Exercise
Characteristics of
Healthy Family Relationships
created by Gayle
Peterson, including
Excerpts from Making
Healthy Families
WORKSHEET 2
An exercise in reflection on family experience
Discuss the questions below with your partner, or
a trusted friend, or you may decide to journal your answers on your
own.
Orientation
Ask yourself:
What were the basic attitudes, beliefs or philosophy that influenced
me in my childhood family? Did family members believe in the basic
“goodness” of one another? Were limits set neutrally,
without emotional rejection? Or was emotional rejection and judgment
part or all of the response to mistakes or misbehavior? Was this a
family in which members strived for perfection but accepted the inevitability
of mistakes? Could members show fear and uncertainty with expectation
for reassurance and understanding? Write your observations of your
family-of-origin’s orientation towards mistakes and the belief
in “goodness” of its members.
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Describe your present family’s orientation,
reflecting on these basic questions related to family relationships
and the overall atmosphere of warmth and caring. Write your observations
of your family’s strengths and weaknesses in this area and ideas
for improvement if necessary.
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Remember that if your family atmosphere is not where
you want it to be, you can change it! You are not stuck in the past.
Though it is natural to recreate a family atmosphere similar to the
one you grew up in, once you are able to objectively identify elements
you would like to change, your observations lead you to different
outcomes. And change takes time. Each incident or event you turn around
builds on itself to create the future. Patience and compassion are
your best allies to evaluate your present family orientation.
Boundaries
Ask yourself: Were
the roles of parents and children clear in my childhood family? Did
I learn to take responsibility as a child, and gradually make my own
decisions? Was there too little guidance, or too much? Did I enjoy
an identity with my family, yet connect with outside members of the
community and extended family for greater resources? advice? information?
Write down your observations about boundaries between you and your
parents in childhood.
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How do I see my present family with respect to clarity
of roles, expectation and responsibility? Are responsibilities in
the family clearly defined, or fuzzy? Is there an extended network
of support, or is our family more isolated than I would like? Write
down your observations of your family’s strengths and weaknesses
in this and any ideas for change. (This may overlap with the first
exercise to some extent. Anything already addressed need not be repeated)
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Consider ways to create greater clarity regarding
responsibilities, if you feel it is needed in your family, or take
some action towards developing a connection with community resources
or make time for developing friendships and a social network, if needed.
Your experience of your family is a “work in progress”.
You have every right to develop and influence the course of your family’s
direction!
Power and Intimacy
Ask yourself: How were decisions
made in my childhood family? Were people’s feelings considered?
Did any one person’s feelings or needs dominate over others?
if so, why? Was any attempt made towards fairness in considering members’
needs when they conflicted? Were children’s feelings heard and
taken into account by parents in their decision making in the family?
Write down your recollection of how and whether family members treated
each other with respect.
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What are the answers to the above questions for my
present family? Do all members have the same opinion as I do? Do any
members feel that their feelings do not matter when it comes to important
decisions? Does your partner feel considered and respected with regard
to feelings in conflictual situations? Gather information from your
spouse and other members of your family about their experience. Evaluate
the “spirit” of the family’s dynamics from various
perspectives. Is it what you want it to be? What is positive about
your family’s spirit? Is anything missing that you want to develop
in your family’s atmosphere? (for example: greater respect,
consideration).
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Honesty and Freedom of Expression
Ask yourself: Did
I experience pressure to lie or hide my true feelings or opinions
in my childhood family? Were members open to differences in the family,
or extremely threatened by feelings or ideas that conflicted with
their own? In my present family is honesty of feelings and opinions
prevalent? Is individuality and expression of a range of feelings
and opinions acceptable? (this may overlap with the first exercise,
but is meant to explore your childhood from another angle that may
jog your memory and clarify family patterns). Write down your experience
of being able to express your views in your childhood family.
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Gather information from your spouse and other family
members about their experience. Becoming aware of family member’s
experiences in the family is the first step. Awareness itself opens
to the door to change in small, but subtle ways. (For example, one
mother observed that her daughter rarely ever complained, though her
brothers were often expressing what went wrong at school. She began
to check in with her daughter about what things were “difficult”
for her, as well as what was going well. This opened up a whole dimension
of closeness and sharing that had been dormant between mother and
daughter.) Write down your present family’s strengths and weaknesses
in the area of self-expression and any ideas for increasing the range
of expression, if you feel there is a need for one or more family
members to feel more comfortable expressing themselves.
