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HAPPY THURSDAY!
I hope you've had a good week so far. I saw The Phantom Thread recently and felt like it was okay, not great, despite the great reviews. Win some lose some.
Why Do Letters of Amends Help?
There are few relationships where thereʼs an absolute right and wrong way to apologize. In most of your other relationships, itʼs typically enough to have good intentions, offer an explanation for why you did something that was hurtful, and to say youʼre sorry.
However, as you may already know, there are many pitfalls in making amends to an adult child. Among other things, you may be accused of being insincere, your apology may get thrown back in your face, or you may be told that youʼre not taking enough responsibility.
Many parents also get caught up with the idea that they donʼt believe that they have anything to apologize for, or any amends to make. This perception reflects a misunderstanding of what adult children need when they want their parents to make amends. They also get caught up in the rightness or wrongness of their childʼs accusations without trying to understand the underlying emotion that is being expressed.
So Iʼd like to offer some guidance and clarification on this topic
WHY ARE LETTERS OF AMENDS OFTEN HELPFUL IN RECONCILIATION?
1) It shows that you care. "Of course I care. They know I care! Havenʼt I shown in it in about a million ways?" Yes, you have. But, that isnʼt the current game in town. The current game in town is the one where your adult child claims that you have wronged them in some way. When that is at play, all of your good efforts are pushed into the background. Not necessarily permanently, but permanently enough so that you canʼt just reach over and remind your child of them and have that be enough.
2) Amends take courage:Have you ever heard the saying,"It takes a strong person to say theyʼre sorry." Our children respect us more if we can fearlessly take responsibility for whatever ways our choices or behavior were hurtful to them
3) It contributes to clarifying what weʼre responsible for and what weʼre not. Ironically, the longer and the louder that we protest that we were perfect as parents, the harder they will have to raise their voices to prove weʼre wrong. Thatʼs why parents are often surprised by how distorted the childʼs memories are. Children may have to exaggerate them to feel like theyʼre getting on our radar. "You were ALWAYS GONE." "You were ALWAYS SO SELF-CENTERED!" The healthy response is to simply acknowledge that when you were gone it was a problem and whatever ways you were focused on yourself was problematic to your child. Youʼre not ever required to say, ʻI was a miserable selfish lout (unless of course, you actually were). Most of the time they donʼt require that.
4) Separate realities: itʼs helpful to children to eventually see that we understand the separate realities nature of family life. That parents can miss things that their children needed or wanted and be strong enough to simply accept that and not act like they shouldʼve been perfect.
5) It will help you in your self-forgiveness and self-compassion. Part of forgiving ourselves for whatever mistakes we made comes from feeling that we have done everything possible to repair the effect of our mistakes.
If you need help writing an amends letter or understanding the principles, join us this Tuesday for:
MAKING AMENDS
The Right and Wrong Way
Tuesday Jan 30th
530 PM PST, 630 Mountain 730 Central 830 EST
DOES MY CHILD OR THEIR SPOUSE HAVE MENTAL ILLNESS
Recognizing the Signs
Tuesday Feb 6th
530 PM PST, 630 Mountain 730 Central 830 EST
SHOULD I KEEP TRYING OR JUST GIVE UP?
And What You Should Do Next
Tuesday Feb 13th
530 PM PST, 630 Mountain 730 Central 830 EST
HELPING THE ESTRANGED SIBLING
And Other Non-Estranged Family
Tuesday Feb 20th
530 PM PST, 630 Mountain 730 Central 830 EST
DEALING WITH YOUR DIFFICULT
DAUGHTER-IN-LAW
OR SON-IN-LAW
Learning Strategies to Reduce the Conflict
Tuesday Jan 16th
530 PM PST, 630 Mountain 730 Central 830 EST
All webinars come with the following:
- Free study guide
- Link to the live webinar to listen to over the phone or computer
- Q and A during live webinar
- Complete transcript of lecture after it airs
- Link to the webinar recording after it airs
To hear what others are saying about the webinars, go
here
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NEED A 1:1?
email Dr. Coleman at josh@drjoshuacoleman.com
About Dr. Coleman
Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. He has lectured at Harvard University, The University of California at Berkeley, The University of London, Cornell Weill Medical School, and blogs on parent-adult child relationships for the U.C. Berkeley publication, Greater Good Magazine.
Dr. Coleman is frequently contacted by the media for opinions and commentary about changes in the American family. He has been a frequent guest on the Today Show, NPR, and The BBC, and has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, America Online Coaches, PBS, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. His advice has appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London, The Shriver Report, Fortune, Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Psychology Today, U.S. World and News Report, Parenting Magazine, The Baltimore Sun and many others.
He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The
Free Study Guide Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin's Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin's Press); When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along (HarperCollins); and Married with Twins: Life, Love and the Pursuit of Marital Harmony. His books have been translated into Chinese, Croatian, and Korean, and are also available in the U.K., Canada, and Australia.
He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.
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