What is the deal here? Was it ridiculous for this guy to be arrested or what should have taken place? How we as a society respond to situations exactly like this says a lot about our values.

Disciplining our children is a real challenge. How much? What type? What works? Understanding what it is exactly that our kids need from us is key.

What makes someone go off like that? Gary Michael Hilton was not a horrible person all of his life. He worked as a siding salesman for almost ten years. What is going on here?

The big news this morning is that Iran is a threat to our security. How do we handle threats to our security both on a National scale and a personal scale? Are there other options than reactive "fight or flight?

What is going on with this girl? Everyone seems to have an opinion of what is going on with her but she appears to have more going on than your normal "spoiled star".

Will Smith Got it Right

Today's top celebrity news story was about Will Smith's comments regarding Hitler. Here's the quote:

He says, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.'

"I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

There Are No "Bad Guys"

While it is hard to imagine anyone doing anything worse than the methodical torture and slaughter of six million people. But the truth is that he really thought he was helping the world. His fouled up ideology meant that the world needed to be rid of an entire race of human beings. But he loved dogs and was a vegetarian.

He was not born evil. He was not, in fact, purely evil, in spite of having ordered many evil deeds done. But he was like all of us in some ways, a human being trying hard to make the world a better place.

Our Human Nature

It is our human nature to look at people and events with an eye toward discovering who is to blame. We expect to find some kind of closure, some kind of understanding of what has happened by finding a culprit. It helps us reach a kind of conclusion about what happened. "Oh, this happened because of this" ends the discussion on a topic.

What If Things are Not that Simple?

Hitler had to be stopped, no question about that. What he was doing was horrid. And if he had survived to have faced the music, the international tribunals would undoubtedly have chosen to put him to death. Somehow the idea of justice comes with the concept of punishing those who have done evil. I can't see how killing a man for killing six million people is justice. Seems to me therapy would have helped him discover the wrongness of his deeds and then the remainder of his life he would have to live with the consequences of his actions.

But most of us are no Hitlers. While many of us do things that are horrible and must be stopped by someone if we can't stop it ourselves, it doesn't make us evil. Like Hitler we didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' We do what we think is right at the time and then have to live with the outcomes. Sometimes we are right they are good, sometimes not so much.

What do you think?

Is a person evil if they do evil things? Are we good at core led to bad decsions by our life experiences?

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.

Merry Christmas!

There is nothing better than being with family. The memories together, the fun times when every one is laughing and joking around. But there is also nothing more stressful. My daughters and I have been talking about what it is that makes it so stressful.

Expectations

During the holidasy all of us have expectations about what it will be like when we are together. We all want it to be loving, fun and "miraculous". I know how excited I was to have my kids all together under the same roof for the first time in a long while. And it was a lot of fun. Of course, it's gotten very complicated. My oldest daughter has to spend time with her husband's family. MY twins have to spend time with their Dad and his family at their various get togethers. My step children are all obliged to be with thier other family, too. Then of course there is my parents and siblings, and my husbands family and siblings. It gets even more complex when you add in OUR step parents.

During all those get togethers the expectations is that every one will be happy and everyone will get along. Luckily, mostly they do in my family. Too much time together can make it ugly, but the amount of time we end up spending with each of the above groups tends to go smoothly.

Realities

The realities freqently end up quite different than our expectations. And, just becauase of the expectations, we tend to be on edge, trying to control everything to make sure it lives up to those expecations. Attempts at control, however generally lead to disaster since insistance on control is an addiction to a fantasy.

My kids love each other butu don't always communicate that well. I laugh at this since I am supposed to be a communicator, but I have brought up children that don't know how. Communication requires being willing to face inconvienient or unwelcome differences of opinions. My daughters tend to avoid these. Hmmmm, wonder where they got that.

Anger

So many of us are anger phobic. This tends to force us into manipulating the situations around us since being direct could incite someones anger. Then, when someone is unhappy, we are unhappy with them for not going along with the program.

Being willing to listen to another's anger is a gift few of us are capable of giving, yet the bottom line of good communication and good relationships.

Not letting ourselves listen to another's anger is one of the ways we think we are "protecting ourselves".

Jenna and Doug

Jenna was really unhappy with the way Doug was acting when he went to her parents home. Their 3 year old son had gotten in an altercation with his younger cousin, who was about 17 months old. The younger child had taken something from their son and Doug was furions. He could not understand why Jenna's parents didn't jump up and punish the 17 month old for this behavior. Doug was sure that this, like many other instances he could recall, just validated his belief that Jenna's parents favored the 17month old cousin over their 3 year old son.

Jenna could not understand why Doug was so unhappy. She continually told him that he was wrong for feeling the way he did, and expecting unreasonable behavior out of the 17month old.

Then Doug got to what was underneath. Doug had been feeling left out of Jenna's family for a long time. He felt that they had never quite accepted him and he felt hurt and alone at family get togethers.

The consequences of holding back truth

Jenna had thought that Doug was just unreasonable and irrational. She had been uncomfortable for years when they spent time with her family because he had never acted like he wanted to be there. Doug had never told her about his feelings, or the pain that lay underneath. His parents had often left him alone in his bedroom on Christmas day as they drank their way to obliviion.

Jenna gave him the best gift he could have recieved for Chrismas that year. Listening to his wounding and holding bach her reactivity long enough to listen to him allowed her to present a precious gift to him. She gave him compassion.