Many people are sceptical about the occasion because they feel that motherhood should be celebrated in a more personal and spontaneous manner through the year; or they have a strained relationship with their mother, which is amplified by such a publicly-shared day.

RAV Centre Manager, Sue Yorston, believes it is important that we do set aside time to acknowledge traditions that strengthen the fabric of our society.  ‘We need to remember that our families are all unique and celebrate Mother’s Day accordingly.  Get back to basics and think outside the square to ensure your celebration is appropriate for you.’

Here are some tips for making your day special for you and your mother:

Tips:

• Declare the day an electronics-free one and spend time re-establishing closeness as a family.  Our stressful lives and reliance on technology can inhibit emotional closeness.  If conversation is difficult within your family, think of some starters in advance, such as what is your favourite film of all time and why, what are your ideas on how we can alleviate world poverty, which world leader you most admire.
• Be creative – just because you have always celebrated mother’s day with a lunch doesn’t mean you are bound by it.  For those whose mothers are no longer present, consider joining a group activity such as ‘Trees for Mum’, a series of tree planting events in Australia on Mother’s Day each year.
• For those who have a difficult relationship with their mother, use Mother’s Day to reflect on something special your mother did that was meaningful for you – whether recently or in your childhood. 
• Mother’s Day may also be a time to think about and acknowledge another significant female in your life who has had a positive impact on you.  Use the day to honour women who have nurtured you in life, even if they are not your biological mother.  Send them a card and tell them how special they are to you.
• Find out what your mother would value most on her special day and strive to make it happen.  Don’t assume that this will involve spending the entire day with the family – an ever-elusive sleep-in, time alone to read a book or magazine, or a massage appointment can be a luxury for busy mothers with very little time to themselves.

Ms Yorston says Mother’s Day also gives us the chance to stop and think what life would be like without the presence of mothers in our lives.

For a lucky few, this is smooth sailing, but for most of us, there is a relationship with at least one person in our family or our partner’s family that does not flow easily.

At family gatherings, you can experience a knot in the stomach at the thought of being in the same room (anxiety), or you may revert back to feeling like an adolescent (and acting like one).

Family therapist Murray Bowen spoke about the incredibly strong emotional pull our families have over us.  He argued that the challenge for each of us is to be able to own our individual feelings and thoughts on a subject, even when they differ from that of family members, and maintain our relationships with them at the same time.

The ability to be assertive and maintain calm are critical skills that many of us have not been taught.

Tips for maintaining relationships with family:

• It is most important to preserve relationships and avoid cut offs, where no contact is made. Cut offs place a huge strain on the couple relationship and can affect families for generations. If you have children, you are teaching them that this is a solution to family conflict. Imagine them choosing not to have contact with you one day in the future.
• It is challenging, but the key is to attempt to meet your needs and their needs at the same time. Sometimes we need to set boundaries with family members and sometimes they don’t like it. When you have set a boundary, ensure that you continue to invite contact because setting boundaries can be seen as a rejection. For example, a son who now has a family of his own may not be as available to assist his parents on their farm or in their business. His parents may be used to him being readily available at their request and he might need to say something like ‘I can’t come and help this weekend, but next weekend I can.’ This may be risking his parents’ disapproval. His task is to manage two sets of relationships where he risks letting them both down and experiencing divided loyalties. It will be easier for him if his partner understands his loyalty to his parents, and if his parents accept that he will be less available due to changes in his circumstances.
• Remember that most parents do the best they can with the resources they have. Appreciate what your parents have given you in the form of beliefs, values, and opportunities.
• It’s useful to keep in mind what you value and admire about your partner’s family. If you love your partner, remember that their family was very significant in making him or her into who he or she is today.
• Always remember that your partner loves their family. Don’t complain about family members –  it makes your partner want to defend their family, and puts you in the unenviable position of saying what your partner might need to think about and say for her/himself.
• Don’t battle with your partner’s family. Murray Bowen would say that we need to manage the issues arising from our own family, not our partner’s. Discuss it as a couple. If you can’t agree, talk with a professional. Family relationships are really important for your relationship, children and future generations.
• Can you acknowledge that you may have contributed to the problem in your relationship with a family member and work to change this?  Can you give that person another opportunity? Acceptance occurs when two people can acknowledge that they may both have contributed to the issues at hand. Develop empathy for the other person.
• If you are considering bringing up an issue with a family member or writing a letter, it can be useful to consult a professional to ensure that you get your message across in the best possible way to enhance the relationship.

Some of the above tips may not be appropriate in a situation where there is or has been abuse of some kind.

With living costs in Australia continuing to rise and financial stress the leading cause of relationship breakdown, it is not surprising that more mothers are choosing to return to full-time work post-baby.

