Jan 28 / Simcha

Nagging: Enemy of Love

Based on Elizabeth Bernstein’s Wall Street Journal article, Nagging: Meet the Marriage Killer

Once again – there is good and  bad news.  Starting with the latter….

Nagging — the interaction in which one person repeatedly makes a request, the other person repeatedly ignores it, and both become increasingly annoyed — is a toxic communication issue that is one of the leading causes for discord and divorce. We nag when we feel we can’t get what we want from our partner, and we keep on asking in the hopes it will happen.  A vicious cycle is set in place:  The irritated recipient of the nagging, feeling scolded like a little boy, withdraws in protest, inviting the nagger to nag some more.

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Jan 17 / Simcha

No Evolutionary Upside in Depression

In a recent Science Times article in the New York Times, Richard A. Friedman, professor of clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, explores a growing trend in academic circles to view depression as a “natural” condition that, like ordinary sadness, may provide evolutionary advantages. Separate studies by psychologists Paul W. Andrews (U. of Virginia) and Joseph P. Forgas (U. of New S. Wales) suggested that something about sadness might improve analytical reasoning and the capacity for critical, accurate detection of deceptive communication.

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Jan 07 / Simcha

When Your Teen Misbehaves

Children who misbehave usually do so for a purpose, taught U.S. psychiatrist and educator Rudolf Dreikurs. Misbehaving children and teens are acting out a feeling or need that they are unable to convey or express. Such a need might be: a need for attention when s/he is feeling ignored or neglected; a resentment over being controlled; a fear that s/he is not loved or lovable; or a feeling of inadequacy or helplessness.

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Jan 07 / Simcha

The Joy of Quiet

Artwork: Vivienne Flesher, NYTimes, 1.1.12

The average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen of one sort or another. The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day.  Many of us are finding ourselves controlled by the many time-saving devices that have also considerably expanded our lives.

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Jan 01 / Simcha

Out the Door and Into 2012

From the New York Times Editorial, January 1, 2012

Perhaps you have a New Year’s Day of your own — a day when it suddenly feels as though you’ve truly left the old year behind. It may be the day you no longer have to think twice when putting the date on a check, if you still write checks, that is. Perhaps your new year started the moment the days began lengthening just before Christmas. Or perhaps you hold off for the vernal equinox (March 20 in 2012), when New Year used to be celebrated and when, in many places, you can feel the newness of the year about to burst out of the ground.

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Dec 22 / Simcha

Polling Teen Use of Drugs and Alcohol

The Monitoring the Future study, sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed and conducted by the University of Michigan, has been polling teens since 1975.  Its most recent survey reports that alcohol and cigarette use by students in grades 8, 10, and 12 are at their lowest point since the project has been collecting the data. The good news is offset by a finding of high rates of abuse in other tobacco products, marijuana, and prescription drugs.

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Dec 21 / Simcha

How Parenthood Makes Life Meaningful and How Marriage Makes Parenthood Bearable

A new State of Our Unions report (entitled “When Baby Makes Three”) from the National Marriage Project (NMP)* at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families draws on data from three nationally representative surveys (2,870 couples in total) to answer four important questions about contemporary family life:

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