Family and Emotional Reactivity

"Emotional reactiveness in a family, or other group that lives or works together, goes from one family member to another in a chain reaction pattern."                                                  Murray Bowen, 1971

Have you noticed how when one family member becomes anxious and upset about something the feeling reverberates through the entire family? Your family is an emotional system. In order to understand what's going on with any particular family member, the entire relationship system needs to be undestood as completely as possible.

Marriage and family therapists are specifically trained in systems thinking and can help you understand how anxiety may be flowing through your family system.

Intentionally yours,

Lisa

How do you distinguish the difference between normal, developmental sibling conflict and sibling violence?

As a parent of four, I admit it's sometimes easier to refuse to get involved and let the children handle it themselves. There always seems to be two of the four quarreling about something, and constantly referreeing can be mentally exhausting! As my husband has said in the past, "You kids would argue about the air you breathe!". As the article indicates, sibling rivalry is normal, healthy, and often beneficial, but as parents, how do we know when the conflict has gone too far, and what can be done about it?? This article by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy titled "Sibling Violence" offers some guidelines about developmentally normal sibling rivalry versus sibling violence. Intervening early, helping kids name their emotions, validating what they are experiencing, and teaching and modeling how to resolve conflict are some great ways to help children resolve conflicts in a healthy, productive manner. As a parent, when I become exasperated with the daily turmoil that sibling conflict creates, I think it's important to remind myself that helping my children to "fight fair" today, will help us all tomorrow. It's a process, not an event.