15 SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILY:- By Denise Mann WebMD Feature Reviewed by Charlotte E. Grayson Mathis, MD Happy Family Secret No. 7: Limit Childrens 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 cant be rigid, Fiese says. If the bagel place is closed, you have to go someplace else.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 20:37:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015