Quality Time

I come from a perspective where I would normally encourage parents to do more of something that they find useful in their parenting of their children. This may include the way they speak to their children, the timing they stick to when communicating with their children, and may include different activities and solutions that they may use to engage their children in communication. Most parents have mentioned that spending increased quality time with their children has been a potent source of feelings of satisfaction in parent's perceptions of their communication with their children.

If I draw from what Dr Gary Chapman mentioned in his seminal book "The 5 Love Languages, Quality time is not just about being there with your child. It is also about taking interest in your children's activities, and also involving them in your activities.

Parents I worked with have espoused doing the household chores together with your children, enforcing a team effort in ensuring the house is clean. Some parents decry the benefits of spending exclusive one to one time with each of their children. Regular quality time allows you to connect with your children, and would also allow you to bring up sensitive issues such as your child's behaviour in school within a more secure context with your child. Your child may not be comfortable around a mother or father who only comes in to tackle problems when they occur. On the other hand, having regular quality time sessions with your child would set the precedence for you to bring up a fighting incident that your child's school teacher had alerted you to.

Ultimately for me, just do more of it if it works. If it ain't broke don't fix it. If it doesn't work, it's time to try something new!

VISUALISATION: A CREATIVE MEANS TOWARDS SELF DEVELOPMENT

Visualisation has presented itself as a useful technique I use when working with clients who want to achieve a higher level of happiness, as well as combat their feelings of anxiety pertaining to a certain situation, for example speaking in public, taking a test, performing well in sports etc.

Visualisation basically involves a mental task where you put yourself into a different state from where you are in, and can be triggered through imagination, sometimes through the use of a stimulus, such as upbeat music, or the smell of perfume. There probably has been a time where you psyche yourself up for a sports event by listening to music like Queen's "We Will Rock You".

Imagine the possibilities if you immerse yourself totally in a state where you have achieved what you wanted to achieve. Imagine yourself going through your soccer match performing better than you have ever been. Ostrander et al (1994) argued that if you imagine and visualise something vivid enough and bring your sense and emotions into that activity or event, you mind would not be able to know the difference between the imagined event from the real one. This technique has been done and perfected by high performance athletes the world over.

Ostrander et al (1994) continued to describe a study where students with learning difficulties were told to think of someone whom they thought to be very clever, and were told to visualise that they were that very person. The children were able to score significantly better in their test scores, after their visualisation excercise.

Rhonda Byrne (2006) in her seminal book and dvd "The Secret" even amplifies the impact and significance of visualisation through the law of attraction, where our very thoughts will affect our experience in the real world. She postulated that our thoughts are all connected to the manifestations of reality in the universe, and by visualising yourself in a state where you have already achieved your life dreams and goals, you somehow affect the flow of the universe to actually grant you what you sought to achieve. There may not be valid proof to this theory, but i firmly believe that if you put yourself in a state of where and what you want to be, your entire body and perceptions would be attuned to opportunities in the environment that would enable you to get what you want.

This is a technique that I am currently doing further research and reading on, and will probably add further articles to discuss on the possibilities of visualisation. On personal experience visualisation techniques have been extremely useful for me during my hockey matches, situations where I have to speak in public, and a certain driving test that I had to do. I remember the initial anxiety I was experiencing just moments before the test, until i decided to close my eyes to put myself in a state of taking the test confidently and being able to complete all the tasks required prefectly. Indeed I did pass the test on the first try!

Some exercises you can try in Creative Visualisation.
1. Make a visualisation board (see products page, where I have put a template for you to print.). On the board, place all the things you hope to achieve, make it as vivid as possible. You can use pictures. It can be the car you always wanted, or what you imagine your relationship with your wife to be. Place the board in a place where you would be able to see it, and spend a few minutes each day looking at the items and visualising your life as if you already have these items.

2. Role Modelling: Imagine yourself as a person or role model that you look up to, who would be able to perform well in a certain situation you find yourself in. You may pretend that you are Gurmit Singh, as you wait to address a crowd as an emcee. Have a crystal clear image of this person in your mind as you close your eyes and watch yourself become him or her, adopting the required mannerisms and confidence to face a certain issue or event.

3. Mood changing Visualisation: Take note of situations where you have felt a great sense of achievement. Visualise the event in your mind, and what aspects of the event made you feel happy and accomplished. Assign a gesture, be it your hand punching in the air, to that event and its experiences. Each time you may need a mental pick-me-up, use the gesture (preferably in a non crowded area of course.) to kick start the raw adrenaline pumping emotion of happiness and accomplishment to instantly change your mood.

