Parents with Disabled Kids Need Help

With your help, Sweeten Life Systems can win $25,000.00 plus other great prizes. We need your help to win. We have kicked off a new aspect of our ministry that falls squarely within our mission of "Building a lifetime of great relationships"(R)

We received a generous grant to do an in depth research study on the concerns, stresses, insights and conflicts of families with Special Needs kids. The research interviews are completed as is our grant so we need more money to carry out the Action Steps.

We have entered a great contest sponsored by Cincinnati Innovates. One of the ways they judge an entry is by "Fan Voting". Will you be our fan? You can go to their web and vote daily for us. So, please log in and vote for our entry tight now as well as tomorrow and Tuesday, and Wednesday, etc.

After you log into Cincinnati Innovates, look for Special Life Skills and read all about our project. Then, vote YES for Sweeten Life-Special Life Skills!

Stress and Pregnancy

An article in the Wall Journal tells us that most types of stress that bother expectant mothers is relatively harmless for the unborn child but certain kinds of stress can be harmful to the child. What do you think is most harmful?

Stress about money?

Stress about work issues?

Stress about housework?

The answer is, "None of these issues". The most harmful stress comes from within and it has to do with anxiety about the child. So, if you are worried about your baby, get some help. But first, read the story.

Marriage and Conflict

Conflict is normal

Misery is optional

Why, then, do we so often allow conflict to become miserable in our marriage and family life?

Dr. John Gottman has done research with hundreds of couples. He hooks them up to heart and brain wave monitors and asks them to plan some simple activity. In a few minutes Dr. Gottman can see if the couple is likely to divorce or stay married.

How does he do that? Do they threaten divorce or indicate a low interest in the marriage?

Nope! They do not know how to handle even simple differences.

In making a decision about the time to leave for a meeting they will attack each other and develop an attitude. If the couple tends to attack rather than attend, the marriage will probably not last.

How about you? Can you disagree while being agreeable? If not you may end up in court.

Or, do you find yourself Defending Yourself and Offending your Spouse?


Why make yourself and the person you love miserable?

Sex and Marriage

I have been a Counselor for many years. there is no more powerful force in marriage and all male female relationships than sex. When sex and romance are confined to marriage it is powerfully good but sex outside marriage is powerfully bad. I wrote on this issue on Brave Heart so you can read my ideas there as well.

Many of my long term couple clients discover deep divisions between them because they had sex before marriage and the wound has never healed. Even if they were not Christians or very moral at the time, sex before marriage is a powerful, long lasting fact.

Jesus taught about building our foundation on rock or sand. Only the house build on rock will sustain the storms of life and believe me marriage must face a lot of storming. Marriages of people who have sex before marriage are less stable and less long lasting than those where people waited to "do it".

Even more threatening to me as a therapist are the unleashing of unbridled passions and sexual desires today. I recently head that the rate of Sexually Transmitted Disease is the highest in this nation in the Villages Retirement City in Florida. Old men and women are hooking up and sharing disease as well as emotional bonding in record numbers.

Young people seem to share sexual organs today like we did baseball cards in our youth. The long term results will be dramatically different for them and their offspring. Just think of the price even such a star as Tiger Woods must pay for hooking up. His kids will very likely grow up in a severely dysfunctional family with shame as a family heritage.

Tiger did not count the cost of there one night stands.

A Woman of Character

When Jenny Sanford, former wife of Governor Mark Sanford, sat down to tell her children about their father's sordid affair, guess what the eldest said. This is story of great wisdom, character and maturity in a wife and of narcissism, immaturity and ego from her husband.

Mark Sanford had all the outward appearances of a Christian man. He talked the walk and led Bible studies for high end couples. He took oaths about being pure and holy but he obviously had a shallow inner life in the Holy Spirit.

Jenny Sanford writes a compelling book about her side of things and it seems to be well done. We need more leaders like her and less like her husband.

The New York Time review of Jenny Sanford's book is wonderful. I want to read the book as well.

Great Marriages

Karen and I have been married for over 48 years. That is a very long time to live with one person. It has had its ups and downs. Differences! that's what causes couples to fight. It is well known that the main cause of divorce is the inability to deal with differences.

