Did I raise my son to be angry?

(If you like the blog please spread the word and sign up to follow it on this site or on facebook. If you would like a question answered or to set up a counseling appointment send me an e-mail)

Question: My teen aged son goes into a rage at least once a week and I'm starting to be afraid of him. His Father has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, but I wonder if the way he acts is more because of my ex-boyfriend who he watched be aggressive and violent toward me for years. My son used to be so sensitive and sweet and now I'm afraid that what I've exposed him to will be violent toward women.

Answer: This is not your fault. Thousands of young boys are exposed to domestic violence and they never become violent toward anyone. No matter what someone has experienced or how overwhelming their emotions are nothing can justify violent and aggressive behavior.

What is true is that young men who are raised in a home where there has been domestic violence are 400% more likely to be aggressive toward women than men who were not. When I went to the 40 hour domestic violence training offered by A Safe Place, (http://www.asafeplaceforhelp.org/ ) this summer that statistic blew my mind.

In general about 1 in 4 women will experience intimate partner violence at some time in their life but only 1 in 28 men will be perpetrators. What that tells us is the same men are making the rounds and abusing large numbers of women.

No Mother wants their son to be "that guy". No young man grows up wanting to become an abuser, in fact most vow they never will and in the aftermath of violence most abusers are sincere when they claim they regret their actions and vow to never do it again.

At this point what can you do? Explain your fears to your son. Do not accuse him of being a potential abuse perpetrator, just tell him how you love him and you are starting to fear him. Tell him that the way you see it he either can control his anger, or he can't. If he can then he needs to be responsible for his actions and not let his rage control him. If he can't he needs to get into counseling and more than likely on some medication.

99.9% of violent acts could be controlled by the perpetrator (even if they are under the influence of drugs and alcohol) if they had a strong enough fear of the consequence. A great example used in perpetrator training is to ask if there is any circumstance, no matter how high or drunk a person was, if they would eat a dog turd on a bun. The men always say that it would never ever ever happen. Why not? Because even when we are inebriated we know what we are doing.

.01% of the time a person has truly lost control and would act out violently even if there was a gun to their head. This means the person has a mental health disorder and needs treatment (even if they are healthy and normal the vast majority of the time) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the most commonly correlated mental health issue to this problem.

Part of you wants to be at fault for the way your son is acting because then you would know who to blame, and I get the feeling you are used to blaming yourself for things. It is something you are comfortable with even though you hate it. Sorry, it is not his Father's genetics or your love life decisions that are responsible for your son's actions. It is all up to him. As a Mother all you can do at this point is tell him how is actions impact you and the relationship you have with him. I doubt he is happy acting this way and together hopefully you can find him some counseling to get him to move toward a healthy adulthood.

adoption open or closed?

Question: My wife and I are thinking of adopting but it seems so complicated. Is it better for kids to be from an open or closed adoption? While I think open sounds like the right thing I'm afraid the child would never feel like he or she was mine, just like they were on loan or something.

Answer: There is no right/wrong answer here so long as you are prepared to be a parent everyday for the rest of your life, love them unconditionally, and accept that there is a strong chance that your child will have emotional distress even if you are the perfect parent.

I have worked with just about every kind of adoption. Open, closed, grandparent adopting grandchild, kids from foreign lands from China to the Ukraine, there are as many different scenarios as there are children. What I have learned is no matter what kind of adoption or how loving the home, knowing that you have been given up for adoption leaves emotional scars and these kids are far more likely to need treatment for mental health issues than the population at large.

I think adoption is fantastic and if you want to adopt you should follow your impulse just don't drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how to parent this child. Showing up and doing the best you can consistently is all we can ask of you.

For those who do not know some of these terms closed adoption is the traditional form where the child has no knowledge of or contact with their biological parents. At the age of 18 if the child wants and the parent is willing they can try to find each other. Pro's: the child only has one set of parents and they are more likely to assimilate more fully into the adoptive home. Also less chance that the Mother will back out last minute before the adoption occurs. Con's: The child has so many unanswered questions about why their parent gave them up and may internalize feelings of rejection. There also may be important family history or developmental/prenatal information that you have no access to. Example) was the infant substance exposed.

Open adoption is a process where the biological family stays involved in the life of the child to some degree. The amount of involvement is up to the adoptive family and the willingness of the biological parent to stay a part of the child's life. Pro's: the child can more fully process the reasons for the adoption and know useful and interesting information about the family of origin. Con's: Conflicts can arise between the adoptive and biological families about the amount of involvement. The child can feel even more rejected or resentful if the bio family does not choose to engage with them very often. The child may feel torn between two families.

Foreign adoption is a process that is increasingly common as there can be less of a wait time and there are so many children around the world in need of homes. Pro's: often less of a wait and less red tape. Con's: accurate information about the biological family is often sorely lacking. Many of these children are impacted by poor pre-natal care or deprivation of care in third world orphanages. The raising of children from another culture can lead to identity issues beyond adoption as the child grows older.

When a family realizes how complicated raising an adopted child can be they may want to shy away from the process altogether. I have found that adoptive parents often overcompensate and over indulge their children because they are so afraid that they might "screw up". Ironically the result of not giving these children consistent boundaries and the laid back love that most biological parents give their own children ends up increasing the child's insecurities.

At the end of the day whatever home you can give to a child you adopt will be better than where they were coming from if you fill it with love. There are consultants at organizations like The Cradle, which will be happy to help you determine which path is right for you and your family.

Parenting any child is not going to be easy, a child who is adopted adds an extra wrinkle but it is nothing you can't handle. If you and your wife are concerned about the complications of an open adoption then follow your instincts and no matter what happens if you let a child into your heart you may be exhausted but you will not be sorry.

relationship counseling for female friends?

