by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
My practice focuses on helping separated parents protect and support their children. I notice every day what things are helpful in that regard, and what things are impediments to sustainable co-parenting.
Many separated parents are resistant to hearing this, but all the wonderful traits you saw in your ex at the beginning are probably still there. You are just seeing a different side, and of course when people are not together they are looking out for their own (and their children’s) best interests. If we were together and someone gave us $10,000, we would both be happy and discuss how we were going to use it.
When we’re separate and there’s $10,000, we each want all or most of it. Maybe it’s not because anyone is a villain; maybe it’s just circumstances have changed and each parent is human.
Sometimes I think the most important use of language is in how we say things to ourselves – our internal dialogue. If we “name” something a certain way that is likely to be the way we experience it.
One of the most unhelpful things in trying to support separated parents is when they “name” the behaviour of the other parent in a negative way. Most common examples of this are things like “they are a narcissist”; “they aren’t thinking of the children’s interests”, “they are unethical”, etc. Maybe it’s worth considering that they are just another human being, with lots of amazing qualities and lots of personal struggles, just like all of us. Maybe what they are saying isn’t coming from a place of them having some sort of “disorder” or distorted view of reality. Maybe they are doing the best they can, just like we are.
When separated parents are having a dispute, or in mediation, they will frequently argue that their proposal is “reasonable”. Of course we think our proposal is reasonable; it’s our proposal. Instead of arguing about who is or isn’t reasonable, I encourage separated parents to consider that both of you are being reasonable.
Maybe you just disagree, and since you are co-parenting, it is more important to focus on coming to some sort of resolution without naming or degrading the other person’s perspective.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
In the course of couples counselling, intimacy and sex are often issues. I’ve noticed a trend which I think of as “libido shaming”.
Our sex drive, or libido, varies depending on many factors. Our physical health, stress, aging, and many other things can all be factors.
There are two overarching factors when it comes to libido: 1) There is no “right” or “wrong” libido. If someone tells me their sex drive is really high or really low, my first question either way is whether it bothers them. This “subjective distress” test applies to almost everything; things are only a problem if we experience them as a problem, and 2) we are not responsible for anyone else’s libido. If our partner’s sex drive is high it’s not because we are attractive and if our partner’s sex drive is low it’s not because we are unattractive. Whatever it is, it is something about them.
I’ve noticed that when intimacy is an issue partners can revert to “libido shaming”. Typically, one person wants to have sex more often than their partner. Person A may libido shame by saying something like “All you ever want to do is have sex. It’s not normal” and Person B replies with their own libido shaming: “You never want to have sex. It’s not normal”.
The reality is that while there are statistical norms for sex drive, there are also statistical norms for what percent of the population like broccoli. These “stats” are irrelevant to an individual’s libido, or their taste for broccoli. Interestingly, we would not think to shame someone by saying “Everyone else likes broccoli, what’s wrong with you?” but we do this about sex/intimacy.
Couples sometimes don’t want to face this, but most likely there is nothing “wrong” with anyone and we can just fast forward to this: Person A wants to have sex often and Person B doesn’t. Both of these libidos are fine (and “perfect” for the person, as long as they are happy with it) but it presents a relationship challenge. There are many creative solutions, or it could be a deal breaker, but let’s move away from shaming anyone for how they feel.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
Last year I had the awesome experience of visiting some places from ancient Greek history (places like Troy and Rhodes). The accompanying talks were fascinating and I learned a lot about the history.
In one such talk the guide was telling details of a famous battle, including well known characters, real and mythological, who participated, what kind of weapons and armour they used, what helmets they wore, etc. He spoke for about 20 minutes and asked for questions and someone asked “who won the battle?”. He hesitated and then said he honestly didn’t know.
Thousands of human beings were killed and injured, and what for? History does not even record who “won”.
I was watching a You Tube video of German prisoners of war following World War II. I was looking into the faces of the captured soldiers. Many of them were just teenagers but they all had one thing in common: someone told them to go try to kill people who were strangers to them, and they obeyed. When people are hired by organized crime to do this sort of thing, we call them criminals. When people are hired by the government to do this sort of thing, we call them heroes.
In 2025 we still solve problems the same way we did in 2025 BC. We can ask Putin, or we can ask Israel. Can this ever change?
I believe it can, and I believe it can start with parenting. Maybe if we rethink who we represent to our children as “heroes”, and how we talk with them about history, they may start questioning the messages they get from the world. If changes occur in the hearts and minds of young people, on a large enough scale, the world can change.
Maybe by 4025 people won’t believe that human beings ever tried to resolve conflict by killing each other.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
When someone tells us we are being over sensitive, or that we are “overreacting”, who are they comparing us to? Some idea of how most people would react? How do they know, and what difference does it make? All that matters is how WE are reacting, and I would suggest that our feelings about things are perfect, simply because they are incomparable.
When someone tells you that your feelings are somehow “wrong”, it’s a big red flag. They want you to feel the way they wish you felt, or the way that is more comfortable for them, instead of dealing with the actual truth. It’s like someone telling you that you’re too hot or too cold, or that your favourite number is wrong. How do they know??
The truth is that your feelings are perfect…for you. If I am in a group of people and something happens, and someone asks “I wonder how Bob would or should react to that” all they need to do is see how I AM reacting and they have their answer.
You are the only being on this planet who experiences the world in the unique way that you experience it. Sometimes it might be how “most people” experience it, and sometimes you might be the only person on the planet who experiences it a certain way. We can make a rule to not let anyone judge our feelings, but the toughest critic is always us.
Traditional parenting tells us how we should and shouldn’t feel all the time (eg -“be nice”, “don’t be angry”, “go hug your Uncle Fred”) so of course we internalize this and judge ourselves. It’s exciting to give ourselves the unconditional love and acceptance we might not have gotten as children, and celebrate however we feel.
by The Parenting Centre | Oct 8, 2025 | General
In the Austin Powers movies, Dr. Evil would frequently get exasperated with his long lost son, Scott, because Scott failed to grasp the concept of “evil”. Dr. Evil would often say to Scott “you just don’t get it, do you?”
I have had the amazing opportunity to tour The Kimberley this week and be exposed to, among other spectacular things, Indigenous rock art paintings that go back 15,000 years and more.
I first came to Australia in 2002 and moved here 6 years later, so I am a relative newcomer. My general perspective is that, as a white person, I cannot completely understand the indigenous perspective. I do have the sense it is totally different to my “Euro” world view, and I respect and honour that reality.
We viewed some Gwion Gwion rock art the other day and I attended a lecture about the art. European anthropologists have divided the Gwion Gwion paintings into “categories”. When I heard this I kept thinking about Dr. Evil and wanted to say to white Europeans (of which, I accept, I am one): “you just don’t get it”.
As Euros always do, they/we have tried to reduce an ancient, organic and essentially unknowable culture into neat boxes. This “reductionist thinking” SO permeates European academic and professional thought. It is seen so clearly today in the “mental illness’ cottage industry, where we try to take something that is essentially unknowable (the human experience) and reduce it into categories and labels.
A way of experiencing life and connecting to country cannot be put into words, and certainly not into categories. And the effort to do so reflects a culture (European culture) that never seems to grasp that you cannot use a biased and narrow lens to understand something that is so fundamentally different. Once again in the analysis of the rock art, we see that “they just don’t get it”.
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