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Resolutions for Better Relationships

January 18, 2012
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By Becci McCormack As the New Year starts many of us make promises to others and ourselves for improving our lives. This year why not make a resolution to improve your relationships.   Building face-to-face relationships can be tough. Whether you are a parent, single, divorced, working, going to school or married learning how to build meaningful relationships is vital. Relationships can be healing, fun, and healthy when communication is flowing. But when communication breaks down, relationships can take a hit.   Relationships can bring out the best and worst of us. Do you ever feel defensive when communicating with friends, family members, co-workers or loved ones? Do you repeatedly say the same thing over and over, but don’t feel heard? What about expectations, or broken promises? As we enter the New Year, let’s look at a few tips to maintain and revitalize our relationships.   1.  Active listening builds trust and rapport with intimate and casual relationships. Everybody likes to be heard, but when a speaker speaks and the responder is busy, disinterested or distracted, the speaker can feel unimportant. To ensure this doesn’t happen, restate what is said, reflect the feelings you hear, clarify with questions to better
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Editorial Fall 2011: When We Make a Difference With What We Have It Expands

November 7, 2011
Ron Ludwig - Executive Director -The Conflict Center

Mark Your Calendar – December 6, 2011 24 Hours to Give Where You Live Please remember to support The Conflict Center on December 6th by participating in the second annual Colorado Gives Day! By giving on-line through the Giving First website you can become one of the thousands of Colorado citizens who will come together again to raise millions of dollars for over 350 nonprofits throughout Colorado.
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Brain Science and Conflict

September 30, 2011
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By Martha Woods A shorter version of this article appeared in The North Denver Tribune in Sept. 2011   Hello, meet Your Brain! In recent years, there have been amazing discoveries about the human brain. We are used to thinking that the brain leads and we follow. Scientists have been studying how the brain works among different groups of people including persons with brain injury, meditating Buddhist monks, and ordinary people who are just trying to change a behavior or learn a new skill. At the most general level, the scientific studies reveal that the brain is much more changeable than previously thought. This concept of the brain being changeable (or “plastic”) is called neuroplasticity. In the past, scientific dogma held that, after a critical period in early childhood, the structure and function of the brain was mostly immutable. These more recent findings reveal that many aspects of the brain remain plastic even well into adulthood, as a result of input from the environment.   For example, areas of the brain involved in certain activities will become more active or enlarged the more that activity is performed— or even thought about! Two particular activities illustrate this—playing a sport or a musical instrument. One exciting implication of brain plasticity is
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Parenting: Letting your children deal with their own conflict

October 31, 2011
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By Tamara Sherwood A woman found a cocoon of a butterfly and a small opening appeared. She sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped, as if it couldn't go further. So the woman decided to help the butterfly. She took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon.  The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The woman continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body. Neither happened! In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around. It was never able to fly. What the woman in her kindness and haste did not understand: The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once that was achieved. Sometimes struggles are exactly what our children need in their lives. Going through life with no obstacles would cripple them. Wait a minute, if our children are struggling
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How do you feel today? Emotional Intelligence For Your Children

August 3, 2011

July 19, 2011 by Salma Shukri, The Conflict Center  This article was published in the North Denver Tribune in July  2011 Children often have a hard time verbally expressing how they feel. When faced with certain situations, you may find that your child cannot put into words what they are feeling on the inside. Because of their limited vocabulary, children may instead act out as a way of expressing in action what they can’t express in words. As they grow and experience new things, children may get overwhelmed and their emotions can sometimes get too big for their little bodies to contain. Without a proper form of release, children may resort to expressing themselves physically. For example, a child that can’t explain that he is upset may fall back on behaving badly, and you may find them hitting, stomping, or crying to get the message across. That’s why we think it’s important to teach emotional intelligence to children from a young age – so that they can communicate their emotions well. You can do this by helping to expand your child’s vocabulary to include emotionally descriptive words, and then encouraging your child to identify his or her feelings on a constant
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Introduction to Relationship Conflict (Video)

August 12, 2011
Youtube TCC Relationship Video

By Pearl Bell Look at this introductory video about Relationship Conflict and tell us what you think. ShareTweet
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