Strong family relationships have critical elements including positive communication, mutual respect, time for fun and constant encouragement. Children especially need to be encouraged to believe in themselves even when they make mistakes.
Good communication involves listening to each other respectfully, expressing one’s thoughts and feelings honestly and openly and making compromises where possible. It also involves giving each family member responsibilities which cultivates respect and a sense of value in the relationship.
Love
Love is a complex emotion that can vary from person to person and culture to culture. It can also be a powerful force that brings people together. Regardless of whether you’re in a childless family, a blended family, or an extended family, the key to keeping your relationship with your family healthy is communicating your feelings effectively.
In order to build strong relationships with your family, set aside time each day (maybe at meals or during car rides) to talk and share a laugh. You can also try having one-on-one conversations with each family member to strengthen your bond.
Support
Family support is a critical factor in well-being. People with strong relationships are less likely to develop health-compromising behaviors as a way of coping with stressors (such as the strain in a relationship).
Healthy families celebrate the good things that happen and talk about problems when they occur. They also listen in a way that lets each person share how they feel. This allows everyone to express difficult emotions like embarrassment, anger or sadness.
Many families have issues with sibling rivalry or jealousy, which can cause strained relationships. It is important to address these feelings, and a trained therapist can help with this. It is also important to avoid gossiping and backstabbing, as this can hurt relationships in a family. It’s also helpful to offer support and affection in a way that is meaningful to each individual.
Respect
Respect is the foundation of all healthy family relationships. It means treating others as they want to be treated and recognizing that their personalities and feelings are unique. It also means allowing people to make their own choices and decisions without trying to control them.
Respect can mean admiration and deference, like regarding a person as important or inspirational: to respect a good teacher or politician; esteem or veneration, accompanied by more or less affection: to respect one’s friends; or moral recognition respect, involving the idea that certain objects are rightly respected because of their basic moral standing:
Parents who teach their children respect will have a healthy relationship. They will listen to their children’s opinions and beliefs, even if they disagree. They will not use physical violence to enforce their rules.
Commitment
Commitment is a decision to stay with someone, or something, for the long haul. It can be large, like a marriage, or small, such as a promise to meet your friend for dinner on Saturday at six. It requires exclusivity to some extent, but every relationship dynamic is different and people have different ideas about what that means.
A well-formed commitment involves personal dedication that drives a desire to persist exclusively in the chosen path. Constraints that favor relationship stability by making it more economically, socially, or personally costly to abandon the relationship also drive commitment (e.g., Rusbult 1980). Studies have found that happiness increases partners’ investments in the relationship and their responses to dissatisfaction. However, the impact of happiness on commitment varies by gender.
Affection
Affection is the positive emotional attachment that family members have for each other. This feeling can be expressed in many different ways, such as cuddling, hugging, kissing, and holding hands. It can also be shown through positive attention, which is the act of showing interest and delight in a family member. Affection can be a powerful force that can strengthen the bond between families and build trust.
Affectional forces likely mediate many decisions made by families. Therefore, future research should consider affection as a factor that influences the decision process. This will require creating models that distinguish family decision making from other groups’ decision processes, and include dimensions unique to family decisions. It may also be necessary to develop a measure of affection that can be used in real and simulated purchasing situations.