Differences Between Boys and Girls When Sharing Highs and Lows

According to Dr. Louann Brizendine in The Female Brain, little girls are born with 11 percent more brain tissue that is dedicated to speaking and listening than little boys. Little boys are born with two and a half times more brain tissue dedicated to sex drive, plus larger areas of the brain are connected to action and aggression. That’s one more reason for a pillow fight before you try to talk! If you don’t turn part of your learning process into action up front, your boys will turn it into aggression later on. Take your pick.

The Bad News
According to Dr. Brizendine, the average female speaks approximately 20,000 words each day. In a 16-hour waking day, that equals about 10 minutes per hour. The average male speaks about three and a half minutes per hour, or just 7,000 words in a day. This news is neither good nor bad; it’s just the way it is. Expect your son to share—just don’t expect him to share as much.

Most nights in the Melheim home, Kathryn Elizabeth would share her highs and lows for 5-10  minutes once we got her started. Joseph Martin would generally “get it over with” in three seconds using three or four syllables: “school sucks” and “almost Friday.” According to the Woman’s Passion website most girls actually enjoy talking more than most boys. It’s a matter of chemistry.  The simple speech act causes emission of hormones in a woman’s brain, giving her the same sensations which a drug addict feels after he receives a long-awaited dose.

The female brain flushes pleasure drugs into the system during a good conversation. Not so with the male brain. Too much talking—if forced—has just the opposite effect on the male brain. Rather than producing pleasure hormones, forcing a lot of talk out of a boy who isn’t in the mood actually produces stress hormones.

Differences between male and female brains are already formed in a mother’s womb, when testosterone kicks in and begins affecting formation of the developing male brain. As a result of this influence, zones controlling speech, emotions and memory in a man’s brain decrease. Thus, boys, and later men, speak less than women and often try to hide their emotions because they are not as in touch with them, and have a harder time trying to verbalize what they do not understand.

They don't want to look or sound stupid. Who does?

Tomorrow - the Good News when it comes to Highs and Lows for Belles and Beaus, and a look at the book "The Male Brain" by Dr. Brizendine.

Bigger than Our Biggest Problems

God is bigger

than the Boogie Man

Yes, God is Bigger Than The Boogie Man
 

Admitting lows before God and each other will show your family that God is bigger than their biggest complaints, bigger than their biggest problems, and bigger than their biggest questions. It will show your children that it is okay to verbalize what is on their hearts. It teaches them to hang on and wrestle with God and God’s people when answers aren’t apparent and pain is unrelenting.

Sharing lows in the context of your primary faith community— your family—will give your child experience in looking for and leaning toward God and God’s people, especially in the midst of problems. It teaches them how to get real, to deal and to heal. It also calls Christ into the center of the problem, discussion and solution.

As Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt. 18:20).

A Theology of Sharing Lows

The Bible calls us again and again to place our problems before one another and God for mutual care and support during hard times. The following is a week’s worth of nightly compassion Scriptures. As you read and consider this list, what jumps out?

• Weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:5).
• Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).
• And be kind to one another, tenderhearted (Eph. 4:32).
• Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others (Phil. 2:4).
• Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing (1 Thess. 5:11).
• Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28).
• Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7).

Sharing lows teaches your children that they are part of life. Sharing these lows before God and a trusted Christian family or a “family of friends” shows your children that they are never alone. Admitting disappointment, weakness, fear and anger out loud is what healthy people do. It reinforces the Church at its most elemental level.

Why not start tonight?

Stay Up and Fight

Don't go to
bed mad

Stay up and fight

"Don’t go to bed mad. Stay up and fight."

PHYLLIS DILLER

Sharing both highs and lows teaches people how to forgive. It builds empathy (em+pathos, meaning “in pain”), sympathy (sym+pathos, meaning “with pain”), compassion (com+passion, meaning “suffering along with”) and camaraderie.

It validates, affirms and strengthens the other person. It creates (commiserates) people who enter each other’s pain willingly to share it and bear it with them, rather than people who are dragged into another’s pain kicking and screaming and trying their best to get away from them. Sharing lows builds all these gifts and all that support into the core of the family ritual.

Why would you not want to give these gifts to your friends, your spouse, your child, your mom in the nursing home tonight... and every night?

Blisters and Slivers

BLISTERS &
SLIVERS

Have you ever tried to love someone who wouldn’t let you into his or her pain? Chances are you found it to be a frustrating experience. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to love others in the ways they need to be loved if they can’t be honest enough to tell you where and why it hurts.

Maybe they don’t trust you. Maybe they don’t trust themselves. Maybe they know the source of their pain and won’t say. Maybe they’ve been burned before by naming the problem and are afraid you will judge them. You won’t love them. You will leave. Or maybe they don’t even know the source of the problem themselves. Either way, a relationship gets stuck in cold, empty silence when slivers remain embedded and problems go unnamed.

