Body falling apart. Pain from head to toe. Wrinkles and floppy bits. Hair not growing where it’s meant to. Memory fading. Energy depleting. Losing life partners, siblings and friends. Loneliness. Financial worries….

It is true that aging can be depressing and stressful at times. However, contrary to what many people think, it is not true that chronic and debilitating anxiety and depression are an inevitable part of old age. While aspects of aging that can be distressing, it’s never too late to improve your psychological health and quality of life so that you can get the most out of this precious final chapter of your life.

How to Enjoy Your Old Age

Here are a few simple things you can do to help you find your spark again. [Actually, these strategies work for almost any age group.]

Enjoy the moment. People get anxious and depressed when they ruminate about the past or fret about the future. Try to turn off the trash TV in your head; or at least turn the volume down and position it in a far corner of your mind, so it can waffle on in the background without dominating your life. Then notice or think about things that give you pleasure, even if just in a small way. It might be the taste of your daily tea or coffee; the sound of bird song; the feel of your favourite slippers; or the smell of flowers.

Meditate. It’s taken a while, but mainstream western psychology and medicine have finally acknowledged the benefits of aware relaxation that our eastern cousins have been professing for millennium; that regular mediation tends to positively affect mind and body.  Every day find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably, take your shoes off if it’s warm enough, shut your eyes, relax your body, and watch the ebb and flow of your breath, without controlling it. It’s that simple. Of course, most of us find it quite difficult to notice our breath without our mind wandering, but whenever that happens, as soon as you become aware of it, simply bring your attention gently back to relaxing with your breath. It can help your focus to repeat a relaxing or nonsense word or phrase, or count your out-breath to ten, then repeat. Some people find that visualising an image or colour helps too. Guided meditations on CDs or YouTube can be really useful, especially when you are starting out.

Ground yourself. Every day take your shoes off and stand or sit on the ground. Research indicates that grounding our bodies with the earth allows us to balance the energy in our negative ion starved bodies. This is shown to positively affect our physical and mental health. Grass, sand, dirt, concrete, and even tiles on a concrete floor are all good conductors, so they ground well. Wood and ashphalt don’t conduct as well, so are not as effective. Alternatively you could go for a swim, or have a bath or shower. Getting your hands dirty in the garden is another way.

Take action. If you are physically well enough, get out of the house and do something. Lack of action can increase depression and lead to physical unfitness.  If you feel too flat and tired to do anything, that is a good sign that you need to do something. As long as it’s not going to harm you physically, light exercise can help you feel great… once you have motivated yourself to start. Make sure you check with your doctor, then, once you get the all clear, join a light exercise class or walking group. Sunshine is also a good mood lifter and is known to be important for physical health.

Move out of your comfort zone.  Avoiding doing things that are scary tends to make them even more scary.  This can lead to more avoidance and an increasingly restricted life. Break free from the traps that anxiety and fear of embarrassment might have created. Do something a little bit wild and adventurous, and tick a few items off your bucket list. How about going somewhere new, lunching with an old friend, joining a club, learning an instrument, doing a course, or going on a cruise?

Get help. If you are depressed or anxious or both, a good quality therapist can really help. Talk to your doctor about a referral to a free or affordable professional.  Community organisations and telephone counselling services can be helpful too.

Exercise your brain. Studies have shown that older people who exercise their brains can think and remember better than their brain lazy counterparts. Damaged brain cells can’t regrow, but they can grow extra connections with use. New connections can enable us to create new thinking pathways. A study of elderly people who were taught computer skills showed that their brains actually increased in size as new connections grew and their brain cells pumped up. So make sure you do some crosswords, sukudo, or puzzles regularly. Start a scrabble or bridge club. Do a maths, writing, computer, photography or other course for fun. Read books. Update your computer skills and surf the net for knowledge. Use it or lose it.

Get creative. The other thing about brains is that it is important to exercise the non-logical side as well as the logical side. This is usually the right half of the brain in right handed people, and it is connected to the left hand side of the body.  This side of the brain is where most of our creative thinking resides. Practicing creative activities, such as drawing, painting, pottery,  woodcarving, or craft stimulate this side of the brain, again creating new pathways. Try not to be critical, just let go and enjoy the experience. If you really really want to give your left brain a workout, try drawing with your non-dominant hand. Creative pursuits are also known to improve mood and reduce anxiety. Basically, creativity is good for brains.

Do some good deeds.  Helping other people can shift us out of our negative headspace and help us to feel that life still has purpose. You could do random acts of kindness for strangers, help a neighbour or loved one, or volunteer for a charity organisation. Becoming a regular volunteer can provide structure to your week, which is an important component for psychological health in retirement.

