Interpersonal Relations in Family

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)

Interpersonal Relations among Family Members

Types of Interpersonal Behavior

Type 1 •Invites respect and compliance when you manage, direct, advice, teach and lead
Type2 •Invites acceptance and trust when you help, support, sympathize and empathize
Type 3 •Invites help and tenderness when you agree and act in friendly manner
Type 4 •Invites advice and help when you seek help, trust, admire and respect
Type 5 •Invites arrogance and superiority when you act shyly, modestly, dutifully, sensitively and obediently
Type 6 •Invites punishment and rejection when you rebel, protest, be undisciplined, be skeptical
Type 7 •Invites hostility and resistance when you attack, punish and be unkind
Type 8 •Invites distrust and inferiority when you exploit, show-off, reject and boast

First four behavior patterns will support healthy interpersonal relationships.

Pre-requisites for Better Interpersonal Relations

• Respectful mutual communication
• Win-win relationships
• Improving balance in others' emotional bank account
• Non-exploitative mutual transactions
• No ulterior motives
• Mutual trust
• Cooperation and support
• Genuine praise to each other
• Be of benefit to each other
• Take genuine interest in each other

Improve Your Score on Emotional Bank Balance for Better Interpersonal Relations

• Interpersonal relations flourish when you open an emotional bank account with the other person and make emotional deposits into it. Your emotional deposits build up the trust level with the other person and then, he likes to maintain relationship with you.
• More the emotional deposits made by you with the other person, more safe will he feel with you. It is a measure of trust and therefore, safeness into a relationship.
• You can build up your emotional bank balance with the other person by developing understanding with him, showing courtesy and care, attending to his small and big needs, keeping up the promises made, maintaining personal integrity etc.
• Once your reserve or balance is high, even if you make a withdrawal by doing the acts opposite to what have been described in the earlier point, the other person will not mind it that much and will be willing to continue the relationship in the same smooth manner.
• With high deposits and balance, your communication, even if it is less than perfect, is very well understood by the other person in the right spirit. Thus, interpersonal communication becomes simpler and easier.
• You can easily withdraw from your emotional bank deposit when you show disrespect, behave discourteously, play superior etc. As this balance depletes, the trust level goes down and the quality of interpersonal relationship decreases.
  

To Love Your Child, Love Each Other: You Have No Escape From Loving Each Other

A child wants wholesome love from both the parents for growing into a normal adult and human being. He wants love from his father. He wants love from his mother. He wants love from them together as a parental unit or a parental entity. He wants love in home.

If his parents do not love each other, the child will never be able to get a sense of living in a complete home. Something is missing somewhere, in home, for him. He will never be able to sense of love from them together as a parental entity. For him, love from parents as one single unified entity is missing. He will never grow normally.

When husband and wife love each other, it produces a kind of synergistic love in home and that the child enjoys, it is very healthy for him. That is many times more than when only mother showers her love on him or only father showers his love on him in their separate ways.

So, there is no escape from loving each other since you already love your child so much. Love each other Mr husband and Mrs wife, you don't lose anything in love. Love does not need financing or rocket science or strategic management. Then, love only multiplies.

Open Communication

Open and Objective Communication between Husband and Wife

It is told time and again that one of the keys to successful married life is open and objective communication between husband and wife.

But many people doubt if it is truly possible in real life though it looks good on paper.

To dispel their doubt, it needs to be emphasized that it is possible but for that both husband and wife have to put some efforts to make it happen; it's not automatic. It does not happen on its own.

To accomplish meaningful communication between husband and wife, it is necessary to adhere to the following tips (not in any particular order):

• Treat the other person as an individual, you do not possess him/her.
• Both are at par; you are neither other's boss nor subordinate. You are life partners.
• Give respect to each other.
• Remember that each person is a bundle of qualities and defects. So look at other's qualities and let the defects not hover on you.
• Listen intently.
• Speak politely.
• Do not react immediately to what the other person just spoke. Think and then respond appropriately. Try to understand what the other is saying and then pause and then respond.
• Do not nitpick.
• Do not show tantrums.
• Do not personalize the issues; stay on a subject.
• Do not get angry if the other person is saying something that you do not agree or do not like.
• If you do not agree or do not like what the other is saying, tell the other person politely about it.
• Be ready to accept what is more correct or more appropriate and be flexible to implement it.
• Once you agree about the outcome of the communication, implement what was agreed upon.
• Update your own knowledge on the subject being discussed. If you are ignorant or know less, listen to the person who has better knowledge.
• Show flexibility in action, shed stubborn behavior.
• Learn to compromise on the points where the agreement or consensus has not reached. Marriage is not a win-lose or lose-win game. No one loses, no one wins. Both have to win, the family has to win.
• At times, give in on matters of low importance. You do not become any less in doing so.
• Keep your egos in abeyance while communicating with each other.
• Demonstrate your affection and care to each other while communicating.
• Collaborate and do not compete. Communication is not the exchange or show-off of your wits.
• Do not play psychological games with each other. Be genuine to each other.
• There should never be any ulterior motives or hidden agendas in communication between husband and wife.
• Keep the family objectives upper most.
• If you have not been able to resolve an issue in the first bout of communication, decide upon another time for another communication session. Then communicate again with open mind and more information on the topic on the new date and time.
• Hug and kiss and make up for any slips in communication.

Family Harmony

Family Togetherness

For this write-up, for the time being, I am defining the family as consisting of husband, wife and their children. Therefore, family harmony will mean ever growing positive relationships between husband, wife and their children and within each one of them. This requires constant nurturing and looking after as well as constant renewal and constant improvement. In absence of this, the harmony will peter out or disintegrate over period of time. Thinking and planning is not good enough. What is essential is doing. So be careful.

