...or really my passion--I've discovered it!
Families are my passion. I want to help families be whole and healthy. I want to help parents raise their kids well. I want kids to feel loved and invested in by their parents, and to be best friends with their parents, just like I am with mine. I absolutely love the experience I had growing up in my family. And I want everyone to be able to say the same thing.
Every family is different, but I think a family is successful when kids feel substantially equipped by their parents, and emotionally close to their parents, so that when they grow up, children and parents are able to relate to each other as close friends, able to mutually encourage each other. A child should feel that his parents are his most supportive allies. I believe this kind of encouraging and supportive relationship can be maintained even through developmental years.
I have often tried to put these concepts together in my mind, sort of in search of a theory to neatly summarize what makes a family good. Here are my thoughts on a few key components:
Consistent time together: families need consistent time spent together to be friends with each other and get to know each other. The time spent together will foster the most openness and support if vulnerability and value are present in those times.
Vulnerability: mutual sharing of concerns, struggles, dreams, desires. Sharing the deep places together vulnerably contributes to closeness in a family and enables them to understand one another. It also leads to opportunities to value each other.
Value: Communicated a number of ways, value is placed on others especially in moments of vulnerability. It comes through empathy, encouraging words, words of hope about the future, speaking to a person's identity, and also through physical touch and all the other love languages.
Parents are responsible for arranging/requiring consistent times of interaction for the family. Within those times parents must invite vulnerability and model valuing of family members, and vice versa as well. Children will grow into these traits as they see them modeled are invited by parents to practice them.
So I realize this post is a little over-enthusiastic and simplistic, but it's a work in progress. Thoughts? Additions?
Families are my passion. I want to help families be whole and healthy. I want to help parents raise their kids well. I want kids to feel loved and invested in by their parents, and to be best friends with their parents, just like I am with mine. I absolutely love the experience I had growing up in my family. And I want everyone to be able to say the same thing.
Every family is different, but I think a family is successful when kids feel substantially equipped by their parents, and emotionally close to their parents, so that when they grow up, children and parents are able to relate to each other as close friends, able to mutually encourage each other. A child should feel that his parents are his most supportive allies. I believe this kind of encouraging and supportive relationship can be maintained even through developmental years.
I have often tried to put these concepts together in my mind, sort of in search of a theory to neatly summarize what makes a family good. Here are my thoughts on a few key components:
Consistent time together: families need consistent time spent together to be friends with each other and get to know each other. The time spent together will foster the most openness and support if vulnerability and value are present in those times.
Vulnerability: mutual sharing of concerns, struggles, dreams, desires. Sharing the deep places together vulnerably contributes to closeness in a family and enables them to understand one another. It also leads to opportunities to value each other.
Value: Communicated a number of ways, value is placed on others especially in moments of vulnerability. It comes through empathy, encouraging words, words of hope about the future, speaking to a person's identity, and also through physical touch and all the other love languages.
Parents are responsible for arranging/requiring consistent times of interaction for the family. Within those times parents must invite vulnerability and model valuing of family members, and vice versa as well. Children will grow into these traits as they see them modeled are invited by parents to practice them.
So I realize this post is a little over-enthusiastic and simplistic, but it's a work in progress. Thoughts? Additions?
My first thought is that the triumvirate of consistent time together, vulnerability, and value presupposes a foundation (in the parents') of basic judeo-christian values.
ReplyDelete