Laugh and smile. Readers Digest had it right all those years ago: laughter really is the best medicine. Think about funny stories from your past and write them down in a ‘Fun Book’. You could also add amusing experiences from recent times, even a funny thing that happened at the hospital.  Share funny stories with friends and family and ask them to share some of theirs. Avoid the news and instead watch one of the many comedy shows on TV. Let go the negative judgement and allow yourself to have a good giggle.

Appreciate your life. Think about how lucky you are to exist in this fantastic experience we call life at this exciting time in history, and how lucky you are to have had the opportunity to enjoy so many decades full of so many experiences. What an amazing perspective you have. What an amazing being you are.

But far too often Christmas becomes an incredibly stressful event. In its worst form it can become an absolute nightmare for individuals, or even whole families.

Let’s face it, any event that requires a lot of organisation, and that people pin a great deal of expectations on is likely to be stressful: be it Christmas, Thanks-giving,  New Years Eve, or, come to think of it, a wedding.  Great expectations can lead to great disappointments.

Complicated menus, undercooked turkeys, burned vegetables, forgotten condiments, or not enough space in the oven or fridge, can all add to the stress.

Putting a bunch of people with shared histories into a small, intense space, can create tension and arguments, or re-ignite old disputes. Add alcohol to the mix and you might have an explosion.

We all know that gift buying can be tedious and stressful, and knowing who to give to, what to buy, and how much to spend can send the mercury over the limit.

Another complication is deciding who celebrates with whom, and where. Almost every grandparent wants to share Christmas Day with their grandchildren, but given that most children have two sets of grandparents, this can get tricky. Add to this the complication of separated parents with new partners, and separated grandparents with their new partners, and the logistics become impossible to deal with and, in some families, can lead to tension and conflict.

Another stressful aspect of Christmas is that it can highlight the absence of loved ones. It can be difficult to focus on joy when, for instance, you are spending your first Christmas without your dearly departed spouse, sibling, parent, or child. That sort of Christmas can bring tears of sadness rather than joy.

And, even if when the tension is minimal, after all the over-eating and present opening, Christmas can become a bit bland and boring.

How Can You Reduce Christmas Stress?

Here are a few simple tips to help you get through the day as unscarred as possible:

Plan and prepare: Do as much as you can well before the day. Write lists for gifts, food shopping and procedures. Pre-prepare as much of the meal as possible, count the plates and cutlery, and make sure you have enough seats and space in the oven and fridge. If you are travelling, work out the timing and allow plenty of time for Christmas traffic.

Keep it small and simple: Try to keep the whole event as small and simple as possible. The fewer guests, the less there is to do, so the more relaxed the hosts. If you live in a hot climate, go for barbequed food with pre-prepared salads and a simple desert.

Ask for Help: If you are inviting more than a handful of people, allocate tasks to the reliable ones: from bringing a dish, to helping to set and clear the table or wash up. Remember you can ask the children to help too, but don’t rely too much on them.

Share: If you have adult children, don’t expect to have all the children and grandchildren at yours on Christmas day every year. And if you have separated from your children’s other parent or parents, work out a way to share Christmases that is fair and good for as many of you as possible, especially the children. Alternating Christmas Day and Christmas Eve each year works for many families, as long as they don’t live too far apart. Avoid changeovers on Christmas afternoons when people might have had a drink or two. And if you find yourself running the children between households every Christmas Day, it’s OK to stop and change the ritual sometimes. Try saying,  “Sorry, we are having a small and quiet one at ours this year for a change,” as kindly and diplomatically as possible.

Do a Secret Santa: Instead of buying a cheap gift for everyone and getting a bunch of useless things in return, try doing a Secret Santa for the adults.  All you do is set an agreed price range, then randomly allocate one person to buy a decent gift for one other person. You can even get the participants to write a list of suggestions beforehand to make the buying a bit easier. The participants are not told who bought their present for them; the buyers can label the gifts ‘Love from Santa’ and place them in a sack or under the tress. You can even have a person dressed as Santa handing them out.

Plan a fun activity:  Playful fun can help to reduce the tension that might have built during the day, as well as the boredom, and it can help families bond. Try doing something that is fun for all ages, such as playing a ball game, or charades, or singing ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ in parts.[ In this case, each participant can draw a line of the song out of a hat, such as ‘3 French Hens’, and sing their part when the time comes. They can double up if there are more (or less) than twelve people involved.]

Decide to Relax: Remember relaxing and having fun is much better for you and your family and guests than getting hot food on the table at a precise time. Tension is contagious, but so is relaxation and happiness. Aim for pretty good rather than perfect; and if you feel a spot of tension creeping up, stop, breathe out, relax your body, smile, and let it go.

