Naming your baby is one of the great privileges of being a parent.  But it is also a huge responsibility.

Baby name trends come and go but your baby has to live with their name across a lifetime.

Your name defines you.

So how do you choose?

Some parents honour family history, some parents look to celebrities or baby name lists, and others just go with their gut.

To help you choose your baby’s name, here are the top Australian baby names for 2009.

Top baby names - Girls

Amelia
Ava
Charlotte
Chloe
Ella
Emily
Isabella
Lily
Mia
Olivia
Ruby
Sienna
Sophie

Top boy names - Boys

Benjamin
Cooper
Ethan
Jack
James
Joshua
Lachlan
Lucas
Noah
Oliver
Riley
Thomas
William

Half Full - Science for Raising Happy Kids wrote recently about the vexed question of whether you should stay in an unhappy relationship for the sake of your kids.

As a society, we tend to believe that parents are better off if parents stay together.  That is certainly what previous generations did.

But research clearly shows that:

“It is the quality of parents’ relationships with each other, rather than whether they are married or single, that matters most for kids’ well-being.”

This highlights how a parent’s emotional wellbeing affects their kid’s wellbeing.

We all experience challenging emotions.  What’s important is how we deal with them - and how our children see that we deal with them.

Parents in conflict who have difficulty controlling their aggression or anger are most likely to be doing a disservice to their children.

Phil and Carolyn Cowan from UC Berkeley found that unresolved conflict and unhappiness in a parent’s relationship can lead to children with more aggressive behavior, more shy and withdrawn behavior, and worse social and academic skills.

Separating may therefore be the best option.

But continuing to show aggression and anger to your partner even once separated - won’t help your children either.

Parents who can find a way to respect their children’s other parent - even if they no longer love or respect the person - are doing the best by their kids.

Because whether you separate or not - unless you completely cut yourself off from your kids - you will need to communicate with your ex-partner.  And you want the relationship to be as civil and adult as possible.

I’m always saddened when people who have invested a lot of energy and emotion into a relationship separate without first trying to get some form of outside help.

Counselling may lead you back together - and in a happier place.

Or it may lead you apart - but with a resolve to work together for the good of the kids.

Either option seems better than living in an unhappy and acrimonious relationship.   Better both for you and your children.

Relationships Australia Victoria have launched a new free resource for men wanting to renovate their relationships called Renovate your relationship: A manual for men.

Full of building and project management analogies, this free book acknowledges that men, just like women:

Identify their partner as their best mate. (True for 80% of Australian Men as revealed in Men, mateship, marriage: Exploring macho myths and the way forward by Don Edgar (1997).

Want close and tender relationships with their partner.

Feel confused, hurt or betrayed when relationships do not work out.

Often do not express their emotions and sometimes their partners often fail to recognise the significant feelings that men experience.

Want closeness; to be supported, to be held.

Want a trusting, honest and loyal friend.

Want somebody to share things with; goals, hopes and values.

To achieve a better relationship, the booklet recommends 13 tools including:

Tool 2: Avoiding misunderstanding
Tool 3: Sharpening up your listening
Tool 4: Resolving conflict
Tool 8: Renovating your sex life
Tool 10: Valuing differences
Tool 13: Children - Planning for the extension

For each tool, there’s an explanation, ideas, examples and quotes from men - like this one about resolving conflict:

‘We were having the usual argument because I hadn’t cleaned up. She doesn’t realise how much I actually do. When I calmed down we were able to discuss it like two adults. I was able to admit that the point she was making was fair enough.’ Theo, 43

There are also info about where to get more help.  Because, yes, sometimes, you do need to call the plumber.

This is a good little resource.  And I hope men who need it, find it, and get building.

Renovate your relationship: A manual for men by Relationships Australia Victoria.

By Laura L.C. Johnson. First published on Positive Psychology News Daily.

In the “Love Lab,” researchers claim they can predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will thrive or fail after watching and listening to them for just five minutes.

The Love Lab is actually Dr. John Gottman’s Relationship Research Institute near the University of Washington in Seattle.

