Francis sat quietly in the courtroom. He listened as the charges were read. He was charged with assaulting his wife and causing her grievous bodily harm.

He and Stefanie met at a youth camp while they were both in college. They did not start dating immediately though they kept in touch. They did not even have plans of dating because both were in other relationships.

As fate would have it, he found Stefanie very supportive when his relationship hit turbulent times. He had gradually developed a kind of trust for her that he did not have for anyone else. He felt that she understood him more than anyone else did. It was therefore natural for him to draw strength from her when things were not going on very well in his life. He had never imagined becoming romantically involved with her.

It was not until two years after his relationship broke that Stefanie discovered that her long time boyfriend had impregnated another lady. She was devastated and the relationship collapsed. It was Francis’ turn to comfort his friend and a romantic relationship was born.

Courtship

Courtship was a very brief affair and they legalized their marriage within a matter of months. Conflicts started very early in the marriage because of Francis’ family, and mainly his mother. She controlled him and he was powerless in the situation. She demanded so much of him from buying land for her to buying domestic animals and financing farming projects.

Francis could never say no to his family and he and Stephanie disagreed about the situation. She disagreed with the unrealistic demands being placed on her husband by his family members. His stand was the same all through; a parent is like a god in one’s life and success or failure is dependent on the parents’ blessings or curses.

Dysfunctional Family

Francis’ mother was widowed when he and his four siblings were in primary school. She raised them single-handedly. She sacrificed a lot to take the children through school. Now that they had grown up, none of them could question her about anything or say no to her demands. Francis being the first born had the bulk of the demands heaped on him.

He could remember clearly the incident that landed him on the wrong side of the law. His mother had visited unexpectedly. She complained to him about his delay to send money for the preparation of the land for the planting season yet the rains had already started. He withdrew cash from the joint account he and his wife operated for family projects and gave it to his mother.

Stephanie hit the roof! That cash was savings towards the school fees for their daughter who was scheduled to begin school at the beginning of the next year. They had both been contributing towards the project. They had had many quarrels about the demands from his side of the family but this time the quarrel went out of hand and he ended up beating up his wife.

Stephanie reported to the police and he was arrested. He was sitting in the court facing long court process and probably a prison term if he was convicted.

He had already been suspended from his place of work and his life seemed to be headed for a very rocky phase.

The Role Parents Play in the Success of Their Children

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. – Colossians 3:21
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. – Ephesians 6:4

Parents are the most important people to a child. They receive the child when he is a blank slate and ready to be programmed through experiences. The way the child interprets the world and relates to the environment is largely dependent on the programming. He learns to trust or to mistrust. He learns to love or to hate. He learns to believe in his self-worth or to believe that he is no good. All this is programmed from a young age.

A child is a miniature human being. He has feelings, desires, tastes, preferences and everything else just like an adult does. A parent does much harm to the child by trivializing the child’s choices and imposing his own.

There is a lot I learned through support groups working with people with depression and other mental disorders. A lot of these people have anger that has been turned inwards because they were trained that expressing anger is wrong. They were taught to accept to be abused and belittled, that being that way is a virtue. Their spirits were wounded and they were not supposed to portray any reaction.

The Bible is taught in a one-sided way and it is destroying far too many lives. The only thing that is taught is that children should obey their parents in the Lord that it may be well with them. The part of parents not provoking their children is not taught and the imbalanced teachings are leaving a trail of destruction.

Children are taught that they should accept to be abused, mistreated, belittled, unfairly compared with someone else who is considered to be better than them and all manner of mistreatment and that a parent can never be wrong and can never be questioned.

These children do not remain little forever; they grow up and come to learn that those things were wrong. They grow up and discover that things that were done to them and spoken to them were wrong.

Many adults find themselves overwhelmed with anger, which in most cases they direct at innocent third parties who could be their spouses, their own children or other people that they interact with. They are angry at the way they were handled from a young age but issues with parents are hardly ever resolved because it is fearful to confront a parent for being wrong.

I was watching an episode of Dr. Phil show where two sisters confronted their mother because one of them was repeatedly abused sexually right in the home while she was around 14 years of age but the mother would not allow the matter to be reported to the police yet she knew about it.

The two sisters confronted the mother when they were already adults and expressed their anger and disappointment that she could not protect her own daughter from sexual abuse. The confrontation was emotive. That is an important step in recovery from childhood abuse and neglect.

Set yourself free from pent-up anger by grieving over the pain from the past.

When children are taught that parents wield total power and they cannot be questioned or told ‘no’, those children grow up with a distorted view of the world and human relationships. They grow up to be people with boundary problems.

Getting married to a partner who does not enjoy a healthy relationship with the parents is difficult. Such marriages are rarely harmonious. Sometimes those people have strings of broken relationships.

