Relationship Bridge Building

Child Abuse Statistics Continued

            Child Help statistics at www.childhelp.org/resources/learning-center/statistics report 30-40% of children are abused by a family member, while another 50% are abused by someone they know and trust outside the family. Forty percent of children are abused by older or bigger children whom they know. (This is confirmed by Advocates for Youth who found that adolescents were the offenders in 50% of reported cases.) That leaves only 10% who are actually abused by a stranger.          

Children are typically abused younger than most people think. Over 20% of victims are abused prior to their 8th birthday and 50% who suffer violent attacks, such as sodomy, rape with an object, or forcible fondling are under twelve years-old.

         

Also, a new statistic is emerging about solicitation on the Internet. Child Help reports that one in five children is sexually solicited while surfing the Internet! How much unsupervised time does your child spend on the Internet? Do you think he or she knows enough to not give out personal details to a perpetrator online? Think again.

What have you done to protect your children against these threats? How do you warn them? Let's talk more tomorrow.

Child Sexual Abuse Statistics

This is not a topic that is typically sought and read with fervor but if you are a parent or a person who loves any child under the age of 18, then you need to know the staggering statistics of child sexual abuse. Different references provide different statistics but the general consensus among the experts is that one in three girls will be sexually abused before she reaches the age of eighteen and one in six boys will be molested before their 18th birthday.

         

Do you really believe that with statistics like these your children will be somehow magically immune from the problem? No one wants to believe his or her child is at risk. No one wants to think that anything so ugly could happen in their family but the truth is that most victims are molested by someone they know. According to Advocates for Youth at www.advocatesforyouth.org/PUBLICATIONS/factsheet/fsabuse1.htm, a study done in three states reveals 96% of reported rape survivors under age 12 knew their attacker.

Please do not stick your head in the sand regarding this issue. Your child's very safety and innocence could be at stake. Are you suspicious that something may be happening to your child right now?

Child Sexual Abuse

April is Child Abuse Awareness month. I decided to blog the rest of this month on the topic of child sexual abuse. As a counselor working in the foster care arena for over 17 years, I was often faced with the devastation that children experience from this horrific violation of trust and the stealing of their innocence. Conversely, I was also struck by many children’s perseverance and strength to overcome the devastating effects of what those who were trusted to love them had perpetrated.

I know I may sound like I’m on a soap box about this but it is a social problem more prevalent than you may believe. I will give you the statistics several times just to drive home the point that whether or not you are aware of it, you probably know several children who are being sexually abused right now and even more adults who had been sexually abused during their childhoods. Researchers estimate that one in three girls and one in six boys will be sexually molested prior to their 18th birthday. If you are a teacher with 15 girls in your classroom, odds are that five of those girls has been or are being sexually molested. Did you know that most abuse happens within the home and is perpetrated by people known to the child?

Please, please, please I beg you to educate your children to this danger. You tell them about fire. You tell them about staying away from the swimming pool. You tell them to be careful around strange dogs. You tell them not to talk to strangers but what have you done to educate your child about the dangers of someone they love abusing their trust?

Empowerment Parenting Teleconference

Parenting is the most important job we'll ever do yet we receive no training in how to do it well. Come and learn the concepts of Empowerment Parenting. It is a way for you to increase your personal power in the parent role, while helping your child get his or her needs met in a responsible way. Empowerment Parenting is a way for everyone to win. Our teleconference in scheduled for April 24, 2007 at 8:45 PM ET. I look forward to talking to you then.

RelationshipsChat

I will be hosting a free chat at our site: www.therelationshipcenter.biz on Tuesday evening, 7:30 PM ET. Please come and join us. The groups are usually small--one to five people so you will get individual attention. You can ask me anything you want as it relates to getting along better with others or yourself. I am looking forward to meeting you. Relationships are the most important thing we have in our lives. If you have some that aren't exactly what you want, come chat and let's see if we can make something a little better. Let's create the relationships you deserve!

Relationship Progress

When we think about our progress over the past 100 years in terms of technology and relationships, it is very clear that we have made great strides in the technological field and very minimal gains, if any, in our relationships with each other. Can you think of things we have available to us today that didn’t exist 100 years ago? Today we have cell phones, computers, satellite, televisions, DVDs, CDs, space travel, etc. The list is virtually endless.
       
One of the reasons we have made such huge gains in the technological field is because those who are working at making those advances are willing to try a new approach when their approach is no longer working. They adjust their behavior to fit the situation. This is simply common sense.
       
However, in the area of interpersonal relationships, would you say that people get along better today than they did a century ago? Do husbands get along better with their wives? Do parents get along better with their children? Do teachers get along better with their students? Do neighbors get along better today? Most would admit that there has been little, if any, improvement.
       
The reason for this lack of progress in the relationship department is that when our external control behaviors don’t work to get us the results we want, we take those same behaviors to the next level. We are convinced that they will work if only we do it more often, harder or faster. In other words, we get a bigger stick!
       
The reason this mentality has survived the ages is because we can usually crank up the pressure or find the one punishment or threat that will work to get us what we want. Did you hear me say external control doesn’t work? Of course it works! That’s why we use it. The question remains: At what cost?
       
When we consistently use external control behaviors in our relationships with those we love, what does it cost? It costs us the relationship. I’m not saying the relationship will necessarily end, although that is a definite possibility. What I am saying is that we keep whittling away at the foundation of our relationship and then wonder why there has been no relationship progress over the past 100 years or even longer.
       
