This series of articles from Boomer Yearbook explores the fascinating and varied behavioral patterns that occur when families are affected by outside events, or by the impact of second and third marriages; the dangers and coaching solutions concerned with ‘spoiled’ children and the hurdles that must be addressed for family newcomers: Boomer Yearbook’s Guide and Coaching Strategy for the baby boomer generation.

Psychological Articles and Coaching Tips for Baby Boomers to Avoid/ Alleviate Elderly Problems

 by Boomeryearbook.com

Boomer Grandmother is a formidable figure and certain baby boomer grandmothers born in the late forties might have a daughter who is also a baby boomer, born in the sixties. Elderly female baby boomers display an interesting influence through the family line and manage to exert a significant amount of control, both on her boomer daughter and also on her granddaughter.

Baby boomers born in the forties to poorer families were subject to a certain amount of hardship. For many, this meant leaving school early to earn a wage, helping to raise younger children in the family and generally tending to obligations in a serious and diligent manner. Their standard were carried over to the next generation and some of the boomer mothers born in the sixties grew up as ‘latch key kids’ – the children who arrive home from school to an empty house and have to fend for themselves and younger brothers and sisters because Mom is working.

In the fifties and sixties, the World was recovering from the effects of World War II but there was also an element of moral rebellion taking place, which eventually led to the freedom of spirit celebrated in the late sixties and early seventies. Baby boomers who are now mothers of teenagers brought their children into a culture of liberty rather than discipline. Psychological articles from the schools of Attachment Object Relations, and Positive Psychology, note that the children produced by baby boomers of this generation enjoy increased freedom and a degree of excess in terms of material possessions.

Aging baby boomers have sailed through a World of radical changes and learned to embrace new technology. They have also, to an extent, learned to let go of their prejudices and accept new family structures previously seen as unorthodox at best and immoral at worst, such as unmarried couples; unmarried mothers; children in one family having different fathers due to the mother’s once considered ‘promiscuous’ personality; gay relationships and a host of other structural permutations that might once have been ‘taboo’.

Psychological articles from the schools of Attachment, Object Relations, and Positive Psychology, that examine the relationship between aging baby boomer women and their female descendants bring some interesting observations to the surface. The aging boomer female can be a scary character but seems to soften significantly when in the company of her female grandchild, who might enjoy certain privileges withheld from other family members. The reasons for this might be linked with the grandmother’s neglect of her own daughter: she transfers her affection to the next generation, ‘starting over’ with a clean slate. She feels her daughter resents her so gravitates to her granddaughter.

The development of extreme affection between a boomer grandmother and her granddaughter might often damage the relationship between the grandmother and her boomer daughter. The casualty at the center of all these swirling emotions is of course the boomer daughter, caught between the disciplines of the last generation and the liberties of the next; a reluctant passenger on a tide of emotions that pass between a controlling and influential aging/elderly lady and the spoiled object of her affection – the granddaughter.

The Psychological Article on The Female Equation: Boomer Grandmother and Her Influence is part of Boomer Yearbook’s continuing series of baby boomers psychological coaching tips and how to alleviate elderly problems. We believe knowledge is power. We’d love to hear what you think.

Boomer Yearbook is a Social Network and Psychological Articles for Baby Boomers. Connect with old and new friends, or expand your mind and ward off senior moments and elderly problems with dream analysis and online optical illusions and brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join other Baby Boomers to stay informed, receive weekly Newsfeeds, and let your opinions be heard. Baby boomers changed the world. We’re not done yet!

Psychological Articles and Coaching Tips for Baby Boomers to Avoid and Alleviate Elderly Problems

 by Boomeryearbook.com

These series of Boomer Yearbook’s articles explore the weird and wonderful structures that can happen within families of second and third marriages along with the psychological dangers and coaching solutions to giving preference or spoiling some children who have enjoyed longer/closer familial associations (i.e., daughter’s children closer to the grandparents than the son’s, etc) than family “newbies”, and the difficulties and joys of ‘newbie” blended relationships….Boomer Yearbook’s Guide to Yours, mine, and ours coaching strategy for the baby boomer generation.

We all know what it is like to feel a deeper emotion for one person than for another. Sometimes that person is a friend or even a family member. When that person is an adult, it can be hurtful to be the ‘less favored’ one: when that person is a child, real damage might be inflicted and this can have a permanent, long reaching effect on the child’s emotional health. Psychological articles show that baby boomers are as susceptible to human failings as anyone else and ‘favoring’ one child over another should be noted and stopped at the earliest opportunity to avoid a long lasting effect.

The problem is: do we know we are doing this? Are we aware that our adoration of, say, a son over a daughter or vice versa, might be ruining the childhood experience of an innocent child? Psychological articles from the school of Realtional Psychology tend to suggest that we are actually aware of our ‘favoring’ affections for one child over another, and that we do actually admit to them when questioned whether we love one of our children more than another – followed by an anxious assurance ‘Of course, I would never let them know…’ This reassurance is an empty and insincere platitude and in fact, children are usually well aware that a brother or sister is ‘favored’.

The pain that might be felt by a child when he or she discovers a brother or sister is ‘loved more’ is beyond the experience of adults lucky enough to not have been subjected to such cruel treatment. The child loses his or her sense of self worth; experiences doubt about their own abilities; gradually loses closeness with the parent and ultimately loses trust in that parent. It is all about loss. As baby boomers our childhoods are somewhat in the distant past but we all know how it feels to be ‘marginalized’ and made to feel less than someone else in the opinion of someone we love.

A child’s trust in a parent is all encompassing and when children are very young, below the age of ten, information is absorbed in ‘sponge like’ fashion. Rejection at this age can color a person’s self esteem for the rest of his or her life. The preference for one child over another might seem quite discreet to the person doing the favoring but the unpleasant truth is that most children are perceptive and intelligent and know when they are being overlooked in any way.

Baby boomers sometimes extend their preferences to their grandchildren, perhaps enjoying a closer relationship with a daughter’s children over the children of a son. The reasons for this are actually quite easy to analyse. A daughter will likely take her mother’s lead in the raising of her children; therefore a son’s child will probably be closer to his wife’s parents. Baby boomers make an effort to treat all grandchildren equally but some fail to make the grade, leaving one or more children feeling left out in favor of the children who either live nearer or are the children of a daughter rather than a son.

The Psychological Article on Favoritism: The Damage that Can be Caused and How to Repair It is part of Boomer Yearbook’s continuing series of baby boomers psychological coaching tips and how to alleviate elderly problems. We believe knowledge is power. We’d love to hear what you think.

Boomer Yearbook is a Social Network and Psychological Articles for Baby Boomers. Connect with old and new friends, or expand your mind and ward off senior moments and elderly problems with dream analysis and online optical illusions and brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join other Baby Boomers to stay informed, receive weekly Newsfeeds, and let your opinions be heard. Baby boomers changed the world. We’re not done yet!