Patrick Ward, PhD » women

Communication: Can you Hear me Now?

Patrick Ward — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:33:39 +0000

There’s no doubt that communication is essential yet very complex. I work with a lot of couples in my private practice. During the initial visit, someone will predictably say that communication is their biggest problem. Can you guess which person says this the most? You guessed it, the woman. It has been observed that women want to talk about the relationship regularly to prevent any big problems, but men believe talking about the marriage all the time means there is a big problem! According to marriage experts Pat Love and Steven Stosny, this gender difference in desire to talk is due to women’s fear and anxiety about the relationship and men’s sensitivity to shame and failure. This shows how our own perspectives act as “filters” to any communication we receive. These filters we have often foul up the messages others are trying to send us. The result is misunderstanding, which can lead to a whole cartload of conflict. Continue

Women’s Health: What Social Science Research Tells Us

Patrick Ward — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:15:11 +0000

This month’s focus on women’s health provides an opportunity to share some valuable information regarding family dynamics. Recent research has taken a serious look at the effects of marriage and family life on women’s well-being. Much of the research in the social sciences suggests that marriage is beneficial to women’s health. For the women who are reading this article: Before you start laughing at that last statement please understand that these studies are based on huge amounts of data from surveys of thousands of people. The findings are based on averages, and comparisons of married women to those who are divorced, cohabiting, or single. Marriage and family life has its trials for sure, but compared to women who are divorced, cohabiting, or single, married life appears to be beneficial for most women. Continue

The Challenge of Raising Girls

Patrick Ward — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:57:19 +0000

Last month I covered some of the challenges that are unique to raising boys. This time, we’ll look at issues and difficulties that occur in the raising of girls. From birth, differences can be observed in males and females. I dismissed these differences as rigidly socialized stereotypes until we had a girl and a boy. For instance, we limited violent media but even as a toddler our son turned twigs and pretzel sticks into guns and swords. From the time our daughter could grasp, she would reach for dolls. I’ve heard that studies of babies show marked differences between girls and boys. When surrounded with human faces, girl babies will look longer and more intently at the faces. Boy babies are more likely to scan the faces and then get distracted by the ceiling fan and watch it for a while instead. Continue