Headspace

So…the entry for ’procrastination’ on the Oxford Online Dictionary reads: ”

noun

[mass noun]

• the action of delaying or postponing something:your first tip is to avoid procrastination “

Yes, I am guilty of procrastinating, that heady mix of psychologist and blogger is sometimes too much for me to handle and I retreat into a fantasy world also known as ‘if I don’t think about it it’s not there/happening/impending.

My apologies for the lack of posts, and as a grand gesture, I present to you a new guest/mystery blogger, simply known as MK. MK is a pretty skilled writer and often writes from the heart. MK’s first entry into the OneHeadspace bloggospere highlights a concerning issue in South Africa- the early parole of convicted gangster, Rashied Staggie.:

-A Giant Leap for Staggie-

It’s not that I don’t believe people have the capacity to dramatically change their character. To truly give up what makes them feared and powerful in exchange for freedom. It’s not even that I don’t believe a man who orders the rape of a 17-year old girl deserves to be forgiven. What chills me is the curdling fear faced by a community that has not yet recovered from Rashied Staggie’s actions 10 years ago. A community feeling naked against a man who is the monster under the bed for grown men.

Let us all hope that Staggie is in fact the changed, peace-seeking man that the Breede River parole board believes he is. Let’s hope the Hard Living’s gang is not waiting for him to lead them to greater glory. Let’s pray that the escalated violence in the Cape Flats is not in reaction to
Staggies’ coming parole. Let’s hope the Communities’ extremely heightened levels of fear are unwarranted.

As a woman, the early release of a man powerful and evil enough to order an act of gang rape in retaliation and as a warning gives me nightmares. As a member of society, I am angry that he was able to preach peace again and be forgiven for such an atrocious act. After his brother’s death in 1996, Rashied Staggie toured schools advocating anti-gang and anti-drug messages to children and claimed that rape was ‘the lowest thing’. In 2004, he was convicted of several crimes including ordering the violent gang rape of a 17-year old Chantelle Knight.

To Chantelle Knight, the courageous young woman who stood up to the monsters that brutalised her, became a state witness and put Staggie behind bars for a decade – to Chantelle Knight who was shot five times in August this year – thank you for making South Africa safer for others. If you are in witness protection – stay safe. If you did not survive the shooting, we will remember what you did for justice.

To Rashied Staggie – I hope you truly have changed your ways and can be judged by history as a man who used his past to save the futures of young people on the Cape Flats. Mr Staggie, I hope you’re not thinking: Now I can go back to being ruthless again.

I stumbled across Nathan Ripperger’s posters featuring some classic quips he’s found himself saying to his kids, let’s just say I laughed out loud for long enough to get stares from my fellow internet café patrons (the fact that I spluttered coffee all over myself doing so may have had something to do with it too)

What I loved most about his posters was the fact that here was a father who saw the beauty in what can often be tedious and taxing times in parenting.   It also reminded me of how humour can be used to transform the seemingly mundane into the extraordinary. The following post provides some helpful tips on how fathers can be more present in their children’s lives.

The emphasis on the role of fathers in parenthood has had a
few waves. In the olden days, dad was the boss and primary bread-winner, the
family decision-maker and the one who wore the pants in the relationship. In the
70’s fatherhood took a backseat to the mother-child attachment, with
psychologists playing a guilty part in emphasising the mother-child
relationship over the father-child relationship. The role of fatherhood is once
again in the forefront of research and media interest.

What’s Research Got To Do With It?

Research has found that children with involved
fathers/father-figures are more likely to be emotionally secure and confident
with better social connections and better educational outcomes. Girl children
are more likely to have better opinions of men, and are more likely to achieve
cognitive and academic achievement.

The emphasis is of this article is on the involvement of fathers in their
children’s and family’s lives. This does not exclude fathers who are already
present in their family! Ask the questions: how involved am I in my child’s
life? Do I spend quality time with my children? Do I enjoy being with my child?
Am I being a good role model to them?