Have a great time.

Do you long to return to the honeymoon phase of your relationship? Have you and your partner drifted into an unsatisfying union? Do your interactions frequently turn into arguments? Have you even started to consider separation?

Imagine if you were able to turn your relationship around to create the happy, long lasting and loving relationship that you dream of. No arguments. Great communication. Great sex. Deep love and respect. The solution is very very near. Read on….

Of Wet Towels and Things

Many couples feel hopelessly trapped in conflictual relationships. Tension and arguments sometimes arise from serious issues, such as money problems, addictions, or children, however often relationship conflict is triggered by more trivial issues, such as whether or not it is acceptable to leave a wet towel on the bedroom floor.

One person in the relationship might believe that a wet towel on the floor is not an issue: “I didn’t put it there, gravity did! Besides, there are far more important things to worry about in life!”

The other person, on the other hand, might believe that wet towels on floors are unbearable in multiple ways: “They breed mould and germs which are unhealthy and make them smell bad, they never dry, they wreck the carpet, and they create a messy, visual eyesore! I can’t stand them! ”

Of course, this same person might extrapolate further to convince his or her self that a dropped towel is a sign that the other does not care about or respect them, or, perhaps, doesn’t even love them.  Their hurt and angry reaction to the towel on the floor can then lead to the other feeling unfairly attacked and unloved, and then angry too. And so it escalates.

In an Ideal World

The real issue in this example is that the individuals in the relationship have differing beliefs that they are locked into, and these beliefs clash. In an ideal world each person would be able to calmly and effectively talk about their beliefs, and gain better understanding of the other person’s viewpoints.

Rather than jumping straight into anger and frustration, the ‘ideal world couple’ would also be able to recognise, share and accept their own and their partner’s underlying vulnerable feelings. They would also be able to reduce the volume and rigidity of their own belief.

But most of us do not live in an ideal world, and this is all much more easily said than done when we get habitually caught up in relating with our partners in dysfunctional ways.

How to Transform Your Relationship

Relationship therapy can be a very effective way to turn your relationship around. But you have to find a good therapist, and the process can be expensive and time consuming, particularly if you have to arrange childcare.

The good news is that I have just stumbled across a wonderful alternative solution.

Drs Gay and Katie Hendricks are a successful and highly experienced relationship-coaching couple who practice what they preach. They have learned how to knock conflict and other relationship problems on the head to transform their own 30-odd year marriage into almost sickenly ideal relationship. Up until now they have been passing their wisdom onto the masses through their numerous best selling books [you might have seen them on Oprah]. They have also offered individual relationship coaching sessions to some lucky couples.

As you might expect, an individual session with these relationship gurus would be pretty pricey, but now Gay and Katie have released an online training package, which apparently includes weekly coaching calls. To give you a taste of what they can do,  they have released some free introductory videos. The freebies alone can be very powerful catalysts for positive change.

Now, as you have probably guessed, I’m pretty fussy about where I refer my readers, but I really think these folk give truly helpful ideas about how to get relationships on track. You can ‘meet’ the Hendricks and access their first free introductory video at LASTING LOVE MADE EASY.

The Hendricks’ program tackles practically every relationship issue, from how to stop arguing, to how to create a loving and exciting sex life. They can even help singles find a new dream relationship.  So check them out and begin to get your relationship sorted ASAP. You really do deserve to be happy.

Here’s the link……

CLICK HERE TO GO TO LASTING LOVE MADE EASY

Enjoy.

Depression and anxiety can spread through families like contagious diseases, and children are the most vulnerable to contamination.

How Depression is Spread

Partners of people with depression often complain of feeling as if they are living near a black hole which is draining their life force. They gradually lose energy and enthusiasm, their lives become restricted, and their home becomes a dark and dreary place.

Children of depressed parents can be even more affected. On top of this ‘black hole effect’, children learn how to interact with the world largely by observing other people, especially their parents. So if a child witnesses a parent consistently looking glum, or repeatedly talking negatively about problems, they are likely to copy that behaviour. Our behaviour affects the way we feel, so children of depressed people are at risk of internalising their parents’ view that the world is a negative place that holds little joy.

Depressed people have a tendency to withdraw from others, so they sometimes find it difficult to listen to their children and to respond consistently and positively to their emotional and psychological needs. This can lead to the children feeling confused and unloved, and can in turn impact on their self esteem and happiness.

All of this is a recipe for… you got it… another generation of depression.

How Anxiety is Spread

Anxiety can also be passed on through families. Children are programmed to learn what to be afraid of from parents in order to survive. A highly anxious parent typically sees the world as a scary place that cannot be trusted. They may well pass on their fears to their children as warnings, and become over-protective in an attempt to keep them safe. This can lead to the children internalising their parent’s fears and becoming overly anxious.

