Subscription
Enter your e-mail address to receive this newspaper column each weekday.
My strict privacy policy will keep your email address 100% safe and secure.
-
Family
-
Son (13) comes home from dad’s house with bruises…..
14 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
Reader’s Letter: “I am divorced but live with a wonderful man and have a very stable and loving home environment for my son (13). My ex-husband and his new wife have boys aged 17 and 13. All three boys get on very well. My son arrived home from the weekend with his dad and showed me a black bruise on his arm. When I asked him how he got the bruise I was told that his dad had made a new rule: if the boys don’t brush their teeth by 9.30am, don’t pick up clothes, or use bad language, the boys are allowed to punch each other as punishment. So my son was punched in the arm by the seventeen-year-old for not brushing his teeth. I contacted my ex-husband about this and he told me to keep my nose out of his affairs how he runs his home. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.”
Everything pertaining to your son is always your business – keep your nose in it. Meet with your son’s stepmother, who will surely share your concern, and request this barbaric approach to cleaner teeth, rooms and mouths, stops! Such behavior among three boys can do none any possible good. But be wise; the children do get along. Be unrelenting in seeking your son’s absolute safety. “Running his home” is about who vacuums the house, who takes out the trash – abusing your son does not quite fit into that category!
-
My husband and my parents; I want them closer
08 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 33 Comments
Q: My husband does not like my parents very much but puts up with them when they visit us about once every two weeks. He is civil to them and will even chat with both my parents about all sorts of things – all when it suits him. I want more – I want them to really bond like I have bonded with his parents. I think this will be good for our children to see a warm loving relationship between their father and all their grandparents. What can I do?
A: Stay out of this! Don’t interfere in relationships that do not include you. Your husband’s relationships with your parents might impact you, but they don’t include you. Leave your husband and your parents to “bond’ in any way they feel comfortable (or uncomfortable).
Your anxiety about the affairs of others is likely to be more damaging to your family than your husband’s cordial relationship with your parents.
Want for yourself and for matters that directly involve you. Wanting for others will make you feel superior, and make you feel important, but it is a waste of your energy. Don’t waste your wanting!
-
Child with needs: what can we do?
28 Apr 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Reader Query: Our son is 7 and the youngest of two. He is going through a terrible patch of feeling unheard, unloved and unequal. He is very intelligent and confident which is extremely over-powering. His demands cannot be met because he has overstepped all his boundaries. He has a heart of gold and a soft inner personality but his outer appearance is tough and strong. He is crying out for help and so are we, especially me, his mother with whom he feels he can just be himself and it gets very out of control. I find myself trying to escape him, which torments me because my two boys are MY LIFE. My husband says he needs to know where he stands, find where he belongs in life, and, once his confidence is up again, he will excel because he has leadership qualities! The boy has just overcome shingles and was very ill. I am certain it was due to stress, although I could be wrong. Please help. (Letter edited)
Rod’s Reply: I found your letter moving. Please seek face-to-face help with a pediatrician. Consider a personal journey to a place where your children are part of, but not YOUR LIFE. Some space between you and the boys might benefit everyone in the family.
-
Enriched is the teenager…
21 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
1. Who has many wisely chosen friends and several safe homes in which to visit and enjoy them.
2. Who has benevolent, yet alert, adult supervision.
3. Who is not over-powered by “negative” friends, and, as a result, does not engage in activities that contradict the “positive” values embodied by his or her immediate and extended family.
4. Who is wise enough not to be preoccupied with his or her peers to the unnecessarily exclusion of siblings and parents.
5. Who rejects the pervasive deception that rebellion is a necessary part of growing up.
6. Whose parents understand the delicate balance of encouraging autonomy while providing a necessary safety net when confusion or turmoil strikes.
7. Who understands the value of hard work, the joy of saving money, and the necessity of guarding his or her integrity.
8. Who has learned appropriate humility and who can therefore say things like “I am sorry” and “I was wrong” without expecting an applause or a reward.
9. Who embraces full responsibility for his or her own future.
10. Who and lives without blaming others (parents, childhood, teachers) or circumstances.
11. Who lives without feeling entitled to that which he or she has not earned.There really are such teens. I have met many around the world.
-
Are you an adult? It has very little to do with your age
11 Mar 2006 by Rod Smith / 5 Comments
I believe we are fully adulthood when:
1. We can be authentic with all people, including our parents, treating all others respectfully as equals, despite rank, position or the apparent lack of it.
2. We respect mutuality and equality and want them in all of our relationships.
3. We have acknowledged our hurts, grieved appropriately and decided to live to the fullest. We can delay gratification.
4. Confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty are allies, not enemies. We can “hold” seemingly conflicting thoughts and beliefs without becoming unsettled.
5. We can take full responsibility for our lives despite past trauma or neglect. We are able to recognize when and how we were victimized but no longer think, speak, feel or behave like victims.
6. We do not victimize others.
7. We have a small group of people to whom we talk about almost everything, but feel no compulsion to tell everybody or anyone everything.
8. We stop apologizing for things for which we could never be held responsible in the first place.
9. We clear misunderstandings as quickly as possible.
10. We can stand up for ourselves without pushing others out of the way.
11. We can see that all things are related and are therefore careful to apply quick solutions to problems because quick solutions are likely to foster new, unexpected problems.
12. We learn to appreciate and love “the moment” rather than live as if we are perpetually waiting for a day when things will be better.
13. We can perceive when others do not have our best interests at heart but are not afraid to remain in relationship with such people, confident of our ability to self-protect.
-
-
-
Get Rod on FaceBook and/or Twitter
-
Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
-
Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
-
Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
-
Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
-
Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
-