Improve Family Relationships

By Linda Weaver Clarke

Family is important. It takes commitment and hard work to improve family relationships. With all the negative influences around us, we struggle to hold our families together. But it's a battle that is well worth it.

Family must come first and foremost before anything else, even before our career. "No other success can compensate for failure in the home. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches." - David O. McKay

I believe that love, communication, and respect go a long way. I know of five rules that can improve relationships and make a family closer.

1. Parents and children must "show" love by helping each other. Giving service and sharing is what it's all about.

2. Take time for one another by going on dates with your spouse or having family outings. It's amazing what a picnic can do for a family.

3. Communicate with each other and take time to listen. Richard L. Evans said, "If only we could feel we have been heard! If only we would listen when we should!"

4. Show respect to each family member. Never demean another person.

5. Pray together. Abraham Lincoln said, "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."

Money, wealth, and great careers shouldn't come before family. Money won't buy your family's love or happiness. Eugene Hansen said, "I learned money and material possessions are not the keys to happiness and success. Even with the constant financial challenge, we still had a good life. There was love in the home. Home was the place where we wanted to be. We did have two very significant items: we had a piano and we had a bookcase. How significant those two somewhat simple possessions were in the development of productive talents and interests so important in our early years."

What our children need is love. Material objects will never replace affection or our absence. "We have been so anxious to give our children what we didn't have that we have neglected to give them what we did have." -Author Unknown.

The relationship between husband and wife is important, also. It should not be neglected. Marriage is a sacred bond between man and woman. We must always work on our relationship. Never embarrass or hurt the feelings of our marriage partner intentionally. Build up the other's self-esteem. Treat your partner with respect. Children watch, listen, mimic and follow in our footsteps. They learn quickly. When we show lack of respect to our partner, so will they.

We have to work at marriage. It's a lifetime commitment. Mary Stewart Cutting said, "A woman can stand anything but being forgotten, not being needed."
Richard L. Evans said, "All things need watching, working at, caring for, and marriage is no exception. Marriage is not something to be indifferently treated or abused, or something that simply takes care of itself. All things need attention, care and concern, and especially so in this most sensitive of all relationships of life."

Everyone has to work at Family relationships. It's doesn't come easy. It's something that needs a lot of work, but it's worth it. Thomas Jefferson said, "The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family."

Written by Linda Weaver Clarke, author of Melinda and the Wild West, a Semi-finalist for the "Reviewers Choice Award 2007." To contact the author, visit http://www.lindaweaverclarke.com

Linda Weaver Clarke received her Bachelor of Arts Degree at Southern Utah University in 2002. She writes articles for several newspapers and teaches a Writing Workshop, encouraging others to turn their family history into a variety of interesting stories. She is also an Aid for the ESL program, helping the Spanish-speaking children in grade school. She has written a historical/fiction love story, Melinda and the Wild West, published by American Book Publishing. This book was a Semi-finalist for the Reader Views "Reviewers Choice Award 2007." This novel is the first of five in a family saga. Linda is happily married and is the mother of six daughters and has four grandchildren.

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