But what are the implications when the mother is the main breadwinner of the family? The working mum and stay-at-home dad isn’t a traditional role in Australia, so couples in this situation may find there are few role models to follow.

Forging new ground can be a challenge, but with some careful planning and teamwork, taking on new roles within the family unit can bring great rewards.  Here are some tips which may help couples navigate through some of the issues.

Tip 1 – Make it a joint decision
Being listened to and having an opportunity to have a say in a relationship is vital for its longevity.  It is as important as affection and friendship for long-term success.  There needs to be agreement on the decision to be a female breadwinner, thinking long-term rather than short-term.

Tip 2 – Keep your relationship in focus
The stay-at-home dad needs to remember to pay attention to the relationship and not just the child or children. If the focus is on the child, the female partner may feel doubly wounded that she has lost the emotional connection with both her partner and child.  Couples need to remember the importance of being a couple and that the best gift they can give their child is a good relationship.  Keep in mind that your relationship acts as a ‘blueprint’ because modeling is a powerful influence on children’s behaviour.

Tip 3 – Living with Mr Mom and the loss of the provider role
Given the stresses that a new baby brings to relationships, couples need to navigate changing roles with mutual respect and care.  Make sure you recognise the contribution of your partner and allow them to take on the alternative role if possible.  Fathers need to be able to take a back seat in their partner’s presence to allow them the sense of being a competent mother.  The mother should support her partner if a work or study opportunity arises which can be incorporated into his existing parenting role.

Tip 4 – A flexible arrangement is a winning one
Remember that decisions agreed to in principle before the baby arrives can change at birth, or at other points in children’s development.  It is important that decisions aren’t cast in stone and can be re-negotiated if feelings of sadness or resentment emerge.  Make sure you regularly review how the arrangement is working.  It may be useful to have a plan where being the breadwinner is shared or alternatively both parents work part-time.

Tip 5 – Don’t let housework interfere with bonding time
Research shows that women do significantly more housework than men, even when both are working.  If the female breadwinner comes home after a long day at work hoping to spend time with her child and is faced with a backlog of nappies, washing and cleaning, resentment can quickly mount.  Male partners need to make efforts to keep up with household tasks so the mother doesn’t lose time to play and interact with her child.

Tip 6 – Maintain relevance in the workplace
A father who stays at home for an extended period may lose confidence in his ability to be relevant in the current marketplace and become resistant to returning to work in a lower level role.  Couples should remain abreast of the work situation and renegotiate if necessary.  The male partner may be able to do some ongoing study during this time to ensure that he maintains his relevance in the workforce or working from home could be an option.

*Helena Deacon-Wood and Danielle Ollington are Counsellors at Relationships Australia Victoria.

Playgrounds and workplaces have this in common, while evolving they can remain remarkable time capsules of language, lore, and behaviour passed from one generation to the next.  We have been reminded of this by the latest spats about the culture prevailing in the Defence Force and by the disclosures and allegations of workplace abuse within the Australian Government. These revelations create an historical as well as cognitive dissonance, not so much that abuses and bad behaviour exist, but because of the degree and type and number, and by the level of apparent tolerance for them.

But that’s the thing.  What to an outsider is self-evidently nasty, excessive, unlawful or downright wacky in a given workplace is not necessarily visible to those in it.  Or, if it is visible, their moral compass and capacity to act are distorted and diminished by a range of interferences, not least by hierarchical power relations, but also by ambition, competition, collusion, fatalism, indifference, fear and the rest. Moreover, situations are not always straightforward.  Baddies in real life are confusingly not consistently bad and may have talent and charisma.

* Simon Curran is a senior manager at Relationships Australia Victoria. For many years, he worked as an industrial lawyer and in providing conflict resolution and training to workplaces. He heads up RAV’s workplace services program.

Our survey on the use of social media and technology shows it is having an impact on the family and relationships, despite the positive aspects.

A significant majority of the 120 Relationships Australia practitioners who took part in the survey told us that issues relating to social media and technology are cropping up more often in family and relationship counselling sessions.

And 40 per cent of community respondents told us that social media was causing problems in their relationships, largely to do with privacy, time demands and communication.

We conducted the national survey of our practitioners and members of the community in 2011 to determine the impact, both positive and negative, of social media and technology on relationships.

Practitioner survey
The survey shows that about 80 per cent of our practitioners have counselled clients who raised concerns about the impact of Facebook on their relationships.

Seventy two per cent encountered concerns about email and almost 50 per cent dealt with concerns about mobile internet devices and blogs and forums.

Our practitioners say that separating and divorced families often use Facebook, email and mobile phones unconstructively.