The person is likely to have anger issues and that anger is most likely directed at the immediate family members. They feel frustrated and overwhelmed like they are expected to handle more than they can bear and they are helpless. They feel obligated to do whatever the parent demands even when it destroys them and their families. These people are also not independent but are still controlled by the parents. They feel like victims.

The parents make demands on the person and in most cases that person will not discuss with the spouse before meeting the demands of the parent. Many times the parents’ demands are met behind the spouse’s back and without planning and budgeting to find out how much can be afforded. The anger issues are transferred to the younger generations.

I have interacted with many dysfunctional people who have been damaged by parents. Some turned the anger and frustrations inwards leading to depression, self-harm, addiction problems and suicidal behavior. Others project the anger on innocent third parties who end up paying for wrongs they know nothing about.

I have come across some very unfortunate incidents where children were hurt too much by parents and taught to keep it all in the pressure built up till it exploded one day, with disastrous results. They exploded in torrents of verbal abuse to their parents, maimed or killed the parent or someone else, or they killed themselves. No one would want such a thing to happen in his family.

What can Parents Do To Raise Strong, Well Adjusted Children?

1. Your children are loaned to you; you do not own them. Nurture them to maturity. What does nurturing mean?

A child is like a young, delicate seedling. Your work is not to try and change the seed from what it is to something else that you feel would be a more valuable crop. No. Your work is to water the seedling and protect it from the harsh elements so that it grows to its full potential.

Parents should not harass children in an effort to change them from who they are at the core of their being. A parent creates the right environment for that child to realize his full potential. Is the child talented in art and also passionate about it? It is not the work of the parent to endeavor to kill that talent and to plant something else in its place because the parent is trying to live his own unfulfilled dreams through the child.

Parents should not give their children the impression that they are some sort of ruthless dictators who are all knowing and cannot be questioned. That is the way to block their children from achieving maturity and to make them grow up into maladjusted individuals.

2. Child Abuse is a no-no. Anything that wounds a child’s spirit should be avoided. Belittling or making fun of what is important to a child, unfairly comparing one child with another, calling a child names and telling him that he is useless and will never amount to anything or any form of verbal abuse should never happen.

3. Do not make your children feel guilty for experiencing negative emotions; pain, anger, fear, sorrow, regret, etc. Let them learn to be real and authentic from a young age. If they feel pain and want to cry; let them. 

“Mom, can you do something, please…”

Jael’s voice trailed off as she spoke to her mother on phone. She started sobbing even before she hung up.

Life had not been kind to Jael. She felt older than her 42 years of age. Where did she go wrong?

She closed her eyes and allowed her mind to wander. She grew up in an average family. Her mother was a teacher while her father was a businessman. Her father was now deceased and her mother – who had already retired from her teaching job – was in charge of the family businesses.

A Happy Marriage

Jael’s marriage was full of ups and downs. She met Mike when still at the university and they started dating almost immediately. He was really charming and treated her like a queen. They moved in together a few months after her graduation and legalized their union less than a year later.

Mike treated her really well, taking her out for surprise dinners and occasionally even taking her away for weekends to exotic locations in different parts of the country. This did not stop even after the children came. The family lived quite well and life was good.Mike and Jael were blessed with three children; two girls and one boy.

All No Longer Well?

The first indication that all was not well in their lives happened after 15 years of marriage. There were many times that Mike’s phone would ring and he would not pick the calls. Then, Mike changed his telephone line without any explanation. When he told Jael that he had a new cell phone number, she was surprised. She asked him why he would change his number yet most of his contacts did not have the new number. He could not explain but told her that it was no big deal.

Things just did not look the same. Mike’s circles had changed. He no longer seemed to keep the same company like before. He had also become secretive. Suddenly, Jael realized that her husband was slowly becoming a stranger. She started wondering whether he was in an extra-marital relationship that he was trying to hide from her.

It did not take long for her to fit the jigsaw puzzle. She started receiving telephone calls from people who were known to both of them, requesting her to tell Mike to switch on his phone for they were trying to get in touch with him. She would tell him but he would not comment.

With time, the message in the calls changed to telling her to let Mike know that they were expecting the payments as agreed. When she would give Mike the messages he would not comment.

Trouble With The Law

It was not until the day that a colleague from Mike’s office called Jael to inform her that Mike had been arrested. That was the beginning of a long journey of turmoil for Jael and her family. The family got auctioned twice within a space of one year and Mike got arrested a number of times. Their lives turned into a nightmare.

It was a rude awakening to Jael to discover that a lot of what she believed about Mike was fake, including his academic credentials. He even had a fake identity and some people knew him by names she did not know. In short, Mike’s life was largely a lie and he had misrepresented himself to many different people mainly to extort money from the unsuspecting people.

