What makes families happy and stable?

With so much focus on dysfunctional, or unhealthy, families, little media attention has been paid to the qualities that define a family as being healthy. To offset this gap, family therapist Jacqueline Cook, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, offers some characteristics of healthy families, including the ability to be stable, reasonably happy, and meet the needs of their individual members. These traits cut across all of the various family formats and cultures in America today.

* The healthy family provides for nurturing and emotional well-being of the parents or authority figures. "This is in contrast to the idea which has been prevalent for the last couple of decades, which is that all of a family's emotional resources should be targeted to the children. What new research is showing is that if the parents are supportive and caring of each other, then it has a very beneficial trickle-down impact on the children. It really is a much more balanced perspective--the parents' needs should be met as well as the children's."

* The healthy family has good communication, which "pretty much sets the stage for success in all of the other areas. A side aspect of this is that, in a healthier family, the parents do provide some leadership and set some ground rules.

"There should, however, be some flexibility within that leadership. For example, allow children to make choices which are appropriate for their age, whether it's to organize a family activity, choose their own clothing, or solve a school- or peer-related problem. Parents should strive to provide authoritative, rather than authoritarian, leadership."

Another factor involving communication skills is that the healthy family works together to resolve difficulties. "This type of family is able to collaborate in order to solve issues, even if they don't always agree."

* The healthy family encourages family time in which an atmosphere is created...