Abuse and bullying of previous partners through these methods is a common issue. Guidance is needed to ensure that such contact is less emotional and more business-like and productive.

Adolescent/parent relationships are also being impacted with the need for safety versus privacy.

The practitioners also say that internet pornography, cybersex and online dating and gambling sites continue to cause problems in relationships.

Other commonly cited issues include:

• partners resorting to the use of hidden secret SIM cards and email addresses to maintain infidelities
• online stalking, checking and monitoring of partner’s email, mobile and electronic communication and hacking into ex-partners’ Facebook accounts
• all-consuming user of the internet and technology to the exclusion of one’s partner
• intimacy problems arising from a partner using internet pornography.

Community survey
More than  330 people responded to the online community survey.

The results show that despite the benefits of maintaining relationships with friends and family and reconnecting with people from the past, social media and technology are also increasingly causing relationship problems.

While 52 per cent of community respondents say that social media improves how and how often they communicate, 40 per cent report that it is causing problems. The key issues of concern are:

• privacy, 86%
• time demands, 82%
• changed or impersonal communication style, 81%
• trust, 75%
• safety, 75%
• conflicting priorities, 75%.

A number of common themes have emerged from community respondents.

These include concern over children’s and teenagers’ lack of social skills and neglect of family relationships due to internet use.

Linked with this is concern over personally damaging or detrimental posts made by young people without considering the ramifications.

There is also a dichotomy between social media generating positive feelings of connection versus accentuating feelings of loneliness and creating illusory, false or shallow connection.

Other themes are suspicion over partners’ online activities and connections, including fears of online cheating.

The survey results will be an important input to our plans for services specifically designed around helping people cope with an increasingly connected world.

RAV has been in the relationship support business for more than 60 years; we know a lot about what makes or breaks positive relationships in the real world.

We want to help people manage their relationships in the online world as well, and this survey has helped us to find out more about how social media and technology are changing the way people relate to each other.

* Sue Yorston is RAV’s Manager of Social Inclusion Services.

Yet not all of us feel the same way about 14 February.

For some, celebrating Valentine’s Day is an important way of injecting romance into an important relationship – that feeling of being admired and desired.

For others, the the day is a load of old rubbish and just another sentimental fad Australians have imported from the US – a marketing of emotions.

And then there are those who sit somewhere in between.

If you are in a relationship, it is important to know how your partner feels about Valentine’s Day and the expectations he or she may have.

By ignoring the day, a non-romantic partner may be on the way to temporary relationship hell.

On the other hand, you could earn a lot of brownie points by organising some sort of celebration. It does not have to be expensive, just something meaningful between the two of you.

The gesture recognises that you have paid attention to what is important to your partner. Equally of course, your partner needs to acknowledge the gesture.

In other words, if you are both clear about each other’s expectations and respond accordingly, the day is likely to go much more smoothly.

Despite all the hype around Valentine’s Day,  people should not judge their partners only by their actions on one day of the year.

Nurturing our relationships every day – paying attention, being affectionate, appreciative words, acts of kindness above and beyond our agreed responsibilities – is the most important thing we can do.

Don’t take your partner for granted. Affirm them by expressing your love and celebrating each other, sometimes for no obvious reason.

You don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day, a birthday or other significant event to show you care.

Nevertheless, follow these tips and and a happy Valentine’s Day could be yours.

• Don’t assume your partner feels the same as you about Valentine’s Day.
• If the day is important to you, let your partner know. It could save a lot of disappointment later.
• There is no need to be extravagant. Simple celebrations and simple words are sufficient.

Since those dark days, much has been done to rebuild fire-affected regions and support individuals, families and communities to recover.

RAV’s Traralgon Centre has been an active participant in the Gippsland bushfire recovery program, providing free counselling and outreach services over many months to support those in need.

With the bushfire season upon us again, it is important that we remember the lessons of Black Saturday. That is why RAV is supporting the Victorian Government’s Making Victoria FireReady campaign that aims to reach potentially vulnerable people in high-risk bushfire areas.

Do you need help leaving early before a high fire risk day, or know someone who does?

Leaving early before a bushfire is the best way to ensure your safety – but for some people, it’s not that easy.

People who are frail or elderly, have a physical disability, or have problems thinking clearly or acting quickly under stress may be reliant on others to help them leave early on a Severe, Extreme or Code Red fire day.

If this sounds like someone you know – especially someone living alone in an isolated area – then talk to them about how you could help.

Or, if this sounds like you, then ask your family, friends or neighbours to help you plan how to leave early, using a copy of the Red Cross ‘Bushfires: preparing to leave early’ plan. You can fill out the plan online or call the Victorian Bushfire Information Line to request a copy.