And, there are no greater differences than those of men and women. Just imagine that every marriage is joining two people into holy matrimony who are almost wholly incompatible and who need a miracle to stay together.

It takes a lot of compromise, forgiveness, patience, sacrifice and patience to survive marriage. But here is the good news. Marriage changes from surviving to thriving as we learn how to trust each other. I suppose it is trust that makes the difference. When one partner develops a lack of trust for the other a downward spiral of hurt, anger and bitterness is kicked off that can be hard to heal. If healing fails or isn't attempted, divorce occurs.

I am often amazed when I speak with people who assume that every time a spouse fails to remember an important event, read his/her mind or doesn't speak softly it is taken as an intentional, premeditated hostile take over. These couples are so emotionally enmeshed that despite a legal divorce, they cannot be separated.

Divorce is easy but separation is impossible.

Marriage counseling is often focused on helping the couple realize that they did not marry each other because they were motivated by hate. Nobody on their wedding day thinks their marriage should be painful and destructive. But it doesn't take long for mistrust to develop and the trouble begins.

Is Tiger or Elin to Blame?

Iran is building nuclear weapons, North Korea is threatening war, wars are intense in the Middle East and the economy while Obama is trying to give us socialized medicine. But hold the presses! Headline News Now! Tiger and Elin are fussing.

Let's face it. We do not know the truth about the accidental wreck with a Caddie or the intentional wrecks he has had with a lassie. It is all rumor, gossip and hear say. But it is delicious anyway.

I saw Joy Behar on her show and one of her guests was telling everyone how shocked she was that a man with Tiger's integrity would mess around with other women. Joy and the other women said that promiscuous sex was natural, normal and the thing all guys should be doing. If Tiger did not do it with a lot of women he needed a psychological exam.

They are saying, "The norm is promiscuity. Only sick people honor their marriage vows." (Do they still vow to remain true to each other now days?)

But what was Tiger's expectations with Elin? They lived together before marriage so why would he assume it would be different after marriage? Why would a "Piece of paper" really mean anything? When people start off by living together without "benefit of clergy" they are much more likely to have severe conflict in marriage and find themselves unable to resolve those conflicts. Divorce is much more likely for couples who co-habit before marriage.

I don't know why. However, I have counseled many couples who had severe conflict and were able to trace some of it back to pre marital cohabitation. Even when the couple had no high levels of moral qualms about sex outside of marriage the often had an intuitive sense of doing wrong. They often felt angry and guilty and worked it out by punishing their mate. There are other reasons but we know the Stuttgart's but not all the reasons.

Woods plays a game based on acting with integrity. The focus is so much on Honor and being a gentleman that we are expected to add a stroke to the score even when no one but us saw the misplacement of a ball. But here he is, married with two children placing his _____ all over the place with no thought of ethics, honor, standards and being a gentleman? Can it be so clearly differentiated?

Tiger is a smart billionaire who acted very stupidly. He left names and numbers of sexual partners on his telephone. He had sex with all kinds of poor women who needed money. Many years ago I read a short story about "A $100.00 Misunderstanding". It was the story of a young, wealthy man who narcissistic assumed he did not need to pay a prostitute the $100 she charged for sex. Why? No woman would charge such a wonderful man for sex.

Elin grew up in Sweden where the Bible is taught in all the public schools. She must have heard the Ten Commandments. Despite the universality of prohibition against sex outside wedlock she agreed to live with Tiger. He was undoubtedly living then like a rich bachelor. She had to know what he was like. But, she chose to marry a philanderer anyway.

Is anything more destructive to the human spirit, the souls of men and women and the soul of a nation than sex outside of marriage?

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.

Pelosi and the Pope

The Speaker of the House of Representatives is Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Pelosi is very proud of her Roman Catholic heritage and speaks about it often. In fact, she took the opportunity not long ago to lecture Americans about the fact that the Roman Catholic Church had only recently begun to think abortion was wrong.

Ms. Pelosi has also noted her personal opposition to abortion but, she suggests, is bound to support it because it is in the Constitution of the United States. She, like many of her colleagues, regrets the fact that Roman Catholics must not allow their personal, religious views get in the way of supporting the Constitution.

