Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010Foundations for Building Family Strength

For generations, the saying “Home is where the heart is” has been touted as the standard for family strength.  Many of us grew up in a  home where heart-felt emotions – sometimes overblown emotions – were the norm.  In today’s day and age, it takes a bit more skill and a bit more anchored thinking to create a strong family.  How well do you think your family skills work in the following areas?

Family Strengths

Having a healthy and strong family revolves around skills involving communication, contentment, past and future history, humor, becoming resilient, self esteem, unification, family values, positive thinking and spirituality.  It would make a wonderful family discussion to toss these ten topics into the dinner hour and formulate with your family standards that you may not yet have considered or may not have taught your family. As them:  “What would it take to elevate our standards up a notch from where we are right now?”

Communication

Actually, although communication is a wonderful skill, I really prefer the word ‘dialog.’ I think of dialog as dangling any idea out in front of the family and permitting all ideas about it to be discussed, even those not everyone agrees upon.  Honor the individual who presents the different take.  He could be raising your vision.  Open communication fosters trust between you and your children and helps you to support them lovingly.

Stress

The demands within the family and the demands on the family from without (work, school, church) tend to create stress.  We have this fantasy that a strong family should be stress free.  Well, yes, if everyone stays in bed all day!  But in normal, active families, stress happens and you can teach one another to cope.  Make daily lists and communicate them. Know you don’t have to get it all done immediately. Look at your housekeeping rules again – too strict?  Pat family members on the back for tasks partially completed.  Put the cell phone away and devote your attention to your kids.

Working

Everyone in the family works.  The children’s work is school work.  Dad’s work is his employment.  Mom’s work may be employment or being a stay-at-home mom.  Whatever your work role is, you also have a work role in the family and in this role, everyone is taught to cooperate and participate.  This work should be distributed across the entire family.  If you have younger children who might balk, they don’t balk at playing games, so turn the work into a game.

Discipline

We arrive at adulthood as a result of completing childhood and we drag along those things from childhood we did not like.  Discipline is one of those ideas.  We did not like being told “No” when we were children.  Try to find a way to always say “Yes” to your child, like, “Yes, you can go play once the trash is emptied.” They will remember that “yes.”  Gentle firmness is required for discipline that is reasonable.  Children are more secure when there is reasonable discipline because it establishes boundaries for them. Remember, discipline means teaching, not bull whip.

Healthy Eating

The main idea behind eating is “enjoyment.” Encouraging your family to enjoy a wide variety of foods is a great idea.  I know one mom who told her sons “You only have to taste one teaspoon of this food. I’d be unhappy to think your tastes have changed and you missed out on enjoying it, because it’s really yummy.”  Her sons now relish most foods.

There are many other areas that promote a strong family experience.  Remember, family strength is built using many family skills.  We’d like to hear yours below.  Please leave us your comment.