There’s good news about families. Regardless of life’s inevitable challenges, families remain strong, resilient and lasting when attainable characteristics, practices and priorities are in place. These common strengths of thriving families can be found in a wide variety of family make-ups and circumstances. They’re not tied to family structure, nor are they guaranteed by wealth. They are a result of getting the basics right.Any family can have any strength or combination of strengths. The presence of a single strength can help a family stay or become strong. The basic strengths of strong families, according to research, include characteristics like the ability to adapt to change, having clear roles for family members and maintaining overall physical, mental and economic health. Practices like spending family time together, communicating with and being committed to each other, and establishing accountability and mutual respect are considered key strengths. Also on the list are priorities like having community ties, spirituality, cultural traditions and an extended sense of family.The most recent and broadest research is the American FamilyAssets Study by Minneapolis’ SearchInstitute, a nonprofit dedicated to discovering what kids need to succeed. The Search Institute has spent the last 50 years looking into the strengths in young people’s lives, and the last 25 focused on developing assets they need to grow up successfully. Their study, published in 2012, was based on the results of a 2011 Harris Interactive survey, which polled a diverse cross-section of more than 1,500 families. “A big part of our research is understanding the power of focusing on strengths ... of counterbalancing the negative messages about kids and families that are out there,” says Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Ph.D., the institute’s vice president of research and development. “We know that family is important, and yet it’s sometimes hard to be tangible about what that means.”Eugene and his team had a sensethat what was happening in familiesand what those families shared ascommon strengths were part of whatthey needed to tap into to help buildstronger families. In the end they identified 21 tangible things families can do to bestronger units. These family strengths, or“assets,” as the institute refers tothem, center around five commonqualities or actions:1. Nurturing RelationshipsAre family members respectfully listening to each other? Showing each other affection? Encouraging each other? Asking about each other’s highs and lows of the day is a great way to keep in emotional touch. “Relationships shape us so much, as do the quality of the relations with each other,” Eugene says. “The way we get along shapes family life. It matters. It’s what gets us throughchallenging times.”There are high societal expectationsof closeness. There is no other group ofpeople we spend more time with. There is no relationship like the parent-child relationship. And there are no other relationships where those involved have such a great stake in each other’s lives. We are responsible for each other. Sometimes grandparents are part of that immediate family. Sometimes friends are.2. Establishing RoutinesAre you eating dinner together? Hanging out together by planning regular game or movie nights? Creating meaningful traditions, like half-birthday celebrations or doing fondue as the first meal of the new school year? Can you depend on each other? Do you have a family calendar everyone has access to?Kathleen Fischer, a Dallas-based family and parenting coach and author, uses the 21 Family Assets often when working with families and refers to family dinnertime as a secret weapon.“When parents say, ‘How am I going to connect with my kids?’ I ask how many times they eat dinner as a family. This is your best tool, your most consistent, easiest way to broach tough subjects, to check in, to get a barometer ;on how they’re doing in the day.”3. Maintaining ExpectationsAre the rules fair? The boundaries well-defined? Can you discuss the tough topics? Is everyone contributing? “As your kid is moving toward being in charge of his own life, the amount he’s contributing back to the family is important,” Kathleen says. “I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about, ‘Would you pick up a gallon of milk?’ ‘Would you take Jonathan to soccer practice?’ If my kid is on the East Coast in college and Grandpa is getting over pneumonia, can he take the train down to Philly and check on him? Not only is it a relief to Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, but it also says to the kid, ‘You have a real role to play as you begin to contribute back to the family in adult ways.’ ”4. Adapting to ChallengesIs everyone doing what needs to be done at home, work and school? Do family duties need to adjust while Mom is out of town or your 16-year-old studies forfinals or a state debate competition?Does the family adapt well when faced with changes? Do you work together to solve problems? Is everyone’s voice heard? Even Eugene, who has been a parent for decades and has one senior in high school and a recent college graduate, learned something along the way. He was surprised at how important adaptability was to those interviewed forthe study.