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Warmth and Humor
Ask yourself:
Can I remember good times, fun times and times of mirth and laughter
that bonded you as a family in childhood? How often or how rare were
these occurrences? Write down the “good” times you remember
with your family in childhood. Whether they were abundant or few and
far between, they are important resources to recover.
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Do you laugh together as a family? Do family members
seek each other out to talk and check-in with one another at some
point in the day or week? Are there family rituals, like dinnertime,
weekend trips or other activities that family members look forward
to sharing together? Write down the family rituals you have, or want
to have in your family and the ways you use humor, or want to begin
to utilize more humor, if you feel it is missing.
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Humor and warmth make relationships rewarding. Simple,
playful banter while cooking can create an atmosphere in which people
want to relate, rather than isolate. (Even teenagers!). Evaluate this
kind of connection in your family relationships. If you feel you are
lacking something here, introduce a little humor, for fun’s
sake.
Organization and Negotiating Skill
Ask yourself: Were family tasks done
with ease or with difficulty in my childhood? Was there a reasonable
amount of order in the household, or did weekends get bogged down
in repeated attempts to organize basic family tasks? Could I count
on things being done regularly and did I have regular family chores
myself or were things more haphazardly maintained? If organizational
structure was maintained was it flexible enough for updating from
time to time as needs of family members changed or was it overly controlled
and rigid, allowing for little or no adjustment over time? Were problems
resolved, or did conflict drag on, with repeated struggles over the
same issues? Write down your impressions of the level of successful
organization in the family and the spirit by which it was carried
out.
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In my present family is there reasonable order which
is sustained over long periods of time with appropriate flexibility
or are there repeated arguments over basic chores and lack of clarity
regarding how they will get done? When conflict arises, is it resolved
without excessive emotional pain and tension? Reflect on this aspect
of your family experience, and gather information from your spouse
about his/her experience of family life together. Write down your
strengths and weaknesses in the are of organization and the spirit
in which it happens, and any suggestions/ ideas for change, if needed.
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Consider and evaluate whether you have transferred
any ineffective patterns of organization onto your own family from
childhood, and decide what kind of organization you want to have in
your current family. It is possible that to succeed in this area,
you may need to consider revising your priorities (maybe the kitchen
floor will not be even be close to” spotless” while my
children are young!). Or you may find that your inability to reach
timely and effective compromise with your spouse creates an undercurrent
of tension in your household, affecting the overall family atmosphere
in a negative way. If so, put this problem between you on the table
for discussion and if necessary, seek help and resources to detoxify
this aspect of your relationship. The ability to problem-solve is
an essential element of healthy family relationships.
Successful negotiating skills will be the topic of
the next family challenge, so stay tuned!
Values
Ask yourself:
What philosophy or values did my childhood family hold regarding life?
What did my parents tell me about the nature of life, the meaning
of family? How was disappointment or failure handled in my family?
How did my family handle the subject or experience of death? Did I
experience myself as a part of a larger whole in context of my family’s
past and its’ previous generations? Write down your impressions
about how well you felt your parents helped to connect you to your
family’s history or introduced you to a “larger meaning”
in understanding life.
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What kind of values do I want to pass on to my children?
How do I address the meaning of life? How do I handle disappointments?
the subject of death? Do I feel a part of a “larger whole”
in context of my family? my community? past generations? What do we
do as a family that gives us an experience of “we”? (family
picnics, outings, nature hikes, camping, daily family dinners?) Write
down what values you want to pass onto your children and how you help
them to connect with their family’s history and heritage.
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Discuss these questions with your partner. Evaluate
your own and other family members’ experience of the family
and the larger community. Remember, it is never too late to begin
having family dinners if you have not, or instigate a Thursday day
night as family pizza night out, or make a family trip to visit a
“forgotten” relative, if you want. This is your family.
You can try new and different things than what you were raised with,
as well as embrace family rituals you found enriching in your childhood.
The task of becoming a parent is to take from your
past what you like, and leave behind what you do not want to repeat.
This “sorting through” process allows you to develop your
own family vision! Keep your list of strengths and weaknesses and
any changes you want to implement in any of the above areas in your
present family life. Review this list and update your impressions
6 months from now, and one year from now.
As we travel through the life cycle we continue to
grow and learn. The older we get, the less we find we know. Helping
each other through this process of living the best way we can is what
family is all about. It is my hope that the discussion evolving from
the exercises in this article will help you on your journey of “family-making”!
 Go
to: Tip sheet: Seven Characteristics of Healthy Families
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