Month: October 2015

lying

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Parenting After Weinergate: Talking to Your Teens About Lying
by: Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D.
With Anthony Weiner no longer front-page news now that he has resigned in disgrace from public office, what’s a parent to make of that perfect storm – a mix of politics, power, sexting and lying? The media frenzy over the ex-Congressman’s behavior provides a clear teachable moment for our teens. Given the dramatic effects of the inappropriate messages and photos he sent and the devastating results of his untruthful words, we can talk to our kids about the serious consequences of making bad decisions.

As parents, we know that young children lie, apparently about once every two hours. Sometimes they do it to get what they want or gain attention but usually it’s to avoid getting in trouble and being punished. Often the lines between make-believe and reality become blurred.

But when do kids’ little ‘white lies’ become teenagers’ big destructive whoppers? And how do these teens behave as adults out in the world? Weiner provides an unambiguous example of the slippery slope of lying and the difficulty of extricating yourself.

According to the Josephson Institute of Ethics, teens are five times more likely than those over 50 to believe it is necessary to lie and cheat in order to succeed. More than one in five admit to lying, cheating or stealing in the past year, with 80% saying they have lied to their parents about something significant. As they move out into the world at large, these same young adults are two to three times more likely to misrepresent themselves in a job interview, lie to a significant other, keep money mistakenly given to them.

Anthony Weiner seems to have been stuck in this adolescent phase of development. If you want your teens to move beyond this and recognize the dangers of lying, here are four tips to get you started:

As in all aspects of parenting, keep the lines of communication open. When your children are young, encourage and praise their honesty and let them know clearly what is unacceptable. As they mature, continue a dialogue that helps them recognize the real consequences of their behaviors.

Be the role model you want you kids to emulate. And find other good examples of adults behaving well. They can help reinforce the examples of integrity, authenticity, and good citizenship that you want to encourage. Since poor role models abound in the entertainment, political and sports worlds, it’s up to you search out those you want your kids to follow.

Talk about the difference between rules, ethical standards and flexible guidelines. These distinctions aren’t always easy for them to make. And teens have witnessed the normalization of illegal activities on the Internet – plagiarism of papers and reports, downloading pirated music and videos. But you can make a case for controlling the blurring of these lines. Have frank discussions about character and encourage them to develop a set of values.

Teach them to focus on learning without obsessing about tests and grades. Kids face high expectations and the pressure to succeed from parents and schools. Let them know they don’t have to be perfect to be competitive. Help them learn to be resilient so they can bounce back from disappointment. Cheating and lying increase when self-esteem is low. So work to facilitate building their self-confidence, self-reliance and self-respect.

Sir Walter Scott didn’t know about Weinergate two hundred years ago when he cautioned, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” But we can use his experience to initiate talks with our children about lying and give them the tools they need to avoid the fate Weiner brought on himself.

� 2011, Her Mentor Center

About The Author

Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. are family relationship experts who have developed a 4-step model for change. If you are coping with acting-out teenagers, aging parents, boomerang kids or difficult daughters-in-law, we have the solutions that make family rifts disappear. Visit our website, HerMentorCenter.com to subscribe to Stepping Stones, a free ezine and our blog, Family Relationships to receive practical tips and our free e-book, Courage and Lessons Learned.
The author invites you to visit:
http://www.hermentorcenter.com

 

bipolar mind

An Insight Into My Bipolar Mind
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mariya_Ali]Mariya Ali

At the age of 25, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I had spent the better part of the previous decade fighting the monster inside of my head, the chemical imbalance that was unknown to me at the time. It is hard to describe what bipolar feels like to others; just as it is hard for me to imagine who I would be and how my life would have panned out if I was “normal”. The closest description I can think of to describe the experience of being bipolar is being so consumed with the depth and volatility of your emotions that you cease to live and instead spend all of your energy trying to survive moment to moment; trying to get through even the mundane and seemingly easy actions that make up your average day, all the while pretending to the outside world that you are fine.

At the moment, I am in the midst of a depressive episode. I want to give a play-by-play description of the feelings that sit in the pit of my stomach and the thoughts that are plaguing my mind. Perhaps this is unwise, sharing my thoughts and feelings in the vulnerable state that depression and the related sleep deprivation causes – that gray area between being awake and asleep. The broken barriers and poor judgment that ensues. Perhaps it’s unwise to share my innermost thoughts with the world at large, but I have decided to be unashamedly, un-apologetically, authentically me; hoping that an insight into my mind will create a greater understanding of my and so many others’ plight.

