How to handle pushy in-laws

Once you and your spouse have gotten married, you are going to need to learn how to deal with your in-laws. In most cases, in-laws are fine and can be easily handled until a grandchild appears. Problems with pushy in-laws can begin when you are pregnant or they can start after the baby is born. For example, you might find yourself defending future decisions about putting your child into daycare or whether it is best to breast or bottle feed. If you are experiencing these kinds of problems now, you can only imagine what is going to happen once the baby is born. The problem is that if you ignore the behaviors of pushy in-laws while you are pregnant and wait to deal with the problem until later, you will find that the problem quickly got out of hand. The best thing you can do with pushy in-laws is to deal with the problem as soon as it presents itself.

One of the best things that you can do to deal with pushy in-laws is to take charge as early as possible. For example, if your mother-in-law expects to be in the delivery room and you feel otherwise, that needs to be handled right away. Ideally your husband should be the one to talk to his parents about being in the delivery room before the day even arrives, but in some cases that does not happen because of how pushy or controlling your mother-in-law is.
Something else that you can do to help deal with pushy in-laws is to be as polite as possible. There is no sense in causing problems with your in-laws by being rude. You can be both polite and assertive. For example, if you want to spend time alone with your husband and baby on the first day home from the hospital be assertive enough to make your decision known. If you do not act assertively and allow your in-laws to start making your decision, they will continue to make all of the decision. You want to set the pattern and establish the standards from the beginning.
In begin polite you are going to want to tell your in-laws how you feel and then offer other suggestions that can work out better for you and your family. In some cases, your in-laws are going to act upset and hurt to try to get you to change your mind, some might be trying to manipulate you, but most likely, they are hurt and upset. If this happens, you cannot change your mind you need to get tough and stand behind your decision. The best way to deal with this is politely and respectfully, but sometimes you might have to handle it in other ways. The most important thing is to establish who is in control from the beginning.
Another problem that you might face with pushy in-laws is that they just show up whenever they want. This can be a hard thing to handle because it cuts into your family time. To deal with this you need to set some ground rules from the beginning. Your in-laws need to understand that they cannot come and go freely, they need to call ahead of time to see if you are available and if them coming over works for you. Again, you cannot give in or change your plans if they act hurt or upset; you need to set a standard that in time will become a habit.
In-laws can also try to override your decisions that you make, with your spouse or with your children. If they are doing, things that are against your wishes the best thing you can do are have a serious talk with them. Tell them how you feel and that things need to change. If the behavior doesn't change, you may need to limit their contact with your family until their behavior changes. If you take this measure, be sure to tell them why you are limiting their visits, so they change their behavior.

How to not offend family members

In family relationships, some relationships are so strained that you have to worry about your actions. You need to think about you are doing or saying so that you do not offend your family members. In other cases, you might be faced with a conservative family member, who can easily be offended by things that you do or say. In family gatherings, you need to be on your best behavior so that you do not offend family members.

Here are some things that you can do to ensure that you do not offend family members through your actions or words.
Number one: Correcting
If there has been a conflict or something has been done that you do not agree with, you need to take action to talk to the person that was at fault. When talking to that person you want to make sure that you do not blame the person directly for causing the conflict, nor do you want to correct that person. Instead what you need to do is address the act or event that lead to the conflict, you can even correct the act or event that lead up to the issue.
Number two: Respond
When you are talking or discussing a problem with a family member, you need to fully listen and understand what they are saying. While they are talking, you need to avoid planning what you are going to do or say next, instead focus on what they are saying. No matter how tempted you might be, do not interrupt them, and never cut them off in your response. After they are done talking and you have understood what they have said, you can respond to what they have said. When talking to them make sure, you use a normal tone of voice and talk to them in a loving and respectful way.

