Perhaps you’re asking yourself – why am I visiting a website about building a stronger family? The answer to this probably says something about how you’re feeling about your family life at this moment, and your hopes and dreams for your family in the future.
Before we begin thinking about your family, let’s take a moment to look back on your childhood years – and the family you grew up in.
Can you see yourself again as a young child?
What are you doing?
Who are you playing with?
What is going on around you at the time?
Thinking back like this reminds us of the value of our early childhood experiences and why families are so important.
Our own memories of childhood are often a good place to begin when thinking about our hopes and dreams for our current family life. What things have we carried from our childhood families into our adult lives? What would we like our kids to remember and carry with them into their adult lives?
What does ‘family’ mean?
A ‘family’ means different things to different people, and different things depending on when and how we lived our family life.
Our childhood memories
When you look back you may remember a world that looked very different to today.
I grew up in the 1960s in a newly developing suburb on the outskirts of Brisbane. My parents had built their house
soon after my brother was born. I had a dad who went to work and a mum who stayed at home and minded the kids. We kept ourselves busy playing in the backyard, building cubby houses or spending hours watching the old black and white television.
What was childhood like for you?
Families these days
What is childhood and family life like for children these days? What does a family mean to them?
Often families are no longer nuclear with mum, dad and the kids. With increasing divorce rates, many children live in single-parent or blended families. Often both parents are in the workforce with more children in childcare. Family life is experiencing increased time-pressures from these hectic lifestyles. There is also increasing diversity as society becomes more multicultural. It’s a challenging world in which families are living their lives these days.
We now understand that the way we live our daily lives with our children
is one of the the most powerful influence on their lives … both today and into the future.
This is why family life is so important!
Next: What are strong families?
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