Developing Family Emotional Maturity
Quentin Hyder
There is no such unit as a normal family for the reason that there is no such being as a normal person. Everyone has some minor neurotic tendencies or at least some minor interpersonal relationship problems that cause him occasionally to relate to people in other than harmonious ways. Only Jesus Christ was completely normal in the sense of perfect. I therefore tend to think not so much of normal as being our goal, but rather ideal. Ideal does not mean perfect but does imply hope in some higher standard. To strive for an ideal family gives us a goal to shoot for which is realistically attainable and recognizes the imperfections of human failure. These failures tend to keep us humble and forgiving toward one another.
One thinks generally of a family as consisting of children and their two parents, but we must remember that there are many variations. These include single-parent families, remarriage situations with two or three groups of children having different combinations of natural parents, families with a permanently domiciled grandparent or other peripheral member, and the sometimes significant problem of either occasional or frequent intervention by in-laws.
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The foundations for stability and maturity in an ideal family necessarily stem from the relationship of the husband and wife with each other. The two outstanding basic causes of marital disharmony from which all other specific problems in the family ultimately derive are thoughtlessness and selfishness. Thoughtlessness in its extreme is foolishness which is a psychological or emotional problem. Selfishness is a sin which is a spiritual problem. Both can be worked out among family members who desire to communicate with humility and who exhibit a willingness to respect opinions contrary to their own. Unless both genuine communication and mutual respect are present in a relationship, even professional counseling will be of little avail.
Love is the essential ingredient which maintains communication and respect. Without it the relationship is lifeless. Many couples who come to see me no longer love each other. I help them to understand each other better, to communicate better, and to work out some compromise for their differences. I cannot restore lost love, but Christian couples who believe that God is the giver of life and love should pray that God, who gave them their love for each other in the first place, will rekindle it and thereby revive their relationship. If both sincerely desire it, God can show them new, creative ways to express their love and sustain it in spite of conflicts.
Stability and maturity in a home can be developed and maintained if all family members recognize a few basic principles.
Love must be outwardly expressed, not only constantly toward the children, but also between the parents in front of the children. One of the greatest factors in the development of a child's emotional security is seeing his parents hold hands, kiss and hug, and in many ways show their affection and love for each other. During each day parents of small children should frequently hold them close, talk with them at their level, and play with them, either with their toys or by simply romping on the floor. Parents must not allow their own worries and problems to become barriers to love. Christian parents should ask God to give them sustaining love for their children, especially when children are disobedient or behave in an unlovable way. Love should be
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demonstrated by attention and by verbal expressions of affection. Children who are loved, who know they are loved, who grow up in a home in which this is an unchanging reality for them and for their parents, will grow into secure, emotionally mature adolescents and adults. They will be able to relate to others with self-assurance and confidence and will one day be able to provide homes in which their own children can also grow up to be emotionally stable and personally secure.
Inadequate attention and a lack of demonstrative love can cause a child to feel unwanted or unappreciated. If love and approval are not securely available at home, a child may seek to fulfill these needs elsewhere, risking frustration, rejection, or some other form of emotional pain.
Parents who not only deeply love their children but frequently demonstrate that love by word and action will enable them to develop through adolescence to adulthood secure in the fact they are wanted and appreciated. The emotional security of a loving home is the greatest single factor in obviating a child's need to search for satisfaction in superficial and ultimately disappointing relationships outside.
Giving is one of the cardinal manifestations of love. Giving is not just buying Christmas and birthday presents. Giving means involvement, spending time, caring, teaching, being interested, sharing, empathizing and above all, being willing to sacrifice one's own desires when in conflict with those of others.
Mature individuals and mature families possess the ability to postpone gratification. The decision to put off until a more appropriate time the satisfaction of a desire, such as for a particular vacation trip or a new family station wagon, will strengthen the bonds of family unity. Further, any mutually endured hardship or suffering deepens the sense of comradeship among all family members. This in turn develops a unifying purpose and a clear sense of being members of a team that is working together to achieve harmony in the home.
Understanding and respect for individual differences are essential to family stability. Most groups of people living together
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have widely differing characteristics. Recognizing one's own and others' temperamental types and personality structures and adapting to the differences are vital to the creation of mature relationships.