Number three: Treating people
When dealing with family members you need to remember that you want to treat them the same way that you want to be treated. If you are rude and demeaning to family members you are going to offend them, but you also run the risk of having them treat you rudely. To ensure that you do not offend family members always be polite. Use words and phrases such as please, thank you, I am sorry, I was wrong, I love you, you're welcome, etc.
Number four: Disagreeing
You are not always going to agree with your family members, many times you and your family members are going to disagree about a variety of things. To ensure that you do not offend family members you need to be careful when disagreeing with them. When disagreeing with family members you want to learn how to disagree with them without being disagreeable. The best way to do that is to always be courteous and have good manners. Always make eye contact when you are talking to them and avoid being too blunt and dogmatic. Putting people down for their views is not going to help family members from being offended.
Number five: Talking
When you are talking to family members, you will need to watch what you are saying. You do not want to jump to conclusions because that can cause even more problems. When talking to your family members about something important repeat what was said so that you can verify the accuracy of what you heard. Doing this can also help you to understand what they are trying to tell you and help you talk to them in a way that they can understand. You want to avoid being rash with your words because one wrong word can offend somebody.

Ballet | Company Time: Ballet West dancers create their own new works for Innovations

  Fourteen months ago, when Adam Sklute arrived in Salt Lake City to begin his tenure as Ballet West’s artistic director, he was greeted by an interesting seedling of an idea that had been patiently waiting to sprout. This seedling called for a program of original works choreographed by Ballet West dancers for Ballet West dancers.

Sklute immediately fell in love with the idea—especially when he discovered that the company had not produced a dancer-choreographed program in nine years. “New choreography is so vital. It pushes the art form forward,” Sklute says. “I didn’t have to be asked twice; I was all for it.”

Sklute is a firm believer that every artist has something important to communicate and that it is critical to provide as many outlets as possible for creative expression. “It is not only important to let dancers choreograph their own work,” Sklute explains, “but to be choreographed on. I think every dancer should have the chance to have work created especially with their abilities and unique skills in mind.”

The first stage of planning the dancer-choreographed program—eventually dubbed Innovations—was a call for written applications from Ballet West’s dancers. Sklute initially received nine applications, then narrowed the final number of participants down to three by allowing the six most promising applicants to workshop their pieces with Ballet West’s pre-professional Ballet West II students. Christopher Rudd, Megan Furse and Peggy Dolkas were the artists whom Sklute eventually selected to produce three separate 10-minute world-premiere works. “I wanted to see how the dancers would use the music. I looked for work that was interesting, unique and had something to say,” Sklute says. “I also wanted a well-balanced final program with plenty of contemporary elements.”
Dolkas says that the transition from dancer to choreographer was slightly intimidating but ultimately fun. Her piece—titled “Yes, But How Did You Get There?”—is an abstract exploration of how small, transitional movements impact larger, more dramatic ones. Dolkas explains that her first ballet teacher encouraged her to value every movement, no matter how small. When she began to appreciate the transitional steps as well as large jumps and impressive extensions, she feels that she transitioned from a mere imitator of movement to a true artist.
“For me, music initiates everything,” Dolkas says. “My boyfriend is a DJ, so I decided to have him help me create a soundtrack that has a mix-tape feel.” The resulting score combines samples from the movie Kill Bill, songs from the band The Faint and, according to Dolkas, “this 1950s record for beginning ballet students I found at [Deseret Industries]. It has funny sections and serious sections.”
Dolkas says that she was inspired by choreographer Yuri Killian’s declaration that “everyone has their own ideas about how music passes through the body.” She hopes that her piece will give the audience some insight into the process from learning one’s first barre exercise to blossoming into a seasoned artist.
As the month of May drew near, Sklute decided to open Innovations with James Canfield’s “Equinox,” a well-established piece in Ballet West’s repertory that allows the entire company to participate. Sklute also asked internationally known choreographer Susan Shields to contribute a short work. “I called her up and said, ‘I’m a big fan. Now would you be interested in choreographing something in a really short span of time on a shoestring budget?’ And, of course, she said ‘yes,’” Sklute jokes.
The experimental nature of Innovations made the program a gamble from the onset, but Sklute says that three out of four scheduled performances at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center have already sold out. “I have no idea how the audience is going to respond,” Sklute says. “These pieces are varied, unusual and not lengthy.
“There are so many different styles of music and movement. I think there’s a little something for everyone.”