Also, remember that children mimic their parents, so a parent who is tense and easily stressed, is likely to inadvertently teach their children to behave in the same way.

How to Break the Cycle

You can take steps to protect your children from the negative effects of your anxiety and depression. Here are a few simple ways to start…..

• Be aware of what you teach your children about the world. Do you paint a scary or dark picture? Try to relax, lighten up, and look on the bright side.
• Think about how your children witness you interacting with others and them? If you want your children to be calm and positive, make sure you are a calm and positive role model.
• Make an effort to connect with your children in a consistent way. Get interested in their thoughts and feelings. Listen well, and try to respond in compassionate and positive ways to their problems.
• Be affectionate and warm, and praise your children liberally.
• Make the effort to enjoy fun interactions with your children. Family games can be great bonders, and laughter is a wonderful antidote for depression and anxiety.
• Exercise is also a natural antidote; so, even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing, try to do something regularly as a family that involves physical activity. Fun outdoor activities improve mood, and getting everyone out in the world can help you all combat fears.

Get Help ASAP

It is important that you take steps to deal with your own depression or anxiety. Focusing on helping your children should have the added bonus of helping you, but you might need to do a bit more to move into a consistently healthy state.  There is plenty of useful information out there in books and on the internet, but if depression or anxiety is continuing to limit your life, please make sure you get some good professional help without delay, for your children’s sake.

Lorri Craig and her colleagues, Wade Jacklin, and Libby Quinn, from the 4Life Psychology Centre will be running a series of free public seminars in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, Australia in September and October 2011, on how to combat adult depression and anxiety, and how to protect children from the negative effects.

Thoughts, images and feelings are all a normal part of our internal human world, and we wouldn’t want to be without them. They can fuel our creativity, they can drive and motivate us, they can keep us safe, and they can bring us passion, joy and contentment.

But sometimes they can be an absolute pain in the bum. They can haunt us, or annoy us, or demoralise us, or rile us into a frenzy of anger or guilt. They can scare us into a frozen state of avoidance, or bring us down into the depths of depression and apathy.

It’s Not That Easy to Switch Off Negative Thoughts

In the past we psychologists have told our clients that once they have identified the destructive thoughts and images in their heads, they can simply change them to positive ones. Although this idea has merit and works for some people, it is not as easy as it sounds for the majority of us. Failed attempts to block or throw away the negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts, have led to frustration and a heightened sense of failure and inadequacy in many of the people who have attempted this method. It is simply very hard to stop a thought, particularly one that you have been replaying for a long time, and if you do manage it, they can often sneak back with a vengeance.

Psychologists are now realising that, rather than trying to disperse unhelpful thoughts, it is fine to just allow them, as long as you don’t get caught up in them; as long as you don’t believe them to be the truth; and as long as you say mindful of what they really are… just sounds, pictures and feelings.

‘But how do I do that?’ I hear you ask in an exasperated voice.

Eastern Wisdom

Western psychology has recently started to take notice of the ancient teachings of our eastern brothers who have long said that the best way to stop thoughts controlling us is to witness them as just thoughts, and one of the best ways to do that is to practice meditation.

Meditation is both simple and difficult, but you don’t have to be a master of it to begin to feel the benefits. Anyone can learn to meditate. You could learn by going to a meditation class, or by reading a book, or listening to an audio, or even by watching one of the many YouTube videos on the topic.

How to Meditate

All you do is sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed and notice your breath and the sensation in your body as your breath enters and leaves your body. I personally like to focus more on the out-breath, as this is the side of the breath that is most linked with relaxation, but the traditional way is to just notice the breath going in and out without judging or controlling it.

Now, of course, many thoughts and images, memories and plans, and all the accompanying emotional paraphernalia, will invade your mind while you are trying to focus on the simplicity of your breath. But the trick is that you allow them all to come and go, without getting caught up in them. And if, as is inevitable, you do get carried away with a thought about the process, or your work, or relationship, or what to have for dinner, become aware of this little side-trip as soon as you can, and gently bring your attention back to your breath and your body.

Freedom to Choose

The process of witnessing thoughts images and emotions, and allowing them to come and go by bringing ourselves back to our body and breath, allows us to disentangle from them. We are then able to realise that the thoughts are not the essence of who we are: they are just static noise and don’t need to be given attention and power.

That awareness frees us up to be able to make decisions and take actions that our unhelpful thoughts and feelings have stopped us undertaking in the past.  We don’t have to stop and block our unhelpful thoughts to reduce their power over us, just recognise them for what they are, and chose whether or not to buy into them.

