Slavery Isn't to Blame for Single Parents

Marriage is not easy. It takes a lot of work to keep a marriage going and even more to keep it open, fun and functional.

The payoffs, however, are many and all positive. Divorce and single parenting are devastating to the offspring, the single parent and the community. Married people are happier, live longer and produce more positive and creative outcomes for society.

All groups are experiencing divorce and conflict in marriages but Black Families are really under pressure to split up or never get married in the first place. In fact, the situation has gotten so bad that there were a higher percent of married couples during slavery than today. That is a stunner! Take a look at this data.

Marriage Portrait• In 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “I have a dream,” more than 70% of black families were headed by married
couples. Today, 40 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, married couples head only 46% of black families.

• More alarming, 45% of black men have never married and 42% of black women have never married.
• Married black women declined from 62% to 31% between 1950 and 2002.
• By age 30, only 52% of black women will marry compared to 81% of white women, 77% of Hispanics and Asians.

• Only 6% of black men and 2% of black women marry Whites.
• In 1970, just 33% of black women, age 20-29 were unmarried. By 1992, that number exploded to 70%.

“Black men and women are less likely to be married and more likely to divorce when we do marry.” -The Black Commentator, Margaret Kimberley. Black Families - A Glass Half Empty and Half Full, April 23, 2004

Every church in America needs to urgently promote healthy marriages. But Black Churches must act today! We are losing Black kids and that is tragic.

Families at Work

The central focus of Sweeten Life Systems is to enhance the relationships of individuals and organizations. It is impossible to have healthy relationships in the office and factory is they are dysfunctional at home.

The Families at Work Institute and has a lot to say to the situation we face today in America. To read the entire report go to: http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/3wbooklet.pdf

Today’s U.S. workforce and workplace are in transition. In Families and Work Institute’s (FWI) nationally representative study of the U.S. workforce, the National Study of the Changing Workforce, we find dramatic
changes over the past 25 years.

To begin, the workforce is aging. In 1977, just over a third of the workforce (38%) was over 40-years-old; today, more than half (56%) is (over 40).

Women today play an increasingly vital role, making up nearly half of the
wage and salaried workforce. In addition, work hours for many employees are climbing and jobs have become more hectic and demanding. Life at home has also changed with an increase in the number of dual earner couples in the workplace (from 66% of couples in 1977 to 78% today), which has created pressure among working families.

It is no wonder that 55 percent of employees feel they don’t have enough time for themselves, 63 percent feel they don’t have enough time for their spouses or partners and 67 percent feel they don’t have enough time for their children.

Repercussions of these trends are being experienced by employers as well. FWI data reveal that 39 percent of employees are not fully engaged in their jobs, 54 percent are less than fully satisfied with their jobs and 38 percent are somewhat or very likely to make a concerted effort to find a new job in the coming year.

Employers are challenged to recruit talent, engage and retain workers, and maximize productivity.

How can employers accomplish their goals and continue the high productivity if families are so stressed that individuals cannot function well? What can we do? It is clear that additional family counseling alone is not enough.

I am a Family Therapist who has spent a great deal of his adult life counseling couples and families. I also founded two counseling centers and one in-patient psychiatric hospital to treat distressed people.

The only answer is for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to establish centers that will actually teach people how to develop healthy relationships. We need hundreds of churches in each city that are so concerned about individual children that they equip adults how to be good parents.

I am happy to see "Divorce Recovery" groups springing up in a few of the 5,000 or so congregations in Greater Cincinnati, but that is too late. We know the major causes of divorce and we know how to teach people to avoid one. Why do so few churches and community organizations do anything to prevent divorce?

It is possible to prevent problems. It is also less expensive and less traumatizing to everyone concerned. Why not do it???

Social Skills for Children and Youth

The Future Welfare of the nation depends upon the education and welfare of our families and how they rear their children. The following article emphasizes that kids must learn realtional skills from their parents and the quality of those relationship skills will largely determine how well your kids do in life.

The depression and violence among young people concern us all. The pain of families whose children hurt themselves or others causes us deep pain. There are, of course, no instant experts and no instant answers on how to change the situation. However, we do know how children develop the interpersonal and social skills necessary for success in life and that will reduce their need to react inappropriately to disappointments.

The data on reducing children’s problems are clear. Research indicates that we should involve children in church, extra-curricular school activities with caring adults who listen. Structure, discipline, adult role models, hard work and good social skills are the foundation for a secure and happy life. Below we list the skills that are most important for children to know.

Beginning Social skills
1. Listening to other people
2. Preparing for a conversation-focusing on a topic
3. Starting a conversation
4. Carrying out an interactive conversation
5. Asking good questions
6. Saying, thank you
7. Self introduction
8. Introducing other people
9. Offering compliments to others

Advanced Social Skills
10. Asking why
11. Asking for help
12. Joining in with others
13. Giving instructions
14. Following instructions
15. Apologizing
16. Convincing others

Emotional Skills
17. Emotional self knowledge
18. Expressing feelings
19. Understanding others’ feelings
20. Putting self in the place of others
21. Dealing with others’ anger
22. Expressing affection
23. Dealing with fears
24. Rewarding self

Alternatives to aggression
25. Asking permission
26. Sharing with others
27. Helping others
28. Negotiation
29. Self-control
30. Standing up for personal rights
31. Saying no
32. Responding to teasing
33. Avoiding trouble with others
34. Keeping out of fights

Stress Skills
35. Expressing a complaint
36. Answering a complaint
37. Talking after a competition
38. Dealing with embarrassment
39. Dealing with being ignored
40. Resisting group pressure
41. Responding to failure
42. Dealing with false accusation
43. Planning Skills
44. Dealing with boredom
45. Suggesting something to do
46. Finding a problem’s cause
47. Setting a goal
48. Gathering information
49. Prioritizing problems
50. Making decisions
51. Concentrating on a task

Goldstein, A.P., Sherman, M., Gershaw, N.J., Sprafkin, R.P., and Glick. Training Aggressive Youth in Prosocial Behavior, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 7, No. 1, 1973