Maintaining family relationships that are long distance

Nowadays, it is more and more common for jobs, school, or other opportunities and reasons to take a family across the country or even world, leaving the rest of the extended family behind.
Maintaining family relationships that are long distance used to be difficult with just letters and expensive long-distance phone calls. However, there are many things you can do now to make sure your family relationships stay strong, even if you are separated by many miles.

These are just a few of the things you can do:

Get the same cell phone plan.
If you have family members who are scattered across the country, consider all getting on the same cell phone plan. Most carriers offer free mobile-to-mobile minutes to those who have the same cell phone provider. This will allow you to talk as often as you want without having to worry about a huge phone bill. Even if you don't have the same provider, many plans allow you to put "favorites" on your plan, so you can call a certain number of people as much as you want without it counting against your minutes, regardless of what provider they use.

Start a blog.
Blogs are a popular and free way to keep your friends and family updated, no matter where you are. A blog is a journal you can post on the internet. Entries are organized by date, similar to a real journal. You can also post pictures, links, and anything else you want. You can link to the blogs of other family members and friends as well. This is an excellent way to keep your family in the loop even if they are far away. You can also set your blog to private, so only people you invite to see it can have access to the pictures and entries that you post.
Write letters.
Never forget the importance of snail mail--if you have grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and other family members you want to maintain relationships with, don't neglect a handwritten letter or card every now and again. Set up a time or two each month where you all sit down as a family and write letters to family members who live far away. Have kids color pictures if they can't write. Print off photographs and send them as well, so family members can be involved in what you are doing as a family and see how kids are growing.
Remember important events.
You can also maintain long distance family relationships by remembering important events like birthdays or Mother's Day. Send gifts, even if it's just a handmade card or picture, to show them that you love them and are thinking about them. Great gift ideas include family photographs, so your family members have visual reminders of you that they can display in their homes.

Take advantage of technology.
Technological advances have made maintaining relationships with family members long distance easy. Skype, for example, is a service that allows you to call anyone with Skype for free, no matter where in the world they are--you only need a Skype phone. Webcam also makes seeing and talking with family easy. And email will allow you to write letters and send photos as well with the benefit of them being delivered instantly.
It's difficult to be apart from family. But these tips will help you to maintain long distance family relationships.

Dance | Babel On: Forty years after its creation, Tower still resonates with significance.

