Strong Families - Strong Teens

When you ask people around the globe, "What makes your family strong?" the answers are remarkably similar from culture to culture. Strong families have six general qualities:

• Appreciation and affection. People in strong families deeply care for one another and they let each other know this on a regular basis. They are not afraid to express their love.
• Commitment. Members of strong families show a strong commitment to one another, investing time and energy in family activities and not letting their work or other priorities take too much time away from family interaction.
• Positive communication. Successful families are often task-oriented in their communication, identifying problems and discussing how to solve them together. Perhaps even more important than this, however, strong families also spend time talking with and listening to one another just to stay connected.
• Enjoyable time together. One study of 1,500 schoolchildren asked, "What do you think makes a happy family?" Few replied that money, cars, fancy homes, television sets, or Disney World made a happy family. The kids were most likely to say that a happy family is one that does things together, a family that genuinely enjoys the times they share with each other.
• Spiritual well-being. Spiritual well-being can be seen as the caring center within each individual that promotes sharing, love, and compassion. It is a feeling or force that helps people transcend themselves and their petty day-to-day hassles, and focus on that which is sacred to them in life.
• Successful management of stress and crisis. Strong families are not immune to stress and crisis, but they are not as crisis-prone as troubled families tend to be. Rather, they possess the ability to manage both daily stressors and difficult life crises creatively and effectively. They know how to prevent trouble before it happens, and how to work together to meet challenges when they inevitably occur in life.

When people across the country and around the world describe the qualities that make their family strong, these are some of the things they talk about. Circle the qualities that describe your relationship with your teen.

Something to think about: Which ones would your teen circle?

This issue of the Ups & Downs was contributed by John DeFrain, Ph.D., Family Life Specialist. University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and Stephen T. Russell, Ph.D, 4-Y Youth Development Specialist, University of California, Davis.