Trading Places Blog Book tour

Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are founders of www.RealRelationships.com and the Center for Relationship Development at Seattle Pacific University. Their bestselling books include Love Talk, Your Time Starved Marriage, and the award-winning Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. Their work has been featured in the New York Times and USA Today and they have appeared on CNN, Good Morning America, and Oprah.

Q1. In your book Trading Places, you mention that one way to gain a greater empathy toward your partner is to learn more about their family of origin and understand better why they are who they are. Not all couples will have access to 3 days worth of home videos to go through (as did the lucky fellow discussed in your book!). In what other ways would you suggest a couple addresses each other’s upbringing as a way to develop a deeper level of mutual empathy?

A1. Sure. This is a process, rather than an event. It takes place through a variety of means. Leslie and I dated for seven years before we got married and we’ve been married 24 years (as of this June) – and we’re still learning about each other’s families and how they shaped who we are.
Here are some ideas on how you can explore your partner’s early years.

One of the most obvious ways is to simply ask about it. We’re always amazed when we are eating at a coffee shop of something and see a couple at another table sitting through their entire meal in silence. It’s almost as if they’ve run out of things to talk about. Don’t let this happen to you. When you have those moments of down time in the car or over a meal and you don’t know what to talk about, make it a point to ask your spouse about his or her childhood. For example, you can ask:

· What was the best gift you ever received as a child and why?

· What was your proudest moment during your gradeschool years?

· What was your favorite thing to do with your mom? Your dad?

· When did you feel most insecure as a child and why?

· What was a typical Saturday like for you when you were in the fourth grade?

· How do you think your birth order in your family shaped who you are today?

· If you could change one thing about your childhood what would it be and why?

· Did you ever feel really betrayed by someone as a kid growing up? What happened?

These are just a few of the kinds of question you can think of on your own to drill down on your spouse’s early years. In addition, take out some of his or her childhood photos. Look at them with your spouse and ask him or her to describe when it was taken and what was going on and how he or she felt at that time.

We’ve also known couples who have learned tons about each other by visiting the old homes and neighborhoods and schools where each of them grew up. In fact, we’ve done this ourselves and it was a real eye opener. You can’t help but to say things like, “Oh, I hadn’t remembered this until just now, but I was standing right here when …”

Still, the quickest and easiest way to explore each other’s family of origin – with an eye on Trading Places – is to simply ask each other creative questions about those early years.

Q2. What role do you see TV and other media playing in society’s current empathetic state (or lack thereof)? We are interested in your opinion regarding both what is on TV (and other media) and the preoccupation with watching TV.

You know, research actually shows that some people can’t help but empathize with the people they are watching in a TV or film, whether it be a fictional character or a real person. Others watch a program with more objectivity. Either way, we are all learning lessons about relationships from the news stories we see on TV, the sitcoms we watch, and the films we see – for better or worse.

The other night we were watching a portion of the fascinating historical series on John Adams. We loved seeing the relationship he had with his wife Abigail. We loved imagining what we would have been like if we’d been living during that time period, struggling with so many things we take for granted in this age. A program like this can be a great catalyst for empathy when you explore how your spouse would be in a similar setting or time period.

Of course, like most of the country, we are hooked on American Idol. We don’t see every episode, but we see enough to cringe when Simon can’t seem to bite his tongue and blurts out his critique. No matter how right he might be, he rarely says it with much empathy. Of course, Paula can barely utter a sentence without a heavy dose of sympathy, if not empathy – and that doesn’t make for nearly as good television, we must admit, as wondering what Simon will say next.

The bottom line on TV and empathy is that it can be a terrific catalyst for conversation – if a couple takes the time to debrief and process what they’ve viewed together. Be it a good example on the screen or not, a follow up conversation that explores both spouse’s experience of the show is valuable; and can often be a portal to greater empathy for each other.

Q3. Since reading Trading Places, we have not only been consciously practicing more empathy in our marriage, but also practicing more empathy with our children. What are the benefits of overtly teaching empathy to children for their relationships and for society?

What a great benefit for the entire family! This is one of the most important qualities we can model for our kids. As parents of two young boys, ages 5 and 10, we are intentional about not only trying to empathize with them – being their parents – but we work hard to help them empathize with us and with each other. Empathy is at the heart of every healthy family and it doesn’t happen without great intentional efforts from mom and dad.

So we commend you! You have no idea how many ridiculous conflicts can be avoided by seeing the issue from your child’s point of view – and vice versa. In fact, while writing Trading Places, we wondered whether we should write another book called Trading Places With Your Kids. Imagine how this practice would smooth out so many of the wrinkles of adolescence! Maybe, as our kids get older, we just might write it.

We at CouplesQuestions hope you do! Thanks very much for answering our questions so well.

For a peek inside the book go to the Zondervan (the publisher) website. Look for our full book review in this space soon or check out our e-zine article.

The next stop on the blog book tour is A Marriage Therapist's Blog. For a full list of the blogs participating in this tour, follow the link.

Happy Couples, Happy Planet!

Labels: love, marriage, recommended, relationships

posted by Heather and Dan @ 7:24 AM