Life2gether

Out of curiosity my wife and I watched the first episode of The Marriage Ref last week.  The tagline to the show is: in marriage everyone needs a ref.  And so real couples bring an issue they’ve been fighting about and a panel of experts like Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, and Eva Longoria Parker decide which one is right (this week’s experts include Madonna!).  I liked one writer’s take on the show, “It’s like a marital boxing match without the gloves [where] one of the spouses is declared the winner.”

Now I admit, the show is pretty entertaining.  I laughed several times.  And yet at the same time, I think it’s potentially devastating to how we deal with conflict in marriage.  We don’t  need a marriage ref who can help us decide who is right and who is wrong.  We don’t need a celebrity telling us who won the argument.  What we need is someone to look at us right in the eye and say that the biggest problem in our marriage is us.  Otherwise, we’ll just keep playing the blame-game and never get anywhere.

John Gottman, a respected author and marriage researcher, says that the four greatest predictors of divorce are: criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stone-walling (the silent treatment).  Seems obvious, but how many of us really know how to deal with conflict in our marriage?  We probably won’t turn to celebrity experts like Seinfeld and Madonna to tell us what to do, but are we willing to look at ourselves in the mirror and get to the heart of the problem? 

Paul Tripp, in his helpful marriage study called, What Did You Expect? says, “The greatest source of our marriage conflicts is not outside of us, but inside of us.  Relationship problems are heart problems.”  This is so important.  We must start with heart.  So Tripp encourages couples to ask themselves questions like: What am I allowing to rule my heart?  Why am I responding in anger?  And in the midst of conflict am I seeking reconciliation (I’m with you) or retaliation (I’m against you)?

In the end, we don’t need a marriage ref.  We need a Savior!  We need Jesus.  And may I add, sometimes a good, gospel-centered counselor.  After all, as my pastor says, “Every few years we go and get a thorough check-up on our car, shouldn’t we do the same in our marriages?”

Jonathan Dodson:

Recent Facebook research reveals some interesting trends on what connects people in regions of the U.S. Using 210 million Facebook profiles, Pete Warden has documented and illustrated how and on what regions and cities connect. It appears that Facebook users range from a dense, regional connectedness to a cross-country connection. The lines of connection cluster into 5 regions: Stayathomia, Dixie, Greater Texas, Nomadic West, Mormonia, Pacifica, and Socialistan. Check out the interesting trends from each FB cluster.

Switch looks like an intriguing book by the same authors as Made to Stick. In it they make 3 assertions about how to change things when change is hard.

• What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity. So provide crystal-clear direction.

• What looks like laziness is often exhaustion. So it’s critical that you engage people’s emotional side.

• What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.  So shape the situation and you make change more likely.

Here’s a great example of this last idea by a 3rd grade teacher in Michigan.

If you’re interested, here’s my thoughts on making your teaching stick somewhat inspired by the Heath brothers’ first book, Made to Stick.

If you’re looking for a book to read for enjoyment, I highly recommend Same Kind of Different As Me.  It made my list of top books I read in 2009, and I see that John Piper recently recommended it here.  My wife loved it too.  She leads a book club and this was one of the favorites they read together.

Here’s a great video that explains the book and might whet your appetite …

I’m continuing to make my way through the book, Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children.  Chapter 4 poses the question, “Why do kids lie?”  The obvious answer put forth by the authors is they lie to avoid being punished.  But the interesting part of this chapter dealt with how we can teach our kids to lie less.  To answer that question, Dr. Victoria Talwar, one of the world’s leading experts on children’s lying behavior, conducted a rather odd experiment.  One of her researchers read aloud two short stories to a group of children.  The first story was The Boy Who Cried Wolf in which both the boy and the sheep get eaten because of repeated lies.  Alternatively, the second story was George Washington and the Cherry Tree where young George confesses to his father that he chopped down the prized tree and his father praises George for telling the truth. Now … which of these stories do you think reduced lying more? 

According to Talwar’s research, kids lied even more than usual after hearing The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  However, after hearing George Washington and the Cherry Tree their lying was reduced 75% among boys and 50% among girls.  Talwar explained her findings this way:

Young kids are lying to make you happy–trying to please you.  So telling kids that the truth will make a parent happy challenges the original thought that hearing good news–not the truth–is what will please the parent.  That’s why George Washington and the Cherry Tree works so well.  Little George receives immunity and praise for telling the truth.

Biblically speaking, this research supports the fact that the threat of punishment cannot stop our kids from lying (or sinning).  In fact, even though discipline is God’s tool to train our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, it cannot change our children’s hearts.  To say it another way, the law is not the gospel–it points us to the gospel.  It is a tutor to Christ — the only one who can bring heart change.  We see this in Genesis 3 after the very first sin.  Adam and Eve are punished but God doesn’t end there.  He follows the punishment with a promise.  The promise (Gen. 3:15) is that one day Christ will come to conquer Satan and defeat the power of sin and death.  This promise is the only hope of change.

So, why do kids lie?  They’re sinners like us.  And how do we stop them from lying?  Give them the gospel.  Always give them the gospel–especially in the context of discipline.  And don’t allow the punishment to overshadow the promise.  Because the promise is their only hope for true heart change.

Read my thoughts on the previous 3 chapters:

• Chapter 1: The Inverse Power of Praise
• Chapter 2: The Lost Hour: [Why Kids Need Sleep]
• Chapter 3: Should We Talk About Race with Our Kids?

Just like Kurt Warner and Ashton Kutcher I’m from Iowa and I worked at the Hy-Vee Grocery Store!  Kurt was a night stock boy in Cedar Falls, Ashton was a deli guy in Coralville, and I was a checker/stocker in Marion.  Like Ashon Kutcher says, “This supermarket, I tell ya, produces superstars!”  Well, two anyway.

Can giving children praise be doing more harm than good?  Here’s a clip with Po Bronson, co-author of Nurture Shock, speaking about the myth of praise.  You can read my reflections on what became the first chapter of his book here.

Many of you have heard about a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation on the online lives of children and teenagers.  If you haven’t yet read it I encourage you to read the report  and glance at the slideshow the folks at KFF have posted online.  Pretty shocking statistics!

Walt Mueller also has developed a helpful tool that teaches kids to think Christianly and critically about all the media they consume.  It’s called, How to Use Your Head to Guard Your Heart: A 3(D)Guide to Making Responsible Media Choices .  Access a free Leader’s Guide for this tool here.

• Read the New York Times article, “If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online”
• Read Al Mohler’s reflections on this study 

(HT: Z)

USA Today reports:

Tim Tebow is taking his star power to sport’s biggest stage. The former Florida quarterback and his mother will appear in a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl next month. The Christian group Focus on the Family says the Tebows will share a personal story centering on the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

The group isn’t releasing details, but the commercial is likely to be an anti-abortion message chronicling Pam Tebow’s 1987 pregnancy. After getting sick during a mission trip to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child and gave birth to Tim.  (Read the rest …)