{"id":176,"date":"2011-08-01T12:53:58","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T16:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/doinglifetogether\/?p=176"},"modified":"2012-03-04T13:11:38","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T18:11:38","slug":"debt-ceiling-crisis-is-like-watching-a-dysfunctional-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/08\/debt-ceiling-crisis-is-like-watching-a-dysfunctional-family.html","title":{"rendered":"Debt Ceiling Crisis is Like Watching a Dysfunctional Family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t like to write about politics but I am really over this debt ceiling decision! I&#8217;m tired of all the fear tactics and bullying!<\/p>\n<p>This is what it feels like to me. We&#8217;ve got parents who haven&#8217;t paid attention to the family. Then a crisis arises and suddenly family members need to shape up or something bad will happen. But the reason we are in this crisis is because the parents never provided a plan or took care of things to avoid the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Doing nothing (or what my mom called procrastination) and then complaining that people won&#8217;t work together reminds me of a dysfunctional family! They don&#8217;t know how to get things done, but they sure know how to complain and criticize each other!<\/p>\n<p>Rather than blaming each other, how about offering up multiple solutions and taking time to evaluate them. Then choose the one that seems to work best for all family members and re-evaluate in a month or two after implementation. This is called basic problems-solving. But wait, we don&#8217;t have time!<\/p>\n<p>Why haven&#8217;t politicians been working on this issue instead of waiting until a crisis point and then scaring us all about the consequences? If I don&#8217;t go to work for months, spend like I have been working, and then announce to my family, &#8220;Guess what, we have no money and have days to figure out what to do before the bank takes it all,&#8221; my family would call me irresponsible.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians, stop scaring us and acting like this could not have been avoided. Take responsibility for your lack of action and\/or failure to provide realistic solutions. Where is the common sense? Stop playing politics and actually try to solve our economic woes instead of being married to ideology and re-election strategies. If I ran my family or business this way, I&#8217;d be in trouble too!<\/p>\n<p>Ok that is it! Just letting off a little steam!<\/p>\n<p>But from a mental health and doing life together perspective, it is time for the this dysfunctional family of political leaders to start working together in healthy ways for the good of the kids! That means attend to family matters BEFORE\u00a0 a crisis point!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t like to write about politics but I am really over this debt ceiling decision! I&#8217;m tired of all the fear tactics and bullying! This is what it feels like to me. We&#8217;ve got parents who haven&#8217;t paid attention to the family. Then a crisis arises and suddenly family members need to shape up&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[914],"tags":[112,110,114,117,111,116,115,113],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-relationships-2","tag-bullying","tag-debt-ceiling","tag-dysfuntional-family","tag-economy","tag-politics","tag-problem-solving","tag-procrastination","tag-scare-tactics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Debt Ceiling Crisis is Like Watching a Dysfunctional Family<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2011\/08\/debt-ceiling-crisis-is-like-watching-a-dysfunctional-family.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Debt Ceiling Crisis is Like Watching a Dysfunctional Family\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I don&#8217;t like to write about politics but I am really over this debt ceiling decision! I&#8217;m tired of all the fear tactics and bullying! This is what it feels like to me. We&#8217;ve got parents who haven&#8217;t paid attention to the family. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. 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