Family life Essay

Family life is full of challenges, but when we make wise choices, it is also rewarding. Family Life includes dozens of practical units on human development (childhood, teen years, adulthood, and aging), and living in a family (couple relationships, parenting, strengths, connections). All of these materials are intended to help you make choices that will make your family life more effective and satisfying. Family Life. A family is a household of people related by blood or marriage. More specifically, we can define a family as husband and wife (or one parent), with or without never-married children, living together in the same dwelling. A household may contain more than two generations of people. The family is the foundational institution of society ordained by God. It is constituted by marriage and is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood or adoption. A safe haven in which family members esteem and honor one another. A place where words and actions communicate value and respect to everyone, young and old. A reliable sanctuary where each person receives grace – unconditional acceptance and extravagant generosity with no strings attached. A place where a person finds others available, attentive, and emotionally connected to them. A community of celebration, laughter, and play. A safe haven where family members can let their hair down, reveal themselves fully, and know one another intimately. Family roles are the recurrent patterns of behavior by which individuals fulfill family functions and needs. Individual members of families occupy certain roles such as child, sibling, grandchild. Along with roles come certain social and family expectations for how those roles should be fulfilled. For example, parents are expected to teach, discipline, and provide for their children. And children are expected to cooperate and respect their parents. As family members age, they take on additional roles, such as becoming a spouse, parent, or grandparent. A person’s role is always expanding or changing, depending upon his or her age and family stage. Individuals within a family have both instrumental and affective roles to fulfill. Each serves an important function in maintaining healthy family functioning. Instrumental roles are concerned with the provision of physical resources (e.g., food, clothing, and shelter), decision-making and family management. Affective roles exist to provide emotional support and encouragement to family members. Both sets of roles must be present for healthy family functioning. In addition, families must also consider issues of roles allocation and accountablility. Communication is the way you let other people know about your ideas and feelings. It is much more than the words you say. It is what you say, how you say it, why you say it, when you say it, and what you don’t say. It is your facial expression, your gestures, your posture, and your vocal tones. Good communication isn’t something that just happens between members of strong families; they make it happen. Good family communication involves being both an active listener and a thoughtful speaker. In this way children can see how to communicate well and how to have more control of their lives. A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. – Proverbs 13:22 The Bible speaks often about leaving an inheritance for our children – not necessarily as a command, just as prudent advice. Applying this principle to material things, it is easy to see how helpful it would be to have the parent generation jump-starting their children’s generation with sound financial teaching and the means for them to start their own families with tangible goods rather than debt. This second generation will then, in turn, be able to help the third generation so much more, and so on. I am not talking about amassing and hording money. Rather, I was thinking along the lines of how in the old days, families would pass part of their land on to each of their children, and help them build a house/farm on it, or how the family business would be passed down from father to son for generation after generation. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. – Psalm 16:6 Regardless of your financial standing, this same principle can be applied to the spiritual realm, which is also infinitely more important than the physical/material. The testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. – Psalm 119:111 When we think about the importance of passing on to our children a heritage of godliness, living a life that strives to be in line with Bible principles becomes a much more urgent responsibility.