Sunday, December 24, 2000		Article

How to make your home a happy place
By I.M. Soni

SOME myths about family life generate a lot of needless misery and friction. They foul family atmosphere and create emotional distance among members. Some part company for ever.

These myths give us unrealistic expectations about family life and keep members dissatisfied with themselves, their marriage or their children.

Fact: It is normal for adults (and children) to enjoy being with people of their own ages and and those with similar interests. There is no rule that togetherness always contributes to a family’s healthy emotional development or binds it in a golden chain.

On the contrary, forcing a close association between family members can damage their relationships. It actually amounts to emotional strangulation. Family members must have adequate spaces in their relationships. Otherwise they collide. Too much closeness causes "suffocation." It deprives members of their essential privacy.

Fact: In the rough and tumble of living together, they know each other so well that there is every chance to like or dislike one another.

It is quite common for adult brothers and sisters to have practically no relationship at all for that very reason. They are neutral. Others may have vastly different likes and dislikes.

Ironically, the more parents insist that their offspring love each other, the more tension they create in the family and in its relationship. Force and compulsion bring about strain in the ties.

Fact: Wisdom does not necessarily come with age. We have known many people who merely grow old, not wise. Many teenagers have apparent practical wisdom.

Parents should not pressurise children into accepting their own outlook because they are older and hence know better. The best parents should do is to make a personal statement about what they believe, what they stand for, what values they uphold. Others’ intelligence ought to be respected.

Fact: A mother is a human being first. It is normal for her to resent her children at times. Children are invariably too demanding, strain her patience and resources. Also, she is often one "against" two or three.

Fact: There are numerous examples of parents with little or no knowledge of psychological theories who have managed to rear good children with sound values and character.

Contrarily, parents who read books articles may rear delinquents.

Fact: Children generally survive a divorce for better than people think. But growing up in an friction-ridden home, where parents only pretend to have a loving relationship, causes psychological problems. Children sense the dishonesty. They see through the sham.

People in love tell each other everything.

Fact: Family members need privacy. It is natural for the young to keep secrets from elders. It is in order for spouses to keep their own counsel at times — without the other getting hurt or upset about it. Tact is demanded in married life, too.