How does your marriage affect your children?
When people get married and decide as a couple to have children, they will often forget or not realize how their personal relationship with their spouse can affect their children. Children are impressionable, vulnerable and open to picking up behavior from their parents. If the relationship between the parents is not a healthy one, they are teaching their child about unhealthy relationships; while a healthy relationship between the parents will often teach the kids about how to have a healthy relationship. The affect of the marital relationship the parents have also goes deeper than this; the relationship will often affect a child in their mental development.
Children depend on their parents in their growth and development. More often than not, how a person will parent their children will be affected by the relationship they have with their spouse. A healthy relationship will tend to lead to the parent being supportive of the child, as well as helping the child develop a good level of confidence. It can also help a great deal in the child developing a decent social life as well as being able to perform well at school. An unhealthy relationship where there is a lack of trust, constant fighting, a lack of confidence in one or both of the parents as well as an overall negative view of life will tend to be reflected on how the children in the family are parented. The parents in this kind of relationship will raise the children differently than the children in the healthier marriage. In an unhealthy marriage, the children may not get the support that they need, they will have a lower level of confidence, they may not be able to develop a decent social life and might be more introverted and anti-social instead, and their performance at school might be poor. Much of how a child develops has much to do on whether the parents agree or not on how to raise the child. Lots of disagreements will only create conflict and a child may take advantage of these weaknesses in the relationship. A child who is being raised by parents who can usually agree on how to raise the child properly will have a more difficult time in taking advantage of any weaknesses, because there are few disagreements in what is expected of the child.
When planning a family, careful consideration has to be taken in about how each spouse believes the child should be raised. A couple as to come together and plan how they are going to raise their child and decide what they each think is important. This way, they can work toward something they both agree on and eliminate too many future disagreements and conflicts. An online therapist or counselor can help a couple plan for their child. Sometimes, it takes an online therapist or online counselor to do this so that each person is heard and both have an equal chance to express what they think is important in raising a family. This can easily be done online by the expectant parents contacting an online therapist or online counselor to help them in planning for their family. The online therapist will work with the couple to ensure that everyone is clear on what has been agreed upon. This will also help the child in that the counselor will give advice and suggestion in how they can raise their child in a stable family where a child will have the chance to develop properly.
If you or anyone that you know would like more information regarding this post, feel free to visit http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com or email jennifer@completecounselingsolutions.com
Comments
This past weekend, we visited with our older son's best friend since 1st grade, in from Boston and who brought his new wife, lively 7-year-old daughter from a previous relationship and 1-year-old son from his current marriage.
On the surface, you would think all was well. However, moms tend to notice when something isn't quite right, and, since I've known this kid most of his life, I noticed. There is a serious lack of communication between the young couple, and noticeable hostility on his bride's part. He tends to shrug things off, as he always has, which seems to perpetuate problems. Worse, his daughter confided things to my son's girlfriend that a 7-year-old shouldn't be old enough to know about.
What's so saddening is that I see this young couple headed for trouble and their children already affected by the negative tension. The wife has taught their toddler "bad daddy, good mommy." I was appalled!
My own family is far from perfect; my husband and I made our fair share of mistakes as parents. But, we're a close family; my kids love kids, and kids love them. I do firmly believe that how you conduct yourselves in your marriage is the legacy you pass on to your children.
My motto has always been: teach your children well.
Agreed Susan and I think that is great that you and your family have such a great relationship. I just want to do everything in my power to keep my relationship going and have as much fun as possible in the meantime.
Jennifer Baxt, DCC, NCC
jennifer@completecounselingsolutions.com
http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com
A friend of mine pointed to mutual friends who were dating at the time. She said there must be trouble because they were standing across the room from each other at a party and chatting with other people.
I told her not to worry, they came in together, and will leave together. Maybe they are playing catch up with different friends they haven't talked to in a while. And maybe they are confident enough in their relationship that they don't have to be on top of each other all the time.
Fast forward nearly a decade and they are happily married with great kids!
If anyone was to analyze my relationship with my husband during one of my kid's parties, I'd be in trouble!
