We've asked you and you've responded what's your biggest challenge is
apparent and some of you have said how to keep my family happy? We've got five
specific things that you can try.
So, how do I keep my family happy? You said
you've got five steps or tips. Yes and the first one is a little tricky. But
kind of a tricky one. There's a lot of paradoxes in psychology and this is one
of them and paradoxes in parenting as well. Here's the paradox, it's not in your
control to make your family happy. No it's not.
Sorry you don't have that kind of power in fact when you understand emotional
maturity, every person on this planet is responsible for their own happiness it
is after all a choice.Right,we got some other videos about that if you want to check
it out. The paradox because you love your family the only thing that you want for
them is to be happy.That's outside of your control, as you let go of your need
to make everybody happy?It's actually more likely that you're gonna succeed.
That's true that's why it's so paradoxical you have to kind of let go
of the need to make them happy in order for them to kind of create their way and
find their way to the happiness. Yeah, it's kind of like when you go to the
bank and you need a loan but you can't get the loan because you need the loan
so badly if you can prove you don't need the money,
they'll give you the loan all day long. And it's a paradox so we let go of our
need to make everyone happy. And it lightens up our own approach to it in a
way that makes us more likely to have that kind of an influence on the family.
Right, So that's number one realize that it's outside of your
control give up your need to make everyone happy
and we've still got four steps for you. Okay so you still want to kind of help
your family find happiness right? So I'm kind of changing the words instead of
make my family be happy I'm gonna write a college that is video.
Step two is be positive. Is that a big shocker? oh I'm glad you said it because
I'm the positivity guy. Positivity is not what a lot of people think it is. Some
people think oh it's just being happy and cheerful well that's not a fake no
in fact that's kind of annoying and it just irritates people. I think kind of
but right? so positivity has to do with choosing your position.
Check it out, you don't know what's going to happen, do you? You know we talked
about pessimists and optimists right and the optimist thinks that great things is
gonna happen and the pessimist thinks it's terrible things is gonna happen.
well do you know? no not yet. You know so you're choosing a position
and when you really embrace the principles of positivity you can see
that the way things are right now is actually really good even if you're in a
painful or difficult circumstance there are so many things about your life that
are rich and abundant and blessed closest thing on that changes your
energy so as you practice positivity yourself you bring that culture of
positivity into your home which makes it easier for those in your home to find
happiness. So number three is something that you have done so beautifully in our
own family it has to do with gathering and and having intersection with our
kids talk about that look so you know you remember when we first got married I
I was raised in a family of six kids and I have a sister who's just older me that
is an amazing cook she's been a good cook as long as I can remember so I
really didn't even try when we got married I couldn't cook and I still
don't even consider myself a good cook the one thing I will say though is that
it was just really a passion of mine to make sure we had family dinners family
yeah so I just really believed even if it was a very simple meal which is what
most of them are, I wanted to have food on the table that we could sit around
and check in with each other just have a time to be together. There's so many
people that aren't even sitting together. Right and so finding a way to
be together and I found for me personally meals was a good time for
that. Well the research backs you up on this Vicki because, there are studies
that are coming out there saying that families who have at least one meal
together on that regular basis and we're talking daily okay cuz you gotta eat
everyday right? so this is a great example or a great excuse maybe to
gather your family together and it's not about the food, you don't have to be a
good cook although, she is she has learned. I'm consistent but not for some
of the early mishaps. But, I just feel like that that time I'm finding that
more and more of course you know I'm a communication specialist and so to me
that's one of the advantages of having a family meal is it gives you time to
communicate with each other to get a little eye contact as you sit in a
circle and to communicate and that gives you a chance to really check in with one
another when you feel like you've been heard then it's easier to be happy we
have this culture of acceptance and love and support which is going to bring
about that happy family you're you're longing for. Let's talk about some other
forms of gathering too because the meal the family meal probably the most
powerful one and the research would back that up but there's also family game
night, family home evening, family vacation, storytime storytime and I think
story times a great way to do it especially with your young children you
know you just have that little time that you get to do your your little family
story and a bit of a routine. Here's another example that we have experienced
recently because, we just came back from a family trip where some of our grown
children joined us in the car and there are little activities you can do in the
car that bring families together - it might be storytelling it might be we
like to play improv games in the car like the world's greatest expert where
someone's designated as the world's greatest expert in whatever we choose
that they're the expert in and then everybody gets task
questions and they just have to answer on the fly now this is just silly maybe
But it's an example of gathering the family and having positive experiences
together. So another step that really supports happy families for a lot of
good reasons is service. Yeah we've had some fun experiences together as a
family I remember one Christmas one holiday season when we chose to do a
service project for the local police department. Do you remember that? I do and
we engaged our kids in this project too where we put together little care
packages for all of the police officers in our local community here and took it
down to them on Christmas Eve because we are so grateful that they are doing
their job and pretty much sacrificing time with their family in order to
ensure the safety of our family and so we just wanted to give our children a
chance to look outside of themselves and serve. Now, the importance of this is yeah
it's teaching them to look outside of themselves a lot of the time when you're
really unhappy or depressed you're very self-focused
although it's all about how and and not in a grandiose way but it'll really
where that's all you can think about is what you are going through. Well for
example I don't like my life nothing's going well for me but people don't like
me or what it's very self-focused and you're right not in a grandiose sort of
a way but in a in a way that gets us stuck in depression and anxiety service
is such a powerful psychological tool to get outside of yourself and focus on
other people and doing that together as a family
powerful way to increase happiness. And to develop stronger relationships with
two will also increase happiness. Right. As we wrap this up, Vicky I'm a big fan
of being very intentional on purpose right about values and reasons for doing
things and one of the things that I think really helps families to establish
this culture that supports happiness is to post your values in whatever way
you're going to do that we've them up as vinyl letters on the wall but
we also developed it into a cheer do you remember the one I'm talking about? joy
in the journey for us for good bless of life today right and then as a cheer
we'd usually add that after it and this is fun when the kids were little because
it gets I guess I'm thinking about what we're all about as a family and you can
steal ours if you want but you can come up with your own values but I love this
because you're going to want to take a moment you know a lot of you are
probably thinking post our values whoa do we even have that yes as a family
this gives you a chance to take a little time and be intentional about your
family that's gonna help support a happy family. So if you're wondering yeah I
don't know do we have family values that's a good question to be asking get
some answers to that be intentional about it and this starts to program some
young minds to accept and internalize the values that are important to you. And
create this happy family culture. Happy families are not only possible they're
all around us connect with each other in those comments down below share what's
working for you to create that happy family culture and if you haven't done
it yet go check out the parenting powerup product there's a link over here
and one down in the comments we really hope to help you create a happy family