Family Harmony

Family Togetherness

For this write-up, for the time being, I am defining the family as consisting of husband, wife and their children. Therefore, family harmony will mean ever growing positive relationships between husband, wife and their children and within each one of them. This requires constant nurturing and looking after as well as constant renewal and constant improvement. In absence of this, the harmony will peter out or disintegrate over period of time. Thinking and planning is not good enough. What is essential is doing. So be careful.

Without making it too verbose, I will get down to the brasstacks on how to maintain and flourish the family harmony. Here are some practical tips (not in any particular order) for you and your family; read on and implement:

• Choose your life partner with good thinking and once decided, get married and stick together forever; make it happen that way- it’s not automatic and one has to work for it. Various qualities one may be looking for the prospective spouse are given at URL (Qualities of Spouse) http://spouse-qualities.blogspot.com/.
• Maintain your marriage. Refer: (Counseling) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/.
• Rekindle your marriage. Refer: (Counseling) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/.
• Find out creative excuses to honeymooning and re-honeymooning.
• Exchange praises for each other for the qualities you possess and at times just praise each other for no particular reason.
• Decide on the number of children you should have depending upon your readiness to take up responsibility for them financially, time-wise and emotionally.
• Give each other his or her private space from time to time.
• Create an environment of open communication.
• Yet, think before you start communicating; what you speak should hurt no one in the family.
• Spend a good amount of quality time with your spouse and children.
• Take as many meals of the day together as possible. In today's situations, it may not be possible to enjoy all the meals together. Yet, try to maximize them.
• During the meal times create an environment where every member of the family shares the day to day activities and happenings with the rest of the members of the family.
• Members of the family should set out time during every week to play some outdoor games or other outdoor activities like gardening, jogging, swimming, shopping etc together.
• Members of the family should set out time every week to do some indoor activities like tidying up the house, vacuum cleaning, cleaning up the kitchen, washing clothes etc and recreation like movies, music, storytelling, reading, photography etc together.
• All the family members can jointly take part in cooking some special or regular recipes at home once in a while.
• Family should go on vacation few times in a year and enjoy an outing, long drive, excursion, picnic, sightseeing, museums, zoos, bird watching, theme parks, photography etc.
• Go to the nearby library periodically along with your spouse and kids; borrow the books as per their and your interest and then, share with each other what all of you read.
• Those of you who are religious types can perform religious activities together once in a while.
• There must be constant exchanges of appreciation for each other between the family members for having done something worthwhile and at times, just unconditionally. Just praise each other because they are your family members.
• Hug each other or hold each other’s hand from time to time to express your affection and care for each other and at times, for no reason.
• Help create an environment of excellence at home.
• Help create an environment at home for nurturing value based living. Refer: (Parental Responsibilities) http://parental-responsibilities.blogspot.com/.
• Create an environment for family such that the children, your spouse and yourself always aim at achieving better educational or academic qualifications, doing better in games and sports and in the hobbies and interests they have and will develop in due course.
• Continuous overall growth of every family member is very important.
• Create an action oriented family environment. Make sure that laziness does not set in.
• Establish some discipline around TV watching and computer related activities. Do them when and where necessary; addiction is bad.
• Create an environment of self help.
• Help promote habits of independence and self-confidence in each member of the family. Refer: (Self-confidence) http://self-confidence-improvement.blogspot.com/.

Other Related Topics of Interest (arranged alphabetically with their URLs)

General and Psychological Counseling

(Anger Management) http://controlling-anger.blogspot.com/
(Children’s Behavior Problems) http://child-behavior-problems.blogspot.com/
(Cholesterol Control) http://controlling-cholesterol.blogspot.com/
(Counseling: Psychological) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/
(Counseling: Psychological) http://counseling-family.blogspot.com/
(Cross Cultural Etiquette) http://cross-cultural-etiquette.blogspot.com/
(Emotions) http://emotion-feeling.blogspot.com/
(Executive Etiquette and Manners) http://executive-manners.blogspot.com/
(Exercises) http://exercises-plan.blogspot.com/
(Family Counseling) http://family-harmony.blogspot.com/
(Health: Homeopathy) http://homeopathy-medicines.blogspot.com/
(LifeManagement: Competencies) http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/competency-matrix/6txz9nck6g3/4
(Life Management: Effectiveness Management: HSoftware) http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/management-in-life-profession-family/6txz9nck6g3/3
(Life management: I Am Liberated) http://knol.google.com/k/shyam-bhatawdekar/i-am-liberated/6txz9nck6g3/6#view
(Ownership on Job) http://job-ownership.blogspot.com/
(Parental Responsibilities) http://parental-responsibilities.blogspot.com/
(Personality) http://human-personality.blogspot.com/
(Qualities of Spouse) http://spouse-qualities.blogspot.com/
(Quit Smoking) http://quit-smoking-plan.blogspot.com/
(Self development) http://managing-self.blogspot.com/
(Self-confidence) http://self-confidence-improvement.blogspot.com/
(Stress Management) http://managing-stress-strain.blogspot.com/
(Stress Management) http://management-of-stress.blogspot.com/
(Telephone Etiquette) http://telephone-etiquette.blogspot.com/
(Walking) http://walking-plan.blogspot.com/
(Winners and Losers) http://winners-losers.blogspot.com/

Home Tips

(Home Page for All Home Tips) http://home-tips-tricks.blogspot.com/
(Entertainment: Movies) http://popular-movies.blogspot.com/
(Entertainment- Hindi Movies of Your Choice) http://hindi-movies-choice.blogspot.com/
(Health: Homeopathy) http://homeopathy-medicines.blogspot.com/
(Housekeeping at Home) http://5s-housekeeping-home.blogspot.com/
(How to Save Money) http://save-money-ideas.blogspot.com/
(Recipes: Easy to Cook) http://easytocook-recipes.blogspot.com/
(Recipes: Exotic) http://tastetherecipes.blogspot.com/
(Travel and Sightseeing- India) http://india-tours-sightseeing.blogspot.com/
(Travel and Sightseeing- World) http://sightseeing-guide.blogspot.com/