It’s a bad place, the place that I am in. A vortex of darkness, a black hole that seems to crush every particle of light that comes within close proximity; a strong gravity that only attracts negativity. My mind is inundated with regrets, sadness, what-ifs and remorse. It doesn’t seem to matter how hard I try to break through with positivity, this gravity crushes and obliterates the positivity into vapor that dissipates into the all consuming, all encompassing darkness. It is an exhausting and oftentimes futile process.

As tears stream down my face, I wonder how long this bout of depression. Will it be gone in the morning? Will this seemingly endless torture last a few days? How much time will elapse before I find myself back in this dark place? How many more times do I have to go through this cycle?

Now I feel nothing; I am numb. Or perhaps it is something, my brain is too foggy and my eyes are too heavy to analyze it any further. I am too exhausted with battling these thoughts to attempt to try and work my way through these awful feelings. “This too shall pass”, I assure myself. Experience has taught me that it will pass, but then it will also return.

By mid-afternoon today, as I felt my world darken and experienced the beginning of the symptoms of depression, I knew that tonight would be hard. I was hoping that I would sleep through the night, avoiding those perilous-sleep-deprived late hours of the night/early hours of the morning. The hours where fatigue weakens me and I balance precariously on the edge of sanity, where the slightest push can be the catalyst that sends me catapulting over the edge. These are the hours where there is nothing to divert my attention and occupy as much of my brain as I can to try to minimize this evil force. I also have a sadistic enjoyment of this state, the black hole of depression tries to lure me deeper in, pulling me towards its singularity. I have a need to feel pain. Perhaps it is me punishing myself for my perceived transgressions that my mind is currently torturing me with. I call this threshold “the point of no return”. Once here, I am no longer able to going back., I just have to grit my teeth, hold on, brace myself and survive the rollercoaster ride.

So there it is, a brief insight into my bipolar mind during one of my darkest hours.

I am a young professional who enjoys blogging and writing. I am passionate about raising awareness of mental health, in particular Bipolar Disorder. You can find my blog at [http://www.mariyaali.com]http://www.mariyaali.com.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?An-Insight-Into-My-Bipolar-Mind&id=9060667] An Insight Into My Bipolar Mind

Breaking the cycle

Breaking the Cycle: The Relationship Between Alcoholism and Co-Occurring Disorders
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Cory_Kevin]Cory Kevin

Co-occurring mental health disorders are often present in individuals struggling with substance abuse. These must be diagnosed as independent from each other in order to be classified as co-occurring disorders, as opposed to one being the symptom of the other. Either disorder can develop first, though many individuals struggling with a mental health issue turn to substances, such as alcohol, to self-medicate. Dual diagnosis treatment has proven to be the most effective method in treating co-occurring disorders, as it treats the whole individual and assesses the relationship between the disorders while establishing relapse prevention coping skills for all potential triggers. There are many alcohol and drug programs that provide evidence-based dual diagnosis treatment.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately one-third of all individuals who abuse alcohol report simultaneously struggling with mental health disorders. A study published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that between 30 to 40 percent of individuals with alcohol addiction also experience symptoms indicative of clinical depression. The relationship between alcohol abuse and/or alcoholism and depression is complicated in that the conditions exacerbate each other. If an individual dealing with symptoms of depression turns to alcohol to cope, his or her symptoms will worsen once the effects of alcohol, which is a depressant, have worn off. The individual then turns to alcohol again for a temporary alleviation of negative feelings, which devolves into a cycle that is difficult to break.

The same study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that 50 to 60 percent of individuals who struggle with bipolar disorder abuse alcohol or other drugs during manic episodes. Antisocial personality disorder is present in 15 to 20 percent of men with alcoholism and in 10 percent of women. However, generalized anxiety in those with alcohol addiction is not significantly larger than that found in the general population.

The relationship between alcohol use and mental health is complex. The prevalence of alcohol abuse in the United States adds a layer of accessibility and social acceptability to the use of alcohol as a coping tool. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is believed that one in six adults nationwide participates in a drinking binge of approximately eight drinks at least four times each month.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) highly recommends a dual diagnosis approach for the treatment of co-occurring disorders. [http://www.californiadualdiagnosishelpline.com]Official Website

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Breaking-the-Cycle:-The-Relationship-Between-Alcoholism-and-Co-Occurring-Disorders&id=9100882] Breaking the Cycle: The Relationship Between Alcoholism and Co-Occurring Disorders