“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.” -John Steinbeck

We constantly remind families that whenever they embark on a new path, things can get worse before they get better. In a classic example, when parents decide it is time to set more limits, kids often act out even more than before.

Similarly, when partners decide to be more assertive with one another about areas of disagreement, bigger conflicts are usually the first sign of change. As any change begins, old habits must die first–which is why progress often looks a bit like destruction.

If you are inspired to make some changes in your family or in other relationships, remember that even change for the better is stressful and discombobulating. As creatures of habit, we get used to the way things are–even when the status quo is no longer very appealing.

What is Resilience and Why Is It Important?

Given that change, with accompanying losses and hardships, is an inevitable part of life, it is crucial to learn how to increase our capacity to rebound or spring back after painful life events, a capacity called resilience. Although we know that some aspects of resilience are inborn, healthy attitudes can be learned and practiced.

Parents can teach kids to have a resilient mindset–a positive lens through which to see themselves and the world. An example of this is explaining to young children why mistakes are good. If your kids aren’t messing up, they are not pushing themselves to try new things. Think of the mistakes you made that taught you invaluable lessons.

Do you remember the children’s story, The Little Engine That Could? When the little blue train has to pull a load of toys over the mountain, she succeeds only when she tells herself, “I think I can, I think I can, and then delights in her success by saying to herself, “I thought I could, I thought I could!” The little engine models an empowering self-concept, fostering perseverance in the face of hardship.

When you are taught to believe in yourself, confronting an obstacle pushes you to try harder rather than giving up. If you think less of yourself, you will have trouble even getting started let alone persevering when the going gets tough. If you anticipate failure, why bother?

Tips to Teach Kids to be Resilient

Ask kids to evaluate their performance before you give them feedback. Most importantly, have kids identify what they did well, what kind of effort they put into the task, and what they learned.

Remember that lots of praise is not going to make up for lots of criticism and negative judgments.

When giving feedback on areas that need to be addressed, give information about what your child can do in order to succeed at the task rather than what they did not do.

Remember that children learn by watching parents, teachers and other role models. Reinforce positive modeling by asking kids what they observed another child doing well.

Teach your kids that change can be both overwhelming AND exciting. It depends on how you think about it.

As Jack Kornfield offers, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Dealing with emotions-our own and those of our kids and partners-can be one of the more painful, frustrating, and ultimately fulfilling parts of being in a family.

After the groundbreaking classic bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman came out in 1995, the world came to the shocking realization that just being smart (having a high IQ) did not necessarily lead to success in work or in relationships.

Avoiding the Two Extremes

One of the most important factors in forming a happy, loving family is having the ability to express feelings openly and constructively, striking a balance between holding too much in and letting too much out. Problems arise in families who gravitate toward either end of this emotional spectrum.

The Problem with Not Enough Expression

At one extreme are the families in which no one ever gets to cry, express anger or share their anxieties. Feelings are stuffed down, tightly managed or ridiculed. The child loses touch with what she feels or wants, and depression or psychosomatic symptoms can be the result.

Perhaps one of the best metaphors for not letting feelings out is to think about the kitchen garbage. If you let a bunch of chicken bones and assorted trash sit around too long, the whole kitchen starts to stink. The same can be true for feelings. If they fester too long, they can become even stronger and more negative or bitter.

The Problem with Too Much Expression

At the opposite extreme are families where there is a loss of control of emotions or too much weight placed on their meaning or importance. Negative feelings in such families are typically expressed in a destructive fashion rather than resolved by good listening or channeled constructively.

Family members yell at one another, burst into tears on a regular basis, are highly reactive with one another, and often hurt one another in the name of “sharing”. They have bought into the myth that the more feelings you share, the closer your relationships will be. Not so.

Second only to good communication skills, parents need to teach kids how to deal with their feelings. At KidsEPs.com, there are award-winning songs and activities on feelings and fears for kids aged 3-8. (Footnote for adults: If you haven’t learned enough about dealing with emotions constructively, you might just want to sing along.)

“What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. –George Eliot

The wish to seek and have a deep sense of family connection and commitment is universal. Ask people what is most important to them and their first answer is always the same–their family. In healthy families, there is a sense of cohesion or family togetherness. Without it, we feel more like strangers than kin.

What gives families a strong sense of connection?

The answer is very simple although often a challenge. We must spend quality time together, just hanging out, or if separated by geography, spend time talking and listening to one another. We need to know that we can count on each other for the relationship to be close.

Only by making the time to share the details of our daily lives as well as our successes, hardships, dreams and disappointments can we reap the rewards of our intimate bonds. Researchers at Brigham Young University analyzed results from 148 studies from the last century and found that social support not only makes us happier to be alive but also literally adds to our longevity, increasing our survival by 50 percent.

Unfortunately, twenty-first century families are more isolated than ever before. With both parents working more hours than ever and with the demands of work infiltrating family time via computers and cell phones, most everyone we talk to complains about the same thing. There’s just not enough time!

Some Tips for Improving Key #4

Remind yourself in the following week to take the time each day–even if only minutes– to connect with your family members.

Remember to use the precious times you already have to talk and listen rather than remain plugged into cell phones or iPods.

Catch the moments in between–like driving in the car, eating a snack, walking the dog–to share thoughts and feelings with your loved ones.

Create a daily ritual of checking in. Any habit practiced for thirty days can become the new normal.

Schedule talking and listening time in whatever calendar system you use, committing yourself to family time instead of slipping into the habit of watching TV, computer surfing, video gaming or answering one more email.

