The baby was crying half the night, the three year-old has decided that his older brother is a punching bag and the older brother has imposed a moratorium on speaking to either parent. This isn’t the plot of a movie; it’s the role of a lifetime. And few people survive parenthood without at least occasionally feeling that the process is turning their brains into mush.
You had a disagreement at work, people wouldn’t listen. Maybe that caused you to miss a deadline; that’s not acceptable. You feel underappreciated and overworked…but a troubled work environment may affect more than your day, more than your mood, it turns out that a bad day in the office can even affect your relationship.
Stupid, lazy, inconsiderate…we know labels like this can be hurtful and demoralizing, but can positive labels like “smart” be bad too? In a recent article in Newsweek, researchers told preteens who took a test that they did really well on the test either because they were “smart” or because they “worked very hard.” Both good, right?
Quite similar to adults, it appears.
Much of science is fairly esoteric. For example, I don’t know how many people read (or would care to read) Glycine and other neurotransmitter amino acids in cerebrospinal fluid in perinatal asphyxia and neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy[1]. In my view, the primary cause for this disconnect between science and the “real world,” contrary to popular belief, isn’t the choice of words being used (seriously, that article title is about as simple as it can get). Rather, it is because scientists are a notoriously specialized and specializing bunch.
So it’s Mother’s Day this weekend and since my last blog was about (divorced) fathers, I thought I’d take a moment to talk about mother’s relationships with her daughter(s). Do daughters and mothers describe their relationship as pleasantly interdependent and supportive or overbearing with too many phone calls? Not that I’m personalizing…really.
The finding that mature rats exposed to classical odor-shock conditioning soon learn to avoid the odor as a way of also avoiding the shock certainly qualifies for the school of the blooming obvious. What is less apparent, and in fact little known, is that rat pups show “paradoxical learning;” pups still confined to the nest show a strong odor preference in this classical training paradigm. This attraction to anything, even pain, occurs regardless of maternal presence.
It seems that celebrity fathers are all the rage in the news lately (sorry, couldn’t help it). But then I thought back to my own childhood and realized that starting around twelve years old I had some nasty fights of my own with my beloved dad- and my parents are still married. What does the research on divorced dads tell us about the circumstances and how/why they occur?
Relationships early in life can effect the emotions you experience in romantic relationship later in life. Find out more.
Of course arguing is a natural and normal component of spending a life with someone. But frequent nastiness is not. When is it too much- too often? When should you and your partner think about accessing resources? And what do other couples go to therapy for anyway (you might find you are not such a uniquely complicated and unhappy couple after all).
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Authors' (Bios)
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