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5 Secrets to a Stress-Free, Happy, Healthy Family

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Are your husband, kids, parents, money, and work causing you stress? Follow this guide to a happy, healthy family.

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Experts reveal the key ingredients to a happy family life.
From the WebMD Archives

From the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family to the Cleavers, Cunninghams, and Cosbys, images of happy families have rarely been in short supply. We all have ideas about what they should look like.

Does yours fit the portrait of a happy family? If not, don't despair. Now WebMD is letting you in on a few of the secrets to a happy family. You, too, can experience some of the domestic bliss that seemed previously reserved just for TV families.

Happy Family Secret No. 1: Enjoy Each Other

The essence of a happy family is that they truly uplift each other and that all comes down to how they treat each other, says Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a New York-based family and relationship counselor and host of The Learning Channel's Shalom in the Home. "There is a joy that characterizes their interaction," says Boteach, father of eight children and author of several books, including the forthcoming Shalom in the Home. "Parents come home and the kids are happy to see them and when kids come home, the parents are happy to see them."

Happy Family Secret No. 2: Swap Stories

"When your kids come home, ask them what happened in school and have a story for them," he says. "If you come home dejected and not really interested and then five minutes later the TV is on, why would they be happy to see you?"

The bottom line, he says, is that when you come home, your kids have to come first. "You must drop everything you are doing and always come home with something to share with your kids, whether a story or even the smallest vignette," he says. "This way you give your kids something to look forward to. The great bane of family life is boredom and that is what leads to dysfunction, affairs, and kids wanting to be with their friends over family."

Happy Family Secret No. 3: Put the Marriage First

"Set a real example of love," Boteach says. "The relationship and marriage must come first." Think Carol and Mike Brady of the Brady Bunch and Cliff and Clair Huxtable of the Cosby Show.

There are many families where kids always come first, says Boteach. Then they become substitute providers of love, he says. "That's an unfair burden to put on a kid." It's also bad for families, he says, "because kids will move out of the house eventually."

Continued

Happy Family Secret No. 4: Break Bread Together

Families that eat together, stay together. It's that simple. "Family dinners are essential," Boteach says. "It's a time to connect." Have a minimum of four family dinners per week, he suggests.

Happy Family Secret No. 5: Play Together

"Have one or two unifying activities that the family does together on a nightly basis," Boteach says. He suggests bedtime stories for young children or reading a chapter from a novel to an older child.

Happy Family Secret No. 6: Put Family Before Friends

"In happy families, family comes before friends," he says, "The camp counselor understands something that parents don't and that is that caring for kids also has to be fun. Give rules, but understand that kids need fun, too. When kids get bored and listless, they start looking for excitement out of the home and that is when friends become more important. Friendship is important, but subordinate to family."

Happy Family Secret No. 7: Limit Children's After-School Activities

Today, growing numbers of kids are overscheduled and participate in six or seven after-school activities per week. The mother becomes a chauffer and the children are never home at the same time. This is not a recipe for a happy family, Boteach says. "If your kids grow up not knowing how to do ballet, they will be OK. No after-school activities is an extreme and too many activities is the other extreme, but moderation is where we should aim." Create your own after-school activities as a family, he suggests. For example, take your kids rollerblading, bike riding, or swimming after school as a family.

Happy Family Secret No. 8: Build and Honor Rituals

" Families need rituals," Boteach says. Rituals can be religious, national, or even family-specific, he says.

Barbara Fiese, PhD, professor and chair of psychology at Syracuse University in New York, agrees. "Happy families have meaningful rituals and are not stressed out by them," she says. "They can be unique to your own family such as going for bagels on Saturday morning, a weekly pizza night, or even a family song. Rituals tend to bring family members close together because they are repeated over time."

To work, rituals need to be flexible, she adds. "They can't be rigid," Fiese says. "If the bagel place is closed, you have to go someplace else."