Without making it too verbose, I will get down to the brass-tacks on how to maintain and flourish the family harmony. Here are some practical tips (not in any particular order) for you and your family; read on and implement:

•Choose your life partner with good thinking (but be warned that no system to select a life partner is foolproof or correct whether its love marriage, marriage by dating, arranged marriage or a good combination of dating and arranged marriage etc and there is nothing called a "perfect" partner). So, once you have decided somewhat reasonably well on your partner, get married and stick together forever; make it happen that way- it’s not automatic and one has to work for it. Various qualities one may be looking for the prospective spouse are given at URL (Qualities of Spouse) http://spouse-qualities.blogspot.com/.
•Maintain your marriage. Read all the other posts here. You may also refer: (Counseling) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/.
•Rekindle your marriage. Read all the posts here. You may also refer: (Counseling) http://counselingfamily.blogspot.com/.
•Find out creative excuses to honeymooning and re-honeymooning.
•Exchange praises for each other for the qualities you possess and at times just praise each other for no particular reason.
•Decide on the number of children you should have depending upon your readiness to take up responsibility for them financially, time-wise and emotionally. Having one child is OK in these days when both husband and wife are busy the whole day in their professional work and other reason being the limited resources of all kinds.
•Give each other his or her private space from time to time.
•Create an environment of open communication.
•Yet, think before you start communicating; what you speak should hurt no one in the family.
•Spend a good amount of quality time with your spouse and children.
•Take as many meals of the day together as possible. In today's situations, it may not be possible to enjoy all the meals together. Yet, try to maximize them.
•During the meal times create an environment where every member of the family shares the day to day activities and happenings with the rest of the members of the family.
•Members of the family should set out time during every week to play some outdoor games or other outdoor activities like gardening, jogging, swimming, shopping etc together.
•Members of the family should set out time every week to do some indoor activities like tidying up the house, vacuum cleaning, cleaning up the kitchen, washing clothes etc and recreation like movies, music, storytelling, reading, photography etc together.
•All the family members can jointly take part in cooking some special or regular recipes at home once in a while.
•Family should go on vacation few times in a year and enjoy an outing, long drive, excursion, picnic, sightseeing, museums, zoos, bird watching, theme parks, photography etc.
•Go to the nearby library periodically along with your spouse and kids; borrow the books as per their and your interest and then, share with each other what all of you read.
•Those of you who are religious types can perform religious activities together once in a while.
•There must be constant exchanges of appreciation for each other between the family members for having done something worthwhile and at times, just unconditionally. Just praise each other because they are your family members.
•Hug each other or hold each other’s hand from time to time to express your affection and care for each other and at times, for no reason.
•Help create an environment of excellence at home.
•Help create an environment at home for nurturing value based living. Refer: (Parental Responsibilities) http://parental-responsibilities.blogspot.com/.
•Create an environment for family such that the children, your spouse and yourself always aim at achieving better educational or academic qualifications, doing better in games and sports and in the hobbies and interests they have and will develop in due course.
•Continuous overall growth of every family member is very important.
•Create an action oriented family environment. Make sure that laziness does not set in.
•Establish some discipline around TV watching and computer related activities. Do them when and where necessary; addiction is bad.
•Create an environment of self help.
•Help promote habits of independence and self-confidence in each member of the family. Refer: (Self-confidence) http://self-confidence-improvement.blogspot.com/.

Shortlist of Vital Qualities in a Spouse

Must Qualities in a Great Spouse (Qualities Demonstrated towards One's life Partner)

•Respectful
•Loving and affectionate
•Caring
•Flexible (to change for better)
•Enthusiastic lover (sexually)
•Cultured and well mannered
•Supportive
•Appreciative
•Faithful
•Trusting
•Educated (higher formal education)
•Free of addictions
•Hygienic
•Balanced and composed
•Capable to earn adequate money

Secret of Happy Marriage

(In lighter vein)

Here is secret to happy married life: Do what your wife tells you.

Working Couples and Balance in Relationship

These days, both husband and wife work as professionals and earn money for home. Both remain busy for at least 10 to 12 hours a day, working in their respective offices. When they return to their home after a hard day's work, it is important that both of them should demonstrate empathy, care, affection and love to each other and then, therefore, share the household work.

The routine household work involves:

• Evening tea/coffee and refreshments
• Dinner
• Next day's lunch packs
• Dropping and picking up child/children from day-care/schools
• Bathing of child or children (when they are dependent on parents)
• Child's (or children's) home work and their studies
• Child (or children's) other development requirements
• Helping child/children to sleep on time; story telling
• Grocery
• Housekeeping
• Interior decoration and its maintenance
• Dish washing
• Laundry
• Paying bills
• Social calls/meetings
• Library
• Equipment maintenance
• etc
• etc (the list may be incomplete)

In case of couples where wife was not working, traditionally, she was expected to take up lots of these above-mentioned household responsibilities, though it also meant a considerable workload on her if her husband did not assist or help her in carrying out those chores.

However, in case of working couples when they are on par with each other in terms of their professional working hours outside their home, it is absolutely essential that they equally share all of the above-mentioned household responsibilities when they return to their home after their office work.

Since it is a husband-wife relationship, the household work should be done together as a team and not as a boss-subordinate relationship or as earmarked departments. At home they are life partners and equal; no one is superior and no one is inferior. So, they should share the household work while demonstrating empathy, care, affection and love towards each other.

That's called the perfect marriage relationship.