Finding Common Ground

Elder Care Issues

Working with families to create care plans, manage difficult conversations, define roles, and reduce stress.

Effective Communication

Assisting families and individuals in expressing themselves, identifying their interests, and discussing what matters most.

Family Wellness

Strengthening families through consulting, coaching, and education.

Professional Mediation and Conflict Resolution

Assisting individuals and groups in resolving disputes and bringing about peaceful resolutions.

Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate?

Becky Wilfahrt MA, M.Ed, Finding Common Ground

Have you and your family talked about the transfer of non-titled property after you or a family member dies? Estate planning discussions often focus on land, houses, cars, stocks, bonds and savings accounts. Too often, non-titled property doesn’t get discussed. For many people personal items carry more meaning and are more important than the titled property.

To learn more about the transfer of non-titled property, attend this class!

Topics covered will include:

Initiating discussions on sensitive issues
Identifying special objects
Sharing stories about special items
Determining goals of distribution
Setting ground rules
Determining distribution options
Managing Conflicts

Becky is a licensed Family Educator and a Rule 114 Qualified Family Mediator.

Monday, September 26 6:30-8:00

Fee: $12/person or $17/couple

Room 216 Washington Elementary School (enter door #1, first classroom on your left)

A few years ago I was teaching an advanced literature class to high school students. We were studying the Romantics and Transcendentalists (my personal favorites) when I came across a quote that stated, “There are no rational fears”. This made for lively conversation with a room full of 17 and 18 year olds as they argued against this statement by delivering one example after another. We never reached any definitive conclusion that day and for the past several years my mind has wandered back to that discussion trying to decipher if all fears truly are irrational.

As I reflected upon the things I have feared in my life, I have come to realize a few very important things about fear. Fear is definitely one of the strongest emotions. It can be so debilitating that you can’t move, think, or speak. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of hurting loved ones. Fear of finding out the truth about ourselves. Are any of these things rational? Rational or not, I have experienced that the worry and fear that accompany difficult situations or confrontations are usually much worse than the encounter itself and the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes.

How many times have you avoided addressing an issue because you were afraid of what the outcome would be, what would happen to the relationship, or what the other person might say about you? Most people shy away from conflict choosing to internalize the anger and frustration instead of confronting others. This anger and frustration eventually festers and displays itself in all sorts of other ways while those that frustrated you remain oblivious to the root of the anger.

When faced with the choice of whether or not to engage in a difficult conversation, ask yourself what is holding you back? What is the best possible outcome? What is the worst? As that fear starts to creep up and your mind begins to invoke one horrific scenario after another, keep in mind that the fear and worry that you conjure up is always worse than the actual encounter.

In Andy Andrews book The Noticer, Jones shares with a struggling couple the idea that there are four dialects of love and how we feel loved is usually the way we express love. Spoken words of approval, physical contact, favors and deeds, and quality time are the four ways people express their love for others. Knowing how you and your spouse or significant other feels loved is vital to a healthy and long relationship. Take some time to examine what makes you feel loved. Do you need someone to compliment you or reassure you with supportive words? Is your idea of love holding hands, giving hugs, or a pat on the back? Maybe you believe the way to express love is by cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash, or possibly going on dates, taking vacations, and spending time together is your definition of loving someone. Learning others dialects can help strengthen relationships with your children, friends, and coworkers. If you are currently struggling in a relationship or feel that your actions go unnoticed or unappreciated, it is time to sit down with the other person and figure out what dialects you are speaking.

Has more civilized technology made us act more barbaric? E-mail, facebook, texting, twitter, instant messaging, all of these social mediums have made it possible for us to connect with people all over the world in an instant; they have improved the transfer of information, reunited long lost friends, and kept families connected. However, I can’t help but wonder whether all of these advances in technology have proven harmful to relationships. For instance, just recently I received a string of e-mails from an irate parent. The e-mails were strewn with insults and derogatory comments. This, of course, was not an isolated incident. I can’t help but think of all of the divorced parents I have worked with who have exchanged demeaning and hurtful e-mails, the high school students I have taught who have sent vicious text messages or broken up with a boyfriend or girlfriend via text, facebook, or e-mail. Would people be so bold and abrasive if they had to address people face to face? Would they choose their words differently? Would they be so quick to point fingers, place blame, and call names? It is really easy to send a quick text, fire off an e-mail, or tweet your feelings about someone when you don’t have to worry about being there to deal with the other person’s feelings. Have all of these means of communication enabled people to be rude and impersonal and in the process damaged our ability to deal with conflict?