Discuss the ideas in the plan with family, friends, neighbours and anyone else in your support network. If you need help filling out the plan, ask one of these people or anyone else who could assist, such as a carer.

For your free copy of the Red Cross ‘Bushfires – preparing to leave early’ plan, go to cfa.vic.gov.au/redcrossplan to fill out a plan online or print out a plan to fill in, or call the Victorian Bushfire Information line on 1800 240 667.

For people who are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment, call the National Relay Service on 1800 555 677.

Despite the relief that many will feel, this can be an emotional and anxious time for parents.

The first transition is from kindergarten to school, significant because your baby is now growing up and taking their first real steps up the educational ladder.

Letting go is difficult for some parents who worry they will no longer be there for most of the time to care for and nurture their children.

Not so difficult for their children themselves, because of the excellent kinder-to-prep transition programs that make it a lot easier than it was in their parents’ day.

Today’s five-year-olds arrive at school reasonably familiar with their teachers and classrooms and know where the toilets are.

One of the things a parent needs to get used to is no longer being the sole focus of their child’s world. For example, you may have to endure “Mrs Jones says…” and feeling that Mrs Jones is a lot smarter than mum and dad.

While you may feel that your position has been usurped, remember it is an important developmental step for your child to respond to an external authority figure.

The next big transition comes at the start of secondary school. Just as at prep, most secondary schools have excellent orientation programs that make this jump from primary a lot less scary than it was.

Keep your own anxieties in check when talking to your child about the transition. This will enable him or her to have a much better chance of moving smoothly into the next six years of schooling.

Acknowledge there will be some adjustments to make. For example, your child may be worried about getting lost or not knowing where to go. You could talk about useful strategies that would help in these circumstances.

By doing this, you are giving them a chance to talk about their own areas of anxiety.

Let them know they are not on their own – if there are 150 kids in Year 7, the other 149 are sure to be feeling just the same.

You can also help by being practical, for example by doing a few dummy runs if your child will be going to school on public transport.

It is not uncommon for parents to feel overwhelmed when their children start secondary school. Rest assured it’s okay to call the homeroom teacher if you are concerned about any issues with your child, or just to make sure they are settling in.

After all, it is in the teachers’ best interests for new students to feel settled and happy in their new environment.

And after the children have settled in, remember to continue to support and encourage them in their schooling throughout the year.

Tomorrow, we are invited to reflect on what it means to be Australian in 2012, and how this influences the way we relate to ourselves, each other and our history.

The traditional Australian narrative has been an Anglo-Celtic one, colourful convicts, bushrangers and diggers, resilient in the face of hardship and heroic at overcoming the odds.

The Australian “type” has been seen as hardy, adaptable, sport-loving, egalitarian and male – a larrikin who values mateship above all else, particularly authority.

This portrayal has contributed to the suppression and marginalisation of the cultural identities of Indigenous people and Australians from non-Anglo backgrounds. It does not accurately reflect who, or what we are as a nation.

Australia has been a multicultural society since its days as a penal colony and, of course, a land full of rich cultural traditions for thousands of years before white settlement.

We can value the positive aspects of the larrikin – independent, strong, playful, mischievous.

We can also create a new Aussie image by celebrating social inclusion, diversity, community, family and relationships, qualities of which all Australians can be proud.

There has been much talk in the media this year about gambling in the context of Australian Government proposals to introduce pokies’ reform.

Relationships Australia Victoria is on the record as supporting these reforms as we see the destructive side of problem gambling and its impact on individuals, families and the community. 

While the focus of the debate to date has been on pokies, we should not forget about the increasing problem of online gambling, which has been growing at a rate of up to 20 per cent a year.

Our experience shows that problem gamblers are ashamed of their behaviour and try to hide it from their families and friends.

The access to online gambling and its 24/7 at work, at a café, at home availability makes it easier to be secretive.

Unfortunately, the negative outcomes are the same for problem online gamblers as for those who go to a venue, such as a club or pub.

Apart from major financial losses, there are negative impacts on intimate and family relationships, friendships, employment and health, including mental health.

We recognise that education about the dangers of online gambling may draw attention to its attraction.

Nevertheless, it is essential to support people whose gambling leads to financial and personal difficulties, as well as those close to the problem gambler – partners, parents, children.

It is equally important to regulate advertising and promotion of gambling which has proliferated in recent years in sport and all forms of media. This has the effect of normalising gambling and potentially creating gambling patterns in young people.

If you need help for problem gambling, click here.

* Sue Yorston manages RAV’s Ballarat Centre which offers free counselling for people affected by problem gambling as part of the Gamblers Help program.