Posted // September 24,2008 - Imagine a world in which a civilization celebrates its grand achievements by constructing a majestic tower. This tower is meant to represent the beauty of the world in total, a nod to the brilliance of global humanity. Now imagine that tower falling, crashing down from the sky with such force that the Earth itself shifts and quakes. Admittedly there is no way that choreographer Alwin Nikolais could have foreseen an event such as 9/11, a tragedy that is permanently embossed upon our collective psyche. But still, there is something eerily familiar about his 1965 work Tower. With such a powerful image central to the composition, there is no doubt that that a calamitous day in American history will be jarringly evoked as Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company (RWDC) reconstructs this classic piece of dance theatre.
“For me, it is prophetic because, before 9/11, who would have thought that those towers would ever fall?” ponders Joan Woodbury, RWDC co-founder and managing director. “But really, the piece is more about a different kind of tower. This piece has the sense of building this magnificent structure that becomes a modern-day Tower of Babel.”
Throughout the work, each dancer is speaking, ranting and babbling. For the most part, those various utterances remain incoherent, except for the periodic statement, question or command that breaks through all the communal noise, piercing the audience’s individual thought processes. Nikolais was making a statement that we all kind of live our lives alone; we may talk to our neighbors, we may casually engage acquaintances, but half of the time, we don’t even listen to what they say. Nor do we often recognize what we are doing and what profound effect it may have on everything around us.
”I think that’s just it. His point was that everyone is talking at the same time, so no one is listening to each other,” says Woodbury. “It is within that dynamic that they kind of blindly build this incredible tower. At first thought, this tower is this great thing of beauty. It is all so tall and wonderful that they decide to decorate it. Then they decide to throw a grand party inside of it. It is all just too exciting, too amazing.”
But like most cherished achievements within a society, imminent demise is inherently built in. In this piece, the dancers quickly realize that what they have erected is not a thing of beauty, but rather a total monstrosity. It is only then that the eyesore finally implodes upon itself and comes tumbling humbly back down to earth.
Ultimately Nikolais was exploring the loose underpinnings of a modern society that was rapidly abandoning its mores. Originally, the piece included flags that represented a Big Brother looming over a newborn burgeoning global society—acronyms such as IBM and CIA, mega-organizations that were beginning to take control of the world. When it was re-staged back in the 1980s, the acronym flags were tossed out in favor of flags bearing more symbolic messages promoting black power, gay rights, peace, etc.
“I don’t think that he started with the apocalypse in mind when he began constructing the work,” says Woodbury. “Remember, this was back in 1965. But what he was doing was beginning to deal with a more human subject matter in a very abstracted way. He also was dealing with human emotions. He was stepping out on a limb really by using human voices and very human themes.”
So certainly, Nikolais couldn’t have been consciously prophetic; he never claimed to be a choreographing Nostradamus. But what he did do was to create a work perched upon the cusp of all things modern. The fact that a 40-year-old piece of art can ring so contemporarily true is a testament to one man’s creative genius—even when it harkens to something so bone chillingly dark as those two collapsing towers.

Sibling Rivalry Burdens

The children have erupted into another fight. Keep your cool. Sibling rivalry is quite common and usually results in fights. As long as your kids are generally happy and have a good relationship with each other, you have nothing to worry about. However, if sibling rivalry in your home is causing continuous unhappiness for one or more of your children, there are some things you can do about it. Rivalry, especially among siblings is caused by low self-esteem.

A child with sibling rivalry problems has low self-esteem and is dissatisfied with themselves. They look to their parents and siblings for validation. When a child doesn't have a very good view of themselves, they tend to believe others see them the same way and feel that others around them are better than they are. A child with low self-esteem is easily provoked and easily hurt by teasing, which happens among siblings on a regular basis. The teasing explodes into fighting when someone whose self-esteem is already low is pushed even lower.
So the question isn't what can you do about sibling rivalry, but what can you do to boost your child's self-esteem so he or she has a better relationship with their siblings? For a start, make sure all of your children receive sufficient love and one-on-one attention from you. Sufficient for one child may not be the same for another, so be sure to gauge if you are doing enough by talking to your spouse. Your spouse can sometimes see where a child needs more love or attention better than you may be able to when all you do is break up fights. Spend quality time with all of your children together and one-on-one time with all of your children separately. This makes them feel loved and accepted and also gives them a chance to open up about what may be bothering them.
When fights erupt, the worst thing you can do is scold or yell. You will be sorely tempted to lose your cool, but don't. A child whose self-esteem is low will not respond well to a parent yelling at them. You'll see more fighting, not less if you don't keep your temper when your children are fighting. When children fight, take them to separate rooms and let them cool off, then talk to them individually. Ask what they would advise if they had a friend in a similar situation. Ask what they think their sibling is thinking. Ask them what they are thinking. Once they are using their brain again rather than being run by emotion, you can bring them back together to resolve their argument peaceably. This doesn't work all the time, but the more involved you become with your children when they've been fighting, the less fighting they will do, unless they are fighting to get your attention. If that is the case, you need to go back to spending quality time with them.
Some sibling rivalry problems are actually a result of problems a child is having at school. A child knows he is in a loving and accepting environment at home, but school is a whole different ballgame. Your child can have great self-esteem at home, but when they get to school, their confidence is shot, which causes problems at home too. Go to your child's teacher and ask if your child is having problems. Ask what the teacher would do in your situation. Come up with a plan that involves your child's teacher helping to boost your child's self-esteem while they are at school.