Do you know someone who seems to be “fine” on the surface but often explodes? They can be going along at a steady emotional pace for a long while, and then suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, bang! They lose it. That’s the sign of someone with a deeply embedded sliver; someone who never learned how to dig it out.

Some pain is like a blister—leave it alone and it will eventually dry up and fade away. But most pain is like a sliver. It hurts to dig a sliver out, but if you don’t get it, then it’s going to get you. If you don’t get out the sliver—the whole sliver—then it will eventually infect you and affect everyone who loves you. If you are so unaware that you don’t even know there is a sliver, then it’s even worse. You may live life shaming, naming and blaming everyone else for your own problems, and you’ll probably live most of that life alone.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas

I'm all alone

in the world

Back in the days when all my family owned was a black and-white television, I remember watching Mr. Magoo play Ebenezer Scrooge in a cartoon version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Dickens described Scrooge as being “lonely as an oyster.” In one memorable scene, old Scrooge flew back to his childhood with the Ghost of Christmas Past. They peered into a one-room school where Ebenezer was surprised to spot himself sitting in a corner wearing a dunce cap, singing. I’ll never forget the scene or the song:

I'M ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD

A hand for each hand was planned for the world.
Why don’t my fingers reach?

Millions of grains of sand in the world.
Why such a lonely beach?

Where is a voice to answer mine back?
Where are two shoes that click to my clack?
I’m . . . all alone . . . in the world.

That was 50 years ago, and I still remember the tune. I also remember thinking, “No wonder he was such a Scrooge! He grew up feeling all alone in the world!”

Share both highs AND lows with those you love tonight.

Every one needs someone to listen.

The Voldemort Effect

The Voldemort Effect 

There is great power in being able to speak the name of your problems out loud. I call this the “Voldemort Effect,” after the evil being in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. No one dared speak his name aloud except Harry. 

“He who shall not be named” holds a mysterious and sinister grip on everyone—a hidden power—until the Harry Potters of the world decide, “We are not going to remain silent. We will not cower as captives to fear. We are going to name that sucker out loud. We are going to call him what he is and who he is so we can deal with the real problem, not the myth. We are going to draw him out into the open, and then kill him together or together die trying!”

A strange and wonderful thing happens the moment you dare speak the name of “he who shall not be named” aloud. A subtle but significant power transfer begins. The moment the silence is broken, the power begins to drain away from its sinister source and move in the direction of those who dare deal with it. In that moment, if spoken aloud and shared within the confidence of a loving family or a trusted family of friends, the newly transferred power begins to grow, strengthen and multiply. There, in the hands and hearts of the people who love you and want the best for you, a treasure trove of solutions, allies, creativity and untapped resources suddenly springs to the surface. The Rebel Alliance, the Elves, the Hobbits, the students of Hogwarts and the Narnians are emboldened as they suddenly see they have a chance.

Okay, too many mixed “narraphors.” You get the point. As for Lord Voldemort, let’s just say: “Leave him unnamed and he grows each day; name him aloud and he shrinks away.”

The Psychology of Sharing Lows

If you only know your child’s highs, you don’t know them. If you only know their lows, you don’t know them. And if they don’t know their highs and lows, they don’t know themselves either. Simply asking a child, “How was your day?” is rarely enough to solicit more than a vague one-syllable, “Fine.” What do you learn when they say, “Fine?” Not a lot. As positive, potent and powerful as it is to start your nightly home huddle with a high, it may be even more important to build the time, place and sacred space into your family ritual where children feel safe enough to share their lows and work them out.

What is a sacred space? It is an attitude as much as a place: a moment set aside to invite God into the heart of the matter, and the matters of the heart.

Sharing lows gives you a better understanding of yourself and others. Growing up with a forum, format and life-long experience in verbalizing one’s lows aloud within the context of a safe, loving, non-judgmental home every night gives a child a huge advantage when it comes to building capacity for mental health, emotional resilience and spiritual maturity.

The Sociology of Sharing Highs

A woman once told me in counseling, “I don’t like any of my loved ones.”

I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of joy shared between them. Sociologically, sharing joy, laughter and the positive events of the day creates new bonds and strengthens old ones.

Sharing highs enhances both energy and synergy between you and your mates. It helps shed light on the experienced joys of others, turning mates and inmates into intimates. It gives insight as it gives outsight into what other people’s highs are. It deepens understanding about what is important to them. It multiplies affirmation as it builds depth into the relationship.

Multiplying Joy

Some say joy doubles when you share it. I say joy multiplies by the number of people whom you invite in on the sharing.

Have you ever gone to a comedy movie alone? Everyone may have praised the film as hilarious, but you watched it alone and, as the credits rolled, you didn’t consider it all that funny. However, if you had been with friends, the movie may have been a totally different experience. You would have chuckled and laughed more, ribbed each other and leaned into each other’s joy. You might have enjoyed the film twice as much (or more) if only you had shared it with people you already enjoyed.

