Becoming a Parent-in-law - a life transition
By Dan and Mari Greenwood
Building New Relationships and Continuing with Old Ones
Our friendships with sons and daughters usually matter very much to us. We do well to review how we may continue with these friendships and offer friendship to their spouses. Their spouses may be people we have had little time to get to know, and we may or may not know our own offspring well. However, people change and ‘grow’ year by year so there is a constant process of ‘getting to know’ everyone in families.
POINT TO PONDER
Here are some of the ways we get to know one another:
- Spending time together
- Listening to what is said and responding
- Observing body-language and responding when appropriate
- Working together at tasks
- Playing together
- Outings
- Letters, phone calls, or e-mails
Which ways suit you and your family best?
Which suit your son-in-law or daughter-in-law?
POINT TO PONDER - Choose to give time
Relationships take time, and we can choose what we spend our time on. A novel takes several hours to read, and you get to know the characters. A TV ‘soap’ takes thirty minutes. Some people know their favourite ‘soap’ family better than they know their own family.
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Blocks to getting to know people
- uncertainty about how to ‘connect’
- of opportunity ....due to location, the presence of other people or lack of time
- lack of interest, or over-interest
- failing to find anything ‘in common’ perhaps due to very different interests, lifestyle, values
- fear of intruding
- insensitivity
- talking, but not listening
- no recent ‘updates’
- poor self-image, shyness
- masks (there is the ‘me’ I know, the ‘me’ I want you to know, the ‘me’ I want other people to know)
- fatigue or depression
‘Stop, look, listen’ gets children across roads safely.
‘Stop, look, listen’ is also a great formula for good relationships.
Stopping is so that you can give a person your full attention.
Looking is about noticing how the conversation is affecting them.
Listening is essential for effective caring, loving and understanding.
Loving involves hearing and responding with actions or words. |
POINT TO PONDER - Good listeners get to know people better
Listeners will know others better...
perhaps...if the others talk freely and honestly.
Non-listeners may be better known, perhaps even better understood. They appear to live exciting lives, simply because they talk so much.
Balance in conversation is important, but difficult to achieve.
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