Gottman and his team have been studying how couples argue and resolve conflict and have followed hundreds of couples over time to see if their marriages last.

Using a scientific approach, they have found four negative factors that can predict divorce and seven positive principles that predict marital success.

The Four Horsemen
Gottman says he looks for certain kinds of negativity, which he calls the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” to predict a relationship’s failure:

Criticism - Global negative statements about your partner’s character or personality.

Contempt - Sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye-rolling, sneering, mockery and hostile humor can be poisonous because they convey disgust.

Defensiveness - This is a way of blaming your partner and can escalate the conflict.

Stonewalling - A partner may disengage from the relationship, signaled by looking away without saying anything and acting as though he/she doesn’t care about what the other is saying.

Repair attempts are efforts a couple makes to deescalate tension during conflict - “to put on the brakes so flooding is prevented.” The Four Horsemen alone predict divorce with 82% accuracy but when you add in the failure of repair attempts, the accuracy goes to 90+%.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Based on Gottman’s research, he has developed seven principles that help improve a marriage’s chances of success:

1. Enhance Your Love Maps
Emotionally intelligent couples are familiar with the details of each other’s world. They remember the major events in each other’s history and keep up to date as the facts and feelings of their partner’s world changes. They know each other’s goals, worries and hopes in life.

2. Nurture Your Fondness and Admiration
This is one of the most critical elements in a rewarding and long-lasting marriage. It involves feeling that your partner is still worthy of honor and respect in spite of their flaws. Gottman found that 94% of the time when couples put a positive spin on their marriage’s history, they are likely to have a happy future.

3. Turn Toward Each Other Instead of Away
When a partner makes a bid for your attention, affection, humor or support, turning toward your partner is the basis of emotional connection. The real secret is to turn to turn toward each other in little ways every day.

4. Let Your Partner Influence You
The happiest marriages were those where the husband was able to convey honor and respect for their wife and did not resist sharing power and decision making. These husbands actively search for common ground instead of insisting on getting their way. Gottman found women were more likely to let their husbands influence them by taking their opinions and feelings into account.

5. Solve Your Solvable Problems
Resolving conflict involves five steps: soften your startup, learn to make and receive repair attempts, soothe yourself and each other, compromise and be tolerant of each other’s faults. Some suggested practices include:

Complain but don’t blame.
Make statements that start with “I” instead of “You.”
Describe what is happening, don’t evaluate or judge.
Be clear, polite and appreciative.
Don’t store things up.

6. Overcome Gridlock
Ending gridlock doesn’t mean solving the problem, but rather moving from gridlock to dialogue. Some steps are:

Learn to uncover your partner’s dreams.
Understand why each of you feels so strongly about the gridlocked issue.
Soothe each other to avoid flooding.
End the gridlock by making peace with the issue, accepting the differences between you, talking without hurting each other and compromising.

7. Create Shared Meaning
See if you can agree on the fundamentals in life. Create an atmosphere where you can speak candidly and respectfully about your values and dreams. Accept and respect that you each may have some dreams that the other doesn’t share.

How the Principles Work
Gottman did a nine-month follow-up of 640 couples who attended a two-day workshop where couples were trained in the seven principles for making marriage work. He found that the relapse rate, or return to their previous level of marital distress, was only 20% for couples who attended the workshop versus 30% to 50% for standard marital therapy.

This article first appeared on Positive Psychology News.

Laura L.C. Johnson, MBA, MA, is working toward licensure as a marriage and family therapist in California. Visit www.lauralcjohnson.com. Laura practices a positive therapy approach to help her clients learn skills to build positive emotions, optimism and resilience while decreasing unhelpful thinking, behaviors and emotions.

It was a lazy long weekend here in South Australia.  On Saturday, we had a family outing in the city.  A movie, dinner and icecream.

We went to see the family friendly ‘Up‘ by the geniuses that run Pixar.

It was so delightfully good that my husband I couldn’t stop talking about it.

The animation was visually stunning but what was more impressive was the emotional layers, the sharp story telling, and the clever concepts.

If you haven’t seen it - here is the synopsis.

From Disney/Pixar comes Up, a comedy adventure about 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America.