Tips for fathers:

1. Let your children know that you enjoy being
   their father. Fatherhood comes with a lot of responsibility, but also a whole
   lot of fun!
2. Spend enough time with and take responsibility
   for your children
3. The way you treat the child’s mother/mother-figure/other
   parent is a key aspect. Show that you support and respect your children’s
   mother (if your relationship with the mother is a difficult one, at least make
   the effort to be civil towards her- do not bad-mouth her in front of the kids)
4. As a role model, live by your word and by your
   example, that it is ok to mistakes-can you learn anything from it? It is
   important to be able to show your children how to decide between what is right
   and what is wrong
5. Show your children affection, demonstrate your
   love for them
6. Be careful to not place unreasonable
   expectations on your children, instead help them achieve realistic and
   achievable goals
7. Take an interest in your child from a young age
8. Play with your kids
9. Protect them (financial security, physical security, etc)
10. Help with the ‘mom-stuff’, help change their
    nappies, help put them to bed (this gives you more time with your children and
    you help the mother)
11. Teach them about how to be responsible with
    money
12. Set firm boundaries with them. Discipline is
    still important to uphold, be careful to not over-indulge your child
13. Have a sense of humour (I highly recommend
    reading Ripperger’s series)

Families do not all look the same, so it is important to adapt some of the above points to suit yours, regardless of whether you are a married/unmarried couple, a single parent, gay/lesbian/hetero, grandparents raising children, etc.

The more the role of fathers is validated the more conscious fathers will be of their value, which will ultimately lead to a greater desire to be involved parents.

Happy New Year everyone, it’s great to be back post-failed-apocalypse! No doubt 2013 will present us with new opportunities, adventures, challenges, milestones, heartbreaks, and laugh-out-loud moments.

I hope to post more regularly this year and want to thank my
readers for all the great words of encouragement. Watch this space…

A wind of change is a blowin’!

I’m excited to announce that the website will be getting a make-over in the not-so-distant future, while the content will remain the same (hopefully with more posts!) there will be changes that make it more user-friendly and will incorporate my new logo that I’ve already started using.

Your helpful comments and suggestions will be welcome and appreciated as usual!

I was recently interviewed by freelance journalist, Bronwyn Katzke, for a local magazine (I’ll include the magazine name later once the article is published) on what it is to be a woman. The interview appears below, hope you find it useful. What are some of your conceptions of what it is to be a woman? Or a man for that matter?

1.       What is the difference between gender
identity and sexuality?

It is the difference between socialisation
and biology. Or culture and DNA, our sex is determined by examining our
chromosomes, interior and exterior sex organs, and secondary sex
characteristics. All societies recognise a distinction between male and female
based on some of these features, the definition of male and female (or
masculine and feminine) or some other gender, varies considerably from one
society to another. The term ‘Gender’ means the culturally-based meanings that
define sex-based identities.

So gender identity is a person’s sense of
being a female or male and sexuality is determined by one’s anatomy,
physiology, psychology, etc and includes a person’s perception of being female
or male and thoughts/behaviours and feelings associated with sexual
gratification.

2.       What determines or influences one’s
gender identity? Is it as simple as how we are raised, or does the development
of a person’s gender identity go much deeper than that?

In most people gender identity develops in
early childhood and usually (but not
always) corresponds with a person’s biological sex. It develops from
numerous prompts or signals from our parents or primary care-givers and the
culture at large (which are in themselves reactions to the baby’s genatalia-
e.g. the feminisation of the colour pink).

I do not think it is 100% cultural
influence or upbringing, though. And the experience of many transsexual people
is evidence of this. Sometimes people have an unrelenting desire/insistence to be of the other sex (that is not based on a whim, but an ingrained sense of self) and have great discomfort with one’s assigned sex or gender role.

3.       We all know the physical aspects that
differentiate man from woman, but what are the most prominent psychological
differences between the sexes? and 4. What qualities
or thought-process would you say make a woman’s mind unique?