Lorri Craig

Partners can be incredibly annoying. They are very skilled at pressing our buttons and engaging us in arguments over nothing, but it is possible to change this pattern.

Most of us can’t stand to be told by our spouse that we are wrong and they are right, especially when we know [or are pretty sure] that they are wrong and we are right.

We can become particularly annoyed if they contest us using smug, patronising body language; while a condescending, know-it-all tone of voice can send us right over the edge.

When affronted with all that, we try to hold on to our dignity and defend our stance by hitting back with equally defensive words, body language, and tone. Well, equal-ish,  and certainly deserved.

Our partner, however, interprets our reaction as over the top, and then accuses us of being patronising and aggressive, whilst denying  that they ever were.

So they up the anti, and then we up the anti, and before we know it, we’re engaged in a full scale, emotionally shattering argument.

Sound Familiar?

What is Really Going on Deep Down

It’s important to remember that almost all anger is triggered by underlying vulnerable feelings.

The ‘we’ person in this scenario is reacting to his or her perception of being criticised or put down by the other. This interpretation leads to them feeling hurt and humiliated. Those vulnerable feelings in turn trigger their anger, and create an urge to prove that they are right by insisting that the other is wrong. Because they are feeling vulnerable and abused, they tend to do this in a slightly aggressive way.

The second person, who might have been unaware of the patronising tone of their message, then feels unfairly attacked and criticised. This perception triggers their feelings of hurt and humiliation, so they react with anger in an attempt to balance the power in their favour.

This leads to the first person feeling more hurt and angry, and so it goes on.

Let Your Mature Adult Take Charge

The vulnerable and angry feelings and reactions come from our inner child. This emotional part of our psyche developed when we were babies and toddlers, so it is a very young part of us and sometimes reacts in an immature way.

Although it is important to listen to, support and care for our inner child, it is important that we do not let it take over and rule our actions and reactions.

Similarly, the critical parent within us all, which is the part that developed after the inner child, and sometimes jumps to its defence, should not be given free rein to rule.

Instead, our mature ‘adult’ part is the one that should be making decisions and managing our behaviour and reactions.  This is the calm assertive part of us that developed later in childhood. It understands us and others, and reacts in a calm, mature, conciliatory way. Our ‘adult’ respects us and our needs, but is also respectful of the other person, and accepts that it is human and okay to make mistakes.

Bow Out Gracefully

It takes two to tango, so you can stop an argument at any time, simply by bowing out of it.

Remind yourself that you are reacting from your emotional child and critical parent.  Try to identify the vulnerable feelings under your anger and use your internal nurturing parent to calm and support your hurt child. Be gentle with yourself.

Remind yourself, also, that your partner is probably feeling hurt and vulnerable and unfairly treated too, so be gentle with them.  Remember if you react by putting your partner down in any way, they are likely to feel worse and this will lead to more pain for you both.

Try to stop the argument by reacting from your calm adult. But be careful that your patronising critical parent does not sneakily grab hold of the reins. Your language, both verbal and non-verbal, should be assertive, inclusive, respectful and forgiving of yourself and the other for your humanness.

Apologise if You Can

If you have riled your partner, and can bear to apologise in a clear, open way, then do so. An apology is a great argument stopper.  I admit it takes a lot of strength to apologise to someone when you feel that they are more wrong than you, but hold on to the fact that most of us get it a little bit wrong, so your apology can be genuine in terms of the part you played.  “I’m sorry that we argued,” is a powerful diffuser that can usually be said with honesty and conviction.

Make sure you are communicating from your clear, calm, forgiving adult when you apologise. Avoid the urge to add a ‘but’ to the end of your apology.

It is up to the other person to own their role in any argument, and it is not critical that they do, so don’t look for your apology to be reciprocated.

Time Out Can Help

If you can’t, or don’t want to, apologise in a positive way, you could simply stop talking, but try to stay strong and relaxed, and let go your anger, so that you don’t come across as passive-agressive or petulant.  You could try to calmly say something inclusive and conciliatory, like, “Let’s not argue,” or change the subject, or you might need to take some time out until you calm down. If so, ideally let the other person know what you are doing so they don’t feel too abandoned, as that feeling can add to their vulnerability and, therefore, anger.

You might feel brave enough to apologise when you return, or at least suggest that you hug and make up. Go to them for the contact, rather than waiting for them to come to you. If they are not ready, respect their need for time, and let it go.

Feel Good About the Changes You Make

There is no guarantee that your partner will follow suit and become the humble, mature person that you are learning to be. But it is true that when one person changes in a dynamic system, the other is forced to shift, even if that shift is subtle and slow.

