Families and Disabilities

The number of families impacted by disabilities is growing in our country at both ends of the age spectrum. More babies with a disability are living and many, many more people are living into the higher age ranges. Many nursing homes have residents in their nineties and hundreds. All of this has a big impact on the parents of the disabled children and children of the aged parents.

While the medical care and therapy of disabled children as well as aging parents is improving, the knowledge about how it affects the extended family has been stuck in the past. Those who worked with families with a member that is disabled have seen the increase in stress but little has been done to discover exactly what the families would like to have to help them deal with the increased family stressors.

With a generous grant from the Hatton Foundation, Sweeten Life Systems took the challenge of discovering how best to support the parents and extended family members of a child with Special Needs. We did an in depth, survey and home visit research study with 12 families in the Greater Cincinnati area.

The insights offered by those families were powerful and helpful. Now we are sharing them with you. Sweeten Life web site, training sessions for churches and offering seminars to families with a Special Needs Child. Our focus is the health and welfare of the parents and family members. For Counseling, call a Christian agency Life Way and ask for a Therapist with training in this area.

We are currently looking for churches who are already committed to equipping lay persons to support and care for church members. This includes The Stephen Ministers, Lay Pastors, Growth and Healing Ministers, Teleios Ministers, Habitat for Humanity, etc. We want to enroll you in our Village Innovation Project Training Program (VIP) and help you assess what the families in your church and community need from your church.

I have been posting on conflict in families and the stress in a family with a child who has a serious disability can lead to real problems. We discovered what successful families do to keep peace in the family and we want to train Lay Ministers how to support families and prevent Toxic Conflict.

Contact us if you are interested in finding out how to support this ministry or get training or find our about our next family event.

People Skills Count Most

One of the most important things I ever learned had to do with mastering people skills. It matters little what the job is or what the context is, if people are involved the key is understanding them and getting along with them.

The book you see here, Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty, is focused on teaching people how to relate with others and be a positive influence on them. Go to my web for a free download of the book. If you want to influence others as a manager, a leaders or a minister, it is the book for you.

I have failed many times at interpersonal relations. Despite my commitment to listening, understanding and respecting people I still fail at it and I regret it. It is one of the things that drives me to keep learning and growing in relating to others with understanding and mercy.

I read an interesting interview in the Wall Street Journal Fins Section of a top executive from IBM tonight who agreed with my assessment of the importance of communication, problem solving and conflict management.

IBM's Bridget van Kralingen, 47, runs a $40 billion business, accounting for 40% of total revenue at the computer services and software giant.

Van Kralingen was appointed general manager of North America a year ago and is based in New York. She began her career at Deloitte Consulting in Cape Town in 1989, joining IBM in 2004 to run its global financial services business out of London. Born in the U.K., she spent 15 years with Deloitte, mostly in South Africa with a brief stint in New York from 1997 to 1999.

FINS spoke with her about meritocracy, how to boost morale among sales teams and her boss, Ginni Rometty, No. 8 on Fortune magazine's 2010 list of Most Powerful Women in Business.


SP: How do you suggest people get used to working with different cultures and teams?

BvK: Two things. First, go in with the stance of listening before you jump to conclusions or take an approach that may have worked in the place you worked before.

Secondly, go ahead and ask about leadership style in the place you're in. Ask your team, your peers.

SP: What would you advise someone going into sales as a career?

BvK: We sell around solutions rather than products now. So you need to have the skills to consult and understand.

It's not just the selling and solutioning, but also delivery. We're in an era of analytics and making sense of data.

Wherever you go and whatever you do, interpersonal skills of Genuineness, Respect, Empathy and Warmth are critically important. Go to our web page and download the Humpty Dumpty book. Take a look at the skills and start using them at home, school and work. They will save you a lot of time, energy and pain.