Family meetings, described in Chapter 9 of our book, (HowsYourFamily.com) are an excellent way to stay connected, have fun, process feelings, practice positive thinking, and make decisions as a family.

If you have discovered other creative ways to connect with family, please let us know.

When we had our first child thirty years ago, we were both licensed and trained psychotherapists. Even with all our education in early childhood development and psychology, we were unprepared for how the birth of a child changed, well…everything. That’s when we started thinking about writing a book called We Got the Baby–But Where’s the Manual?

That book never got finished because our lives became swallowed up by one baby and then another, and by the busy work lives of a dual-career family. It’s amazing how time flies. Our sons are grown-ups now and wonderfully immersed in their own lives. Our non-profit counseling agency is a fixture in our community, and we have trained hundreds of therapists who work with couples and families.

The Birth of a Book

The creative spark that ignited with becoming new parents morphed into something even bigger. What was really needed was a book on how to be a close and loving family. Year after year, when we gave parents specific tools for how to get along better and bring out the best in each other, people kept saying the same thing: “Why didn’t we get taught these things in high school? Therapists echoed, “Why didn’t we learn this in graduate school?”

Burrowing through piles of professional literature and drawing on personal and professional experience, we assembled the 10 keys to a happy, loving family. Decades of research have demonstrated that families can successfully achieve the task of raising children who are able to live independently and establish harmonious relationships of their own.

Using a brief self-assessment tool (free at www.howsyourfamily.com.) you and your loved ones can evaluate strengths and weaknesses in your family system. This diagnostic tool helps prioritize what needs to be worked on and in what order of importance.

Sample Questions to Assess Your Family

Answer the following questions honestly. Ask your partner or your kids what they would answer.

Do you talk things over and know what’s going on with each other?

Do you openly share your positive feelings (joy, tenderness, pleasure) more than negative ones (fighting, criticizing, teasing)?

Do you have predictable routines and good habits of exercise, self-care and sleep?

Are the parental figures in your family on the same page regarding rules and discipline, working as a team?

Do the adults make their relationship a priority apart from parenting, cultivating friendship and intimacy?

What are the 10 Keys?

Hopefully the questions have begun to spark some guesses about the essential building blocks of a happy, loving family. To really do it justice takes a more thorough assessment. Here’s a quick preview:

Key #1: Talking and Listening

Key #2: Expressing Feelings

Key #3: Adapting to Change

Key #4: Sharing Time Together

Key #5: Who’s In Charge?

Key #6: Closeness and Distance

Key #7: Accepting Differences

Key #8: Seeing the Positive

Key #9: Effective Problem-solving

Key #10: Parenting Together

Taking the Plunge

The Current Family Assessment provides an initial blueprint for improving the effectiveness and closeness of your family. Just as a medical doctor begins treatment after a thorough examination, the first step towards improving your relationships is to take a closer look at both strengths and areas for improvement.

The next step is to develop an action plan for change. We offer practical tips and tools for each key as well as an annotated bibliography describing dozens of self-help resources currently available. Once you know where to focus—and know that change is possible—you are well on your way to creating a happy loving family of your own.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”   -Leo Tolstoy

Most people want to be the very best parents they can.

That’s why baby books fly off the shelves, and hundreds of blogs and websites hand out advice on every topic imaginable—from breastfeeding to sleep schedules, from potty training to healthy eating, from discipline to schooling. In all of these arenas, parents must make important decisions that will impact their children’s health and well-being.

In fact, there is so much information available, with something new flashing on the web every week that parents feel overwhelmed with the choices. How do you know what’s best for your kids and then put it into practice? Given the limits of time and money, where should parents focus first?

The answer: the health and well being of the whole family. Creating a happy, loving family is the greatest gift you can give your child.

Sounds simple…(like most truths). Unfortunately, most of us didn’t learn about this in our high school health class. Or worse, we grew up in an unhappy family or an environment with too little structure, high levels of conflict, or even abuse or neglect.

The good news is that we know more now than ever about the building blocks of healthy, warm relationships. These skills can be taught and then put into practice. The essential threads that distinguish happy families from unhappy ones have been identified in numerous research studies and are more important than differences in race, religion, social class, or sexual orientation.

How does research define a successful happy family?

The kids grow up to become independent and are able to establish healthy adult relationships while remaining connected to their original family.

Family members describe a positive family identity and give and receive support from one another.

They have mostly satisfying interactions and stay in touch with one another.

Family members are resilient in the face of inevitable times of stress and change.

What difference does this make?

In a highly regarded, comprehensive longitudinal study, not only did the warmth of the family environment correlate with greater earning power and work success in adulthood, it also correlated with lower rates of adult anxiety, greater enjoyment of vacations, and increased life satisfaction at age 75! Begun in 1937, the Grant study followed the lives of 268 Harvard sophomores for seventy years.

When George Valliant, the study’s director was asked to summarize what was learned, he responded, “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.” Not just mothers and fathers but siblings, partners and friends.

Although it is important to love your children, it is also essential to create a context of open communication, structure and consistency. We teach our children what love looks like by the way we treat our husbands and wives, parents and grandparents, neighbors and friends.

Loving relationships can be broken down into essential components or “keys.” These 10 factors, detailed in our next blog, can be assessed, learned and practiced. The sooner the better, ideally before young adults enter into significant relationships and prepare to become parents. Can you guess what the 10 keys are?