Financial difficulties leading to disharmony can almost always be straightened out in a family conference if all are willing to yield personal ambitions to the security of the home. The following principles should be discussed and agreed upon by all concerned:
1. Carefully calculate and create a family budget.
2. Appropriately assign various purchasing and debt-paying responsibilities.
3. Build a reserve savings account and eventually, if possible, an investment portfolio.
4. Arrange adequate insurance coverage on life, health, and property.
5. Agree to commit a minimum percentage of income in the form of tithes and offerings to the work of the Lord.
Good communication leads to joyful communion. The words communication and communion have a common Latin root, the meaning of which embraces the ideal of togetherness. Successful communication among family members requires mutual understanding of, not only verbalized meaning, but also concomitant emotion, whether outwardly expressed or not. True empathy has been described as "your pain in my heart." Family communication and communion cause pain at times, but peace and satisfaction come when differences are resolved. Peace must not be attained at any price, however, especially if the price is bottled up in unexpressed anger or resentment. As God is in the light we are exhorted to walk in the light, and this might mean openly sharing inner thoughts which disturb family harmony.
Good communication is not complete until three stages have been achieved: (1) the giver imparts the message either verbally or nonverbally; (2) the receiver fully understands the message; (3) the receiver responds appropriately to the message (either agreement or disagreement), and the giver understands that response.
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In order to accomplish this, all participants must be honest, trustful, sincere in desiring to understand the others' viewpoints, and willing to yield their own cravings to the greater cause of family good. Successful communication involves one essential prerequisite for Christians. All must sincerely want to know and to do God's will. If they desire this, God will step in and help them toward mutual understanding, respect, and love.
Achieving this, however, takes time in prayer, humbly listening to the Lord to ascertain his will, imparted to the mind by the Holy Spirit. Listen prayerfully also to other members of the body of Christ and concerned advising Christian friends because God sometimes, indeed frequently, chooses to use the objective input of his other servants to impart his guidance.
Priorities. The Christian's top priority is God and his or her relationship with him in Christ. Next comes one's spouse, then children, job, church, and finally one's social life — in that order. This order is biblical, based on the writings in Genesis, the teachings of Jesus, and the admonitions in the letters of Paul and Peter. Any divergence can adversely affect, not only family peace and security, but also an individual's happiness and contentment. The most common disruptions of this order are the husband and father who places job, church, or social life above family in the matter of time commitment; the wife and mother who places her children above her husband or her husband above her commitment to Christ, and the teenager who places social life above responsibilities to parents and siblings.
God has created order, and as Christ was submissive to his Father, so the bride of Christ, made up of Christian families, is to be submissive to his will. Likewise, the husband who is called to be the spiritual head of the family must be submissive to the Lord. The wife who is called to be the bride of her husband should be submissive to him, and the children who are the fruit of the home are called upon to be obedient to their parents. When this order is disobeyed, conflict and disharmony result and lead to unhappiness; love is the characteristic that can maintain order. For the Christian, submission becomes more of a spiritual than a psychological matter. The husband is exhorted to love his wife
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as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for the church, and she in turn is called upon to submit herself to her husband.
Subjection or submission does not mean slavery, especially in these days of educated women. If a husband, under God, truly loves his wife, she will have nothing to lose by being obedient to him. She will be able to trust that the decisions of a godly husband will be best for herself and the family. In a Christian home, submission should actually be mutual — all yielding to the needs of others.
Time commitment among family members. Husbands and wives must be alone together, away from the children, frequently and regularly. I recommend a minimum of at least two to three hours per week. Now this does not mean going to a movie or a concert or to the theater or the opera. The purpose is to talk, listen, share, respond, and communicate. Look into each other's eyes. Call each other by first names, not just "honey" or "darling" or some funny nickname. Revive weekly, even if only for a few fleeting moments, the sense of commitment, the mutual attention, and the total involvement with each other that thrilled you both during your honeymoon and the earliest months of marriage. Discuss the difficulties in the home or differences in approaches to problems. Never let disagreements smolder. Bring them out into open discussion, not at the moment of conflict, but at a later moment in calm, rational, loving, yielding, and sharing dialogue. Try also to get away alone together for a few days or an occasional weekend every few months. You both need it.
