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What is a well-functioning family?

Preamble: Emotional happiness is being authentic and supportive oneself, and living surrounded by other authentic and supportive people. Being authentic is difficult, because it requires giving up your beliefs. Being united is difficult, because it requires giving up one's privileges.

A well-functioning family is one in which you can be yourself:

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There is a mechanism for rational conflict resolution, based on facts, and not dogmas or the social status of the protagonists.

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Individuals are kind to each other.

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The exchanges are of the exchange of experience type.

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We feel supported, because we are aware of the deep difficulties that other members face, and vice versa.

All these elements follow very largely from the first.

A well-functioning family also produces a virtuous ripple effect:
I want to give the best of myself to deserve the esteem of others.

What is a family that is not functioning well?

Conversely, here is what characterizes families that do not function:

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Some individuals attack others, either out of pathology, or to protect the lie to themselves, or simply to ensure a higher social rank (this is one aspect of generalized nepotism) or advantages.

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Others are passive, in denial of problems.

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We play roles, and we are asked to conform to them.

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Statutory authority is applied.

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There are family myths that we are asked not to question.

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We are alone in the face of our deep difficulties.

Difficulty building a well-functioning family

The big difficulty is generally the lack of mature and adult individuals, that is to say:

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Able to implement problem solving outside of any formal framework.
This requires being able to look at the facts objectively, without being biased by lying to oneself (because of beliefs).

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Able to oppose other members of the family, not to improve their personal position, but to ensure the proper functioning of the group.

Go deeper

There is a parallel between this question of family and the question 'What is a good friend?'. Moving from a family that functions poorly to one that functions well amounts to changing the relationship between its members from 'friends products of the game of alliances', with just a little more solidity linked to blood ties, to 'a true friendship '.
The safest method to do this seems to us for the moment to be to temporarily adopt a formalism for educational purposes to learn how to practice problem solving. See question 'What to do in a family where lying is the rule?'

View questions'What is a good friend?', 'What is an adult?' And 'What is virtuous training?'.

 

2022-09-07 11:34:28 Amelie notices

Le partage et l'ecoute sont pour selon moi deux principes fondamentaux dans le fonctionnement de la famille. Dans une famille, chaque personne a des idees differentes et c'est important de respecter les idees de tous.

2022-09-09 22:32:39 Hubert   

Attention à ne pas confondre les idées et les croyances. Les croyances sont les choses que l'on conserve même quand les faits viennent les remettre en question. Toujours garder à l'esprit que quand il y a des croyances, il y a généralement des victimes quelque part, et que c'est elles qui méritent le plus notre respect.

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