Fostering Strong Family Relationships
At Ophelia’s Place, part of our role in supporting youth is encouraging them to identify traits of healthy relationships. A child’s earliest relationships begin at the family level, influencing a young person’s relationships throughout their life. In this post, “family,” is used broadly, referring to biological or non-biological parents and caregivers, siblings, and other close bonds or chosen family. This article will offer some tips for supporting youth by fostering healthy relationships within the family.
Characteristics of Healthy Families
Studies have found that traits of healthy families are remarkably similar across countries and cultures, although they are expressed differently from family to family. When people talk about what makes their family strong, they identify these common characteristics:
Appreciation and affection – caring for each other, friendship, humor
Commitment – trust, honesty, dependability, sharing
Positive communication – sharing feelings, avoiding blame, giving compliments
Enjoyable time together – enjoying each other’s company, simple good times, quality time
Spiritual well-being – hope, compassion, shared ethical values, oneness with humankind
The ability to manage stress and crises effectively – adaptability, growing together through crises, openness to change, resilience
You may decide to use this list as a guide to assess the strengths in your family. Remember, this is simply a tool for reflection, not an indicator that your family isn’t strong!
The 4 R’s to Building Strong(er) Family Relationships
Recognize that strong families aren’t perfect. Strengths develop over time and families experience conflict and disagree with each other. This is part of the process that families often go through to experience growth and change.
Respect individuality. It may not always be clear to parents/caregivers why youth behave in certain ways or like the things they do, but adolescence is a time where young people are developing their personal identity and it’s important for the adults around them to respect their individuality as they explore who they are.
Resist adultism. In a previous post on resisting adultism and building healthy youth-adult relationships, we share strategies to reduce adultism. You can curb adultist behaviors by listening to and validating young people’s feelings, giving them room to make mistakes and learn, and avoiding adultist statements.
Reflect together. As a family, make some time to reflect on the strengths that you see in each other and together as a unit. Focus on the things you do well together and open up the dialogue to talk about the things you want to make stronger.
This is not an exhaustive list, but these steps may provide a foundation for personal reflection, or starting a conversation together.
If you want to learn about ways to start conversations about building healthy relationships or other topics like media and body image, healthy dating relationships, and digital decisions with the young people in your life, consider hosting a virtual parent night with Ophelia’s Place. For more information, call (541) 284-4333, or email info@opheliasplace.net.