Building Family Support
It's the tie-breaking game and it's bottom of the ninth. Your team is up to bat. The score is 3 - 0 visitors and you're the home team. The bases are loaded, with two outs and your star slugger is at bat with the count of 3 balls and 2 strikes. It's obvious how much your team needs a home run ... your slugger knows it too. A swing and ...
The slugger strikes out. Now imagine, the whole team and the coach ignore the slugger, slinging numerous curses, put-downs, and abusive remarks to make this "star" feel even worse.
Wanting to do well is natural. We all want those we care about to respect us.
Feeling that others are available to encourage us as we struggle makes it easier to deal with the upset of disappointments, conflicts, anxieties, and depression that arise whenever things don't turn out the way one hopes. It might not seem like much, but something as simple as a pat on the back can speak volumes of support.
Cope Together, Cope Better and Healthier
Without support, coping with stress becomes more difficult. When family members are not only non-supportive but also discouraging, critical, hostile, or avoidant, reactions to stress become more pronounced. The following strategies can help your family cope together and cope better with stress:
- Recognize the signals of poor family functioning (i.e., name-calling, shouting, silence). Learning to accept the inadequacies is the first step to changing the way you live with your family.
- Have a family council. Sit down with your entire family and talk about how you communicate and how you operate. Discuss the following and clarify your roles and rules about the roles:
· Decide who does what chores, and who is responsible for each aspect of running your household.
· Decide whether these roles are flexible.
· What is the process for changing roles?
· Decide who has the right to make a decision. Are decisions made by one person, or democratically, or by council?
- Think about and discuss under what circumstances a family member can ask for a family council meeting. How will each person have equal support of the family and show equal support for each family member during the meeting?
- Think about how you want to deal with feelings. Each family has unspoken rules about how and when feelings are to be expressed and who has the right to express them. Under stress, emotions are evoked and must be dealt with. Stressful situations cannot be fully resolved until the feelings and tensions are discharged. Consider and discuss the following:
· Is it okay for you to express your anger openly and directly, (e.g., "I'm mad at you for embarrassing me")?
· Is it safe to say that you are disappointed?
· Is it legitimate for males and females to feel and express sadness?
· Is it okay to get very excited when happy? Or must the atmosphere be subdued and "reasonable"?
· Is it okay to be afraid or confused?
· Is it safe to say, "I love you" or "I hate you" directly, without fear of ridicule, punishment, or retaliation?
· Is it okay for men and women alike to have feelings without judgments being attached to the feelings?
Beliefs that "Boys don't cry" or that "Girls are all sugar and spice," are based on judgments that certain feelings and their expressions are signs of "weakness", "badness," or "evil." Judgments and beliefs restrict experience.
- Consider growth-promoting attitudes:
· Conflict does not have to be a threat or a loss and can lead to closeness. Love and respect are enhanced when conflict is resolved.
· Disagreement is an opportunity to learn about the unique viewpoints of other family members. Creative coping involves seeing as many options as possible. Poor coping usually results from seeing only selective options.
· Changes, conflicts, and crises are opportunities for personal growth. A pessimistic attitude creates more stress.
· Assume full responsibility for your life. Don't blame others for what happens to you. No one "makes" you have the feelings and ideas that you have.
If you are not getting the affection, attention, and encouragement you desire, then it is your job to ask for it. You may have to demand it so that other family members know of your wishes. Some people think, "If I have to ask for affection, then it's not real." Consider this: What if others assume that you don't want much affection because you seem so preoccupied? Thinking, "Well, they should know better!" is to play a mind game that shows your passivity and unwillingness to be responsible for your fate.
· Decide how much intimacy you really want. Decide how much you want to share your time, energy, and space. The amount of caring you demonstrate will closely relate to how much you receive.
· Encourage one another. Active encouragement and support involve active listening, understanding, and positive expression of feelings. Remember: Hugs help!
· Listen carefully. Hear what is said as it is intended without judging the message as "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong."
· Speak clearly and say what you mean. Be specific.
· What you say should match how you say it.
· Clarify what you heard. Ask if what you heard was accurate.
· Continue the discussion until each of you has heard and understood what the other has said and intended and until both of you are satisfied.
· Fight fair. Request change, ask for what you want, and act with integrity.
Building family support builds a shield against further stress. Healthy coping allows room for growth and change of individual family members and allows the expression of feelings. A person cannot remain the same throughout life. Remember, feelings have a survival function - they mobilize us to cope and adapt, and they serve to release tension. If your rules restrict the expression of feelings, then you interfere with nature's way of letting go of tension-and with healthy survival.