Grace Chatting

Get My FREE E-Book “Mend It Don’t End It” NOW

This is just a short post to highlight to you that we are now in the time of year when most couples who have been considering divorce go to a solicitor and make an application.

I have written a book outlining a 10 step process which couples can follow to turn their troubled marriage or partnership around, and I have decided to give it away.

If you would like to get a free digital copy now, click the following link which will take you to my other site Relationship Academy, and you will be able to access a free download

 http://relationshipacademy.co.uk/thinking-of-divorce-mend-it-dont-end-it/

Please feel free to pass this link on to anyone who may be having relationship problems, it could save a family from breaking up.

written by Grace \\ tags: Divorce, marriage, partnership, relationship problems

At long last! The Relationship academy will officially launch on 1 June 2012.

http://relationshipacademy.co.uk

The Story So Far

I first got the idea of a Relationship Academy back in the 1990s when I saw quite a number of divorced and separated couples for Family Mediation, as they divided up their property and assets. Often this would be accompanied by a great deal of hostility amongst the parties concerned; but by far the most difficult ones for me were those where it was obvious that they still cared for each other.

I thought it so sad that here was a family which had split up when perhaps with the right intervention they may have been able to restore their relationship or marriage. Many of them had gone to seek couple counselling with various agencies but without success. I wasn’t sure what the answer was myself, because I wasn’t having as much success as I would have wished for with couples whom I saw for counselling.

Breakthrough

Alan and I went off to work at our coaching centre in Spain and during that time I offormed a view that perhaps a coaching approach was what would work best with couples. I began to have 3-4 hour Breakthrough sessions with couples  and almost immediately the outcomes were much better, and couples really enjoyed the process. The whole business was so much more positive for all of us. Increasingly I would hear people say “Why don’t they teach this in schools?”  Yeah… why don’t they? I thought.

Why don’t they teach this at school?

We all know that schools were set up to meet the needs of commerce and industry… not people. I seriously considered where DO people learn about relationships? After all we can learn to drive, ski, cook, speak different languages etc., but where do you go to learn about relationships? The obvious answer is, from their parents, but often this is not a good idea. It’s a bit like installing windows 95 on your computer and wondering why it doesn’t work very well. Likewise, even if our parents had a good relationship, we live in an entirely different world now than they did.

Fractured Families

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that prompted me to start the Relationship Academy is the fact that many adults today (my children amongst them) have grown up in single parent households and that figure is now more than 60% of children are growing up with no role model or first hand experience of an exclusive committed couple relationship. In my view this puts these children at a disadvantage as far as having a successful relationship is concerned. We know that when people feel competent they feel more confident, and when they they feel more confident they become more competent. Somehow we need to find a way to raise people’s competence in relating skills.

My Vision

I considered how these young people and future generations might be able to learn this stuff and decided that the fairly recent advances in technology is the answer… online.What I want to do is to firstly, stem the flow of family breakdown by targeting youngish parents   and secondly, to provide some psycho-education to young people through a series of short experiential webinars. I think that providing low/no cost webinars to schools to access might be a way of reaching a wider audience.

Feedback

I would very much welcome your feedback. It has been a steep learning curve for me because I had difficulty finding techies who really understood what I wanted to do so I set about learning how to set it all up myself from scratch. It is very tempting to keep re-recording my webinars as I improve how I do them but I would never be finished at that rate… so Relationship Academy will launch on 1 June 2012.

Free Webinar Series

This link will take you through to the Free webinar series;Click Here

Love well,

     Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: Divorce, family breakdown, fractured families, marriage, relationshipacademy, Relationships

If you are interested in finding out more about Relationship Mastery, sign up for my Free Ebook NOW!

grace@relationshipacademy.co.uk

written by Grace \\ tags: Divorce, love, marriage, Relationships; Dating

Christmas is a time for love, romance, mistletoe and happy families, right? Wrong!

For many couples and  families out there, it will be the last year they will all be together for Christmas and many of them don’t know it yet.

Solicitors know they will have their usual rush of divorce applications  in January, their  busiest time of the year.

The sad thing is that many of these marriages and relationships could have been saved if only people knew and understood about how relationships grow and develop. It is this lack of knowledge that leads to many divorces and family breakdown, not as many believe that marriage is a bad thing.

Pot-bound Relationships

You can see from the plant here that its growth is stunted as  clearly it has outgrown its current pot  and needs to be re-potted into a bigger one. Just because it is pot-bound doesn’t mean it needs to be chucked away!

Relationships are like that!

When couples start to bicker and the relationship becomes strained, it is often a sign that the relationship is ready to move into another stage rather than that it is over. Unfortunately most couples don’t know this and they misread the signs, often with disastrous results for the family.

Here is a great little video which shows how opportunities and growth points can be missed.

I shall be launching The Relationship Academy in the new year to teach lessons which weren’t taught at school.

Please Like my new page on Facebook to help me get started with spreading the word  http://on.fb.me/uZwgvz

Many thanks,

Grace

written by Grace \\ tags: relationships; love; marriage; divorce;family breakdown

By Grace Chatting

When relationships and marriages break down, it is acrimony between parents which is the most damaging aspect of the separation or divorce for children. Everything should be done for parents to go beyond being ex spouses to becoming co-parents.

Children’s Divided Loyalties

I see many separated and divorced couples whose conflict continues through the contact arrangements for the children. There are a number of factors which contribute to this; one is that children generally love and feel loyal to both their parents and want to keep their approval, consequently they often tell each parent what they think that parent wants to hear.

Of course the problem with this is that often what the child has told each party is not only different but is conflicting, and each parent thinks they know for sure what the child’s wishes are.

It is a wise parent who understands that children can and often do have mixed feelings makes allowances for the kind of misunderstandings that can arise from that.

Different Parenting Styles

Another source of conflict is when parents can’t accept that it is okay for them to have different parenting styles. Of course it makes life easier all round if they have the same general approach and values, but often part of the reason for them separating in the first place is their different approaches to life which have emerged.

It is helpful if they do not take up a stance of seeing their way as THE way, and the other parents way as wrong. I have seen many parents unwittingly create a lot of conflict by trying to impose their ways on their separated spouse.

A word of caution: although it doesn’t make either party right or wrong if parents have different approaches to parenting, it really does make a difference to the child if there is some degree of consistency in terms of bedtimes and  TV use etc., to avoid getting into a “good parent/bad parent” game, which certainly is not good for anyone.

Co-Parenting Phone Call

Another thing which is not helpful is when parents make arrangements via the children, or during handover at the end of a contact visit. These times are often tense and likely to result in misunderstandings. Also it is better not to hold discussions in front of the children because this can often be tense for them.

A weekly phone call with the following agenda is helpful not only for avoiding oversights in information sharing, but it also helps the non resident parent keep in touch with what is happening in the child’s life.

Agenda

• The Good Stuff: things you are pleased and positive about
• Medical Issues or Concerns
• School Related Issues: performance, behaviour, homework, concerts, meetings etc.
• Activities: hobbies, groups, sports etc.
• Caretaking: decisions around things like sleeping, eating, computer use, grounding, privileges etc.
• Behaviour: concerns at home or in school, discipline, how you handle/manage this..
• Scheduling: Diary dates for social events, planned trips or holidays, visits from relatives etc.
• Day and time of next call

If you would like further information about co-parenting email grace@gracechatting.com

written by Grace \\ tags: relationships;marriage; divorce; separation; co-parenting