving to more of the European Saint Nicholas.

By the mid to late 1800s, of course, Santa was appearing in Christmas cards. But the image varied greatly, as artists influenced the image.

Aparently, the idea of Santa imposing the the idea of being "nice" is a pagan idea. Imposing this pagan concept on children using an image that is meant to represent giving and even Christ himself is not Christian.

Santa has come to represent giving and the spirit of Christmast which is about JOY and GIVING and FORGIVENESS.

That is the Santa I taught my kids and is a Santa that will not instill fear and anxiety in children. Do we really want our children to obey us for fear of a God-like Santa that judges their every move? How would we feel if we were kept to that standard? Oh, that's right. Jesus cleared us of that kind of God. I guess kids don't get it so easy.

What do you think? What kind of Santa do you teach your kids about? Tell me why and if you think I'm wrong. I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks to the folowing websites for information about Santa:

• http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=35
• http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=611
• http://tada07.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/the-history-and-many-faces-of-the-santa-clause-christmas-card/

Last week I was listening to 102.9 KMIX a local radio station when the DJ came on announcing that he was getting ready to do a bit called "Scared Straight Santa". I thought it was a joke. Unfortunately, I thought wrong. The bit was that he would call up a kid whose parents had turned him in to Santa for being "naughty" rather than "nice". He'd get the kid on the phone and talk to this kid as if he were Santa and knew that he was being "naughty".

While I was listening he called up a little boy about 8 or 9 who had been talking back to his teachers and to his mom and stepfather. "Santa" shamed this boy for his behavior and told him that if he would start being "nice" he would get presents this year. The DJ emphasized that he would "know" what the boy was doing. The little boy talked about his parents being divorced and having to go to a group to talk about it.

Now, here's the thing. This little boy was obviously sad and mad that his parents were not together, and was not happy about his new life situation over which he had no control. The only power a kid has is his behavior. His hurt and anger was being acted out in this way toward his teachers and parents. "Santa" obviously only cares about little boys who have no feelings and behave the way society wants him to behave.

Now the only choice this kid has is to turn his hurt and anger inside. When that happens he will feel bad about himself and treat himself with anger and unkindness. He will become depressed and anxious because he will feel so alone and invalidated.

This abuse by the DJ "Santa" is appalling to me. I called the station and told them to stop it, that they are abusing children. They didn't return my call.

He was abusing the power of Santa at the expense of this little kid. Maybe some of you think this is just silly. You know, that's what I thought at first. That is, until I heard the little boy's voice.

The DJ is Tony Zazza. 102.9 KMIX doesn't get it that what they are doing is wrong. It's a publicity stunt that is getting parents to listen and to "throw their kids under the bus" (as one of the other DJ's called it). Obviously the station manager, and Tony Zazza are hurting themselves. It's clear they didn't have parents who respected them or understood that their feelings are important. Because if they had, they would have known that doing this to kids is wrong. Tell me what you think. Was this wrong? Would you "throw your kids under the bus" but turning them in to "Scared Straight Santa"?