Important Habits for Emotional Healthy Families
Building healthy habits can make family connections stronger which in return will lay a strong foundation for your children. Everyone knows a family that seems to have it “together”. They eat healthy, they stay active, they all eat together. And, sometimes no matter how hard we try, we never seem to be able to get into the groove. The truth is that achieving that emotional healthy life style may be easier than you think. Here are some suggestions to help you channel that mojo.
- Stay Connected
For a family to stay connected is essential to spend time together, this can be difficult when we’re all attached to our electronic devices most of the day. It’s important to create a schedule and be committed to unplug from all electronics and spend some family time together. Spending time together can be fun if we look for creative ways to spend it like playing a board game or going for a walk or doing whatever it is your family enjoys doing without electronics.
- Practice Kindness and Gratitude
Most people would agree that at one point or another of our lives we have taken for granted our family. I think we do this because we’re always around them and we feel like they’ll always be there so to a certain extent is normal. However, healthy families are physically and emotionally involved, they are engaged and they listen to each other, they discuss things and show that they care. We need to be more aware of people around us specially our family members. Ask how they’re doing, show compassion and be kind to each other. Appreciate life’s simplest pleasures and all the positive things we have in our lives, like the trees outside or having a roof over our heads and food on the table.
- Set Boundaries
Healthy families have very clear boundaries on how family members have to treat each other. Even children should have their boundaries on how they would like to be treated and parents should give them the opportunity to set their own personal boundaries. This would ultimately help them become more independent when they’re older. In fact, we need to teach our children to teach other people how to treat them.
- Express Emotions
Emotionally resilient families are also able to regulate their emotions, when they have them and how they express their feelings. When expressing emotions healthy families don’t resort to bad remarks, emotional or verbal abuse. Having a method of resolving conflict is important, everyone is entitle to express their feelings and emotions but we have to do it consciously without intentionally hurting someone’s feelings.
- Practice Acceptance
Families are made up of a diverse personality types. Healthy families recognize that no one is perfect and learn to accept each other’s differences and stay away from comparisons. Some may struggle when it comes to accepting others specially those closest to us but we all have our moments. Becoming more appreciative of each other’s personalities instead of criticizing we can make our family relationships more positive.
- Celebrate accomplishments
It is important for family to celebrate accomplishments and important moments of our lives. By celebrating success we strengthen our family’s relationships and we show that we value their hard work. This is important because it reinforces the the understanding that all hard work pays-off. Celebrating gives a person a chance to be recognized, therefore it boosts his/her self-esteem but, it can become a developmental problem specially for children if we praise them for every single thing they do. Bottom line, praise and celebrate hard work, celebrations bring family together.
- Know what you can and cannot control
A member of a healthy family knows when to step away from something that’s beyond their control. Family is not supposed to make your life harder, they’re supposed to push you to be better but when a family member causes you emotional pain it may be time to step away. Distancing from family members that make us feel bad is a healthy response.
Building healthy family habits is not an easy task but by practicing some of these we can strengthen our family bonds and build a strong family foundation for our children.