(like the blog? Sign up to follow it on this website or on facebook. Have a question, send me an e-mail at Maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org or daniel.maigler@live.com)

Question: My best friend and I have been each other's main support for over a decade. Recently I have been trying to make some healthy changes in my life and rather than support me she seems threatened. I have tried talking to her but it end up being a fight and the tension gets worse. I was crying to my fiance about it and he jokingly said she and I need relationship counseling. Do they have that for friends? I think we could really use it.

Answer: No, and Yes. You won't find friendship counseling in the yellow pages, but it would be my guess that 80% of therapists who see couples would agree to see female friends if they had a serious desire to work out issues and improve their relationship. I know I would.

There are two kinds of female friendships. There are the typical friends that you enjoy spending time with, look forward to seeing, that you can trust to talk to about some things. These are the kinds of friendships that men have. Then there is the other kind, the really deep friendship which is like a relationship without the sexual attraction. In these friendships two to three women really belong to one another, there is a bond and women are possessive of it and guard it as jealously as any romantic relationship.

We need a new word for these fryndships that have no parallel in the male world. It is to impress these frynds that women dress in a certain way (not for men), it is over these fryndships that 90% of the drama in the adolescent female world explodes. These are not the kind of relationships that are easily replaced.

If all this is true why don't we recognize the importance of fryndships and market things like relationship counsleing to maintain them? Our world and media (movies, television, even novels and "great literature") has been dominated by men who for the 10,000 years of civilized society have been genearlly uninterested and unaware of these relationshps. It is only very recently that the depth and intensity that female fryndships can achieve has been openly acknowledged (eg Sex in the City).

I have seen female frienships where the bond is stronger than marriage, stronger than family. I have seen the loss of these fryndships as major triggers to clinical depression. Your fiance joked about relationship counseling for you and your friend because male dominated society is ignorant of the true importance of such friendships, but you are not, and my guess is he was only half kidding.

Relationship counseling generally centers around trying to find out what the goals of each individual are, what the goals of the couple are, and see how the needs and desires of both can be met. It is not uncommon for people to discover in relationship counseling that they are better off apart than together, but at least they know they have made an honest effort to save what was a very important relationshp.

I would encourage you to not worry about what people think and instead do everything in your power to save a relationship that is so important to you. I suggest you write her a letter (or e-mail) telling her how important her friendship is and proposing that you find a therapist/mediator who can help you to get things back to where they were. Ideally a therapist will teach you how to communicate your needs and fears to one another openly and not let resentments build up.

Do not let pride and potential embarrasment prevent you from being the first girl on your block to try something new. At the end of the day you have only yourself, and hopefully your frynd, to answer to.

Is telling the truth the right thing to do?

(like the blog? Sign up to follow it on this website or on facebook. Have a question, send me an e-mail at Maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org or daniel.maigler@live.com)


Question: My husband is a good man and a good father, but we have never had the explosive passion which I knew with an old flame. Recently I reconnected with him over facebook. He too is in a less than satisfying marriage that he is unwilling to leave. Should I tell my husband what I'm feeling? He has noticed that I'm not happy and I don't know what to say.


Answer: Truth is like a knife, it is neither good nor bad, it is a tool and whether it leads to good or ill results depends mostly upon the intention of the user.


Before we communicate anything to anyone we must consider the audience and ask ourselves what message we want them to take from the conversation.


If you don't consider the audience, then you are speaking (writing, singing, etc..) for your own benefit. So many people seek to unburden their own conscience and try to use their need to be honest as their excuse. If that truth is not meant to truly benefit the hearer then it is no kindness.


This is not to say I encourage lying, or even withholding the truth. I tell the truth 99% of the time because it is the fastest and most effective way to communicate. Lies, or withholding the truth take a great deal of effort and lead to distance between people which is usually unnecessary.


I am only telling you that telling the truth for it's own sake is not an automatic good thing. Even the 10 commandments are misunderstood in this regard. Most people quote an abbreviated commandment when they say "thou shalt not lie" the real commandment (depending upon translation) is closer to "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"


There is a subtle but important difference. The commandment is saying we should not lie for our own benefit and to the detriment of another. I think it might as well go on to say "Thou shalt not speak to promote thine own gain if it should cause another to come to harm."


It sounds to me like you might be looking to sabotage your relationship. You want the passion you felt in the past, if you can't have it with your wife or your old flame you want to find it somewhere, you do not want to grow old and die with regret and wonder at the love you might have found. Yet you fear your husband and your children will hate you. For you to do something as cruel and seemingly foolish as to destroy a stable, if flavorless, marriage you need to arm yourself with some moral justification. So you look to honesty as the fall guy.

I am not telling you that you should stay in your marriage. I'm not telling you that you should hold your feelings back from your husband. I am saying that before you open your mouth you damn well better figure out what you are hoping will happen or else I would accuse you of being cruel and irresponsible.

If you need help figuring out what you want, find a therapist. That is what we do. Perhaps you need marriage counseling, but I suspect that the problem is internal. Very rarely do I see questions like this from people who are excited about the rest of their life. Usually these feelings toward self/relationship sabotage come from people who are feeling down and are looking for a reason. Fixing the lack of passion on the inside seems a lot harder than blaming the job, the husband, the parents or kids.

Find your passion and your purpose in the rest of your life and when you know what you want and how you want to get there then be honest with your husband. I would be shocked if you find deeper meaning in your life and you don't notice an imporvement in your relationship satisfaction. When you decide to talk openly with your husband do it to illuminate both of your paths, not in the hope that he will cast you out and you will not have to feel guilty about the end of your marriage.