&“It’s easy to forget how important itis to adjust when things come up,” he says. “When we talked with families in the study, we weren’t originally thinking about this. We were thinking ;communications and routines, but people kept bringing this up, that they’d been through some tough stuff. To me, that was one of the pieces that stoodout. It’s actually something we cancelebrate, that we can use to get throughthe tough times.”5. Connecting to CommunitiesDo family members have relationshipswith others in the community, with coaches, teachers and other adults? Are neighbors looking out for each other? Do you feel a part of your community and are family members active in it and giving back to it? Are there nearby places each member of your family feels at home, like a neighborhood coffee shop, church or a friend’s house?Isolated families are not healthy families, Eugene says. “The best families are not cocoons against theworld, but families that are connectedand engaged in the world. Different people bring fresh perspectives, new ideas. When there’s a disaster, it’s theneighbors who help you through it.When a family becomes too isolated from activities and broader connections, it’s not good for them.”The study found that the more assetsa family has, the stronger parents and children will be. Broadly, kids from such families are more engaged in school, take better care of themselves and stand up when they see someone treated unfairly. Parents of these families also are more likely to watch their health and be active in their communities.“Across virtually every cross section of family, the vast majority want to do right by their kids,” Eugene says. “They want to be a good family even if they have had some tough knocks in life. How do we help them do that? One of the ways is to begin articulating key pieces of what that means, things they can actually do. We wanted to make the intangible tangible.”Strengths Trump Structure and DemographicsPeople sometimes equate a “good family” with a particular type of family—and that family usually looks like the person imagining the perfect family. The image of a strong family then becomes based on who is in the family, who isn’t in the family, as well as our own individual values.“That doesn’t capture enough about what a family is,” Eugene says. “You can have a traditional two-parent, two-kids-and-a-dog fabulous family. But you can also have a family that’s abusive and dysfunctional that looks just like that.” Regardless of the structure, “What are the processes and relationships going on with the family?” is whatis more important to ask, he says.“What happens when we pay attention to those?”The American Family Assets Studyshows those processes and relationships matter far more when you’re looking at outcomes than demographics do. Statistically controlling for family size, composition and neighborhood, demographics may account for 5 to 10 percent of the outcome difference among families (how happy and successful their children end up). The 21 Family Assets account for a 30 to 35 percent difference.“Family isn’t isolated, but has a unique role,” Eugene says. “You’ve been with them from early childhood, all the way through. And you have this deep bond and attachment. That’s just different than any other relationship.”Past Flaws in ThinkingSociety—and therefore, research—is generally problem-focused, says J._Douglas Coatsworth, Ph.D., professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University and a consultant on the Family Assets study. Earlier research and advicestemmed from clinical models workingwith children who were alreadyin trouble.“It’s easier for us to categorize andclassify along certain dimensions,”the professor says. “It’s much easierfor us to say, ‘This is a single-parentfamily,’ than to say, ‘This is a familythat provides love and nurturing, goodguidance, fair discipline and openconversation.’ The attributes of strongfamilies are harder to describe.”As Doug instructs his students toobserve in everyday situations, specificrelationships—mother and son, brotherand brother, sister and mother, father and son, sister to brother—seem totake precedence to the family as anentire unit.“It’s hard to conceptualize and talkabout the family as a whole thing,” hesays. “Families are really complex. It’sreally hard to measure how the family as a whole is functioning. It’s mucheasier to emphasize parenting.”The assets study is one of only a fewstudies since at least the ’70s, Eugenesays, that has tried to quantitativelylook at family strengths. It seems inmore recent years, we’ve gotten toocaught up in the techniques of parenting.But a positive spin on the family andchildren in the past decade has startedto cast a different lens on the family:“We started asking ourselves, ‘What is itthat families were doing that made themfunction well and helped parents raisehappier, healthier kids?’ ”The Search Institute researchuniquely includes the important rolechildren play in the strength of a family,a change Doug has seen in the researchcommunity in the last 15 or so years: “Some of the positives of the Family Assets have to do with what the youth contributes to the family. They have an important role and contribution. Recognizing that within a family is very important.”
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