Parents are usually helping and playing with kids, serving their guests and chatting with people that they may not have seen in a long time. I don't think I've ever gotten the chance to sit with my husband at these parties. Doing that with our 3 toddlers, their friends and all the adults is only a dream for now! We don't even talk to each other a whole lot (unless 'hey, can you change so-and-so's diaper?' counts).
But we're very close. We share 3 small kids, a home, a bed and a life together. If it doesn't always show on the outside, maybe it's because we don't need to make it a show or because that's just not how we work. You also have to take each person's upbringing and perhaps cultural differences into consideration too. I know of some couples who were all over each other in public and divorced a short time later.
Working on your marriage and adult relationships is crucial, I very much agree. But analyzing adults and their relationships to each other at a kid's party might unnecessarily have us all heading for couple's counseling the next day!
Even Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar :)
thxs. Relationships are work. On another note about children. I went to a birthday party this weekend for my fiance's nephew. It was a good party but I could not help noticing that the parents of the kids at the party did not talk to each other and did not sit with each other.
I mentioned this later and realized that a lot of the time I see parents, they are caring for the kids and not their relationship, meaning they do not even sit together or talk, or hold hands. I know I do this for a living and hope that I can always remember that it is just as important to work on your relationship as it is to care for your children.
Jennifer Baxt
jennifer@completecounselingsolutions.com
http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com
Jennifer,
This is slightly off-topic on the original share post, but you had a wonderful sentence that I wanted to re-capture:
"We always have to make tough decisions as a couple, but the decisions on who makes them does not have to be tough".
I am going to share this with my husband tonight; just in reading your one sentence from above, I realized that we do agree on many things, but when we don't...we kind of "leave the other one out to dry"..."out there" by themselves to make the tough call, and it is usually an unpopular decision. It makes us both feel awful in the end, like we're on opposite teams.
Thanks for reminding us what a good relationship is and feels like! :-) (and, congrats on your upcoming marriage!)
Alison B.
Hello:
I just realized again over the weekend how wonderful it is to agree with your partner on most matters. I am getting married in September and was at his parents house over the weekend and his sister said that she wanted to leave her two year old at her in-laws for the wedding. Me and m fiance automatically agreed and I said that it was his decision. I realized that we do that a lot. We always have to make tough decisions as a couple, but the decisions on who makes them does not have to be tough. It is so helpful to understand where your partner is coming from and why and come up with different examples and discuss what and how you would deal with them so when you do have children it will be easier.
I agree with you Alison that when you have kids things change and sometimes even before when you meet the right one. We had a discussion on stem cell research the same day and agreed and most importantly, you need to learn how to agree to disagree.
Jennifer Baxt
jennifer@completecounselingsolutions.com
http://www.completecounselingsolutions.com
Thanks for this post. I've heard that before two people marry, or decide to commit to each other in a lifelong partnership, that they should be compatible (or be able to compromise) on issues of finances, raising children, ideal locations to live...and other lifestyle choices.
Now that I have a toddler, I realize that I would never have been able to have a meaningful discussion with my then-boyfriend/fiance about how to raise a child--whether it be a discussion of discipline, working vs. staying at home, etc. Not until we had our son, was I able to have an opinion on best methods to raise my son, as every child is so different! Never in a million years would I have thought I'd give up a career I worked so hard for...in order to stay home with my son for a few years!
My question, then, is: how do couples have a meaningful, worthwhile conversation about "how to raise a child" before they get married/commit, when they really don't know what they're in for? So many variables to discuss, I can not imagine how to make this a productive discussion, although it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Do you have a "top 10" list of scenarios or questions that couples should discuss with one another?
Thanks for your SHARE. You make some excellent points.
I agree that a couple who are raising children within a happy relationship, are more likely to have well-balanced, contented kids, than those engulfed in angry, stressful partnerships. Of course, it's no guarantee - there are no guarantees with children, but they learn all their communication techniques from home and when it's good at home - it's great! When it's bad - the consequences can be long-reaching.
Discovery Health wrote a nice article about this very subject. It can be read here -
http://health.discovery.com/centers/stress/balancing/couples.html
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