Eight ways to help your family find a refuge from the storms of life's events.
1. Make family your top priority
Close families get that way because they have chosen to make family life their number one priority. If you decide your kids come before your sales quota or bridge game, you will find all the other pieces (of parenting) fall into place. When you put your kids first, you're getting the most out of your time on earth.
2. Spend time with your kids
There is no substitute for spending time with your children. Just as friendships need time to nurture and bond, the same is true for family relationships. Children cherish special time alone with a parent. These memories are happy ones because they recall times when a parent was totally in the moment and solely focused on being with the child, one on one.
3. Never neglect these three important words
Close families know the healing power of forgiveness. They often say these three words: Please forgive me! Or I forgive you! They know that forgiveness has the power to warm the heart while cooling the sting. Within a family, forgiveness serves as a cleansing agent. It purges the family of anger, bitterness, hostility, animosity, grudge-bearing and lingering resentment. Thus, it is vital that parents set the family tone by extending and asking for forgiveness. When you make a mistake, lose your temper, fail to meet one of your responsibilities that involve a child, and so forth, make an obvious point of apologising to the child and asking for his/her forgiveness.
4. Establishing and maintain family rituals
Rituals are the glue of family life. Today, they play an ever-increasing role as family time becomes more difficult in our complex and hectic society. Along with the traditional major family rituals such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, establish and maintain equally important smaller rituals such as common family meals together, birthday celebrations, Mother's Day, Father's Day, a Sunday afternoon hike, visits to the grandparents.
For instance, one family fell into the habit of going out on Fridays for pizza with their two teenage children. It was a way to end the busy week by having a meal everyone liked - nothing more significant than that. But over the years, pizza outings became part of their sense of being a family, giving them time for conversation and connection.
5. Be available
No matter how busy you are with your job and other responsibilities, let your children know you are always available for them. Close families operate on the understanding that members can call on each other or interrupt schedules when necessary. John E. Obedzinski, M.D., a behavioural paediatrician in California, tells of being summoned from a university conference by a call from his older daughter, then about four. "We had just moved to a home in the country with a stream on the property," he explains. "Alarmed, I hurried to the phone. 'The salmon running!' Mariska told me. She wanted someone to share her excitement. Such special moments simply can't be scheduled," Dr Obedzinski says.
6. Teach children to love and feel loved
Loving smiles, loving words, loving actions, loving thoughts, loving gestures within a family create an emotionally healthy home where all the members express and experience closeness because of that love. Nothing is as important to a child's feelings of self-worth as the knowledge that he is unequivocally loved by the people who are important in his life. Many mistakes that we might make as parents can be overcome if our children have this knowledge. Love to a child is like sunshine to a flower, like water to a thirsty plant, like honey to a bee. Your children need to know beyond any doubt that they are lovable, and that you love them.
7. Use words wisely
Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. Always try to speak in ways that affirm and assure, not attack and abuse, your children. How we speak to each other within families will either pull people together or push them apart.
When you speak, choose and use your words wisely, because they have a lingering power. Consider this partial list of the "Worst Things an Adult Ever Said to a Child" - phrases compiled from an informal survey of adults in the recently published The Parent's Little Book of Lists, by Jane Bluestein:
"You'll never amount to anything."
"I wish I'd never had you."
"You'll never be college material."
"Why can't you be more like your (brother or sister)?"
"Your mother and I wouldn't be getting divorced if it weren't for you."
"I love you, but…"
Thankfully, the survey respondents also remembered the best things adults said to them.
Some of those "bests" include:
"You can do anything you choose to do."
"You're very smart."
"I'm so glad we've got you."
"Congratulations! You deserve this!"
"You're beautiful."
"You're more responsible than a lot of adults I know."
"I believe in you."
"I love you!"
8. Praise your kids privately and publicly
Words of praise are verbal sunshine. Just as we are drawn to people who shower us with compliments and praise, children are drawn closer to parents who are generous in praising them. Along with complimenting your children privately at home, be sure to sing their praises publicly as well. Consider the love and affirmation the children of film director Ron Howard must have felt when reading this response to a reporter who asked him to describe his ideal vacation: "I find car trips to be the greatest. Just driving down the road, talking to the kids, listening to the radio, explaining things, hearing what they have to say, talking to my wife, hitting the motel, jumping in the pool, watching a little television. I get a week of that and I come away stimulated, ready to work, full of ideas".
Surely Howard's children, upon reading his answer, would feel highly affirmed and loved to learn his "ideal vacation" is a week spent with family, talking and listening, swimming, and watching television together; that his renewal and stimulation come directly from time with family.
Ultimately, by working to cultivate closeness within your family, you effectively create a peaceful, harmonious home life where members experience love and support, as well as find refuge from the storms of life. Close families know the truth and wisdom of these words from German philosopher Johann Goethe: "He is happiest, be king or peasant, who finds peace in his home".