Leonora and Joshua are having disagreements about Leonora returning to work after staying home with their child, Christa, who is now 3 months old.

There is constant rejection and retaliation as Leonora demonstrates anger by yelling at Joshua. Joshua continues expressing his opinions about the cost and care of day care centers and wants Leonora to wait until Christa is 5 years old and starts kindergarten. Leonora feels that if she is out of the workplace for 5 years it will be extremely difficult for her to re-enter and will have to start her career from the beginning and move backwards with salary and benefits. They both feel stress because of the economic pressures as well as freedom to continue the lifestyle that they were accustomed to before Christa arrived.

Your Assignment

Tension and conflict continue and this problem is unresolved. Your assignment is to work through this conflict in positive ways by using the Ten Guidelines on pages 332-333.

Under each of the Ten Guidelines, you must outline what both Leonora and Joshua needs to say or do to work through this problem.