But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. From the Academy Award-nominated director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.), Disney/Pixar’s Up invites you on a hilarious journey into a lost world, with the least likely duo on Earth.

And this is what I learnt about life from the movie ‘Up’:

Your heroes aren’t always what they seem to be

There are adventures to be found in your own backyard

Grumpy old men aren’t always that grumpy

Chocolate can tame wild rare birds

Dogs are dogs after all

Sometimes you have to leave the past behind to face the future

Families come in all shapes and sizes

There is always something to be positive about

Everyday life is an adventure in itself

Friendships can be found at any age

It’s good to dream

Never give up

Death is part of life

There is such a thing as true love

Living is what life’s all about

I absolutely loved this movie.  It was real life in animation.  Outstanding work Pixar.

Dad’s are so important. They teach boys how to be men, and they teach girls how choose men who respect them.

I recently went to see Steve Biddulph, author of Raising Boys, talk about raising boys.  And he made some excellent points:

Boys need positive role models.  Their dads, and other significant men in their lives, teach them how to be good men.

Boys need to be taught how to respect women.  Their dads can teach them how to hold their emotions so a woman feels safe.

Boys need to be taught to do housework.  Their dads can encourage them to be of service to others (e.g. by cooking others a meal) and connect to humanity.

But dads also play a big part in their daughters’ lives.  Dads teach girls to understand boys, and mums teach boys to understand girls.

The modern-day dad is no longer just a breadwinner.

Dads have a significant role to play in raising their kids, loving their kids, and helping them be honourable, giving, and wonderful human beings.  What a privilege.

I also love these 10 Commandements of Successful Fathering by Wayne Parker, About.com’s fatherhood expert.

1. Thou shalt talk with thy children.

2. Thou shalt spend one-on-one time with your children.

3. Thou shalt set rules and live by them.

4. Thou shalt not spoil thy children.

5. Thou shalt show love to thy children in their ‘love language’.

6. Thou shalt read with thy children.

7. Thou shalt love thy children’s mother with whom thou livest.

8. Thou shalt not speak ill of thy children’s mother.

9. Thou shalt know thy chidren’s friends.

10. Thou shalt protect thy children from danger.

Happy Father’s Day dads!  You deserve a celebration.

Forget Nintendo, Playstation and Wii.  Instead roll a real dice.  Board games, it appears, are good for family relationships.

As reported in The Advertiser:

“A national study involving 125 families who played board games together once a week for a month found the activity improved parents’ and children’s life skills, such as spelling and maths, and increased the amount and quality of time they spent together.

Other benefits included greater patience, sportsmanship between siblings and self-esteem in children.”

I love these findings.

When I was growing up we had summer holiday Canasta championships, rainy day Monopoly marathons, and in the car travel Scrabble.

I love board games.  Which ones can you play with your kids?  Or your friends?

We’ve all probably experienced it - resentment - particularly aimed at our partner.

“You go off and work and I’m left to do everything at home.”

“You don’t understand what kind of pressure I’m under at work.  You get to play with the kids and be at home all day.”

“I work too.  But I’m still expected to do more of the housework.”

These are all legitimate feelings and complaints.  But if left to fester they can become toxic.

Our partners are an easy target for our angst.  And there is angst aplenty when you are trying to raise a family, pay off a mortgage, build a career and overall, live a good life.

That’s why I was fascinated to read a brave and revealing letter to the editor in the latest issue of Adelaide’s Child magazine.

The letter was from a dad who believed his stay-at-home-wife’s resentment ruined their relationship.

We often don’t hear the dad’s perspective so it was very interesting to hear his point of view.  (To understand the complete story, we would of course need to her view as well.)

But we often think we have it worse off - when really we both are experiencing difficulities.

It also saddens me that this couple did not get counselling earlier to see if they could resolve some of their issues.

Support, understanding and communication are the way through any relationship challenge.

Below is an extract from the letter.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this issue.

“I’d like to respond to Mary Kirby’s article At Home and Not Happy (July 2009). The words could have come directly from my wife - the same resentment and anger about being stuck at home with small children. All very understandable and explainable. There is, however, another party involved: the husband and the situation impacts on him too, particularly when his wife is so unhappy.

