Audio Tidbits

Is there any point in repeating myself? I suppose there may be but probably not. On the chance that repeating might be useful, this one is just for you.

So far, you have developed a wide range of understanding and skills to assess families at risk. You have studied the behavior and attitudes of family members and have thought about stress, depression, value problems, and other personal issues. Your learning has included identifying specific signs of risk and seeing how they are experienced by family members. You now have a good feel for people, families, and their problems.

You also have learned about assessing how people get along. You are able to focus on relationships, communication, problem solving, and decision making. Additionally, you now know how to use some tools and shortcuts to determine the risk level for your family.

It is now time to bring your understanding and skills together. In this episode of Audio Tidbits Podcast, I bring you an extended narrative of a family at risk. As you will see, the people in the narrative behave and reflect attitudes that are sometimes helpful and sometimes very risky. Your challenge is to identify the elements of risk, understand how bad outcomes follow from actions and events, and assess the risk for the family.

The narrative is divided into seven sections reflecting critical periods in the life of the family. The underlying events are true. This is the way it really happened. Many of the details and descriptions have been changed to protect the family’s anonymity.

Were this a fictional family, all the motivations, events, and details would have been carefully crafted to answer all of your questions and to eliminate all gaps and inconsistencies. Real life is not so neat. You will need to use your developing insight and skills to fill in the gaps, understand the inconsistencies, and to somehow make sense of life in the real world.

Be safe, be well, and may you and yours enjoy being one big happy family.

This episode of Audio Tidbits Podcast brings you Part 4 of Just One Big Unhappy Family. If you combine this episode with the first three, you will have all of the tools you need to assess your family’s level of risk and will better understand the why and what of family risk. In this episode, I focus specifically on Getting Along Risk. I think you will see how this type of risk fits with Individual, Marital and Parent risk to establish the level of jeopardy the family is experiencing. Thank you for the time you are spending to better understand your family’s functioning. I sincerely hope it helps you and yours.

In Part 3 of Just One Big Unhappy Family, the discussion shifts to how to recognize when things are happening in your family that foretell problems and increased risk. You learn to assess individual, marriage and parenting risk and see how those risks evolve and escolate. Your ability to understand risk and malfunction continue their development from Parts 1 and 2. Please listen and thoughtfully consider how you and your family are relating and loving together.

We have been hearing in the news a lot lately about people crossing the personal boundaries of others. Typically this comes in terms of sexual harassment or sexual behavior that is uninvited and unwanted. When the behavior is overt and intentional, there is no reasonable excuse for the actions of the perpetrator.

In many situations though, the unwanted behavior is unintentional and the person behaving inappropriately has no clue. He or she quite simply does not have the social and interpersonal awareness to limit his or her behavior. In this episode, we focus on the complexity of personal boundaries and our need to protect our personal space. At the same time, we also need to avoid violating the personal space of others. Please listen and think about how the discussion may apply to you and your relationships.

It's been a while since I've shared a new post with you. OK, it has been quite a while. For my first post for a very long time, I thought a rhythmic excursion might be just what you have been hoping I would have for you. Well, here it is. I hope it was worth the wait.

The podcasting team has a round robin for all the parents among us. The key is to just listen and magically, the quotation that was written just for you will be the one that sticks in your memory tomorrow. You may think none will but nonetheless one will. Listen and experience the magic for yourself.

Life’s little lessons sometimes come to us in the most unexpected ways and at the most unexpected times. Here’s a lesson you may not have learned. It’s an easy one to miss. It will help as you go about making a difference to people who make a difference to you.

Are you Nice to yourself? It's not as simple as you might think. In this short Audio Tidbits Podcast, you are asked thirteen questions that may help you answer the "Are you nice to yourself?" question. You matter and how you answer the questions matters.

It is easy to start analyzing ourselves and others in our groups and organizations and to take what happens personally. A better way to look at what goes on is to understand that people grow into certain roles or styles and are usually just being whomever they are out of habit or just because that is the way their personalities are. They are just being TATORS. If we are able to understand this and accept them for the TATOR they are, we will be a lot more comfortable.

Which tator are you?

1. Agitator: Ajy likes to keep things stirred up, find fault, criticize, and make things seem worse than they really are.

2. Anitator: Anny likes to have the last word, always “gets his/her two cents worth in,” and always has an opinion on everything and likes to show others that he/she knows more than everyone else.

3. Commentator: Common likes to be sure that everyone knows everything that is going on, is in charge of gossip and “tattling,” and seems to talk all the time even if no one wants to listen or if everyone already knew about what is being said.

4. Dictator: Dick likes to take charge, boss everyone around, be the one who makes all the decisions, and generally be in charge of everything whether or not it is his/her business or responsibility.

5. Gravitator: Gravi is pretty much of a “couch potato,” always hanging around and there when others want a little privacy, and always seems to be too tired to help out, do things, or get out of the way.

6. Hesitator: Hezy can never decide, always waits to see what someone else’s opinion is and then uses that one, is very unsure of himself/herself, goes out of the way not to offend anyone or get anyone upset, and thinks that if he/she can please everyone all the time things will be okay.

7. Levitator: Leva thinks he/she is just a little better than everyone else, is sort of above it all most of the time, seems like he/she is looking down the nose at others, and feels pretty much superior to everyone else.

8. Meditator: Meda seems to take forever to do things because he/she has to think everything over very carefully before doing something, never wants to do anything quickly or on the spur of the moment because anything worth doing is worth thinking through carefully, and is usually hard to talk with because everything has to be analyzed and discussed in great detail.

9. Militator: Milla is always on guard and ready to go to war, will argue with anyone about anything anytime, never gives an inch, and is ready to stand his/her ground with anyone who tries to take advantage or confront him/her.

10. Precipitator: Precipi is one of those TATORS that is able to get other people into arguments and then walk away, say or do things that get others upset and then pretend like he/she is totally innocent, and seems to get things messed up or stirred up without seeming to have started it or without seeming to have been involved.

11. Spectator: Spec likes to stay on the sidelines and not really get involved, simply watch or listen without really participating, and just stays to himself/herself because that seems like the safest way of just getting by without getting involved.

12. Facilitator: Facili does not mind being out of alphabetical order because his/her job is to be helpful, to do things for other people, to be there when others need him/her, and to stay away from things that have to do with accepting responsibility, showing leadership, or running the risk of being blamed for what is done or how things turn out.

13. Baby Sweetator: Baby Sweet is the kind of TATOR that is always happy and cheerful no matter what, is too nice for anyone to get upset with even if he/she does something that they should get upset about, cries or has his/her feelings hurt very easily, and tries to get special treatment just because he/she is s...