-We're here today with three simple strategies to immediately strengthen your family relationships.
-Stick around for all three because the third one is my favorite and it's really a long
term strategy as well. We'll get to that in just a minute. -Okay, strategy number one smile more.
-What could be more simple? -That sounds really simple, doesn't it? -Well, it is simple and it's
something that we overlook a lot. I remember one of our viewers sharing with me that she tried a
little experiment with her kids and then she's got three or four kids. Her experiment was, I'm
just going to smile more and see what happens. It's kind of a fun experiment actually and you're going
to get potentially mixed results. I've said very many times here on the channel that when moms are
smiling kids are thinking. -I think part of the idea of just smiling more is becoming more
aware of maybe your resting face. So just choose a smiling face occasionally more often you know.
I remember this is a little different. I remember once being quite angry and I was just
kind of going down the road and I was thinking and I looked up in the mirror rearview mirror and
I looked and I had those eyebrows and I thought right up. No, I didn't realize
that I wasn't feeling as angry as my face looked. Let's just say that and so I like relax and
smile and I think a lot of the times we will walk around with a bit of an angry face when
really we are not feeling angry, so try smiling -Pay attention to other people's reactions to this.
I get this a lot because I'm pathologically positive. I'm the positivity shrink and I've
learned and I've practiced over the years to hold a smiling. You called it a resting face? Which
people who are in speech-language pathology like Vicki they have all of these terms that I get to
to learn as I go. But my resting face is typically a smile. I keep my eyebrows up a little bit.
Ive got a little bit of a smile and it's so funny because people will wave at me kind of
unsure. -I know you are. -Like, why are you smiling at me? And I realize oh, they just see my smile
and they think that I know them or that I'm greeting them. -But smiling kind of invites
engagement and really we're talking about creating a better family culture, better relationships.
So let's smile we invite engagement. -That's the whole purpose of this particular strategy so try
it with your kids. Now, just pick a morning or an afternoon pick a little time frame that you could
experiment with this and intentionally bring a smile to your face. Loosen things up
a little if you feel some tightness in your forehead like you were demonstrating earlier.
Loosen that up, smooth out those eyebrows, bring them up just a little bit,
and bring a smile to your face and just try it for a couple of hours, see what happens.
Notice what's going on with your kids. When I said when moms are smiling kids are thinking.
Sometimes when mom and dad are smiling kids are worried. -They're down right. -they're like, what
are we not in the loop on here? What did we miss?", And they start thinking but that's part
of the family culture and it will increase the energy. If you can already tell that these things
are going to help you in your family take just a moment to click that subscribe button and once you
do hit the notification bell and we'll be there for you. Here's our second strategy, expressions
of gratitude. -But not just expressions thoughts of gratitude also. -Oh, good catch. -And I think this is
a lot more important than we give it credit for because a lot of the times you're going along
and you're thinking they don't really know what I'm thinking. I'm faking it and they're buying
it and I'm telling you that children from a very young age we have learned how
to read people's minds, their thoughts, their movements, their actions. It's kind of a
survival skill that we have early... So if you think you're faking it you're probably not.
-You'll be found out and it comes across as ingenuous. It kind of it comes across as being
fake or phony and then that actually deteriorates our family culture. We don't want to do that. -We
want to be genuine. So, thank you for pointing that out Vicki, it's not just about expressing the
gratitude it's about actually feeling it. Putting yourself in a frame of mind where you can actually
feel it and gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to increase the positive energy not only in
your own mind and in your own thinking but in all of the relationships where you're showing up.
-And with this expression of gratitude it is good to learn how to be specific rather than
super generic or general when you are expressing gratitude to someone. So you might say, "I really
appreciate how you handled that with your little brother". -Right, so it's a specific incident and they
actually know about it or to focus on a character trait something about them that describes them.