Joshua James

Down on the farm with local crooner

 Joshua James

Joshua James’ abode in American Fork is a McMansion, of sorts—a fairly luxurious space for a humble songwriter. Walking up the steps to the door, it seems too suburban, too family-like—except for the sound of a goat bleating. Around back, there’s a huge garden, along with goat and chicken housing.

The home serves as the base of operations for Northplatte Records—co-owned with McKay Stevens—with James’ home office and a recording studio both there. The label’s most recent releases—Desert Noises’ Mountain Sea and Parlor Hawk’s Hoarse & Roaring—were recorded in the three upstairs recording rooms.

But business matters for the label took a back seat during the late summer days just before the singer-songwriter left for a national two-month tour. City Weekly couldn’t connect with James the day before he left, as planned, because some domestic issues needed addressing.

“Shearing the goat took way longer than we thought,” James says, with a laugh, from the road. He and his wife, Emily, spent their remaining hours together dealing with the wool and canning tomatoes. “We wound up with about 200 quarts of food, and it’s all over the house,” he says.

James has plans to record with at least one artist this fall and winter; imagine them laying down a song’s drum track with a case of tomato sauce at their feet.

“I really love making a record with people—really taking time to help someone make their songs the best they can and finding where things sit best, because there’s a hundred different ways you can make a song,” James says. It’s building and deconstructing; it’s sowing and reaping.

“It’s a lot easier to do on other people’s songs than my own. Because you live so close to your own, it’s really hard sometimes to step back,” James says. He speaks from recent experience. He ventured to Cottage Grove, Ore., for two weeks to record with Richard Swift—The Shins’ keyboardist. Following up on the 2009 release Build Me This, James’ third album is now nearly complete; the tracks will be mastered in January 2012—once both he and Swift are done with their various fall tours—and released in mid-2012.

“It’s not super different from my other stuff, although this batch of songs feels a lot more cohesive because they were written in close proximity to one another,” James says. Stylistically, the album doesn’t diverge from his well-crafted formula, either. His textured tunes roll out of themselves organically, naturally, like they were made from the soil in his backyard. The vocally driven tracks offer James’ raspy, soft croon that, at times, seems almost silky. And his lyrics range from capturing sentiments of love and loss to delving into the esoteric.

Regarding the latter, James spins a good yarn, if it’s for a song, or not—like on his blog, WillametteMountain.tumblr.com. There, he waxes poetic and chronicles his current travels, the Ten Buck Tour, which takes its name because the gigs require only an Alexander Hamilton for entrance. He’s touring with husband-and-wife folk duo Honeyhoney, and they are trying to keep costs down in this struggling economy, he says.

“Some of the shows have been $12, though. I even talked to my manager about it; it seems a little dishonest,” James says.

It’s obvious that he believes in fairness and community, and those beliefs are essentially the founding pillars of Northplatte Records. “From day one, it was all about creating a group of friends who can support each other musically. It is so much more about the community of it than making a bunch of money and seeing this thing blow up,” James says. He seeks deep connections across his life. The feeling he gets when he sings a song, or plays a show, or talks to someone afterwards—that human-to-human bond—is the main reason why he plays music and writes, he says.

Food is kind of like that. Both involve planning, preparing, nurturing, sharing and so on. James grew up in Lincoln, Neb., with five brothers and sisters, and his parents bought cost-efficient, bulk items. It wasn’t till later in life, when he moved to Utah in 2001, that he became passionate about gardening, food preservation and homesteading, which were inspired by his grandfather in Provo.

“Being connected with something like that, well, it’s that connection that I love. Although growing food is more personal, there’s a huge parallel between it and how I connect with music,” James says. “Those are the two things that I really love, and they are the biggest parts of my life.”