Family Ties (Us Down?)

Let's sit around the table, eat a good old fashioned dinner, no electronics, no distractions and let's talk. Shall we?

I know, I know, this doesn't happen often in families anymore, and what a shame that is.

We are too busy with our cell phones, laptops, TVs, Netflix, music, video games, et cetera to care about a silly dinner with our family where you can have none of those modern distractions. Don't get me wrong, I love all of those things and being the teenager I am, I doubt I could live without those for a long amount of time. However, I also love to - once in awhile - sit down and just talk to my family, and participate in honest conversation with them. It gives me a sense of awareness for what they are going through and I firmly believe that when we are able to do this, we really become closer to each other than we were before. My family and I usually live in a pretty good silence, all of us in our own places but every once in awhile, we break free of that and after our dinner we often are more amiable towards each other. We will often then watch a movie together, or play a game and we are content with each other for days. It wears off for a while and we get irritable with our family members, then we have another nice dinner, we socialize and we are once again alright for a while. It isn’t just dinner though, it’s movies together, games together, working together, and overall spending time together. It is parenting in such a way that the kids are not ashamed to be near their parents. If we had a better family life and no longer allowed our family ties to dematerialize then maybe our world would be better off.

In this blog, I am going to explore a few different angles of family . Things such as:

• Effects on teenage rebellion
• Effects on education and willingness to participate in other activities
• Effects on parenting styles and effectiveness
• Demoralization of family
• Deterioration of family

Single parent families are everywhere, the divorce rates are astounding and kids everywhere are being torn apart by their lack of parental figures The divorce rates are about half of what the marriage rates are in a fraction of 3, 400/6,800. That added to stepparents and extended family(such as step siblings) things tend to go a bit awry. People get rebellious, ignored, scorned, bullied and all sorts of things. Not always, of course, however it happens and that is the issue. Kids need parents and love.

It isn't that they can’t survive without both parents, gay couples and single parents can raise completely normal and successful children, the problem is in the emotional proximity. Their ability to relate to, and understand their child is important, yet this approach is vastly under appreciated. Sometimes, the single parents are even better than both parents due to the fact that if parents are together just for the child and it is a tense and unloving atmosphere, it is more detrimental to the child’s development. How close you are, and not in a suffocating way, to your child makes a huge difference on their behavior This is why some single parents and gay parents are more effective, because they create closer ties with the child in question and that produces better results. If you show them that they are loved and that you genuinely care about them, they will do almost anything for you. If you are too lax, in other words a permissive parent, then they will stretch the rules in a hope that you will care enough to give them boundaries, whereas very strict parents, also known as authoritarian, keep the child on such a tight leash that it often prompts rebellion. In my opinion, the middle grounds is the best way to go without any casualties.

In the next few posts I will explore what was earlier stated and provide some in-depth information. It is imperative that we keep families strong, it might save lives, marriages and personal happiness. Obviously, it doesn’t always work, but what if by starting off with a good family we all learn to wait until we also have something good to pass on to our next generation?

Until next time guys!

Curiously,

Fyredancer911 ♥