Are conflicts hurting your relationships and personal growth?
Could you use help parenting a challenging child?
Could you benefit from a mentor or mediator to help resolve conflicts, strengthen your relationships, and communicate more effectively?
Do you avoid difficult conversations?
Is there a conflict that is putting a strain on your family relationships?
Do you want to save time, money, and worry in your divorce or separation?
Have you considered mediation to help you effectively work together, communicate, and solve problems?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, Finding Common Ground can help.

Finding Common Ground, specializing in Professional Mediation, Conflict Resolution, and Family Wellness, works with families and parents to:

Improve Communication
Promote Parallel Parenting
Build Stronger Relationships
Effectively Resolve Conflicts
Manage Difficult Conversations
Keep Families Working Together
Make Important Decisions
Reduce and Manage Stress
Move Forward

“Why am I doing this?” “If I quit, no one will know.” “This is ridiculous!” “I can’t do this anymore!” These are just a few of the thoughts that ran through my head the five months leading up to my first ever marathon. Running in the cold, snow, wind, and rain, tracking anywhere from 30 to 45 miles a week, there were many times when quitting seemed like a good option. Months of sore muscles, aching joints, and fatigue finally paid off, and the feeling of utter satisfaction and elation when I crossed that finish line far exceeded any of the negative thoughts I had leading up to that moment.

I learned that this experience is no different than most challenges in life. The voices in our head play a vital role in what we do and how we feel. Learning to control that voice in our head is the first step towards accomplishing our goals, moving on from a bad situation, having a difficult conversation, or mending a relationship. It has often been said that most sports are 90% mental. What parts of our daily lives are mental? If we could control our thoughts, how would that change our “game”? If actions follow feelings, and feelings follow thoughts, what amazing things could we accomplish if we changed the way we think?

Pay attention to the voices in your head. Once you learn to control them, you can accomplish anything!

People often times focus on what possessions they will leave behind and to whom. Siblings can spend thousands of dollars in legal fees and countless hours arguing among themselves about who inherits what from their parents’ estate. Too often, families are torn apart over material possessions. Although this problem cannot be completely alleviated, parents can take a proactive role to ensure that the legacy they leave behind will be more than a few possessions and a fragmented family. The questions that parents need to ask themselves are, “what do I want my legacy to be? What do I hope to pass on to my children? What wishes do I have for my family after I have passed?”

A legacy is more than cash, cabins, and land. A legacy also encompasses values, rituals, traditions, and family history. If parents want to preserve the values and traditions within their families and ensure a strong and unified family after they are gone, they need to take the lead and deal with their aging by talking about their wishes to their children, asking forgiveness for past hurts, and most importantly, by being good role models by developing and maintaining emotionally healthy relationships with their children.

What do you want for your family when you are gone?

I teach a parents forever course through one of the nearby counties. For those of you not familiar with parent’s forever, it is a course for divorcing or separating parents, or parents with custody issues. The course is designed with the children as the main focus, and it covers topics like the impact of divorce on adults, child development, the impact of separation on children, legal issues, finances, and moving forward. It also presents useful strategies and tools for effective communication and anger management. The final evening of the course a marriage and family counselor comes to speak about how to move forward, manage yourself, and take care of your children. This past week was the final class for the spring session and as the counselor was speaking, she made a comment that really resonated with me. She declared that, “anger and resentment are as much of an emotional attachment as love and caring, and the more you focus on anger, revenge, and resentment, the more power you give the other person.” As long as you stay emotionally attached, either in a negative or positive manner, the longer you will be stuck where you are. In order to move forward, you need to let go of the relationship, the way things were – good and bad. When you are finally able to let go of the relationship and the emotional attachment, you will be able to move on which will allow your kids to move forward also.

What past relationships do you need to let go of? How has anger and resentment prevented you from moving on to better things? Has your negative emotional attachment to past relationships harmed your relationships with your friends, family, and even yourself? What do you need to do to let go? There is a book by R.A. Clark entitled, When God Stopped Keeping Score…How to Break Free From a Past Filled with Hurt, Guilt and Anger Through the Power of Forgiveness. The main message of the book is that forgiveness is for you. He illustrates this point when he affirms, “Never allow yourself to play the victim because as a victim you are powerless to change your circumstances when in reality, through forgiveness, you are”.

Alienating a child from his or her other parent is one of the most detrimental things a parent can do to his or her child. It can have long-term affects including lowered self-esteem, loss of self-confidence, predisposition to conflict, issues with needing and acting out for attention, assuming the role of a victim, depression, anxiety, and possible future addictions.

Often times separated or divorced parents will claim that they are not alienating their child from his or her other parent and that it is the child who chooses not to see the alienated parent which usually is true with parental alienation syndrome; however, it is important to examine how the child came to develop this animosity towards his or her parent because he or she does not develop it on his or her own.