On her recent trip to Rome and the Vatican, Ms. Pelosi seems to have gotten a personal lecture on Roman Catholic theology from Pope Benedict, a theological expert. According to some reports, he told Ms. Pelosi that under no circumstances was a Roman Catholic politician allowed to promote abortion.

I do not know if Ms. Pelosi, the third person in line for the Presidency after Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, was able to correct the Pope about the US approach to Catholic theology, but I sure hope so. According to many Catholics, the new Pope is very confused about abortion and actually thinks that babies are alive in the womb.

Way to go Ms. Speaker!

Gary Sweeten

Ministry Cultural Shock

When I joined the staff at College Hill Church it was quite a big transition. We had been on the campus of University of Cincinnati for five years rubbing elbows and having laid back relationships with a bunch of college kids. Not only did we fit in with the hippies and kids we were deeply involved in the house church commune type movement of the Jesus Revolution.

This made our move to College Hill a huge shift in culture. One of the first meetings we attended was at the home of people who headed a group of young couples called Ceiling Seventy for the combined total of the couples' ages. The carpet was thick and lush, the drapes thick velvet and the decor upper class.

On the way home, we drove in silence back to our little house near U.C. Finally Karen broke in and said wanly, "What have we done? We will never fit into this group." We discussed the fact that for five years we had lived in an open house with dozens of students who hung out with us and played with our kids. Now we felt overwhelmed by the upper class homes of our new friends.

We actually did make that transition over time and stayed on the staff for over sixteen years. We learned to fit in and we loved our friends. They treated us like royalty and we learned so much about church life, leadership, ministry and healthy Christianity. I am very glad we did not bail out but the culture shock was very tough to face and overcome.

Married in Ministry is a difficult challenge. Many couples change churches, locations, cultural expectations and job descriptions many times in a career and each leaving and joining is a challenge. What has been your experience?

Gary Sweeten

Change in Focus

Mary and Joseph, an early couple in ministry together

We have changed the focus of this blog to emphasize the lives of Wives and Husbands in Ministry together. I have asked some couples to write me about the insights, struggles and joys of ministry in a church, para-church or mission agency.

Most of the writers will be Women who are married to Ministers, but some are Ordained. We will keep their identities private so their past and present organizations are not embarrassed.

I hope we can get honest, behind the scenes information about the ways couples handle their private and public lives when they must live in "Glass Houses".

I joined the staff of a very large mega-church in Cincinnati after being in business, school teaching and university administration. Karen and I had two children ages five and two when we left the University to enter the nether world of "Clergy Life". The cultural, social, spiritual and relational changes were like moving to Mars.

I am thankful that out church leaders did not expect my wife to be a free but visible member of the staff who would play the piano, teach Sunday school and attend every service. We grew up in rural churches where all those things were silent but strongly expected values and expectations.

But, make no mistake, despite the grace of our Elders, being in the Professional Ministry is living in the public eye. Our kids were known to everybody and some of the parishioners had unrealistic ideas about how perfect we and they should be as "Spiritual role models".

I am an extrovert with an enormous capacity for public interaction. Karen is a quiet, Introverted woman who loves being alone or with a few friends. We are very different and have very different gifts to boot.

Misunderstandings and confusions are common among the church members and that often results in pain for the family members. Some Elders and Lay Leaders have unrealistic expectations from the Ministry Family/Couple and place enormous pressure on the Pastor to get his wife and family "on board".

We hope you will write your comments and let us know what you think. If you are a Couple in Ministry, you may be interested in blogging with us. Send me a sample of your ideas at gsweeten@cinci.rr.com

Rev. Gary Sweeten, Ed.D.

Want to Save Money on Taxes?

Gary and Karen have spent 47 years together.

How should policymakers, state legislators, and others respond to the large taxpayer costs of family fragmentation? We note that even very small increases in stable marriage rates as a result of government programs or community efforts to strengthen marriage would result in very large savings for taxpayers. If the federal marriage initiative, for example, succeeds in reducing family fragmentation by just 1 percent, U.S. taxpayers will save an estimated $1.1 billion each and every year.