Peri+Spective

Peri+SPECTIVE

You see what you're looking for

My friend John Lace is an avid hunter and fly fisherman. I remember driving through the countryside with him years ago and hearing: “Look, there’s a pheasant. Look, there’s a bunny. Look, I bet that’s a great stream for trout.” John was able to find what he wanted to find because he had trained himself to see what he wanted to see.

If you are looking for the bad in a situation, a relationship, a job or a day, you are likely to see it. If you are looking for the good, you are likely to see that, too. Most people do.

Train your children to look for the blessings in every day. The persistent practice and pursuit of positive perspective is a marvelous gift you can give to your children, yourself and the great-grandchildren you will never meet. The power of a positive outlook will ripple out like a stone thrown into a pond to bless distant shores.

Starting a nightly check-in by sharing a positive - a "high" - reframes the entire day in a healthy and balanced way. Intentionally and consistently sharing the good first changes outlooks (how you see the world), “in-looks” (how you see yourself) and perspectives.

The word “perspective” (peri+spect) literally means to “look around.” So look around. Maybe today wasn’t all bad. Look around. Maybe there was some good after all. Look around. If nothing else, you are still alive and, for some odd reason, these people love you.

Look around.

The Psychology of Sharing Highs

Starting the night out on a high sets the stage for an overall positive experience. Sharing highs creates a feeling of wellbeing — even regarding what might have seemed to your children to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Sharing highs validates both the person and the high: “Yeah, that was pretty neat!” It models healthy communication, engenders caring, fosters acceptance and teaches appreciation.

Sharing the positive triggers even more positive. Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, believes that if you want to develop lifelong satisfaction, you need to engage regularly in positive thinking about yourself, share your happiest events with others, and savor every positive experience in your life.

Here's Sonja on Happiness. 

Coco, Honoring Your Ancestors and a Cross+Gen Immigration Discussion

After seeing Disney's Coco, I got to wondering how we might connect the church militant with the church triumphant. If we are indeed surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, how might we do the "Honor your father and mother" with the saints who have gone before us? Could we schedule some time for meaningful, mystical, beautiful connections that both honor our ancestors and teach our children/ourselves gratitude for the gifts they've given?

After seeing the immigration images and fights in the news every day this spring/summer, I got to wondering how we might connect the generations in an honest discussion about Christly values and welcoming the stranger.

Time passed and I hadn't put any more thought to it until yesterday when Billie Jo Wicks sent me a photo of her son doing FAITH5 and tracing a cross on his grandparents' grave. Then it came to me. An idea for a FAITH5 family reunion or a summer heritage "Honor your father and your mother" adventure trip:

1. Take out the family photo albums... as far back as it goes and find photos of your ancestors. Scan one or two of each of your parents/grandparents/great grandparents. (If you're planning this for summer 2018, get to all of your relatives and ask them for their photos, too.)
    
2. Create a photo book of them at Walgreens or CVS or Fedex or Walmart. (Look for coupons online and you can sometimes get 40-50% off). Place your child's photo on the last page.
    
3. Plan a trip to visit your oldest living relatives with a stop at the grave sites. Ask the elders what they remember about each of the ancestors in the book, the hardships they went through to give them a good life, what they valued most, etc. Have them write their memories by each photo in the book.
    
4. Go through the book and model FAITH5 inviting your child to lead the process with them. Ask the elders to:

SHARE a high and a low of memory about each of them, even if it's second-hand stories told about them. 

READ Psalm 145:4: "One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts." Maybe highlight it in your Bibles together with the elders, then have your child write the scripture on the first and last page of the book.

TALK about the gifts you were given by each person. Try to find something nice to say about each person - even if they served as a good bad example. Discuss the physical, emotional and spiritual gifts they gave you. If some of them were immigrants, talk about how hard it is to come to a new place, and - - - if you dare have the discussion - - - use this as an opportunity to share your views on immigration and welcoming the stranger.

PRAY with thanksgiving for the gifts these people gave to you, with forgiveness for any hurts they caused you, and with joy and hope for the gifts your child will give to the world in passing on their heritage of life, hope, and faith. 

BLESS their memory, and trace the sign of the cross on each face, thanking God for them by name.

End this with a trip to one or more of the gravesite, where you'll share, read, talk, pray, and bless again, tracing the sign of the cross on each stone or marker. Maybe video the whole conversation and the graveside blessings as you go so their memories are not lost.

If it's too late to pull this together this summer/fall, plan ahead for next year and get the whole extended family together in the process.

You'll teach gratitude, honor, reflection and joy. You'll make Cross+Generational connections. And you may even gain insight into the current events on the border and how Christians are called to be "little Christs" to a hurting, broken, and often hopeless world.