Parents play a vital role in how their children perceive the other parent. Sometimes, the alienating parent blatantly bashes the other parent, exaggerates his or her flaws, makes sarcastic comments, or intentionally sets him or her up for failure when it comes to the children. Other times, it could be as subtle as the tone of voice, facial expressions, or emotions behind what is being said. If a parent makes it a point to question children about their time spent with the other parent, she is sending a message that she does not trust the other parent or that he is not capable of caring for the children on his own. This questioning sends a message to children that there is something bad about the other parent and serves to confuse the children in the sense that the other parent was good enough to take care of them before but isn’t now. The same is true if the alienating parent makes it a point to schedule activities for the children during the other parent’s time. Actions like these send a message that the other parent is not a competent parent.

With parental alienation, the parent doing the alienating is using his or her children, without their knowledge, to project her feelings of anger, resentment, hurt, and jealousy toward the other parent. The alienating parent is slowly “brainwashing” his or her children against the other parent. Soon, the child begins to devalue and undermine the other parent with embellished stories and trivial complaints because it gives him approval and attention from the alienating parent and other family members. The more the child’s behavior is reinforced with attention, the more the child will pull away from one parent and idealize the other which creates a vicious cycle and makes the chance of reconciliation decrease. In some cases, a child living with an undermining parent realizes that it is not possible to have a good relationship with both parents so he or she will continue to alienate the other parent in order to have a greater connection with the undermining parent.

The parent that is doing the undermining or alienating is usually psychologically frail, narcissistic, or a sociopath. He or she has issues with wanting to have complete control over his or her children and does not recognize the child as separate from herself. When threatened, he or she will become obsessed with protecting what she believes is rightfully hers (the children) which often times means not following court orders, engaging others in the conflict, making false accusations in court or to child protection, and “playing dirty”. The alienating parent will encourage dependence from her children by forcing them to sleep with her or performing other tasks for the child that he or she is capable of doing for himself. The child often times becomes the alienating parent’s “therapist”, and when the child realizes how “fragile” his or her parent is, he will begin to avoid expressing any type of affection toward the other parent and will instead list flaws, usually embellishing on them, to appease the alienating parent. Support of family and friends will only amplify the problem as it convinces the alienator that she is right when she already is having problems discriminating between what is true and what she wants to be true.

Children are not given the choice of whether or not they want to attend school. When parents are together, children are not forced to choose one over the other or given the option of which one they want to have a relationship with; therefore, children should not be given the option to choose whether or not they want to have a relationship with their parent after parents separate. This is a stressful and potentially detrimental decision for a child to be making. Be cautious when listening to children who are refusing to see one of their parents. Unless there is known and proven abuse, it could be a case of parental alienation syndrome and supporting and encouraging the complaints about the alienated parent only serves to exasperate the problem and make reconciliation less likely. Children, when at all possible, want and need relationships with both of their parents.

While working on my second graduate degree, I had the privilege of studying an extraordinary family. This family, like many, was not without its problems. They presented one of the most diverse and interesting families I studied throughout my program. Both mom and dad came into the relationship with children, and together they decided to adopt a beautiful little girl. In addition to the blending of families, there was a blending of cultures. The mother came from a rich Hispanic and Native American heritage, and the father was Caucasian.

As I sat down to interview the parents, I was amazed at how the family had survived through various trials and tribulations for more than twenty years. Everything from ex-spouses, discrimination, to moving from Austin, Texas to a small rural community in Southern, Minnesota presented itself as potential breaking points; however, these obstacles only served to strengthen the bond between the members of this family. I was drawn in by their honesty, respect, and undying support for each other. After having developed a friendship with this family, I witnessed what was probably the most devastating blow the family had endured thus far – the murder of their eldest son. Once again, as they had so many times before, they bonded together and came out of this tragedy even stronger than before.

Looking in from an outsider’s perspective, I could point to several different characteristics that contributed to the survival of this family unit when so many others faced with similar circumstances would have crumbled. However, one thing that was brought up in one of our first interviews continues to resonate with me. When asked what contributed to the building of such a strong family unit, they stated that labels were not allowed in their home. Inquiring further, they explained that from the beginning, regardless of who was biologically related and who wasn’t, no labels were to be used in their home. There were no “step”, “half”, “yours”, or “mine” labels. In their home, dad was dad, mom was mom, and siblings were siblings. To many, this may seem rather simple and hardly a contributing factor to making a family system work; however, upon further reflection, labels imply judgment. Labels create boundaries and divisions. Labels become the central focus. Things simply are what they are until someone imposes a label such as good or bad. Labels such as “step”, “half”, and “biological” carry with them all sorts of connotations in our society. By making a simple choice to defy the use of labels, this family was able to create one cohesive, strong family free from divisions.