Thank you for your leading role in making our recent Couples Retreat such a success!
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With our divorce-happy culture, it is easy to give in to the belief that you have married the wrong person. Do not rush into a separation. Instead, go to personal counseling, go to couples counseling. Make an effort to save your marriage.
Though it is very important for your children to see you forming new, healthy relationships with the ones around you, it is also important that they get to spend time with you as their parent. Sometimes step fathers or step mothers are so worried about bonding with their new step children that they sometimes neglect their own children by mistake. Remember to communicate with you children about their thought and feeling so that no one gets hurt in the process of forming the new family.
Making it Work!
Here’s a potentially depressing fact: for many couples, marital satisfaction takes a huge plunge when they become parents and their marriages don’t reach pre-child levels of satisfaction until the kids are teens or go off to college. Yikes! Isn’t there something couples can do? Yes, and the studies show that when couples do these things, their marital satisfaction stays up. Read More
Technology that will allow us to select the sex of our babies is just within reach.
But should it be?
Pink or blue?
Which color to paint the nursery used to be the big decision parents-to-be had to make regarding their baby’s gender. Now, technology not only allows parents-in-waiting to know their baby’s gender, procedures that will let them select the sex they prefer are on the horizon. Read More
Ah summer morning… the robins and finches twittering in the elms, the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen, warm breeze coming through the screen door and the sound of my twin boys trying to kill each other in the living room.
“You idiot!”
“Get off me! Urggh, get off me!!”
“Da-uh-ad!! He kicked me!!”
“Well, he spit on me!”
“No I didn’t spit on you, you stupid dog!”
“You fat LIAR! GET OFF!”
Get up and intervene? Or get up and turn on the stereo. If I don’t intervene, they will likely inflict lasting bodily harm on each other and my medical insurance will go up. On the other hand, I may be able to finally see what it’s like to raise a singleton.
So, what’s a parent to do when things are getting aggressive? Read More
A summary of some appearances from 2009:
Jan 19
Grandma in the House
NPR On Point with host Tom Ashbrook and historian Stephanie Coontz
Jan 27
Life Part 2: Boomer Grandparents
PBS Taping for fall, 2009 segment
Jan 28
Keeping the Family Together in an Economic Downturn
ABC 7 View from the Bay
Feb 25
When Mom Moves In
ABC 7 View from the Bay
March 19
Keeping Your Marriage Strong
San Carlos/Belmont Mother’s Club 7 PM, Twin Pines Senior & Community Center
March 23
Issues Affecting a Harmonious Family in Strained Financial Times
NPR host David Inge with historian Stephanie Coontz
April 17 and 18
Families: Relationships, Sexuality, and Equality: How Far Have We Come? Also lecture: The Ghosts of Traditional Marriages in Contemporary Marriages (PDF)
Co-Chair of Conference for Council on Contemporary
April 29
Fighting in Front of the Kids
View from the Bay
Tues., Jan 15, 7PM
Parenting Mistakes with Teens and Young Adults
HERCULES LIBRARY
Wed. Jan. 16th, 7:30 P.M.
Parenting Mistakes with Teens and Young Adults
58 Mohawk Ave. in Corte Madera
NEAL CUMMINS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Tues., Jan 29, 7 PM
Parenting Mistakes with Teens and Young Adults
ORINDA LIBRARY
Tues., Feb., 5
“Stepmothering” The San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group and the Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco
VIEW FROM THE BAY ABC-TV
Wed February 27, 7:30 p.m.
THE HIDDEN COSTS OF PARENTING
Swedenborgian Church, 2107 Lyon Street
Mar. 5
Men, Sex, and Housework
KGO Radio
Mar.6
Men’s Changing Role in the Family
Good Morning America:
Mar. 7
Men, Parenting, and Housework
Irish National Radio:
Mar. 8
Men and Housework
BBC Radio Five Live
Mar. 13
Men’s Changing Roles
WXRX Radio
Mar. 13
When Parents Hurt
KGO Radio
Wed. April 9
“Working with Parents Who Have Been Rejected by Their Adult Children”
San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group, Seminar provided for the clinic interns
Tues, Apr 15, 7:30
Marriage After Children
View from the Bay ABC TV:
Sat., Apr 26
Helping Academics Work With the Media LARKSPUR PARENTS CO-OP Keeping Your Marriage Healthy
Council on Contemporary Families
June 21
Couple’s Retreat
Young President’s Organization
July 3rd
When Parents Hurt
SmartMarriages Conference
Workshop Presentation
Sep 8
Gaining Back Trust After an Affair
ABC 7 View from the Bay
Sep 11
When She Earns More than He
Marin Mothers of Multiples
Sep 16
Finding Happiness in the Contemporary Marriage
Valley Beth Shalom
Mt Diablo Mother’s Club
Oct 8
Novato Mothers Club
Nov 12
Recovering Desire in Marriage
ABC 7 View from the Bay
NPR Talk of the Nation: How women’s increased economic and educational power are changing marriage.
NPR: Tom Ashbrook interviews Dr Coleman and Kathleen Gerson on “Women Bringing Home the Bacon”
PBS Life Part 2: Boomer Grandparenting
NY Times: Working Women Say Their Marriage Is Richer For It
NPR On Point with Tom Ashbrook
Dr. Joshua Coleman is an internationally known expert in parenting, families, and relationships. He is Co-Chair of the Council on Contemporary Families and is a psychologist with a private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Lindsey, Paris and Britney: It’s All Your Mother’s Fault! Huffington Post
Jamie Lee Curtis recently wrote in the Huffington Post that the problems with Paris, and, presumably, Britney and Lindsay, can be explained by bad mothering. According to the numerous posts about her article, most people found her analysis spot on. I could see why: Paris’s mother laughed at the judge when he handed down her sentence and, apparently, Lindsay’s mom partied with her while she was still a minor. This wouldn’t qualify as good parenting in anyone’s book. Read More »