Parents must also discipline and budget time to give children their due. A father must be willing to forego occasional business or social evenings or weekend activities in favor of responsibilities to his children, especially when children are between the ages of seven to twelve, when his influence on them is maximum. A father must always be readily approachable so that his children can share their discoveries and enthusiasms and consult him about their problems. He is the first adult male with whom his sons and daughters will identify, and their early concept of him will distinctly influence their later psychosexual developments and their adult relationships with the opposite sex.
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Parents must listen to a child's opinions and humble themselves to be patient enough to try to understand his or her point of view. They must respect a child's opinion, explain why they believe theirs is a better course of action (if it is), and present it logically at the child's level of understanding so that he or she has a chance to see the alternative viewpoint. Occasionally of course it is necessary for a parent to be authoritative and simply lay down the law. This is especially the case when a child is being manipulative or trying to use illogical arguments to avoid certain responsibilities.
There should be a transparency in the parent-child relationship which permits either to speak freely with the other. It is tragic to hear a young person say, "I can't talk to my parents about it." A major factor in insuring a sense of security in a child is knowledge from experience that no matter what happens in any area of life, he or she can talk to mother or father about it. A child must be able to approach both parents about any subject — problems in school, exams, studies, sports, future college or career, money, friends, social activities, dating, sex. The secure and mature child or adolescent can immediately turn first to his or her home for help when confronted with any unexpected disappointment or need for advice, reassurance, or encouragement.
Mothers of very young children especially should organize their household and other duties so that they can play with their little ones frequently during the day, every day. Those early years pass so quickly and should be filled with parental attention. Baby-sitters, nannies, and governesses are poor substitutes. Attention does not mean only controlling, yelling, or spanking. It involves doing with them what they want to do and showing them your enjoyment in sharing their play. However bored you may become with their little games and fantasies, remember that the joy and thrill young children experience during those few precious minutes when they have a parent all to themselves are irreplaceable by any substitute. This ecstasy in the child and the happiness he or she radiates far outweigh the temporary inconvenience or delay of other household obligations.
Parents must teach both by word and by example. The period of latency from ages seven to twelve are the years of character
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foundation and represent a happy carefree time. The child is old enough to explore and appreciate many of the good and exciting things in his or her world, yet not old enough to have the anxieties and frustrations of the teenage years. A child's mind is developed to the point where he or she is stimulated and aroused by new learning experiences, and he or she therefore needs to be taught to discern between good and bad, safe and dangerous, and socially acceptable and unacceptable. Although the basic principles of right and wrong are learned before the age of seven, during the latency years children learn what is right and wrong and gain experience in applying practically the principles learned earlier.
During latency children also acquire an early sense of identity and develop their first conscious sense of self-worth. Indeed, one of the fundamental principles of good character foundation is establishing at this time a healthy self-concept which will become the basis of all future interpersonal relationships. Developing ego and the basic cultural skills come preeminently from a child's identification with parents and teachers on whom, therefore, the responsibility for these achievements largely rests.
Between the ages of nine and twelve a child is most receptive to discussions on moral and religious issues. Earlier, he or she will have only limited understanding; later the blooming adolescent mind tends to become confused with intellectual arguments. Given help from parents or Sunday school teachers, a latency-age child will not only learn from, but actually enjoy, reading the Scriptures and praying. He or she can thereby acquire additional resources to influence the development of a solid foundation for the character he or she will have as an adult.
In school, children learn the facts they need to know to become educated persons and are instructed in certain mental and mechanical skills which can enable them to obtain good employment when they grow up. In the home children are instructed in those qualities of life which enable them to develop an attractive personality, a stable temperament, and a reliable and upright character. At home they are taught the right way to do things. Moral and religious principles should be taught primarily in the home, not at school or even in church. All the facts of sex a
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child needs to know at a particular age should come first from mother and father, and parents are preeminently responsible for insuring that the child knows right from wrong in this and all other areas of life.
With regard to example, remember that actions speak louder than words. If parents spend time with their children, they can teach them a great deal just by doing things together. The quality of parents' lives directly influences the child. Honesty, truthfulness, thoughtfulness, righteous living, keeping promises, maintaining moral principles and ethical standards in all practices, and communicating these virtues by deeds as well as words will give strength and consistency to the child's developing conscience. Parents must be parents, not just pals. A definite authority gap has to be maintained according to God's Word. Children must never be allowed to control their parents. Insecurity and indiscipline will inevitably result. The ideal is to control children without stifling or killing their spirits of independence, curiosity, and self-expression.
