Making Clear Requests

Making effective requests of others or ourselves requires clarity and a connection to the feelings and needs that are alive in you and the specific context in which they arose. Brainstorming requests also requires a sense of flexibility or openness to a variety of ways in which your needs could be met. I notice that …

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Meal Time Battles

If mealtimes are stressful in your household because of repeated power struggles over food, this is an area that’s really worth some effort to resolve. Compliance battles do have to be waged from time to time, but it’s important to do everything in your power to make sure that eating doesn’t become one of them. …

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Needy

What are you saying when you call someone “needy”? In one of my favorite movies, “What about Bob?”, Bill Murray plays the role of Bob. Bob is obsessed with getting help from his therapist (Richard Dreyfus). There is a scene in which Bob pleads with his therapist: “I need, I need, I need. Give me, …

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ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS

Paraphrasing – Whenever your partner says something important to you, you then state in your own words what you think your partner has just said and how they may be feeling.  You can preface your paraphrase with lead-ins such as “What I hear you saying is that . . . In other words . . …

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BLOCKS TO LISTENING

Mind reading – You are mind reading when you disregard or distrust what the other person is actually saying and instead try to figure out what he or she “really means”.   Mind readers give too much importance to subtle cues such as tone of voice, facial expressions, and posture.  They ignore the actual content …

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