There are alternatives. There are ways to simultaneously honor ourselves and our partners. The first step is to recognize when we are using external control behavior. We will probably be able to recognize it long before you feel able to do anything about it. This is acceptable. Of course, the best case scenario is that from this moment forward, every time you consider externally controlling your partner, you stop yourself and use a caring habit instead.        

However, if that is not what happens in your case, don’t despair. Recognizing external control is the first step---bringing it into your conscious awareness. Once it’s there, then you can make a decision about what you are going to do about it.
             
Let me know about your efforts to recognize your use of external control or your commitment to substitute caring habits.

Bribing Hurts Too

I think the blaming, threatening and punishing behaviors are self-explanatory. Blaming sounds like: It’s always your fault. Threatening goes like this: If you do or don’t do ______________, then I’m going to (insert something you won’t like). Punishing often takes the form of withdrawal. It may be that we give our partners the silent treatment or we may withdraw affection or at least our enthusiasm during intimacy.
       
The last destructive habit to discuss is called bribing or rewarding to control. This may require a little more discussion. Bribing or rewarding to control does not mean the same thing as negotiation. Negotiation in a relationship is very healthy and necessary to the long term success of the relationship. It involves two willing partners, each interested in helping the other person get what they need, while at the same time meeting their own needs. Bribing simply means that I am going to dangle a carrot of what I think you want in front of you to get you to do the thing I know you don’t want to do.
       
I can remember often asking my youngest son to pick up his room. His room was always a mess and quite possibly a health hazard. I remember one day, I decided to put my nagging behavior away and try something new. So I said something like this: “Kyle, if you clean your room today, I’ll let you have a friend come over and play.” Do you know what his answer was? He said, “I don’t want a friend that bad.” And the room didn’t get cleaned! What a surprise!

Bribing or rewarding to control also needs to be distinguished from spontaneous rewards. Can you feel the difference between these two scenarios? You want your partner to attend an office party with you that he or she does not want to attend. In your best attempt to bribe him or her, you seductively express what you might do when you come home from the party.

Compare that to, you ask your partner to attend the party. He or she agrees. You go and have a wonderful time, spontaneously enjoying some quality intimacy upon your return home. Do those circumstances feel different to you? I bet they would to your partner.

No one likes to be controlled no matter how subtly or skillfully the controlling is administered. External control is one thing human beings are almost guaranteed to rebel against.
       
The bottom line is that we often engage in destructive relationship patterns with those people we claim to love the most. We typically don’t use these destructive behaviors with our friends. If we were to try, we soon wouldn’t have any friends left!
       

Free Chat Tonight

If you have any questions or comments you want to make about relationships, then tonight is the night! I will be hosting a free chat from 7:30-8:30 PM ET. If you want to attend, just go to www.therelationshipcenter.biz and go to the "Chat with Us" page. Type in your name and hit the "enter" key. You will be taken our chat room. Typically, there is a very small group there and you will be able to get individual attention.

Nagging, Complaining & Criticizing

What are some of your favorite deadly habits. I know for me, I am a world class nagger---just ask my children. The question of  “Will you clean up your room today?” can be asked in a variety of different ways, with varying tonal inflections and volumes to convey a variety of meanings. By the time I’ve reached the end of my rope, it would frequently sound like, “How can you be so lazy! If you don’t do it right now, I am going to do something to hurt you!” (This pain usually took the form of  haranguing my child for an extended period of time.) Does this sound familiar?
       
With regard to nagging, it is my belief that after you’ve said it three times, your significant other has probably heard you and is not planning on obliging you any time in the near future. Repeating your request most likely will be unsuccessful at getting you what you want.

       

Complaining and criticizing are other behaviors we often engage in to get our loved ones to do something they don’t want to do. Does this sound familiar? Why can’t you be more like _____________? Do you have to do it THAT way? Why can’t you ever do something I want? You never do things the right way. You are so lazy, stupid, frustrating, aggravating, etc. Do these sound like relationship strengthening behaviors to you?
       
When was the last time someone used a deadly habit with you and you felt closer to that person? How about you? When was the last time you used a deadly habit and it worked to get you want you wanted AND it brought you closer to the person used used it with?

That's the problem. Sometimes the deadly habits work to get us what we want but there are other, unwanted consequences. We keep chipping away at the foundation of our important relationships.

 

Deadly Relationship Habits

How many of you have ever been involved with a significant other who wanted you to do something you didn’t want to do? I doubt that I’m the only one. By virtue of a significant other relationship, there will be times when our partners will want us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do and conversely, there will be times when we will want our partners to do things they don’t want to do.
             
This is perfectly normal. The key, however, is what we do about it. Can you remember the behaviors your partners used to get you to do things their way? Dr. William Glasser, in his book called, Getting Together and Staying Together, talks about the seven destructive relationship habits. They are: complaining, criticizing, blaming, nagging, threatening, punishing, and bribing or rewarding to control. Do you recognize any favorites?
       
I like to add guilting to the list---this seems to be a favorite behavior of mothers. I know, because I am one. You can recognize this pattern in martyr type behavior. Saying things like, “After all I’ve done for you, you can’t do this one little thing for me?” I’ve actually heard some mothers play the “childbirth card”. You know the one. It sounds like this: “I was in labor with you for 36 hours! All I’m asking for is this one thing.”

You get the idea. Let's talk about the rest of them later. Can you remember the last time someone used a deadly habit with you? When was the last time you used one?