Parents can also inspire enthusiasm in a wide variety of interests and activities by personal example. Instruction and help with hobbies and encouragement in sports and other indoor and outdoor pursuits can expand horizons and make childhood years exciting and satisfying. This alone will prevent much of the boredom of affluence which leads so often to delinquent behavior in later years. The foundations of a good adult character are laid not only with talk but also with example, not only with teaching but also with living.
The family altar. A Christian home is significantly different from one in which Christ is not honored. The theocratic hierarchy is clearly taught in Scripture: Christ is the Lord of the home, the husband and father the human spiritual leader under Christ, and the wife and children in subjection and obedience to him. In our generation, subjection and obedience do not mean inferior status and servitude. The father's Christian duty is to take on the obligation of spiritual leadership in the home. This in no way negates equality of husband and wife. It is not a matter of who is the boss; it is a matter of sharing various responsibilities.
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Paul wrote: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; . . . And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:1-2, 4).
Many books have been written on how to raise children. All of them can be summed up in one verse from the Bible: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). This truth, written about three thousand years ago, probably by King Solomon, has remained the cornerstone of the building of every human character throughout the centuries. The poet Wordsworth wrote that "the child is father of the man," meaning that good or bad qualities developed in childhood directly influence the character produced in adult life.
It is the parents' responsibility to teach their children these basic principles and to lead them to understand clearly the things of God. Children will then be able to make their own decisions about yielding to the authority of Christ as king in their lives. Be careful, however, that God the Father is presented not only as an authority figure but also as God of love, understanding, forgiveness, and providence. If this is done, there will be far less likelihood of children of strict religious parents rebelling in adolescent years. The longer a child lives in a godly home, the greater are his or her chances of embracing a personal faith similar to that of the parents. The longer a child is deprived of basic religious instruction, the less likely he or she is to understand or be influenced by it in adult years.
In the ideal Christian home all members love and serve Christ as their own Lord. Where Christian love and worship of the Lord are the dominant features in the home, the marriage between parents is joyful, peaceful, and mutually satisfying, and the children are nurtured in security and love. Family prayers with Bible reading are the central acts of worship. The whole Scripture should be studied systematically and repeatedly over the years so that the Word of God soaks permanently into the minds and hearts of all family members. Parents should teach their children how to know Christ personally. They should pray for their children and with their children, mentioning each one by name.
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Children should be taught to intercede for one another, for their parents, family, and friends, and to make supplication for their own needs in conformity with God's will for their lives. Repentance, praise, and giving thanks for all things prevent self-centeredness in their prayers.
When conflict arises, the husband, as spiritual leader, should lead his wife and children in prayer about the problem, both privately and as a family. Verbalized prayer is itself good communication. As I speak to God, I am being heard by my wife and children. I must, however, in honesty and truth really be speaking to God in my heart, not using communion with God as a means of continuing an argument with them. Family prayers transacted in humility, with all desiring God's will, can break down many barriers. Selfishness, pride, and greed can be conquered when Christian families sincerely seek God's will. Talking to God together brings a closeness by developing the spiritual dimension of the relationships. Also, prayer often enables members of a family to see when they have been wrong. This can be a very humbling yet deep experience which can lead to greater respect and love for one another.
Forgive and forget: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Eph. 4:26). It requires moral strength to admit being wrong and to ask forgiveness. It requires even more strength to apologize, forgive, and verbalize continuing love when you are perhaps not wrong. Forgiving also means forgetting. If God can forget, so can we. "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:34).
Homes in which the love of Christ fills every heart will be homes in which the Holy Spirit controls, inspires, and guides every member and gives power to resist temptation and to live godly lives. This is not an unrealistic ideal. It is the practical reality of a genuine spirituality in many homes today, where submission to Christ has resulted in his loving care for every member, protection from outside danger, and security, fulfillment, peace, and happiness within the walls.
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Quentin Hyder, M.D., practices psychiatry in New York City and is involved in clinical research in depression at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. He is the medical director of the Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy Center in midtown Manhattan and also serves on the faculty of the New York School of the Bible.
Chapter Three || Table of Contents