We can contribute significantly to lower government costs and higher revenues from tax payers by starting a Pre-Marital Preparation Group at our church. We can also help the nation by strengthening family life, especially marriages.

We do not need most therapists but more caring Christians and Pastors who will see that preaching against divorce is half as effective as teaching couples practical way to enjoy their marriages.

Write your Congressman and tell him/her to raise the amount of money given to strengthen marriage and family life.

Stop Family Destruction

Why should legislators and policymakers care about marriage? Public debate on marriage in this country has focused on the “social costs” of family fragmentation (that is, divorce and unwed childbearing), and research suggests that these are indeed extensive.

But marriage is more than a moral or social institution; it is also an economic one, a generator of social and human capital, especially when it comes to children.

In this study, we adopt the simplifying and extremely cautious assumption that all of the taxpayer costs of divorce and unmarried childbearing stem from the effects that family fragmentation has on poverty, a causal mechanism that is well-accepted and has been reasonably well-quantified in the literature.Based on the methodology, we estimate that family fragmentation costs U.S. tax-payers at least $112 billion each and every year, or more than $1 trillion each decade.These costs arise from increased taxpayer expenditures for antipoverty, criminal justice, and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals who, as adults, earn less because of reduced opportunities as a result of having been more likely to grow up in poverty.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Even very small increases in stable marriage rates as a result of government programs or community efforts to strengthen marriage would result in very large savings for taxpayers.

If the federal marriage initiative, for example, succeeds in reducing family fragmentation by just 1 percent, U.S. taxpayers will save an estimated $1.1 billion each and every year.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The crisis of family destruction is upon us. If every church in America adopted a small program to support marriages, we could help break the cycle of poverty and increase giving to our own churches.Want to learn how to decrease family break ups? Contact me at gary@sweetenlife.com

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???

Women in Ministry

Support and Training for Wives in Ministry

Over the past 30 years we have ministered to dozens of ministers and their wives on issues of burn out, church conflict, dealing with aggressive members, gossip, rearing children, etc. Leading a ministry is perhaps the most daunting career in life. Now, help is on the way.

Steve Griebling, Family Therapist and international training expert, will provide four Mondays in November for “Survival Skills for Wives in Ministry”.

The sessions will be from 7:00-8:15 February 11, 18, 25 and March 3 at the Life Way Counseling Center Conference Room in Blue Ash. Directions after sign up.

The enrollment is limited to ten women so each person can receive personal attention.

Cost $20.00 per session

Topics
1. How to love people without taking their problems
2. How to minister to distressed minds without losing your own
3. Boundaries as a Minister’s wife
4. Leisure, fun and be relaxation
5. Developing a support system that you can trust
6.

Each attendee will get a copy of Dr. Gary Sweeten’s DVD on the importance of becoming a “Committed Couple”. It can be used as a guide for personal growth or teaching small groups or classes. For questions, contact Steve @ 984-827 or stevegriebling@hotmail.com

Steve is a Senior Trainer with Sweeten Life Systems who has extensive experience around the world.

Capable Women-Bad Decisions

From an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer on January 10, 2008.


...poverty is a significant problem for women and girls in Greater http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080110/EDIT01/801100319/1090


Cincinnati, and there's no sign it's diminishing. The 2007 Ohio Health Issues Poll showed the percentage of women below the poverty line growing from 16 percent to 19 percent while the number of women at upper-income levels dropped from 62 percent to 59 percent in the last two years.

The Women's Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation is in a three-year campaign to reduce the effects of poverty on local females, devoting half a million dollars to the effort. This week, a Macy's Foundation grant and matching donation from the Charlotte Schmidlapp Fund added $50,000 to the fund.

But how exactly do you take on a problem this large and multidimensional, a problem that trips up women at multiple points in their lives, that siphons off their ability to take care of their families or themselves?

The focus, according to the Women's Fund, has got to be boosting earning power. Women don't do well at the game of financial catch-up. Many spend their lives trying to recover from early decisions that limited their earning potential - entering low-paying fields, getting minimal education, having children at an early age, sometimes jumping from job to job because of family needs.