Continued

Happy Family Secret No. 9: Keep Your Voices Down

Remember that children thrive on stability. "There has to be a calm environment at home," says Boteach. "Talk to your kids, give them strict rules, and punish children when necessary, but don't lose control and yell. If you yell at kids, that shows you are out of control and you create a nonpeaceful environment."

Happy Family Secret No. 10: Never Fight in Front of the Kids

TV viewers never really saw Carol and Mike Brady go at it, did they? While some fighting or bickering may be inevitable, try to keep it away from the children, Boteach says. "If your kids see you fight and argue, apologize and say, 'We are sorry you had to see it. Daddy and I just had a disagreement, but everything is OK now.'"

Happy Family Secret No. 11: Don't Work Too Much

All work and no play does worse things to a family than make it dull. "If you are away all the time and don't prioritize your kids, your kids will internalize feelings of insecurity," says Boteach. They'll begin to believe that they're not valuable enough.

Happy Family Secret No. 12: Encourage Sibling Harmony

Sibling rivalry can be divisive. "I try to speak to my kids about how fortunate they are to have siblings," Boteach says.

Happy Family Secret No. 13: Have Private Jokes

Happy families have inside jokes, Syracuse's Fiese says, "Jokes and nicknames symbolize that this is a group that you belong to and serves as a shorthand for larger experiences," she says.

Happy Family Secret No. 14: Be Flexible

"This is easier said than done," says Fiese. "But by their very nature, families change so you have to be open to change in membership and age," Fiese says. "Somebody gets married, somebody dies, somebody remarries and teenagers are no longer children and young adults are no longer teenagers, but they are all still part of the family."

Happy Family Secret No. 15: Communicate

Rose J. Perkins, EdD, associate professor of psychology at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., says that a happy family communicate with one another. "Frequently families are set up where everyone tells the mom and then the mom sends the message, but in a happy family, there are more flexible, open lines of communication."

In happy families, "all the members of family unit are able to communicate openly," she says.

Sources

SOURCES: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, New York-based family and relationship counselor; host of The Learning Channel's Shalom in the Home. Barbara Fiese, PhD, professor and chair of psychology, Syracuse University, N.Y. Rose J. Perkins, EdD, associate professor of psychology, Stonehill College, Easton, Mass.

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Experts reveal the key ingredients to a happy family life. From the WebMD Archives From the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family to the Cleavers, Cunninghams, and Cosbys, images of happy families have rarely been in short supply. We all have ideas about what they should look like.

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Shemiah Williams

Shemiah Williams has been writing for various websites since 2009 and also writes for "Parle Magazine." She holds a bachelor's degree in business and technology and a master's degree in clinical psychology. Williams serves as a subject matter expert in many areas of health, relationships and professional development.

It takes some considerable effort to develop a healthy family structure, and it takes continued focus to maintain one. The investment of time to ensure that each member of your family is armed with the tools necessary to be productive individuals and supportive family members is invaluable.

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Meet your family's basic needs by providing adequate food, clothing and shelter. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is difficult to lead a healthy life if your basic needs--usually physiological--are not met.

Address your family's emotional needs. Check in periodically with each family member to see what's going on in his life and how he's feeling about things. This is usually most effective in a one-on-one setting that can be done during a car ride to the grocery store or to pick up a treat. This process can be supported by you sharing your experiences as feelings to model equal communication. Create an environment that fosters open communication, self-assuredness and flexibility by letting your family members know that they are free to voice their opinions and feelings any time in a respectful manner.

Develop a family concept that describes your goals as a family. For example: To be healthy, happy, loving and full of adventures. To support this concept, a family would attend the gym together three times per week, have weekly family check-in meetings over breakfast every Saturday and plan a vacation centered around an adventurous activity (i.e. skiing, rock climbing, etc).

Teach your family values and tolerance of other people, their values and their beliefs. Doing so prepares your family for interacting with people who may be different than they are. As you move forward as a family, this acceptance will open doors for meeting new people, making friends and developing a supportive network of people in your neighborhood or your community.

