If you have grown up in the company of a beautiful family, you will know that family can be a thing of joy. A good family is an essential ingredient in moulding children to confident, strong and successful individuals that can benefit the society as a whole. How to understand the secret of family happiness is not rock science.
Happy Families Are Built
If you want a happy family, you have to build it. Building will take a lot of direct efforts involving cause and effect and will consume your time and money (I cannot emphasize this enough) but if you are determined you will succeed in having a happy family. With dedication and strategy you can fashion out what your family should be and truly achieve the figurative “silk purse from a sow’s ear”.
Allowing your family to take a natural course will lead to crises, crises you could have nipped in the bud if you put some effort in it. Now that you are ready to be the master of your family’s fate, let us understand the necessary ingredients needed for building a successful and happy family. Lets learn how to understand the secret of family happiness.
1. Love
Like no other one, love is the basic trait you will need. It is the central nucleus on which all other traits will revolve. In understanding your spouse and children, you’ll need to express a lot of love. The love that I’m referring to here is not that hanky panky back-seat-of-the-car trash they are selling on the television. It is real love, love that will survive all of life’s flimsy and pathetic attacks.
You will need be determined to love your wife (or husband) and children like no other, no matter what, no matter what storms that could aim at destroying your happiness. One thing is certain, they will come, these storms, you have to be ready. Remember what King Solomon said in Proverbs “Hate stirs trouble but love overlooks all offences” (I am using the Good News Bible). Love your family genuinely and you have started with the right foot.
2. Commitment
Just like love, commitment will also give your family great balance. To be committed is to be give your whole being to your family. It simply means, “family comes first” other important things including, work, friends, society and career should come later. Many unsuccessful families reverse this order and suffer dearly for it.
How do you show commitment to your family? It’s by spending time with them. The currency of family is time. Children don’t understand that times are hard and you have to work late, they don’t understand geography, philosophy or the Stock market, they only understand one thing…love. The more you spend time with them, the more you show love and commitment to them. Your spouse will appreciate it more than those diamond necklaces and cross country trips you offer her for Christmas
3. Communication
An important part of being a lovely person is to know what your family wants. How can you know this if there isn’t effective communication between you and them? You should create time from your ever busy schedule and talk to your family. Expects suggest you talk to them together as well as individuals. Create a special time in which you talk to your children. During this times don’t be the only one talking. Remember communication is a two way traffic.
Give them the time to express their feelings in the most genuine way they can. This is very important when you have teenage children. Teenagers are always thinking they can handle the troubles of adolescence. The truth is, they can’t, at least on their own. They need you for maximum support just as a creeping plant needs support to curl its tendrils.
But you must start when they are very young, else it would be weird to suddenly begin. Set some time for your spouse too (if you’re the husband, you need to talk to your wife, frequently) and get to understand their own views on things.
4. Know Your Family
Very close to effective communication is getting to know your family. You might want to argue, don’t you know your family already? They live in your house and yet I claim you don’t know them. It’s possible you live all day with your family and still not know them.
We all have things, secrets that we don’t share with anyone and that our family don’t know about. You must study your family and present yourself available for them to share their secrets with you.
For instance let’s test if you really know your family, shall we? Our test subject is your eldest child. We are assuming he is a boy and a teenager. I know you must know his full name (if you don’t, you just won yourself the World Best Parent award.. Don’t mind me, I am being sarcastic!)
But do you know his best friend, best music artiste, best ice cream flavour, favourite rock band, best subject or that girl he is “secretly” crushing on? You might say “Of what importance is this to me?” Or “Gosh, he changes all these so much I cannot keep up!” If you want a happy family you must be genuinely interested in your family, not just acting Dad or Mom with a red Superman cape.
5. Be Friends With Your Family
How many of you can say categorically that you are friends with your family? Sure you are Dad or Mom, I am saying, are you your children’s friend?
A friend is a person you can share time and information with. If you are their friend, they would love to spend time with you. And you can get to know their darkest secrets and see them in their deepest lows. It’s not only the happy times that you need your family, you must be there through good and trying times.
How do you become friends with your family? The first thing you need is communication (see all these traits are interwoven into each other). Care sincerely about them and reach out when they need you or not. Don’t, I repeat don’t freak out when they tell you things (this is very important when you have teenage children).
Freaking out sends out the bad signal that you can’t handle what they tell you and they will concede you can’t be trusted. Relax, let them know Dad Or Mom really loves them and you are in whatever they are, together. This is how to understand the secret of family happiness.
There is more!
If you want to know more, let continue!