By midlife, these factors may mean a woman has an unimpressive resume or has been tracked into a career path with little advancement potential. And by retirement, many women have no pension and have not built up savings for themselves.

Anger and Heart Problems

Reuters Updated: March 3, 2006 Research by Timothy Smith, Ph. D. University of Utah

The manner in which husbands and wives argue over such hot-button topics such as money, in-laws, and children, may be a factor in their risk of developing coronary atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries of the heart.

In a study of 150 couples, mostly in their 60s, researchers found that women who behaved in a hostile manner during marital disputes were more likely to have atherosclerosis, especially if their husbands were also hostile.

In men, hostility -- their own or their wives -- was not related to atherosclerosis. However, men who behaved in a dominating or controlling manner -- or whose wives behaved in that way -- were more likely to have clogged coronary arteries.

"The only group of men that had very little atherosclerosis were those where both they and their wives were able to talk about a disagreement without being controlling at all," Smith said. "So the absence of a power play in the conversation seemed to be heart protective for men," he concluded.

This study supports a "small but growing body of research that suggests that beyond the health benefits of being married, marital quality seems to make a difference in heart health," Dr. Timothy Smith, a psychologist from the University of Utah noted in an interview with Reuters Health.

My posts here will be few so go to my other blogs for more great stuff

http://garysweetenblogspotcom.blogspot.com

http://seasonedbelievers.blogspot.com

Family Affair

Take a look at my Seasoned Believers blog for an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. http://seasonedbelievers.blogspot.com/

How Did It Help You?

I just received a letter from Beech Acres Parenting Center asking for testimonies. They want to know if any of your students have benefited from their training.

One of the hallmarks of good teachers is a feedback system that tries to discern what is working. That leads to this mantra:

If it works, do more of it.

If it does not work, stop it.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I hope our teaching and training couples how to minister to others works. But, if it did not we want to fix it. We need your feedback and feed forward to do better the next time.

Send your comments to me. Dr. Gary Sweeten gsweeten@cinci.rr.com

Chuch Atttendance Brings Health

What are the deepest beliefs of Americans? According to polls a whopping majority of over 80% of us come from a Christian tradition. About 42% of Americans attend religious/church services weekly. This is far more than those who attend all professional sports in an entire year.

Some 95% of Americans believe in God. In 1985 George Gallup found that 72% stated: "My whole approach to life is based on my religion." We are the most religious western nation by far. This is especially shocking when we realize that the country is divided almost 50/50 in politics. America, for all her weaknesses, is a religious nation. As one wag noted, ”India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least. America is a bunch of Indians ruled by Swedes.”

Research shows that 91% of blacks, 93% of Hispanics and 88% of whites report a religious affiliation. Even more startling is the number for attendance: 51% of Blacks, 48% of Hispanics and 43% of Whites attend weekly or more often.

Sixty four percent (64%) of blacks in the national sample were members of religious communities (churches) with 59% of whites and 43% of Hispanics. Participation in religious activities outside weekend services is also high with 47% blacks, 41% whites and 31% Hispanics saying they are in church during the week as well as on Sunday.

(Social Capital http://www.cfsv.org/communitysurvey/results6.html)

In a nation obsessed with racial and cultural diversity the facts about minorities and religious faith have been strangely absent from the dialogue. There is one astounding statistic about African American longevity and church attendance that is rarely if ever mentioned in the debates about faith based organizations and health care. An article by Hummer et al in Demography Journal, 36:273-285 in 1999, Blacks who attend church live much longer than those who do not.

Attendance------------White life expectancy---Black life expectancy

Never-----------------77 Years----------------67 = A 10 year difference
Less than or weekly---80 Years----------------75 = A 5 year difference
Weekly or more-------83 Years----------------80 = A 3 year difference

Whites who attend services more than weekly gain an average of six years in longevity but African Americans who attend services weekly or more gain a whopping 13 years in life expectancy. The difference in longevity is almost eclipsed by church attendance. In fact, attending church more often than weekly raises Blacks life expectancy to that of whites who attend weekly or less.