Most of us want strong and happy families. No one desires to have a weak and sad family. But the problem is that most of us don’t know how we can build strong families. In this article I want to share with you five principles on how to a happy and strong family. I not a family expert and I don’t have a perfect family, but am always trying to keep my family happy and strong. These principles that I will share with you are principles I have learned from my parents and those with strong and happy families.
The first quality of building a strong and happy family is mutual appreciation. Strong families consistently express appreciation for each other. They build one another up psychologically and make other feel good about themselves.
We all like to be appreciated. Some negatives will always be part of life, but a little negativism goes a long way for a child. Children may be unappreciated or criticized by those outside their family circle, but when they receive the same treatment from those who matter the most to them, it can devastate them.
The Second quality for building a strong and happy family is good communication. I recently found out that poor communication is a major factor in troubled marriages and troubled families. I was therefore not surprised to learn that good communication is a characteristic of strong marriage and families.
Communication is speaking and listening. It is important that we listen to each other and talk to each other. Failure to communicate in a family is an invitation of problems.
The third principle to build a strong and happy family is spending time together. Both quality time and quantity time is probably one of the biggest challenges that many families face. Parents are too busy for their children. There are so many things we have to do hence we have no time for our families. But the truth here is that if we don’t have time for our families then we are destroying our families.
The fourth quality of a strong and happy family is a high degree of religious orientation. Dr. Stinnett a family specialist noted that having religious values includes church attendance and participation in religious activities, but that it includes a great deal more than that. He said that strong families are committed to a “spiritual lifestyle.” In other words, their faith touches every part of their lives. Their faith is seen in what they say and do.
The fifth and final quality is “the ability to deal with crisis in a positive manner.” A “crisis” is a major problem. Such a problem cannot be solved by usual means; that is what makes it a crisis. Strong families have crisis just as weak families do. The difference is in how they handle them: Strong families handle them in a positive manner.
Happy families are basically able to handle crisis in a positive manner because they possess the qualities already listed. Since they spend time together and appreciate each other, they have strong relationships that do not disintegrate when problems arise.
At any given time, few families have all five of these qualities 100 percent. Every family has good days and bad days, but we can all work to instill these qualities in our families in increasing measures. They are not unrealistic or unreachable ideals.