Create a time and space that is safe for your family to communicate. They should feel comfortable seeking love, support and empathy from each other or as a whole. Host regular family meetings to discuss specific topics like household management or chores or safety inside and outside the home. However, you should also allow them the freedom to discuss what is going on in their lives and any issues they want to be addressed. Encourage them to schedule special meetings if an issue comes up that needs more immediate attention. Having these meetings regularly sets the standard that the family should respect this time and use it productively.

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It takes some considerable effort to develop a healthy family structure, and it takes continued focus to maintain one. The investment of time to ensure that each member of your family is armed with the tools necessary to be productive individuals and supportive family members is invaluable.

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Best Marriage Advice - Get Marriage Tips from Experts

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Having a strong and supportive family unit is an essential part of human development. Even animals value the benefits they get from a family type atmosphere. Humans, especially, need to maintain healthy family relationships to enhance their emotional growth. Typically, the family relationship is viewed as the nuclear family.

The immediate biologically related members of a family are the mother, the father, and the children. The conventional family unit can extend to relatives, with some families obviously building stronger, deeper ties than others. Regardless of the depth of the family relationship, here are four reasons why it is important to foster these relationships.

Almost everyone can associate family with the concept of role models and with the development of a moral compass. Children begin to watch what adults do from a very early age. Watching and observing the people that become part of their world, establishes their sense of right and wrong. As children grow older, the number of people whose behavior they witness also grows.

A strong set of family values, built on any number of family relationships, can provide children with a firm foundation and a good sense of moral character. Establishing these values can become even more important for single mothers, who should follow a sound moral compass. As adults mature, their sense of morality usually grows likewise.

Family members contribute to each other's emotional well-being. When the world turns harsh, many people realize the love and understanding of their family is the most important thing in the world. Many theories place a great deal of emphasis on the standard two parent and child family structure, but there have been numerous studies that seem to indicate it isn't always about the formality of structure.

Developing a sense of personal self-worth and positive emotional growth is critical for children, as well as adults. However, this growth can come from a number of the attributes associated with all types of family structures. The primary premise is that having a family relationship , even if it is with a secondary group of people viewed as family, is essential to human emotional growth.

The core of the family unit has a number of inherent responsibilities. As each member of the family takes care of their individual duties , the family benefits from it and it gets stronger. A strong family structure teaches the importance of responsibility, and fulfilling obligations and duties which benefits everyone.

Children keenly watch how adult members of the family unit meet their responsibilities. Molding a family relationship structure that has a foundation in upholding commitments helps to build a responsible person. People continue to develop a good sense of being responsible all through their life, but the foundation can only be laid within the family unit.

One of the most difficult things that people try to overcome is a sense of emotional empathy for others. Families make for an excellent environment for developing the all-important personality trait of emotional intimacy. When children and adults are exposed to an empathetic and compassionate family atmosphere, they learn to foster emotions that are more intimate.

When there are strong and intimate family ties, the fear of emotional intimacy is reduced, or eliminated altogether. An open, healthy family setting helps to reduce any inherent fear of emotional intimacy . Humans learn their emotions from their family environment. Children can develop a true sense of emotional empathy by observing others in their family . When it comes to learning to be compassionate about others, the roots of empathy start at the family level.

It is essential to the development of children and the growth of stable adults to maintain healthy family relationships. A family environment that fosters a healthy sense of self, built around strong values, naturally fosters an air of healthy responsibility. When people have these three core principles nurtured by positive family relationships their ability to be empathetically compassionate to all people can easily blossom.36524

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The Importance Of Maintaining Healthy Family Relationships | Marriage.com

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Regardless of the depth of the family relationship, here are four reasons why it is important to foster these relationships. A family environment that fosters a healthy sense of self, built around strong values, naturally fosters an air of healthy responsibility.

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Marriages and Families - Intimacy, Diversity, and Strengths

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Marriages and Families - Intimacy, Diversity, and Strengths

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Eight Edition
Authors:
David H. Olson
John DeFrain
Linda Skogrand