The first few times her family got into trouble, her mother and her siblings put some cash together and bailed her family out. They helped out a number of times till it dawned on them that Mike’s problems were beyond what they could handle.

Jael would call her family members and beg them to help but they totally refused to get involved. She eventually surrendered to fate. Mike was found guilty of a number of crimes and sentenced to prison.

Rebuilding

Jael started to rebuild her life from humble beginnings. She moved to a cheaper house that she could afford to pay for. She struggled to keep the children in school and often paid school fees in installments. The high life they had lived for years gradually became a distant dream.

The children struggled to adjust to their new status and it was initially difficult for Jael to cope with the backlash. They got angry, became rebellious, got into trouble in school and in the neighborhood and disobeyed her. It was a very difficult road for her family but she took it one day at a time.

A man is the head of his household. He provides direction and leadership for his family. To learn more about how to effectively lead a family, here are useful tips secure-your-family’s-future-through-strong-leadership.

We often like to quote about the two becoming one in marriage. So, now that you are married, do you take responsibility for the behavior of your spouse, whom you consider to be your better half?

Two people meet when they are already adults, fall in love and decide to get married. In a few exceptional cases, couples have known each other from a young age, sometimes from childhood.

Should You Take Responsibility For Your Spouse’s Behavior?

You are married probably to the love of your life. Is it your fault that your spouse is cheating on you, disrespects or abuses you or probably engages in criminal activities? Is it your behavior that taught him or her to be that way, to treat you that way or to have a certain attitude towards family responsibilities?

Human behavior refers to the sum total of actions and emotions associated with a human being. It is complicated. For those who think that everything human behavior is simply a matter of good or bad choices, that is oversimplifying a complex topic.

So, What Shapes Human Behavior?

1. Genetics

Genetics refer to the traits we inherit from our parents. Genetic influence on behavior has been studied using identical twins who were adopted by different families at birth such that besides inheritance, everything in their upbringing environment was different. Siblings who were adopted sometimes discover each other as adults only to find out that they have a lot of similarities and not just in terms of physical appearance.

2. Social Norms

An individual’s behavior is shaped by the group one is a part of. That is why people from the same cultural or religious group have similar attitudes and practices such as what they consider an acceptable dressing code. There is warmth in a sense of belonging and human beings make effort to fit in or to find acceptance, even when the practices of the group might be destructive to them. Norms also govern families.

3. Attitudes

Attitudes have roots in past experiences and conditioning. An individual associates certain things with certain experiences. For example, a child associates going out to the park with pleasure and going to the dentist with pain. Changing one’s attitude takes a conscious effort to question the norms. Negative attitudes can be changed by evaluating reasons behind the attitudes.

4. Mind and Body

Behavior is affected by what is going on in our bodies. Hormonal changes at certain periods of time such as teenage, pregnancy, during certain times in women’s monthly cycle and during menopause; affect behavior.

Nutrition also affects behavior and that is the genesis of the saying ‘a hungry man is an angry man. Hunger or having a brain that is starved of nutrients affects mood negatively and can make one quick to anger. Conditions such as having a brain tumor in certain areas of the brain or having low levels of feel-good neurotransmitters in the brain can affect mood negatively.

The mind and body are connected and influence each other. That is why we talk of ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’.

5. Coping Mechanisms

All human beings face difficulties and challenges from time to time but some cope better than others. Coping mechanisms are dependent on one’s overall personality and lessons learned in life. There are people who train themselves in coping mechanisms such breathing in and out before reacting when provoked or engaging in vigorous physical activity when angry. Coping mechanisms can be trained as part of upbringing, through therapy or one can learn them independently.

When two people get married, the behavior of each of them is already fully established; it is not taught by the spouse. Much as one can do their best to influence the spouse positively, there is a lot that is already deeply entrenched in the individual that might not be possible to change, unless through therapy.

Achieving behavior change takes work; it is not handed to anyone on a silver platter. It, therefore, depends on whether the individual is ready to pay the price of change or not. People do not change themselves because someone else told them to change.

This article is written by Susan Catherine Keter
http://www.susancatherineketer.com/
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“My cousin Jane’s husband is really sweet. He took the family to Garden City Mall last Saturday. Their photos on Facebook are just wow! I wish the kids and I had someone who loved us enough to take us out too.” Violet addressed her husband who was busy at his laptop.

Justin briefly looked up from his laptop without saying a word. He had deadlines to meet and he was not going to allow any distractions. It was 10.00 p.m. on a Saturday evening and he still had a lot to accomplish before Monday morning.

Justin met Violet while she was a student in a beauty college in the city of Nairobi. He was mesmerized by her beauty and within a couple of months from their first meeting, they were dating.