I set a personal goal for myself of entering and completing a 5K walk (notice I said WALK, not RACE) by the end of the year. This is after I met my personal challenge of 10 minutes on the cross trainer and ½ mile on the treadmill, which was a huge accomplishment (if you are a true athlete this may sound really like a small goal, but believe me it was huge for me.) I hope you are proud as I am!! This was a huge thing for me! I got out from behind my desk and got MOVING! My official advice to you if you are a client or thinking about being a client is -JUST DO IT. This is my soapbox, or one of them.
Alzheimer’s Memory Walk Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 8:00 a.m. :
I decided to do the Alzheimer's Memory Walk, this weekend.
My mom has dementia. Mostly she knows who we are although she gets our names mixed up. She can still read. For a long time she could hardly talk but now she seems chatty and conversational, in a disjointed kind of way, since her meds were changed from Namenda to Aricept. Why, of course, the physicians don't know.
I love my mother so much, I am going to call her up and tell her what I am doing this Saturday. I hope she can understand me – probably not. But that is ok, she knows I love her and am thinking about her every day.
The folks at the Alzheimer's association are really great with me when I asked them about it, and it is something that is really important, so I am going to show up at La Grave baseball field, where the CATS play baseball in Fort Worth, to register at 8 a.m. this Saturday, October 17.
If you would care to join me, come at 8 a.m. to La Grave field to sign up! There is no registration fee but contributions are welcome. It is in Fort Worth on North Main in La Grave field, where the Fort Worth CATS play ball. You simply drive north on North Main Street and turn right on 6th at the entrance to the ball park. There will be plenty of signs. If you run out of gas, I am assured they have golf carts to bring you back to your car, so it is the perfect place to get started exercising with some wonderful people and have some fun.
For information call: Kelli at 817-336-4949, or send an email to wendy.rebecek@alz.org.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
When bad things happen to good fathers
Fathers:
Bad things can happen to good fathers – and their children
Fathers are in a particularly vulnerable position in Texas. I have seen cases where a father has been diligently going to work every day, largely unaware and oblivious of the fact that his wife is slowly turning the children away from him and poisoning their minds towards their father. For years it may look to the father like a surly insubordinate child with bad manners, who openly defies the fathers wishes and ignores or disrespects the father in his attempts to influence and guide the child. The father may feel more and more isolated from the little group that stays at home together – Mom and the kids against Dad. Almost as if Mom were one of the kids, acting as “the big kid who stands up to the bully.” If this situation develops, it is important to intervene as early as possible to get good couples therapy and counseling. Family counseling and a good parenting course can really make a difference in this kind of situation.
If your family life at home is based on a strict code of conduct and rules, and is marked by rigidity and a cold environment, you may have unknowingly entered into the cold waters of parental alienation.
If this family dynamic goes unchecked, (as it sometimes goes unrecognized for years,) it can reach the point where the children do not want to be alone with the father, will not respond to his calls and letters, and even report incidents of physical or sexual abuse that are fabrications. In an extreme case, we have seen two situations in which a teen age child reported facts that were plainly impossible – in one, that the father had planted a camera in an air conditioning duct to observe the child’s private time in his bedroom. It turned out there was no evidence of such a camera or recording device, but the child continued to insist on it and believe it to be true!
This is a very strange situation when it happens and it takes a lot of diligence and persistence and the help of experts such as a forensic psychologist to sort out the truth from the drama that the wife and the children are spinning on the subject. It can lead to a very traumatic and unpleasant divorce, with long-lasting repercussions for the children’s relationship to their father in years to come. As always, the protection of the child and the best interest of the child continue to be the most important thing that we emphasize with our clients in working through the painful process of separating the drama from the facts.
In my next blog I will write more about the use of expert witnesses to help define and identify the situation for you and assist in developing a case for you, if you are the father in a situation of parental alienation. If you believe this may be happening in your home, contact my office directly at 817-335-2037, to set up a consultation. I can give you some guidance about contacting a family therapist or psychologist to begin the long process of building support for you in this trying time.
Bad things can happen to good fathers – and their children
Fathers are in a particularly vulnerable position in Texas. I have seen cases where a father has been diligently going to work every day, largely unaware and oblivious of the fact that his wife is slowly turning the children away from him and poisoning their minds towards their father. For years it may look to the father like a surly insubordinate child with bad manners, who openly defies the fathers wishes and ignores or disrespects the father in his attempts to influence and guide the child. The father may feel more and more isolated from the little group that stays at home together – Mom and the kids against Dad. Almost as if Mom were one of the kids, acting as “the big kid who stands up to the bully.” If this situation develops, it is important to intervene as early as possible to get good couples therapy and counseling. Family counseling and a good parenting course can really make a difference in this kind of situation.
If your family life at home is based on a strict code of conduct and rules, and is marked by rigidity and a cold environment, you may have unknowingly entered into the cold waters of parental alienation.
If this family dynamic goes unchecked, (as it sometimes goes unrecognized for years,) it can reach the point where the children do not want to be alone with the father, will not respond to his calls and letters, and even report incidents of physical or sexual abuse that are fabrications. In an extreme case, we have seen two situations in which a teen age child reported facts that were plainly impossible – in one, that the father had planted a camera in an air conditioning duct to observe the child’s private time in his bedroom. It turned out there was no evidence of such a camera or recording device, but the child continued to insist on it and believe it to be true!
This is a very strange situation when it happens and it takes a lot of diligence and persistence and the help of experts such as a forensic psychologist to sort out the truth from the drama that the wife and the children are spinning on the subject. It can lead to a very traumatic and unpleasant divorce, with long-lasting repercussions for the children’s relationship to their father in years to come. As always, the protection of the child and the best interest of the child continue to be the most important thing that we emphasize with our clients in working through the painful process of separating the drama from the facts.
In my next blog I will write more about the use of expert witnesses to help define and identify the situation for you and assist in developing a case for you, if you are the father in a situation of parental alienation. If you believe this may be happening in your home, contact my office directly at 817-335-2037, to set up a consultation. I can give you some guidance about contacting a family therapist or psychologist to begin the long process of building support for you in this trying time.
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