The important thing is that by accessing your strength and maturity, you are creating a more positive relationship and a more peaceful life for you and your family.

Winning arguments by convincing your partner that you are right and they are wrong, will not make you happier. But learning to diffuse arguments will.

Lorri

Note: These strategies are for dealing with arguments in ‘normal’ relationships, where the balance of power is roughly even.  If you are in a violent or abusive relationship, please seek help from competent professionals as soon as possible.

When parents come to me for help with a child, they naturally start by telling me what is wrong with their child and what behaviours or emotional responses they would like to get rid of or change.  That is totally understandable.

If a child is frequently acting in a way that is inappropriate, unacceptable, annoying, or worrying, it is reasonable that the parents would focus on those bad behaviours and reactions in an attempt to stop or modify them; especially if the parents have got to the stage of seeking help from a psychologist. By that time they are usually tearing their hair out with frustration and losing sleep.

When I observe these parents and children together, I notice that the concerned parents often spend a great deal of time and energy giving negative attention to the children’s unwanted behaviours in an attempt to stop them. Again, this is totally natural and understandable.

Attention Encourages Behaviour

The problem is that every time the parents focus their attention on unwanted behaviours, they inadvertently encourage those behaviours, particularly if the child is hungry for attention. Some children need an enormous amount of attention, and they can unconsciously develop a taste for bad attention if that becomes their main source.

A powerful strategy when you are dealing with an attention seeking child, is to pay more attention to the behaviours and reactions that you want, and less attention to the behaviours and reactions that you don’t want.

Focus on What You Want

If you focus on desirable behaviours and give them your love and positive attention, you will nurture and encourage those positive behaviours. It’s a bit like watering, fertilising and protecting flowers in a garden, and allowing the weeds to wilt and be trampled in a natural way.

It is sometimes difficult to see the positive in a child who has driven you crazy with their disobedience, or laziness, or inability to listen and follow instructions , or silly behaviour, or rudeness, or dangerous antics, or anxiety, or aggression, or temper tantrums.  Many parents of challenging children find it very hard to find anything they feel worthy of positive attention.

Start with Small Seeds

But remember, beautiful flowers grow from small seeds. You have to make a conscious effort to turn your habitual attention giving around, so that you notice and acknowledge positive behaviours, even if only tiny things.

Try to notice and acknowledge when your attention seeking child plays quietly by himself for even a minute. Smile and give a thumbs up when your argumentative children agree over which TV program to watch. Praise your dreamy child when she manages to follow  a small instruction. High five your angry child when he gets through a short shopping expedition without a tantrum.

Gradually Expect More

Make sure the praise and attention suit the age, personality and maturity of the child. As your child gets better at taking these small steps, you can reduce the frequency of your praise and raise the bar slowly, and as they mature acknowledge this with the expectation that things will keep improving. ‘You are getting better and better at staying calm as you get older. Well done.”

Want More Help?

If you are interested in other parenting tips, get a copy of my free twelve part e-book, ‘12 Super Child Training Secrets’. Or, if you are after a much more comprehensive and intensive training that you could do at home in your own time and pace, check out my parent training package, ‘How to Manage Your 3 to 10 Year Old Child’.  The links to both are on www.Psychology ThroughTheInternet.com, on the right hand side of the page.

Happy parenting.

Lorri Craig

My mother has dementia: Alzheimer’s we’re told. She’s 79, fit as a fiddle physically, and still coordinates her wardrobe with some of her old style most of the time, but it’s hard for her to maintain a train of thought for long.

Mum’s working memory has gradually diminished to the point where it lasts about twenty seconds. Occasionally she can hold a thought to the end of a sentence, and she can sometimes even manage to participate sensibly in a brief conversation, but before long her thoughts inevitably get lost and scrambled, and she makes no sense.

I remember having a conversation with her a couple of years ago, when her working memory was about two minutes long. She acknowledged the difficulty of organising her ideas with a deteriorating memory. She agreed that thought needs some memory to hold and manipulate its parts. True thinking cannot be done successfully without a working memory, so dementia takes away the ability to think.

Difficult Conversations

Some of Mum’s intelligence is still in there, within the chaos. She still thinks in complex concepts, but struggles to find the words to express them.  She was always a keen conversationalist, and she certainly hasn’t let her dementia stop her talking, but it is sometimes a struggle to understand what she means.

Because her memory is so damaged, Mum repeats herself in endless loops. She might ask about the weather, or where I live, or our plans for Christmas ten times in as many minutes.  If she was a quieter person, we might not be so aware of the extent of her intellectual disorder.

