What five things does a healthy family system provide for each family member?

Talk to any busy mom or dad, and you know that raising a family can be a challenging undertaking. We usually develop our family structure based on how we were raised. It’s often referred to as our “normal” and the only thing we know. These behaviours may or may not contribute to creating a healthy and loving family.

Is my family functioning normally?

Where do parents learn how to parent? Other than our own family, alternative examples often come from television. Are these healthy families? What factors contribute to an environment where children and adults are both happy and feel loved and cherished?

First of all, families have a strong commitment to each other. They promote the family as important. The relationship between the two adult partners takes precedence over the children because children aren’t capable of carrying the emotional needs of adults. It doesn’t mean that one parent allows the other parent to take all of the power; it just means that there needs to be a commitment to making the marriage healthy and stable.

Our counsellors responsible for managing our parenting workshops have compiled their top recommendations to help you start on the path to creating a healthy, functioning family environment:

1. Play

Within this structure, the adults PLAY with children and each other. They take time from work and other commitments to celebrate birthdays and holidays and do activities together as a family. The family may choose to play board games, baseball, or go swimming.

2. Eating Together

Eating together is extremely significant and brings the family together. This can be difficult when most families are engaged in activities. Families should plan for at least 4 sit down together meals a week and work towards creating weekly rituals together. You may want to try something like going for a family swim on a Sunday afternoon and then having a BBQ. These are the small things that keep a family healthy.

3. Open Communication

Communication is extremely important. Adults listen to children and children listen to adults. A 5-year-old can have an opinion! No opinions are wrong, no question is inappropriate; there is safety in communicating. And communication is not using abusive language. If you swear at your children, they will swear at you (and probably other adults too). As parents, you can model how to talk respectfully to each other, how to listen, how to stay calm, and how to value other people’s opinions.

Talking together as a family is a great way to practice healthy communication skills. When you are considering your next family holiday, plan a family meeting and listen to each other’s ideas. It is ultimately the adult’s final decision (based on safety, finances, etc.), but allowing children to have a say is very powerful.

4. Working Through It Together

A healthy family also provides the opportunity to practice coping strategies when things go wrong. Family members can work through difficulties together. This doesn’t mean that family members swoop in and rescue each other, but turn to each other for support and guidance. Family members also offer encouragement and express affirmation to each other on a regular basis. They might say, “I admire you for that!” or “Your help is so important,” or “You mean so much to me.”

By saying positive things to each other, family members develop a strong sense of self and create an environment where they feel respected for their individual differences. Family members are safe to try new things, to fail, to be wrong, and to have faults. Members can build trust by knowing that they are loved regardless of mistakes. This is often strongly connected to a strong sense of spiritual well-being. Families can work together to build a strong moral foundation of respect, kindness, and love.

 

Seek some outside advice! The Family Centre offers some wonderful parenting workshops where parents can share their challenges, exchange information that is helpful, and develop skills to create healthy families.

 

More about The Family Centre:

The Family Centre helps families, individuals, couples, newcomers, youth, teens, caregivers, and organizations move forward positively, whether embarking on one of life’s most exciting adventures—like getting married or having children—or going through a challenging, traumatic situation. 

Busy workdays for parents and children can create barriers in family relationships. Building strong family ties when schedules are full requires effort and much patience. Sunshine aims to help families build a strong family foundation. After all, having strong relationships helps us to feel at ease and plays an essential role in maintaining good health. Here are five steps to guide you.

1. Make eating together a habit

Find time to share a meal with your family, no matter how busy you are. Studies have shown that families who eat together three or more times a week are healthier. Family mealtimes are a huge factor in children’s nutritional health, reduces the risk of developing depression, and promote healthy eating patterns resulting in a healthy weight and a healthy relationship with food.

Furthermore, eating with your family will help you get to know each other better, share conversations. Schedule a meal each day or at least a few times a week to engage with your family.

2. Spend quality time

Spending quality family time doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. You can start by doing activities that your family enjoys. This could be a movie night, solving puzzles, getting ice cream together, or simply engaging the family in preparing a meal. What’s important is that you are fully present in the moment, spending meaningful time with them.

3. One-on-one time with each family member

Conversations with the entire family like those at dinnertime are good, but individual chats with your partner and each child strengthen relationships as well. Don’t get stressed about scheduling these. Just sneak this one on one conversations in any time during the day, while on a walk, morning coffee conversations, in the car, or whenever you find 10 or 15 minutes free together.

Knowing what is happening in your children’s and partner’s lives is a vital strategy to deepen your connection with each individual.

4. Be involved

In whatever activity your children and partner are interested in, be proactive and genuinely engage with them. Be inquisitive enough to know how they are doing, ask questions and listen sincerely. These simple gestures matter to them and can help bring you closer. By expressing genuine interest in topics or activities closely connected to that person, you give them a gift, a sense of importance, well being and value.

5. Share daily expressions of love and support

Greeting each other before leaving and arriving home with a hug or a peck on the cheek are examples to show gestures of love. Make it everyone’s habit. Also, don’t hesitate to complement each family member for jobs well-done.

These gestures allow you to consistently express the love and care you feel toward your family and be the glue to ensure your family stays close and loving.

Remember to take joy in the small daily happenings. There’s nothing better than having meaningful connections with your family.

What are 5 characteristics of healthy families?

There are several common features of healthy, happy families that include cohesiveness, open communication, parents leading by example, conflict management, and setting clear expectations and limits.

What are 8 characteristics of healthy families?

Traits of a healthy family..
Nurture..
Support..
Parental discipline..
Encouragement and growth of all family members..
Spiritual well-being of all members..
Good communication..
Problem-solving skills..
Meaningful participation of family members in activities outside the home..

What are the 4 things you need for a healthy family relationship?

Healthy relationships between family members means that your child feels loved, safe, secure and supported as they grow into independent adults..
Being loving, caring and respectful..
Being warm, supportive and positive..
Communicating when disagreements occur..
Spending time doing things together to build strong bonds..

What are the factors of a healthy family?

They call these protective factors, "positive attributes that strengthen all families." The five protective factors considered the most important are: nurturing and attachment, knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development, parental resilience, social connections, and concrete supports for parents.