I state these 3 exercises as tasks which have prove useful in my work. If there are other that have been just as effective, I will certainly discuss them in further articles. Just remember to make the images as vivid, colourful and imaginative as possible. The mind guru Tony Buzan (1981) had empirical evidence that we are more likely to pay attention to stimulus if it is perceived as attractive and vivid in our minds, especially if there are a lot of movements involved.

So kickstart your creative potential through the process of visualisation!

APPROACHES IN COMMUNICATION THAT USUALLY DO NOT WORK

In "A Brief Guide to Brief Therapy" (Cade & O'Hanlon, 1993), Brian Cade (eminent Brief Therapist) wrote about a handout that he gives to his clients to help them identify aspects in their communication with their loved ones, spouse, children or parents, that would not work. Based on his experience he identifies that not only do these approaches fail in achieving our intended results, they "often intensify the occurrance of the very behavior or attitude we are trying to change" (Cade & O' Hanlon, 1993: pg 81)

These Approaches are

1. The Unsolicited Lecture
- usually involves giving nagging lectures telling the person to change and appealing to logic or sommon sense. This includes "why can't you just try to behave this way! everyone else is doing it properly except you.. blah blah"
- My thoughts is that it is probably ineffective due to the blaming stance the user takes, and the constant repetition he or she may be undertaking where a simple statement of want or need from the other.

2. Taking the High Moral Ground
- This refers to a position one takes, which is of superiority when talking to our loved ones, where the user identifies that he or she knows the turth about how things are and how they should be.
- For e.g. "Anyone with Common sense can see that you are doing things wrongly!" , "After all I've done to help you, you are still not able to see the right of things!"

3. Self-Sacrifice/ Denial
- This entails putting the happiness of others before your own, and protecting them from the consequences of their actions. Telling yourself "I will just do whatever he/she wants to make him/her happy, etc".
- For me, being self-sacrificial may only work for a while, but soon, we may become more resentful of our loved ones, as the more we feel that he/she does not know what we feel or what we are going through. Sweeping things under the carpet may provide temporal relief in protecting our loved ones, but things will eventually pile up.

4. Expecting someone to do things Spontaneously
- where we try to make someone do something or "adopt a different attitude", but we also expect that person to change because he/she wants to. For e.g. "I would like you to show more affection, but I'll only accept it if you do it gladly/ willingly".
- What Brian says is that when we try to make others want to do things, we are in fact trying to make them more obedient to our expectations of what they should be doing. Most likely the response to this would be increased disobediance, anger, and resentment.


Do you use any of these approaches?

Book Review: The 5 Love Languages by GARY CHAPMAN

Gary Chapman's book is a useful tool that I also employ in some of my marital clients. It's an easy to understand book, with plenty of useful ideas. Generally Chapman (2004) distinguishes Real Love from the state of Being "In Love", which is the infatuation period of being in a temporal state of emotional high. Real Love, he argues, takes more effort to build and maintain, and he proposes identifying your own love language (i.e. the mode of interaction where you feel most loved) and also finding out your partner's love language, in order to maintain a strong and loving relationship with your significant other that lasts.

The 5 Love Languages include

1. Words of Affirmation: Words of praise and validation that either encourage us, or make us feel appreciated for our efforts in love.

2. Quality Time: Spending meaningful and dedicated time with your loved one; quality time is more about giving focused undivided attention to your significant other instead of just being in close proximity with this person. A key aspect to spending quality time, is engaging in meaningful conversation with your spouse or partner, as opposed to just being there for the ride.

3. Receiving Gifts: This doesn't necessarily mean getting the latest Gucci or Coach bag/ product or new gadget. It is more of giving visual symbols of love towards your partner. It is about valuing the wearing of your wedding ring, about gifts which take some effort on the part of the giver to show the receiver how much the giver cares about him/her.

4. Acts of Service: actions such as just doing the chores, cooking food, small things around the house that make you feel loved.

5. Physical touch: Physical touch is not only about sex (That's probably what you are thinking about...). It is about giving a hug to your partner when he/she is feeling down, or even just to show him/her how you feel. A touch may create a relationship, or it may break it. Find out what kind of touch is pleasurable for your spouse. Even just holding hands, goes a long way in telling your spouse how much you love her.

The book comes with questionnaires you can fill with your spouse to identify your primary love language. I think most of us communicate through more than one love language, and would consider the book a wonderful way to start communicating with your spouse.

Ultimately, you have to want to start making the effort to connect with your loved one, and it takes the commitment of both parties, although you may want to start identifying the language of love that your wife/husband/partner connects with the most. When she sees that you are making some effort to improve the relationship, most likely she would be inclined to do the same.

Definitely there are ways to employ these love languages within culturally appropriate contexts (I might write an article on that), but these are useful ideas that make the book an enlightening and entertaining read.