A Former Life

I have been living in the UK, and recently returned to Australia to be near my mother; to spend time with her before she disappears completely. She is not the mother she once was, but in some ways she still is. I can still catch glimpses of that former person; that incredibly stylish and smart, intuitive, and emotionally intelligent woman who, together with my father, created a family and a successful business, built houses, and travelled the world.

Mum came from a large family, and was historically the person her brothers and sisters turned to when someone needed to be listened to, or hospitalised, or put in care, or buried. She was a middle child, not the eldest, but we were the first sub-family to emigrate from Scotland to Australia, so Mum helped to organise and house each of her siblings and their families as they arrived. I think this, along with her sound organisation skills, big heart, and generosity with her time and energy, was the reason she maintained the big sister role in her family until her mental deterioration.

Put a Gun to My Head

Some of my mother’s siblings developed dementia long before her, and their father also died of the disease. Mum used to say, “Put a gun to the back of my head and shoot me if that ever happens to me.”

But nature is both cruel and kind. As her brain cells died, her mind refused to accept that she had any problem beyond the normal declining memory of people her age. Even now, when she is locked away in a secure unit within a nursing home, unable to leave without a chaperone, she has no idea that she has dementia.

Happily Confused

The good news is that she is very happy and appreciative of everything and everyone. She enjoys living in the nursing home, surrounded by confused people who share the same condition.  It can be touching and amusing to see Mum trying to be her usual helpful self with another resident who insists that the clothes he found in his room are not his. Confusion begets confusion.

Mum sees these people as her friends, and enjoys talking with them and her wonderful carers all day, but she could not identify a single name if asked.

I try to learn their names on my visits. I often wonder, as I watch them being fed and dressed and steered in the right direction, who were these confused shells of people before they started to disappear with dementia? Were any of the other residents as vibrant, intelligent, competent and caring as my mother? What were their lives like? What were their achievements? Who and what exists because of them?

When to Grieve?

It must be painful for their families, as it is painful for me and my family, for we cannot grieve in a normal way. Our loved ones are not yet gone, but they are definitely going.

It will be years before we bury my wonderful mother, but the mother I had and knew is fading quickly before my eyes, being replaced with a sweet, loving, and more and more confused little old lady.

Should I cry? Should I sigh and accept the inevitable downward slide with a stiff upper lip? Or should I be happy and grateful that I get to spend time with this gorgeous, happy, loving, gentle person as she continues to change? And should I be happy for her that she continues to live and enjoy life?

Ask me in a few years. Ask me when her language totally goes; when she can no longer feed herself; when she needs to wear a nappy. Ask me when these factors cloud the memory of the amazing women that she was.

Mum still recognises and remembers me, most of the time, but she cannot do that forever. Perhaps that will be the most difficult transition for me. When she disappears to the point of no longer realising that I’m Lorri, her little girl.

Lorri Craig

For all their lovability, children can be extremely frustrating and worrying people; especially from the perspective of their parents.

As a practicing psychologist, I have worked with literally thousands of frustrated and anxious parents struggling to manage the behavioural and emotional responses of their children. Coincidentally the children’s presenting problems usually fell into one or both of two categories: frustrated and anxious.

SIMPLE STRATEGIES THAT WORK

Over the years I often found myself saying the same stuff repeatedly to parents. Simple stuff like: give more attention to the behaviours and responses you want, and less attention to the behaviours and responses you don’t want. Or, reward your child for good behaviour by playing with them in a fun way, because this encourages good behaviour AND improves your relationship with them. Or, be conscious of modelling good behaviour and appropriate emotional responses to your children, because they are likely to copy you.  Simple but crucial stuff.

12 SUPER CHILD TRAINING SECRETS

So, working within my philosophy of helping more people by providing more affordable, accessible psychology services across the globe via the Internet, I have put my top twelve strategies together into a twelve part ebook. And I have decided to GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE to anyone who wants it.

The free ebook is called 12 SUPER CHILD TRAINING SECRETS. It comes in 12 parts, and the first part is now up for grabs.  You can get hold of your free copy through here at www.PsychologyThroughTheInternet.com Simply leave your email in the box, and I’ll send you a link to your copy.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR 3 TO 10 YEAR OLD CHILD

If you are after a more comprehensive package, with 3 hours of interactive video training packed full of ideas and strategies, you might like to check out my new Parent Training DVD Course called HOW TO MANAGE YOUR 3 TO 10 YEAR OLD CHILD.  This package has even more stuff than the ebook and, because the main part is in MP4 format, it is all instantly available and downloadable and easy to digest. The package includes workbooks [so you can practice applying the strategies to your children], along with loads of other goodies.

