Kid issues? Consider marriage counseling.
It is perfectly normal for all kids to have challenges, at all ages and stages. Sometimes those challenges come from the typical bumps that occur throughout the developmental process, such as “the terrible twos”. At every stage kids have to master a series of physical, emotional, social, relational, and cognitive tasks. Just as when we are learning new things, especially lots of new things at once, kids might be cranky, tired, sleepless, tearful, or fall into bad habits that we thought they (and we) had conquered.
Sometimes the difficulties that we experience with our kids are a result of changes in the family. Maybe there is a new baby in the family and an older child feels displaced, causing her to revert to behaviors like tantruming or wetting the bed. A parent might change jobs which causes stress for everyone as the family adjusts to new tasks or routines. In our transient society families move to new houses and neighborhoods, or far away from family, friends, or a beloved community and have to create a new home and build a new life; this isn’t easy, especially for kids.
Something that parents don’toften look at when their child is struggling at school, with siblings or peers, or emotionally and behaviorally is their own relationship with one another. Teachers, other school personnel, or the child’s pediatrician may advise parents to have their child evaluated for ADHD or some other learning disability, or simply to medicate the child. Well-meaning family members advise parents to be “better parents” (be stricter, be let him have more freedom, etc.). Friends may advise parents to take it easy and not worry so much, “he will outgrow it”.
While simply outgrowing developmental hiccups, finding increased reserves of patience, adjusting to transitions, and heeding the advice of others may be components of helping a struggling child one of the first things to attend to when considering helping one’s child is the marital relationship. A significant reason that kids display different challenging behaviors because there is discord, disconnection, or conflict in the marriage.
The health and stability of the marriage in a family drives and affects the health and wellbeing of the rest of the family in deep and profound ways. Either way, if a child is indeed struggling because of issues more specific to him, or if a child is responding to tension the family, attending first and foremost to the marriage in a loving, non-blaming, effective way is the first step in getting the family, and each family member, back on the road to stability and happiness.
If you and your spouse, and your kids, are struggling call me today and I can help you reconnect, heal, and love being married, which will help your kids with whatever ails them!