"Thank you for being so patient with me while I was making dinner." -Or you're
just such a genuine dad the way that you handled that is so genuine. -Pointing to who they are
and what drives them. This gratitude is probably the quickest way that I've ever encountered as
a psychologist to change our frame of mind and to get into a positive energy in a relationship. It's
absolutely powerful, gratitude. I mentioned right at the beginning that my favorite one is the last
one it's actually a long-term strategy and it's something that will transform your family culture
into a more positive environment for everyone and I call it the family council. -This is something
we've tried in our family as well and we've used and it one of the characteristics of a
family council is that it's kind of a regular meeting that you hold. -So that everyone
expects it. Here's some of the behind the scenes information. -There will be times
when you need to have conversations with the kids and they're the big topics right like sex and
drugs and all of those things that you really want to talk to your kids about. But there's also more
subtle things like respect and communication and how we treat each other within the home.
There are so many different topics or principles that we get concerned about as parents. How awkward
is it going to be if you go to the family and say, "Okay, we need to have a meeting",
-The talk. -And then everybody's like, "Oh no, what is it this time or the talk or and everybody's
feeling awkward and uncomfortable as opposed to. -Something that's pretty regular or respected.
-Well, we did ours every Monday night we called it family home evening and it was our chance to
come together as a family and everyone knew that every Monday we do this and for you it might be
every Saturday morning. It might be every Sunday afternoon. -Maybe on the first Sunday of a month
or something. -Right, you pick it. Now, we did ours weekly but the point is it needs to be
regular so that people anticipate it and that's not the only element because there's some other
important elements. But find a time when you can do this on a regular basis and then
that conveniently becomes the venue in which you can talk about the awkward and the less awkward
topics as they come up. Because then it's simply the topic of the day. It doesn't have to be
so uncomfortable for everyone. Now, there's some other elements that are important. -One is kind
of have it be somewhat principle-based. -And this is the parent's responsibility but it's
not just the parent's job. So, the parents get to identify what is the principle we need to discuss
and that's always an element of our family counsel. We will discuss some principle that's important
to our family. -But even principle based in that everybody has a part, right? So like you might have
jobs as part of this meeting or one of the things I like now that our kids when our
kids were littler they maybe picked a thought or a song or a treat or things like that so everybody.
The principle is that everybody participates. Everybody has a place, everybody's voice is heard.
And now, our kids are grown and they have families of their own so we only meet once a month and we
do it by zoom because people live. -We still do it. -Three different cities or states and they're
still the principle of our current one because there's not chores and things it is to be thinking
of you're we call it wins and grins. You know we want to be bring out the positive things that are
happening in our life and how to share those with each other and so that's kind of our principle.
-And there's a discussion of principles as well when you go into these meetings and
you can assign that out to the kids. Hey, prepare thought about honesty. -Yeah or whatever.
-So that's the principle. So, it's principle-based. Now, another thing you kind of mentioned this
Vicki as you were giving us a little summary have some fun activity. It's important to have
fun and this might be a game or an activity or something we do together as a family.
If it's not fun you're going to have a hard time engaging the kids in this. If it is fun and they
start to learn that every week we have this fun time together then they start to anticipate it.
They start to look forward to it and you can give them assignments and responsibilities to come
up with some fun activity and then there's one other really essential element you got to have
a treat. -Definitely. -You mentioned this one as well. There's psychological reasons for this beyond the
fact that dad has a sweet tooth. Because I like to have a treat I mean, so save dessert. You're
having dinner you save dessert for the family council meeting okay or you go out and you get
a donut or an ice cream or jay vice or whatever it is that that you would enjoy together a treat
as a family. The psychological importance of this comes back to research that's actually been done
about how our body and brain chemistry changes when we're enjoying a treat and you're doing
that together as a family and we're not trying to you know shoot your diet or make everybody in the
family overweight. -Treats can be healthy as well. -Absolutely. -Still, just a fun thing to do together.
-And that's an important part. So we've got these elements. It's regular, that's absolutely important.
It is principle-based. We always have fun together and we enjoy a treat. Put that into place it will
transform your family culture. We would love to continue this conversation with you. In fact, the
next video that's queuing up right now has to do with establishing and building that sturdy
family culture. Cue that one up next and we'll see you on that video.