Although this Parent Training DVD Package is not absolutely free, I have managed to keep the price ridiculously low, so that most parents can afford it.   Which means it’s a fraction of the cost of even one therapy session with me, and far more affordable than most group parent training programs. It’s also much more convenient than going to see a psychologist or attending a parent training group program, because you can do it at your own pace, any time of day or night, in the comfort of your own home or office.  And for most busy parents, that’s a big plus.

If you are really quick you might catch HOW TO MANAGE YOUR 3 TO 10 YEAR OLD CHILD at an even more ridiculously low launch price. Check it out at www.ParentTrainingCourses.com/Launch.  This special was available at the time of writing, but it won’t be for long, so please hurry.

I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you.

Happy parenting,

Lorri Craig

We have an abundance of technology that should help us have easier, happier lives, but our artificial lifestyles seem to stress us out, bring us down, and reduce our happiness. It’s fair to say we are having a bit of a depression epidemic.

Many people believe that it is impossible to lift their mood, to climb out of depression, and to be happy, without medication. But, to the contrary, research has shown that it is possible to improve our baseline happiness by actively and consciously taking steps to turn our mood around. This is the science of positive psychology.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO FEEL HAPPIER?

Well, apart from the obvious, when we are happier, we perform better and tend to become more successful.

Children who were encouraged to recall a happy experience before doing a task outperformed their peers by fifty percent. Similarly, adults who are primed to be positive and happier before completing an intelligence test, or thinking task, perform significantly better than their un-primed peers.

Research has shown that happy people are healthier and live longer than unhappy people too. This makes sense, as mood is known to affect our immune systems.

HOW TO FEEL HAPPY

According to Shawn Anchor from Harvard University, we can increase our general state of happiness by doing some really simple stuff.

• Write down five things you are grateful for every morning. If you do this for 21 days your baseline happiness levels should improve for the next 6 months.
• Write about a positive experience every day for 30 days. This has been shown to boost immune system and increase your sociability.
• Do one thing at a time, rather than trying to multitask. Multitask increases stress and we know that stress affects us physically and emotionally.
• Work out what you are good at and use these strengths in your everyday life. This will increase your self esteem and productivity, and so positively affect your well being.
• Exercise. This reduces stress levels and improves mood, and is much better for you than anti-depressants.
• Meditate. This has been shown to affect brain waves, reduce stress reactions, and increase happiness.
• Smile. The more we smile on the outside, the happier we feel internally.

When my depressed clients to do this simple stuff,  it makes a significant difference to their general mood.

CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF YOUR ENERGY

On top of these homework strategies, I often show clients how to control the energy in their bodies to create a more positive mood.

Think for a minute about how you feel when you are low or depressed. People usually feel a heavy feeling moving down through the lower half of their bodies.

Now think of a happy or exciting experience. Where do you feel the energy? What direction is it going?  Usually up and out from the heart.

So now go back to feeling sad and low. Feel that heavy, sinking energy.

Now take that feeling, and imagine it moving up your body. Imagine it coming up through the earth, through your feet, up your legs, through your belly, into your heart, where it’s transformed into positive energy. You might be able to feel the energy as light, glowing or tingling stuff.

Then feel that positive energy expand in your heart. Imagine it expanding to fill your whole chest in a warm, yummy way. Now imagine it continuing up your spine, up through the back of your neck, through the back of your head, and up and out the top of your head.  YES! YES! YES!!!!

THINK POSITIVELY

Another really important strategy for increasing happiness and productivity is to think positive thoughts. Become aware of your internal dialogue: the things you say to yourself about a situation or experience, or your life. Identify the negative or pessimistic ones, then simply change your head.  Let go the negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts. Simple.

GET OUT IN THE SUN

Sunlight is known to increase happiness and health. Scientists believe this is, at least in part due to Vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced in our skin in the sun. It’s known to play a significant role in switching our genes on and off, so is vital for health and well being. People who are deprived of enough sunshine can fall victim to low mood caused by SADs, or seasonal affective disorder. This is why so many of us suffer depression and low mood in the winter.  So, whatever the weather, make sure you get out in the daytime at least once a day. Failing that, or if it’s too cold to expose much skin, take vitamin D supplements.

BEGIN NOW

I realise it is often very difficult to motivate yourself to make changes and try new things when you are feeling low or depressed. But if you force yourself to apply all, or even some, of these strategies for a few days, starting today, you will be on your way to being happier, healthier and more productive.

So stop what you’re doing, get out a pen and paper, and write down five things you’re grateful for. It could be anything from a beautiful sky to a loved one, or the crunchy apple you had for lunch. Next, spend five minutes writing about a positive experience that you have had. Then go for a walk with a smile on your face. Do that every day, and you should start to feel a difference very quickly. Simply suck it and see.

Have fun.