When our second child was born, my wife became steadily more resentful towards me. If I went away on a business trip, it was labelled a ‘junket’ or a ‘holiday’. Being late home from work was greeted with a frosty atmosphere. Needing time on my own (a common need for males) was tantamount to a declaration of war. Two hours spent with a mate once every three weeks playing snooker even attracted disapproval and subsequent punishment.

House tasks were done by her before I’d even noticed they needed to be done, then I was resented for not doing them. The tension increased steadily, and I started drinking regularly to escape. I was told most days about my lack of contribution, about how easy my life was in comparison to hers, about my ever-growing list of inadequacies.

One day after about three years, all of a sudden I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand the tension, the bitterness and resentment and the constant psychological attacks. So I walked out to save my sanity and remaining semblance of self-respect. Our marriage ended on that day, despite subsequent attempts to renegotiate behaviour.

I’ve since re-partnered, and my new partner has two small kids too. But there is no tension, and we are yet to have an argument. I do stuff around the house without needing to be asked because I’m not stressed, under attack and needing to escape all the time. I’m no longer resentful for being resented…I no longer have the constant guilt that goes with having an unhappy partner who tells you it’s your fault…

The pattern of blaming males is particularly destructive. Men tend to initially avoid the problem, which makes it worse. Then they get down and depressed. Then if pushed too far, they will eventually seek to escape - through alcohol, drugs, going on trips, having affairs or leaving their partner permanently…

Love needs kind words and actions to survive and grow, or it slowly dies and fades away.”

My dad passed away a week ago after a long battle with cancer.

I’m still understanding what it means to me and my life to lose a parent.

I only began truly appreciating my parents, and all they have done for me, when I became a parent myself almost 6 years ago.

As parents we often do what we do without much recognition.  And I certainly took my parents for granted.

But when I knew my dad had terminal cancer, I realised it was an opportunity to think about what my dad meant to me, and to recognise his impact on my life.

And it was also an opportunity to tell him - before it was too late.

A year ago I wrote my dad a gratitude letter.  I wrote about why I was grateful that he was my dad.  Then I gave him the letter.

It was the same letter that my brother read out at my dad’s eulogy.  But fortunately, this was a eulogy that my dad had already heard.

In the gratitude letter, I told him that:

He taught me the value of setting goals, and working hard to achieve them.

He instilled in me a strong sense of family and the importance of being there for each other.

He had been himself - and he taught me the importance of me being myself.

I also told him that I loved him very, very much.

My parents have always been around to help and support me.  Always.

Whenever I needed anything I could call or visit.

Now I can’t go and visit my dad anymore.

If I need him, I’ll have to reach him in my dreams or in my thoughts or in my heart.

It is a huge loss. But I am very grateful that he was my dad.  Very grateful indeed.

The end of the year - warmer days, festive cheer, a New Year approaching - it’s a natural time to take a break. Most of us plan a summer holiday, even if it’s only a short one. But holidays are not just about sand, sunscreen and sun. Every season of the year is worthy of a holiday, and this year I’m making plans now. More

My husband, along with my brother, and a group of other mountain biking boys got the diary out at the beginning of 2008 and marked out weekly rides, mountain bike events, and two mountain biking weekends away.

I was gobsmacked. Where’s the family holiday? Where’s the girl’s weekend? Where is our time together?

So this year, I’m getting out the diary at the beginning of 2009 and with my husband, we’re going to plan one week long winter family holiday, three family weekends away, one girl’s weekend, a night out together once every two months, and a dad’s and kids weekend.

That should still leave us enough weekends to catch up with friends, celebrate family birthdays and renovate the house!

Well maybe…

But I do know if we can even manage half of our holiday plans, we will get to the end of the year in better health and in a better frame of mind.

Even one night away or a full day away from the house can refresh and revive. And we’ve found if we don’t plan, it won’t happen.

So, what breaks can you schedule for yourself and your family next year? An autumn camping trip? Winter in the mountains? Spring amongst the wildflowers? Then the holiday season can last all year.