Unless you are living alone on a desert island, you will have to spend part of your day interacting with other people. Just how these relationships are managed by each person involved, predicts whether or not your day to day living runs smoothly, and how well you will get on in life generally. There is much to be gained from our relationships. From a simple exchange of information such as when you try to buy something from a shop to the complex emotional relationship formed with the ones you love, few people enjoy a life devoid of any human contact.
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
The first relationships we develop are with our immediate family members. These will vary, depending on the type of family you grow up in. Adults generally form our parental role models, whether this is mother, father, foster, step- or adoptive parent, or other adults such as aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers or guardians. With them we will establish a different relationship (like single parent dating, for example) to the one we have with our siblings -our brothers sisters, half and step-siblings.
PARENT & CHILD
The relationship most responsible for forming our character, we are dependent from even before birth on our parental role models for love, nurturing, support, protection and guidance. Much research into the effects on the unborn child of its mothers emotions and attitude to that child suggest that the relationship with our mother is established from conception.
- No family is the same in its structure and history and even within that family, each child has a different place. Quite what your family consists of doesn’t really matter. However, for a happy, well-balanced adult to develop, the child needs some form of parental support.
- There is no easy way to be a parent. We tend to work from our own experiences as children, trying to use methods learnt from our own parents handling of us, as well as from society’s accepted behavioural ‘norm’. Some find that they will adopt the opposite stance that their own parents took. For example, children of a strong disciplinarian may try to be far more relaxed with their own offspring. Others will copy their parents unfortunate habits, such as bullying, perpetuating the problem with their own children.
- Children grow really fast and it’s just a matter of fact. Yesterday you thought what type of child food to buy, and now your sibling asks for keys to one of your used cars.
- Most parents make a reasonably good job of it. Showing our children love and affection, teaching them how to develop relationships with other members of the family and their community, and enjoying the parent/child relationship as we do so.
- It is often only when you become a parent yourself that you realise why your parents did the things they did.