Many
books have been written based on the psychological differences between men and
women, for example ‘Men are from Mars,
Women are from Venus’

Sometimes it is dangerous to assume that
there are set psychological or behavioural differences between men and women,
because it becomes limiting for the individuals who break those ‘rules’. Some
psychological ‘differences’ between women and men are influenced by the organic
make-up of the brain, by environmental factors, by personal experiences. So for
example, it is said that the communication centre in a woman’s brain is larger
than a man’s, thus women are better at verbal fluency than men, women are more
sensitive to the nuances of reading between the lines, etc. This is then linked
to the way women and men problem solve differently. Men often prefer to work
things out on their own, in their own heads, whereas women find it more
beneficial to talk things out with others. Another area where difference is
identified is around aggression, men are seen to be more aggressive than women.

5.       Do you think that with the way society
is changing and with the emphasis on gender equality that there is almost a
switch in gender roles? For example, men are being more emotionally expressive
and women are being more assertive. What are your opinions on this?

Not so much a switch in gender roles as a greater allowance for gender
roles to be broken or expanded on. What I mean is, for example, women don’t
have a monopoly on nurturance. Why should it be considered out of the norm for
a man to be more of a nurturer than a woman? Take for example what more and
more couples face in today’s society, in a heterosexual relationship the woman
being the primary breadwinner and the man having more time to raise the
children. While it is still considered unusual by many people, it is becoming
increasingly commonplace and acceptable than it would have been 100 years ago.

6.       From the psychological perspective, what
do you think makes a woman, a woman?

What
makes a Woman a woman? The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedman
written in the 1960’s (granted, it was specifically aimed at American women,
but I think just as relevant today in other contexts).  It speaks of how women faced (and still do) a
crisis of identity, that they are bombarded with images of women from the media
used to sell countless products, washing machines, cake mixes, deodorants,
detergents, face creams, etc. But the power of those images is based on the
fact that women are unsure of who they are.  So with all these options being produced for
women, how does one embrace ‘woman-hood’? What makes a woman a woman? A number
of things, but most importantly I think it is how a woman makes sense of being
a woman herself, whether it is in
line with her cultural surroundings and familial beliefs, or if it goes against
and challenges those.  It is how she finds
meaning in the clothes she wears, the make-up she puts on, the fact that she
gets her period once a month, her role as a partner/ mother/daughter, her power
as a citizen. It can encompass but not be limited by or to dress, role in a
family/community, her biology, etc.

I just wanted to add a quick thank you to those of you who took the time to comment on some of my posts. Sometimes it’s the simple things that make the most impact. You’ve inspired me!

Thanks

Hazel

Title: The Key to a Loving and
Lasting Relationship by Dr. Sonja Snyman

Author: Dr. Sonja Snyman

Date of Publication: 2012

Publisher: Thomas Stein
Publishing

As the title suggests, this book looks at how healthy long-term relationships become so, and how they differ from relationships that are unhealthy or toxic. It highlights some of the problems that exist in many relationships today, and identifies patterns that emerge within them.

Some of the topics that are dealt with include: how relationship expectations change with time, i.e. that what we want from a relationship in our 20’s and 30’s generally differ from what we anticipate in our 40’s and 50’s; that some relationships can survive infidelity; the importance of identifying our fighting styles within our relationship; the nature of boundaries in our relationship and looking at the three levels of a relationship (content, dynamic and foundation)

The book is divided into two parts: the first looks at the nature of long-term elationships. It addresses some of the myths that have been created about what a ‘perfect’ relationship should be or look like, for example the ‘happily-ever-after‘ myth as well as some of the varying dynamics that emerge in many relationships. It also
explores couple’s fighting dynamics, which may surprise people as they may
pinpoint their own fighting styles against the ones described in the book.

Concepts are discussed from various perspectives, including anecdotal stories from the author’s professional and theoretical experiences. The author addresses relationship issues in an authentic way, never veering too far from the precept that if you want a successful relationship, it does take two to tango and that we must take ownership.

This book is suitable for both psychological professionals, as well as the general public. Its concise discussions of theories and practises allow for the book to be accessible to the reader.  The lay-out of the book is also user-friendly, with short chapter that are clearly demarcated and helpful case vignettes from the author’s own practice, it is easily digestible and practical.

It also comes at the very nice price of R150 (Exclusive Books, South Africa)