Oprah Show - Do You Really Know Your Family? - Secrets are small or all-out whoppers, so enormous and complex that they can rock entire families off their foundations. "When you're hit with a crisis you either change your mind (about what you thought your life was) and/or change your behavior (about what you're doing)," she said of how "normal" families react to a secret. "What we expect is that our crises are going to crush us. We find out they don't have to." "Finding out stripped me of everything I knew, you have to go back to figure out what's true or not. You believed your loved ones before learning the secret. Then you question everything about them. It's not dysfunction, it's life. Every family has a secret. There's a fine line between being truthful and telling people everything." Dr. Pat Wiklund is writing a book.
Telling Children Family Secrets - Dr. Imber-Black suggested six guidelines for telling the truth about a secret to children. First, assess what your child already knows. Then, decide what they should know -- it's not always necessary to reveal everything. Determine your reasons for telling the child -- to have them as an ally, confidant or therapist isn't a good reason. Decide, too, if the secret could harm your family, and how capable your child is of handling the information. Tell the secret during "regular time," not during holidays or special events. And finally, reassure your child they're not at fault, or responsible for finding a solution.
