Sorry, I’ve been a little AWOL. Other kinds of work have intervened. <\/p>\n

In-laws or Outlaws?…Big Ideas for Keeping a Little Peace in the Family<\/a><\/strong> <\/em><\/em>is the name of a conference presentation I just recorded.<\/p>\n

My focus was on taking a long view and making a plan to work WITH your spouse to make decisions that enhance ALL of your family relationships. Of course I talked about starting with yourself first (when you want to make changes become a good role model and know your limitations) but “selfish v. elfish” and “me first v. we first” surprised even me! (Examples of some approaches to thinking differently and minimize arguments.)<\/p>\n

I’m one of ten presenters in these new Marriage and Family Conferences online<\/a>. Each month we address a different family-related topic. I think they’re a great (and inexpensive) way for people to get exposed to a variety of points of view and new information — from the comfort of your own computer!<\/p>\n

Conference founder Shirley Cress Dudley, a licensed professional counselor who specializes in working with blended families, is offering an early-bird discount. Those who register by Friday will get $10 off of the $39 conference price. (In the interest of full disclosure, if you sign up using this link I receive a portion of the registration fee.)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for more info — or to sign up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes we get so focused on parenting we forget about our other relationships. Marriage, friends, in-laws… anyone you love…. will benefit when you become a role model for how to make it better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[153,249,311,316,320,453,478],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-topics","tag-family-life","tag-in-laws","tag-love","tag-make-it-better","tag-marriage","tag-role-model","tag-shirley-cress-dudley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8195"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=8195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}